Enlightenment Now | Robert Wright & Steven Pinker [The Wright Show]
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- Опубліковано 21 вер 2024
- 1:15 Steve’s new book, Enlightenment Now, and Bob’s critique
9:30 Cognitive biases that undergird tribalism
18:51 Bob wants to crowdfund a meditation retreat for Steve, who is uncooperative
29:38 How Al Gore’s climate change activism may have hurt his own cause
35:18 Is it crazy to suspect that there’s a larger purpose unfolding through the workings of nature?
56:45 Has our growing grasp of computation and cognition made consciousness less mysterious or more so?
Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Steven Pinker (Harvard University, The Better Angels of Our Nature)
Recorded April 30, 2018
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Pinker seems like an incredibly accessible and approachable intellectual. More so than any other I can think of. His curiosity, precise explanations, and gentle nature makes him one of the great thinkers of our time.
and Robert Wright is a Moron
If you asked me which one of these men was deeply into meditation it wouldn't be Robert Wright. He exhibits behavioral characteristics antithetical to good meditative practice. He forces his view too much, doesn't listen as much as he should, quite happy to browbeat his guest. He goes off on crazy tangents which may well make him feel good but detract from the debate no end. He seems all over the place. Steven Pinker is the consummate professional as ever.
I think Robert Wright could use some more meditation to help control his emotional responses to criticism and disagreement... and also so he won't interrupt so much and the conversation can be more productive (I actually felt that up until the 38 minute mark the back-and-forth was very productive!)
Well he has said that he has ADHD and that he recognizes he needs the benefits of meditation more than some others do. I can totally relate, so I tend to be forgiving of this quirk. He's trying, that's what matters. :)
Was looking forward to this, but there were far too many Wright monologues and interruptions. Wright also spent much of the time stating his version of Pinker's views rather than just asking Pinker about his views. Wished Wright would have given Pinker the floor more often.
totally.
Especially in the middle -- however, Wright graciously makes up for his muddleheadedness (well, a little) towards the end.
Agreed - it did get better, but never felt like it got off the ground as a conversation with Wright seemingly wanting to wage battle.
Yes, Tony -- I think that's the crux of the matter; and for that reason Wright waxed quite incomprehensible. In stark contrast to the interviewee, I might add.
Completely agree, I love Wright but couldn't finish this one. Pinker took the constant interrupts so much better than I ever could, a true gentleman.
Pinkers respectful straight face with occasional left eyebrow twitches tell the tale...
Good example of reading meaning into things like religious people.
One of the guides I use to measure the possible presence of cognitive bias is the level of emotion. Anytime I am worked up and in any way activated, I can be certain there is some significant emotional current running under my "reason." It doesn't mean I'm wrong, but it sure as hell means I have work to do in examining my argument. I apply this same metric to others. Anytime someone is worked up, or overly invested, I start to question their conclusions. This is not to say that the more calm and controlled one pretends to be, the more they are to be believed. But when people are truly open minded and ultimately willing to let go of long held and cherished beliefs, that adds credibility to their argument. It's okay to be sad or disappointed to discover an idea doesn't hold up, but we all must be willing to accept that hardship in service of more accurate understandings. And it would be very helpful to examine and share the specific emotional attachments we may carry in our conclusions.
Perfect analysis, David. All true. Yes, the primary problem is always a category error --- placing beliefs/opinions in the same category as facts/truth. The secondary problem is defending against the existence of the primary problem: "What I believe is not a belief --- it is a fact!"
"Agnosticism is the essence of science, whether ancient or modem. It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe." --- Thomas Henry Huxley
The fact is that we --- mainstream science (aka scientific materialism) --- know almost nothing. People believe mainstream science know lots of stuff, but this is non-correct:
Mainstream science does not know how something can come from nothing...
Mainstream science does not know what space is...
Mainstream science does not know what time is...
Mainstream science does not know what matter is...
Mainstream science does not know what life is...
Mainstream science does not know what objective experience is...
Mainstream science does not know what mind is...
Mainstream science does not know what thought is...
Mainstream science does not know what consciousness is...
Mainstream science does not know what subjective experience is...
Mainstream science does not know does not know what is, is...
lol. I love it, Midiwave. I often say the same thing. I love the mystery and the not knowing. But also love the knowing. I'd call evo by NS a darn robust theory. Probably the most tested and robust theory of all. But we don't know all the details. We know a lot, but I've always had a hard time wrapping my mind around the requisite amount of mutation. Still, I don't know the math and suspect there is a solid material explanation, even if that involves things humans can never know. However, for all intents and purposes we evolved by natural selection and that's really what we need to know to eventually arrive at good guesses for public policy and personal choices. The rest is just for fun. We know we came from ancestor primates and have minds evolved for very different environments. That is the key. Do we know it for certain? Of course not. But do we know it as much as we can know anything about where we are from. Absolutely!
"I love the mystery and the not knowing. But also love the knowing." Totally agree, David.
“Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.'
That's a rather broad idea,' I remarked.
One's ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature,' he answered.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
Nice. Thanks.
A trick I use to audit this sort of bias is to change the subject of the thought to something I have the opposite emotional context to. Or no emotional context.
Commonly I use Mormons (because it is funny to me.
People in the comments thread can have a go at Robert Wright. The unwillingness of Steven Pinker however to think seriously about close examination of his own mind says much about Western academics and the bubble in which they live.
You guys are great :) thanks for the conversation.
CES, you are great too.
Steven Pinker is so adorable. Always calm, friendly and rational.
Robert, could just be me being tribal, but it seems to me that you are more tribal towards new athiests like Sam then they are tribal towards you.
He literally "grouped" Pinker with the new atheists! I mean, I get it, but that's the textbook definition he himself gives!
David Mitnick, in this case it means motivated criticism, and it’s biased in the same way that motivated reasoning is biased. Can I get an amen
I'm afraid we may be pushing too much in the tribalism direction. There are plenty of biases that act independent of tribalism. One's ideology or worldview can affect how one interprets all information and how critical they are of arguments. Certainly worldviews can be affected by one's tribe and one may join a tribe based on their worldview, but still, someone may be biased against information because it conflicts with their current beliefs, not because it is something a rival identity would say. I'd hate to see us blame things on tribalism that are in part or full the result of other biases.
It’s always painful to listen to Robert Wright doing interviews but he has such great guests they I have to listen past Roberts incessant self bias
Getting caught up in talking about a tweet certainly derailed what otherwise might have been a very enlightening conversation
I'm reading Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright and enjoying it a lot. But, it seems Mr. Wright is not practicing enough meditation.
He has a ADHD. I mean, he actually does. I do also, so I totally see myself when he goes a bit all over the place. We need meditation more than most people. 😂
Please let your thoughtful (and very polite) guest speak. Thank you!
In case either Steve or Robert are reading these essays, this is what i do when i wake up as a means of studying without having to drum up motivation, i have arguments with talking heads ( I don't mean puppets just listening to the discussion and argument from outside). I'm really drawn to argument and constantly critical so everything is inspired by contention though i think we share the majority of the scaffolding of our thoughts as common ground
Bob has an affective attachment to mindfulness meditation that's causing him to overrate its likely effectiveness in managing affective bias.
Brilliantly stated by Pinker starting at 55:00.. even amidst all of the interruptions
I'm not seeing the promised links. Where is your "full argument" on greater evolutionary purpose that I think you said was on MoL TV? I found the NYT and Wired pieces. And thanks for this! You are my top two minds in understanding the nature and predicament of humankind. I could watch hours and hours of you guys.
Totally agree with Tony Bell below - too many Wright monologues and interruptions. Pinker showed the patience of Job. Wright might need some impulse control medication. or he should have meditated for a couple of hours first.
Would be nice if you linked to the articles discussed in the conversation, especially the ones authored and referenced by yourself, Mr. Wright.
For someone who practices mindfulness, the interviewer seems totally distracted with his fidgeting, unfocused body language, inability to listen and haphazard rantings. Would like to have heard more from Steve who was composed and rational.
Thank you for your own endless insight, motivation and consequently tutoring to maintain my venture to progressively more consciously alert as well as spiritually connected.
I heard Robert Wright mention this being available on a podcast. I am thinking I may well like to hear him doing a one, though I was unable to find any Robert Wright podcast. Does anyone know what this podcast is called ?
I have to ask ... what's the map behind Robert?
At the risk of being slated for not addressing any of the points in the video, I'll throw in my tuppenceworth anyway. One of the interlocutors came across as shrill, disorganised and 'on the ropes.' The other, calm, focused and rational. No points for guessing which is which. I suspect Wright is on the cusp of atheism and is in the death throes of defending his theism. Tribalism indeed. Keep on being theistically tribal, Robert. If it pays the bills......
im surprised in reading the comments how many people are averse to disagreement
35:44 Robert brings out his grievances
I love you, Wright! You're one of my faves. But consider that despite the world being "consistent" with your view, you must agree as Pinker points out, there's no "reason to believe" your view (that there is some goal-directed designer who created natural selection). It's the tautology of the anthropic principle ... it's a cool idea, and if I were forced to have a religion, I'd pick that one. But I have no reason to.
Most interesting part was the part about the purpose behind evolution. I think, it could have been even more interesting, though, if Robert Wright would have given more room for Pinker's arguments, listened more closely to them and responded more precisely to them. Now, I am not sure Pinker got to fully explain what his reasons are for thinking Wright's argument is fatally flawed. By the way, I think Pinker is right on this and Wright is wrong on this.
All this because Jerry Coyne kicked sand in his face.Bob, when all your guests disagree with you about goal oriented cosmic evolution except Deepak Chopra, it's time for a mindfulness booster shot.
lol. I don't know about "all this" but lol
Didn't know Roberts' "Non-Zero" was "in part an inspiration" (Steven at about 1:12:31) for Better Angels.
Wright is mentioned in the foreword.
@@sterlingveil Thanks
which of the two practices mindfulness meditation would be a very tricky question...
Robert Wright's voice is extremely grating and difficult to listen to. I gave up 5 minutes in. Life is too short.
He said one more job ought to get it
One last shot 'fore we quit it
One for the road…
This was hard to listen to. Rob, consider meditating a little more.
Michael McMillan Exactly my thought) seems Pinker is more grounded, calm and skilled at giving some space than Wright, so where did all the hours of meditation go, Robert?
This week on "Robert Wright brings an interesting guest on only to defend himself". Jesus Christ, Robert. I'm not sure if I can finish your book after watching some of these interviews.
Bob, I think you should take more of a pantheistic position than a theistic one in order to argue for a teleological worldview. So, instead of looking at the evolutionary algorithm as having been designed by a (divine) creative intelligence, you can look at the evolutionary algorithm as the way creative intelligence operates in the world (whether human or divine or otherwise). Susan Blackmore (in her book "The Meme Machine") actually provides the key to this view (albeit unwittingly). She argued in her book (not explicitly, but in an around about way) how memetic selection can explain the APPARENT design of artifacts like pocket watches in the same way that genetic selection can explain the APPARENT design of organs like eyeballs. And as you have already noted in your video, the evolutionary algorithm can be employed to explain the APPARENT design of the universe of as whole (a.k.a. the anthropic principle).
Can you do a crowd fund for me to go on a retreat please 😁😁😁
So many holes in Pinker's statements but the biggest is 57:52, how can he make such an ignorant statement that Darwin answered the question of how complex life arose. We have NO IDEA to this day how the simplest of life forms (much less) complex life arose. And he keeps bringing up "natural selection" as the answer to seemingly everything.
I know when sharing something would be pure virtue signalling so I stop myself from doing it. I don't need mindfulness meditation to make me more conscious of it.
I was really hoping to hear what Pinker had to say, but that proved to be nearly impossible given Wright's constant interruptions. Apparently Wright's idea of an interview is just to introduce a speaker and then spend the majority of his time simply talking over him.
I don't think many academicians are aware of the fact that the soul has been traditionally framed in terms of information processing.
Robert Wright shouldn't interrupt all the time. It makes it difficult to follow the conversation
I like Wright and respect him...but i feel that for an "agnostic" he is as of late constantly making every effort to insert a god of the gaps in any cranny of scientific ambiguity (ie quantum free will/intelligent design even though he claims ad nauseum that he doesn't believe in it)
Mr. Pinker will now think twice about getting a root canal w/o medication or spending an hour+ with Robbie; As an additional task, Mrs. X,7th grade English teacher, will hand pick 2 of Mr. Wright's sentences' for diagramming.Poor kids.
I like Robert a lot because he fights against the smugness of the 'new atheists,' but I really don't understand why he tries to push this 'evolution has goals' business. I agree with Pinker that there is no reason to believe that.
Lil Scotchy don’t you hate it when people who don’t believe nonsense refuse to act as if believing nonsense is intellectually defensible!? 😉
Julian Walker don't you hate it when people beg the question and then use stupid emoji? 😉
+Lil Scotchy I think it stems from his views on consciousness and how the neo-darwinian model just doesn't account for the existence of consciousness (at least, his concept of it). It's very similar to the process that Thomas Nagel followed in his book "Mind and Cosmos" (he too ended up advocating for evolutionary teleology).
I agree. Postulating a teleological end seems gratuitous.
hahahaha lil scotchy don't you hate it when religious pseudointellectuals get butt hurt?! ;)
This is all in response to something somebody said in this video, chronologically. I hope it's easy enough to see what parts i'm responding to in each comment
I think that the debiasing techniques Steven refers to are something like techniques or practices which allow a person to make good decisions regardless of their biases while meditation has the possibility of reducing the actual power of the cognitive underpinnings. Closer to debiasing as opposed to rebiasing
*The consequences of meditation on Behavioral Economics is not being explored the way it should be in my opinion. I asked Dilip Soman whether meditation frees up cognitive resources by for instance easing deactivation of the Default Mode Network and he replied that he was unaware of research on the subject, more or less. I think there is so much room to go about showing various effects of meditation on bias that it's astounding i haven't seen anything come of it. It's difficult with the impossibility of publishing negative results to even know whether it's been brought up.
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Noam chomsky has highlighted the importance of this tribalism as a source of bias pretty consistently for decades but he does it in a way that activates tribalism in academics so of course they're pretty biased against seeing this as the case.
These tribalism biases are especially interesting and significant because they can be programmed easily by propaganda
Of course Noam is somehow controversial. If it weren't for the fact that he keeps his public discourse to highly robust effects and that he has such credibility within the scientific community for his less important work he would have been successfully put to the fringe. As it is he's controversial and there's this sort of norm for a cool rationality the academic tribes tend to equate with a watered down critique of US aggression and imperialism, which leads to ridiculous biases like the widespread acceptance of the drastically underestimated morbidity rates from US action
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think for reducing bias generally mindfulness especially taken to an extreme (changing default module) will have a very significant effect on many biases but for tribalism type biases the type of meditations most effective at reducing social anxiety would have more of an effect, such as compassion meditation and non judgemental conversations on aversive events and emotions as well as opinions
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The sense of shame for being irrational will actually ironically likely increase tribal biases XD and in a particularly pernicious way where the norms and beliefs of the group, those that are most intertwined with tribal biases become seen as rationality and stepping outside of that becomes seen as being irrational. The exact opposite will have the intended effect, that is non judgemental extrapolation of aversive differences of opinion wherein the difference of opinion is reoriented as acceptable and no longer a source of social/existential dread.
Compassion will work better than Vipassana will work better than shame for irrationality (which will have the opposite effect). Pride in rationality would work
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Teleological bias makes no sense in physics but the misapplication of the bias was at the heart of the problem of the critique of non behaviorist psychology.
The way that experts draw conclusions by extended analogy looks very similar to how people will take information from various loosely connected subjects to find support of their pet opinions.
It's easy to see how from a self serving perspective a difficult theory from an expert that relies on an assumed internal state and intentionality as well as complex and highly abstract analogies will be seen as flawed for relying on teleological biases and overly reaching for evidence that supports their opinion when it is against our/our tribes internalized beliefs
As an example of how teaching biases and such only leads to their being used only as tools to attack perceived opposition and clumsily and never for our own surgery in developing our worldviews
I think in a person that had lots of meditation understanding these things will be most helpful because they will be helpful only when we can see them in ourselves
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We do have to undo industrial capitalism, but we have to undo industrial capitalism because we need to rapidly advance in technology, undoing industrial capitalism and returning to low tech are not synonymous in fact to the opposite of returning to low tech (rapid technological advancement) is in contention with continuing industrial capitalism. What is necessary is democratic decision making in production, pursuit of technological advancement and resource management. We also have to create the conditions in which democratic societies make more intelligent decisions and (as is implied by the word democracy) remove the ability for any individuals to alter the discourse in their own interests, especially via scientific mass propaganda
Human beings are capable of using teleological thinking in an incredibly intelligent way to synthesize useful scientific hypothesis' and coincidentally as it often happens to turn out the actual basis of the teleological perspective (that there is some underlying intentionality or design) often happens to be correct in a sort of absurd way if you're open to ambiguity wherein brains have intentionality, ultimately i disagree but in that way of thinking of things at least. It's certainly a useful decision making process in modelling human behavior, animal behavior, life in general. Also in analyzing society this way of thinking can be usefully extended in hypothesizing interest structures. Oh look, it acts as if it accomplishes the goal of concentrating wealth, it is made of people who are attempting to concentrate wealth so this way of thinking can be quite useful. Powerful but prone to certain types of error but in the same way that when it comes to apes hypothesizing intelligence and emotionality makes sense (we will also do it for rocks and perhaps discover evolution as a consequence) it also makes sense to hypothesize intelligence and intentionality to society and it is our bias against confirming things confirmed by our biases that misleads to produce some really funny errors in science
If i said that life was formed from wind, water, clay and light because the gods decided it to be so and argued with you about it for a few minutes before flipping you off and slamming my door unless the next person to tell you was a Harvard professor or was NASA or something like that you'd never believe them
(which i guarantee you is a principle easily levered in manipulating the scientific community and is used constantly)
You can model problems by modelling it as various goal states that form good answers to the problem and then you can improve these models by jury rigging them thereby solving the same problem in multiple ways you gain the ability to triangulate when one way of looking at a problem that is usually valid may be incorrect
Evolution would lead to this as an accident simply because it's a very useful way of thinking about problems. Which is the same reason brains would eventually begin to apply this type of problem modelling, because in finding a way to model the underlying modelling of evolution within a goal structure(having developed cognitive devices for goal structures) the species will then likely tend to evolve more quickly into new niches and adapt to change more rapidly
when things map onto things conceptually it means there's a distinct possibility that there's a possibility of modelling problems in such a way that solving any part of any of the problems makes solving other parts of the problem easier. That's why brains use vague language but anyway
Hunger and sex are useful ways of solving problems useful to survival and happen to be able to be set up so that in computing them the brain produces useful inputs in problems that evolution is computing and vice versa. The brain and genome are set up to set themselves up in a way to solve problems set up in dna
The comments section seems to have suffered the 'Joe Rogan' effect...e.g irrational tribalism and feudalism over actually making a goddam interesting or nuanced point!
I wonder if Robert is curious about the role of positive affect in his maintenance of a belief in a creator of evolution.
I think that if Wright gave some thought to the Fermi paradox it would cure him of the strange idea that evolution necessitates the intelligent life to exist.
I agree with several other commenting here that Wright's performance is lacking. I find it difficult to follow Wright when he is speaking with another person. I am better able to follow his points when I am reading his written work or when he gives a lecture. So often the gist of his claims here was "Well, there could be a divine hand at work. It's possible. Arguments are made to that effect....." Those parts of his conversation are just not convincing. He also had the chance to explain why and how meditation is best at reducing cognitive bias, but he didn't score.
Robert demonstrates in his speech everything I find wrong with academic papers- his points are a mess of circular, poorly phrased word salad. Most of his statements could be whittled down to just a few sentences; talking for a longer period of time doesn't mean you are presenting more information. His points might have some merit if he could be more succinct.
Well...that was fun.
38 minutes in and you can tell pinkers good will is being strained by how annoying, tangential and self indulgent Robert is... his mouth , jaw and eye expressions of impatient and irritated disdain. are only thinly veiled
robert wright picks fights with steven pinker and doesnt afraid of anything
If you've been following the reception of Enlightenment Now, you'd know that many many people aren't afraid of picking a fight with Steve. Many negative, hyper-critical reviews
Not a intellectual but logarithms in there very nature are polarising opinion. Maybe instead of believing social media's we should converse more over coffee wine or beer. Aussie Jeff
Not my comment
Robert, as usual your point of view is so tortured and contorted to fit into a realm of the not entirely impossible and therefore probable that of course Pinker and Coyne take you to task for pretending your nonsense deserves consideration.
Again wouldn't the environment in which you live in after the retreat drag you into the world that you perceive. Buy the way I like Buddhism but do not get the chance to meditate but in my day I look at what day has to offer. More of a working mans meditation. Aussie Jeff
People who share opinions or beliefs do not automatically make a "tribe", nor does their agreement, or their disagreement with you, make them "tribal." Jesus Wright, learn what the concept means before you start throwing it around at everything and everyone. As it stands it just seems like a lazy dodge to avoid criticism.
Yo, Bob. Interview much?
Wright was good on Sam Harris's podcast. AWFUL here. I was here to listen to Steven Pinker, instead we got the insecure ramblings of Wright.
Richard Kohn well he feels "almost like a member of different species", so it's harder for him to communicate 😂😂😂
"I uhhhh, disagree uhhh, uhhh, with uhhhh you"
My tribe may be functionally extinct.
Jeez, Bob. Switch to decaf.
This is one of the worst interviews I have ever heard. Wright should be embarrassed.
Hillary quote: "To just be grossly generalistic, you can put HALF of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables..."
Steven, your fusiform face area is showing.
Seems to me this breaks down to a West vs East. Pinker's Psychology founded in Western Civilization doesn't seem to take in to account the underlying psychology of a "tribe" of people that have lived their entire lives founded in Eastern meditative practice and thus see things differently. Sure, they are cognitively biased toward meditative practice just like Westerns a biased towards whatever they are biased toward. But then I am a biased white American that has spent time living in the East, married to an Asian and working with "tribal" people from all over the world, and meditating for a number of years in the past.
Misunderstanding of evolution and setting of strawman to shoot it down is simply astonishing. May be it is willful?
Must admit though that show is frustratingly engaging. Kudos.
Evolution is not a ACTIVE process or a force in nature. It is simply name given to what happens/unfolds in a biological systems in a environment. Robert simply does not seem to hear it when it is said. The seemingly particular direction of evolution only stays the course in the environment in which the natural selection is happening if it stays the same or in a similar band. Take an example - if the climate gets colder more furry animals (Bears) become more in numbers over time. If the climate changes to become warm, less furry animals become more in number over time. One can see how those two are opposite directions. Also note that a evolution can continue if the changes in environment are very very gradual relative to the reproductive time spans of generations. If there is a catastrophic change in environment, the direction of evolution comes to halt. Simply.
This is completely pointless. Why even film this? Wright talks about some article he has written that semi-supports there being a God or just evolution striving for something. But he argues for this article for 1 hour without mentioning any of the points in the article itself. Okay, what the fuck is this video then about? Him being offended over a Tweet? Why? Why not make your case and then discuss the hypothesis?
Wright was VERY tiresome, especially about the retweet/NY Times piece. Shut up Bob.
Now I get why it's called "The Wright Show", it's Wright talking and talking and talking, only to pause for a second to allow the poor guest to say "Right" on occasion.
Gets massively cringy to keep listening Wright droning on about meditation - "You won't believe it guys, it's amazing! You've got to try it!" - We get it, you messed with your brain and now you've warped your mind towards meditation, got it, move on.
Jesus, now the man digs up a printed tweet....
"Oh no, someone disagreed with me in passing, they must be biased!"
So many unfounded leaps in conclusions, evolution seems so magical and powerful that it actually has to be just that, and it's not a problem of perception, and of course human brains have to evolve, it's inevitable, right...
Wait, the algorithm has a creator?? Natural Selection is a consequence of particular conditions that can be described as an algorithm once the process kicks off, not a virtual computer program plugged into nature from the outside onto an environment.
And how does Wright defend himself?
"Well, this great evolutionary theorist said something vaguely similar!"
"Well, you like the enlightenment and enlightenment era thinkers liked deism, so there!"
So Lee Smolin had a neat idea, but super speculative, on a frontier of science where a lot of unknowns still prevail, and from that, Wright jumps to more elaborate hypotheticals about intelligences eventually creating their own black holes as means of creating their own universes.
Did I get that right?
Because intelligences could create more fit universes through space magic black holes, natural selection could create intelligences...
What?
But Natural Selection already explains by itself how it can create goal-directed entities, it's been written to death about in so many evolutionary books!
People are too narcissistic about subjectivity, it's not that wonderful, we need to pull our heads out of our behinds and accept that subjectivity is neat but not earth shattering.
And feelings were explained back in the 70s with evolutionary theory framing feelings as carrots and sticks to drive beings (as Dawkins would put it, genes placing motivators to drive their vehicles) towards actions that benefited their survival and reproduction.
I like how meditation is a form of "warping" the brain. lol
I equate it to drug abuse yes, has similar effects on people, they lose all capacity for rational thought and go on crusades to get other people to join in on their abuse.
It's sensory deprivation and "emptying your mind" at best, and nothing about that says "sharpening your actual thinking skills" to me, and people who have gone through such extreme mind altering acts scar their minds in ways similar to a person who has used drugs and is now convinced they can see some ultimate truth because of it.
Sam Harris was actually the first who made me realise this, with his drug abuse past and meditation crusade, you saw him lose all capacity for rational thought when it came time to think about consciousness and anything surrounding that subject. Instead of taking a step back, trying to be objective, impartial, Sam and others who share his experiences revel in their introspective subjective experiences, something all of science and psychology tell us time and time again leads us into error.
They are taken in and overcome by their extreme experiences, and lose all capacity for impartiality, just like all personal experiences actually in their own tiny ways make us less objective about those personal events, and outsiders can have a more balanced view of things (it's why you have third parties settling disputes, they circumvent the self-serving biases of the people involved), in a very real way people who have more of an abstract understanding of things can avoid more of the clouding biasing factors that easily creep in once you get into the thick of involving yourself in the phenomena you're trying to understand.
Citation needed*
I'll get right on that massive undertaking, random internet commenter I don't care about.
Have a nice day though, nothing personal.
A citation doesn't mean an anecdote. And the plural of anecdote is not data. Plus, I'm a neuroscientist, I research the role of hippocampal neurogenesis in depression remission. I talk to my professor, whom I meditate with weekly, and we have insightful discussions about the nature of consciousness. But I'm sure we're just lobotomised because of our practice and need YOUR guidance. lol
Zeidan, F., Grant, J.A., Brown, C.A., McHaffie, J.G. and Coghill, R.C., 2012. Mindfulness meditation-related pain relief: evidence for unique brain mechanisms in the regulation of pain. Neuroscience letters, 520(2), pp.165-173.
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Meditation Interventions to Rewire the Brain : Integrating Neuroscience Strategies for ADHD, Anxiety, Depression & PTSD.
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Kozasa, E.H., Sato, J.R., Lacerda, S.S., Barreiros, M.A., Radvany, J., Russell, T.A., Sanches, L.G., Mello, L.E. and Amaro Jr, E., 2012. Meditation training increases brain efficiency in an attention task. Neuroimage, 59(1), pp.745-749.
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Luders, E. and Cherbuin, N., 2016. Searching for the philosopher's stone: promising links between meditation and brain preservation. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1373(1), pp.38-44.
Why are there so many #triggered comments?
Fans of New Atheism ... wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism
Yeah...but being an Atheist doesn't prevent one from exploring teleological propositions. Indeed, I'm not convinced there is a purpose-driven goal in evolution, but I will explore the notion nonetheless.
On that note, Pinker was (W)right to point out that individual animals and groups have goals. Perhaps this may drive evolution?
You say: Yeah...but being an Atheist doesn't prevent one from exploring teleological propositions. Indeed, I'm not convinced there is a purpose-driven goal in evolution, but I will explore the notion nonetheless.
Response: I agree. But you know how fans are ;)
You should real the *insightful* discourse I'm having with a few down below. Riveting... :S
You say: "Correcting erroneous pseudoscience is my only goal, no matter the topic (anti-evolution, creationism, or flat Earth) is my small contribution to the human race."
Response. Yep. A typical exchange. Fans are not really that interested in facts ;)
Steven Pinker?? Isn't he an Evo Psych guy?? Did he talk about the evolutionary reasons for women making less than men?? LOL
What rude interviewer !!
after about 40 min ....Yawn....
And uhh was uhh was a little uhhh can help you uhh a reference to uhhh I'd written a book uhhh
Fucking hell, Pinker's doing it to!! It's attack of the uhhs