Critical Thinking, reductionism, epistemology RI megathread

[MacCruiskeen]

33. What is now proved was once only imagin'd.

38. Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.

69. Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd

- Blake, Proverbs of Hell

[vanlose kid]

*

...(VK and Searcher, thanks for your sanity.)

likewise Mac.

American Dream, I really think there is something about respecting the wishes of the original poster to the thread the has purchase here. You made a similar request on your "Economics of Love" thread, and that request was aquiesed to by those it was addressed to with very little problems. It would seem that there is plenty of meat to this topic without recourse to further discussion about Icke in particular, so it would be nice and respectful of Searcher's wishes if you would give them similar consideration, golden rule-wise.

Regarding assignments of blame for what happened here, I don't really see how that can possibly lead to useful discussion. We're all adults here, I think. We can leave it behind for the moment.

Vanlose, I'm still going over your post and info, so gimme a bit of headspace, and I'll try and respond. Good stuff.

Thank you,
signed,

The Big Mean Teacher Fish, Mighty Wise Mystical Encyclopedia of Bullshit, Esq.

yo! Big Mean Teacher Fish, Mighty Wise Mystical Encyclopedia of Bullshit, Esq., thank you. i'm looking forward to it. am working on responses to posts by stefano and Jack and still mulling over whether it would be worth the effort. they're getting longer and longer and are likely to be shot down with a few dismissive quips about semantics and... what did he say? oh well, can't remember.

i do remember this though, stefano wrote: "This is important, and I think often glossed over by people who resent what they see (I think) as science de-romanticising the world. Rigorous inquiry answered by empirical testing is the best tools we have for understanding the world, and I really don't understand this attitude of 'science is all bullshit'. I mean, that's not only untrue and dishonest but actively anti-knowledge."

now i find this remark strange to say the least. i do realize that for stefano and Jack the fear of overt ID'ers is so great that they insist on couching their defense of science in terms of calumny against ID'ers, only of the hidden kind, but sometimes i wonder whether they realize this themselves. so far, in this thread at least, and i may be wrong here, but to my recollection i can't remember one member of this board who defends or believes in ID. personally, and i've stated this before, ID makes no sense. the term "creation science" makes even less sense. it makes about as much sense as "atheist science". i can't really decide which is more silly or even what either one of them might mean.

but what struck me specifically about stefano's remark (and this is not an attack on his person) was that i can't imagine who he's speaking to on this thread. maybe his remark is meant as a broad general gesture toward "them", i.e. "those people" who fit his description, whoever they may be. maybe he's merely expressing a fear or uneasiness toward such people. which again makes me wonder whether it would be right for me to respond to it, since he might not be addressing me. maybe he's just making his position known to the world at large and that is all that remark is meant to achieve: "va fanculo! i don't like these people!" it's not clear.

what's clear to me is that the remark is decidedly unclear. this of course can be countered by saying: "no, it is entirely clear. you just don't get it cause you're a religionist believer in reptilians even if you don't know it!"

let me try to give an example of what i mean anyway, not that i think it'll make much of a difference. (yes, i am skeptical.) stefano says: "Rigorous inquiry answered by empirical testing is the best tool we have for understanding the world". (i took the liberty to correct the mistake: "tool" for "tools".) now, i assume that by "Rigorous inquiry answered by empirical testing" he means scientific method. so "scientific method is the best tool we have for understanding the world". on the surface it seems totally trivial. so common a part of indoctrination that you could imagine rousing someone in the middle of the night while screaming "what is the best tool we have for understanding the world?" and the person would automatically shout: "scientific method, sir!" and not even be awake.

but what does "best" mean here? the most efficient? the most successful? the most correct? the most preferred? i can already hear those who swear by this view say "all of these and more!"

and what about "the world", what does that mean here? oh, that's easy. it's the entire inventory of things that exist, also called nature, the universe, reality, in short the material world. they're all synonymous. they all mean the same thing. what thing? oh, you know, the inventory of things that exist, plus what they exist in. that's a philosophical definition, apparently. accept it.

what causes problems for me is that i don't know what it is i'm meant to accept. here's a bit from my working response to Jack re his philosophical definition:

...

A definition of nature in the philosophical sense:

Nature (also known as the universe or the real-existing sphere) is everything that exists. Everything that exists is nature. Everything that does not exist, does not exist. That which does not exist, is not nature. Some things have yet to exist, or potentially exist, so put these into the category of virtual or potential real-existing things. Ideas are such things; I would argue they do exist, because they are carried by a sentience which in this definition of nature is a natural, real-existing material entity. The idea exists, even if the thing to which it refers - Harry Potter, Belgian military victory in World War II, a black hole in my pocket - may not.

that’s quite an inventory you have there. i must be simpler than you since what seems so simple to you does not seem that simple to me at all. here are some questions regarding your definition(s) – bear with me.

you say “nature is everything that exists”, by this i assume you mean that nature can be tallied up in an exhaustive list of things or objects to which we can predicate existence? now if you were to draw up such a list of all the items that can be said to exist, would nature be one of the items on that list or just a heading? if nature is just the heading, a name for the set of things that summed up constitute nature, would that list or set of all things that summed up constitute nature be one of the items that constitute nature, i.e. one of the things which can be said to exist? simply put is nature one of the things that exist or just a name for all things that exist, which means that nature is not one of the names of things that exist? can we then say that there is no one thing we can point to and say that is nature in the same way that we can point to a chair or a tree or a red patch and say that is a chair, tree, red patch? if so then can we say that nature is a name for no particular thing? does nature then exist?

now on that list of things that make up nature, is “existence” one of the items on it? is it a thing? or is it a mere property of things on the list? and if it does not figure on the list of things that exist, what list would you put it on? is it the lists subheading? for heuristic purposes here’s a mock list where nature and everything that exists do not appear other than as heading and subheading:

Nature
or everything that exists
1. lists
1.1 shopping lists
1.11 aunt mamie’s shopping list, December 17th 1992…
1.2 phone lists…
1.3 carpool lists…
2. chairs
2.1 stools…
2.2 lazy boys…
2.21 uncle elmer’s brown faux leather lazy boy…

you have to start somewhere. of course it is clear that according to your definition the idea of this list is also one of the items on it, or rather one of the items in however many sentient heads have an idea of the list and figure as itself and as the content of those however many heads that are on the list with that idea in it, right? does that entail that the idea of this list is identical no matter how many times it appears in those heads that have an idea of this list, or does it not matter as long as the list appears and we can tell somehow that it is the same list even though there are variations in what gets placed where and how the items are sorted, the amount of detail etc., etc?

i wonder if sentience is on that list. do you know?

...

as you can see i didn't make much headway. my trouble has of course already been diagnosed by Jack, i'm semantically challenged. i'm unable to connect the signs to their meanings. my labeling machine is bust. labels and meanings being of course entities that exist on the inventory of nature, by definition. and the ability to attach the correct labels to their respective meanings (that ability also being one of the things on the list) seems to be lacking in me. what a handicap. you're either one of those who can do it or you're not. that's fate. if fate exists that is. it might just be an idea that has no material existence other than as figments of the imagination in some sentient being that exists, this figment or idea existing alongside other ideas, some of which are ideas of existent things.

but ultimately they're all ideas which of course are not spooky ephemeral non-things but actual existing things, brainwaves maybe. there are "Harry Potter" brainwaves and "New York City" brainwaves (ideas) and brainwaves such as the "NYC" one are real brainwaves of real things, unlike "Harry Potter" brainwaves which are real brainwaves of unreal things (see the difference?). then there are words or signs like "NYC" and meanings like "NYC" attached to those signs, if you're lucky, and these are also real brainwaves ultimately, only they're of a different type from those mentioned earlier. it gets complicated.

so let's get back to something we all can understand. stefano says: "Rigorous inquiry answered by empirical testing is the best tool we have for understanding the world", which i glossed as "scientific method is the best tool we have for understanding the world". a tool for understanding the world. all of it and the individual things in it.

now i talk to people sometimes. and they tell me about their troubles like heartache for instance. if i want to really understand this person (this thing on the inventory of things that really exist) before me logic and science suggest that i use the best tool available. and since i know that the scientific method is the best tool available to me if i want to understand this thing that really exists who is telling me about its heartache it follows that i should make use of this best tool: scientific method. now which method is this? do i know? stefano says it is "Rigorous inquiry answered by empirical testing". i gloss that as "Rigorous inquiry [coupled with] empirical testing". so what do i do here? ask a lot of scientific questions and subject this thing to Rorshachs? a full physical? throw it into and fMRI scanner? weigh and measure it and calculate the BMI? what? i haven't got a clue but i want to help and the best way to help is by being scientific. should i suggest it study physics? or biology? or art history? is art history a science? these are just a few of the questions that i have, just a few of the problems that these statements raise for me.

so, as you probably can tell, these "reluctantly definitive" statements have brought me nothing but confusion. i don't know what to do with them. but that's me. others here seem more lucky or clued in. good on them i say. i thought scientific method had precisely specified uses. now i know it's universally applicable everywhere and the solution to every kind of problem in existence. maybe it can help me with the problem of understanding how that can possibly be. must be what the psychologists and pharmaceutical engineers are working hard to achieve right this minute. i'll just have to wait.

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edit: typos and more typos.

[barracuda]

Kid, I must say it is a bit of a joy to watch you ply away at your métier.

meat-machines

I don't think there's really any significant argument against the idea that at a certain level we are indeed meat-machines, and I see little reason to formulate a construction which essentially acts as a pejorative with regards to our meat-nature. We should take great pride in our meatiness, as it is the source of much joy and pleasure and industry, and to denigrate that by the presumption that meat all by itself is not a fully wonderous thing in the universe is hubris, or at the very least self-disdain. As far as we are aware, meat exists only on this planet - it is unique in the vastness of space. And any comprehension of the spiritual that can come to a man can only enter his being through his meaty faculties, even if it is in his indefinable heart and soul that it finds a throne. Surely if there is a god, meat is for Him a favored medium.

I wonder, really, just how much sense it makes to discuss god or spirituality divorced from the existence of man, anyway. If there are no men, is there god? It is unfortunate that we cannot really comprehend his motivations or his plan, and have to sort of muddle by with what scraps we get. We have our conscience, but we know those things are malleable, finicky and perfidious, and have not, through history, shown any inclination in a general sense to a consensus of behavior. We have free will, but don't you wish upon occasion that certain people's free will had been less exercised upon the rest of us? We have love, but not without loss or the threat of it.

Onerous flesh of animals, stuck in our limited consciousness, yet what else besides our eyeballs sees the vast glory of the world, what besides our ears hears the yawning infinitude of existence? Our amazement takes away our breath, and gives fullness to our ecstastic visions. Without the carne y hueso there would be only mind, only soul, and what is that? Would that be somehow less machinelike? I would hate to be an angel.

but i don't think that to maintain that premise one has to, necessarily, "divorce Christianity from large portions of the Old Testament". or at least i don't see why you think it is necessary to do so.

Here I was referring specifically to a literalist reading of Biblical creation. I'm going to use one of my life-lines and call Stephen on this one.

they are reliable and attempts to assign probabilities.

I guess I'm saying he's set them too high. Estimate roughly the percentage of falsehoods believed by men versus the truths, and you'll see what I mean. Now think of our real ability to encompass the godhead within our perceptions. If there is god, if there is a spirituality, the vast majority of mankind is able only to view these things, these most important things as a glimmer or sheen. It is the nature of god that man must be warned time and again of the dangers of looking upon him or saying his name, so time and time again our senses and perceptions and beliefs are designed to act as shields from the brightness of truth. Falsehoods run the world, meanwhile the important truths are occulted from our beliefs.

what does love mean then?

What does it mean anyway? Can you say? Is it more than the deepest regard, respect and affection for each other? Is there more depth to it with god, with spirituality, than without? If so, that's a sin.

[vanlose kid]

Kid, I must say it is a bit of a joy to watch you ply away at your métier.

...

what does love mean then?

What does it mean anyway? Can you say? Is it more than the deepest regard, respect and affection for each other? Is there more depth to it with god, with spirituality, than without? If so, that's a sin.

the feelings mutual bro. here's a brief reply to the last bit for now. i'll get back to you on the rest.

when i asked "what does love mean then?" i meant scientifically. it's a dumb question along the lines of the pompous man asking Wizard Prang to explain his demonstration in terms of physics (see ref. below).

i'm "asking" Wizard Scientism what love means in terms of physics, because that's what all things, according to the proponents of scientism, reduce to. of course to me the question makes no sense. but i'm assuming it does to the dogmatically reductionist. i haven't gotten an answer yet, but that's presumably because they're still working on it.

…The fact is that the wizard had been very pleased with his invention of the table. He had become fed up with having every surface in his room cluttered up with books and papers, experiments and messed up spells, old sandwiches, musical instruments, and so on. So he had invented this table. It had a slanting top. It worked. The surface was always clear.

Evidently, though, he would have to give it more attention: something was not quite right.

"What they have to do is learn more things," finished the pompous man, as usual.

This time Wizard Prang was ready for him. "The only things on offer are the ones leading to the world we already have - and that doesn't work," he said. "Until we unlearn, we cannot recognize the world that our education has concealed from us. Let me demonstrate something to you." He stood up.

Picking up his visitor's newspaper, he led the way outside.

The pompous man surveyed the see-saw that the wizard had built in the field before his cottage for the children who loved to visit him. He was wary. "Take a good look," he was instructed. He walked all round the see-saw. Two chunks of tree-trunk had been buried in the ground, and grooves had been cut in their tops. In the grooves was another piece of tree - a round piece of branch, held in place by two huge iron staples. The branch had been flattened in the middle, so that a long plank could be screwed to it. And that was it.

"Not a very - ah - sophisticated piece of equipment, I dare say," said the pompous man in a condescending way and wearing a smirk.

He moved the plank up and down; it just about worked.

The wizard spread the newspaper over one end, and held the plank steady at the other.

"Please get on," he asked.

Pomposity nearly overtook the pompous man. He looked around dubiously, but there was no-one around to observe him.

"Heaven knows what you are playing at," he said as he got on.

"Yes, without doubt," said the Wizard as he lowered the portly gentleman to the ground position.

Then he himself scrambled up to the other end of the plank. Nothing happened. The pompous man was portly. Moreover, he felt ridiculous squatting on the plank with his knees nearly under his chin. He expostulated.

"Please be quiet," said Wizard Prang.

And his face gradually assumed an expressionless expression. That's the only way to describe it, as some sort of benign contradiction. The portly gentleman was overawed, and said nothing more.

After a time, the plank gradually began to move.

Very, very slowly, the wizard's end came down, while the pompous man rose slowly into the air. He hung on for dear life.

The wizard's end touched the ground as gently as thistledown. His face did not change. There was silence. After nearly a minute, and with no movement made by either of them, the wizard's end slowly began to rise. Eventually, the pompous man was on the ground again.

He got off in a bustle, making harumphing noises, and causing the wizard to hit the ground on his end with a thump.

No-one was going to make a fool of him.

"Well, how's it done?" he demanded in controlled rage.

"You've seen everything for yourself," the wizard said mildly. "Have another look. Make a thorough inspection!"

He went off down the path and back into his little house.

The pompous man stormed in after him.

"You don't understand what happened," the wizard said from his chair, "because you have learnt too many things. Now you have to unlearn them!"

"Rubbish." The pompous man was not so much rude as completely rattled. "There is something new here and you must tell me what it is!"

"There's nothing new," said Wizard Prang, "in fact, it's extremely old. But you have to unlearn things to take it in."

"Try me," said a strained, belligerent voice opposite.

The wizard sighed gently. "Oh, all right," he said. "Making oneself light and making oneself heavy are two of the eight occult powers."

"Yes, yes, yes," said the pompous man tetchily. "Now give me a proper explanation!"

"I just did!"

"Oh, come now. I mean an explanation In terms of physics!"

The wizard stroked his beard thoughtfully.

"In terms of physics"; he repeated it from a distance.

"Of course!"

"Oh dear," the wizard spoke almost to himself, because his demonstration had not had the right effect.

He filled the two glasses again, and absent-mindedly set down his own on the slanting table top again. He sat down, noticed the glass traveling over the edge, deftly caught it, and hoped that the pompous man had not noticed. He had.

"Well, let's try," said Wizard Prang.

"Weight is related to the specific gravity of any given body," he said. "If the mass of that body Increases compared to the mass of the same volume of water, it gets heavier. And conversely," he added.

"Schoolboy stuff," said the pompous man. "What about it?"

"My body is mainly water, and water is mainly H20 - two atoms of hydrogen to one of oxygen," the wizard went on. "Also schoolboy stuff; as is the fact that water has other components, such as heavy water - which is ten percent denser than ordinary water. So what happens if there is a molecular transformation, and the proportion of heavy water goes up - I get heavier. And that's only an example!"

"But you haven't any equipment to make 'molecular transformations' in that way," the pompous man said flatly.

"Oh haven't I?" said the wizard gently.

"Well, what could it be? - in terms of physics," the visitor added hastily.

"Think some more schoolboy thoughts about the combining power of atoms in terms of hydrogen atoms," Wizard Prang said sourly. "The word is valency."

The pompous man tried to look profound.

"Ultimately, we're only talking about charged particles," said the wizard, "that makeup the atoms in the first place. And those particles are only little flecks in space/time. They just need ... adjusting a bit."

The wizard thought of adding that space/time itself is an illusion, but thought better of it. That isn't schoolboy stuff. You have to go back to being a baby to perceive it. After that, education makes sure you get space/time systematically wrong. Knowledge is systematic ignorance.

Before Wizard Prang had time to say 'Knowledge is systematic ignorance,' which would have annoyed the Chairman of the Education Committee to the point of apoplexy, the pompous man delivered his judgement.

"Ridiculous," he declared. "Absolute nonsense!"

He fixed the wizard with his eye.

"It couldn't happen," he said, although it just had.

"Oh, I see," said the wizard…

edit: of course, Wizard Prang being polite attempted to give one because that what what he was asked to do. in other circumstances he might have told the pompous man that he had asked the wrong question.

ps: b, your last reply to Searcher08, good stuff.

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[justdrew]

Without the carne y hueso there would be only mind, only soul, and what is that? Would that be somehow less machinelike? I would hate to be an angel.

then we're back at the old territory, look at "der himmel uber berlin," and as peter falk and Casiel took it, detranslate, hock your old armor for starter money here in the sense realm.



ya know, Every time I dream these last many years, it's just an alternate earth (or elsewhere) - never some weird stereotypical "dream" - always an absolutely "real" world that gives no hint that it's a dream.

[Joe Hillshoist]

ALL ARGUMENTS ABOUT BELIEF SYSTEMS EVER, IN DIAGRAM FORMAT

Yet again you win. (This is as far as I've got thru this thread so far. pg 9 I think. My only comment at this stage is even if intelligent design is true, which I have no idea or care about. It ain't science and teaching it like it is is just stupid.)

The war between scientism and anything that doesn't fit some some rational dick brained worldview about regulation and control only exists because of some irrational dick brained attempts to mintain their historical aristocratcal (ie god givcen) right to rule and control te rest of us.

Of the fucking Rightard Christian dickwads hadn't been playing political games for the last 30 or 40 years we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Anyway I'm less than halfway thru this thread at the moment. So pardon me if I've just opened old wounds or set the tone back...

[justdrew]

jack, I eagerly await your response to the sprung trap I've got back on the last page. It's a full frontal assault on the idea of reality really. Even if we were to be fully materialistic, then every idea or thought is stored and "real" in the whatever medium it is stored in, be it brain or book, or whatever.

indeed, it now occurs to me that there are real things that once existed, but of which no record now exists. surely 'existence' must be a timeless thing.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Science according to Wombaticus Rex, you mean.

No, science according any measurable standard. Are you seriously going to tell me that kids who don't know what DNA is have some detailed alternative theory?

I think at this point its probably worth defining what science actually is...

Its a process of making meaningful statements about reality based on repeatable measurements. This process is mildly complex in that it entails hypotheses, measurement, testing and theory, followed by further testing. Nothing "science" ever says is "right", and nothing "science" ever "says" satys the same for very long. Faith based ideas will be the same in 100 years and scientific ones won't be cos another 100 years of refining measurements is going to give a different take on what we currently understand to be "scientific".

Thats science according to what words mean, not just what king wombat or Richard "the irrational sexist prick" Dawkins says it means.

There are no repeatable measurements that can say anything meaningful about Intelligent Design at this point, at least none that I'm aware of.

Science isn't a religion. Its just a pity that some rational fundamentals who should know better think it is. etc etc

Bear with me, I'm only at pg 13...

[Joe Hillshoist]

As if the study and acceptance of science, or finding the big bang or evolution the most convincing theories we have, precludes a belief in god, spirituality or faith. Such bullshit.

The Ann Coulter lalala-i-can't-hear-you wedge nonsense is what C_W does, mes amis.

...the Wedge is exactly what it was called @ Discovery Institute, hilariously enough.

"I have built an intellectual movement in the universities and churches that we call The Wedge, which is devoted to scholarship and writing that furthers this program of questioning the materialistic basis of science. One very famous book that's come out of The Wedge is biochemist Michael Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box, which has had an enormous impact on the scientific world." Phil Johnson

I have a huge Skilluminati article in the scrap heap about them. Maybe I should polish that up for 2011. They were a most illuminating case study.

If you have the time and inclination please do.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Do we know more than we know we don't? Or do we know less than we don't know we don't?

Cue mind explosion.

The second one, obviously.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Can you humilate an idea?

Humiliating ideas is a fine way to make progress. Some ideas need to have their pants pulled down and be stood in the village square where other ideas can stroll by and snicker.

I respectfully challenge this.
It applies to ideas the same treatment given to an Iroquois prisoner. If he is still standing after walking down a line of warriors being clubbed, then obviously he's ok (assuming he survives)

To me this is a sort of unexamined 'memetic social Darwinism' going on here.

This is the 'critical thinking' of testing an idea to destruction to see if it is any good.

Ridiculing an idea is different than ridiculing a person. 2nd one hurts.

The first one hurts as well, if the idea is held as forming an integral part of one's personal being.

An 'integral part of ones being' is a sliding scale from something one might mildly agree with to something one would happily gives ones life for.

Whether YOU YOURSELF agree or find value in another's idea - surely there is another thing to take into account - which is they acknowledgement that THEY DO.
It doesnt mean they are 'objectively right'.

Someone please let me know if the thread gets intelligent again.

Please send up a balloon should that unlikelihood actually transpire.

Passivity * Sneering = Cynicism

Ridiculing something is an act of power , power over whether it is women, gays, Irish, animals or ideas.

Thinking at all is an act of power. Consider the various metaphors we use for consideration: "get a grasp on", "wrap your mind around", etc. Attempting to understand is attempting to control.

Faith is an even more powerful power mechanism, as it makes real and material the ineffable.

Christ, every act is an act of power, including the act of submission.

What you describe as metaphors, I use the NLP language of representational systems - what you have given in that frame are examples of kinesthetic representations a la "I am in touch with" "I have a handle on" etc

I would say that attempting to understand is not just an attempt to get control but also to get a perspective on something. I see understanding as a dynamic on-going process rather than a one-off state that one enters into.

What I wanted to communicate though was about

ridicule as power OVER

When an idea is ridiculed, particularly in a group situation, more attention is often given to denigrating the person who puts the idea forward than the idea itself.

If anything , it tends to reinforce groupthink. By looking for the value in an idea that you intitally consider crap, you may find HUGE value that outweighs every bad thing you first thought of. Critical thinking is based on evaluation - so if you have already evalueated that the idea is crap, you will see no reason to look for value in it.

I would suggest that ridiculing is very poor thinking, because it is actually a somewhat arrogant response based on a partial assessment that doesnt include humane respect for the person having it.

Amputation is a shocking and humilating procedure as well, but it's performed in the hope of future wellness.

Interesting metaphor from surgery -
This comes back to the memetic Darwinism mentioned previously

Looking at it from the "Language of the Feminine" a la the Mysogyny thread
You subject ideas to

ridicule, humiliation, amputation, for their own good

Ridiculing an idea is a weak aspect of critical thinking.
Why? Because thinking stops at this point. It denies an entire aspect of thinking which is that of Movement - where does this idea lead TO.

The avenues of exploration opened up by abandoning an idea are just as numerous as those made available by accepting one.

The issue is abandoned after what process? Having a culture of ridiculing 'bad' ideas will tend not to create a climate where people feel confident about putting them forward. This is a huge weakness of 'critical thinking'

"WELL WHO HAS A GREAT IDEA?"
What about X
"THATS THE STOOPIDEST THING I EVER HERD!!!!"
>silence ensues tumbleweeds blow across the floor<

Why the silence? Because people do not want to be treated like a dick because their idea might need improvement.

I have seen creative problem solving sessions totally stymied by a (self-styled) critical thinker 'assessing' every idea as it came up.

"7. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

The end result of Ludwig's process is action, not further discourse.

The end result of ridiculing ideas is that you ridicule people, reduce creativity, decrease communication between people and turn innovation into an ordeal which is not a good thing in the broader global context of 2011.

Some ideas need to be ridiculed, then killed, then chopped up into increasingly small pieces and scattered to the four corners of existence.

The idea of human slavery for example. The idea that rape is acceptable. The idea that cos people seem different they actually are.

Some ideas are fucked and hurt people cruelly and needlessly as soon as someone implements them.

Pg 19 now, what a great way to spend a rainy Sunday arvo.

[Joe Hillshoist]

.

Just call me a simpleton for the following.

....

.

Ok you're a simpleton, but I mean that in the best possible way.

[Joe Hillshoist]

i'm "asking" Wizard Scientism what love means in terms of physics, because that's what all things, according to the proponents of scientism, reduce to. of course to me the question makes no sense. but i'm assuming it does to the dogmatically reductionist. i haven't gotten an answer yet, but that's presumably because they're still working on it.

*

Well hormones have a fair bit to do with it, as do certain brain chemicals.

But "sciencism" really only exists cos its a defensive reaction to Fundie Christians and their political interference in what are sposed to be secular state entities. Its a form of self defence by people who are so privileged the only threat of oppression they really face comes from fundy religious clowns with no clue. Thats not science.

Science can't really say more than hormones, cos it can't measure other seemingly ephemeral stuff - the stuff thats natural in Jacks definition above, but not necessarily knowable in any way other than thru direct experience.

Its just useful for doing stuff.

All things are relative, even the "best" in Stefanos comment.

[justdrew]

i'm "asking" Wizard Scientism what love means in terms of physics, because that's what all things, according to the proponents of scientism, reduce to. of course to me the question makes no sense. but i'm assuming it does to the dogmatically reductionist. i haven't gotten an answer yet, but that's presumably because they're still working on it.

in physics terms, love would be an example of spontaneous symmetry breaking

For spontaneous symmetry breaking to occur, there must be a system in which there are several equally likely outcomes. The system as a whole is therefore symmetric with respect to these outcomes (if we consider any two outcomes, the probability is the same). However, if the system is sampled (i.e. if the system is actually used or interacted with in any way), a specific outcome must occur. Though we know the system as a whole is symmetric, we also see that it is never encountered with this symmetry, only in one specific state. Because one of the outcomes is always found with probability 1, and the others with probability 0, they are no longer symmetric.

Hence, the symmetry is said to be spontaneously broken in that theory. Nevertheless, the fact that each outcome is equally likely is a reflection of the underlying symmetry, which is thus often dubbed "hidden symmetry", and has crucial formal consequences, such as the presence of Nambu-Goldstone bosons.

apparently I am surrounded by an intense field of Nambu-Goldstone bosons.

[stefano]

what struck me specifically about stefano's remark (and this is not an attack on his person) was that i can't imagine who he's speaking to on this thread.

Well I didn't want to name her because she can't reply, but I had in mind some quotes by Canadian_Watcher:

the theory of evolution is rife with bullshit, but it's the best thing we think we've got. Might as well not stop now.[...]We don't have the true answer to the question "where do we come from."

Those are from a post in the context of having children learn both young Earth creationism and evolution as 'two sides', equally valid. Now, no doubt there are holes in the story of our origins which we have to plug by guesswork as well as we can, but calling the theory of evolution 'rife with bullshit' is preposterous on its face. We, or at least those of us who take an interest, know better where we come from than anyone before us has.

we ought not to be so "positive' about what we think we know.

That was what I had in mind when I highlighted that bit in Jack's post about the limits of current knowledge, and when I replied to Sounder that empiricism will eventually (has already actually, viz. Lyall Watson or Rupert Sheldrake) make clear the limits of strict materialism. We should be positive about what we think we know, and keen to defend our theories in debate. We ought, though, also to be clear about what we don't know and about the things that still defy explanation. Consistent empiricism overturned strict materialism in physics 90 years ago and will inevitably do the same in biology at some stage.

As for definitional troubles... I'm afraid I can't help. By nature I would tend to mean matter, life and mind (and again, I think strict materialism in the last two areas is non-empirical and unscientific, as is the method of breaking nature up into constituent parts and studying those). Science doesn't have to be concerned with the tangible: Jungian analysis is a science, techniques of meditation are a science. As is, to answer your example of heartbreak, just being nice to someone who's going through a bad patch. You know that in previous instances when a friend was sad it made them and you feel better if you gave them a hug or squeezed their arm or made a joke, so be scientific and do that (I'm sort of joking but not completely).

i thought scientific method had precisely specified uses. now i know it's universally applicable everywhere and the solution to every kind of problem in existence. maybe it can help me with the problem of understanding how that can possibly be.

If you're trying to bring in an idea of non-overlapping_magisteria then go for it, I won't argue with that. But in the magisterium of knowing where we come from, how old the Earth is and that kind of thing science has the final word, full stop.

I happened to last week eventually get my hands on a text I'd been looking for for ages, Holism and Evolution by Jan Smuts, a dense little tome on philosophy and science he cranked out in between stints as Prime Minister of South Africa. A bit sad that this was written in 1926:

[In the 19th century] the materialists contended [...] that life and mind were born from matter. From this they proceeded (quite illegitimately) to infer the primacy and self-sufficiency of matter in the order of the universe, and to reduce life and mind to a subsidiary and subordinate position as mere epiphenomena, as appearances on the surface of the one reality, matter. To use the Platonic figure, to them matter was the lyre, and the soul was the music of that lyre; the lyre was the substantive and abiding reality, and the music a mere passing product. And thus the priority and dominance of matter made of life and the soul merely transient and embarrassed phantoms of the stage of existence. This materialism was most hotly resented and contested by those who held to the spiritual values and realities. They denied not only the primacy of matter but also that life or mind sprang from it and were dependent on it in any real sense. In fact they denied the principle of Evolution as undermining all the spiritual and moral values of life. Both sides, materialists and spiritualists alike, were under the influence of the hard physical concepts of cause and effect which played such a great part in the science of the nineteenth century. There could be nothing more in the effect than there was already in the cause; and if matter caused the soul, there could be nothing more in the soul than there already was in matter. [...] The abstract validity of this argument was never questioned and was thoroughly believed in by both sides. Hence those who affirmed the theory of Evolution tended to be materialists, and those who were spiritualists were logically forced to deny Evolution.[...] To-day thoughtful men and women are sincere and convinced Evolutionists, without troubling themselves over the dead and forgotten issue of materialism versus spiritualism.