I've loved science since I was a child.
Way back when (late 1950s) I crammed a card table into my bedroom closet, hung a light over the clothes rod, and happily conducted science experiments via chemistry sets and science kits delivered every month, thanks to my mother, who also deeply admired science.
(I wrote about this in a 2007 post, "Thanks for the chlorine gas, Mom (cough, cough).")
Since, I've retained my love of science, even though I ended up getting a B.A. in Psychology and a Master's degree in Social Work. But then I completed the course requirements for a doctorate in Systems Science before becoming a Ph.D. dropout.
So it pains me when I see commenters on this blog denying scientific truth. Well, it more than pains me. it also irritates me. That's what led to me adding a note to a new Open Thread post this morning, addressing it to the commenter who has been doing the most frequent denying.
I put it in red for emphasis.
Here's a new Open Thread.
Remember, off-topic comments should go in an Open Thread. Also, anti-science comments. [Note to Spence Tepper, a noted anti-science commenter on this blog: your comments denying scientific reality about consciousness or any other subject should go in an Open Thread from now on or they'll be deleted. I can't tolerate your comment spam any more than I'd tolerate someone arguing that global warming isn't human caused or that the Holocaust never happened.]
Look, I realize that scientific truths are constantly changing. Old truths are modified, improved upon, sometimes discarded entirely.
However, at any given moment, there are certain core truths in science. We know that the Earth is round, not flat. We know that gravity is the result of curved space, in accord with relativity theory. And we know that consciousness arises due to goings-on in the human brain, even though how this happens is largely unknown.
So when Tepper left comments saying that neuroscience isn't certain that consciousness arises in the brain, that is so flat-out wrong, I was amazed that someone as obviously intelligent and well-read as Tepper could say such a thing.
The only reason I could find is that because Tepper believes in supernatural stuff, he is purposely making false statements about science in order to "preach" his religiosity in a backdoor manner, rather than expressing it directly.
I prefer honest proselytizing rather than sneaky proselytizing. Well, actually I prefer no proselytizing at all, since I'm not a fan of religious dogmatism in any form. But I don't mind people stating their beliefs in a simple "I" form. As in, "I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and redeems sinners."
OK, I don't share that belief, but thanks for letting me know what you believe. Now, maybe, we can have a conversation about our differing world views.
However, when someone like Tepper tries to overlay their subjective religious/supernatural beliefs over objective scientific truth in an attempt to make science into something other than it is, that's when I get irritated at a sneaky approach to proselytizing.
If you're a religious believer, fine. Most humans are, billions of them.
I'm also fine with you leaving comments on this blog. All I ask is that you try to stay within the bounds of the topic of a post I've written, or if you want to go outside those bounds, share your thoughts in an Open Thread post, otherwise known as free speech for comments.
But if you're a denier of scientific truths, keep your falsehoods to yourself, or share them in an Open Thread. The United States, along with much of the rest of the world, is experiencing a surge of anti-science.
I don't want this blog to be a part of that. It's highly destructive to the health of societies. Science is a wonderful way, maybe the only way, to bring people together via commonly held truths. If this blog can help attain that common understanding of reality in some small ways, I'll be really happy.
I'm not impressed with NotebookLM or weird notions of oneness
I do my best to accept the diversity of opinions expressed by people who leave comments on this blog. Diversity is good. If we all believed in the same things, life would be super boring.
However, I'm also big on coherent conversations. While I understand that it is difficult to accomplish this via blog post comments, there's much more value in comments that can be understood by other people, as understanding is the foundation for agreements or disagreements.
Here's an example.
A few days ago I wrote "Some thoughts about what oneness is, and isn't." It wasn't one of my best blog posts. Adequate, but not more than that. I was hoping that someone else would have something wiser to say about oneness.
Because I've found that Osho Robbins, a regular commenter on this blog, often makes good sense, I did my best to understand what he was getting at in his comments on my oneness post. I failed. Here's quotes from his comments that seem to summarize his position on oneness.
I have not claimed the existence of ONENESS.
What I have done is shown that ONENESS cannot be known or experienced.
ONENESS is non-existent because it ticks all the boxes for a non-existent thing.
ONENESS has NO CHARACTERISTICS hence it does NOT exist.
OK. I can understand those statements. Oneness doesn't exist and, not surprisingly, it can't be known or experienced. What I can't understand is how Robbins says a whole lot of other stuff in his comments that apparently he considers to be related to nonexistent and unknowable oneness.
Look, over the years I've been fond of saying that existence exists, and wow, isn't that amazing, that there's something rather than nothing. I readily admit that in one sense, existence can't be known or experienced, since all we can know or experience are entities that exist.
So when I say that existence exists, I'm not claiming that existence is something that stands apart from what exists. This appears to be similar to Robbins' statement that oneness can't be known or experienced, just the unity of things that can be known or experienced.
However, the difference is that Robbins seems to have a lot of fondness for oneness that doesn't exist. He isn't expressing admiration for love and other manifestations of the unity that undergirds reality, as manifested in universal laws of nature, ecological interconnectedness, and such.
And that's what I don't get. His take on oneness isn't that it is beyond speech, reason, perception, and other human ways of knowing and communicating. That would put oneness in the sphere of Zen. Rather, it is that somehow we should care about oneness even though it doesn't exist in any fashion.
I can understand the appeal of mysticism, even though I've fallen away from embracing it. What I don't understand is talk about oneness that doesn't exist.
I also don't understand the appeal of NotebookLM, which is capable of fashioning "podcasts" from videos, recordings, or writings, creating two personalities from the thoughts communicated by a single person.
Previously I shared a NotebookLM podcast from Osho Robbins. Then Jim Sutherland, another regular commenter on this blog, emailed me about a NotebookLM podcast fashioned from reports of his about a 2017 visit to the Dera, the headquarters of Radha Soami Satsang Beas in India.
I listened to about a third of the 17 minute audio podcast. I guess I have a low tolerance for NotebookLM, because I found the artificial intelligence generated voices so irritating, I wished that Sutherland that simply shared a written version of what the podcast is about, rather than having those reports filtered through Notebook LM.
The way I see it, NotebookLM simply is regurgitating a communication that already exists in a podcast form. Nothing new is added by NotebookLM. It merely fashions a pseudo-dialogue between two AI generated "people," each of whom reflects the content of the original communication.
Sure, I can understand the appeal of having the NotebookLM personalities gush over the wisdom contained in something a person has created, be it a video, audio recording, or document. But for me, the listener/watcher of NotebookLM, I don't see what benefit there is in having the original communication fashioned into a "podcast" with the same content.
If I'm wrong about NotebookLM, I'll be pleased to be corrected. That's just how I see it at the moment.
Posted at 10:10 PM in Comments, Reality | Permalink | Comments (50)