Don, I even took the golden fiddle with me as a peace offering!
I take the same view Orn, perhaps from a Quaker perspective. In fact,
if I was of draftable age, I might well become a Plymouth Bretheren
member. Jared Diamond has put the same view in 'Collapse'. I don't
really believe we can do anything "active" on bringing about (or
letting come about) sustainable communities until we get to a proper
understanding of the vile state of politics throughout history. That
we have no real history ready-to-hand all over the world is surely the
most damning evidence of conspiracy. Water supply in parts of Peru
strikes me as a classic. They had technology (admittedly religious
cult power related) thousands of years back better than now.
I suppose one the the words we use as though we know what it is with
almost no clue is "evidence". I can think here of gel-coated slides
stuck in an electro-chemical experiment that come out with a few
'scratches' on them - "evidence of cold-fusion" - yet surely not to
the untrained, ignorant eye. But I can also think of mad examples
from our legal systems, where "experts" convince judges, defence
barristers and juries not to trust the evidence of their eyes in
looking at CCTV footage, where, in the end, the whole performance was
about suppressing the real evidence and the truth is really about mad
human behaviour in authority situations.
I can imagine a few of us in here on the Nico Bento jury. Let's say
me, you, Fidd, Molly, Gabby, Ian, Chris, Don (add others to taste).
Apparently quite a diverse group as we often disagree and even 'fall
out', though probably not so diverse when one considers the whole
population. It seems impossible to believe we would have convicted
the fellow because we would have scrutinized the "evidence" (however
much we might worry about the term's epistemological status) and, one
hopes, asked relevant questions. Could we have been hornswaggled and
kow-towed by the now known to be loony "expert" telling us not to
believe the evidence of our eyes in relevant CCTV footage? I suspect
the presence of any one of us on the jury would have prevented the
conviction, even by majority verdict. We know enough. Yet the
British system did find 12 'men good and true' to convict a man of
murder with no evidence there was one, and plenty to suggest the
accused was telling the truth. I guess too, on the inside of the
later cold-fusion experiments we could learn enough to conclude (a
long way down the line from the Fleischman-Pons flim-flam), there is
enough evidence to continue investigation, at least to provide a
better understanding of electro-chemistry.
Your assertions, Bill, on the 'dogma of evidence' could be seen as
rather tired, or as another example of the religious denial of
evidence in favour of faith. I find them neither. Your reference to
Alan Wallace (say) is an exciting possibility, as is the existence of
your general view across the board whilst 'leaving in' spiritual
possibilities, strongly held, but not dogmatically imposed. There no
doubt remain questions, down to whether non-dogmatism could itself be
dogmatic (as in fatuous undecidable deconstruction taken strongly
rather than as a weak version). I doubt Nico Bento would have cared
if one of us had been able to stand up for justice for him.
I often wonder whether one can do science at all without passion from
at least quasi-religious experience, other than the cook-book-
engineering form (my slap-in-the-face with a wet fish 'realism'). I
can make gunpowder (and worse) because I can 'destructibly distill
wood' (charcoal), buy flowers of sulphur (or make it from photographic
chemicals and lemon juice) and turn urine into potassium nitrate with
some burned sea-weed, use a pestle and mortar, dissolve the lot and
dry it out. This is no more 'science' than baking a cake (indeed such
skills are involved). I can throw numbers into equations ('string
theory' - though my expertise is in stoichiometry) and wonder whether
experimental discovery of one-way speeds of light might return us to
Galilean relativism more powerful than Einstein's. I favour space
exploration, both up and down.
'Why questions' do not miraculously disappear in any of this. I am
not likely to threaten a set of under-performing lasers with the bible
(yet in exasperation have been known to do something very similar). I
am enraged when simple statistical methods are not used to evaluate
problems in our legal systems, and note it's a scientist that is
enraged. The problem with science is not that it is value-free, but
that it can be done by those with perverse values. It is profoundly
unscientific not to try and discover, to exclude 'data' from
consideration, not to experiment in experience. I cannot even
hypothesise there is 'no god' (though I do think most history on this
is bunk) as a scientist and remain intellectually honest. I make
epistemological decisions that involve faith and 'epistemic risk'. In
every scientific activity I can think of one has to exclude (after
consideration) all sorts of barking dross. The same seems true of
history in general. It may be true of religion.
The fact that I will go through this effort rather than have a life
with a 'string of broads on the Riviera' after a few bwanking lies
seems itself to imply I am 'after something deeper'. I may die and
look back wishing I had done 'more of the enjoyable stuff'! I may
well have swallowed some moralising incantations and not recovered.
So might Dawkins. I find most religion stupid, selfish, rotten at the
core and manipulative. Rather like social science and politics. If
there was a way to explain all this in 'cold logic' and evidence, one
might still have the problem of this 'magical experience of all' not
being communable with everyone else (as they would be too dumb). So I
am not a man of the gleaming rays of inner peace or virtue that bloats
to sanctimony at the drop of a patronising Socrates pun or a scrabble
over crumbs in times of hardship.
If we can defend Nico Bento (and properly get near to real social
justice) we have come far enough. We haven't. I just prioritize this
as something we could do in ordinary practice as a core of what our
research programme should be. The 'light' comes later for me. In a
forced decision, I would burn religious scrolls and books to stay warm
before turning to others. To dismiss religion in the name of science
is merely religious. This should not stop us expressing what
'religion' makes us feel or what 'science' makes us feel, though
something does tend to stop us letting people who think mechanics is
the work of the Devil build our bridges.
An inner route to an 'understanding and perspective of One' could be a
good or bad thing. I doubt it is worth much consideration in a world
that could put a lot right through some honesty.
On 14 Jan, 06:55, Don Johnson <[email protected]> wrote:
> But did ya go to the crossroads and say the right words?
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd60nI4sa9A
>
> -Don
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 6:55 PM, archytas <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I made a pact with the devil myself GW, but he didn't show. I have
> > generally found him as unreliable as God. I might get to believe in
> > politics if we find a way to redistribute the Haitians, establish
> > decent homes, services and productive jobs. I might even support Pat
> > Robertson if he could do that.
>
> > On 14 Jan, 00:01, [email protected] wrote:
> >> Isn't it refreshing to know there are people like Pat Robertson who is
> >> convinced that he is able to scientifically account for catastrophic
> >> occurrences such as the Haitian disaster. He understands that 200 years
> >> ago Haity (I guess he means every Hatian) made a pact with the devil. And
> >> now 200 years ago they are getting their due. Now how come I couldn't have
> >> figured that out for myself.; It is so obvious and neat and clean. If only
> >> we had more thinkers lie him.
>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: archytas <[email protected]>
> >> To: "Minds Eye" <[email protected]>
> >> Sent: Wed, Jan 13, 2010 6:31 pm
> >> Subject: [Mind's Eye] Re: science
>
> >> The sum of energy in the universe is often considered as zero.
> >> Science is clearly not just about answers. Most of us would say it is
> >> about asking questions that can be resolved by observation and
> >> experiment, one reason string theories may not qualify as physics
> >> (yet).
> >> Problems in social science often arise because we are dealing with
> >> interpretations rather than 'nature' (though science accepts
> >> observations are theory laden and hence our views on what nature
> >> 'is'). Hence 'hermeneutics', though I feel these are unreliable
> >> rather than 'guaranteeing truth' in Gadamer's dogma.
> >> At some point in any enquiry we are likely to be in a creative
> >> thinking phase in an imagination in which anything goes if we can
> >> think it up. This is needed to break up dogma, even if we end up
> >> putting it together again, perhaps with a better idea of how it works.
> >> The 'observation states' of observers are often excluded from
> >> consideration, generally a mistake across all the disciplines.
> >> There is still a prevalent notion that one can somehow achieve an
> >> objective state of observation and thinking. On analysis, this turns
> >> out to have a great deal to do with manners and connected social
> >> dogmas. General argumentation contains many rhetorical tricks and
> >> plays with words, often to conceal lying and ignorance and present an
> >> objective voice that is nothing of the kind and actually appeals to
> >> ignorance and soaked-up tradition.
> >> Science tries to makes its assumptions patent. Often we get very
> >> precise, as in our understanding of CO2 absorption of long-wave
> >> energies and subsequent photon-puking; but to pretend this in global
> >> warming models (the precision) is not science. Lay people get into a
> >> real mess on this point.
> >> We can only be agnostic about god in thought. This very agnosticism
> >> is probably at the root of scientific consideration of theory and
> >> evidence - the trend is towards consideration of theories as under-
> >> determined by evidence, and evidence as more worthy of epistemic faith
> >> than theory at any time we know of (yet).
> >> None of this rules out consideration of religion. I broadly consider
> >> most of it a mess of lies, but this does not stop me admiring someone
> >> who has found peace and wishes to share that peace (as long as this
> >> doesn't involve daft gestures of walking towards hostile aliens, bible
> >> aloft - though they might be a useful, heroic diversion).
>
> >> On 13 Jan, 17:15, Pat <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> > On 13 Jan, 15:58, frantheman <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >> > > On 13 Jan., 12:21, Pat <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >> > > > Kant? Wasn't he 'the pissant who was very rarely stable'?
>
> >> > > "A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed ..." :-)
>
> >> > >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQycQ8DABvc
>
> >> > Absotively, Posilutely!!
>
> >> --
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>
> > --
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