God: The Failed Hypothesis

Gould blows. In fact.. he's simply wrong. It's a war and to the victor goes the spoils. But there are better and worse ways to fight.

quote:

---

Originally posted by N.Beltov:
[b]Gould blows. In fact.. he's simply wrong. It's a war and to the victor goes the spoils. But there are better and worse ways to fight.[/b]

---

There are no "victors" in this or any "spoils" to be had and the only ones wanting "war" are the true believers. And Jeff cannot seriously claim to Know if there is No afterlife either, anymore than an ultimate Cause for life, or that science will Ever provide answers to such ultimately unanswerable (and possibly meaningless) questions ---other than say there's no reason known to believe Otherwise yes. Well actually there is One some keep forgetting, people Want to Believe because we'll all remain mortal forever and life can be unfair and science offers no relief from either fact. (thank the Goddess for the mortality part) It however can also Claim to provide answers and solutions at times, that by its own nature cannot. Another reason why Dawkins sucks too, besides his obnoxious manner of presenting an otherwise rational case. Glad we agree on that much. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

Gould is wrong because he ... [i]abandons ship.[/i] It's an abandonment to assert SEPARATE magisteria. That's all I'm sayin'. In other ways, I'm I big fan of Gould. And I always will be.

quote:

---

Fidel: They are based on an old world materialist view of science that has been completely revolutionized and transformed ...

---

Nothing is better than materialism. And nothing ever will be. Amen. Ha ha!

Seriously, there is no credible view of the mind other than the materialist view. Just ask any cognitivist. Goddam it. Get with the program.

quote:

---

CMOT Dibbler: As long as you don't hurt anyone (yourself included) whose business is it what you believe?

---

That's cowardice and you know it. You should be able to defend your spiritual values anywhere, anytime, in the face of anyone. Your values ought to be [i]universal.[/i] Else why believe what you believe?

Sorry for such categorical views. Perhaps I'm being mean. But it does matter. We share this planet and ... who knows? Maybe wht youy believe will kill us all. That, why that, would matter.

quote:

---

Originally posted by N.Beltov:
[b]Seriously, there is no credible view of the mind other than the materialist view. Just ask any cognitivist. Goddam it. Get with the program.[/b]

---

If I'm not mistaken, you once told me that I was spouting a materialist view of mind and matter. Too funny.

quote:

---

Originally posted by N.Beltov:
[b]

That's cowardice and you know it. You should be able to defend your spiritual values anywhere, anytime, in the face of anyone. Your values ought to be [i]universal.[/i] Else why believe what you believe?
[/b]

---

I've heard some people say they believe that their personal Beliefs, feelings or perceptions Make them so, it doesn't even Have to be shared by others, only perhaps some common underlying field of "reality" that responds to Each by making itself manifest to each Belief. I never thought much of that one myself, but I don't see it as particularly harmful or dangerous, except perhaps to the believer if they take it too seriously. Personally, I prefer material reality to most ideas anyhow, more depth to it and way cooler patterns.

I'm not sure what you were accusing me of [url=http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=21&t=001675]h....

Suffice to say that someone here brought up Bertrand Russell. His views might be relevant from an historical pov. I've never read him actually.

[ 25 February 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

---

Fidel:nI'm not sure what you were accusing me of [url=http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=21&t=001675]h....

Suffice to say that someone here brought up Bertrand Russell. His views might be relevant from an historical pov. I've never read him actually.

---

Russell is worth reading. He falls in the tradition of David Hume. but he has independent philosophical merit of his own.

Anyway, I had a look at the old thread. At the time I was only saying that there are different versions of philosophical materialism ... and the version I am comfortable with is the orthodox, boring, even Leninist, version that (I think) the author of [i]Man the Machine[/i], Marx, and Denneett belong to.

quote:

---

Originally posted by N.Beltov:
[b]

Of course, we all respect each other. But it is more compelling when we can [i]convince[/i] each other. And that means reason.

[ 25 February 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ][/b]

---

But the new story of science isn't so rational that it can be explained. Even scientists themselves avoid certain truths about quantum mechanics. One theory says there are bits of us continually breaking off and forming new us's in parallel universes. William Tiller, a crystallographer at Stanford said that after studying the evidence for ESP and life-fields, that scientists are dealing with energy fields different from those known by conventional science. He said that ~~"the universe seems to organize and radiate information in other dimensions than just the physical space-time frame." I think it reflects Schroedinger's work on wave theory. I think it's fascinating.

Physicist Fritjof Capra believes that the universe and all living things are interdependent, and teaches corporate management teams to organize and delegate according this principle. I think a similar concept is advocated by Marxism, that individualism taken to extremes tends not to serve a higher purpose namely the common good. People are driven by more than a single aspect of our nature, self-interest. And therefore capitalism distorts human nature toward everything from a monotonous pursuit of personal gain to appalling greed which can tend to defeat the purpose of self-interest itself when systems, like corporations, can disintegrate when accounting or good conduct rules are broken. Capitalism works on the principle that corporations that are highly organized and team-oriented are at greater advantage over smaller companies and a disorganized labour force. I think trade deals like NAFTA are designed to remove certain powers of democratically-elected governments and place economic decision making and control of natural resources in the hands of powerful, non-elected corporate leaders who run highly undemocratic companies choosing to organize themselves by highly unequal top-down management hierarchies.

[ 25 February 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by N.Beltov:
[b]I've been reading Dennett's [i]Freedom Evolves[/i] and I'm very impressed. I need to read it again. But Dennett seems to substantiate a view of "freedom" that flows from his own philosophical materialism and derives some very interesting conclusions. i cannot urge you strongly enought to have a look yourself.[/b]

---

I'm mostly just against "determinism" of any sort, myself, but then physical reality doesn't have to Determine our entire existence or Being either, but rather just prescribe our common boundries and potentials somewhat. If there were No limits at all then Nothing would make much sense. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

I'll definitely check it out, sounds like it should be an interesting read at the very least. My natural philosophy collection is getting rather dated again.

quote:

---

There's a problem with Russel's views today though. They are based on an old world materialist view of science that has been completely revolutionized and transformed since Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg etc.

---

Russell outlived Einstein and Bohr (if not Heisenberg) and his writings stretch from the 1890s to the 1960s. While some of his views evolved he was an anti-war activist most of his life. His views on religion have little to do with a materialistic view of science e.g. Russell's Teapot:

quote:

---

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

---

This is developed further by Dawkins in
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Devil%27s_Chaplain]A Devil's Chaplain[/url]

quote:

---

The reason organized religion merits outright hostility is that, unlike belief in Russell's teapot, religion is powerful, influential, tax-exempt and systematically passed on to children too young to defend themselves. Children are not compelled to spend their formative years memorizing loony books about teapots. Government-subsidized schools don't exclude children whose parents prefer the wrong shape of teapot. Teapot-believers don't stone teapot-unbelievers, teapot-apostates, teapot-heretics and teapot-blasphemers to death. Mothers don't warn their sons off marrying teapot-shiksas whose parents believe in three teapots rather than one. People who put the milk in first don't kneecap those who put the tea in first.

---

Other similar analogies are the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Pink_Unicorn]Invisible Pink Unicorn[/url] and the
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster]Flying Spagetti Monster[/url]

I will give Russell the last word though:

quote:

---

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. […] A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.

---

My trouble is that the Dawkins' of the world take a blindly literal fundamentalist reading of the Bible (and the conception of God, physics, etc.) and then refute that without considering that there is something else in there that isn't so damn literal.
They're no different from the fundamentalists in their impenetrability to layers of meaning.

If God is essentially beyond definition (as both Jews and Muslims would alledge) how can one "refute" a definition-less proposition?

If the brain does not work mechanically, how does it work?

If we say that the "I am" has no physical basis, we are basically agreeing that it is a soul, a "ghost in the machine".

Someone referred to the "God of the gaps", and it may be that THIS is the last gap to be filled.

Of course, it is the overwhelmingly unanimous human experience that the "will" is basically "free". Theories which grant cognitive status to "intuition" will always say that we intuit our freedom, and that makes it so.

quote:

---

If the brain does not work mechanically, how does it work?

---

Chemically and electrically?

quote:

---

Not all neuroscientists or physicists in the last century or today are convinced of that. Charles Sherrington was the first doubting Thomas. John Eccles believed that mind and brain are separate.

---

That doesn't make them right either.

quote:

---

Adolf Portmann in his book, "New Pathways in Biology" put it this way, "No amount of research along physical or chemical lines can ever give us a full picture of psychological, spiritual, or intellectual processes."

---

Possibly because the brain is too complex. However, this almost sounds like the prediction that we will never know the composition of stars, a prediction that was famously proved wrong just a few years later.

quote:

---

In his watershed book, The Mystery of the Mind, A Critical Study of Consciousness and the Human Brain, Canadian neurosurgeon Dr Wilder Penfield said that the mind seems to act with an energy all its own. It makes decisions and puts them into actions using mechanisms in the brain. While doing dozens of brain surgeries, Penfield noted that certain areas of the brain are responsible for motor functions, speech, memory, vision, and he noted that stimulating certain areas could bypass something. That something was the person's human will and mindful consciousness to act. Penfield spent his life's work searching for the "I am" part of the human brain but never found it.

---

The fact that a person (or any complex system) is more than the sum of its parts does not negate the successes of reductionist and materialist science. On the other hand, I don't think you would volunteer for a frontal lobotomy.

[QUOTE] Like most materialists before him /QUOTE]

Russel was not a materialist, or if he started out as one, he eventually became some sort of neutral monist.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
[b]If the brain does not work mechanically, how does it work?

If we say that the "I am" has no physical basis, we are basically agreeing that it is a soul, a "ghost in the machine".

Someone referred to the "God of the gaps", and it may be that THIS is the last gap to be filled.

Of course, it is the overwhelmingly unanimous human experience that the "will" is basically "free". Theories which grant cognitive status to "intuition" will always say that we intuit our freedom, and that makes it so.[/b]

---

Scientists Already grant status to cognitive intuition, and use it themselves, they just don't bother trying to Quantify human Qualities. They just check and verify any intuitive leaps afterword, and if the results confuse them more they either scrap them or look for a better explanation for the data.

There seems to be some sort of misunderstanding here, religion is about Psychology -uplifting the spirit, healong the soul, looking for more harmony with nature, all that jazz. Saying -look, where IS this Spirit or Soul, how exactly do we even Define them? It all kind of misses the point and is about as meaningless as, I dunno, what shape or sex the creator"" might be. Or the "colour" of love. Or the ultimate "meaning" of a light bulb. When one goes out, we all know the real answer to that one, put a new one in or check the fuse box. If that fails phone an accredited electrician.

Dawkins just makes me mad when he says things like teaching our own religion to our own children is somehow akin to "child abuse". He obviously doesn't "get" religion, outside the thinking of European medievalism.

BTW Fidel, this reminds me, I might be able to dig up some actual "proof" for "psychic" phenomena that I could share with others on Babble. I swear I've read some old native prophecies which predicted things they shouldn't have been able to predict even from when I first read them. Course I don't know if even psychic phenomena is Proof for a "spirit world" either, and coming from a higher culture they always insisted we Could alter course (we only got worse unfortunately) but be interesting to see how closely they actually match my fading memories. See if I can dig up some of my old "new age" books again....I Know the answer is Out there somewhere. (basement probably)

quote:

---

There seems to be some sort of misunderstanding here, religion is about Psychology -uplifting the spirit, healong the soul, looking for more harmony with nature, all that jazz.

---

That can be one aspect; another is controlling people.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Policywonk:
[b]

That can be one aspect; another is controlling people.[/b]

---

Yes, in an alternate universe ruled by the dark side,
[url=http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/09/17_franken.html]Jesus was rich[/url] and declared it a sin to be poor. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

Just for more Babbling fun, here's a few sections I found in an old copy of "Rolling Thunder", published in 1974, page 50-51:

(author Doug Boyd speaking)
[i]I have since come to know some part of the Indian prophecy that is preserved by the Hopi people and maintained by traditional-Indian spokesmen everywhere. The currently significant part of these prophecies pertains to an approaching transition that is often called "the day of purification". This prophecy coincides with the claims of ecologists and scientists who believe the imbalance in nature has passed the point of no return. {or soon would -myself} Yet the traditional Indian does not await some kind of ecological doomsday. Instead he waits the moment of climax with hopeful anticipation. {I believe this appraisal has become more pessimistic lately-myself} Rolling thunder said, "When you have pollution it spreads all over. It spreads just as athritis or cancer spreads in the body. The earth is sick now because the earth is being mistreated, and some of the problems that might occur, some of the natural disasters that might happen in the near future, are only natural readjustments that have to take place to throw off the sickness. A lot of things are on this land that don't belong here. They're foreign objects like viruses or germs. Now, we may not recognize the fact when it happens, but a lot of things that are going to happen in the future will really be the earth's attempts to throw off some of these sicknesses. This is really going to be like a fever or like a vomiting, what you might call a physiological adjustment." [/i]

This "day of purification" is not only said to involve widespread flooding, droughts, unseasonal storms and wildfires, but earthquakes and volcanos too. Predicting environmental decay is onething, predicting increased tectonic activity in what's supposed to be an inaminate ball of rock is what gets my attention again. This is fairly common though among Aboriginal traditions everywhere. The subject of this old classic also foresaw the rise of fascism in North America (more than the usual exploitation and bigotry) from a vantage point of 1972 or so -if we didn't wake up and change course. (which we still haven't)

page 47:

[i]Rolling Thunder often referred to right-wing politics of any kind as fascist, and he spoke of fascism with profound gravity. He did not use the word lightly but he used it often, not usually about people themselves, but about ideas and actions. He was apprehensive of fascism as a growing danger in America. In my field notes I recorded that Rolling Thunder had considered fascism "the tool of the dark forces". He was far more concerned with what he called "the signs of fascism creeping up" than any of the obnoxious mischief of Communists or capitalists. He spoke of the new no-knock law as one omen that people with political power would begin to consider themselves privileged, endowed with special rights, exempt from principles of justice and honesty. [/i]

Only others I know with That much foresight were the old school Marxists --but then they Always predicted fascism. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]

Nawitka (indeed) Fidel, Meegwich.

[ 01 March 2007: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]

Wow, Sitting Bull. I think there was a time when the promise of democratic socialism seemed possible. Socialists across the country were enthusiastic about it in the 60's and 70's. The elite have ways of subverting democracy that defy the average person's imagination, imo. They get their way in the end. Even so-called benign capitalism is about putting in the least to extract the most. The superrich don't care about what the next generation has to deal with.

I read something that Crazy Horse said to the newcomers that made me think. He said something to the effect that, the whites should work if they want to, but leave the Sioux alone. It's not our way, he said. I think we have to figure out what we are working towards and how best to do it while doing the least harm to the environment. And to me it means central planning. The elite in North America will never voluntarily share real decision making with the left. Before voting becomes proportional here, I think they'll work overtime toward North American Union on the quiet from news media attention. As if the news media was on our side anyway, which they aren't.

Capitalism is fascism with the mask on until democracy threatens the status quo.

Viva la revolucion!

I truly think the superrich are unique in comparison with the average person. At some point, the little people realize just how much disdain the rich have for the poor and even middle class slobs. Historians have argued over the number of people who will remain loyal to the power elite during a revolution, from a few thousand to several million. Look at the gains workers in the west made after Russia and China pink-slipped the Tsar and last emperor a few decades ago. Change can be a good thing.

quote:

---

Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
[b]
Atheistic extremists don't see how unfair their being to the vast majority of the human beings, who are suffering and need something greater than themselves to pray to.[/b]

---

Anti-Santa Claus extremists don't see how unfair they're being to the vast majority of children, who are suffering and need something greater than themselves to bring them gifts.

quote:

---

Anti-Santa Claus extremists don't see how unfair they're being to the vast majority of children, who are suffering and need something greater than themselves to bring them gifts.

---

If a belief in Santa Claus helps a child cope with the fact that his mother and father have just been shot by a heavily armed government backed malitia, I have no problem with it. If on the hand a child uses his belief in Santa as an exuse to abuse others, then he deserves to be taken to task.

[ 23 March 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 23 March 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

i think that South Park said it best...

Science H. Logic!!!!!