Miscellaneous Chatter > General Misc.

Explaining Bakker

<< < (2/8) > >>

Baztek:
Bakker's ideas are fairly straightforward, but readability is a whole other story. Sitting down and reading a blog post of his from start to finish is as about as fun as pinching a loaf when you're constipated: it feels great when you're done, but there's a whole lotta grunting and pushing to get there. I never read his blog anymore and frankly I only keep it bookmarked for TUC updates.

Not to be the typical unsatisfied fantasy fan, but I think he'd get a lot more done if he didn't write mammoth dissertations on theories of the mind that only his userbase reads anyway. Like whatever, it's his life, who the fuck am I to tell him what to do etc, but the guy has a great knack for philosophically dense stories and I think a lot of that productivity is getting channeled into more fruitless endeavors.

Wilshire:
Yeah I would agree that the judgment passed was a bit harsh. Sure his stuff isn't a breeze to read, but there is no rule that it has to be. It isn't a scientific article and should lose points because of that fact. It might not be what one generally reads, but just because you dislike how it is written doesn't mean it is garbage.

Callan S.:

--- Quote from: Bakker User on April 21, 2013, 09:33:55 am ---That's rather unfair, and avoids much of their responses.
--- End quote ---
I think my responce left some room for appeal and discussion, rather than just being a concluding judgement.

If it didn't and just seemed just a concluding judgement from me, okay, fair enough you responding with a concluding judgement yourself.

Okay, your judgement that it's just unfair (case closed) is heard and that you offer no appeal process is recognised.


--- Quote ---Their issue here seems primarily to be with Bakker's language and the way he presents his ideas.
--- End quote ---
I talked about it, but it just turned out to be unfair.

It takes two to tango - writer AND reader. I think you're quote just looks at one side as if they handle all of the dance themselves. I say that with room to appeal though, let me make clear this time.


--- Quote ---
--- Quote ---is taking the easy way out - he's trying to appear reasonable by wanting the whole thing, with complete research and writing up, explained to him. Or he'll ignore it.
--- End quote ---
My impression is that a mere rewording of Bakker would be more fruitful than these sorts of aspersions.
--- End quote ---
I certainly projected my values onto it. That doesn't mean the physical actions I describe aren't happening.

But if the rule is that if I'm not completely affirming then I'll be dismissed, okay. But if I'm completely affirming, then everyones right (well, except Bakker).


--- Quote ---
--- Quote ---Pride is the main issue here. No one wants to take a random document out of the blue and let it shame by them acknowledging 'hey, some bits make sense, so there's some legitimacy to it, but I don't understand alot of it - oh, I guess that reduces my hard earned legitimacy somewhat?'. Who wants to hand over their legitimacy to a random scrap of paper? Really?
--- End quote ---

Is one obliged to respect what seems to one like incoherent ramblings? Which is more effective in writing, engagement or alienation?
--- End quote ---
Obliged by some sort of god being? Or obliged by a recognition that tons of ideas that have atleast been scientifically proved in history have been dismissed as incoherant ramblings before that, by many people?

That a cursory look at history shows that time and time again sufficiently advanced truth can appear to many as incoherant rambles? And there's really not much to make it clear that oneself is going to be immune to that effect?

You can argue I'm wrong and nobodies every treated an eventually scientifically proven idea as incoherant rambling. If so I atleast agree you're consistant with how you see history.

But if you agree rather than argue that, well what, are you advocating that these people you know will be the ones who are immune to what many others have succumbed to in the past - seeing a coherant idea as incoherant?

Otherwise they are obliged by intellectual honesty to treat themselves as potentially sucumbing to the 'incoherant ramblings' effect.


--- Quote ---At any rate, neither you nor I can rebuke another for perceived pridefulness without coming off, as Bakker might put it, as "Hitler condemning Jesus Christ for hatefulness".
--- End quote ---
Okay?

So there was a rebuke somewhere? An implication that someone simply MUST change their behaviour? Perhaps you're saying from me?

To me, you've come in with a problem, like a guy bringing in a car to a garage - I'm just a mechanic. You think the problem is X, I tell you it's Y. When I tell you it's Y, it's my technical evaluation - not a finger waving proclamation of how thou must live. You can take your car to another garage. In a way, I'm indifferent if you don't care to engage the services of my garage. I was just offering a quote.

Never mind I have to wonder at christianities death toll total over the ages, compared to hitlers score. But damn I'm stupid to wonder such things and obviously start fighting a discussion war on a second front as well as the first. And yet...intellectually I'm compelled to wonder.


--- Quote ---1. Whether there's not anything in my expatiation or in Bakker's writings directly which they can more or less grasp.
--- End quote ---
If I sounded like I was giving aspersions before, I wouldn't put it this way!

Do you see any components, like heuristic compression, which make some amount of sense to you? Then just talk about what makes some amount of sense to you first, before putting forth documents - that's just part of regular discussion.


--- Quote ---2. Whether any of it seems interesting to consider (given their purviews) from Bakker's or even another's/their own perspective.
3. Whether there's not anything insightful or plausible in Bakker's evidences, given what they know about the brain.

I'll try that out next week, if possible.

Also, I ought to have noted that one of the above is not actually a native speaker of English! You can probably guess which one: they complained that "wow, my vocabulary is not that big"...

--- End quote ---
Vocabulary is just a compression method as well, to say more with fewer words. It's like a trade off, reader wise - make it less verbose, but it becomes longer, and people get bored before reading (applies to me as well!), verses concise vocab, makes it shorter, but starts falling down in immediate understanding with various sizes of audiences (size in proportion to vocab).

Then again maybe short vocab is Bakker being lazy as well, making him have to write less - it cuts that way too! Mind you, hey, he's gotta write us books, aye! Instead of all this brain wankery! ;) Joking!

Callan S.:

--- Quote from: Wilshire on April 21, 2013, 02:29:45 pm ---There is not a lot of fluff. Not a lot of confusing dialect and complex sentence structure. The only thing that may be confusing are the terms that are very specific to the research itself, and these things are usually explained in the appendix, accompanied by all the references they used for their work.

--- End quote ---
So how do you explain this thing alot of us seem to be going through, often called conciousness? In a clinical fashion?

I mean, that our skull is full of synapses has been known for ages. But has that stopped ideas like dualism?

If the idea of conciousness was littered with fluff (never mind if the idea of conciousness itself is fluff), you'd have to include the fluff in order to reference it and begin to dismantle it.

It's a difficult situation. What do scientific works which pertain to dismantling superstitions through scientific testing refer to? Don't they refer to the superstitious fluff at various points?

Wilshire:
Oh I've no idea how to go about it as I explained. Not a clue. I was merely trying to say that the way it is presented is more philosophical than scientific. Nothing is wrong with that, but if you ask a scientist to read it then they will likely give you a disappointing response.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page