Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Sc--nce Attack Message-ID: <1635@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Tue, 3-Sep-85 16:54:57 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1635 Posted: Tue Sep 3 16:54:57 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 5-Sep-85 02:43:21 EDT References: <45200016@hpfcms.UUCP> <1605@pyuxd.UUCP> <491@spar.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 194 > Nobody here (including me) has ever said disparaging things about > science. On the other hand, many, including myself, refuse to > accept your repeated assertions (that Sc--nce can ultimately > know All That Is). [ELLIS] What I assume that you mean is YOU repeated assertions that I am asserting this. > In other words, it is not science, but rather your blind dogmatic > assertions of faith unsupported by evidence or reason, that provoke the > distasteful "tone" you refer to. In other words, since I haven't uttered any such assertions, you have no reason for being distasteful. I *have* uttered things about the way some people jump up and down and say "there are limits to science, thus you should accept my arbitrary conception of what's going on". > "Tools of persuasion"? > > Why not try logic first? I did. It didn't work. > You have NEVER presented a single rigorous argument or hard evidence > that the Sc--ntific Method is the ultimate determiner of truth in all > areas of human interest (eg. music, love...). "Areas of human interest"? Oh, please! The fact remains that when it comes to truth, hard truth about the real world, it is a better determiner than the wishful thinking you would have us engage in. >>But science is not "out" to prove such things "false" or "non-existent". >>Clearly they exist as constructs of the human mind in categorizing such >>things. True objective inquiry could, given the right tools and the >>opportunity, figure out what sorts of things trigger human responses >>like "love" and "beauty", in general and in specific. >>I hardly think that would "destroy" such things, it would merely "take all >>the mystery out of life". > Totally bogus -- mystery IS beauty (to some of us, anyway..) Great! Then what you're saying is that not knowing about what something is really like increases its beauty to you. Imagine that---a scientific analysis of what makes things beautiful! Now, I'm not even thinking of saying that that is the truth about beauty (we have hardly done any study of it to show that this rule applies in all cases), but apparently it applies in your case. > For me, beauty has both surprise/spontaneity and rhythm/predictability, > in abundance, and even qualities that I do not like. More scientific analysis of beauty (so to speak). Great! > If the mysteries of prime numbers were uncovered, I'd simply find > more interesting numbers. If a machine could predict my taste, then I'd > make a point of randomly liking against its predictions. If the sea > were tamed, I'd look at the stars instead. And frogs -- they will > always be totally beyond human understanding (a belief, I know). No, obviously a fact. So what you have offered us is at least a potential for a rigorous analysis of at least one factor in beauty, something you claimed was unknowable. But, in fact, mysteriousness to you makes things (potentially) more beautiful. Beautiful!!! You have surprised me whilst offering a certain formic cadence to your beliefs that is quite beautiful. No incompatibility there. > But you still believe your definition of free will is the `real' > definition (as if there were exactly one) -- regardless of the > overwhelming rejection your definition has received. Imagine that. Not cottoning to a coup d'etat of the English language who want to change word meaning around while everyone else sleeps so that they can "get" what they "want". How awful of me! > As a person who clearly has no free will, you might as well be a blind > person telling us that vision is impossible... I might as well, I guess, since I'm blind to the intended meaning of this "analogy"... How can you compare something that does exist with something that does? (Assuming your conclusion?) >>Science doesn't give us "good" or "bad" things. >>Science gives us facts. Do you have any idea why alchemy never gave us >>"bad" things? Because it didn't provide anything worth using for good OR >>evil!! (That's an oversimplification, we did get things like symbology >>from alchemy, but the actual "chemical" learning of alchemy didn't work.) > Alchemy also gave us Chemistry. Eventually, through efforts of those who turned it around (sacrilegiously) into something viable. But what relevance does that have to my point? > You might try reading Feyerabend's _Against_Method_. He argues > that we are all on the verge of becoming blind religious fanatics, > (exactly like you, Rich!!) and have been so brainwashed by our > institutionalized worship of the omnipotent Sc--ntific Method that > we fail to perceive value in the diverse sources from which our > real inspirations spring. Really? Yes, we may "place to much emphasis" on method, but real creative people still get real creative inspirations, from knowing how to use their minds and position them in the most productive way. And how doe they know this? From learning about the method of how they think. My fear is that we are all on the verge of becoming wishywashyful thinkers (exactly like you, Mike) out of fear of what the real world has been learned to be like, and how that doesn't fit with what we "want". >>>>"to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day >>>> to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human >>>> being can fight and never stop fighting." - e. e. cummings >>> Oh, you poor, poor, shackled martyr, you! Poor baby is fighting so hard >>> against such overwhelming persecutions! Give me a break, Rich. >>"Poor shackled martyr"? Where the fuck do you get off? "Poor baby"? I'd >>venture a guess that you are the poor baby, with your need to ridicule even >>my choice of signature quotes in an effort to support your position. What >>IS your point? Do you have some problem with the quote? I find it quite >>relevant in everyday life. If you don't like it, tough shit. It has >>nothing to do with the argument at hand, but I suppose you'll attack anything >>to get what you want out of this argument. > Funny you should complain, Rich, considering how many times you've > flamed at my SMASH CAUSALITY!!! signoff... "Smash this!" or "What are you smashing today?" is very different from tripe like "poor shackled martyr". Or is that just me being subjective? Or you? >>>What really gets me, though, are your continued statements that anyone who >>>"limits" science is really, deep-down, scared of having his "nears and >>>dears" torn apart and shown to be false. And yet you respond to my (?) >>>last article with the tirade above? WHO'S REALLY SCARED, RICH? Aren't >>>you just as doggedly defending your own side? >>In an age in which thinking things through is out of fashion, where people >>are being taught to use the "right side of the brain" without having >>mastered the use of the left, and where religious autocrats would squelch >>the teaching of scientific inquiry and logic as a means of thinking and >>reaching conclusions, you bet I'm scared. Scared that wishy-washy-ful >>thinkers will shred human learning and bring us back to the dark ages of >>willy nilly superstition. But of the two of us, who is REALLY scared? > Rich, you might spend more time learning how to use any part of your mind > whatsoever. And to think two weeks ago you apologized for this sort of vindictive shit. Yes, Michael, do smash something, please. > You confuse understanding one's full human nature (not just rationality > but also subjective intuitive things) with rigid authoritarian > religion (which denies all mental functioning whatsoever). Funny that > you seem to possess precisely those same unthinking illogical qualities > you fear most while you lack those which you claim to uphold. Confuse? Or recognize the same roots within each? > Religion (including your inflexible Sc--ntism) without awareness is > ready to send this planet a lot farther back than the middle ages -- > like maybe the Paleozoic! "Inflexible"? In that it demands basing conclusions on rigorous analysis rather than "explaining things using models that make the way seem the way you want it to be"? How terrible!! > I believe the real evil of religion occurs when mechanical and dogmatic > assertions of faith become so compulsive that communication with those > of different viewpoints becomes impossible. Is it a dogmatic assertion of faith to demand that those who would wishfully thinkg with the worst of them adhere to a serious and proven method of analysis and reasoning rather than their well known way of working backwards from the conclusion? >>And who really needs to be? You speak of recognizing science's limitations. >>Does that mean you simply don't use the scientific method of analysis when >>it comes to things you perceive to be beyond those limits, in order to >>say "thus my ideas are true"? That's what the wishful thinkers are doing. >>What isn't this method suited for, and why? In what cases do you simply >>discard it, and in favor of what? Do tell us. > Case in point: Turing's test for machine consciousness. > How can we determine if an entity actually has conscious awareness? > The only way to REALLY know is to ACTUALLY BE the entity in question. > There is no such thing as `objective scientific evidence' for awareness. > Consequently, if verifiable OBJECTIVE evidence is the only valid > determiner for existence -- I (my conscious awareness) do not exist. If we can determine what it is withint the organization of our brains that gives us conscious awareness (who are you to say that this is impossible? isn't that dogmatic???) then we could see if that existed in the machine, could we not? Or would that make it "less beautiful"? -- "iY AHORA, INFORMACION INTERESANTE ACERCA DE... LA LLAMA!" Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr