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Failed_Buddhist's profile
Failed Buddhist
Failed Buddhist
Failed Buddhist
@Failed_Buddhist

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Failed Buddhist

@Failed_Buddhist

Human, student, non-Buddhist Buddhist, intellectual masochist. Confident only of my own ignorance. Don't believe anything I say.

thefailedbuddhist.wordpress.com
Joined January 2017

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    1. Failed Buddhist‏ @Failed_Buddhist May 3
      Replying to @Plinz @michaelgarfield and

      Um... I don't disagree with that. Are we talking about specific gnostic practices, or the crazies who tend to teach them? Those are two different conversations. Newton was as close to a quack as anyone. Yet calculus is one of the greatest discoveries/inventions in human history.

      1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
    2. Joscha Bach‏ @Plinz May 3
      Replying to @Failed_Buddhist @michaelgarfield and

      I don't think that an idea can be tainted by the one who has it. But by the same account, no idea can be accepted without having a pretty good idea about why it should be treated as truth.

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    3. Failed Buddhist‏ @Failed_Buddhist May 3
      Replying to @Plinz @michaelgarfield and

      That's correct - I wasn't arguing otherwise. (And by the same token, you can't judge the validity of an experiential claim (e.g. if use your attention in X way, you will observe Y result) until you've followed those instructions.)

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    4. Joscha Bach‏ @Plinz May 3
      Replying to @Failed_Buddhist @michaelgarfield and

      The teaching of practices is of course a very different thing than the teaching of ontological, moral or ethical precepts.

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    5. Failed Buddhist‏ @Failed_Buddhist May 3
      Replying to @Plinz @michaelgarfield and

      My claim is that there are practices that can give you access to observations that cannot be accessed by looking through a scanning electron microscope, carrying out a statistical analysis, or deriving a conclusion from a set of axioms.

      2 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
    6. Joscha Bach‏ @Plinz May 3
      Replying to @Failed_Buddhist @michaelgarfield and

      Absolutely, and each observation has to be explained. The frame of the explanation itself cannot be generated by divine revelation.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    7. Failed Buddhist‏ @Failed_Buddhist May 3
      Replying to @Plinz @michaelgarfield and

      Explanations are constrained by language. Some things can't be understood no matter how well it's explained (e.g. what a headache feels like). The issue with mystics is they try to explain gnostic knowledge in the same terms physicists explain electrons. This causes confusion.

      1 reply 1 retweet 2 likes
    8. Failed Buddhist‏ @Failed_Buddhist May 3
      Replying to @Failed_Buddhist @Plinz and

      Ex: Claims made in Vipassana are inherently experiential. Thus they can only be understood by experience. Nothing divine about it. In vipassana, you learn the nature of experience. In science, you learn how physical systems behave/function. They are completely separate projects.

      2 replies 1 retweet 2 likes
    9. Joscha Bach‏ @Plinz May 3
      Replying to @Failed_Buddhist @michaelgarfield and

      I tend to disagree. Science is simply the systematic, criticizable pursuit of knowledge. The nature of experience is a kind of knowledge, and separation is not the right way. Vipassana may have a scientific and a practical and a cultural aspect.

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
    10. Failed Buddhist‏ @Failed_Buddhist May 3
      Replying to @Plinz @michaelgarfield and

      That's actually a fair point, and I happen to think that vipassana is a scientific practice, insofar as what you're doing is testing empirical hypotheses about the nature of mind. The methods of experimental methodology are just different from those of "Western" science.

      2 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
      Failed Buddhist‏ @Failed_Buddhist May 3
      Replying to @Failed_Buddhist @Plinz and

      I tend to make the distinction because contemplative study cannot quite utilize the process of peer-review or logical or statistical reasoning. You can't arrive at gnostic knowledge through data, or information in general, because the knowledge isn't a matter of information.

      7:23 PM - 3 May 2018
      • 1 Retweet
      • 1 Like
      • Mimetïc Value
      1 reply 1 retweet 1 like
        1. New conversation
        2. Joscha Bach‏ @Plinz May 3
          Replying to @Failed_Buddhist @michaelgarfield and

          Science is not defined by methods but by being methodical. Introspection must be accepted as an important paradigm in cognitive science, and even when only have to explain the phenomenon of people reporting a phenomenon we must do so.

          3 replies 1 retweet 5 likes
        3. Failed Buddhist‏ @Failed_Buddhist May 3
          Replying to @Plinz @michaelgarfield and

          Try telling that to Dawkins, or Dennett, or... pretty much any big-time scientist or philosopher with a sizable influence in the intellectual public sphere.

          2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        4. Joscha Bach‏ @Plinz May 3
          Replying to @Failed_Buddhist @michaelgarfield and

          I think they would fully agree! They may just hesitate to take all conclusions of spiritual teachers at face value, before being convinced of the merits of their arguments and interpretations.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
        5. Mimetïc Value‏ @MimeticValue May 3
          Replying to @Plinz @Failed_Buddhist and

          I've seen a lot of IYI nonsense from Dawkins, Dennett, and Pinker. I don't think I could ever take any of the seriously.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        6. Joscha Bach‏ @Plinz May 3
          Replying to @MimeticValue @Failed_Buddhist and

          As an undergrad, I got introduced to a number of groundbreaking ideas by the books and lectures of all three of them. These ideas are still considered to be mostly true today! I owe them a great debt.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
        7. Mimetïc Value‏ @MimeticValue May 4
          Replying to @Plinz @Failed_Buddhist and

          I've never read them. They just sounded really stupid on video, making some very basic logical errors. I used to like Sam Harris until I found Taleb, who I derived far more utility from.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        8. Dan Garfield‏ @danlistensto May 4
          Replying to @MimeticValue @Plinz and

          Dawkins in particular specializes in sounding stupid on video. I do recommend reading The Selfish Gene and maybe also The Ancestor's Tale. His writings on evolutionary biology are quite good. I enjoyed Pinker's book The Language Instinct. Haven't been impressed by his others.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
        9. Dan Garfield‏ @danlistensto May 4
          Replying to @danlistensto @MimeticValue and

          Dennett has written tons of short articles and I can't recall off the top of my head which is the best starting point, but it's worth learning his perspective. I strongly disagree with his reductionist stance but he articulates that stances very well.

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
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