Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Lituya
Mountain climber
|
|
|
May 21, 2018 - 08:23pm PT
|
We are more than the sum of our nature and experiences. A genetically and experientially identical "me" would still be a unique consciousness.
When our star expands and renders this planet a cinder, and we are all dust, who will remember we were here? A universe without God or some equivalent consciousness would be pointless, IMO.
For those less inclined to believe, I like Einstein's eulogy for his friend, Michele Besso:
"Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”
|
|
jogill
climber
Colorado
|
|
|
May 21, 2018 - 09:30pm PT
|
But I do find I need to make up some facts just to get me started
Another politard post contaminating a non-political thread. This stuff spreads like ebola. Stay on the hate threads, fellows.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
May 21, 2018 - 09:38pm PT
|
A universe without God or some equivalent consciousness would be pointless, IMO.
Seems more than reasonable to me. What does seem pointless to me is the desire to live on in some manner after death.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
May 21, 2018 - 10:03pm PT
|
When our star expands and renders this planet a cinder, and we are all dust, who will remember we were here?
We will be dust long before this happens, and our species will have been extinct for billions of years.
|
|
Lituya
Mountain climber
|
|
|
May 21, 2018 - 10:14pm PT
|
Non-stellar factors aside, Earth should remain habitable for the next 500m-1.25bn years. The Sun will leave the main sequence in about 4bn years, but yes, you're right, we'll be long gone.
In any event, that wasn't my point.
|
|
Ricky D
Trad climber
Sierra Westside
|
|
|
May 21, 2018 - 10:24pm PT
|
Caught the last part of Grapes of Wrath on TCM tonight. Thought this line from the goodbye speech by Henry Fonda as Tom Joad was apropos -
“Well, maybe like Casey says, a fella ain’t got a soul of his own, but only a piece of a big one..."
Reminds me of the line from Hushpuppy in the movie Beasts of the Southern Wild -
"When it all goes quiet behind my eyes, I see everything that made me lying around in invisible pieces. When I look too hard, it goes away. And when it all goes quiet, I see they are right here. I see that I'm a little piece in a big, big universe. And that makes things right."
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
May 21, 2018 - 11:06pm PT
|
From our vantage traveling the road of linear time irrevocably from present to future and from the confines of coporality the op question is impossible to confirm or deny. Perhaps our understanding of the fundamentals of reality are primitive, incomplete, or even 180 degrees wrong.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
May 22, 2018 - 07:39am PT
|
'We are more than the sum of our nature and experiences. A genetically and experientially identical "me" would still be a unique consciousness. '
an assertion based on belief, using an unrealistic premise, avoiding the details, and ignoring the question "what is consciousness."
but otherwise you might consider it poetic...
|
|
MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
|
|
|
May 22, 2018 - 07:45am PT
|
I agree with what Ricky D quotes.
I find it comforting to realize that when whatever I am goes away there will still be a lot left. Rain will still fall, grass will still grow, and sun will still shine. And when that goes away, there will still be a lot left.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
May 22, 2018 - 07:51am PT
|
Poke yourself anywhere on your body and you'll experience the consciousness that pervades all over your own body due to the presence of the soul just for starters ...
|
|
Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
May 22, 2018 - 09:25am PT
|
Thanks Mike.
One of the problems IMO with analysis is that it cuts things down into small pieces for observation, but in doing so it destroys what was interesting because the distinctions are not really that salient.
I agree if that is all you do.
To me what you describe is just one half of the Calculus of living. Differentiate and then integrate. One can toggle between the part and the whole as best as one can and in the process get better. Jigsaw puzzles.
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
|
May 22, 2018 - 09:47am PT
|
Wayno: Differentiate and then integrate.
Yes, integrate--perhaps until there is only one thing left. Viola.
|
|
Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
May 22, 2018 - 09:58am PT
|
Yes, and then you die. ;)
|
|
Lituya
Mountain climber
|
|
|
May 22, 2018 - 10:15am PT
|
an assertion based on belief, using an unrealistic premise, avoiding the details, and ignoring the question "what is consciousness."
but otherwise you might consider it poetic...
I don't think proving that the soul exists is within the realm of science. But thought experiments are fun sometimes--even if there is no way to reproduce them.
You'd better stick with Einstein's eulogy to Besso. Of course, there are some problems there too...
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
May 22, 2018 - 10:41am PT
|
Well, as expected, yesterday was a crazy day. But I have a window of time right now to respond.
Your writing a wall of text (WoT) is not surprising, and pushing you to make your arguments clearer by provoking your outrage (whether or not you admit you're outraged) a simple task.
Uh, Ed, that sounds like you're playing some game with me. I find your phrase "provoking your outrage" troubling, because it suggests that you're sitting there thinking up ways to manipulate me. That would NOT be arguing in earnest. It is instead extremely intellectually disingenuous.
You mistake my earnestness for outrage, and if you are going to play manipulative games, then I don't intend to play with you. I argue in earnest.
When I read through your post in its entirety the core argument revolves around "truth" and the way that you see scientists interacting with society, you seem to single out theoretical physicists in particular (and please note that I am trained as an experimental physicists).
There are certainly aspects of how physics intersects with society that I've talked about, although that's not the primary focus of my perspective or argumentation.
I single out theoretical physicists completely apart from you, Ed. If you're more of an experimental physicist, fine. The point is that theoretical physicists are widely regarded as the pinnacle of the reductionistic effort in science. They strike people as "closest to the mind of God," to paraphrase Einstein.
So, rather than to straw-man "science" by focusing on the vast failings of, say, the social-sciences (really, too easy), I focus my attention on that aspect of science that is considered "the best of the best."
Jumping down to your summary you seem to be saying that science competes against other ideas about the "true" description of the universe (and even against itself in view of "contradictions" arising from scientific research). Your argument then becomes a challenge for science (and physics in particular) to provide a philosophical basis for the claim to "truth."
That's not a bad "summary," although it does leave out many points that are interleaved and important in their own right. For example, that this very discussion is not a discussion "in physics."
I consider it more pressing to make that point than any point about science not being "truth-seeking."
In the same way that armchair "philosophers of science" like to USE Kuhn to make points AGAINST science that Kuhn never intended and later repudiated, too many people USE physics (and science in general) to make points that go far, far beyond the province of physics (and science in general).
You see that behavior on this and other threads, where armchair "scientists" make sweeping claims about what science has proved, etc., blah, blah, blah.
These arguments are deeply fallacious. Such arguments (and the perspectives anchored in the almost high-priest role that physicists play) are encouraged by fallacious arguments that appear in well-known books by "leading" (at least well-known) physicists, and, as I noted, Ed, even in your own arguments.
If there's anything I'm most concerned about, it's to clean up the verbiage, so that we are being extremely crisp and accurate in our use of terms.
As just one example I've emphasized, "Deduction" implies "proof," and that's not what science does. That's just one example. And there are many.
If people were crystal clear about the fact that science is an inductive enterprise, then, completely apart from the "problem of induction," they would have a more mitigated sense of what science can in-principle accomplish. And they would then not engage in such strident verbiage about how "stupid" others are who don't accept a "present consensus" as a stand-in for "truth."
I hasten to say that what science accomplishes is not "nothing!" Don't read me as "bashing on science" or "pretending that science really doesn't produce anything." I'm NOT! I actually have profound respect for science and its practitioners!
When responding to your sometimes belittling claims about the "irrelevancy" and "unproductiveness" of philosophy, I'll laughingly say phrases like, "Better microwave ovens and space shuttles that don't blow up most of the time." But that's hyperbole for effect, and always in RESPONSE to your pretty strident bashing on philosophy. I actually do respect science and its practitioners, and I've been the first to admit that philosophy has done a piss-poor job of marketing its relevancy on the open market.
But appearance is not fact, and that's for both enterprises.
When science and its practitioners engage in fallacious arguments, particularly those that have science accomplishing FAR more than it in-principle can, and then using such arguments to bash on entire other disciplines of thought, then I'm going to argue that the wheels have come off the cart.
Ed, don't pretend that you haven't bashed on philosophy in general and philosophy of science in particular. MUCH of my argumentation in my WoT above was to point out that such efforts are literally self-refuting. That important point appears nowhere in your "summary."
It's good to get to a discussion of pragmatism vs. truth! But I want to be sure that the MANY other points I was emphasizing in my WoT are not just bypassed. They were not "background noise," as your summary strongly suggests.
Perhaps you could provide a concise argument why there should be a "true" description of the universe.
Do you mean "should" in a practical reasoning sense or in a normative sense? That distinction will significantly affect my response, and I don't want to provide a "concise" response that must include both.
The lack of that "complete description" could categorize the entire scientific program as inductive, a proper deductive process would proceed from the given complete description of reality.
Too much to say here! In a nutshell, you're slipping back into the old-school, debunked description of deduction/induction that's based on general vs. particular
In short, even if physics produced a GUT, its arguments relative to a GUT would still be inductive, not "proofs," and not stand-ins for "truth."
The scientific program proceeds by expanding our knowledge of the physical universe by observation and by prediction, comparable quantitatively with stated, quantitative, uncertainty.
The challenge for competing "true" descriptions must also account for the body of knowledge acquired regarding the physical universe within the quantitative uncertainty of the body of knowledge.
Here you're just saying something like, "Whether we care about 'true' or 'what works descriptively,' ALL fields of inquiry must founder on the same rocks of uncertainty and lack of a 'complete' description."
Yes, ALL inductive fields of inquiry! I certainly agree!
So, for example, religionists citing some sacred text as "authoritative" and, hence "known" to be "true," ARE alongside science in the empirical realm AND alongside science in being inductive enterprises. As such, they compete heads-up with science in the marketplace of ideas. And, as such, they need to "play the same game."
THAT is why I am so vehemently opposed to creationists' DEMANDS to have so-called "creation science" taught alongside evolution in classrooms, as though "creation science" has "proved" itself to be a competitive enterprise. I don't buy it!
Sure, there is some legitimate science practiced by some "creation scientists," but precious little, and they have not yet produced anything like a "paradigm" that is heads-up competitive with the whole corpus of secular science that surrounds the relevant questions.
And the empirical/inductive appeal to sacred texts is MUCH more problematical that religionists recognize!
This turns out to be not so challenging, one can state that a super-physical entity has created all of the physical universe to be just the way it is, an unassailable assertion.
And now, briefly, we're in sync, Ed! I feel your pain!
However, such an assertion lacks the ability to describe "what is." To science, "what is" becomes a central question, and how to provide answers a crucial component. But not just as a set of "observations," but a set of observations organized into relationships.
And in this post, we've been driving toward that same conclusion.
The difference between us at present is that you take "what is" to mean (depending on the argument of the moment) "what is true" and "what is valuable as a working model." You cannot have BOTH, yet you do flip-flop between them. I deny that you're ever entitled to "true," and the philosophical value of "working model" is less than armchair "scientists" imagine.
I say "philosophical value" because, as I hope our discussion has clearly revealed, when we talk about the majority of "big picture" issues, such as consciousness, ethics, justice, and so on, these armchair "scientists" are actually making outrageous inferences from "what science has proved" to "the way it is" in such fields. They are doing PHILOSOPHY not science, and they are doing it very badly.
Science's "results" are DATA POINTS in a comprehensive world view, not the world view itself. Conflating science with a world view is "scientism," and that world view is the one that bashes on other disciplines of inquiry as well as world views that emerge from them.
"Religionism" is just as outrageous, and it lacks the benefit of scientific rigor.
So, to the extent that "scientists" (qua scientism) bash on philosophy or religion, I am very suspicious of their intellectual honesty and their inferences, particularly since they USE philosophy while bashing on it.
I'm neither arguing against science nor for religion. But I am arguing against both scientism and religionism. Both of THOSE do founder on the same set of rocks (although I think that religionism founders on the "shoals" of those rocks, while scientism just founders a "bit further in," so to speak).
To the extent that this scientific program works and provides the "best" description of physical reality can be studied by philosophy. Scientists would criticize the philosophical activity as lacking precise questions, and so admitting a range of answers to broad as to render them "irrelevant," and not helpful for "progress."
And that would be an "irrelevant" critique for two main reasons:
1) "Scientists" would be DOING the very philosophy of science that they would be claiming is "irrelevant" to offer such an assessment of the assessment. You are not "doing physics" to issue such a critique! So, your own "lacking precise questions" exists in this realm as well.
2) It's not actually the case that philosophy is "asking imprecise questions." If anything, I think I've demonstrated that philosophy is asking the MORE precise questions. If anything, your arguments and responses have revealed that you don't want to engage at THAT level, preferring instead to just ASSERT that "it's not productive" to ask the "philosophical questions."
Such lines as, "while philosophers keep chasing their tails, we'll just continue to do productive science" are profoundly arrogant, dismissive, and, ironically, DOING philosophy (badly) to deeply beg questions.
It's not that philosophers of science are asking imprecise questions. It's that scientists prefer to BEG those questions.
And, at present, your claim of "progress" remains undefined. We were getting to that in our earlier exchange, but it crops up here again. So, let me "ask a precise question." What is "progress?"
There. Simple and undeniably precise. Since, by your lights, it is SCIENCE that is asking precise questions and providing precise answers, surely you can "concisely" provide a precise answer to a precise question.
We can go into cases elsewhere, you have built your argument on faulty understanding of a number of examples.
Probably irrelevant and not worth the raging side-debate that would ensue.
I want to end on this point, Ed. I am really troubled by your assertion that you were basically manipulating my responses for effect. I argue in earnest, so, yes, I am easily "manipulated." But I will NOT engage with anybody who is playing such games. If that's your game, I don't intend to keep playing. I have better things to do with my time.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
May 22, 2018 - 10:44am PT
|
Thank you MUCH, John Gill!
It was a question that probably can only be properly treated face-to-face. For the record, I'm a realist about the enterprise of mathematics, particularly compared to, say, the enterprise of humor, where I'm a staunch anti-realist.
:-)
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
May 22, 2018 - 12:09pm PT
|
I don't think proving that the soul exists is within the realm of science.
Then they have sh!tty useless system and it is.
Just a bunch of incomplete mental speculators misleading each other and wasting everyone's hard earned money .....
The Science of the Soul and Science of Self Realization cost NO money.
The gross materialist don't want that.
They want to "Lord it over" material nature.
All fools and the evidence proves it .......
|
|
Lituya
Mountain climber
|
|
|
May 22, 2018 - 12:20pm PT
|
"while philosophers keep chasing their tails, we'll just continue to do productive science"
PhD anyone? :-)
|
|
August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
|
|
|
May 22, 2018 - 12:33pm PT
|
A universe without God or some equivalent consciousness would be pointless, IMO.
Seems more than reasonable to me. What does seem pointless to me is the desire to live on in some manner after death.
I wouldn't say that wanting to live on is pointless. But it is rather futile. Well, it is futile as far as actually living on. It may make people feel better about the inevitability of death.
And wanting the universe to have a point strikes me as the same wishful thinking that leads people to think they have a soul.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!