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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 8

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The QWERTY layout was designed to keep common letter sequences apart to avoid keys jamming together on early mechanical typewriters. :p
Not exactly either apparently:

"By 1873, the typewriter had 43 keys and a decidedly counter-intuitive arrangement of letters that supposedly helped ensure the expensive machines wouldn’t break down."

Read more: Fact of Fiction? The Legend of the QWERTY Keyboard | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian

So there is the claim of the arrangement being "decidedly counter-intuitive" to prevent maintenance issues, as opposed to "decidedly efficient" to increase speed, the inference being that slower typing means longer lasting, and not necessarily because of jamming. So maybe a bit of both theories in there, especially since the same people who created the layout started the training classes, and it was primarily women who were doing the typing.

Either way, there's the proof it wasn't accidental, not that it invalidates @Michael Allen's point ( it doesn't. It's just trivia ).
 
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Not exactly either apparently:

"By 1873, the typewriter had 43 keys and a decidedly counter-intuitive arrangement of letters that supposedly helped ensure the expensive machines wouldn’t break down."

Read more: Fact of Fiction? The Legend of the QWERTY Keyboard | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian

So there is the claim of the arrangement being "decidedly counter-intuitive" to prevent maintenance issues ( as opposed to "decidedly efficient" to increase speed ), the inference being that slower typing means longer lasting, and not necessarily because of jamming. So maybe a bit of both theories in there, especially since the same people who created the layout started the training classes, and it was primarily women who were doing the typing.

Either way, there's the proof it wasn't accidental, not that it invalidates @Michael Allen's point ( it doesn't. It's just trivia ).
To clarify my point is that other scrambled layouts would have accomplished the same goal...the one chosen was simply arbitrary ...frozen in time. The reason for the scrambling is not the same as the complete justification of the outcome...to explain fully one must ask why QWERTY as opposed to the millions (or billions) of other options ...AZERTY...BZERTY..CZERTY ....GFERTY....etc
 
I heard someplace ( perhaps it's an urban myth ) that the placement of keys on a QWERTY keyboard was intentional rather than accidental. The story is that it is because the secretaries of the day were able to type faster than their male bosses could dictate, it resulted in an ego problem for them, so rather than the bosses improving their ability to think and talk coherently, they had the keyboards specifically designed to slow down their secretaries ... Men ... :rolleyes: ... I'm one of them and I still roll my eyes at that ( if it's true ).

Anyway, unlike the rest of the nitwits here, I'm also egotistical enough to think I get what you're saying, and IMO it all adds up to the same situation it always does, which is a matter of context or perspective. Within some span along the timeline, caused events are the result of intention, but within a wider span, intention is itself the result of unintentional processes. So the paradox is the result of an awareness of temporal elements within our worldview, state of existence, Dasein, Exisistenz ( take your pick ). Consequently, this naturally leads to the idea that consciousness is an emergent phenomena.


The act of scrambling was intentional (yes I am familiar...but different..I was told that the old mechanical typewriters jammed and so ...etc) but the final result was just one out of 4.03 x 10^26 possibilities. Humans have not found 4.0329146....x 10^26 - 1 reasons why the other configurations were not chosen, and yet the one that counts exists. This is my point. Regarding consciousness as an "emergent phenomenon" we much refer back to the roots of what we consider "emergent" and realize that its notion is presumed by the very "consciousness" we are trying to understand.
 
Sorry, I'm not following your last few posts, but I can agree up to a point with this sentence: "Regarding the 'In-itself' notion, there is no such thing as 'self-contained and fully realized Being'." We do, however, know be-ing.
Be-ing is activity and interactivity, apparently generated from the q substrate upward, producing habits of interaction and entanglement in nature out of which we have evolved and develop. What 'Being' as a Whole is, or might be, is not on offer in most of our experiences. There might be occasional exceptions, senses, intuitions. For the most part we cannot know, in our temporally situated, spatially limited experience, the whole within which we are contained, from which we have been produced. Not sure I can see it as a paradox. It is what it is.

So what are your thoughts about Schopenhauer?
I really like Schopenhauer's essay "On Noise" -- his magnum opus:
Arthur Schopenhauer – On Noise | Genius

;)

He's a bit too dismissive of Hegel...but that's just my first reaction (yes I am biased). Other than that his works are a breath of fresh air for those looking for a few rays of common sense to emerge from that period.

Other than that I cannot comment.
 
The act of scrambling was intentional (yes I am familiar...but different..I was told that the old mechanical typewriters jammed and so ...etc) but the final result was just one out of 4.03 x 10^26 possibilities. Humans have not found 4.0329146....x 10^26 - 1 reasons why the other configurations were not chosen, and yet the one that counts exists. This is my point. Regarding consciousness as an "emergent phenomenon" we much refer back to the roots of what we consider "emergent" and realize that its notion is presumed by the very "consciousness" we are trying to understand.


To be clear, it is almost absolutely certain that human beings have not published 4.03.... X 10^26 (exact integer which I will not write)) minus ONE reasons why the other configurations were abandoned for the final (-2 if you accept Dvorak as a viable contender)
 
Ha if you are "picking on me" I wouldn't know but I honestly can't make heads or tails of your posts.

If you have answered my question I wouldn't know.

I agree that the hp is not a true paradox but I'm not sure if my reasons for thinking this are the same as your reasons.

As far as what I mean by order;, I was essentially referring to classical physical causation.

Causality (physics) - Wikipedia

If matter is not primary but rather consciousness is, then it follows that our notions of causality are that, mere notions.

Well, yes...that is saying a lot. Mere notions that emerge from a background that supercedes both "consciousness" and its "notions"...and that includes "causality"
But this is like saying that being is "mere" being in the end

The perceived order of reality is attributed to causality but if causality just is a second order representation how then do we account for perceived order?

Another way of asking this is: if the perceived laws of physics just are human inventions than how do we explain the apparent order of our experiences.

As we cannot perceptually nor epistemologically access the noumenal, then we cannot access the "laws" by which the noumenal differentiates and evolves, right?

Simple because the human inventions did not occur without an interaction with something that was not them. Using Hegel's razor (in the Introduction) we can mistrust the very mistrust of our own medium of cognition, but we cannot say that such is infallible truth against the absolute when we've already demarcated the absolute and confined it into the realm of "noumenal." A layman's way of looking at this is most comical (unlesss you resolve to solipsism): i.e. that the structure of your experience (the uniqueness) would necessarily lie withing another's "noumenal" domain. If you are able to live in the world, the access to the laws are proven by the organic unity of your own continued existence. Even the most blatant and avowed "materialist" would admit such a fact. Or we fall into the trap (again, Hegel's razor in the Introduction of Phenomenology of Spirit) of saying that our continued struggle for existence in no way requires knowing or access to the very objects that sustain our existence.

Since I keep citing Hegel's razor...I might as well quote it here (never forget it...memorize it...lol)


(73)....
This apprehensiveness is sure to pass even into the conviction that the whole enterprise which sets out to secure for consciousness by means of knowledge what exists per se, is in its very nature absurd; and that between knowledge and the Absolute there lies a boundary which completely cuts off the one from the other. For if knowledge is the instrument by which to get possession of absolute Reality, the suggestion immediately occurs that the application of an instrument to anything does not leave it as it is for itself, but rather entails in the process, and has in view, a moulding and alteration of it. Or, again, if knowledge is not an instrument which we actively employ, but a kind of passive medium through which the light of the truth reaches us, then here, too, we do not receive it as it is in itself, but as it is through and in this medium. In either case we employ a means which immediately brings about the very opposite of its own end; or, rather, the absurdity lies in making use of any means at all. It seems indeed open to us to find in the knowledge of the way in which the instrument operates, a remedy for this parlous state; for thereby it becomes possible to remove from the result the part which, in our idea of the Absolute received through that instrument, belongs to the instrument, and thus to get the truth in its purity. But this improvement would, as a matter of fact, only bring us back to the point where we were before. If we take away again from a definitely formed thing that which the instrument has done in the shaping of it, then the thing (in this case the Absolute) stands before us once more just as it was previous to all this trouble, which, as we now see, was superfluous. If the Absolute were only to be brought on the whole nearer to us by this agency, without any change being wrought in it, like a bird caught by a limestick, it would certainly scorn a trick of that sort, if it were not in its very nature, and did it not wish to be, beside us from the start. For a trick is what knowledge in such a case would be, since by all its busy toil and trouble it gives itself the air of doing something quite different from bringing about a relation that is merely immediate, and so a waste of time to establish. Or, again, if the examination of knowledge, which we represent as a medium, makes us acquainted with the law of its refraction, it is likewise useless to eliminate this refraction from the result. For knowledge is not the divergence of the ray, but the ray itself by which the truth comes in contact with us; and if this be removed, the bare direction or the empty place would alone be indicated.

74. Meanwhile, if the fear of falling into error introduces an element of distrust into science, which without any scruples of that sort goes to work and actually does know, it is not easy to understand why, conversely, a distrust should not be placed in this very distrust, and why we should not take care lest the fear of error is not just the initial error. As a matter of fact, this fear presupposes something, indeed a great deal, as truth, and supports its scruples and consequences on what should itself be examined beforehand to see whether it is truth. It starts with ideas of knowledge as an instrument, and as a medium; and presupposes a distinction of ourselves from this knowledge. More especially it takes for granted that the Absolute [noumena] stands on one side, and that knowledge on the other side, by itself and cut off from the Absolute, [and yet] is still something real; in other words, that knowledge, which, by being outside the Absolute, is certainly also outside truth, is nevertheless true — a position which, while calling itself fear of error, makes itself known rather as fear of the truth.
75. This conclusion comes from the fact that the Absolute alone is true or that the True is alone absolute, It may be set aside by making the distinction that a know ledge which does not indeed know the Absolute as science wants to do, is none the less true too; and that knowledge in general, though it may possibly be incapable of grasping the Absolute, can still be capable of truth of another kind. But we shall see as we proceed that random talk like this leads in the long run to a confused distinction between the absolute truth and a truth of some other sort, and that “absolute”, “knowledge”, and so on, are words which presuppose a meaning that has first to be got at.


============

Schopenhauer should have dropped his pen for a few moments and attempted to parse this magnificent rebuttal to Kant. But I understand...I hated Hegel too once upon a time.

*shakes head*
 
I really like Schopenhauer's essay "On Noise" -- his magnum opus: Arthur Schopenhauer – On Noise | Genius ...
Interesting to note that the most irritating sound for him was the crack of a whip, in those days used to increase the speed of your horse, and that the same theme has endured time, manifesting itself in the sudden screams of motorcycles or modified Japanese street racers speeding down my street at night while I'm trying to concentrate. I shouldn't forget to include the ones that have some ridiculously powerful rivet loosening, weld cracking, foundation shaking boom-box bolted to the bottom of their back-end. Now somewhat ironically, with Tesla we have electric vehicles so quiet that laws are being considered to require them to emit noise to disturb those unaware of their presence.
 
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... Since I keep citing Hegel's razor...I might as well quote it here (never forget it...memorize it...lol)... For if knowledge is the instrument by which to get possession of absolute Reality, the suggestion immediately occurs that the application of an instrument to anything does not leave it as it is for itself, but rather entails in the process, and has in view, a moulding and alteration of it ...
Interesting how we have there what is essentially in essence the observer effect: Observer effect (physics) - Wikipedia

BTW: Just curious @Michael Allen Are you still into music? Got any samples we can listen to?
 
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Yes...I have a soundcloud profile with some keyboard works - Channel: Sketch 20170123.0918 by Zod Sokarad #np on #SoundCloud
Cool. Thanks for that. There are times I wonder if the prevalence of musicianship among those interested in the paranormal is more than coincidental. I don't see how it could be anything other than coincidence, but just the style of the electronic piece reminds me a lot of stuff I mess with myself. I picked up a used Roland FP2 at Value Village last year to brush-up a bit with and it's been very enjoyable. But you've also got some impressive classical chops down. Beautiful stuff :cool: .
 
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From: Psychological Observations

"In the moment when a great affliction overtakes us, we are hurt to find that the world about us is unconcerned and goes its own way. As Goethe says in Tasso, how easily it leaves us helpless and alone, and continues its course like the sun and the moon and the other gods:

. . . die Welt, wie sie so leicht,
Uns hülflos, einsam lässt, und ihren Weg,
Wie Sonn’ und Mond und andre Götter geht.

Nay more! it is something intolerable that even we ourselves have to go on with the mechanical round of our daily business, and that thousands of our own actions are and must be unaffected by the pain that throbs within us. And so, to restore the harmony between our outward doings and our inward feelings, we storm and shout, and tear our hair, and stamp with pain or rage.

Our temperament is sodespotic that we are not satisfied unless we draw everything into our own life, and force all the world to sympathise with us. The only way of achieving this would be to win the love of others, so that the afflictions which oppress our own hearts might oppress theirs as well. Since that is attended with some difficulty, we often choose the shorter way, and blab out our burden of woe to people who do not care, and listen with curiosity, but without sympathy, and much oftener with satisfaction.

Speech and the communication of thought, which, in their mutual relations, are always attended by a slight impulse on the part of the will, are almost a physical necessity. Sometimes, however, the lower animals entertain me much more than the average man. For, in the first place, what can such a man say? It is only conceptions, that is, the driest of ideas, that can be communicated by means of words; and what sort of conceptions has the average man to communicate, if he does not merely tell a story or give a report, neither of which makes conversation? The greatest charm of conversation is the mimetic part of it — the character that is manifested, be it never so little. Take the best of men; how little he can say of what goes on within him, since it is only conceptions that are communicable; and yet a conversation with a clever man is one of the greatest of pleasures.

It is not only that ordinary men have little to say, but what intellect they have puts them in the way of concealing and distorting it; and it is the necessity of practising this concealment that gives them such a pitiable character; so that what they exhibit is not even the little that they have, but a mask and disguise. The lower animals, which have no reason, can conceal nothing; they are altogether naïve, and therefore very entertaining, if we have only an eye for the kind of communications which they make. They speak not with words, but with shape and structure, and manner of life, and the things they set about; they express themselves, to an intelligent observer, in a very pleasing and entertaining fashion. It is a varied life that is presented to him, and one that in its manifestation is very different from his own; and yet essentially it is the same. He sees it in its simple form, when reflection is excluded; for with the lower animals life is lived wholly in and for the present moment: it is the present that the animal grasps; it has no care, or at least no conscious care, for the morrow, and no fear of death; and so it is wholly taken up with life and living."
 
Wonderful. Thank you. I especially enjoyed the Chopin and the Ravel. You're a gifted musician. What kind of piano do you have? Also, what is the name or opus number of the Ravel? I'd like to hear the whole piece. Luminous.

Thank you :)

I play everything on a Yamaha DGX 650. The Ravel piece is from the Miroirs suite...#3. "Une barque sur l'ocean" It is a work in progress.



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This conclusion comes from the fact that the Absolute alone is true or that the True is alone absolute, It may be set aside by making the distinction that a know ledge which does not indeed know the Absolute as science wants to do, is none the less true too; and that knowledge in general, though it may possibly be incapable of grasping the Absolute, can still be capable of truth of another kind.
So Hegel's answer to my question is indeed that "we cannot." But this is not to say that we cannot attain what we might call phenomenal knowledge.
 
So Hegel's answer to my question is indeed that "we cannot." But this is not to say that we cannot attain what we might call phenomenal knowledge.
But I think you may have to read further or you'll miss his final move and point...i.e. phenomenal knowledge must reside in the domain of the absolute.

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But I think you may have to read further or you'll miss his final move and point...i.e. phenomenal knowledge must reside in the domain of the absolute.

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Everything resides within the absolute. But knowledge that resides within the absolute is not therefore absolute knowledge.

The question I'm asking is essentially whether absolute knowledge is attainable. The answer so far seems to be a resounding no.

I do wonder how philosophers of math would answer that question however.
 
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