Author Topic: A Conversation With Daniel  (Read 9101 times)

Offline Daniel

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A Conversation With Daniel
« on: August 03, 2007, 04:39:30 pm »
I would have started this in the Personal Blog pages, but I already have a thread there, and I'm not certain that this will fit in with the other things on that thread. It is mostly about presentation. This one is about interaction. So let's begin, shall we? The main point here is to engage in dialogue. One point bouncing off another's, and so on and so forth. It can be great fun for those of us that relish the challenge of communication (such as myself), and certainly is likely to spawn some interesting ideas.

I am wondering if someone would like to ask me a question... something that I can take a little bit of time answering... so that we can get this show on the road?
« Last Edit: August 03, 2007, 05:15:55 pm by Daniel »
Why do we consume what we consume?
Why do we believe what we believe?
Why do we accept what we accept?
You have a body, a mind, and a soul.... You have a responsibility.

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: A Conversation With Daniel
« Reply #1 on: August 03, 2007, 04:45:37 pm »
Certainly, I would be happy to ask a question...this one is not very deep. Sorry, but you know, it IS Friday afternoon after all. My question is, could Jack be happy living in the panhandle of Texas as a single gay man if he were there today?? How could he make a decent life for himself? Would he be goin to Mexico two or three times a year??



"chewing gum and duct tape"

moremojo

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Re: A Conversation With Daniel
« Reply #2 on: August 03, 2007, 04:47:15 pm »
Hi, Daniel, my fellow Texan and the best Jack portrayer after Mr. Gyllenhaal! I wish you the best on your newest project, and commend your unusual approach at emphasizing dialogue over (though not at the expense of) presentation. I find for myself that presentation tends to be easier than a true give-and-take exchange of ideas.

So I'm racking my brains now to come up with some profound question to pose to you. Something, as you write, that you can mull over and refine over time. How about this: Do you believe there is a purpose or meaning to life? If so, do you have any sense of what that purpose or meaning would be?

Cheers,
Scott

Update: I couldn't read FRiend Lee's post before I submitted my own, but I'm not trying to preempt her own query in any way. Perhaps we can create an archive of questions for you here, Daniel, that you can respond to (or not, as the case may be) as time and your own interest permit.

Offline Daniel

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Re: A Conversation With Daniel
« Reply #3 on: August 03, 2007, 05:36:16 pm »
Thank you, both Lee and Scott. In the interest of creating a dialogue, I think I will start with Scott's question first.. We may eventually come back around to your question, Lee, and I know that your question is an important one, but Scott's question is a good one to begin a dialogue with.

Scott: Do you believe there is a purpose or meaning to life? If so, do you have any sense of what that purpose or meaning would be?

Daniel: Yes, I do believe that there is both purpose and meaning in life; that can be found in both the smallest part of material existence and in the greatest complexity of a galaxy. Now I know that you will be interested in how or why I think that way, so I will attempt to demonstrate. Without getting into too complex physics, I believe I can demonstrate that light and subatomic particles behave in strange ways... ways which are difficult to both comprehend and foretell. Of course, we could hypothesize that a mirror curved at such and such a degree, and tilted at such and such an angle would reflect light in a specific direction. And we can see that this is indeed often the case. But that is not all. Although a majority of the light captured and harvested in this way might indeed be sent off in another direction, we can still see that light.... which means that not all of the light is being controlled. I am not sure if this is a good way to answer this question, or that you understand the relevance to the question you asked with this example... It might not be a good idea to continue if it's not.  The point I will eventually be making is that:

A. Not everything in the Universe can be controlled by scientific measures.

B. Consider that scientific measures represent one of the strongest forces of manipulation, namely in that the scientific method is mostly an ironclad process in identifying cause and effect, among other contingencies.

C. Even though science cannot control or reproduce certain harmonic effects of the Universe, which lead to life and the pursuit of diversification of life, their presence is an indication of forces which are not yet understood by scientific disciplines. (I will be coming back to this later, for I am sure it will haunt me.)

Now all this is to me a major indication that life (animal, vegetable, and mineral) and the organized structure of the subatomic particles and atoms which help to make up the grand network of life, is a miracle. There is no plausible scientific explanation that excludes some type of intelligent force at work. Perhaps we can better understand this by understanding the complexity of what it means to be "intelligent".
Why do we consume what we consume?
Why do we believe what we believe?
Why do we accept what we accept?
You have a body, a mind, and a soul.... You have a responsibility.

Offline Daniel

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Re: A Conversation With Daniel
« Reply #4 on: August 03, 2007, 05:45:14 pm »
I suppose, as in all good dialogues, I will respond to your question with a question.

What are purpose and meaning?

We might be able to agree that purpose is an emotional sense of intention, that is of moving toward a specific goal. And likewise that meaning is an emotional or intellectual awareness of a reason or underlying basis for an activity or series of activities. Both of these indicate something which I have not yet really discussed, since we are discussing all life, and it is uncertain whether all life indicates this one factor... consciousness.
Why do we consume what we consume?
Why do we believe what we believe?
Why do we accept what we accept?
You have a body, a mind, and a soul.... You have a responsibility.

moremojo

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Re: A Conversation With Daniel
« Reply #5 on: August 03, 2007, 06:10:28 pm »
You may be too quick for me, friend! Your intelligence is obvious, but I did not foresee you would articulate the first glimmerings of your response with such lightning speed. You must forgive if I am a bit slow in keeping up, but as we are just beginning here, let me throw out a few immediate responses to some of what you wrote:
A. Not everything in the Universe can be controlled by scientific measures.
Agreed. I read once in a book (by a scientist) that science can teach us how to develop a laser, but cannot tell us where to point the laser--an elegant example, among many possible ones, of the distinct limitations of science when trying to discern ultimate truth.
Now all this is to me a major indication that life (animal, vegetable, and mineral) and the organized structure of the subatomic particles and atoms which help to make up the grand network of life, is a miracle.
A miracle could be defined as that which science cannot, or least presently does not, explain or predict.
We might be able to agree that purpose is an emotional sense of intention, that is of moving toward a specific goal. And likewise that meaning is an emotional or intellectual awareness of a reason or underlying basis for an activity or series of activities.
These are as good definitions of these concepts as I have encountered anywhere.

I think we're off to a grand start. And this topic cuts to the very heart of everything else, don't you think?

Offline Daniel

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Re: A Conversation With Daniel
« Reply #6 on: August 03, 2007, 06:16:05 pm »
I will try to slow it down a bit, Scott. But I agree with you... (these are the types of conversations I enjoy the most, for some reason).

But now to get to the question at hand, I mentioned two aspects in my earlier threads that we can continue to explore: consciousness, and intelligence. They are of course, interrelated, but not necessarily united... I think they are very important in exploring the question of meaning and purpose in life, and if perhaps we might want to limit the scope of meaning and purpose to human life, animal life, or all life in general.  Once we've got that in hand, then we can attempt to understand what that life is and what the qualities of it are.
Why do we consume what we consume?
Why do we believe what we believe?
Why do we accept what we accept?
You have a body, a mind, and a soul.... You have a responsibility.

moremojo

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Re: A Conversation With Daniel
« Reply #7 on: August 03, 2007, 06:38:06 pm »
Yes, what is consciousness? Animals besides human beings clearly possess some degree of awareness (they react to stimuli, and can even be conditioned to expect certain conditions to be met), but are they conscious in any comparable way to what we humans know we possess inside ourselves?

Human consciousness seems very much tied in to the notion of time. We are ever living in the present moment, but we more often than not dwell in the past, through our memory, or anticipate the future, through our dreams and fantasies. Consciousness seems to be that which binds all our experiences and perceptions into one temporal matrix. Non-human animals seem limited, for the most part, to only living in the moment.

Was there consciousness before human beings evolved? What was it like? What was the temporal quality of time before there was anything to perceive or record it? The fact that we can infer vast domains of time having existed before human beings entered the stage might suggest a consciousness that was present all along, certainly if we subscribe to the insights of quantum mechanics which indicate that reality and consciousness are co-dependent.

Offline Daniel

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Re: A Conversation With Daniel
« Reply #8 on: August 03, 2007, 06:49:25 pm »
Not all animals are limited to their specific temporal awareness. Some animals are aware that certain events happen at certain times throughout the day, and can plan their day accordingly. Usually mammals, but some birds and reptiles. This seems to indicate that the growth of consciousness, or the growth of complexity of awareness, we might say, is a natural result of biodiversification. We could use the Tielhardian concept of Noontological growth, here, but that could potentially endanger us in the acceptance of a religious viewpoint, and that I am not willing to do yet. But in the Tielhardian view, Noontological growth was the main drive of evolution...

And that is what I meant, in part, by intelligence. An increasing complexity of mineral and biological forms, and of consciousness. Perhaps it is too easy to quote Tielhard here, but I find the view refreshing and sensical: that the increasing complexity was a result of the inner complexity. We see the same effect when we look at some of the chaos theorists mathematical constructs: a pattern repeating itself, moving from simple to complex, and then recreating the same pattern in a larger forum. (There's a word for these types of drawings, but I forget what it is.)
Why do we consume what we consume?
Why do we believe what we believe?
Why do we accept what we accept?
You have a body, a mind, and a soul.... You have a responsibility.

moremojo

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Re: A Conversation With Daniel
« Reply #9 on: August 03, 2007, 07:07:01 pm »
Certainly, intelligence is tied in with consciousness, which has its roots in awareness. When it comes to sentient beings, there seems to be a continuum of this phenomenon, with fleeting or minimal awareness on one end and complex intelligence on the other.
Quote
the increasing complexity was a result of the inner complexity
This made me think of fractals, of how how one piece of a puzzle could somehow contain the whole puzzle. Outer complexity would be the natural and expected flowering of an inherent complexity, as I understand this expression. And such a flowering would require time, would exist or be made manifest within a temporal framework.

Chaos has proven to be such a paradoxical entity, in that chaos theorists are discerning pattern within that concept or phenomenon. There seems to be method to the madness! And don't both method and madness presuppose some kind of consciousness?

Am I responding in a constructive way to your posts, Daniel? My mind goes off on tangents a lot, and I know I sometimes lose sight of the pertinent topic in a discussion.