Mike: MIKE TINTNER#####> Science's autistic, emotionally deprived, insanely rational nature in front of the supernatural (if it exists), and indeed the whole world, needs analysing just as much as the overemotional, underrational fantasies of the religious about the supernatural.
ED PORTER#####> I like the metaphor of Science as "Autistic." It emphasizes the emotional disconnect from human feeling science can have. I feel that rationality has no purpose other than to serve human values and feelings (once truly intelligent machines arrive on the scene that statement might have to be modified). As I think I have said on this list before, without values to guide them, the chance you would think anything that has anything to do with maintaining your own existence approaches zero as a limit, because of the possible combinatorial explosion of possible thoughts if they were not constrained by emotional guidance. Therefore, from the human standpoint, the main use of science should be to help serve our physical, emotional, and intellectual needs. I agree that science will increasingly encroach upon many areas previous considered the realm of the philosopher and priest. It has been doing so since at least the age of enlightenment, and it is continuing to do so, with advances in cosmology, theoretical physics, bioscience, brain science¸ and AGI. With the latter two we should pretty much understand the human soul within several decades. I hope we have the wisdom to use that new knowledge well. Ed Porter -----Original Message----- From: Mike Tintner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 11:07 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [agi] AGI and Deity Ed:I would add that there probably is something to the phenomenon that John Rose is referring to, i.e., that faith seems to be valuable to many people. Perhaps it is somewhat like owning a lottery ticket before its drawing. It can offer desired hope, even if the hope might be unrealistic. But whatever you think of the odds, it is relatively clear that religion does makes some people's lives seem more meaningful to them. You realise of course that what you're seeing on this and the singularitarian board, over and over, is basically the same old religious fantasies - the same yearning for the Second Coming - the same old search for salvation - only in a modern, postreligious form? Everyone has the same basic questions about the nature of the world - everyone finds their own answers - which always in every case involve a mixture of faith and scepticism in the face of enormous mystery. The business of science in the face of these questions is not to ignore them, and try and psychoanalyse away people's attempts at answers, as a priori weird or linked to a deficiency of this or that faculty. The business of science is to start dealing with these questions - to find out if there is a "God" and what the hell that entails, - and not leave it up to philosophy. Science's autistic, emotionally deprived, insanely rational nature in front of the supernatural (if it exists), and indeed the whole world, needs analysing just as much as the overemotional, underrational fantasies of the religious about the supernatural. Science has fled from the question of "God" just as it has fled from the "soul" - in plain parlance, the self deliberating all the time in you and me, producing these posts and all our dialogues - only that self, for sure, exists and there is no excuse for science's refusal to study it in action, whatsoever. The religous 'see' too much; science is too heavily blinkered. But the walls between them - between their metaphysical worldviews - are starting to crumble.. ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=74564905-9a5b41
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