Asperger's/Autism; a spiritual condition?

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I'm the one who should be telling you that.

The point is that, don't think that our material world is the be all end all of the ultimate reality.
If you base your whole worldview on matter, and what scientists understand about matter, then you are missing the boat.

Sure there are, we know them through a first-person perspective. Molecular interactions are completely orthogonal to the existence of the artifacts of a first-person perspective.


Well, I was looking at your previous comments as well. Kant's idea is orthogonal, if not supportive of a first person perspective, given his transcendental idealism, which emphasizes the need for subjectivity to organize data. I mean, you can say that we attribute certain qualities to the objects themselves, but an issue is still that the information from perception is not the same as the same knowledge expressed in other manners, and that some of these sensations are not directly related to any external thing. Saying "I am angry" is not equivalent to an expression about a brain state, in fact, the nature of the brain and neurons can be completely unknown to say "I am angry". This would then mean that knowledge of an underlying material reality and knowledge of myself would seem to be different sorts of knowledge found in different manners. Thus, the notion that anger is itself non-material seems apparent, because it is apprehended without addressing external realities.


Well, you don't know that, because you are using logic to prove logic, as you cannot construct a counterfactual model without logic, and using logic to prove itself is nonsense, because it is a circularity that wouldn't be accepted in most other things. You can say that you innately know about logic, but when you get into innate knowledge the thesis of empiricism seems that it must be rejected. You can also say that you simply do not reject logic, but when you say that, you have ceded the ability to verify knowledge, and still moved away from empiricism.


That depends on what is included in mystical perception and for the reliability of predictions. I mean, logically, mystical perceptions can predict life improvements that come about due to the mystical perception. A self-revealed prophecy perhaps, but not necessarily meaningless. As well, "real progress" is only your criterion, the explanations produced by mysticism can be argued as either being more important to some than your view of "real progress" or even not necessarily in conflict with "real progress". As for what mystical thinkers have done, they have created a richer reality, for instance artists are probably closer to mystics than rationalists, but the world is enriched by art, and some people find music to be of a highly useful to them. I meant pragmatic in terms of the Pragmatists, such as William James, who considered truth to be that which was useful to think. Real problems are subjectively defined, thus mysticism can still be valuable, perhaps even more valuable than rationalism. In fact, there is even a line of thinking that false beliefs are more important for human functioning than correct beliefs, this can be seen in the higher rates of success for those with a strongly internal locus of control, despite the analytical validity of an uncontrollable reality.

It was a "mystical" perception that inspired the EEG. Hans Berger had a psi experience with his sister when he was young which caused his driving passion to understand psychic energy. After his discovery of this method of recording brain waves, his peers mocked him. This was one of the reasons why he became so depressed and eventually committed suicide. Years later his invention sparked interest and now it is accepted as a standard device in neuroscience.

Inspiration is a "mystical experience". The word inspiration comes from the term "in spirit". This is the driving force behind most great inventions.

Mystics and poets have played a significant role in human history. You may not personally like them, but that is probably because you don't understand them.

Scientific discoveries are sometimes inspired, but justification, which means empirical verification has to be done the old fashioned way. Measuring, testing, observing. It is empirical justification that keeps scientific speculation honest.

ruveyn

How can they be honest if they are so averse to dealing with anything that remotely smells of mysticism. There is a taboo of psi in the scientific community that makes them biased.

Going back to quantum physics there is truth in the saying, "things change depending on how you look at them." This is an old mystical saying. Western science doesn't incorporate this into the set of variables.

In the context of quantum physics things change in predictable way. Quantum physics calculates the odds correctly. There is a definite bias against hypotheses that are, in principle, not testable.

ruveyn

Western Science has given you the computer with which you can post your nonsense world wide.

ruveyn

ruveyn wrote:

If you think that quantum physics is predictable, then you obvious don't have a good grasp of it.

ruveyn wrote:



The invention of the computer was brought about by an eccentric man named Alan Turing.
He often grappled with the question of how mind and matter are entangled.



And ruveyn, we all know your name is ruveyn. It doesn't make sense how you keep adding your signature to the closure of your posts.

Last edited by Magnus on 20 Feb 2009, 5:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Quantum mechanics makes stochastic predictions which are successfully and precisely borne out by repeated experiments. It in no way violates the standard scientific approach to things.

Quantum mechanics is nondeterministic, meaning that it generally does not predict the outcome of any measurement with certainty. Instead, it tells us what the probabilities of the outcomes are. This leads to the situation where measurements of a certain property done on two apparently identical systems can give different answers.

Quantum mechanics yields up the eigenvalues for ever Hermitian operator (that is what an observable is). With these eigenvalues the odds can be computed exactly. Computing the odds is not the same as predicting an outcome precisely. Only the probability of an outcome can be known prior to a measurement.

ruveyn

I think certain people willfully ignore the fact that most of the scientific advances that count for anything occurred due to acts of creative perception that have more to do with intuition than empiricism. The scientific process depends initially on your making a hypothesis and finally on your interpretation (/?manipulation) of the data - two aspects which can be said to be subjective. At the end of the day empiricism is only a means of discriminating between more and less useful insights. Just saying.

It is empirical means that keep scientific creativity (which is essentially artistic, not spiritual) honest. Without a strong empirical modality which vetoes nonsensical speculation, our science simply would not work. We cannot produce a working description of the physical world (the only world, by the way) without an empirically constraint creatively generated science. As Einstein once said, all science is a free creation of the human mind. But it has to be correct science and for that to be we need to be in touch with the physical world (the only world) through our senses and extended senses (instruments).

We cannot deduce the physical world (the only world) from our minds a priori. We must get our artistic inspiration from an observed physical world (the only world).

Top scientist have a sense of wonder and curiosity. But they need to be kept honest too.

ruveyn

She was referring to mysticism.

Turing came up with one of several equivalent definitions of a recursively definable function (see Church's Thesis). One of the actual electronic computers that we have come to know and love was invented and designed by Tommy Flowers, who also worked at Bletchley Park. It was much faster than he so-called Bombe which was electro-mechanical. Turing's important contributions were mathematical, not in the engineering arts. Turing's main contribution to the war effect was applying the Bombe to the Enigma Codes in such a way that if the key was incorrect it would quickly produce an indication. Thus the way the correct key was found was to eliminate the wrong keys. In that, Turing won the war against the Kriegesmarine and saved England for which he was ill-repayed following the war.

And I sign my posts out of politeness, something with which you are not that well acquainted.

ruveyn