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Science in its relentless search for `objectivity' has desiccated our emotional response to nature and life and all the facts in the world won't substitute for a rooted sense of the value of nature and life which encompasses us.
Science in its relentless search for `objectivity' has desiccated our emotional response to nature and life and all the facts in the world won't substitute for a rooted sense of the value of nature and life which encompasses us.
I think it varies depending on the person, but science can increase the emotional response, where religion with the belief that God will heal our natural world has the larger negative impact.
For example will people look at trees differently if science shows they can communicate and collaborate with each other? Suzanne Simard: How Do Trees Collaborate? : NPR Some may, some may not.
Science in its relentless search for `objectivity' has desiccated our emotional response to nature and life and all the facts in the world won't substitute for a rooted sense of the value of nature and life which encompasses us.
Not for me. Thanks to science, I no longer see a distant thunderstorm cloud as "just a blob of white stuff." Instead I see a distant thunderstorm cloud as an incredibly beautiful self-organizing system that converts latent heat into life-giving rain, spectacular lightning, hail, and vigorous winds.
The really cool part is knowing that I possibly helped contribute to the energy of that thunderstorm (albeit in an insignificant way).
Crazy, you say? No.
Every drop of sweat that evaporates from my skin steals a little bit of heat from me. It's why sweating keeps you cool. The heat is known as "latent heat" which is released as soon as the water condenses somewhere cool. The water vapor could condense on a cold blade of grass (as dew) on a cool summer night, it could condense on my neighbor's cold can of Bud Light, or it could condense inside a cloud. Possibly a thunderstorm cloud. Or a distant hurricane. It is that latent heat energy that gives thunderstorms and hurricanes their incredible power.
So Katie, I have just told you that you help power thunderstorms and hurricanes (in your own small way). I hope I have made your day. Without science, you (and I) would never have known that.
Science in its relentless search for `objectivity' has desiccated our emotional response to nature and life and all the facts in the world won't substitute for a rooted sense of the value of nature and life which encompasses us.
I think you should lay this charge more at the feet of technologists than of scientists. There's no law of science that it has to be applied mechanistically or un-holistically or without any epistemological humility.
There's also an argument that the fault is as much with unbridled business and marketing interests as it is with the technology itself.
FaceBook is a pretty good example, it is a platform for a form of social signaling / contact but it has unintended consequences in shifting how people give attention to the world around them, how they absorb news, and how they "verify" the accuracy of various memes. It has in fact accidentally become a tool for deliberate purveyors of false news stories and divisive rhetoric, to manipulate people and opinions and elections. Why? Well simplistically it's because of prioritizing the growth and power of the platform without thinking through these possible knock-on effects and putting in proper safeguards. The end result is strife, confusion and alienation. My stepdaughter actually thinks that her hundreds of FB friends are actual friends, for example, yet she confesses she feels quite alone just the same.
That doesn't make this particular technology inherently harmful but if I were Zuck I'd do some real soul-searching right about now.
I would rather hear a poetic,romantic or emotional description of a cloud. I'm not interested in its mechanics and systems,but I can appreciate that that is moving for you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Freak80
Not for me. Thanks to science, I no longer see a distant thunderstorm cloud as "just a blob of white stuff." Instead I see a distant thunderstorm cloud as an incredibly beautiful self-organizing system that converts latent heat into life-giving rain, spectacular lightning, hail, and vigorous winds.
The really cool part is knowing that I possibly helped contribute to the energy of that thunderstorm (albeit in an insignificant way).
Crazy, you say? No.
Every drop of sweat that evaporates from my skin steals a little bit of heat from me. It's why sweating keeps you cool. The heat is known as "latent heat" which is released as soon as the water condenses somewhere cool. The water vapor could condense on a cold blade of grass (as dew) on a cool summer night, it could condense on my neighbor's cold can of Bud Light, or it could condense inside a cloud. Possibly a thunderstorm cloud. Or a distant hurricane. It is that latent heat energy that gives thunderstorms and hurricanes their incredible power.
So Katie, I have just told you that you help power thunderstorms and hurricanes (in your own small way). I hope I have made your day. Without science, you (and I) would never have known that.
Science in its relentless search for `objectivity' has desiccated our emotional response to nature and life and all the facts in the world won't substitute for a rooted sense of the value of nature and life which encompasses us.
It's clear by your post that you have not studied science.
Studying science opens your eyes to the world and how it works. It shines the light on our evolution and connectedness to every living thing on this earth. It helps us to understand and know where we came from, how the Universe was formed and how Solar Systems are formed.
Science will open your mind in ways you never dreamed possible.
Science gives us the truth better then any other system we have to obtain knowledge.
Science gives us the truth better then any other system we have to obtain knowledge.
That is true about second-hand knowledge, but it ignores first-hand knowledge through direct experience. The subjectivity and perceptual bias arguments used against direct experience are valid but they can apply to ALL perceptual information including those used in scientific methods.
That is true about second-hand knowledge, but it ignores first-hand knowledge through direct experience.
How do you come up with this? Scientific discoveries are first hand knowledge through direct experimentation and observation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
The subjectivity and perceptual bias arguments used against direct experience are valid but they can apply to ALL perceptual information including those used in scientific methods.
This sounds like nothing but a subjective perceptual bias against science.
The difference between science and your beliefs is that scientists are not afforded the luxury of a belief system, since what we believe does not matter. The same standard should hold true for every human, regardless of their scientific background.
How do you come up with this? Scientific discoveries are first hand knowledge through direct experimentation and observation.
This sounds like nothing but a subjective perceptual bias against science.
The difference between science and your beliefs is that scientists are not afforded the luxury of a belief system, since what we believe does not matter. The same standard should hold true for every human, regardless of their scientific background.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
That is true about second-hand knowledge, but it ignores first-hand knowledge through direct experience. The subjectivity and perceptual bias arguments used against direct experience are valid but they can apply to ALL perceptual information including those used in scientific methods.
Matadora "saying" she does lucid dreaming
is no different than Mystic "saying" he met God.
neither can prove the validity of what they "say" they "directly experienced."
they are of equal "validity" because there are lots of people who "say" they saw this or that while lucid dreaming. and there are lots of people who "say" they interacted with God in meditation.
they both could be making it up.
for both it could be "something else" but they "claim" it is lucid dreaming, or "claim" it is God.
and both claim that "others experience this too" which does not make it more or less valid. articles published on lucid dreaming (who chiefly state they use it for violent revenge fantasies and promiscuous sex scenarios). While testimony abounds from people with messages from God!
what either Matadora or Mystic "says" about the "validity" or not of the other's supposed "direct experience" can also be applied to their own. Which makes it fun to observe their conversations online since they both claim the scientific high ground and bend over backwards to concoct and contort the "science" to support their own pet "direct experience" while seeking to discredit each other.
And the FACT remains that science can not reliably replicate, duplicate, prove, or validate what either of them "say" they experience.
Matadora may be having a God experience, but she has such a "bias against religion" that she must come up with a scientific explanation.
Mystic may be lucid dreaming. But he is convinced he met God although since he rejects all models of God and rejects all religion and insists God must fit the scientific model he's not got much credibility in either camp science or religion.
Or they both could just be making it all up. What's that Dickens line? It is likely just "an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than gravity about it"
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 10-30-2017 at 10:13 PM..
my observation is that religious people are much more able to integrate science into religion,
than scientists are able to integrate religion into science.
this says to me that the person who can reconcile and integrate both science and religion can see the bigger picture better.
science is a subset of religion. it is a framework that God created. God wrote the program that "runs nature" and science simply describes and categorizes nature.
whereas science has no place for religion. it "does not compute."
science is limited and narrow in scope.
religion is much more broad and encompasses everything.
science will one day "catch up" to "proving" and "understanding" what religion has known and used all along. science has just been kind of, well, slow to cotton on to it.
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Without science, you (and I) would never have known that. 
