how we confuse symbols and things (very intellectual)
 

Very deep and interesting article on Commerce, Marriage, Government, Religion, Science, and Education. (I do not agree with some of the science section, however):

"How we confuse symbols and things"
http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/symbols.html

This was initially posted and insipred by The Fly's strange thread about how this board is almost "alive"... I thought it deserved it's own thread though. Please read.

Some good marketing material in there too, just by understanding the way people think and react.

Very true. I really related to the education system bashing, as most 'truly' educated people will.

Summaries:

CONSUMERISM:
http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/symbols.html
I am sure there are many definitions for the term "consumerism," here is mine: consumerism is the voluntary suspension of disbelief in the value of material goods . In the grip of consumerism, we respond to advertisements for products without once asking "if this product is so valuable, why do they pay to advertise it?" This is an everyday statement of a well-established principle in advertising -- things of real worth are generally not advertised. Sometimes an advertisement is designed to persuade you to switch between one worthwhile thing and another (or one worthless thing and another), but no one pays simply to make you aware of a worthwhile thing. What's the point? You already know there are cans of oil, coat-hangers, Pez dispensers. No one needs to tell you this.

MARRIAGE
http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/symbols.html
Early in our history, marriage simply didn't exist, in fact it is a relatively recent development (by "recent" I mean after the dinosaurs died and before the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show). Marriage was originally conceived (no pun intended) as a way to signal the presence of a special bond between two people. At that time, marriage had no special significance itself, it was merely a social signaling device, and to some extent it also represented a contract with mutual obligations . In those times marriage stood as a mere symbol for something of actual substance -- a relationship between people that would have existed whether or not the symbol of marriage was also present .

GOVERNMENT
http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/symbols.html
Modern people may have a hard time remembering that government was originally conceived as a method for accomplishing as a group what individuals could not accomplish alone. In this hypothetical model, groups formed to achieve specific goals, they learned how to work together, they succeeded or failed , but then the group dissolved and the individuals returned to their natural lives . In the modern version, just as with marriage, what had originally been a symbol for a thing now seems more important than the thing it originally represented.

RELIGION
http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/symbols.html
The reason religion seems so appropriate a repository of dreams compared to, for example, a used car lot, is only because religions have been practicing longer. The crude methods of the used car salesman, the appearance of chrome and freshly washed metal icons, flags, balloons, cannot compare with the sophisticated, "uptown" presentation of a modern church. In a Western church you see actual images of deities, some frozen in advanced stages of suffering. Compared to this, a vintage Mustang, a classic Ford Coupe, mere metal and oil, cannot compete.

SCIENCE
http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/symbols.html
Science is by far the most misunderstood modern human activity, and the one whose essence is most poorly conveyed to students. And yet, in order to comprehend the modern world, one must also comprehend science. We are surrounded by the fruits of scientific thought, but we don't understand the process by which these things are created, and more importantly, we don't understand the limitations of science. And, as with so many other parts of the modern world, we have replaced the reality of science with a symbol that is more a caricature than a reflection.

EDUCATION
http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/symbols.html
"If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightly consider it an act of war." -- Nobel Prizewinner Glenn T. Seaborg

In the first paragraph of this article, I asserted that education could reshape itself "to provide actual knowledge instead of the symbolic representation of knowledge." In this section I will provide the meaning behind these words.

Modern education could serve to clarify the difference between symbol and thing, except that much of modern education depends on just that confusion - - you aren't in school to acquire knowledge, you are there to get a degree. And mistaking a degree holder for an educated person is possibly the commonest confusion of symbol and thing in modern times . Do you need proof? Okay -- Dan Quayle not only went to college, he graduated .

CONCLUSION
http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/symbols.html
Most of us are unable to sort out reality -- we can't distinguish between a thing and a symbol for that thing . This springs from several causes. One cause is that we are isolated from the natural world, where the distinction between a thing and a symbol is more obvious. Another cause is our educational system, which simply reflects the intellectual laziness of the society in which it is embedded. A third cause is resistance on the part of vested interests -- if we could think creatively, we would be difficult to govern, and advertisers would have to appeal to reason instead of emotion.

Good stuff in there.
http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/symbols.html

Alot there, i just read bits and pieces, interesting stuff :thumbsup

the world is going to hell, and Im selling tickets

Anyone study physics ? What kind of theories exist about an expanding universe and what lies outside the universe's expansion or what existed before the big bang ?

Have you read about the gravity wave detection (supposedly) by some italian scientists ?

I agree.

I have studied physics (not in school much though). One thought is that there was nothing before the big bang, not even time itself. Einstein has shown that time is a part of our three dimensional world, and therefore does not exist as a seperate entity. If our 3 dimensions did not exist before the big bang, then neither did time.

I have not read about the gravity wave detections, no.

There can be no time without events and processes to fill and mark it.

True. This is another way of saying what Einstein said, only without any proof! :) Only you should have added matter and energy to the events and processes list too: There can be no time with matter, energy, events, and processes to fill and mark it. I think that's right.

This is one of the coolest articles I have ever read.

to forget the symbols to see things as they are -- you just need to become a dope and smoke a phat joint.

fuck education like it matters -- all you need to know to be happy is how to get pussy and food -- the rest is a bunch of civilized bullshit

Only because just as you need events and processes for time to exist, you need matter and energy for the events and processes to occur and proceed. And come to think of it, matter and energy ARE events and processes.

Ahh... pussy and food.

You might not be thinking of time in the proper sense. Time is not just the measurement of things that pass by. Time and our 3D world ARE spacetime. Time is another dimension in which matter is located just like the other three dimensions. There are essentially two definitions of time, and you are probably using the popular (and incorrect) one. I still believe the "incorrect" version of time is real, though, as two events can occur at the same "time". Perhaps we just need another word and call them two different things! :)

What I said above might sound ridiculous, but it is true. I just did not describe it very well (which may indicate I do not understand it very well.)

Einstein can explain it better himself:

In 1952, in his book Relativity, Einstein writes:

That quote was from this website which gives more info: http://www.everythingforever.com/einstein.htm

Another good quote about "time" from the same webpage above:

Did Einstein publish his views on an afterlife or death ?

very interesting, thanks for the link

Not sure. Einstein believed in God. I was shocked when I heard this, but not shocked when I learned what type of God he believed in. He thought the Universe was not random. In his deterministic view, God would not change the normal course of action of the Universe with his own free will. In other words, praying to this God accomplishes nothing. Einstein's "God" is whatever created the Universe, not necessarily an omnipotent human being as most religions believe.

"But in the meantime, most "educated" people cannot tell the difference between a fact and an idea, the most common confusion of symbol and thing. Most believe if they collect enough facts, this will compensate for their inability to grasp the ideas behind those facts"

Boy, there are a ton of people like this around. I'd say most college grads fit this discription, and what's funny is that they think they are smart...

Some of the dumbest people are like this. This is because I believe the definition of stupidity is not how little you know, it is how large the gap between what you think you know and what you actually know is. No matter how smart you think you are, as soon as you act smarter than that, you are wrong a certain percentage of the time. The smarter you ACT, the larger that percentage becomes.