Capturing the whole picture, philospohically

[Matt Laur]

Bernie! Either... thanks, or... that's some <i>very</i> subtle and sublime humor in the context of this thread. Which is great, so thanks for that, too.

[saskphotog]

"To imply that there is communication we can't record suggests that there is some venue for communication that doesn't involve touch, sight, sound, taste, or smell. It's silly to talk about technology (and its presumptive shortcomings as a tool of introspection or communication) if you're going to stipulate as part of the discussion that there is supernatural, unrecordable communication going on in the first place."

 

Wow! No one can see the incredible leap of pure faith it takes to believe that?

 

Matt, the belief that our senses combined with our "objective" technology can or will, reveal all that is true or real is not at all unusual, but it is, in fact, an act of faith itself.

 

I would also suggest that blindly accepting that faith creates as many problems as does the acceptance of any blind faith.

[Matt Laur]

Larry. You really didn't need to type that, because I <i>knew</i> someone was going to. Look! Still no magic! It's called informed speculation, based on experience.

<br><br>

<i>the belief that our senses combined with our "objective" technology can or will, reveal all that is true or real is not at all unusual, but it is, in fact, an act of faith itself</i>

<br><br>

Sorry, no. First, that's a straw man argument, since I didn't actually say what you're suggesting I believe. There are things happening in the universe that we have no ability to see, experience, or record. The speed of light, alone, prevents us from ever sensing or being able to directly contemplate some events that have unfolded too far away/long ago for that information to ever reach us. Does that mean that I should carry on, here and now, as if the "truth" of the activities that are outside the range of my senses or equipment or inferences from other observations could, therefore, actually violate the laws of physics or involve magic omnipotent beings that give kids cancer or steer tornados into your neighbor's house instead of your own?

<br><br>

You can't see me right now. I might not even exist. I might even be Lex Luthor (Lex Jenkins' evil twin brother) pretending to be a web consulting guy in need of another Nikon fix. You can't tell. Do you consider the fact that you're communicating with me right now, or that I exist at all, to be a matter of <i>faith</i>, in the way we all presume that word to be meant? There's no <i>leap of faith</i> involved at all, of course. You're making a <i>reasoned judgement</i> that I'm not an alien, the devil, or your own imagination playing tricks on you. Which of us is exhibiting a leap of faith? The one that must make room for mysticism in order to be comfortable with their world view, or the one that doesn't? You're saying that finding the world to operate consistently according to predictable, observable, demonstrable mechanisms - and then acting day to day as though that's likely to also be just as workable a world view tomorrow - requires the same "faith" as does thinking that a particular dance makes it rain, or that God gets angry if you teach women to read, or that when your neurons have had their last dose of oxygen, that "you" are still there, and finally able to Figure It All Out.

<br><br>

Nah.

<br><br>

Embracing the notion that reality - by its nature - can't be perceived or understood is a crutch upon which all sorts of truly awful, intellect-stunting, social-clash-causing, moral-contradiction-inducing, magical thinking is kept on cultural life support. It's a shame, because the high tech cameras we use, the network of computers over which we're communicating right now, and the synapses that are firing in your brain as you process the meaning of the written symbols in front of you all rely on a reality that doesn't exist by whim, or get bent by wishful thinking. Simply recognizing that requires no faith, but still leaves all sorts of opportunities to gawk appreciatively at the vastness and complexity that surround us. Looking at those same things and saying, "Well, nature is actually supernatural... I won't work too hard at grasping it because it's magic," is just like looking - for the first time, at PhotoShop and assuming that, never mind, only priests, shamans, and uber geeks could really ever connect to all of that complexity and put it to work in a normal person's life. Nonsese on both counts.

[saskphotog]

"Embracing the notion that reality - by its nature - can't be perceived or understood is a crutch upon which all sorts of truly awful, intellect-stunting, social-clash-causing, moral-contradiction-inducing, magical thinking is kept on cultural life support."

 

I never said that. I said, and I'm saying it again, your belief ("informed speculation" if you must) that science is the only way of knowing truth is a faith. Reason and logic reveals more about how the human mind works than it does about how the universe works.

 

You also need to re-examine your notion that, if one suggests that science and technology may not be the only way of knowing things, the only alternative is a descent into your adjective stringing, sometimes vitriolic, and always condescending description of magical explanations. That is just uninformed.

[Norma Desmond]

Faith and belief are two different matters and it's disingenuous to try and conflate the

two.

 

Beliefs in science are formed in a particular way and with a particular process,

observation and experimentation included.

 

The process of faith is a different animal . . . and it should be.

 

I can respect those who have faith. I have more trouble respecting those who claim

that all beliefs in anything are a matter of faith. First of all, it waters down their own

faith (making it nothing at all exceptional which, in fact, it is). Second of all, it simply

makes false analogies and assumptions about very different processes.

[Matt Laur]

Larry, you're tap-dancing around what you're really trying to say. What methods, beyond our senses, the tools we use to extend them, and the reason we use to interpert that which is collected by those senses/tools, are you proposing we DO use to understand our surroundings? You've pretty much left yourself two choices:

<br><br>

1) Magic.

<br><br>

2) Giving up on trying to understand your surroundings.

<br><br>

Plenty of people are perfectly happy with (2), obviously. One can hold all sorts of mixed premises and self-contradictory notions about the nature of the universe, and still wake up in the morning and generally function just fine. The only thing they're doing is perhaps clouding their capacity for critical thought, or passing superstitions down to their kids. And that might be fairly benign, if it didn't sometimes eventually turn into how people vote for school boards, or which kinds of science gets diluted in the science classroom. I want kids to learn the scientific method, and sound engineering based on reality, so that they can grow up and make bridges that don't fall down, better image stabilization for my camera, and the like. The "truth" is that photons behave they way photons behave. Science, not mysticism, is the most useful way to grapple with that.

<br><br>

But you seem to be more of an option (1) sort of guy. So, specifically, what mechanism for the examination of truth DO you have in mind? What truth is it that you have mastered that someone who relies on reason and the scientific method can't establish for themselves? If you're aware of something that passes muster under the examination of science, but which is none the less false, please do point that out.

<br><br>

The OP is talking about whether or not our photographic tools fall short of recording all of something - the "truth" of the image. And he doesn't mean that in the sense of your DSLR not being sensitive to certain wavelengths of light. I have suggested that the question itself is flawed, because - at least as posed - it implies some layer of information, knowledge, and communication that doesn't actually take place in the real world and between people who do or have existed in the real world. You are making a similarly vague reference to "truths" that exist outside of our ability to be tangibly aware of them, and perhaps outside of your willingness to even say what they are (since you haven't, yet). That sort of evasiveness (now being served up with the accustomed side dish of indignation) is typical of assertions that there are unknowable, supernatural truths available out there - provided you're willing to sign up for mystical access to them. I've never enjoyed sales pitches that assure me that the details of what I'm supposed to be buying, and what it will really cost, will be disclosed later, please just sign away your reason, and you'll get The Truth in your membership packet in the mail.

<br><br>

So, you're asserting the existence of Truths unknowable by reason. Do us the favor of stating what they are, the better to understand where you're really coming from here. Yes, this all has something to do with photography, since photography is an important and always evolving medium of communication (and would not work without the laws of physics being the nice, predictable things that they are). Purveyors of Truth should indeed have a compelling interest in communication, in all of its forms. Please DO communicate.

<br><br>

Your gallery contains an elegant, and carefully exposed photograph of a towering oil rig, right next to the rising moon. Our species walked on the moon because thousands of people worked to grasp the subtleties of chemistry, metalurgy, radiation, semiconductors, geology, physiology, orbital mechanics, advanced mathematics, and more... and then took the calculated risks of climbing onboard a huge monument to reason and adventure, and launching it. As a culture with less science under our belt, that task was considered impossible... its impossibility being one of Those Truths, I guess, at the time. A modern digital camera isn't a bit different - it's more fruit from the same tree, just like the computer you're using.

<br><br>

Anyway, I'll look forward to your filling in the blanks in your position. The approach to which you're opposed (the scientific method) has, built into it, not only the willingness, but the <i>goal</i> of always taking into account new infromation. See? No faith required. It's a method, not dogma, and not wishful thinking. One doesn't need to <i>believe</i> in science. That's like saying you have to <i>believe</i> in addition and long division in order to use them.. that calculus requires a leap of faith before you can use it as a tool to design ever more sophisticated cameras or an orbital observatory than can see light from billions of years ago. Unlike the things in which people <i>must</i> have faith (supernatural beings saving their house from a tornado, for example), we can actually sit down and cut up apples to see that math works. No magic. No faith. Just simple reality.

[saskphotog]

Faith is exceptional. It is the foundation for all progress of any type.

 

The evolution of the scientific method has been founded on the faith that it is the best way humans have of understanding things even though we still don't know for certain that it is. That does not detract in any way from science as a way of knowing (in fact, it seems to work quite well) but there is a real faith at its foundation that many in science do not appreciate.

 

Science certainly works well for some things. I love technology. But I do not think it is the only way of understanding.

 

It seems to me that one of the surest ways of identifying religious zealots is that they all insist there is only one true Way of knowing. That insistence, that only one Way holds truth and enlightenment, is usually the source of all the dangers, as Matt correctly points out, that arise from blind faith.

 

I think there is lots of evidence that it is time we began to examine the consequences of our blind faith in the application of technology and the scientific method to the problems of human existence.

[Norma Desmond]

"blind faith"

 

The only blindness is not recognizing the difference between faith on the one hand

and reason and scientific inquiry on the other.

 

Attempting to set up scientific inquiry as something simply founded on faith is,

again, to misunderstand faith and to misunderstand scientific inquiry. It is a self-

serving way to claim that your way is the only way, the way of faith. What you're

basically saying that is that if I, Larry, am doomed to the unsupportable and

ridiculous notion of faith, then so are you. It shows a lack of respect for your own

faith and a lack of respect for others' alternative approaches to the world.

[Matt Laur]

<i>But I do not think it is the only way of understanding.</i>

<Br><Br>

At understanding... <i>what</i>? That's the part you're not going into, Larry. As soon as you articulate that, you'll see exactly what Fred's talking about.

<br><br>

You insist that science requires faith. How, specifically? What part of that method of testing a hypothosis about how, say ... a new coating chemical will impact the way that light bends through a lens ... requires faith on the part of the scientist? Assertions of that type are, usually, a rather ham-fisted attempt at stealthily blurring the distinction between reason and superstition. That's usually so that cultures, movements, idealogies, or other faction-ish type groups can feel less ridiculous making the case for teaching creationism in public schools and labeling it as "another way of understanding" science, etc. No other purpose is served by classifying the practice of reproducibly evaluating the validity of hypothoses as just another religion. It's a back door approach to undermining reason, the better to somehow level the playing field on behalf of superstition.

<br><br>

Now, if that's NOT the sort of Truth That Science Isn't Good At that you're talking about, please - actually spell it out - the better to advance this conversation.

[saskphotog]

Perhaps science is not a good method of understanding "Capturing the whole picture, philospohically".

 

I didn't say science methods are faith based. My point is that it is an act of faith to assume that the scientific method is the correct one.

 

Scientific inquiry is based on a trust that if we pursue it long enough and "purely" enough we will get all the answers because logic and reason are the only reliable source of truth. There isn't a scientific reason to believe that. Not yet, anyway, but science charges ahead with complete faith that it will find out everything in the end, and at the same time, with almost (I'm sorry to have to use the phrase) religious zeal, science condemns every other method as not only without merit, but dangerous and heretical. I'm being treated like an infidel for suggesting these ideas.

 

I want to say again, hopefully in a better way, that viewing all this as zero sum game is wrong. The fact that a faith in science is necessary to do it well is not a condemnation of science, nor an argument that scientific inquiry is bogus, nor that science is "just another religion". There are many ways to capture the whole picture, philosophically that include science, but also include other methods. Because a method is not scientific does not mean it is irrelevant, and ignoring other methods, or condemning them simply because they are not science is to be a scientific bigot. I will argue that it isn't even scientific to do so.

 

Why does the word "faith" create such reactions. It is absolutely essential.

 

What is science not good for? How about living.

 

No faithless scientist could ever make a decision to go to the grocery store. He would end up in a never ending loop of gathering information and testing theories until he died of hunger. At some point he has to have faith that he won't get killed on the way there, that the vegetables are not poisoned, that there is no meteor about to hit the planet, that the car will not disintigrate due to Hiesenberg's Uncertainty Principle, that his hunger is not an illusion, that......... you get the picture.... and just go to the store.

 

Decision making is never good science. We always just make our best guess in the end, whether it is going to the grocery store or picking a spouse. All the truly important choices of your life, the ones that truly changed the course of your life, got almost no scientific thought whatsoever, while the unimportant ones get careful analysis. If you are happy now, any real thought would prove that you can't give science the credit. But somehow you managed to become a happy person.

 

I'm not anti-science at all. But for us to overcome the unprecedented disasters that we seem determine to inflict on ourselves, and for almost all of which we have science to thank, we need to get science and its methods into a perspective that will allow other sources of thought to provide solutions. We need to have some faith in some other methods of problem solving.

 

To capture the whole picture, philosophically.

[Norma Desmond]

Your argument is one straw man after another. No scientist, no philosopher, and no

reasonable person makes any of the claims that you claim science makes.

 

"Scientific inquiry is based on a trust that if we pursue it long enough and "purely"

enough we will get all the answers because logic and reason are the only reliable

source of truth."

 

That is such a distortion of scientific thinking that it seems purely driven by your

own faith-based agenda and has no ground in reality at all. It's simply not the way

science works.

 

Science is a method, it's not a search for Truth. Scientists as well as philosophers,

especially today, have a very different notion than the pure and absolutist notion of

Truth you have set forth.

 

Read a philosopher like Richard Rorty or a mathematician/logician like W.V. Quine.

Read the Massachusetts-born scientist/philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce and

you'll see that the world of scientific inquiry has come a long way since Descartes.

Descartes helped usher philosophical and scientific thought out of the middle ages

in a quest for a still godlike but more rationalist and human-based absolute certainty.

Great thinkers since then are still tied into many of Descartes's models of thinking

(particularly the mind-body distinction), but have certainly moved beyond his ties to

absolute certainty as a model for Truth. Have you even heard of the more

contemporary Coherence Theory of Truth? Sure doesn't seem like it.

 

" . . . science charges ahead with complete faith that it will find out everything in the

end, and at the same time, with almost (I'm sorry to have to use the phrase)

religious zeal, science condemns every other method as not only without merit, but

dangerous and heretical . . ."

 

I know this isn't school, but you really need to give sources if you're going to make

such ridiculous claims about science. Where do you get these ideas?

 

It is you who keep attributing religious-like goals and aspirations to science. That's

your prejudice and has nothing to do with science as it's approached today.

Scientists don't generally have those "ultimate" kinds of goals that you're suggesting

and contemporary scientists and philosophers are much more humble in their

approach to Truth than you give them credit for. Of course, secular humility about

Truth wouldn't fit into your preconceived argument, so instead you argue as if a

purely foundational definition of truth is still operational in the contemporary world.

It's not!

 

There are many scientists who actually have religious faith and, because they don't

conflate religion and science as you are doing, they are perfectly comfortable

allowing their faith a place beside their scientific endeavors. They are not afraid of

religion, as you claim they are. They have no reason to be afraid of it, because they

aren't as confused about it as you are.

 

Finally, all zeal is not religious zeal. One can be secular and have enthusiastic

diligence (the dictionary's definition of zealotry). Nope, it's not all faith. Not even

close.

[saskphotog]

"Your argument is one straw man after another. No scientist, no philosopher, and no reasonable person makes any of the claims that you claim science makes."

 

Ok, then I'll stop.

[Matt Laur]

<i>Scientific inquiry is based on a trust that if we pursue it long enough and "purely" enough we will get all the answers because logic and reason are the only reliable source of truth.</i>

<br><br>

*sigh*

<br>No. <i>Each and every</i> inquiry made using the scientific method is designed to get to the bottom of whether or not the hypothosis being tested is, or is not, correct. The use of that method isn't based on trust. It's based on specific, reproducible results. Hypotheses are shown to be correct, or incorrect. Period. There <i>is no trust</i>, which is why other scientists are encouraged to always show that the same results can be achieved, separately, and regularly, in order to <i>avoid the need for trust</i>.

<br><br>

<i>The fact that a faith in science is necessary to do it well is not a condemnation of science</i>

<br><br>

Slow down there. It's not even a comment <i>about</i> science. I think it might help you if you actually spelled out your own succinct, workable definition of the word "faith." A person using the scientific method to evaluate the validity of their thoughts about ... <i>anything</i> ... is doing so expressly because faith in the test and the results is not necessary. One requires faith in order to internalize and operate upon conclusions that <i>must be accepted with proof or a demonstrable basis</i>. Science requires that one accept only that which can be demonstrated - repeatedly, as needed. It is exactly, precisely the opposite of what you suggest that is, or seem to wish that it was popularly held to be.

<br><br>

<i>Why does the word "faith" create such reactions</i>

<br><br>

In the context of a conversation about science, technology, and communication? Better, perhaps, to ask why people with a superstitious disposition react so allergically to the word "science," and try so frequently to make it a subset of superstition, the better to make that annoying <i>reality</i> thing go away. Those who put the tools of science to work, and require no magical thinking as they do so, react strongly to such attempts at subversion in order to protect the integrity of the scientific method as it is understood in the wider culture.

<br><br>

<i>No faithless scientist could ever make a decision to go to the grocery store.</i>

<br><br>

Is that how <i>cheap</i> your own faith is? Perhaps that's why you're flailing around so much on this subject. You're confusing calculated risk-taking with faith. If that's how malleable that word is to you, then it's no wonder that what first felt like a discussion driven by semantic differences is actually one driven by badly mixed premises. <i>Reason</i> is what makes it possible to not cower in fear on the way to the grocery store. It's people with a damaged capacity for it that obsess about the laundry-list of paranoia fodder that you listed. Further, I would say that people who have elected to include the supernatural in how they imagine the world to be tend to be far more inclined to feel themselves (literally) at the mercy of the other-worldly, and use up a lot of their waking hours thinking about how to best talk those supernatural powers into being nice to them that day. That's not a pursuit or embrace of Truth, it's simply a childlike fear of mysteries that has opted to tackle through comforting mythology rather than with the harsh light of reality.

<br><br>

<i>I'm not anti-science at all</i>

<br><br>

Well, obviously. Because you've decided that science doesn't actually involve science in the way that scientists think of it, you can call science whatever you want, and interpret its place within your religious views however you like. Doesn't change the actual nature of real scientific inquiry or methods.

<br><br>

<i>We need to have some faith in some other methods of problem solving.</i>

<br><br>

Again with the hidden Amway pitch. What methods of problem solving, specifically?

[Julie H]

<p>Larry,</p>

<p>A creature does not need faith to act. Animals, insects, plants -- all go to the food (the "grocery store") without faith or any need for faith.</p>

<p>Matt,</p>

<p>Just one comment: the word "correct" may not be the best choice. See <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/sciproof.html"> this page</a> for a good outline of the scientific method. The word "prove" (close to "correct") is verboten.</p>

<p>Quote taken from the linked page, "... As Stephen J. Gould has said, a scientific fact is not "absolute certainty", but simply a theory that has been "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent"."</p>

<p>Larry has not come right out and said that he is advocating a religious position (though, like Matt and Fred, I have strong suspicions that he is). A scientific (as opposed to a religious or purely philosophical) statement about the problem of the objectivity (or not) of science comes from <a href="http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_4.html#tegmark"> Max Tegmark, physicist, MIT:</a></p>

<p>"Do we need to understand consciousness to understand physics? I used to answer "yes", thinking that we could never figure out the elusive "theory of everything" for our external physical reality without first understanding the distorting mental lens through which we perceive it..."</p>

<p>"... In other words, what Douglas Adams called "the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything" splits cleanly into two parts that can be tackled separately: the challenge for physics is deriving the consensus view from the bird's eye view, and the challenge for cognitive science is to derive the frog's eye view from the consensus view. These are two great challenges for the third millennium." Link to his full statment, which is very interesting is <a href="http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_4.html#tegmark">here.</a></p>

<p>-Julie</p>

[Matt Laur]

Thanks, Julie.

 

Yes, you're right. And since I'm being pedantic, I should choose such words with care. Of course, by "correct," I mean "as correct as one can be and still have the intellectual integrity to provide for the prospect of new information that might refine or alter one's conclusions." Or, "well enough confirmed to allow one to go to the grocery store."

 

In the context of this thread, it's mostly just important to make the distinction between topics that lend themselves to observation and testing, and those that are ginned up (as in the original post) in a way that suggests they can never be. With regard to the direction that Larry was headed, it's more a matter of whether or not one's entire world view can be formed by... viewing the world with a rational mind. Some people definitely resist the notion that a moral code and joy in life can be found while choosing to operate without the baggage of mysticism clanking along behind. But when it's convenient (say, when they want a nice new digital camera), they're all for the output of the rational mind, and the laws of physics upon which they operate. The human capacity for tolerating those contradictions is pretty spectacular - as long as there's food and shelter, there's plenty of room to compartmentalize. Those gaps are getting smaller and smaller, though. And the tinier the spaces into which mysticism must be - in the face of observable reality and an ever improving understanding of its mechanisms - squeezed, the more it tends to thrash crazily about.

[Norma Desmond]

"Larry has not come right out and said that he is advocating a religious position

(though, like Matt and Fred, I have strong suspicions that he is)."

 

Julie, I try to keep my "suspicions," while I might admit to having them, out of

discussions such as these. I hope I have based my arguments on what Larry has

said, not what I may or may not suspect is behind what he has said.

 

I don't think Larry's needs to be a "religious" argument. I would as strongly argue

against proponents of qualia in the current debate taking place in the science and

philosophy of mind and consciousness (qualia being the so-called scientifically

irreducible components inherent in notions such as "what it's like to be a bat" or

"what it's like to see red" or "what it's like to smell the coffee," supposedly purely

personal and uncommunicable sensations whose purview is outside the physical

world). Proponents of qualia are far from religious. Even "faith" and "religion" should

not be conflated. My personal view is that religion is much more dangerous and has

done way more harm than faith. Ultimately, I would also argue against seeing free

will as mystically rising above determinism. Many think freedom can reasonably be

seen within a deterministic framework.

 

So, no, this does not have to devolve into a religious argument. To me, it's about

science, not religion. There are many arguments (some more reasoned than others)

which seek to undercut or to show the insufficiency of physicalism that are not

religiously based.

 

What I mostly mind is someone playing transparent word games to prove that every

belief boils down to faith and then refusing to back it up. It's a misuse of vocabulary

as well as concepts, a transparent way of arguing oneself into an endless loop, and

dismissive of a position opposed to one's own. You want to provide evidence or

anecdotal experience, even a loose narrative about your position, I'm all ears. But

tell me that my belief must reduce to yours and you lose me pretty quickly.

[kristina_kraft]

This is just great! I can't understand all of you, guys.

 

But I can make an example about how religion and science goes together. The story is about investigating the Robe of Jesus. On the robe there are a visible particles that forms his face. But scientists who are involve saying for the record that they can't tell what it is for sure, but they can tell what it's not.

After 20 years of researching this is the conclusion!

 

Researching the mummies is my the most favorite topic on that field. Scientists present us how they are doing the research, the methodology, the technology. So, they put the mummy inside of Siemens big X-RAY machine, and they can calculate age, apparently how the mummy died, seeing the wounds, and similar.

But of course, they can't disclose whether this mummy had a some kind of mystical or supernatural powers, simply being special in a way.

 

It is because the supernatural powers were the part of their souls and minds that doesn't dwell any more in our dimension. So the scientists can't find any kind of trace that might lead to that. I remember, in the tombs, in the beginning of researching in 20 ct., people died entering the tombs because during the past several thousand years, the quality of air changed dramatically into poisonous environment of god knows what kind of bacterias.

So people from outside thought it was the curse. But science said its own.

 

HOW CONSCIOUSNESS CREATES REALITY by Claus Janew.

http://free-will.de/reality.pdf

 

Thanks Julie for your links.

 

Fred,

 

Charles Sanders Peirce:

 

I like this chapter:

 

A Definition of Feeling

 

306. "By a feeling, I mean an instance of that kind of consciousness which involves no analysis, comparison or any process whatsoever...the feeling is simply a quality of immediate consciousness...But it must be admitted that a feeling experienced in an outward sensation may be reproduced in memory. For to deny this would be idle nonsense. For instance, you experience, let us say, a certain color sensation due to red-lead. It has a definite hue, luminosity, and chroma. These [are] three elements ? which are not separate in the feeling, it is true, and are not, therefore, in the feeling at all, but are said to be in it, as a way of expressing the results which would follow, according to the principles of chromatics, from certain experiments with a color disk, color-box, or other similar apparatus. In that sense, the color sensation which you derive from looking at the red-lead has a certain hue, luminosity, and chroma which completely define the quality of the color. The vividness, however, is independent of all three of these elements; and it is very different in the memory of the color a quarter of a second after the actual sensation from what it is in the sensation itself, although this memory is conceivably perfectly true as to hue, luminosity, and chroma, which truth constitutes it an exact reproduction of the entire quality of the feeling...

 

...the entire consciousness at any one instant is nothing but a feeling,"

[saskphotog]

While I said I would stop, I want to thank Fred for pointing out that it is unfair to accuse me of promoting a religious position, since I have carefully not done so. I think the suspicion that I have such an agenda is an indication of my failure as a writer, and of the unfortunate belief by some that this discussion must be an either/or discussion: either I'm in the science camp, or I'm a religious nut.

 

I will not chew this much further except to answer Matt's demand that I define faith. Faith is believing something to be true without any evidence.

 

We do it (live on faith) all the time. Only rarely do we have any proof about anything, and I know science is perfectly comfortable with that. If one wants to call it "calculated risk taking" go ahead, but the result is exactly the same. We live our lives not knowing, but doing anyway. That's not a bad thing at all, it's the only way human experience works.

 

Fred has admitted this is not school, but asked for "sources". A quick "philosophy" book shelf check from behind me for references relevant to this thread revealed these names: Claude Lévi-Strauss, John C. Lilly, Joseph Chilton Pearce, Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, William Blake, John Milton, E. O. Wilson, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, Walt Whitman, Thomas Cleary, Gary Zukav, François de La Rochefoucauld, Neitzsche, Carlos Castaneda, T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley, Viktor Frankl, Alan Watts, Albert Einstein, Kahlil Gibran, Benjamin Hoff, Carl Jung. No particular order (as is typical on my book shelf, I'm afraid).

 

Certainly not a good "science" library, but it will give you an idea of where I might by trying to synthesize the concepts.

 

I have lots of faith in you all. Have a good weekend.

 

Oh, yeah, take lots of picture too.

[saskphotog]

Just a thought.

 

I wonder where Regan went, and what he thinks about all this. ;>)

[Norma Desmond]

Kristina--

 

I quoted Peirce in the context of his views on scientific methodology. That being

said, I agree with what he's saying in your quote to the extent that, yes, we all

experience feelings that remain unanalyzed. There is much in my immediate

consciousness that is so. That's a good thing because, otherwise, I'd be terribly self

conscious all the time. I think what he's talking about is another way of saying "I am

present" or what I mean when I say "I am in the moment." I also think his

consideration of how memory differs from experience is important. But I take none

of that to mean that consciousness is not reducible to what's physical and scientific.

Because I don't approach the world by dissecting all my feelings at all times and, in

fact, I think it would be impossible for any human to do so given the amount of

feelings we are experiencing all the time, does not mean that science can't dissect

them in a laboratory and explain them in terms of their physical causes and

manifestations.

 

"It is because the supernatural powers were the part of their souls and minds that

doesn't dwell any more in our dimension. So the scientists can't find any kind of

trace that might lead to that."

 

Science, as you observe, is not in the business of being able to disprove supposed

supernatural powers or the existence of souls or gods. Science cannot disprove the

existence of unicorns either. It's up to reason to take over at certain points and

extrapolate meaning from scientific observation. If you want to believe in

leprechauns or unicorns, in the tooth fairy, in reincarnation, be my guest. You may

believe fervently that God had a hand in curing a sick person, just as fervently as

the Greeks believed that Zeus's anger was the source of thunder and lightening.

There is nothing science can affirmatively do to stop these beliefs, nor should it. It

should just keep researching new medicines so that both religious and nonreligious

people alike can overcome illness in those instances when God is busy hurling

hurricanes at people who believe in gay marriage or creating floods because people

have voted in favor of a woman's right to abortion and He forgets to treat my

infection Himself.

 

Larry--

 

Come on, you gotta give us something here. That's an impressive array of books

behind you but I asked for sources because I wanted instances of scientists who

claimed, as you stated they did, that they "will find out everything in the end" or

scientists who "[condemn] every other method as not only without merit, but

dangerous and heretical."

 

All I know now is that you've read those authors. What I'm fearful of is that, unless

you can actually tie the authors to the views you're contending, you've misread them

as well.

[Matt Laur]

<i>Matt's demand that I define faith</i>

<Br><br>

Come now, Larry. It's your assertion that science is an act of faith that demands the definition, not me. And since you've provided one, you must surely see why I asked that you do. It is the very definition of science that nothing be taken as true without any evidence. Your description of science as the polar opposite diminishes, I think, whatever point you're ultimately trying to make.

<br><br>

<i>We live our lives not knowing, but doing anyway.</i>

<br><br>

That's called "gambling" - based on experience. That experience can be from our own senses, or passed along from sources that have proven to be reasonable sources of information (for most minds forming their early impressions of whether to fear going to the grocery store, that source of information is their parents). Parents can plant unreasonable fears, unreasonable bravado, solid critical thinking, or rudderless wishful thinking in their children's minds - but at least some of that is self-correcting as life goes on, and the stuff that works floats to the top.

<br><br>

Children are terrific scientists. Every early step is a self-contained little physics lab. Every toss of a toy ball is a class in pre-calculus. It's a shame that so many of them receive the message that studying those things in greater detail is either rudely looking under God's robes, or not fashionable, or too hard to bother with. Regardless, we - like all mammals - have a brain that is very well tuned to basing predictions about future events on the complex assembly of past experience and extrapolation. Not a bit of magic required to know when you're erring on the side of recklessly gambling with an outcome, and natural selection is a draconian referee - both genetically and culturally.

<br><br>

But why attribute to faith that which is very reasonably attributable to simple observation and prediction? The only motivation for doing so is to make the general acceptance of faith - <i>the habit of neither needing, nor ultimately desiring evidence for what someone is telling you to accept</i> - easier to swallow. This agenda can be practiced unconsiously by those with a long investment in that world view, or it can be meticulously, strategically targeted at young minds just when they are the most impressionable (see C.S. Lewis for examples of this approach, aimed both at children and adults).

<br><br>

We may live our lives not knowing if an airplane will fall out of the sky onto us as we go to the grocery store ... but we have a choice as to whether we weigh the odds of that happening, based on real information and an understanding of causality, or whether we see the action of every molecule around us (including large collections of them shaped like airplanes) as being under the control of capricious, worship-hungry spirits in the sky that choose which airplane to crash based on who prays in the most appropriate way.

<br><br>

<i>the unfortunate belief by some that this discussion must be an either/or discussion</i>

<br><br>

But it <i>is</i> such. Either the supernatural is at work around you, or it is <i>not</i>. Period. One or the other. Once you provide for supernatural knowledge, supernatural actions/intercession, and the rest, then you're marching right back into time where religious sects kill each other over which <i>type</i> of supernatural powers are the right ones to tell children about, or the right ones to credit or rail against for which events that did, or did not happen to involve <i>enough</i> supernatural influence or insight to make a difference one way or the other. You, quite literally, <i>could</i> find yourself arguing over how many angels can dance on an APS-C - as opposed to a full-frame! - sensor. Let the nose of the fantastical, supernatural camel in under the tent, and you've got the entire, stinky camel.

<br><br>

Because, Larry, that camel <i>is</i> in your tent, I can see how you'd like everyone - including scientists - to share the misery with you. But scientists who must look at everything in front of them and consider whether or not the electromagnetic spectrum might - just today! - be under the influence of infrared demons. If you're going to provide for the supernatural in your world view, then you must <i>surely</i> be able to define the boundaries that you're willing to wrap around it. Otherwise you need to stipulate all sorts of mutually exclusive possibilities. Since that's uncomfortable, you end up needing to claim some sort of insight into the <i>correct</i> description of the supernatural world. And that's staking out a religious view. You say you're not doing that, but you <i>must</i>, else you agree that every supernatural proposition is equally valid, with equally powerful influence over the physical world and your understanding of it. Do <i>not</i> make me more than simply cite the Flying Spaghetti Monster (as much fun as that is).

[Matt Laur]

The Typing Demon caused me to truncate a sentence. My point about scientists who must not only consider observable reality - but also entertain the possibility of the supernatural at work in everything they see - is that they'd never get a damn thing done... because there would be an infinite range of explanations for every observable act at all times, and infinite odds that at any given time a supernatural influence will steal away with consistent, testable physical laws. Not only is science not an act of faith, it cannot function when its practicioners must entertain the possibility that - along with evidence - they must weigh the certainty that some vague range of the things they see before them are under the influence of forces for which, by definition, there cannot be evidence... but which they must accept as fact. That's not science, that's religion. The two may crash into each other in the form of some working scientists raised in a religious tradition... but they are walking contradictions to the extent that they provide for the supernatural in the causality they are examining.

[kristina_kraft]

Thanks Fred.

 

Scientists in general shouldn't be religious persons working in the field of Evolution. But those scientists who are searching the robe of Jesus are driven by a religious and faith. The scientists who are involved in Egyptology are also driven by faith and religious. They believe they will find.

 

According the characters from fairy tales, I can only say that I believe in their symbolism as a reference of many things. Mythology is also the language of symbolism regarding our subconsciousness, state of sleep too.

Those characters are the product of our imagination and are very, very old. After all, they came from the folks of different folklores and cultures. Storytelling was an entertainment in those ancient days among masses.

 

Of course, I don't believe in their existence, but I believe in their meaning. Folks were wise in those times.

[gatorgums]

I am here. I was here.

If l take a photo of myself, here and now, l can prove that

l existed at some point in time.

I do not want to aspire to some metaphysical enlightenment

which cannot be proven to have existed or to presently exist.

Phooey.

[Norma Desmond]

Kristina--

 

I couldn't agree with you more about the meaning of symbolism and myth. It has a

great place in the storytelling of human civilization. I love reading the Greek myths and

stories of the gods. As long as God with a capital "G" and the supernatural are seen

from that same perspective of mythology and symbolism, and especially as long as

political and scientific decisions and theories aren't based on them, I'm all for them.