Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment process

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Cahoot
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by Cahoot »

Gee jupi:

After you post your pictures you’re soon calling people names.
Getting confused.
Dismissive.

Consider following Quinn’s logic concerning the photo postings.
It’s for your own benefit.
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jupiviv
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by jupiviv »

I may be calling you names, but I'm not confused nor am I being dismissive. You need to come up with some juicier red herrings, brah.
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Cahoot
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by Cahoot »

You do realize that your pictures were removed?

“End of story,” as you say.

;)

*

That is, unless you are finished hijacking Sphere70's thread topic and are prepared to make constructive contributions (which may include intelligent criticisms), concerning that topic.
cousinbasil
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by cousinbasil »

jupiviv wrote:You'll understand what I mean by that would if you read the previous posts.
Humor me. You said
In "nature", there is no communication to begin with
I am saying you are clearly wrong about this. You want me to figure out what you mean by "communication" by what has been said in this thread? Or is it that you put nature in quotes?

You cannot mean that only humans are capable of communication, because that's patently false. I am not saying there is no difference in the content between human and non-human communication. But if you are going to attempt the philosophical dodge that communication of truth only occurs among humans, I have a problem with that. A dog, for example, can learn that it is possible to communicate the truth that his bladder is full, when that is the case, by scratching at a door to be let out.

I remember seeing in one of those nature programs where a certain flower developed an organ that resembles a specific insect; it will emit a substance chemically similar to pheromones of the female of the insect species; the male insect goes to mate with this decoy, whereupon it is swallowed whole by the plant. I don't think it was a Venus Flytrap, and I have been unable to locate anything about it yet on the Web.

My point is, the plant is plainly communicating. Moreover, it is practicing deception, even if on a purely mechanical level. Logically, then, if deception among non-human organisms exists (inter-specific deception, no less!), then one must be open to the notion that at some level, the communication (sending and receiving) of truthful information also exists.
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by Sphere70 »

I say, let this thread grow unresistingly! Let it become big and dripping from anabolic outgrowths - Yes, let it be become a marbled sculpture of the pulsating, kaleidoscopic, structure of striving thought itself!

'John Martin / Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion / 1812 / Oil on Canvas'

Philosophical Image: Don't delete! ,-)

'John Martin / Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion / 1812 / Oil on Canvas'

-

Edit: Picture converted to link. Don't do it again please, Sphere - DQ
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jupiviv
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by jupiviv »

cousinbasil wrote:A dog, for example, can learn that it is possible to communicate the truth that his bladder is full, when that is the case, by scratching at a door to be let out.
That is easily explained as a force of habit. See Pavlov. It's hardly means that the dog, as a conscious being, is actually aware that scratching the door communicates the message that it wants to go outside!

I don't know what miraculous evidence you've hit upon that leads you to say that I'm "clearly wrong" that communication in the sense of conscious exchange of information isn't observed outside the realm of human beings.
I remember seeing in one of those nature programs where a certain flower developed an organ that resembles a specific insect; it will emit a substance chemically similar to pheromones of the female of the insect species; the male insect goes to mate with this decoy, whereupon it is swallowed whole by the plant. I don't think it was a Venus Flytrap, and I have been unable to locate anything about it yet on the Web.

My point is, the plant is plainly communicating. Moreover, it is practicing deception, even if on a purely mechanical level. Logically, then, if deception among non-human organisms exists (inter-specific deception, no less!), then one must be open to the notion that at some level, the communication (sending and receiving) of truthful information also exists.

There is absolutely no reason to say that the plant itself consciously created the mechanism, and is therefore engaged in deception. Evolution can explain this phenomenon perfectly well. You are either ignorant of the theory of evolution, or you are being coy.
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jupiviv
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by jupiviv »

Cahoot wrote:You do realize that your pictures were removed?
Which makes your pictures and comments relating to my pictures irrelevant.

But do go on...
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by cousinbasil »

jupiviv wrote:That is easily explained as a force of habit. See Pavlov. It's hardly means that the dog, as a conscious being, is actually aware that scratching the door communicates the message that it wants to go outside!
We had not been talking about awareness. We had been asking if communication is occurring. As usual, jup, I can't quite pinpoint where our disagreement lies.
There is absolutely no reason to say that the plant itself consciously created the mechanism, and is therefore engaged in deception.
No one said the plant consciously did anything. My point is that communication is occurring.
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jupiviv
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by jupiviv »

cousinbasil wrote:We had not been talking about awareness. We had been asking if communication is occurring.
Communication, as it was defined by Cahoot here, is the conscious exchange of information and/or dialectics. If you want to define communication as any kind of interaction between any two objects whatsoever, then go ahead, but that was not the definition that was initially being used.
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Cahoot
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by Cahoot »

jupiviv wrote:
cousinbasil wrote:We had not been talking about awareness. We had been asking if communication is occurring.
Communication, as it was defined by Cahoot here, is the conscious exchange of information and/or dialectics. If you want to define communication as any kind of interaction between any two objects whatsoever, then go ahead, but that was not the definition that was initially being used.
Jupi, here’s what I actually wrote:
A photograph is a form of communication.

Communication requires two, or more. Sender and receiver(s), to keep it simple.

With a photograph, the sender is a human being and the receiver is a human being.

In nature the receiver is a human being. Who is the sender?

A photograph cannot encompass reality. At best it’s a doorway that requires the memory of the viewer to be other than a scrap of paper, or an organization of pixels.

Besides:
virtual reality is virtual reality
reality is reality
cousinbasil is focusing on the forest, you're focusing on a twig.

Since you are using what I wrote as a reference, I first described communication in general terms by writing that communication requires two or more. It requires a sender and it requires receiver(s). (That’s the forest.)

Then I specified an example of human communication, and that example is a photograph. (The example could also be words written or spoken.) Someone takes the necessary steps to make the photograph and show it to another person. That is the sender. The one who sees the photograph is the receiver. (This example is a twig.)

I could have used another twig as an example, such as non-verbal and non-visual human communication. This twig also fits in the larger forest that we are calling communication.

However, specifying an example does not limit the general description to that specific. If it did, then that would be like saying since humans use machines to fly, then only flight that utilizes machines can rightfully be called flight, and what birds do is a Pavlovian response.

I could have also specified an example of animal communication to describe the general term of communication. That's another twig. However, since the topic at the time was human communication, namely photographs, a non-human example did not apply.

When in nature, without the aid of photographs, any communication that a human receives still requires a sender. That sender may be an animal. For example, a charging tiger is sending you a clear communication. You receive that communication via your senses, and how you interpret that communication, and your response based on that interpretation, depends on your capacities.

Why the tiger charges is another topic.
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by cousinbasil »

Cahoot wrote:When in nature, without the aid of photographs, any communication that a human receives still requires a sender
It doesn't require humans. Agonistic behavior, for instance, can happen inter- as well as intra-specifically.
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by jupiviv »

Cahoot wrote:Since you are using what I wrote as a reference, I first described communication in general terms by writing that communication requires two or more. It requires a sender and it requires receiver(s). (That’s the forest.)

Lots of things require two or more. I assumed that you were defining communication itself as any interaction between conscious beings, because your context was photography, which you(presumably) limit to human beings. Now I understand that you define communication to be anything that requires "two or more."

But if this is your definition of communication, then what's the point of your argument that photography/films are not able to convey reality? It seems we were never at odds, because you are talking about something completely different from what I was talking about, and what I thought you were talking about. Photography involves communication, singing involves communication, two apples on a table involves communication....let's all start singing!
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by cousinbasil »

Photography involves communication, singing involves communication, two apples on a table involves communication....let's all start singing!
Except for the apples. Information has ot been sent or received. You can make the argument that information exchange has occurred in all the other examples.
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

David Quinn wrote:Have a look at KIR, where pictures run rampant. The place is spiritually dead.
I disagree that KIR is spiritually dead. KIR is more about integrating spirituality into the world as it is. GF at its best was about cultivating individual thought and the courage of one's convictions. Apples and oranges, David.

It's lately been GF that I have seen as the late GF, and it seems to have started sometime when I was mostly off the internet for a year. Some quality happens after you join a thread, but your participation in GF has always been intermittent - which was fine when Kevin and Dan also participated. Now that they don't, when you leave, Blair, Diebert, and jupiviv seem to be the main influences - and the result is predictably unfortunate.

I agree that GF needs a lot more "hands on." As it is even with you here, there is barely a pulse anymore.
jupiviv wrote:That's because they're a bunch of old hags who were spiritually dead to begin with.
Name-calling. How "enlightened."

Carry on - the latter part of this thread has been a huge improvement.
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jupiviv
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by jupiviv »

jupiviv wrote:
cousinbasil wrote:Photography involves communication, singing involves communication, two apples on a table involves communication....let's all start singing!
Except for the apples. Information has ot been sent or received. You can make the argument that information exchange has occurred in all the other examples.
Cahoot did not define communication as exchange of information, which would require consciousness. He defined it as anything that requires two or more. In that case one can only assume that he is categorizing the two basic units required for such a phenomenon as "sender" and "receiver."

Also, when two apples are placed on a table, many things like dust, air, chemicals, insects, etc., may be exchanged between them. I'm guessing that both you and him consider pretty much anything that can have a scientific/technical sounding name as "information", so if you replace the "dust", "air" etc. with more scientific sounding names, you can say there is information exchange between two apples placed on a table.
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by Blair »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Name-calling. How "enlightened."
Dumb-ass shitweezer.
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

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Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:
jupiviv wrote:That's because they're a bunch of old hags who were spiritually dead to begin with.
Name-calling. How "enlightened."
I am merely saying what I think of them. They do seem spiritually dead, and consequently their philosophising seems like the ramblings of old women. If they were ever spiritually alive, it was probably long before they joined that forum.
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote: KIR is more about integrating spirituality into the world as it is.
HAHAHAHah!

That's a sincere spontaneous laughter about the wonderful triple major error you managed to put into one sentence.

Perhaps it needs explaining for the curious. Spirituality can never be "integrated" since it's the act of integration itself; there is no "spirituality" somewhere to be found that needs to go anywhere or be acted upon. And there is no "world as it is" since everything is as it is already by definition. Even self-indulgent fantasies or unicorns. In reality nothing is what it is, especially not reality or our fleeting, changing dreams around it.
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by Cahoot »

Cahoot wrote:
Since you are using what I wrote as a reference, I first described communication in general terms by writing that communication requires two or more. It requires a sender and it requires receiver(s). (That’s the forest.)
jupi wrote:
Cahoot did not define communication as exchange of information, which would require consciousness. He defined it as anything that requires two or more. In that case one can only assume that he is categorizing the two basic units required for such a phenomenon as "sender" and "receiver."
Not exactly.

1. I wrote that communication requires two or more.

2. I did not write that anything requires two or more
and
3. I did not write that two or more require communication.

The second and third statements may be worthy of consideration, however they are not synonymous with the first statement.

*

Communication, sender, receiver. This premise contains three factors. The relationship of these factors was subsequently amplified by introducing senses (perception), interpretation, and capacity.

Communication, sender, receiver, anything. Jupi introduced "anything," to the first premise, and then spun off into another contemplation based on this new premise.
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Blair
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by Blair »

Ehe. Ehehehe, ehehehehehe, Mwwaaahahahaaaa!!.

~p
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Blair
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by Blair »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:
David Quinn wrote:Have a look at KIR, where pictures run rampant. The place is spiritually dead.
I disagree that KIR is spiritually dead.
But it zeems like the owner might himself, be, dead?

Mwaha!
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by jupiviv »

Cahoot wrote:1. I wrote that communication requires two or more.

2. I did not write that anything requires two or more
and
3. I did not write that two or more require communication.

I didn't say that anything requires two or more. I said that you seem to be defining communication as any phenomenon that contains two or more things. Your premise was - communication, anything, sender, receiver - because you didn't define any particular thing that communication might be(and also made clear that you aren't using the conventional definition). And therefore, the terms "sender" and "receiver" cannot be interpreted other than being the names for the basic two units present in any system that has two things or more.

Meanwhile, the original point[which was whether cameras can portray reality or not] has got lost under the heap of semantic tomfoolery into which this discussion has descended.
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by Philosophaster »

Hi guys! Greetings from a spiritual dead man / old hag. :-)
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by cousinbasil »

jupiviv wrote:Cahoot did not define communication as exchange of information, which would require consciousness... I'm guessing that both you and him consider pretty much anything that can have a scientific/technical sounding name as "information", so if you replace the "dust", "air" etc. with more scientific sounding names, you can say there is information exchange between two apples placed on a table.
Actually, I am just trying not to be so hung up on the criterion of a thing being conscious.

The exchange of information obviously does not require consciousness, or even life, as computers do it all the time. In the IT world, when information is successfully transmitting, we say two nodes are communicating.

I mentioned Agonistic behavior. Often the male animals of a species engage in this during territorial (territory including one or more females) disputes. This evolved behavior often settles the dispute with little or no physical combat. The objective - male with better genes gets to choose female - has thus been achieved bloodlessly. The possible evolutionary advantages are numerous. They would have to be, or Agonistic behavior would not have been selected for.

Agonistic behavior is seen in many, but by no means all, species. And it can be between species. Where I live, for example, is on the flight path for a certain hawk which is quite large. For a short time in the year, they descend in numbers. Often, a score of them will find berths in the same tree, with one big one parked at the top. If you approach this tree, the hawk at the top slowly extends his wings to their impressive full span. Clearly, this bird is communicating "Do not fuck with us." The sender may not be conscious, but the recipient is.

But the apples are neither conscious, nor are they exchanging information. If you really need me two explain the difference between two apples on a table and two chimps baring their teeth and beating on their chests at each other, I will reluctantly oblige. I am hoping you can agree that the former does not exchange information, and the latter does.

But you seem to want to make this a discussion about consciousness. Then we would have to decide if the chimps were conscious. I am not convinced they are not, but I don't think it matters.
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Re: Steven Norquist - Audio lecture on his enlightenment pro

Post by cousinbasil »

Diebert wrote:Perhaps it needs explaining ...everything is as it is already by definition... nothing is what it is...
Well, thanks for clearing that up, Diebert. Everything is AS it is, but nothing is WHAT it is.
Spirituality can never be "integrated" since it's the act of integration itself; there is no "spirituality" somewhere to be found that needs to go anywhere or be acted upon.
If it is the act of intergration, then it requies a person to be doing it. Unless everyone is actively, consciously doing it, then more people could be actively or consciously so engaged. In my view, it is entirely possible to promote such activity, as Jesus and the Buddha and others have demonstrated. I do not know if anyone at KIR does this, since I have not ever visited the site. But obviously your out-of-hand denouncement of the activity at KIR is gratuitous. They were apparently speaking of promoting such integration, or integrating sprituality into the world (or those parts of it in need of such integration.)
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