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WBraun
climber
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Dec 23, 2016 - 08:29am PT
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how would you convince someone else you were human and not a machine?
A machine has no soul.
That is the difference.
A machine is artificial, the material bodies in this universe have a conscious sentient being as the driver which animates that matter.
Matter can not animate without spirit.
This a completely scientific fact.
Modern scientists immediately limit themselves by saying Science is ONLY about the material realm.
That is immediately pure scientism .......
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 23, 2016 - 10:24am PT
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Modern scientists immediately limit themselves by saying Science is ONLY about the material realm.
better to say that modern science posits that the universe can be explained by physical terms only.
Which is a hypothesis, no doubt, that cannot be completely tested, since it is exhaustive, and each physical description of the universe contains in it the limits of our "knowing." Currently that limit seems to be set at the Planck scale, beyond which we have no picture.
I don't think anyone in science would disagree. Saying that does not make "modern science" just another religion, and the simple fact that science is able to throw out ideas that are, at times, held as "scientific truth" one of its great strengths.
With all due respect to Werner, ancient ideas are based on a very incomplete view of reality, and can be described, at best, as doing the most with that view. For instance, less than 100 years ago no one had any idea how the Sun generated the amount of energy we observe from it. One could have said, at the time, that science failed, and that the ancient ideas of the divinity of the Sun were correct, and that believing otherwise was just an act of faith in science, scientism.
And perhaps that is an adequate description of the scientists that continued to look for an explanation of that phenomenon, a physical explanation. This waited until special relativity explained the equivalence of energy and mass, the discovery of the nucleus and of nuclear forces, and the measurement of the nuclear masses. In 1920 Eddington speculates that "nuclear fusion" could explain the energy generation in stars, though it took another decade to suss out the details.
As far as I know, the divinity of the Sun is now relegated to a metaphor, not as a fact. But perhaps the divinity has been transferred to another place thought safe from scientific examination.
While "past performance is no indicator of future return" I would think that continued scientific examination of all aspects of reality will continue, and while science will not be able to make a pronouncement of truth, it will continue to seek those physical explanations and expand its domain of understanding.
You can call that scientism if you wish...
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 23, 2016 - 10:28am PT
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ancient ideas are based on a very incomplete view of reality
If it's ancient then that is true,
But the absolute truth holds true past present and future in other words it transcends all ......
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 23, 2016 - 10:38am PT
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if you say so, Werner...
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 23, 2016 - 11:02am PT
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When the brain won't change its mind...
Sam Harris, et al
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep39589
"Few things are as fundamental to human progress as our ability to arrive at a shared understanding of the world."
Better... "a shared understanding of the world" that is factual.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 23, 2016 - 11:05am PT
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Ed -- "if you say so, Werner..."
No it should never be "if I say so"
It should be tested by you ......
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Dec 23, 2016 - 08:44pm PT
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While ye do sleeping lie, open-eyed conspiracy it's time doth take
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Dec 24, 2016 - 08:55am PT
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Ed: I would think that continued scientific examination of all aspects of reality will continue, and while science will not be able to make a pronouncement of truth, it will continue to seek those physical explanations and expand its domain of understanding.
I’m just kibitzing here, but there is some slippage here in the language for me.
On the one hand, you are clear that science is oriented to physical terms only. But then in other parts of your writing, you mention things like “all aspects of reality.”
Could we at least establish some ground among us for more fruitful conversations by admitting outright that there apparently are other aspects of reality that are not physical—or are you saying that all aspects of reality are physical, but that for some there are no physical explanations?
Were we to take the first tack, we could steer different conversations into pastures that would be less loaded with contradictions and stepping on each other toes.
I think it would also force some of us to admit that there are areas we just don’t know much about or that we shouldn’t be applying inappropriate theories to.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 24, 2016 - 10:03am PT
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I would say that it is the position of science to posit that everything is physical, which extends to even those things that are the result of physical processes...
that doesn't leave much room for the non-physical.
but lest you object too quickly, recall that I referred to this as a hypothesis, which means it is provisional, depending on observations, and that it is subject to falsification but not to proof.
A hypothesis can only be declared positively as "being consistent" with our measurements and observations, it is never "proven."
My feeling is that there is sufficient ground to object to this hypothesis, but that it focusses the discussion not on declaration, but on observation. That may be objectionable, but if we are to argue based on the certainty of our own witness we are then put in a position of accusing each other of being dishonest and our witness of being untrustworthy, and even intentionally false to make a point and win an argument.
If, on the other hand we take all of our witness to be true, then we have little to discuss in regard to the OP...
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Dec 24, 2016 - 11:10am PT
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Hmmm, . . . well, Ed, I think you’re saying that we *should* be talking about things that we can verify consensually among one another (emphasizing validity of observations).
I won’t argue. It’s Christmas. I’ll just say that such a point of view (if I have it right) limits the conversation—which is sort of what I wanted to do I guess. But I was hoping that there would be more than one pasture.
In any event, cheers to all.
In a few hours we’re heading out of town to two big family Xmas dinners to be held over the next 36 hours. It may not be a good thing.
If one wants to study the weirdness of human social psychology, one can “go home” to be with one’s parents (maybe), one’s siblings, one’s relatives, and the in-laws. Add alcohol, darling children running around unsupervised, simmer in the pressure cooker in a contained small space, and viola . . . a misadventure in the making.
Be well.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Dec 24, 2016 - 04:24pm PT
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Here's a little Xmas present:
Generator of Postmodern Articles
Each time you open the link it generates a new postmodern article.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Dec 24, 2016 - 06:37pm PT
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Bataille uses the term ‘posttextual modernist theory’ to denote the stasis
of subconstructive class. But Cameron[9] suggests that the
works of Tarantino are postmodern.
Thank you, Santa. There is much to learn. And/Or unlearn?
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Dec 24, 2016 - 07:20pm PT
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In a sense, the failure, and some would say the
absurdity, of capitalist postconceptual theory which is a central theme of
Madonna’s "Material Girl" emerges again in "Erotica", although in a
more cultural sense. Several discourses concerning predialectic cultural theory exist.
I could read stuff like this all night long.
;>)
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Dec 24, 2016 - 07:30pm PT
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You guys, . . . .
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 24, 2016 - 09:20pm PT
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"our civilization has been powerfully affected by the discovery that nature is strictly governed by impersonal laws."
Is nature's governance separated from its material nature or is material nature the constructor of its own laws? In other words, why are there laws, impersonal or otherwise and where do they come from? And how and why do you make a separation twixt impersonal law and nature? How is it that an impersonal physical law can be so eloquently described in a series of mathematical equations entirely separate from the physical reality they describe as if they are entirely apart existing as a predicate?
When we read "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God...how can a scientist argue with such a profound statement?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Dec 25, 2016 - 08:42am PT
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HFCS: Always worthy of recollection, eg, for sake of reinforcement, at least a couple times per year...
It isn’t. Instead, it may be a sure sign of dogmatic inculcation.
As Wittgenstein said, “when you get the message, you can hang up the phone.”
Like most conceits, once most bright people hear the joke the first time, its power diminishes dramatically. It finally falls into a category of other conceits that are clever but not necessarily intelligent, soulful, or enduring.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 25, 2016 - 10:46am PT
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How is it that an impersonal physical law can be so eloquently described in a series of mathematical equations entirely separate from the physical reality they describe as if they are entirely apart existing as a predicate?
indeed, perhaps they are not "entirely separate from the physical reality," but rather determined by it...
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Dec 25, 2016 - 10:54am PT
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our civilization has been powerfully affected by the discovery that nature is strictly governed by impersonal laws
In general I agree with this statement. Very important that the sturm and drang of human history be thought of as occurring, or not, in exactly two contrasting ways: by divine design/intercession or not. This proposition is very similar to such central clarifications often asked as to the nature of God. The clarification begins with the question: If God exists is this God a moral God ? Does this God give a hoot or a holler if you decide to behave as Adolph Hitler or Mother Teresa?
The entire notion of an impersonal versus a personal universe can be disposed of in this way and yet securely maintain the belief in a God; for those of you so inclined.
This is post 13333
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 25, 2016 - 11:11am PT
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Per physical laws, or the laws of physics...
Are we using "law" in the common usage ie - "something regarded as having binding force or effect." That "something" being said law?
Are we saying that, for example, that the laws of gravity are "created" by falling rocks?
In some poorly defined way, I think most people think of laws as forces that are either imposed from the outside the individual instance, or the form or organizational patters that arise in a dynamic system.
Would that not imply an inherent organizing principal above and beyond the physical stuff itself?
Using a strictly mechanical model of causation, where would gravity come from if it were outside of any thing? Would could that possibly mean from a physicalists POV?
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