I'm embarrassed, but glad at the same time, for the same reason. What reason is that? You are always finding other people who outdo the things that I say.

 

In 1931, the young mathematician Kurt Gödel made a landmark discovery, as powerful as anything Albert Einstein developed.

Gödel’s discovery not only applied to mathematics but literally all branches of science, logic and human knowledge. It has truly earth-shattering implications.

Oddly, few people know anything about it.

Allow me to tell you the story.

Mathematicians love proofs. They were hot and bothered for centuries, because they were unable to PROVE some of the things they knew were true.

So for example if you studied high school Geometry, you’ve done the exercises where you prove all kinds of things about triangles based on a list of theorems.

That high school geometry book is built on Euclid’s five postulates. Everyone knows the postulates are true, but in 2500 years nobody’s figured out a way to prove them.

Yes, it does seem perfectly reasonable that a line can be extended infinitely in both directions, but no one has been able to PROVE that. We can only demonstrate that they are a reasonable, and in fact necessary, set of 5 assumptions.

Towering mathematical geniuses were frustrated for 2000+ years because they couldn’t prove all their theorems. There were many things that were “obviously” true but nobody could figure out a way to prove them.

In the early 1900’s, however, a tremendous sense of optimism began to grow in mathematical circles. The most brilliant mathematicians in the world (like Bertrand Russell, David Hilbert and Ludwig Wittgenstein) were convinced that they were rapidly closing in on a final synthesis.

A unifying “Theory of Everything” that would finally nail down all the loose ends. Mathematics would be complete, bulletproof, airtight, triumphant.

In 1931 this young Austrian mathematician, Kurt Gödel, published a paper that once and for all PROVED that a single Theory Of Everything is actually impossible.

Gödel’s discovery was called “The Incompleteness Theorem.”

If you’ll give me just a few minutes, I’ll explain what it says, how Gödel discovered it, and what it means – in plain, simple English that anyone can understand.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem says:

“Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle – something you have to assume but cannot prove.”

You can draw a circle around all of the concepts in your high school geometry book. But they’re all built on Euclid’s 5 postulates which are clearly true but cannot be proven. Those 5 postulates are outside the book, outside the circle.

You can draw a circle around a bicycle but the existence of that bicycle relies on a factory that is outside that circle. The bicycle cannot explain itself.

Gödel proved that there are ALWAYS more things that are true than you can prove.

Any system of logic or numbers that mathematicians ever came up with will always rest on at least a few unprovable assumptions.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem applies not just to math, but to everything that is subject to the laws of logic. Incompleteness is true in math; it’s equally true in science or language or philosophy.

And: If the universe is mathematical and logical, Incompleteness also applies to the universe.

Gödel created his proof by starting with “The Liar’s Paradox” — which is the statement


“I am lying” is self-contradictory, since if it’s true, I’m not a liar, and it’s false; and if it’s false, I am a liar, so it’s true.

So Gödel, in one of the most ingenious moves in the history of math, converted the Liar’s Paradox into a mathematical formula. He proved that any statement requires an external observer.

No statement alone can completely prove itself true.

His Incompleteness Theorem was a devastating blow to the “positivism” of the time. Gödel proved his theorem in black and white and nobody could argue with his logic.

Yet some of his fellow mathematicians went to their graves in denial, believing that somehow or another Gödel must surely be wrong.

He wasn’t wrong. It was really true. There are more things that are true than you can prove.

A “theory of everything” – whether in math, or physics, or philosophy – will never be found. Because it is impossible.

OK, so what does this really mean? Why is this super-important, and not just an interesting geek factoid?

Here’s what it means:

Faith and Reason are not enemies. In fact, the exact opposite is true! One is absolutely necessary for the other to exist. All reasoning ultimately traces back to faith in something that you cannot prove.

All closed systems depend on something outside the system.

You can always draw a bigger circle but there will still be something outside the circle.

Reasoning inward from a larger circle to a smaller circle is “deductive reasoning.”

Example of a deductive reasoning:
1. All men are mortal
2. Socrates is a man
3. Therefore Socrates is mortal

Reasoning outward from a smaller circle to a larger circle is “inductive reasoning.”
Examples of inductive reasoning:

1. All the men I know are mortal
2. Therefore all men are mortal

1. When I let go of objects, they fall
2. Therefore there is a law of gravity that governs falling objects

Notice than when you move from the smaller circle to the larger circle, you have to make assumptions that you cannot 100% prove.

For example you cannot PROVE gravity will always be consistent at all times. You can only observe that it’s consistently true every time. You cannot prove that the universe is rational. You can only observe that mathematical formulas like E=MC^2 do seem to perfectly describe what the universe does.

Nearly all scientific laws are based on inductive reasoning. These laws rest on an assumption that the universe is logical and based on fixed discoverable laws.

You cannot PROVE this. (You can’t prove that the sun will come up tomorrow morning either.) You literally have to take it on faith. In fact most people don’t know that outside the science circle is a philosophy circle. Science is based on philosophical assumptions that you cannot scientifically prove. Actually, the scientific method cannot prove, it can only infer.

(Science originally came from the idea that God made an orderly universe which obeys fixed, discoverable laws.)

Now please consider what happens when we draw the biggest circle possibly can – around the whole universe. (If there are multiple universes, we’re drawing a circle around all of them too):

There has to be something outside that circle. Something which we have to assume but cannot prove
The universe as we know it is finite – finite matter, finite energy, finite space and 13.7 billion years time
The universe is mathematical. Any physical system subjected to measurement performs arithmetic. (You don’t need to know math to do addition – you can use an abacus instead and it will give you the right answer every time.)
The universe (all matter, energy, space and time) cannot explain itself

Whatever is outside the biggest circle is boundless. By definition it is not possible to draw a circle around it.
If we draw a circle around all matter, energy, space and time and apply Gödel’s theorem, then we know what is outside that circle is not matter, is not energy, is not space and is not time. It’s immaterial.

Whatever is outside the biggest circle is not a system – i.e. is not an assemblage of parts. Otherwise we could draw a circle around them. The thing outside the biggest circle is indivisible.

Whatever is outside the biggest circle is an uncaused cause,because you can always draw a circle around an effect.

We can apply the same inductive reasoning to the Origin of Information:
In the history of the universe we also see the introduction of information, some 3.5 billion years ago (Or was it longer? Was information somehow present at the beginning?). It came in the form of the Genetic code, which is symbolic and immaterial.
The information appears to have come from the outside, since information is not known to be an inherent property of matter, energy, space or time
All codes we know the origin of are designed by conscious beings.
Therefore whatever is outside the largest circle is a conscious being.
My book Evolution 2.0: Breaking the Deadlock Between Darwin and Design explores the Origin of Information question in depth. The Evolution 2.0 Prize offers a multi-million dollar award for Origin of Information.

When we add information to the equation, we conclude that not only is the thing outside the biggest circle infinite and immaterial, it is also conscious.

Isn’t it interesting how all these things sound suspiciously similar to how theologians have described God for thousands of years?

So it’s hardly surprising that 80-90% of the people in the world believe in some concept of God. Yes, it’s intuitive to most folks. But Gödel’s theorem indicates it’s also supremely logical. In fact it’s the only position one can take and stay in the realm of reason and logic.

The person who proudly proclaims, “You’re a man of faith, but I’m a man of science” doesn’t understand the roots of science or the nature of knowledge!

Interesting aside…

If you visit the world’s largest atheist website, Infidels, on the home page you will find the following statement:

“Naturalism is the hypothesis that the natural world is a closed system, which means that nothing that is not part of the natural world affects it.”

If you know Gödel’s theorem, you know that all logical systems must rely on something outside the system. So according to Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem, the Infidels cannot be correct. If the universe is logical, it has an outside cause.

Thus atheism violates the laws of reason and logic.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem definitively proves that science can never fill its own gaps. We have no choice but to look outside of science for answers.

The Incompleteness of the universe isn’t proof that God exists. But… it IS proof that in order to construct a rational, scientific model of the universe, belief in God is not just 100% logical… it’s necessary.

Euclid’s 5 postulates aren’t formally provable and God is not formally provable either. But… just as you cannot build a coherent system of geometry without Euclid’s 5 postulates, neither can you build a coherent description of the universe without a First Cause and a Source of order.

Thus faith and science are not enemies, but allies. It’s been true for hundreds of years, but in 1931 this skinny young Austrian mathematician named Kurt Gödel proved it.

No time in the history of mankind has faith in God been more reasonable, more logical, or more thoroughly supported by science and mathematics.

I don't pretend to know how the universe started, if there was even a start. This is a very difficult scientific problem, experimentation is not very useful, at least not with our current capabilities. I don't see any logical way to go from there to the existence of a god. In fact, the existence of a god doesn't even solve the problem, because the question simply becomes, how did that god start/appear/was created ?

In his Geography of Consciousness ('GoC' - 1974), William Arkle describes eight levels of consciousness spanning the physical and ideal worlds - at the lowest end is Man as almost unconscious: passive, instinctive and immersed in the social group; at the highest level, Man's consciousness has become that of a god: free, agent, autonomous, participating in the work of creation.

But as probably only one or a very few have ever attained Higher Man stage (Saint John the Evangelist, may be an example); it is stages 1-7 which we need to consider...

Higher Man

7. Mystic
6. Poetic
5. Idealistic
4. Sophisticated cynical - the Dead-Centre
3. Responsible
2. Average
1. Lower man

And in particular I wish to focus on the sophisticated cynic of stage 4 - which is the typical and defining stage of Modern Western Man - or, at least, the intellectual and institutional leadership class of Modern Western Man.

To paraphrase Arkle (from pages 117-8 of GoC); the sophisticated cynic is at the Dead-Centre of the evolutionary scheme - poised, suspended, trapped between lower and higher consciousness. This is a state of wide awareness of options and possibilities; made possible by increased knowledge and learning - but experienced as a pervasive relativism.

Everything is known, but nothing known with confidence - all is suspect; one option is balanced and cancelled-out by the others. Movement upward, or downward, immediately leads to loss of confidence and a tendency to return to the Dead-Centre.

And the centre is 'dead' because there is a state of demotivation. The longer a period of time that is spent in the dead centre; the harder it gets to escape. The modern sophisticated cynic may yearn either to become a higher man, to live by pure ideals and non-material values; or (perhaps more often) he yearns to discard sophistication and cynicism and simply lapse back into passivity, instinct, spontaneity and unreflectiveness - to become natural...

But both are equally impossible. His materialism and hedonism reduces and deconstructs all higher values - while he 'knows better' than the natural, spontaneous, instinctive Man - and he finds he just cannot forget or discard his sophistication, science, philosophy, ideology... They come back, again and again, to haunt him.

The sophisticated cynic is therefore pulled in both directions; and also repelled by both directions. The sophisticated cynic is the permanent adolescent - too mature to be a child, too immature to be an adult; too bored by both immaturity and maturity, seeing-through the innocence of childhood and the responsibility of adulthood. He is cut-off from the basic satisfactions of simply getting-by in practical, material life; and also from the spiritual satisfactions of living for ideals located outwith mortal life and human limitation.

As the sophisticated cynic remains trapped by his own pre-conceptions; he may create vast belief-structures of ideology... but although initially promising, these invariably always lead-back (sooner or later) to where he began-from.(All apparent escape tunnels turn-out to be loops.)

The sophisticated cynic knows that the world of communications - of nature, of other people, of his own evanescent thoughts - are doubtful and unreliable: he has often experienced this unreliability. This insight itself implies that some other and solid form of knowing exists (with which communication is implicitly being contrasted); but when it comes to any specific knowledge, the sophisticated cynic remains unsure: he lives in an atomsphere of doubt... Yet at the same time, he doubts his own doubts, suspects there is 'more to life', and cannot embrace a fully nihilistic skepticism. 

Thus the sophisticated cynic is trapped in the Dead Centre of consciousness.

The phase is a necessary point through-which Men must pass if they are to attain the autonomy required by higher consciousness; but if the lessons are to be learned, then the phase must feel real - must indeed be real - at the time it is being experienced. There must to be a pause in progression - and this pause may become prolonged and arrested into stasis.

(The ship must slow to a standstill, and actually stop - but once forward-momentum has been lost, the ship may become becalmed; at which point momentum and friction prevent it from moving again.)

Although many people do get stuck; some do escape - and in the right direction. What gets people out from the perpetual adolescence of sophisticated cynicism? That will be the subject of another post...

We also assume that miners always have space to include all available transactions. If the block size is not large enough to meet demand for transactions, we believe the qualitative content of all our results continue to hold, but the quantitative impact is mitigated. This belief is supported by the following data, taken from the most recent 1000 blocks (roughly one week’s worth) as of July 11, 2016: of these 1000 blocks, 702 are full. Of the full blocks, the total sum of transaction fees ranges from 0.03 BTC to 4.51 BTC. The mean is 0.49 BTC and the standard deviation is 0.25 BTC, more than half the mean. It’s unclear how to extrapolate these data to the future, but it is clear that there will indeed be fluctuation in the available fees that fit in a block. So if the block size is not large enough to meet demand for trans- actions, even though the available fees immediately after a block is found will not be zero (as in our analysis), they may be significantly lower than (say) ten minutes later. So even though our exact analysis will not apply in this setting, the intuition does carry over.

Given that the whales and miners are economically the same entity that can form an oligarchy to make the dolphins pay all the transaction fees for the whales’ transactions via miner profits. Regarding this math, the miner that pays to self (or whale who owns the transaction) the transaction fee for those transactions with much higher fees, is not displacing significant transaction fee revenue that would otherwise be earned by not doing so (due to block size being limited), because the whales’ transactions have a much higher multiple of fee per KB than the transactions of the dolphins.

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I do not like this dogmatic chap Bruce Charlton.

He goes on and on as if he so sure of himself … passing judgements on others … It’s as if you did not read what I wrote about the Bible says only God shall pass these judgements.
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Does Charlton really think that anyone he criticizes is really going to listen to him   
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His blog on Jesus is repeating what I wrote to you.

Ít’s okay with me if you continue.
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I think what separates me from a Nihilist is do really in my heart want to believe humans can be adorable and we can have love and happiness all over. My logic however doesn’t let me too far with that emotion as perhaps it does for others. I try to enjoy my adulation for humanity in the moment, and set the big picture stuff aside. Blissful ignorance.
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Don’t you remember our discussion some years ago about the little white church on the hill. I think you still do not understand the distinction I’m trying to make. Those spend their time trying to focus on making the world perfect create ideological power vacuums for evil bastards to leverage. Those who focus inwards on their communities and love ones do not inflict their ideology on others.

The true optimum state of the world primarily involves man's spiritual state. It exists when man grasps the path of wisdom and is engaged in devotion to his Creator. In such a world, truth is obvious and unambiguous. The wicked are prosecuted, and deception no longer exists. Everything in such a world involves some aspect of devotion to God, and all good qualities are maintained and strengthened, while all evil ones are repelled and rejected.

As a result of this, security and tranquility prevail, and there is no longer any pain, suffering or injury. God openly projects His Glory on such a world, and He rejoices in His handiwork. In a similar manner, His handiwork is happy and rejoices before Him.

The opposite of this optimum world exists when man becomes overwhelmed by the pursuit of physical desires, rejecting wisdom and furthering himself from it. In such a world, little if any attention is given to true devotion. Truth is ignored, wickedness is reinforced and prevails, and deception and error increase. It is a world of false values, where good qualities are eclipsed and evil ones prevail. As a result of this, tranquility ceases to exist, and there is no security, while there is much suffering and injury. God hides His Glory from the world, and it goes on as if left to chance, abandoned to the laws of nature. God neither rejoices in His handiwork, nor does mankind rejoice in Him. Man neither realizes nor recognizes even what it means for creation to rejoice before its Creator. In such a world, the wicked become strong, and the good are deprived of all status.

I stated that I would not want to live in a society that did not punish such actions and doubted whether one could find a society that would tolerate them.

I distinguished moralistic (absolute truth) ideological ends and stated these aren’t ever valid thus never justify means. For the remaining ends, I stated these are not ends because they have no total ordering. Thus there are no ends. Instead we live in societies and follow the rules of our chosen society.

I clearly stated that anyone is free to have their own beliefs as long as their beliefs do not impinge on me.

It is quite simple. I think ideologues are evil. And you’ve done more to convince me of that than anyone else I’ve ever known.

Passing false witness is condemned in the Bible. Please be more circumspect.

I’m delighted you did not make the mistake of using the word ‘belief’ in this second question, because you’re correct that I argued logically for this perspective based on my understanding of the reality of the Universe.

I explained that there‘s no absolute (total ordering) ends, thus there’s no valid justification of means. Moreover, I argued that ideological (i.e. the feigning of absolute truth) ends are foolish.

I understand you’re pointing out that without a moral compass, you believe that civilization will lose a common purpose and that many ills will plague society, such as promiscuity and lack of k selection, or the use of ransomware in order to become wealthy. But the free market deals with that. Societies perish and others thrive. Diversity (greater uncertainty thus higher entropy) provides for resilience. It occurs to me that an absolute truth or morality would not be antifragile, because there would be no alternatives adapted to differing scenarios.

Thus I think ideology and morality are actually the most amoral.

I might love my neighbor, because I like the observable outcomes or my private belief in a God, not because it’s supposed to be some absolute truth about morally correctness which everyone must follow in order for it to be successful.

I personally like the do unto others as you would want them to do to you. This is how I feel about a society that cares for each other, and I think this works only on the local level though not at large scale collectivism. At large scale, there is massive defection the cheaters escape the Dunbar limit of a tribe’s ability to efficiently squelch defection. For example, although I might want to offer free health care to every person, the scammers would find a way to extract profits from my generosity creating a non-meritorious misallocation of capital which can make the outcome uncompetitive.


Someone was doing some ideological shit and justifying the means.


Nothing morally wrong with stealing if its not in support of some lie about absolute truth. However, you might consider if that is the society that you want to live in and whether there even exists a society that wants to accept you. Let’s make sure we have an agreed definition of morals. Morals that are an absolute truth or morals that are just accepted norm of a particular society but do not have the ideological power of being claimed to be absolute truth.


Afaik, Nihilists do not reject ideological (absolute truth or forced imposition of beliefs) pursuits as amoral and differentiate that activity from any other activity w.r.t. to the issue of morality. So I guess you can conclude there’s two absolute truths I’ve arrived at:

1. Universal trend towards maximum entropy.
2. Amorality of absolute truths (other than these two objective ones).

My brief sketch of nihilism is that it is devoid of preference for purpose and meaning. I have not rejected the ability of the individual to choose a meaning or purpose. I’ve only rejected their nonsense of trying to tell me to involve me in their meaning if I do not wish to be, even passing judgement on me and what will happen to me, and thus slippery sliding into being forced to take control over me.


Obviously I’m not arguing that rules, norms, or laws are entirely unnecessary, nor am I arguing that there’s no meaning of existence.

Rather I’m stating that there’s no observable absolute truth about these matters, although one could certainly argue for their experience and knowledge of history and argue why some historical observations should continue, but nothing is observably perpetual in our Universe (and we do not observe in perpetuity nor can we even observe everything in any given iota spacetime slice). I’m arguing for a free market of choices. If some group wants to try to enslave another, if that activity is not the most economic or fruitful, they’re likely to get out-competed by a society which has a more efficient organization. I’m confident the maximum division-of-labor destroys (chattel and I argued eventually Theory of the Firm) slavery, as I had explained in great detail in my past writings which you cited in your Economic Devastation thread, as well as my blog Information is Alive!

The USA Civil War wasn’t really a battle about slavery, because economics was going to take care of that any way, rather it was a battle about consolidating the economies-of-scale of the United States at the time when territorial consolidation was economically valuable (the two major oceans of the earth on each coast and the Mississippi river bisecting North-to-South). And now with the Internet (as you have written about), it is about separating into efficient autonomous locales that foster the maximum division-of-labor.

It’s Just Time.

As I’ve observed you for a long time now (and vice versa) and tried my best to develop a mutual understanding with you, I’ve reached the exasperating conclusion that you’re displaying the confirmation bias that you desire to fit everything into your rigid, dogmatic, judgemental, highly idealistic (and unrealistic) belief system which lacks sufficient degrees-of-freedom to allow you to understand and fully appreciate others — your belief that there’s some absolute truth, God, or morals. You might think vice versa that I’m favoring a confirmation bias for Nihilism or decentralization.
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I reject that notion of an absolute truth as unprovable and necessarily untestable, because of the necessity of relativity (of even information) as I have explained numerous times. My belief is not Nihilism.
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I have explained numerous times (that omniscience is impossible because spacetime is not collapsed into an undifferentiated past and future light cones).
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There’s no right answer about what to do in life, except the one that each person chooses. Yes there are consequences, but there’s no absolute truth by which to measure those outcomes consistent throughout (all space and time and metaphysical dimensions).
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The sheep don’t entertain all the information nor attempt to assimilate as much information as is possible. Therefore, I’m not a sheep.

I... try to contemplate which patterns of culture have been successful. I am information based, not ideologically biased
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This isn’t Nihilism because I believe partial orders do allow observable consequences

Perhaps one reaches peace when they realize they don’t have to get anyone else’s approval for their beliefs, when one is comfortable in their own philosophy even if no one else pats them on the back or joins with them.

These are baby-doll Southdowns, and yes, they’re exactly as cute as they look in this picture. We only have four today on our “farm”, as sheep have a knack for killing themselves in what would almost be comical fashion if it weren’t so sad. We keep them for their so-so wool, which we clean and card and spin and knit. It’s so-so wool because the Southdowns were bred for their meat, not their fleece, and I can’t bring myself to raise an animal for its meat. Well, I could definitely raise birds for meat. Or fish. But not a charismatic mammal like a baby-doll Southdown.

Here’s the thing I’ve learned about sheep over the years. They are never out of sight of each other, and their decision making is entirely driven by what they see happening to others, not to themselves. They are extremely intelligent in this other-regarding way. My sheep roam freely on the farm, and I never worry about them so long as they stay together, which they always do. But if I only count three in the flock, then I immediately go see what’s wrong. Because something is definitely wrong.

That’s the difference between a flock and a pack. A flock is a social structure designed to promote other-awareness. It has no goals, no coordinating purpose other than communication. A flock simply IS. A pack, on the other hand, is a social structure designed to harness self-aware animals in service to some goal requiring joint action — the raising of cubs, the hunting of meat, etc. Both the flock and the pack are extremely effective social structures, but they operate by entirely different logics.

We think we are wolves, living by the logic of the pack.

In truth we are sheep, living by the logic of the flock.

*  *  *

There’s no domesticated animal species that has had more of a reputational fall from grace than the sheep. To call someone a sheep today is just about the worst insult there is. To call someone a sheep is to call them stupid and — more pointedly — stupidly obedient and in thrall to some bad shepherd.

It wasn’t always this way. Jesus isn’t insulting you when He calls you a sheep. The point of all those Biblical allegories isn’t that sheep are stupidly obedient or easily led, but that the healthy life of a willful sheep requires a good shepherd.

Ask anyone who actually keeps sheep. Sheep are weird. Sheep are evolved to have a very different intelligence than humans. But sheep are not stupid. Sheep are not obedient. And sheep are definitely not easily led.

Of course, no one except a dilettante farmer like me keeps sheep today, so all of the Old Stories about sheep and shepherds have lost their punch. They’ve all been diminished through the modern lens of sheep-as-idiot-followers...

Sheep are evolved to have a specific type of intelligence which has the following hallmarks.

Enormous capacity for other-regarding behaviors. Sheep are unbelievably sensitive to what other sheep are doing and their emotional states. If another sheep is happy — i.e., it’s found a good source of food, which is the only thing that makes a sheep happy — then every other sheep in the flock is filled with jealousy (there’s really no other word for it) and will move in on that good thing. If another sheep is alarmed — which can be from almost anything, as bravery is not exactly a trait that tends to be naturally selected in a prey species — then every other sheep in the flock is immediately aware of what’s going on. Sometimes that means that they get alarmed, too. As often, though, it’s just an opportunity to keep going with your own grazing without worrying about the alarmed sheep bumping into your happy place.

Zero altruism and overwhelming selfishness. The most popular misconception about sheep is that they are obedient followers. It’s true that they’re not leaders. It’s true that they are incredibly sensitive to other sheep. But it’s also true that they are the most selfish mammal I’ve ever encountered. They don’t lead other sheep or form leadership structures like a pack because they don’t care about other sheep. Every sheep lives in a universe of One, which makes them just about the most non-obedient creature around.

The determination to pursue any behavior that meets Hallmark #1 and #2 to absurd ends, even unto death. My worst sheep suicide story? The first year we kept sheep, we thought it would make sense to set up a hay net in their pen, which keeps the hay off the ground and lets the sheep feed themselves by pulling hay through the very loose loops of the net. Turned out, though, that the loops were so loose that a determined sheep could put her entire head inside the net, and if one sheep could do that, then two sheep could do that. And given how the hay net was hung and how these sheep were sensing each other, they started to move clockwise in unison, each trying to get an advantage over the other, still with their heads stuck in the net. At which point the net starts to tighten. And tighten. And tighten. My daughter found them the next morning, having strangled each other to death, unable to stop gorging themselves or seeking an advantage from the behavior of others. The other sheep were crowded around, stepping around the dead bodies, pulling hay for themselves out of the net. That was a bad day.

In both markets and in politics, our human intelligences are being trained to be sheep intelligences. That doesn’t make us sheep in the modern vernacular.

We are not becoming docile, stupid, and blindly obedient. On the contrary, we are becoming sheep as the Old Stories understood sheep … intensely selfish, intensely intelligent (but only in an other-regarding way) and intensely dogmatic, willing to pursue a myopic behavior even unto death.
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We need a lot more shame in the world. The loss of our sense of shame is, I think, the greatest loss of our modern world... to put it in sheep logic terms: the tragedy of the flock is that everything is instrumental, including our relationship to others. Including our relationship to ourselves.

Why do we need shame? Because with no sense of shame there is no sense of honor. There is no mercy. There is no charity. There is no forgiveness. There is no loyalty. There is no courage. There is no service. There is no Code. There are no ties that bind us as citizens, as fellow pack members seeking to achieve something bigger and more important than our ability to graze on as much grass as we can. Something like, you know, liberty and justice for all...

This is the Age of the High-Functioning Sociopath. This is the Age of Sheep Logic. We have to survive it, but we don’t have to succumb to it. How do we Resist?
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We resist by changing the System from below, by carving out local spheres of action where we are relentlessly honorable and charitable, relentlessly un-sheeplike. We resist by Making America Good Again, one pack at a time, which is a hell of a lot harder than making America great ever was.
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It's not just doctors who should be preaching the importance of giving up smoking, imams and priests can also get involved, a Christchurch conference has heard.

This was because they often had greater influence over religious followers, Dr Muhammad Aziz Rahman from Australia's La Trobe University told the Public Health Association event.

Pointing to how smoking is "haram" or forbidden in Islam, he said religious messages could work hand-in-hand with scientific facts.

"Quitting smoking should be encouraged in any way possible, and religion can also be a motivating factor," he said.

Dr Rahman told how in 2013 he met with the imam at one of Melbourne's largest mosques and asked him if he could remind his 2000 attendees Islam forbids addiction.

The Imam also spoke during weekly meetings about how strong odours left on the body after smoking can interfere with the prayers of non-smokers during prayer session.

These were coupled with science-based handouts explaining the health benefits of quitting.

Dr Rahman said messages, such as "If health warnings don't motivate you to quit, will the fear of Allah?", really captured the attention of those attending the mosque.

He said similar initiatives could be used in other faith groups or religious communities and could target health issues, such as the importance of breastfeeding or preventing sexually transmitted diseases.

"This is a complementary activity to support existing public health programmes," Dr Rahman said.

People believe in those things because they need to but there is not a single piece of evidence supporting heaven/god. ''On the contrary many people know there is a higher meaning and purpose'' They think they know but it doesn't mean they do. They think the purpose is to go to heaven but they never think what is the purpose once you are in heaven or what is the purpose once you are reincarnated. It doesn't seem to me that there could ever be a good purpose because what happens once you reach it? Perhaps we can't understand it now because our brain is not capable of understanding but imagining gods is not going to do anyone any good.

Quit quoting stuff, do you not have an opinion?

''However, you should know that without higher meaning and purpose science itself becomes corrupt over time and and ultimately dies. '' Bullshit. First of all, no one knows if there is a higher meaning or purpose, as I said, heaven would still have no meaning or purpose. We are where we are thanks to science and a few very smart people. Religion doesn't help, it's useless.

At its most pure and fundamental level knowledge is faith and faith is knowledge.

You have rejected faith and are walking in search of 'light' to dispel darkness from the world. Are you certain you have not made a wrong turn and are instead walking deeper into shadow?

I will stick to science. So far it seems like there is indeed no purpose but who knows, religious people are desperate in trying to find meaning, heaven would still be pointless and will still have no purpose. When you are in heaven, what's your purpose? My assumption is not purely based on faith, it is based on evidence and I agree that science still has a lot more to do.

Briefly, the argument of this book is that real science is dead, and the main reason is that professional researchers are not even trying to seek the truth and speak the truth; and the reason for this is that professional ‘scientists’ no longer believe in the truth - no longer believe that there is an eternal unchanging reality beyond human wishes and organization which they have a duty to seek and proclaim to the best of their (naturally limited) abilities. Hence the vast structures of personnel and resources that constitute modern ‘science’ are not real science but instead merely a professional research bureaucracy, thus fake or pseudo-science; regulated by peer review (that is, committee opinion) rather than the search-for and service-to reality...


A few decades ago one could assume that published work was honest and competent (except in specific cases); now one must assume that published work is dishonest and incompetent (except in specific cases).
A few decades ago one could assume that high status (“successful”) scientists were honest and competent (except in specific cases); now one must assume that famous and powerful scientists are dishonest and incompetent (except in specific cases).
*
Overall it seems that things have gone backwards, and not just slightly.
Yet research activity (personnel, funding, publishing, communicating) have all increased exponentially – doubling in volume every 15 or so years (doubling every decade in medical research. And China has exploded with research activity in the past 10 years).
So there has been massive expansion of inputs with first stagnation then decline of outputs. Something has gone terribly wrong: not just slightly wrong, but terribly wrong.
...
How did we get from useful and real science to useless research bureaucracies generating hype and spin for the public relations industry?
Anyone who has been a scientist for more than 20 years will realize that there has been a progressive, significant and indeed qualitative decline in the honesty of communications between scientists, between scientists and their employing institutions, and between scientists and their institutions and the outside world.
In a nutshell – science has gone from being basically honest to basically dishonest (and in the process gone from being real science to professional research).
...
Scientists are usually too cautious and timid to risk telling outright lies about important things, or to invent and emphasize fake data; but instead they push the envelope of exaggeration, selectivity and distortion as far as possible. And tolerance for this kind of untruthfulness has greatly increased over recent years.
So it is now routine, normal, indeed required behaviour for scientists deliberately to exaggerate, to ‘hype’ the significance of their status and performance, and ‘spin’ the importance of their research.
...

Furthermore, it is entirely normal and unremarkable for ordinary ‘scientists’ to spend their entire professional life doing work they know in their hearts to be trivial or bogus – preferring that which promotes their career over that which has the best chance of advancing science.
...
Indeed, senior scientists in the best places are clever, hard-working and intelligent enough rapidly to become expert at hyping mundane research to create a misleading impression of revolutionary importance. Far from resisting, or fighting, the degradation of science; the senior researchers at the ‘best’ places have led (indeed driven) their subordinates into a morass of corruption..
It is a kind of Gresham’s Law at work; when dishonest research is treated as if it were real science; then bad research drives out the good.

''God ultimately is beyond science.'' Yeah yeah I heard that many times, so is the other thousands of gods. What is the logic that leads to the conclusion that god is real? That same logic could lead to all kind of different gods not to mention to the other hundreds of possibilities (We live in a computer simulation, aliens from another dimension created this universe, this universe creates and destroys itself in a loop, some other force/process created the universe, etc etc)

There is no evidence for any god just like there is no evidence aliens did, quit the bullshit.

Metaphysics is the most important thing in the modern world. But for most modern people metaphysics is gibberish - even worse, metaphysics is boring and irrelevant gibberish...

The usual attitude in English society, as in The West generally, is that the ultimate explanation for everything is a matter of science - of physics, chemistry and biology. It is obvious to everybody that everything began with some kind of big bang as described by physics; with the formation of the stars, solar system, and earth; then chemistry kicked-in until biology emerged; and biology led to plants, animals, intelligence, consciousness then eventually Man - who then developed with the emergence of society, into each of us here and now...

On that basis, there isn't any purpose or meaning to life; and our strivings and relationships are consequences of undirected chance plus past evolutionary pressures. There isn't anything to be said about why we are here, or what we 'ought' to do. Things just are as they are; and no conclusions can be drawn about anything.

Hence the pervasive nihilism of modernity, and the consequent undercurrent of despair. Our dissatisfaction with the pointless futility of everything can be explained, but never gratified.

But, we need to be clear that the above scenario is not a discovery but an assumption. The physics, chemistry, biology explanation did not come from science; instead modern science came from that explanation. Modern science operates within the metaphysical assumption that only modern science is real - nothing else exists.

Science cannot discover any meaning or purpose - neither can science disprove the reality of meaning and purpose; because meaning and purpose are excluded from science by its founding assumptions.

For example, there is no point in trying to claim that random chance plus Natural Selection is insufficient to explain the full range of observed phenomena; because these are the only permissible explanations within modern biology. Anything not currently understood on the basis of randomness and selection is merely something for which the evidence is not yet available.  

Upon such foundations are constructed the entire structure of the modern world - in other words, the modern world in all its vast complexity has no foundations. None At All.

It is this Big Secret which is denied and defended by the vast apparatus of distractions and lies which form modern society and culture. The Big Secret is that there is nothing and no reason and no point to anything...

The most important first step in the modern world is to reveal modern metaphysical assumptions as being assumptions.

That might be easy, if it was acknowledged that there are metaphysical assumptions, but 150 years of philosophical discussion has concluded that the distinguishing feature of modern 'scientific' thought is that it has no metaphysical assumptions - but that it is empirical and purely evidence-based. Having metaphysics is regarded as obsolete religious obfuscation - modern Man is too hard-nosed to be 'fooled' by metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.

So modern opinion denies the validity of metaphysical discussion: modern opinion denies that it has any fundamental assumptions at all - it is merely practical, merely trying to 'make life better', just 'getting on with the job' instead of wasting time and confusing or manipulating people with airy-fairy nonsense about 'metaphysics'.

This is why the modern predicament has proved so difficult to solve. The problem is buried at the foundation, but the conventional wisdom is that there are no foundations.

If metaphysical assumptions were acknowledged as real and inevitable, then we would have a good chance of changing them. But since they are regarded as imaginary - then we seem to be stuck with modern metaphysics.

And modern metaphysics is killing us - but, more importantly, damning us.

...Is a metaphysical one - not a matter of 'evidence'. And that insight (metaphysics not evidence) is the first step.

The situation is that Life is a mixed-picture: the decision is whether Life is validated by its best moments or times; or destroyed by its worst.

As I said, evidence does not help - the question is not quantitative. This is a matter of primary assumption.

And the question is not answerable in isolation - Life can only be validated if Life has 'meaning'; and the nature of validation depends on the nature of that meaning.

On the other hand, if you have already accepted that life has no meaning - is merely determined, or random - then you have already made your Big Decision. (Whether implicitly or explicitly) your basic assumptions ensure that for you Life is defined by its worst aspects - indeed the single, most extreme worst-of-Life is the truth-of-Life (both for individuals, and en masse).

Nothing can be done for you - because any possible Good will be negated by One Bad Thing - even when that Bad is merely the evanescence of Good.

On the other hand; if you understand, and live-by, the conviction that the best of Life is the truth of life (despite that this cannot be continuous) - then you have indomitable strength, assurance, and hope.

What's interesting is how dishonest you are. Your starting point is assuming god exists and you try to prove his existence desperately although no real science man agrees with anything you say.