This is where my frustration comes in, I have already answered this posted a video and explained my point.

Look to any who think I am being condescending look down from your soap box, go back and actually read my descriptions and then get back to me. I am starting to think I am the only person who reads each post 5 times before responding and edits my post till its right . . .

Abra I also already referenced chemistry, and yes chemistry has a lot to do with natural selection, it is not natural selection in and of itself but any chemical bonds that extend the survival of the organism would be selected against.

Natural selection does not require life, a non living structure that has yet to acquire every aspect that we reserve the definition of life for can reproduce asexually and pass on that extended survival traits.

I advised reading Blind watch maker, that is a great laymen book on evolution.

The following are great and informative books on abiogensis.

Technical "Genetic Takeover" A. G. Cairns-Smith
Layman's "Seven Clues to the Origin of Life. "Cairns-Smith, A.G.

Or for those with physics education or that don't mind a lot of referencing . . . : "Energy and the Evolution of Life." Fox, Ronald W.

This stuff is the the most beautiful and most cutting edge of science today in biology, and it is a bit frustrating to have folks say things like how can anyone know . . . . or make stuff up and hold that up next to this as just as possible when this has taken our best and brightest 150 years to iron out . . . its a bit frustrating yes, so I will apologize if I hurt anyone's sensibilities, but this stuff is important to me.

Thank you Billy. I respect your scientific approach.

After having thought about the subject of knowledge and the difference between knowledge and knowing I realize that I may have been thinking of pure knowing rather than academic knowledge.

Academic knowledge is probably attained by reading and studying and going to school and experimenting etc. It is not related to instinct and knowing.

JB

And I too must apologize as I realize that your scientific foundations are no less important to you than my philosophical foundations are to me. The fact that we disagree on the definitions of many of the most important words used to discuss this subject (life, consciousness, knowledge, observer, etc.) means that we could hardly reach the conclusions when using them.

Regarding the scientific, "You da man", and I say that with respect and admiration. And I must acknowledge that the topic name and the OP exactly answer any disagreement we've had.

I don't know JB, this kind of talk can be upsetting to many students of science. And I'll tell you why.

Your statement above is an insult to students (although it may be true of many of them!). It implies that students are just blind zombies who put complete and utter faith in what their professors say, and read their textbooks like as if they are little bibles that they must place complete faith in.

That's is an utter insult to REAL STUDENTS!

Sure, there are probably a lot of people who do just that. They just want to get a frigg'in degree and they truly don't care about knowing anything!

In fact, the sad part is most of those people actually do get degrees and end up either working as air-head scientists, or air-head college professors teaching subject that truly don't even understand! They merely have a superfical memory of facts without truly understanding why they are true.

I think this flies in the face of people like myself and Billy, and many other students who have a very sincere interest in actually understanding what's going on.

We don't just take the professors word for ANYTHING! Neither do we just rotely memorize facts from stupid textbooks.

We ask questions and confront everything that is presented to us.

I can't tell you how many times I've go into the lab and performed experiments myselfs because I didn't believe the professors or textbooks!

And then I would see for myself why these things must be true!

Now, clearly you can't do that with everything. But you can keep researching specific things until you either find a source that explains it in a way that you finally do understand it and don't need to merely accept it on faith. Or you continue to question it until you can prove that conventional knowledge is not true.

What I've found is that proving that conventional knowledge is not true is not easy!

In fact, if you can do that you win a Nobel Prize!

But yes, to claim that academic students are just a bunch of air-heads being brainwashed by professors and textbooks it truly an insult to REAL scientists.

That might be true for a lot of people who just want to get degrees, but it's not true for the students who have a genuine drive to understand the nature of things.

So to just lump all 'academic students' into one barrel of brainwashed air-heads who have no clue of reality is truly a slap in the face to those few students who are innately curious scientists.

Don't knock scientists just because there are a lot of air-heads seeking superficial degrees in our educational system.

For a true scientist, it about a lot more than just reading textbooks.

It's about asking questions untill you are fully satisfied that the answers must be true.

You don't need to do that to get a degree.

To get a degree all you need to do is memorize the answer to questions.

They could be a list of total lies.

If you match up the right lie to the right question you win a degree.

That's not science.

That's just the pathetic state of our educational system.

But it does produce some air-heads who have credentials that allow them to claim that they are 'scientists'.

That's a sad truth for sure.

As soon as there is an acceptable definition for the thread participants as to what constitutes knowledge let me know.

Real students would not get insulted by that, only blind zombies who put complete and utter faith in what their professors say, and read their textbooks like as if they are little bibles that they must place complete faith in would be insulted by that.

JB

I have had discussions in which the topic of conversation was a scientific theory, and the other side of the debate refused to accept the piece of the scientist himself as compelling evidence...

So what do I know?



However you choose to define knowledge, one comes to know it by experience.

For all here...

How did you learn of what you speak?

Hi Michael... I am reading one of the Toltec books at the moment, and I like the author's version of knowledge...

(it's all lies we made up, to feel important).

If I understand what you are saying Abra. A student when tested can have a different answer than what the test requires and still get that answer right?

If not then is not the student going against his belief to satisfy the curriculem?

then the structure of the class has become mayhem?

Ahhh...

Hiya Lee...

The Voice of Knowledge???

A wonderful read indeed...

The Four Agreements is my personal fav.

I stilled the babble of the mind.... and became nothing.

In this Now.

Isn't it amazing how each and every one of us thinks we need to feel important?

Yes!

And The Four Agreements also...

this is a reread, some ten years after the original read... I like going to sleep with a smile on my dial.

I catch myself doing that!

It's hilarious, and like the naughty child ole ego is, it gets a scolding...and sent to it's room.

Amen!

Although that's not even the worst of it IMO. The current "no child left behind" mindset has essentially guaranteed that a percentage of high school graduates will be functionally illiterate. Talk about producing mindless airheads. That's really scary.

ok let's "divide" it this way, what you "think" is imaginary
and what you experience - is processed cranially by thinking
so that is imaginary as well.

now thinking is real because we experience it and
experience is real because it enters our consciousness.

so, who cares? it's all real and all imaginary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29pPZQ77cmI

So what is the difference between "real" and "imaginary" then?

Yes, I know that the classic answer for that is "there is no difference".

But that answer has no practical application. It cannot be used to resolve anything. It doesn't answer the key question, which really is "Why do we think there's a difference?

There must be some reason for thinking they are different. There must be some basis for the fact that "reality", as considered by two different people can have both points of "identity" and points of "separateness".

As I see it, the common denominator is "agreement".

There are things that we agree on ("the world is round", "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction", "I am"). Those things are "real".

And there are things that we do not agree on ("purple dragons", "Santa Claus", "The Great Pumpkin"). Those things are "not real".

This "reality as agreement" is the only practical way to differentiate between "real" and "imaginary".

Yes, of course there are those that will insist that there are things that are "real" regardless whether you agree with them or not.

And that's ok because that's thier reality.

Edit:

Skyhook, I agree where it concerns this "illusion of reality."

You said:



The bottom line is we decide what is real and what is not.


An agreement only makes it "more real" and it makes us feel good too.

It also gives stability and integrity to this illusion of reality.




I agree completely.