The real discussion: Values (Humans)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, January 02, 2016, 00:05 (3247 days ago) @ David Turell


> > > David: We are what we have become through our own inventions for our career in life. I know it is more complicated than that. I've opened up a little of mine as a background to the discussion you are beginning. Lead on!
> > 
> > Matt: I'm hesitant here... I don't agree that our career does, or should play such a prominent role in who we are as humans. This is because my career, puts me at odds thinking about all the ways a person can negatively affect society and attack other human beings.
> 
> I understand your reluctance, but I can't escape my background as a body mechanic and how it influences my thinking about evolution. Shapiro's approach to the read-write cell functions, ventures into your area of expertise, and so your background might influence your interpretations. 
> > -I use my work's experiences where it makes sense, and where the broader insights of computer science can shed light on the subjects we discuss here. That said, the last few years has seen my work take me into using computers in ways that don't translate to the big questions we discuss here. (Learning how to co-opt or corrupt an industrial control system, and how to defend against it isn't exactly the kind of thing that relates easily to where we come from.) -
> > Matt: I think placing that much faith in one's occupation is more room to try and neglect your own perspectives of life based on your career... kind of off topic, but I think we ought to avoid our career's insights here, as opposed to embracing them. 
> 
> I don't see how you can escape it, unless you are more compartmentalized than I am.-Well, this IS veering into OT-land, my over-arching thought process some years ago, mainly in regards to morality and ethics but truly applied across the board of what falls under "epistemology" was to do this: When my mind decided to opine, I would tell it to shut up. -That probably sounds weird, but I don't know how else to describe it. I'm not a "normal" programmer in the sense that I don't necessarily believe that "reinventing the wheel is bad." So, I started myself as close to zero as I possibly could, and to date, anytime that I say/write something that displays some kind of subconscious thinking, I try to deconstruct the subconscious bias as far as it will go. -In a sense, we could say that I don't trust being me. My Buddhist training has been invaluable in identifying what comes from a subconscious source. So yes, in a sense, it might be safe to say that I can compartmentalize my thinking--when I concentrate on doing so. -Keep in mind, I'm a born skeptic.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"