:: SuperTopo Rock Climbing Discussion Topic

Discussion Topic

Return to Forum List

This thread has been locked

Messages 441 - 460 of total 477 in this topic

<< First | < Previous | Show All | Next > | Last >>

WBraun

climber

Nov 19, 2010 - 12:32pm PT

what happens after that no one knows. & anyone that says they know is a lier.

Just see how you make your own "Ultimate" again.

So FRUMY

You just confirmed you are a lair .....

FRUMY

Trad climber

SHERMAN OAKS,CA

Nov 19, 2010 - 04:47pm PT

Wbraun - if saying i don't know & no one else does makes me a lier in your eyes - I'm good with that. if you think about what i said it ain't much different than what i'v seen you say in the past.
if you first have a vw then a chevy-----eventually you by a truck?

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Nov 19, 2010 - 04:55pm PT

Man is nature and nature is man. We are not apart but rather a part. It is foolish to try and escape as there is nothing to escape from.

How is it that so many cannot accept the spontaneous as a final term? Any final term, be it accident or God, begs the question what came before. Imagine the existence of God as a reality. Where did he/it come from? God as a final term makes no more sense or nonsense than spontaneous being.

Anyone claiming epistemological authority in this regard is not really understanding the issue.

Crodog

Social climber

Nov 19, 2010 - 05:11pm PT

EtymologyFrom Ancient Greek ἐπιστήμη (epistēmē, “science, knowledge”) < ἐπίσταμαι (epistamai, “I know”) + -λογία (logia, “discourse”) from λέγω (legō, “I speak”). The term was introduced into English by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier (1808-1864).

Pronunciation(US) IPA: /ɪˌpɪstəˈmɑlədʒi/
Nounepistemology (plural epistemologies)

1.(uncountable) The branch of philosophy dealing with the study of knowledge; theory of knowledge, asking such questions as "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", "What do people know?", "How do we know what we know?".
Some thinkers take the view that, beginning with the work of Descartes, epistemology began to replace metaphysics as the most important area of philosophy.
2.(countable) A particular theory of knowledge.
In his epistemology, Plato maintains that our knowledge of universal concepts is a kind of recollection.

I believe you raise a well documented argument.

It is something like:

we don't know what is out there...

which is correct. But history has shown that our epistemology is always increasing with the addition of some dumb explanation like the earth orbits the sun.

Also, in our universe it makes no sense to ask what came before? There was no time. Time started for use 13.72 billion years ago. Ever been South of the South pole?

Jan

Mountain climber

Okinawa, Japan

Nov 20, 2010 - 01:59am PT

science does not care if there is or if there is not a god.

strictly speaking science is the study of everything. nothing more & nothing less.

Am I the only one who senses a contradiction here?

FRUMY

Trad climber

SHERMAN OAKS,CA

Nov 20, 2010 - 03:27pm PT

if you see one it's in your head.

MH2

climber

Nov 21, 2010 - 04:33am PT

Thank God for Ed.

I see science as a way to answer well-posed questions in a manner that people familiar with the issue can agree on.

Science can answer questions about God. I believe that studies have been done on prayer and medical outcomes. If prayer could cure cancer on a better-than-chance basis that would be hard to miss. I think reasonable people would accept that there isn't a caring God who listens to individual prayers and answers them. Of course what is really under study is people's ideas about God. What else do we have to go on?

Jan

Mountain climber

Okinawa, Japan

Nov 21, 2010 - 09:11am PT

Either I'm getting trained to understand what Ed is saying or his explanations are getting ever clearer if not downright poetic. Surely his thoughts on mankind's relation to the animal world and our impact on the ecology, will have to be a part of any future belief system that replaces the ones we now have in the educated countries of the world.

I also could live with his materialist belief system if it is eventually proved to my satisfaction that materialism is all there is. I just don't think that it has been proven nor will be for a very long time if at all. In the meantime, much research remains to be done by neurobiologists on people practicing spiritual disciplines to try to at least document what is going on at the physical level.

A further issue that has never been discussed on this thread is the fact that even if the materialist interpretation is true, it can only appeal to the limited number of people on this planet who live the privileged lives that those of us contributing to this thread already enjoy.

What about the majority of humans on this earth who do not enjoy even a modicum of security and ease? I doubt that the citizens of the Third World who are daily treated like animals by their own economic and political systems, are going to find much inspiration in being told that they are officially part of the animal world.

It also seems to me that any attempts to improve their situation will require sacrifice on the part of the privileged and I doubt that can happen based on a rationalist philosophy that sees life as accidental and humans as mere animals with large brains.

In general, what's true probably matters much less to the history of our species, than what inspires the majority toward more compassionate behavior.

MH2

climber

Nov 21, 2010 - 10:01pm PT

"In general, what's true probably matters much less to the history of our species, than what inspires the majority toward more compassionate behavior."

They both matter a lot in different ways.

I'm reading The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind about a kid in rural Malawi who found science that allowed him to express his compassion for the subsistence farmers he grew up as.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Nov 21, 2010 - 10:08pm PT

it is a tremendous privilege to have you read the stuff I write and criticize it... thanks for your patience, I get better at expressing my thoughts (and changing those thoughts) with your responses.

MH2

climber

Nov 22, 2010 - 02:25pm PT

"I also could live with his materialist belief system if it is eventually proved to my satisfaction that materialism is all there is.

That's a tall order.

However, there may be an opportunity here for me to learn a little about the beyond-the-material view

Are any non-material forces, spiritual or otherwise, needed to account for chemistry? To explain, for example, combustion?

Does anything beyond molecular interactions go on in single-celled life such as bacteria or parameciums?

In multi-cellular life forms we definitely see behavior that it isn't useful or perhaps even possible to describe as chemistry, but at what size scale or degree of complexity do we find non-material forces coming into play? Algae? Fish? Frogs? Lizards? Birds? Mammals? Primates?

For now let me call complexity a combination the number of parts a thing has and the number of interactions possible among those parts. As one goes in complexity from oxygen combining with hydrogen up to multicellular life new and marvelous properties emerge. Is it possible to say where spiritual or animist elements come into the picture and how the chemistry that presumably began evolution has been surpassed?

I fully respect that chemistry is the wrong tool for a human mind to grasp a satisfactory understanding of thought, let alone spiritual experience. But I have enough respect for chemistry to feel that it can and probably does power all that we experience.

WBraun

climber

Nov 22, 2010 - 02:48pm PT

I also could live with his materialist belief system

This is a stupid thought.

You are already living in the material world ....

rrrADAM

Trad climber

LBMF

Nov 22, 2010 - 03:14pm PT

I also could live with his materialist belief system if it is eventually proved to my satisfaction that materialism is all there is. I just don't think that it has been proven nor will be for a very long time if at all.

I don't think it will ever be "proven", as there will always be gaps in our knowledge... Especially not proven to everyone's "satisfaction", as many will just move the goal post, yet still keeping it within the "gaps"... Or worse, ignore SOLID evidence (E.g., evolution, cosmology, geology) to keep enough room for their God, or other supernatural explanation. Thing is, "gaps" (real or imagined) do not equal, nor require God (or anything else supernatural) to explain. They are just that, gaps in our knowledge. To the scientist, the answer to questions about those gaps is "I don't know... Let's see what we can find out"... But to the faithful, the answer is "See... God!".

Think of all the gaps in our knowledge, say, 300 years ago, a thousand years ago, or, 3 or more thousand years ago when many religions started. The gaps get larger the further back in time we go, and these gaps were filled with God (or something supernatural), until they were explained naturally, and those gaps closed or became MUCH smaller. BUT, as these gaps in our knowledge have become smaller, the room for God (or the supernatural) gets smaller as well.

Making the argument for God (or the supernatural) existing within those gaps is call the God Of The Gaps.

As Neil deGrasse Tyson, the popular astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium says:

Writing in centuries past, many scientists felt compelled to wax poetic about cosmic mysteries and God's handiwork. Perhaps one should not be surprised at this: most scientists back then, as well as many scientists today, identify themselves as spiritually devout.

But a careful reading of older texts, particularly those concerned with the universe itself, shows that the authors invoke divinity only when they reach the boundaries of their understanding. They appeal to a higher power only when staring into the ocean of their own ignorance. They call on God only from the lonely and precarious edge of incomprehension. Where they feel certain about their explanations, however, God gets hardly a mention.

Here's the great essay where that comes from:
http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/2005/11/01/the-perimeter-of-ignorance

Or, if you prefer video, this by him on the same subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vrpPPV_yPY

So, serious question here...
Besides the emotional solace of having such a belief (E.g., "afterlife" [imortality], "hope" [God will intervene on one's behalf]. "reason for existing", etc), what other "reason" is there to have such a belief? Especially if that belief only exists within, or because of, the gaps in our current knowledge.

Yes, I agree with you regarding the "hope" for the vast majority, BUT, if reality really is as everything shows it to be, then it really is a "false hope" to suggest differently, isn't it? Sure "ignorance is bliss", but it also breads, well "ignorance".

As to...

It also seems to me that any attempts to improve their situation will require sacrifice on the part of the privileged and I doubt that can happen based on a rationalist philosophy that sees life as accidental and humans as mere animals with large brains.

There are humanist, secularist, and even atheist organizations who do much, but there needs to be more of them, doing more.

Lastly...

In general, what's true probably matters much less to the history of our species, than what inspires the majority toward more compassionate behavior.

Gotta look at both sides, as it's inspired some compassionate behavior, as well as some of the worst behavior against those who didn't believe exactly as they did... Not just to those with competing religions (E.g., Crusades, 9/11), but even to others within the same religions (Catholic/Protestant/Puritan Christians, Shite/Suni Muslims)

Edit: To fix my numerous typos. :/

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Full Silos of Iowa

Nov 22, 2010 - 05:00pm PT

Thoughtful post. As was its basis, Jan's post.

Jan

Mountain climber

Okinawa, Japan

Nov 23, 2010 - 04:53am PT

It seems to me that there are two issues here. One is whether God exists and how to even understand the idea in the post modern age

and

the other point is how to make a non supernaturalist, non superstitious belief system more accepted at large.

As Fructose has mentioned several times, something positive needs to be constructed. It's tempting to deride those with medieval beliefs, especially if their proponents are concurrently beating you over the head with those beliefs. Arguing in kind however, just drags us all down to their level.

Instead, a statement of what an educated, thoughtful, post modern person knows and finds comfort in would be more useful. Most contemporary people have enough doubts about the old stories to be wary of certainty and are looking for a framework for a wider outlook than what they've traditionally been taught.

Jan

Mountain climber

Okinawa, Japan

Nov 23, 2010 - 04:57am PT

So here's my contribution to a more scientific and non traditional post modern religion.

The Creed:

We don't think there's an anthropomorphic being in the sky but we do observe that the whole is greater than the parts, that there will always be something mysterious left even as our knowledge increases, and to us that is as close God as we can get. In the meantime we are extremely grateful for the beauty and incredible complexity we see around us whatever the source.

We believe we can affect how our fellow humans are treated and all other life forms on this planet as well and have the moral obligation to do so. We believe that humans have the intelligence and an inner core of goodness to make this world better, and both need to be encouraged. We believe that if we behave as well as we can, there is nothing to fear after this life, no matter what happens. We believe the level of consciousness and motivation of an individual are more important than strict rules about living. Our only rule is the Golden Rule.

We believe that humans should behave at least as altruistically as other intelligent animals and we aspire to much more. We give a certain percentage of our income to charity and we have our own charity that specifically looks for practical technological solutions, preferably inexpensive and easy to use, that will help our fellow humans and be eco friendly. We also support the work of humane societies and conservation groups.

Whenever moral controversies arise, we set forth the various facets of the argument and levels of coping mechanisms to be considered, at the same time the traditional religions speak on the same issues. We want people to make informed decisions.

Given the nature of our society we have filed to be a tax exempt religion (the Church of Cosmic Wonder? the Church of Responsible Human Beings? the Church of Rational Solutions?), we have a printing press, and we attend meetings of the World Council of Churches to present the scientific and humanistic way forward. We are not so interested in making conversions as in converting people to new perspectives.

Amen. Dive in!