You raise many interesting points here On the issue of empirical evidence requiring faith, I agree with you on the grounds that our brains have evolved to interpret reality in a very focussed and specialised manner. What would reality look like without the pattern recognition abilities we have developed over hundreds of thousands of years. I think reality would be like a giant pointalist painting. One would have to have distance to see it in any proper perspective, a swirl of energy,too fast to focus on.
What does a concept like photon electron entaglement really mean anyway. Einstein said: "I find the idea quite intolerable that an electron exposed to radiation should choose of its own free will, not only its moment to jump off, but also its direction. In that case, I would rather be a cobbler, or even an employee in a gaming house, than a physicist". I doubt that what human minds find to be repeatable empirical evidence, is necessary a true reflection of reality, but it's all we have to work with. Everything we can ever know, is obtained by sensory evidence and sensory evidence is subjective, whether the objectivists like it or not. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/#Explangap "For no matter how deeply we probe into the physical structure of neurons and the chemical transactions which occur when they fire, no matter how much objective information we come to acquire, we still seem to be left with something that we cannot explain, namely, why and how such-and-such objective, physical changes, whatever they might be, generate so-and-so subjective feeling, or any subjective feeling at all." On Jan 29, 12:20 am, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > You are wrong Chris on an empirical stance not requiring faith. Shape > up boy, I have droned on about this before. There is always some form > of epistemic risk management, current received wisdom being we should > trust evidence ahead of theory. What always seems odd to me about the > godswank (collective noun) is that they are less prone to believe in > my invisible, blue six foot rabbit (with limited powers), than their > invisible, infinitely-sized god with omnipotence, usually on the > grounds that I am some kind of liar, but some ancient guy who talked > with snakes wasn't. The key issues are to do with how much risk you > take with your epistemic base as you move further into theoretical > definition that is empirically testable. That one can have religious > experience seems beyond doubt, what it is much more debatable than > what a photon is (though much may have to be done on that). I suspect > the godswank like feeling special and so jerk up their epistemic risk > taking in order to exclude evidence. Some separate their religious > moments from the rest of their lives, maybe a bit like those who are > only weekend junkies. We can hook people on sensory deprivation > because the visions they have afterwards are so powerful. Whatever we > do in epistemology, trust is involved, including trust that science > isn't just another set of rat-droppings, recipes or laundry lists > written by the prophet while he was chatting up the blue rabbit. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en.
