Play Nice Random Chat Thread: Episode III

[koshari]

just because corruption is worse elsewhere is no excuse for it to be tolerated here. just makes me angry looking at the way our so called leaders behave. and some of our politicians behavior is actually closer to treason.

 

[ferball]

just because corruption is worse elsewhere is no excuse for it to be tolerated here. just makes me angry looking at the way our so called leaders behave. and some of our politicians behavior is actually closer to treason.

I totally agree with all of that.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

just because corruption is worse elsewhere is no excuse for it to be tolerated here. just makes me angry looking at the way our so called leaders behave. and some of our politicians behavior is actually closer to treason.

Agreed.

Need better funded anti-corruption watchdogs.

 

[Val Keating]

How funny is it that because they put shit in the swear jar, **** and shit started looking the same so now the result is **** is more obvious. Gold

 

[Sopwiths North]

Do you guys know what science is or how to do it (and yes I know you do so youse obviously have no idea about art .)

Actually ferbs, I do have some idea about art, as a person who draws and paints. I also have a University degree in English Lit and Art History, but I ended up working in Veterinary medicine. “The healing arts”.

High science is an art. Music has its base in mathematics. Da Vinci developed chiaroscuro, but he also conceptualised flying machines, and pioneered the way in which the biomechanics of the human body were studied. He had a genius mind, like Einstein, where science and abstract thought met constantly.

But it’s like anything in this life – both can either be sublimely beautiful, or completely crass and lacking in sensitivity, or just based in profit. Hence my joke about pet cloning. But In their highest forms, science and art are one, and rely on the unbound human imagination.

And just on pet cloning - I'd waaay rather have a portrait that captures the essence of my pet than some weird soul-less clone of it wandering around. A scenario where art trumps science. The "feel" of something, rather than the 3D of it. I wouldn't want to live without that.

 

[Snake_Baker]

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

A lot of harsh truths.

 

[ferball]

Actually ferbs, I do have some idea about art, as a person who draws and paints. I also have a University degree in English Lit and Art History, but I ended up working in Veterinary medicine. “The healing arts”.

High science is an art. Music has its base in mathematics. Da Vinci developed chiaroscuro, but he also conceptualised flying machines, and pioneered the way in which the biomechanics of the human body were studied. He had a genius mind, like Einstein, where science and abstract thought met constantly.

But it’s like anything in this life – both can either be sublimely beautiful, or completely crass and lacking in sensitivity, or just based in profit. Hence my joke about pet cloning. But In their highest forms, science and art are one, and rely on the unbound human imagination.

And just on pet cloning - I'd waaay rather have a portrait that captures the essence of my pet than some weird soul-less clone of it wandering around. A scenario where art trumps science. The "feel" of something, rather than the 3D of it. I wouldn't want to live without that.

Science is really a method of doing things to remove confirmation bias and other human type errors from measurements.

That's all.

All the rest of it - the work of Da Vinci (who was a genius, yeah I agree) and the inspirations behind the actual science of others - for example:

Mendelev organised the periodic table after a dream. (But it was the logical work he did beforehand and the actual work done afterward using it that is science.)

Kekule discovered the structure and shape of benzene after dreaming or spontaneously tripping (day dreaming) and visualising an Ouroborous worm.

Ramanujan claimed the Goddess Lakshmi, in her local form Namagiri Thayar, would appear to him in dreams and show him the mathematical proofs he would then "discover".

And I just found out the guy who discovered acetylcholine (Loewi) did so as a result of dreams.

Even Descartes - who is credited with the development of modern scientific method claims he came up with the idea after dreaming.

- that's closer to art in my mind.

I think that the best science is inspired by the same process that inspires artists.

But science is something that should be repeatable - ie you should be able to do it and replicate the same results.

Doing that with "art" is actually the opposite of art imo.

 

[ferball]

Yes very funny.

 

[Sopwiths North]

Science is really a method of doing things to remove confirmation bias and other human type errors from measurements.

That's all.

All the rest of it - the work of Da Vinci (who was a genius, yeah I agree) and the inspirations behind the actual science of others - for example:

Mendelev organised the periodic table after a dream. (But it was the logical work he did beforehand and the actual work done afterward using it that is science.)

Kekule discovered the structure and shape of benzene after dreaming or spontaneously tripping (day dreaming) and visualising an Ouroborous worm.

Ramanujan claimed the Goddess Lakshmi, in her local form Namagiri Thayar, would appear to him in dreams and show him the mathematical proofs he would then "discover".

And I just found out the guy who discovered acetylcholine (Loewi) did so as a result of dreams.

Even Descartes - who is credited with the development of modern scientific method claims he came up with the idea after dreaming.

- that's closer to art in my mind.

I think that the best science is inspired by the same process that inspires artists.

But science is something that should be repeatable - ie you should be able to do it and replicate the same results.

Doing that with "art" is actually the opposite of art imo.

That dream download stuff is very cool. There's a spirituality about it - not as in religious, but more an energetic intelligence. One that we can't put our fingers on, but it's there.

Because I work in alternative vet medicine, a lot of what we do involves intuitive stuff over "scientific" studies (the hallmark of Western pharma-medicine). Like putting your fingers on your own jugular pulse and scanning the patient with your other hand. Where you feel your own pulse drop (and it does), that's where you put your acupuncture needle. And I get that that may sound a bit out there, but it's true. There's clearly an energetic inter-connectedness to all life that "science-based" mainstream medicine for the most part dismisses. Which to me isn't healing. It's medicine, sure, but it's not healing.

Anyways, for me, Tolstoy sums it up best - "If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then the possibility of life is destroyed."

 

[koshari]

Oh barnaby, if you keep speaking in parliement we will need to pull the spire down of the roof and replace it with big letters spelling A S H T O N S.

 

[Groin guru]

I also have a University degree in English Lit and Art History, but I ended up working in Veterinary medicine. “The healing arts”.

My condolences. Good save at the end.

 

[ferball]

That dream download stuff is very cool. There's a spirituality about it - not as in religious, but more an energetic intelligence. One that we can't put our fingers on, but it's there.

Because I work in alternative vet medicine, a lot of what we do involves intuitive stuff over "scientific" studies (the hallmark of Western pharma-medicine). Like putting your fingers on your own jugular pulse and scanning the patient with your other hand. Where you feel your own pulse drop (and it does), that's where you put your acupuncture needle. And I get that that may sound a bit out there, but it's true. There's clearly an energetic inter-connectedness to all life that "science-based" mainstream medicine for the most part dismisses. Which to me isn't healing. It's medicine, sure, but it's not healing.

Anyways, for me, Tolstoy sums it up best - "If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then the possibility of life is destroyed."

There's definitely an art to that. But its only ever gonna be scientifically credible if you could measure a mechanism for that process then make a whole bunch of statements about it within some framework that enables anyone (with the equipment and ability to use it) to test measurements that reflect those statements.

I just noticed something - even the relative clunkiness of those two sentences approaches what I'm trying to get at with the difference between science and art, funnily enough.

 

[Themanbun]

Good article on white collar wage theft. Absolutely rampant. We fought for a 38 hour week last century and now do some of the most unpaid overtime in the world.

When does ‘reasonable’ unpaid white-collar work become wage theft?

Some big trends will encourage staff to test the reasonableness of an increasingly common practice.

www.theage.com.au

 

[ferball]

Sopwiths North I'm with you on the holistic inter-connectedness of everything too. I've seen some odd stuff with weird body healing. The most interesting was when I hurt my hand at work once and it swelled badly quickly. It wasn't broken but it was a serious soft tissue injury of some sort. I did I.C.E it for a while but went back to work. I was driving home thru Nimbin and saw this guy I knew who was showing me a particular Tai C'hi form who i trained a bit of other stuff with.

So this is exactly what he did. He grabbed two cute female tourists asked them if they wanted to help do a quick chi healing thing (smartarse) and then we stood in a circle on the footpath and visualised the energy flowing between us in a circle. Pretty much following a standard Chinese model of chi/qi flow. (He was describing it to the girls and telling them to visualise it.) The swelling went down within about 2 minutes and it was particularly strange the way my senses became incredibly heightened. Like I'd had some strong psychedelic and it was just starting to come on but I hadn't even had a beer or joint after work let alone a tap of acid. And it was really a very clear feeling I'd associate with other things than drugs.

It could have been a really creepy vibe with those tourists but it wasn't. It was nice tho in a "thanks for helping out" way. We went our own way straight after and I never saw them again. (I gave that guy a ride home tho he may have hooked up with them later.) Bizarre the way certain points in the landscape really stood out too. Its hard to explain I guess but it was a weird (in a good way) experience. Nimbin has an epic landscape around it tho. Its in a valley in the eroded crater wall of a 23 million year old volcano which is one of the largest if not the largest land based intact caldera on earth.

My hand was still a little sore but by the time I got home it was like it had a week's healing in a couple of hours. I was at work the next day and I didn't expect to be till after the weekend.

It wouldn't have worked without those two girls. There was something about the male female male female set up ... its a long time ago and I can't really remember but I'd say we were breathing in synch but opposite to each other too. Don't quote me on that - it was the impression I had from the experience but its over 20 years ago and old memories like that are notoriously unreliable. I didn't watch them to know but if you do that chi stuff your hand should change its shape depending on whether you are breathing in or out.

Definitely the connection to the land in that spot too.

There's not many places you can do something like that in the middle of the street at 4 or 5 oclock in the arvo and no one bats an eyelid.

 

[Sopwiths North]

There's definitely an art to that. But its only ever gonna be scientifically credible if you could measure a mechanism for that process then make a whole bunch of statements about it within some framework that enables anyone (with the equipment and ability to use it) to test measurements that reflect those statements.

I just noticed something - even the relative clunkiness of those two sentences approaches what I'm trying to get at with the difference between science and art, funnily enough.

This made me laugh, the "scientific credibility" part. I remember one of the vets I work for having a convo with a colleague who was very pro-Western medicine, and felt that any alternative stuff was just hocus-pocus. I think he actually said to her "I don't believe in your acupuncture", and she fired back "well I don't believe in your prednisone". Which, isn't reeeally true, cos we do use stuff like pred, and antibiotics, where indicated. But this was over a dog with a spinal injury that this guy wanted to put on steroids, and we were treating him with acupuncture alone. Which worked. Had him back walking in a few days. Now that may have happened without any treatment too, or not. Or it may have happened with steroids, or not. We can't know without a parallel universe. Point being, it's not repeatable. Every patient is different, every response is individual. "Scientific credibility" is super limiting when it comes to the healing arts, if you're never willing to step outside the narrow parameters of crap that's been tested on a thousand beagles in a drug-company funded "scientific" experiment. And how "scientific" is it really, when you see who's funding it?

Anyways long rant, I know - sorry! I hear what you're saying. It just reminded me of that little snippet of conversation. We don't exclude Western medicine where I work, not by a long shot. But that's not because "science" has proven it to be anything better, or consistent. We just integrate what treatment will be best, and CAUSE THE LEAST HARM (something Western medicine has trouble understanding) and go with what works for that patient using those parameters. Above all, do no harm. The art of healing is about knowing what modalities to choose in each situation in order to achieve that whenever possible, and help your patient to heal. Scientific measurements and repeatability don't address that. Because it can't actually be measured.

 

[The Other Dean]

Da Vinci developed chiaroscuro...

Da Vinci developed Spanish donuts?

Is it any wonder the man is revered.

High science is an art. Music has its base in mathematics. , but he also conceptualised flying machines, and pioneered the way in which the biomechanics of the human body were studied. He had a genius mind, like Einstein, where science and abstract thought met constantly.

"After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in aesthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are always artists as well." - Albert Einstein

Anyways, for me, Tolstoy sums it up best - "If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then the possibility of life is destroyed."

And while we're quoting Russian writers....

"There is no science without fancy, and no art without fact." - Vladimir Nabakov

 

[Sopwiths North]

Sopwiths North I'm with you on the holistic inter-connectedness of everything too. I've seen some odd stuff with weird body healing. The most interesting was when I hurt my hand at work once and it swelled badly quickly. It wasn't broken but it was a serious soft tissue injury of some sort. I did I.C.E it for a while but went back to work. I was driving home thru Nimbin and saw this guy I knew who was showing me a particular Tai C'hi form who i trained a bit of other stuff with.

So this is exactly what he did. He grabbed two cute female tourists asked them if they wanted to help do a quick chi healing thing (smartarse) and then we stood in a circle on the footpath and visualised the energy flowing between us in a circle. Pretty much following a standard Chinese model of chi/qi flow. (He was describing it to the girls and telling them to visualise it.) The swelling went down within about 2 minutes and it was particularly strange the way my senses became incredibly heightened. Like I'd had some strong psychedelic and it was just starting to come on but I hadn't even had a beer or joint after work let alone a tap of acid. And it was really a very clear feeling I'd associate with other things than drugs.

It could have been a really creepy vibe with those tourists but it wasn't. It was nice tho in a "thanks for helping out" way. We went our own way straight after and I never saw them again. (I gave that guy a ride home tho he may have hooked up with them later.) Bizarre the way certain points in the landscape really stood out too. Its hard to explain I guess but it was a weird (in a good way) experience. Nimbin has an epic landscape around it tho. Its in a valley in the eroded crater wall of a 23 million year old volcano which is one of the largest if not the largest land based intact caldera on earth.

My hand was still a little sore but by the time I got home it was like it had a week's healing in a couple of hours. I was at work the next day and I didn't expect to be till after the weekend.

It wouldn't have worked without those two girls. There was something about the male female male female set up ... its a long time ago and I can't really remember but I'd say we were breathing in synch but opposite to each other too. Don't quote me on that - it was the impression I had from the experience but its over 20 years ago and old memories like that are notoriously unreliable. I didn't watch them to know but if you do that chi stuff your hand should change its shape depending on whether you are breathing in or out.

Definitely the connection to the land in that spot too.

There's not many places you can do something like that in the middle of the street at 4 or 5 oclock in the arvo and no one bats an eyelid.

That's a great story ferbs. And it doesn't surprise me one bit. You had a good old-fashioned energy healing, for sure. Brought to you by a circle of strangers, with good intentions. It's not for me to explain how that one worked, well, at least not on here, cos people would think I'm bonkers (and maybe a lot on here already do!), but I will say that with energy work, intent is everything. You can create a ball of qi just by intent. And choosing those girls was brilliant, because male/female thing aside (I don't know actually what that was about, but yeah, maybe a yin and yang thing) I'm assuming they'd be pretty open as young un-jaded humans, and possibly work as better channels? I dunno, just speculating. But yeah, that's very cool.

I found it interesting about your perception of the landscape too. You were seeing with more than just your eyes I think. I've had similar, so I get what you mean. After I had my first level reiki attunement, the sun appeared huge to me, and white platinum. Still does. And it doesn't hurt when I look at it. (stop looking at it!) After my second attunement I'm able to see energy glimmering around me in dimmed light. And an aura around my hand. I dunno. There's so much cool stuff that we just can't label and pin down in this life, and it's great. You should try reiki some time ferbs, if you get a chance. I'd be curious to hear what your experience would be.

 

[ferball]

This made me laugh, the "scientific credibility" part. I remember one of the vets I work for having a convo with a colleague who was very pro-Western medicine, and felt that any alternative stuff was just hocus-pocus. I think he actually said to her "I don't believe in your acupuncture", and she fired back "well I don't believe in your prednisone". Which, isn't reeeally true, cos we do use stuff like pred, and antibiotics, where indicated. But this was over a dog with a spinal injury that this guy wanted to put on steroids, and we were treating him with acupuncture alone. Which worked. Had him back walking in a few days. Now that may have happened without any treatment too, or not. Or it may have happened with steroids, or not. We can't know without a parallel universe. Point being, it's not repeatable. Every patient is different, every response is individual. "Scientific credibility" is super limiting when it comes to the healing arts, if you're never willing to step outside the narrow parameters of crap that's been tested on a thousand beagles in a drug-company funded "scientific" experiment. And how "scientific" is it really, when you see who's funding it?

Anyways long rant, I know - sorry! I hear what you're saying. It just reminded me of that little snippet of conversation. We don't exclude Western medicine where I work, not by a long shot. But that's not because "science" has proven it to be anything better, or consistent. We just integrate what treatment will be best, and CAUSE THE LEAST HARM (something Western medicine has trouble understanding) and go with what works for that patient using those parameters. Above all, do no harm. The art of healing is about knowing what modalities to choose in each situation in order to achieve that whenever possible, and help your patient to heal. Scientific measurements and repeatability don't address that. Because it can't actually be measured.

There's one more story from that time worth repeating.

And it fits with what you are saying about allternative treatments and western medicine.

Same guy, I was learning that form still and went into town with my wife and a friend. We were doing specific Chi Kung exercises - this one was allegedly sposed to balance your left and right brain. Whatever that means... You stand in a typical horse riding stance and hold your hands in front of your head. Put your fingertips together and hold your hands at your eye height. So your hands form a kind of similar shape to what I image your brain looks like in your skull.

Its really hard to keep your hands still in this exercise. They move and kind wiggle around alot and eventually settle. Its a good exercise and even thop the description (balancing your brain's ghemisphere's) is a little strange on the face of it - its probably a very good one. Its a great exercise for clarity of thought. MY wife starting going very weird. She felt sick, uncomfortable, and her hands were a bit freaked out especially between one pair of fingers on one hand. We stopped what we were doing. Tried again and the same thing immediately.

We stopped fully and the guy showing us said: "Go and get that checked out by a doctor. Straight away. There's something going on there you need to sort out." MY wife (well we hadn't been married yet,) freaked out. She never did get it checked either despite me hassling her a few times. (You can't push this stuff too hard tho or people just double down.) It really scared her obviously cos she never did anything like that related to body "energy" again - ie no yoga, meditation or chi kung. Stoppped doing whatever training we were doing too even tho it was just forms, kata and (mostly light) sparring.

A few years later she started having seizures and we found something in her brain using these new fangled MRI machines that had just found their way to Australia. She had a lesion in her temporal lobe that triggered (and still does) serious seizure activity and was diagnosed with epilepsy.

In the part of her brain that would be represented by the parts of her hand that went weird on her doing that exercise.

These days the term "complementary medicine" gets used alot and I can really see the value in that term.

Those exercises diagnosed her condition years before it showed itself in anything other than minor (ie unnoticeable if you have them) petite mal seizures, or day dreaming (like what inspired Kekule to visualise the benzene ring as a worm eating its own tale,) ironically enough.

Not with the accuracy of an MRI scan obviously but with enough accuracy to point to needing an MRI (tho they weren't available wheb this happened. The first local ones arrived within a year or two,) to diagnose what was specifically happening.

I understand the difficulty with scientific testing of this stuff. How do you even begin?

WE tried these experiments once, years ago around the same time, with this guy in the biomechanical/sports science department at SCU. Using another Chi Kung exercise to strengthen maximal contractions in your quads and to see if it increased fibre recruitment in a maximal contraction. 3 groups were tested. A control group that did an exercise program alone as a control, a group that did the chi kung exercises alone and no extra exercise regime and a group that did both. Unfortunately not enough people completed the exercise programs properly and there wasn't a big enough sample size to get meaningful results.

I was doing alot of work that involved covering heaps of ground up and down hills for hours a day but had been for ages. That particular exercise made climbing hills ridiculously easy. Anecdotally it worked for me. And my output (ie how many trees i planted) went up. I dunno if it was statistically significant but it was financially significant.

It was very interesting and anecdotally (I was in the group that just used the Chi kung exercise)

 

[ferball]

Good article on white collar wage theft. Absolutely rampant. We fought for a 38 hour week last century and now do some of the most unpaid overtime in the world.

When does ‘reasonable’ unpaid white-collar work become wage theft?

Some big trends will encourage staff to test the reasonableness of an increasingly common practice.

www.theage.com.au

I love this:

Hopefully, boards, executives and workers will drive change.

They will realise that requiring white-collar workers to do hours of unpaid overtime each week is unhealthy and unproductive, that a business model built on workers doing 50-hour weeks and being paid for 38 is unsustainable, and that requiring too much unpaid work is unethical.

Fat chance. I cannot see many companies easing up on unpaid overtime expectations in a slowing economy, where many people are fearful of losing their job and are loaded with debt, and unable to take career risks and change employers. Or when the workplace is less unionised.

It's essentially the result of the ALP winning one election in its own right in the last 30 odd years.

No one thinks company men (and women) need unions.

 

[ferball]

Apparently fire ants are breaching containment lines in Qld.

Nice use of language.

 

[Groin guru]

This made me laugh, the "scientific credibility" part. I remember one of the vets I work for having a convo with a colleague who was very pro-Western medicine, and felt that any alternative stuff was just hocus-pocus. I think he actually said to her "I don't believe in your acupuncture", and she fired back "well I don't believe in your prednisone". Which, isn't reeeally true, cos we do use stuff like pred, and antibiotics, where indicated. But this was over a dog with a spinal injury that this guy wanted to put on steroids, and we were treating him with acupuncture alone. Which worked. Had him back walking in a few days. Now that may have happened without any treatment too, or not. Or it may have happened with steroids, or not. We can't know without a parallel universe. Point being, it's not repeatable. Every patient is different, every response is individual. "Scientific credibility" is super limiting when it comes to the healing arts, if you're never willing to step outside the narrow parameters of crap that's been tested on a thousand beagles in a drug-company funded "scientific" experiment. And how "scientific" is it really, when you see who's funding it?

Anyways long rant, I know - sorry! I hear what you're saying. It just reminded me of that little snippet of conversation. We don't exclude Western medicine where I work, not by a long shot. But that's not because "science" has proven it to be anything better, or consistent. We just integrate what treatment will be best, and CAUSE THE LEAST HARM (something Western medicine has trouble understanding) and go with what works for that patient using those parameters. Above all, do no harm. The art of healing is about knowing what modalities to choose in each situation in order to achieve that whenever possible, and help your patient to heal. Scientific measurements and repeatability don't address that. Because it can't actually be measured.

This is often the reasoning used to discredit science (look who is funding it!). That's an issue of transparency. A problem and why ethics boards exist. The issue shouldn't then lead to "well funding is an issue so let's use some hocus pocus thing highlighted by a naturopath or I read some cool things online and it worked for one or two people"

Scientific rigor and transparency are very important. The translation of knowledge is just as important. Whilst statistically significant isn't always the best method for research the last thing you want is statistical anarchy and people dancing around the point like a car salesman. Often the fluff untested stuff is peddled by an uneducated person trying to make a buck anyway.

Quoting old dead people doesn't make art relevant. But I do understand why art students will cling to it. After all, I'd be pissed off if I did a degree that every other field wrote off as meaningless. At least they can make chairs that restrict manspreading

 

[Groin guru]

Sounds familiar...oh wait...

 

[Snake_Baker]

Sounds familiar...oh wait...

..........in all facets of politics.

 

[Snake_Baker]

The SJW's are simply parroting Fleet Street journalist politics.

The entire world is now very much stupider for this occurring.