The New "Religion Vs Science" Thread

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WBraun

climber

Feb 17, 2019 - 07:53am PT

MikeL -- "I would normally say something about how mind works here,"

LOL

The mind thread .....

As the mind trolls itself ......

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Feb 17, 2019 - 11:14am PT

Life is a process, not a substance or a state...

...what do you mean by this? there are physical processes... do even by your statement here there could be a definition for it.

If you mean it is a subjective process, then we're back to your panpsychism... everything has it...

why does it manifest itself the way it does (in biology, for instance)?

or are you claiming that everything has life which is more properly termed animism.

let's accept your conclusion, that "life" is not something physical...

...how does this "life" then effect the physical?

For instance, the fact that the Earth's atmosphere is out of chemical equilibrium is a physical fact whose cause is attributable to biological life on Earth.

Take the life away and you have a very different atmosphere.

We can test this by calculating the chemical equilibrium of all the planets of the solar system.

To keep the atmosphere in dis-equilibrium requires life to expend a rather large amount of energy, roughly 1 TW-year.

But "life" is not physical, and yet has this very physical effect, how does life, as Largo explains it as a non-physical process, manage to influence one of the definitive physical attributes of planet Earth?

sempervirens

climber

Feb 17, 2019 - 11:48am PT

I'm a speed reader, and sometimes I read too fast, and I fill-in the blanks.

Mike L, I see your point and understand. So, isn't that the same as saying you make stuff up? Making stuff up is a common tactic in political and social discourse. It deliberately distracts, distorts, prevents understanding.

Trump

climber

Feb 17, 2019 - 11:56am PT

.. allows you to hold onto the belief ..

I kind of like the fatalism of it, that there are certain specific things we’re allowed to believe, and certain things were not allowed to believe, and that there are specific reasons (maybe even reasons that we can point to) why we’re allowed or not allowed to believe specific beliefs.

There are NO accidents ever.

Yea OK. I’m kind of agnostic on that one, not feeling like I have quite enough data to prove to myself that my theories about ever are actually true. But I do kind of agree that the specific reason for the specific reasons that allow us (or don’t allow us) to believe the specific belief that we have - that’s not an accident.

It’s just that a lot of those specific beliefs wind up being, on further inspection, not true.

Hey, don’t blame me for my pinkish skin! I wasn’t allowed an alternative.

To say we make stuff up - to notice and to acknowledge that I in my own way for my own reasons make up stuff - to me, sorry, that just seems honest.

Why we make up the specific stuff we make up? I’d like to know. Some of the stuff I make up seems to actually be true. Some of it, not so much.

MikeL

Social climber

Southern Arizona

Feb 20, 2019 - 08:21am PT

simpervirens: So, isn't that the same as saying you make stuff up?

Oh yeah. Everything. I’m not being flippant. Let’s get as fundamental as we can. Phenomena are manifestations or displays. We should assume that the displays themselves are real (we perceive them), but what’s being displayed? That’s one of the more fundamental questions floating around in this thread. If one can drop interpretations about displays, one can see them simply as “displays.” (Well, some of us can, anyway.)

As for deliberate distractions, distortions that prevent understanding, well that appears to be a part of human nature. (What? You want us to be pure and noble? Ha-ha.)

The First understanding should be about “displays.” If you can see those displays simply as phenomena, then I think you’ll find distortions, distractions, and the people who use them "to prevent understanding," per se, no longer so problematical. It’s like going to the movies: you have emotional reactions and thoughts about the characters and situations up on the screen, but you also know they’re not real or what they've been made up to be.

Be well.

WBraun

climber

Feb 20, 2019 - 08:28am PT

You make everything up?

Very strange, you should not do that :::::::

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Feb 20, 2019 - 06:48pm PT

Check it out, it's pretty enheartening...

https://www.youtube.com/user/PowerfulJRE/videos

Out of the last 30 episodes (and maybe more, I stopped counting) of JRE, Brian Cox, physicist and general science communicator, is the most popular guest at 2.7M. This is from a wide variety of JRE guests, so this is pretty darn cool. And it bodes well, I think, at least in some ways.

Recently, I've been inspired and I've had the time and opportunity to reread some chapters of Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World. The last time I read his book in any serious systematic way was in my 30s and in the 90s. This latest reading has me convinced that, despite the mass stupidities in the now, we have also come a long long long way issues-wise and wisdom-wise in the last 20 -30 years. Recall alien abduction, faith-healing, spoon bending, astrology, etc.. At least today there is an escape from all that silliness for those who want it - we're not so much a captive audience anymore, like bitd.

Today's smart, worldly, scientifically literate millenials have no idea how good they have it - being free of all that nonsense.

Reminder: in this episode, Brian does share his views on biogenesis (incl abiogenesis), AI (incl AGI), CERN, LHC and SSC in Texas, particle physics and Big Bang stuff, politics too.

Currently reading Lost in Math. Pretty thought-provoking so far.

P.S.

In the Brian Cox episode, I liked how the subject of octupus came up - as an alien species, as a possibility of panspermia - after all it's so bizarre, so different from mammals and humans say. Then Brian makes the point to Joe that - despite the macroscopic differences - at the cellular and subcellular (e.g., biochemistry) scales, the basic machinery of life is the same. It's one more example out of countless examples how a science edu is so elucidating and so edifying towards a modern worldview that's productive.

MikeL

Social climber

Southern Arizona

Feb 20, 2019 - 08:40pm PT

HFCS: Brian Cox, physicist and general science communicator, is the most popular guest at 2.7M.

This shouldn’t be pointed out.

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Feb 21, 2019 - 09:13am PT

Malemute, thanks for the reminder. Cool read.

If I were King of America, I'd make MikeL memorize the first 20 elements, no 30, of the periodic table. And I'd make sure he recited them every year.

Re the periodic table: Discovery or invention? lol

To this day, I am amazed that the early naturalists / scientists were able to figure these things out, piece them together. In a table, that's one. In a collection (from the ground and from around the world), that's two. In a meaningful distinction, say between element and compound, that's three. I mean, given the state of society / civilization back then. Amazing.

Perhaps "truths" in nature or science are more readily comprehensible when considered side by side with "falsehoods" or "falsities". Al melts at a higher temperature than Pt. That is a falsehood. Al melts at a lower temperature than Pt. That is a fact. That is a truth. It's a disservice when extremists hijack a term like "truth" and confuse its meaning even in its most basic senses.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Feb 21, 2019 - 09:23am PT

the state of a material depends on more than its temperature, as you know, and state diagrams are generally at least two dimensional e.g. temperature and pressure, with regions associated to different states of the material, gas, liquid, solid, and many substates, bcc, fcc, for solids examples.

At the time of proposing the table of elements, the idea that there were atoms was far out, though today we have ample reason to accept the atomic view, as it provides a powerful way of understanding.

Revisionist views of science history usually obscure the entirely legitimate criticisms of theories leveled at the time of their creation.

The victors get to write history, after all.

The "steady march of progress" is one such revisionist commentary.

I mention this only because those contemporary theories that sound so far out there and irrelevant today might be viewed, in the future, as obvious "truth." Perspective is important, and it changes with time.

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Feb 21, 2019 - 09:24am PT

If I were King of America, I'd make MikeL memorize the first 20 elements, no 30, of the periodic table. And I'd make sure he recited them every year.

And if you were king of the world you could whitewash the Sistine Chapel ceiling and repaint it in/as the periodic table. And that would be helpful, don't you think?

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Feb 21, 2019 - 09:27am PT

"...the Sistine Chapel ceiling and repaint it in the periodic table...

it is painted in the periodic table, if you have the eyes to see that...

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Feb 21, 2019 - 09:31am PT

it is painted in the periodic table, if you have the eyes to see that...

No kidding and all this time I thought it was nine central scenes from the horrible Old Testament particularly the dreaded story of creation, a discredited effort at science. Live and learn.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Feb 21, 2019 - 09:45am PT

Diagnosing a Paint Disease with Computer Science: The Case of Georgia O’Keeffe
Abstract
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) was an American artist whose paintings are now considered essential pieces of visual culture in the early 20th century. Her paintings produced after 1920 often have damaging metal soap aggregates protruding from their surfaces. The complex histories of these works, or “patient histories”, together with molecular characterization and imaging, are computationally correlated to the occurrence of these aggregates with an aim to slow the deterioration of these artworks.

Oliver Cossairt
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL

Flip Flop

climber

Earth Planet, Universe

Feb 21, 2019 - 10:17am PT

Fancy creation mythologies never turned on a lightbulb.

The nice part about science is that the lightbulb works whether you believe in it or not.

That is all

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Feb 21, 2019 - 10:48am PT

Who knows, maybe Captain Kirk said it best...

"Maybe we weren't meant for Paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through - struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums."

Source: Star Trek, "This Side of Paradise," on losing the influence of the spores

"Meant." As in "designed" by evolution and natural selection. Ed, don't quibble.

Anyone besides me think Paul is missing out by not assimilating the Star Trek Universe?

...

Well if Ricks of Aliens (Jussie Smollett) wanted attention, he's surely got it now.

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Feb 21, 2019 - 11:23am PT

Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) was an American artist whose paintings are now considered essential pieces of visual culture in the early 20th century. Her paintings produced after 1920 often have damaging metal soap aggregates protruding from their surfaces. The complex histories of these works, or “patient histories”, together with molecular characterization and imaging, are computationally correlated to the occurrence of these aggregates with an aim to slow the deterioration of these artworks.

And who here is determining value here? Why should science concern itself with stopping the deterioration of any work of art, let alone the doodle-ings of some eccentric old lady? Would you support such care for the Sistine Ceiling with its non lightbulb Inefficiency and dastardly religious imagery?

Anyone besides me think Paul is missing out by not assimilating the Star Trek Universe?

The idea that you look to Captain Kirk for your aphorisms and your previous comparison with Shakespeare ignores the distinction between form and content and any real understanding of the degree to which Shakespeare created the civilization we walk around in. That value has fallen into the abyss of subjectivity is one of the great tragedies of Western Civilization even if the light bulbs work.

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Feb 21, 2019 - 11:51am PT

With all due respect to you and in all fairness to the Gene Roddenberry, the writers of the original Star Trek series went out of their way to offer up classical thought and moral dilemmas in the context of current events. I think they did a good job for a 45 min. episode format.

Literature/art is more than a story line. It's not the moral dilemma, it's the presentation of the moral dilemma through the arrangement of words or the form (read construction) of those words. There is nothing in Star Trek that comes close to the poetic nature of Shakespeare or any other great writer. Likewise in painting, the subject may be, can be, mundane, but its expression in form, line, value, texture and color has within it both the manifestation of personal emotion and the expression of beauty. Blurring the line between high and low art in this and the last century has been tragic as it was foisted on a public ultimately betrayed by the idea and made callous to the experience and potential they might have otherwise found.