Intelligence

[Wishfarple]

"Do what thou will" shall be the whole of the law...

or something like that.

Dr. Moreau: What is the law?
Sayer of the Law: Not to eat meat, that is the law. Are we not men?
Beasts (in unison): Are we not men?

[LMNO]

A: WE ARE DEVO!

[Wishfarple]

I don't know if it's true or just apocryphal, but I've heard that Devo got the idea for their name from that movie.  Which would also tie in that line with the song.

[EDIT: Just found an interview with Mark Mothersbaugh confirming that the line came from that movie, but he didn't mention anything about getting the band name from it. ]

[chaosgraves:agentoferis]

no, but you can say that in X many instances when you have taken something you believe (or at least have been told) to be LSD you experienced certain things (subjectively, not objectively) that could be either random synaptic firing, lucid dreaming, sub-atomic neural conciousness, a psychological manifestiation of the conscious and/or subconscious, or direct communication with a supernatural being calling itself "god" (among other hypotheses).

Until you can rule out the former stuff, you can't conclude the latter.




My, this is horribly aneristic, isn't it?

My brothers dad made it.

has been since the sixty's.

my brothers grandfather said it was the same as the stuff the government used on him.

I believe it is LSD.

but the question is under any experiment we are limited buy the input of our senses.

So all science really does is grow within our subjective limitations but it is still subject to them. Which is why Newtonian Physics still seems to work to most of us.

all reality is subjective.

I mean Ayn Rand wrote some good stories, but that doesn't make her right.

[LMNO]

Exactly.  The whole metaphor of the "model" theory of reality contains the idea that all our instruments (including our own perceptions) are inherently subjective.  A ruler can't tell time, a stopwatch can't measure length.

That's it's not as accurate to say "I saw God" as it is to say "I had an experience that in my current state of ignorance and knowledge I can only describe as seeing God."

[chaosgraves:agentoferis]

Exactly.  The whole metaphor of the "model" theory of reality contains the idea that all our instruments (including our own perceptions) are inherently subjective.  A ruler can't tell time, a stopwatch can't measure length.

That's it's not as accurate to say "I saw God" as it is to say "I had an experience that in my current state of ignorance and knowledge I can only describe as seeing God."

I never said I saw god I say that I experienced god.

but all of us do everyday.

Buckminster Fuller called it Universe.

Same thing.

Same thing you're saying.

But I realized it the first time under the influence of LSD.

[East Coast Hustle]

I thought I saw God once when I was grilling on a ten-strip.

then I realized that wasn't possible.

for one thing, I don't believe in God.

for another thing, if he does exist, I doubt he goes around introducing himself as Nyarlathotep.

[DJRubberducky]

I dunno - are you sure it's impossible to see things you don't believe in?  I think you can, but you're just going to explain it away as something else - which doesn't change the nature of its existence, just of your experience with it.

I think this is similar to why Anton LaVey says unbelievers are the easiest ones to curse - if they believed in Satanic magic, they would be more likely to suspect a hex for what it is and take measures to protect themselves from it.  But folks who don't believe in magic will convince themselves that whatever ends up afflicting them is coincidence or mundane conspiracy instead of a hex.

[East Coast Hustle]

oh, I'm sure it's possible to see things you don't believe in...non-belief doe4sn't necessarily mean non-existance...but as I said, I doubt God, if he exists, would go around introducing himself as Nyarlathotep...he probably doesn't have all those creepy tentacles either...

[Wishfarple]

Are you kidding?  If God exists he's probably fucking with us all the time!  Think about platypi.  Those things are seriously screwed up, and if He made em, well. . . Also, the fact that everyone is meant to be born by being shat out of someone else is pretty hilarious.

If God exists I bet He's hysterical, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if He went around masquerading as Nyarlathotep.

[LMNO]

Also, the fact that everyone is meant to be born by being shat out of someone else...

Um, I'm not sure where you took your biology class....

[Eldora, Oracle of Alchemy]

Does intelligence get in the way of spiritual enlightenment?

Intelligence can get in the way if you do not listen to people because you believe you are smarter than they are.  You have to try to have an open mind.  Ultimately you have to find your own path, which is the most difficult thing.  Many people appear to find the path to spiritual enlightenment, but that does not mean that I will find it by following them.  I can listen to their ideas, read the same books, go with them to the places or groups or meetings or whatever or whereever they go, but that does not mean I will find what they found.

Intelligence can save you if you do not listen to people because you believe you are smarter than they are.  Some people claim to be further along than they are.  They have mumbo jumbo that may sound intersting or exciting, but it does not mean squat.  

The kind of intelligence you really need is experience.  The older I get the more it makes sense.  This does not mean that I cannot learn from someone younger than I am.  It does not mean that my experiences are better than yours, or that yours are better than mine.  It means that when you fuck up, you learn from the experience.  Most people do not, it seems to me.  They look as if they are worshipping destructive disorder and they are surprized when their life is destructed and disorderly.  If you would like to see these people, watch any episode of Cops. I am sure there is more in my head, but I'm tired.

Cya

[Horab Fibslager]

i disagree abotu open minded ness. an open mind is a fool's mind. that doesn't mean you should have a closed mind. buddha said build of your mind a fortress.

after that, an empty mind is the wellspring of i forget.

[eighteen buddha strike]

This is a pretty good thread.

I had a discussion on this topic some time ago with one of my more intelligent friends. You see, he himself is one of the smartest people I know, but a good portion of the people he hung out with (or more accurately, the people who played in his running D&D game) were complete idiots. When I asked him about this, he said that he regarded intelligence as little more than being tall. It was a trait that defined "how high you could reach on the intellectual shelf" but not necessarily one that immediately made you a good or bad person.

While I do agree with that, I still feel that I'd rather have intelligent friends than stupid ones, but stupidity is not something that makes you automatically unworthy nor is intelligence something a good human being.

[EraPassing]

Pretty wise friend, then.  Wise, as opposed to merely smart.