romansh

Neither. They are one. Also there is no intrisic me. Slowly moving to the title of the thread.

I must admit I don't buy your first line Steve. This line presumes true moralityTM exists and that we somehow have free will.

What about the one one where you can't have light without photoreceptors and a signal interpreter? Also what about the hypothesis that bats "envisage" echolocation pretty much as we see light?

I think evolution has endowed an ability to have a sense of morality. Our environment fills that sense with what we consider "right and wrong". Certain people (perhaps sociopaths) have a much diminished sense of morality, nevertheless the large majority of these people can function satisfactorily in society, (I think/hope).

I have some sympathy for Chopra's position of the universe and its contents being conscious. If rocks are conscious (or have consciousness) then we need to take a closer look at what passes for consciousness for us. We have an alternative take on this position from Blackmore in her book Ten Zen Questions. The relevant bit is reproduced here Am I conscious now? And DeGrasseTyson ... on the paranormal

Just some brief comments on your thoughts Soma 1) Philosophy and science are one in my book. Philosophy underwrites the basic logic science uses. And philosophy calibrates itself against the real world that science observes and describes. It is not a problem. 2) While entanglement is an interesting subject, I am not sure how relevant the subject is macro objects and from my understanding not all fundamental particles are entangled. Now if you wish to point to a monistic description of the universe, I have absolutrly no problem with this. 3) That scientists do not investigate the paranormal (your words) is plainly false. I provided you with a reference to Blackmore who dtudied it for twenty five years. The reference cites other research ... there are journals on the subject as well. Now I would agree that mainstream science does not hold the subject in high regard ... disdain perhaps. I can't help wondering why. I suggest you take a look at the two links I posted Soma. 4) While science might not and develop a philosophy of life per se, it might suggest the causes that lie behind our various philosophies. I am thinking of evolutionary psychology in particular.

you haven't really thought about one thing I've said. Funnily enough that's what I thought about your replies. that is the reason when I reply I quote the person and give my thoughts on what they have said. So plainly I have thought about what you have said. That you you disagree with my thoughts is clear. You have yet to produce a person that says science is the only way to evaluste stuff. I agree there those that think following a scientific method is the best method. While agree this is not possible on every occasion. For example if i need to make a really fast on-the-spot decision then I can't use the scientific method. I have listened carefully to what you have said Matte.

The question remains ... How much research must we do before we give up on a hypothesis when we can find no evidence to support said evidence? I gave the Blackmore as an example. She started off as true believer, because of a personal experience. After twenty five years of research she gave up on the field because she could find no evidence for it. For the paranormal ... we are not arguing about how it might work, we are looking for evidence of its existence. Being a Joseph Campbell fan, I am willing to cut Jung some slack. My main criticism would be to my knowledge no one has intentionally driven themselves to near psychosis ... to try and examine their unconscious. As far as i can tell people have accepted Jung's hypothesis, say yes that fits with my world view and run with it. I can buy the collective unconsciousness as a more subtle metaphor, but as written I need a bit more evidence.

I must I read this with a sense of irony ... bearing in mind your recent post Having said that, you erect (I think) your straw man and give it a good pummeling. Science does not prove anything and by extension neither do scientists. For example theories about the luminiferous aether cannot be proven, but good experiment like the Michelson Morley experiment leaves it shreds. Einstein comes along and gives relativity a framework to understand things like the experiment and the precession of Mercury around the Sun. Yet relativity is in contradiction with our most accurate theory yet ... quantum mechanics. Scientists fully realise this. I think many people have a strange view about science, in that they have a short term view of it. While we can see the impacts science over short periods of time, overnight, years decades ... science should be measured in centuries ... and it only has been going formally for half a millenium or so. Remember there was no end statement. I am not saying we can't get ideas heuristically. Take Kekulé's apocryphal snake dream for benzene. Science did not take this carbon ring proposition at face value ... it went and measured the bond lengths and came to the conclusion that the electrons are delocalized around the ring and not quite what Kekulé had in mind. If I am demonstrating my ignorance so be it.

Are you really suggesting scientists should invest their precious resources in developing models of the universe by throwing those chicken bones or reading tea leaves? No matter how absurd indeed.

I think NDEs have more than enough examples to say they exist. That some claim they are a reflection of an ADE is somewhat problematic for me. Again science does not prove anything ... it just provides us with predictive descriptions of phenomena we observe.Things like parapsychology are simply at the stage of counting coloured pebbles on the beach. Unfortunately it is not clear whether sampling method has statistical bias or not.

So you disagree that studies on religiousity etc have not been done? I don't doubt for a minute that meditation statistically speaking can be beneficial. Regarding the paranormal, to say it has not been scientifically studied is nonsense. there are journals on the subjects. I think Blackmore's position more or less sums up my position. Here is another example from Blackmore. She used to be a devout believer in the paranormal, but over time studying the evidence she is critical of the subject.

Studies that we could find include: effect of spirituality/religion on longevity (positive correlation) prayer and recovery after hospital procedures (negative correlation) religiousity and educational attainment (negative correlation) well generally speaking Are three that come to mind

I have reservations about the Templeton foundation as well. does that make a follower of scientism? ... when proponents of science think science is the only tool to measure very thing and attribute value to it then that is scientism. This for me does not ring true. I am not aware of any scientist who thinks it is the only way ... this is pure rhetoric. I did not choose my wife of 37 years scientifically and I doubt any of your so called scientismists would have done so either. But studying how we choose our wives can be done scientifically. regarding metaphysics ... I suspect that is a non-subject befitting of study with Templeton Foundation monies.

I am really confused here. Is Gould really saying this? I thought he was saying the opposite with NOMA? To me this seems in contradiction to the next paragraph. Well I would say we get our sense of morality from all over the place. Our initial predisposition to a sense of morality is almost certainly a result of evolution. This predisposition gets filled with our experience. If our experience is significantly religious then that is not an unexpected source for our moral values. Whether we get it from science, can i ask you to reread my last post? Thanks. This is materialism or physcalism, I have not worked out the subtle differences yet. And for those who speak of alternative realms ... cannot be dismissed as delusion ... how about can be understood as illsusions? If any of these alternative realms do show up, the materialist will simply adjust her model of the universe. The links that you posted would suggest that scientism is, or at least caan be, a pejorative. Is it an accurate description or is it an opinion? Again what I have read of Dawkins, he has no problem with spiritual. In his way he is quite spiritual. it is (I think) many people don't recognize his spirituality. Hence my microscope and dinosaur footprint observation.

They all seem to believes that science is the only measure of anything - not just the natural world but human values - specifically morality I don't remember reading that science is the only measure in The Moral Landscape .. Do you have a quote for this. I think Harris's position is that it is a really good one. Frankly I happen to disagree with him. Primarily because in the middle of his book he argues against free will. If we don't have free will then, morality cannot be what it seems. Secondly, science is relativistic in nature. Now the question becomes is science a useful guiding us in our wants and desires? This I think is a bit of a trick question. Wants and desires are effectively synonymous with will in free will. So I think we have to rephrase the question to can science help us implementing our wants and desires? To me it is trivially obvious it can. Think of the "worst" political regimes that mind kind has experienced? Do we actually think anyone was actually striving for a worse©world? I don't. I am fairly convinced that most heinous of leaders wanted something better©. Just they had not thought through what better and worse are and how to get there. The same way that some people start demonizing other people's scientific approach to what we perceive the problems of the world. And I agree Dawkins (and Hitchens in particular) can come across as vitriolic, they might not of thought it through either. My final point is Dawkins et al. take a phycalist view (as I do), and argue forcefully (and I find convicingly) against a young Earth. And if I were to insist kids should be taught evolution ad a four billion year earth am I being authoritarian? Similary if I insist that science should apply to NOMA as much as anything else, am I practicing scientism? Science, I find, ultimately points to re-connection (religion) ... without the supernatural.

Can you give an example of someone who practises scientism and an example of where they have been authoritarian? What was issue with Pinker's scientism? If I were to say out aloud children should not be taught that Earth is six thousand years old give or take a few thousand, am I being authoritarian. Or am I simply being passionate my vocation?

I would argue that science is a great way of evaluating whether beads, candles, incense and chicken bones are great at evaluating whether we should listen to those mind images. While I have no way of "proving it" my adage of if science and and some other method divining the truth point in different directions then one or both of the interpretations must be wrong.

... is because of an inner search. On my inner searches I find when I look inside I see the universe silently staring back at me. Yes, I believe that God is everything. Sorry if that offends you. Why would that offend me? As far as I can tell the universe unfolded in a way to make you say that. If I were to succumb to express a god belief I suspect I would express a similar atheistic view. But then as our nemesis (Dawkins) points out: Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. I have read three of Pinker's books, How the Mind Works, The Stuff of Thought and The Blank Slate. What did you find in them that you would describe as Scientism? Here is a quote from How the Mind Works. But genes are not imprisoned in bodies; the same gene lives in the bodies of many family members at once. The dispersed copies of a gene call to one another by endowing bodies with emotions. Love, compassion, and empathy are invisible fibers that connect genes in different bodies. Does this sound like scientism to you? I gave you an example where Dawkins describes himself as an agnostic. Dawkins has no problem metaphorical interpretations of our religious texts, though I suspect he would be against dogmatic interpretations. As Joseph Campbell describes it ... turns poetry into prose. When people accuse others of scientism they mistake the word for people who are passionate about science. These summarise some of the reasons I think the pejorative scientism is a strawman. I see what what works and what doesn't. This I see as an abbreviated sentence of of the scientific method. Perhaps science is a little more rigorous in forming its hypothesis and gathering its evidence. And answering the question why? This sort of presupposes that there is a purpose, does it not? Science deals in how?

So if you don't know, why would you criticize somebody else's point of view, eg scientism. So how do you evaluate your position? Or do you?

From the article it argues against The term scientism is anything but clear, more of a boo-word than a label for any coherent doctrine. Sometimes it is equated with lunatic positions, such as that science is all that matters or that scientists should be entrusted to solve all problems. Sometimes it is clarified with adjectives like simplistic, naïve, and vulgar. The definitional vacuum allows me to replicate gay activists flaunting of queer and appropriate the pejorative for a position I am prepared to defend. Scientism, in this good sense, is not the belief that members of the occupational guild called science are particularly wise or noble. On the contrary, the defining practices of science, including open debate, peer review, and double-blind methods, are explicitly designed to circumvent the errors and sins to which scientists, being human, are vulnerable. Scientism does not mean that all current scientific hypotheses are true; most new ones are not, since the cycle of conjecture and refutation is the lifeblood of science. It is not an imperialistic drive to occupy the humanities; the promise of science is to enrich and diversify the intellectual tools of humanistic scholarship, not to obliterate them. And it is not the dogma that physical stuff is the only thing that exists. Scientists themselves are immersed in the ethereal medium of information, including the truths of mathematics, the logic of their theories, and the values that guide their enterprise. In this conception, science is of a piece with philosophy, reason, and Enlightenment humanism. It is distinguished by an explicit commitment to two ideals, and it is these that scientism seeks to export to the rest of intellectual life. Now if you agree with my depiction of the scientific method and you think it does not meet your needs, how do you evaluate your ideas and beliefs?

the certainty is ultimately the strawman that I referred to. for example Dawkins: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9102740/Richard-Dawkins-I-cant-be-sure-God-does-not-exist.html

I would argue your pastor almost got the logic right. We can't prove stuff in the real world. And we may not know how (have a method) to test stuff ... fair enough. But if that said stuff does not respond to cause and effect, it may as well not exist. According to wikipedia scientism is a perjorative (or is used as one). Simply, it is a belief that the scientific method (science) is the best way to evaluate existence. Typically science follows the following method 1) observation 2) hypothesise 3) more observation (data) 4) evaluate, if the data does not fit go back to (2, if the data does fit go back to 3). Notice, there is no end statement here. I would class Dennett as a philosopher first. For me Consciousness Explained did not live up to its title but there were lots of ideas in it that we should go to step 3) with. And as for Dawkins, while I don't find him a sympathetic person, he is a scientist by training and his role has changed over the decades. From what I gather his principal objection is to what are for him nonsensical interpretations of the our religious texts. I also would argue in his way he is every bit as spiritual as you claim to be. Looking down a microscope or seeing 120 million year old dinosaur footprint work for me. Who is anyone to claim otherwise?

Can the scientific method prove everything? This question demonstrates the basic misunderstanding people have about science. Science (or the scientific method) proves nothing. It can disprove certain models we might hold dear.

Lack of study? Lack of thought? Misconceptions about science itself. I am not saying that some scientists don't succumb to the some of these things as well,(I did). Fundamentally, while science may strive for the truth, it is essentially agnostic.