[ August 09, 2002: Message edited by: nonesuch ]

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Apemantus: What is your favourite book?
Illusions - Richard Bach

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Apemantus, do you recognize the following?

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"Why are you not telling me the truth?"

"I have told you the truth, Richard," he said. The name is painted on my airplane, too.

"A person does not hop passengers for a month in a Travel Air without getting a little oil on the plane, my friend, a little dust? One patch in the fabric? Hay, for God's sake, on the floor7"

He smiled calmly at me. "There are some things you do not know."

In that moment he was a strange other-planet person. I believed what he said, but I had no way of explaining his jewel airplane parked out in the summer hayfield.

"This is true. But some day I'll know them all. And then you can have my air- plane, Donald, because I won't need it to fly."

He looked at me with interest, and raised his black eyebrows. "Oh? Tell me."

I was delighted. Someone wanted to hear my theory!

"People couldn't fly for a long time, I don't think, because they didn't think it was possible, so of course they didn't learn the first little principle of aerodynamics. I want to believe that there's another principle somewhere: we don't need airplanes to fly, or move through walls, or get to planets. We can learn how to do that without machines anywhere. If we want to."

He half-smiled, seriously, and nodded his head one time. "And you think that you will learn what you wish to learn by hopping three-dollar rides out of hay- fields."

"The only learning that's mattered is what I got on my own, doing what I want to do. There isn't, but if there were a soul on earth who could teach me more of what I want to know than my airplane can, and the sky, I'd be off right now to find him. Or her."

The dark eyes looked at me level. "Don't you believe you're guided, if you really want to learn this thing7"

"I'm guided, yes. Isn't everyone? I've always felt something kind of watching over me, sort of."

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(PS. btw thanks for the compliment)

[ August 09, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

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There are people to whom no strange shit has ever happened - maybe. Or it has, and they didn't take note. Or it has, and they called it something else.

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You know, Einstein was sceptical about the 'reality' of quantum entanglement, and couldn't imagine how it might be moved beyond the theoretical into the realm of practical application - yet we've done it! The latest generation of particle smasher is powerful beyond our wildest dreams, and while it's still impossible to measure things at such a tiny distance that we could definitively 'prove' a unified force theory or super string theory, we are at least progressing in that direction.

I still live in a glorious universe where everything is possible. And when data starts to trickle in, perhaps some of the more unlikely things become probable.

P.S. Just had to add my two cents about Richard Bach - put him in the same category as that Celestine Prophesies drivel. Horrible.

P.P.S. I also read all the Carlos Castenada books when I was, like, 17. What the hell else do you read when you're in your drug "experimentation" phase? Jeeze, if I'd done that much peyote, I'd be talking to coyotes too.

[ August 09, 2002: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

[ August 09, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

So why not ask first: “Apemantus, why did you like that book so much”? If for no other reason, than curiosity? Why the unnecessary rudeness, trashing someone’s treasure with such force?

Why is it almost impossible to have a conversation on anything non-scientific without the ‘scientific types’ stomping all over it with such anger? What are they so angry about? What is it they are so afraid of?

I have seen the suggestion that:

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TP: Don't you guys think that credulous acceptance of paranormal claims opens the door to much more dangerous assertions from those with hidden agendas, looking for an audience and political following that won't use Occam's razzor, or Humes Maxim, or put thier claims to critical analysis?

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Nobody denies that religion and superstition has caused horrible pain and destruction in human history.

So did fire.

Yet we don’t outlaw fire, we are just a lot more careful how we use it.

Care, doubt, caution are perfectly OK, rational, prudent.

Arrogant, closed-minded, flat-out denial isn’t.

[ August 11, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

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P.P.S. I also read all the Carlos Castenada books when I was, like, 17.
What the hell else do you read when you're in your drug "experimentation" phase? Jeeze, if I'd done that much peyote, I'd be talking to coyotes too.

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Many years ago I read that the Don Juan books were all a hoax. Someone went to the trouble to write a monograph on the subject....and then I bothered to read it.

Strange. I can't explain it...

It's like that Bermuda Triangle.

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ELVIS IS EVERYWHERE!!!

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He built the pyramids, ladies and gentlemen!

Wasn't quite sure why all the ladies were fussin' an cryin' and carryin' on like that.

Oh, Elvis died.

Can I have this car?

Can I have this car, mom?

Mom?

Can I have this car?

Now, when Terry Fox had to stop his run, and the radio people said that the cancer had spread... that was something I could really feel, but Elvis, that rip off artist?

Here's a quote Albert Einstein.

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Why are we so ready to call something ‘drivel’ that we know means a lot to someone obviously intelligent like Apemantus

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Why is it almost impossible to have a conversation on anything non-scientific without the ‘scientific types’ stomping all over it with such anger? What are they so angry about? What is it they are so afraid of?

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Nobody denies that religion and superstition has caused horrible pain and destruction in human history. So did fire. Yet we don’t outlaw fire, we are just a lot more careful how we use it.

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Care, doubt, caution are perfectly OK, rational, prudent. Arrogant, closed-minded, flat-out denial isn’t

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...Elvis, that rip off artist?

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If scientism is the new religeon than we are all in the midst of our dark age, out here on the edge of this spinning ball of wonder.

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Only a week till the 16th. Where were you on that date in 1977?

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Elvis needs boats...Elvis needs boats...

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The day before Elvis died I was singing "Flaming Star," a song I hadn't even thought of for years.

"Every man has a flaming star,
A flaming star, over his shoulder.
And when a man sees that flaming star,
He knows his time has come."

We are in the midst of its arc - and because of this we're a little blind in favour of our own biases.

This is, surely, nothing new.

Or had we all assumed, because we are 'socialists', that we are beyond the reach of bias?

Is scientism not - actually - exactly like a religion?

'Taylorism' defines its codes of behavior.

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There has not been a major breakthrough in physics for almost a century.

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Quantum mechanics is newer than that, and the discovery of quarks newer still.

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The greatest minds in physics now openly admit that there may not ever be any fundamental discoveries any more, that we may have reached the limit of the human brain’s analytical capacity.

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I was hangin' out at the farm.
The day before Elvis died I was singing "Flaming Star," a song I hadn't even thought of for years.

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I was out at the cottage.

The day was hot and sultry. Exactly like the typical summer weather in Memphis, Tennessee.

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'lance: Quantum mechanics is newer than that, and the discovery of quarks newer still

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1900 – Max Planck proposes the quantized black-body radiation theory and the famous Planck constant, thereby launching quantum theory.

1905 – Einstein published one of his three famous papers, this one about the Photoelectric effect (winning the Nobel prize for it in 1921), using Planck’s hypothesis.

1905 – Einstein publishes his Special Theory of relativity, changing the Newtonian absolute space and time to a relativistic space-time.

1915 – Einstein publishes his General Theory of Relativity describing connection between gravity and space-time distortions. Experimentally proven in 1919.

1927 – Werner Heisenberg published his complete theory of Quantum Mechanics and the famous ‘Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle’.

No new fundamental advances have been made since then as far as our discovering basic principles is concerned. A lot happened since then to work out details and find new particles and prove the soundness of the original discoveries. QED for example was the major theoretical ‘edifice’ of the earlier discovered phenomena. Quarks (not actually produced in accelerators) were another step in looking deeper into elementary particles, but they did not represent a new understanding how the physical world works.

No new philosophically important discoveries have been made since 1927 when Heisenberg published his ‘uncertainty Principle’.

That is why I said "almost a century". I guess I should have said: "three quarters of a century".

Quantum phenomena are just as much a maddening enigma today as it was in 1900 when it was first discovered to ‘explain’ phenomena.

For current assessment of the state of Physics, as described by a dozen or so Nobel Laureates in Physics (of the last few decades), see the "Possible limit to science..." thread, where I listed them. Click here.

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'lance: Some were saying that a century or so ago, too.

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[ August 09, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

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Nothing ever ends, until it does.

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[ August 09, 2002: Message edited by: 'lance ]

Nothing has been discovered since, apparently. Nothing can supplant it. You like talking about stuff being possible, Zatamon, lest you're thinking is just as arrogant as "blind faith" religion. Is it not possible that something can supplant quantum mechanics? I don't know much about string theory, digital physics, emergent physics and whatnot, but, well, something tells me we don't know all there is to know. And I'd think it is supremely arrogant to claim that we know any kind of percentage of what there is to know.

[ August 09, 2002: Message edited by: clockwork ]

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No new fundamental advances have been made since then as far as our discovering basic principles is concerned.

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When you are climbing a hundred foot pole, the tip of which is hidden in fog, the climbers may predict the end of the pole after every ten feet of climb, and they are proven wrong. Until the climbers at the 90-th foot mark.

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Zatamon: Once we have an agreement about the possibility that our brain power may be limited as opposed to infinite, then we can take the next step.

Me: It's one thing to say that there can be a limit to what we can know, or as you put it, a limit to what we can understand which, I think, are not quite the same thing, but it's another to draw conclusions from this.

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and says nothing about there being an absolute end of science, or nothing new is around to discover. This is why I don't like what you are trying to do, repeating your points ad nauseum. Building an argument is one thing, but manipulating it as another.

Semantics is a wonderful thing, I agree.

I understand what you have said you are trying to do. But you try and reach a consensus and then elsewhere you make a remark outside that consensus and then wonder why anyone would argue with that remark since the consensus was reached.

Again: if you are honestly trying to build an argument, fine. But on numerous occasions, you have said something that irks me, notwithstanding the "consensus", and I have challenged because of it.

Instead of fighting and reading again and again about Nobel Laureates and the equivalence to blind faith (if you allow me to repeat what's been said), let's nail down exactly what is in the consensus. For this I need you to summarize, because obviously I'm unsure of the consensus since I keep arguing with you. I also need a handy quote for when I think you go outside the consensus, as I've think you've done here (and this is good for you, too, for the same reason).

And if I can note: the approach, I think, doesn't matter. Whether I dislike it or not doesn't matter. In no way am I suggesting to drop anything. To tell you the truth, the style of argument is just as curious to me as the argument itself. And dropping out is probably not a smart thing to do right now, as, I'm sure you'd understand, it only feeds into my preconceived notions about what's going on. But if we were running in circles and the argument drops, no problem. But I do not think we are going around and around just yet.

edited: And, uh, sorry for taking over yet another thread. This must be a bit infuritating for the dispassionate reader.

[ August 10, 2002: Message edited by: clockwork ]

Come to think of it, science can be viewed as a tectonic plate, floating over the sphere of reality, getting thicker and stronger by solidifying more and more of the molten unknown below. I don’t know much about the theory, but I assume that the solidifying process also slows down with time, as the thicker and thicker solid layer acts more and more as an insulator. As I said, a fascinating subject.

PS. clockwork, I will get back to you soon, with the summary you asked for.

[ August 10, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

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If 'lance was still talking to me, I would ask him to suggest some links where I could read up on the breakthroughs he mentioned. Alas, he took offence at what he thought was condescension which, in reality, was irritation over his 'amusement'.

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My apologies, Zatamon, for being snippy and sarcastic yesterday. I have my days just like most people.

What I was trying to get at was this: as a non-physicist, I've often been struck by what I take to be a certain belief among physicists, and some observers of or commentators on physics, about the somehow "fundamental" status of physics among the sciences.

What I was objecting to -- sincerely -- was the suggestion that because there haven't been "philosophically important" breakthroughs in physics in recent generations (leaving aside the question of what constitutes a "philosophically important" breakthrough, the answer to which is not at all obvious to me), science itself is somehow banging up against the limits of what it might reasonably hope to know.

Perhaps I'm wrong about this. And to a certain extent this might be the simple grumpiness of people working in one branch of science at the spectacle of the greater prestige of another, but not entirely by any means. Physics, to my mind, is just one branch of science among many, and I don't know what it would mean to describe it as somehow fundamental.

From one point of view it is, perhaps, to the extent it asks questions about the "true" nature of the matter and energy that constitutes everything else. But in itself that means less than it seems to. By no means could other sciences ever be reduced to simple manifestations of phenomena described in the first instance by physics. To take a possibly absurd example, you can't predict plate tectonics from quantum mechanics; and in fact the advent of quantum mechanics made no difference whatsoever to the theory or practice of geology.

I know what you mean about physicists being chauvinistic and acting ‘superior’ toward the other sciences. I used to act like that a very long time ago, I outgrew it a few decades back.

I love all of science, I can lose myself in the marvel of existence around me: in all of its manifestation. For me life is a never ending wonder and my strongest motivation in life is my desire to acquire knowledge and understanding. I want to know everything there is to know in the universe and I want to understand how it was ‘put together’, what makes it tick. I have been at it for half a century now, and I expect to continue as long as I am around.

This being said, for purely personal reasons, I am most fascinated by sciences that have philosophical implications for me. To explain what I mean by "philosophically important" , I have to tell you what Philosophy and Physics means to me.

Philosophy is as old as mankind and, for me, as old as my memory. It grapples with the basic questions of existence and it is a very personal quest for those of us who pursue it. It is a cliché to say that every one of us is special and unique, but if you look deep inside your soul, you know it is true. You have never been someone else, you have this continuity of self that started in the fog of mystery and will end likewise. The world started when you were born and will end with you. Your world. The only one of its kind. What was there before and what will be after? For some of us it is a question of burning intensity.

For me, it is the most exciting question. I do not expect to answer it. I do not run to religion for help and salvation. I just keep my mind tuned to any thought that touches on the subject and read intelligent speculation with delight, be it science fiction, spiritual insight or serious philosophical dissertation.

Beyond metaphysics, Philosophy deals with the second most exciting question: Ethics. What is the basis of human societies, what is the essence of our interdependence, what are the basic principles by which our tribe could be organized? Where has mankind been evolving from and where is it heading? Is there progress or we are facing self-destruction as the ultimate fate of a species not quite good enough to survive? What are our basic choices as individual human beings living in a community of our own kind? How should we treat each other? Do we owe each other anything?

Philosophy attempts to approximate these questions and - in ideal case - gives us a compass by which to steer our ships as we are passing each other in the night.

Let me tell you what physics means to me. It may be the way to find God I have never believed in. It is a door to a universe full of secrets and miracles and mystery. It is Alice's world of wonders, where everything is different from what you expect. Space and time is one and curved; simultaneity is an illusion; forever can last a second and a minute may last forever. Cause and effect may change roles and, if you didn't pay attention to the sound of the falling tree in the forest, you may have made it 'never happened'.

Physics is a window to look at the birth (and death) of the universe; it allows you to read messages from billions of years in the past, before the atoms making up the planet you stand on were created.

Physics is the rapidly increasing heaviness that paralyses your body as you approach the speed of light so you can move only like in a dream - but only to the observers you are speeding away from, while you think you are going around in your normal way.

Physics is a world where matter can be created from nothing but energy and then turned back into radiating emptiness again; where particles can annihilate each other, winking out as they collide; where either of 'twin' particles, moving in opposite directions at the speed of light, still knows and reacts to what happens to its twin; and where the entire universe may be nothing more than fluctuating vacuum, delineated by the Big Bang and the Big Crunch. For me, nothing can compete with miracles of this kind.

I hope the above illustrates why I am so fascinated by physics and philosophy. I don’t consider them superior to any other branch of knowledge, I am just personally enthralled by what I consider the fundamental mysteries of existence.

[ August 10, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

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A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe"; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himelf, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest-a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison.

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I hope the above illustrates why I am so fascinated by physics and philosophy. I don’t consider them superior to any other branch of knowledge, I am just personally enthralled by what I consider the fundamental mysteries of existence.

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"Scientism".

I will explain this again, not, sadly for the last time I bet.

Religion lays out "truths". When new information comes in, and proves these truths to be incorrect, religion goes into a kind of denial. Particularly fundamentalist views know that one factual inacuracy brings their whole house of cards down.

Science also lays out "truths". When new information comes in and proves these truths to be incorrect, science does not go into denial. Science adopts the new truth.

This is what makes science not a religion.

Of course, people are entitled to believe otherwise. However, they are not entitled to be considered correct in that view.

To the subject at hand, I read "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" just before I read Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendullum." Not on purpose, either, just a happy coincidence.

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Oh, fer the love of pete.

"Scientism".

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I have seen the suggestion that:

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TP: Don't you guys think that credulous acceptance of paranormal claims opens the door to much more dangerous assertions from those with hidden agendas, looking for an audience and political following that won't use Occam's razzor, or Humes Maxim, or put thier claims to critical analysis?
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I answered this question in the “God, religion, the after life…” thread.

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I haven't checked back in the last little while, Zatamon, but hats off to you for answering anyway.

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TP: Science also lays out "truths". When new information comes in and proves these truths to be incorrect, science does not go into denial. Science adopts the new truth.

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At the bottom line, the essence of religion is ***faith***. So it is for science.

It is best said by the following excerpt from “Physics for the Rest of Us” by Roger S. Jones (professor of Physics at the University of Minnesota)

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CONJECTURAL THEORIES, LIKE THOSE OF unification and superstrings, often suggest images of fantasy and science fiction. But in a subtler way, many scientific concepts and theories have psychological, mythical, and even spiritual significance, of which we are largely unconscious.

Sigmund Freud, Norman O. Brown, and Carl Jung, among others, have emphasized the fundamental role that instincts, fears, and archetypes play in our psyches and activities. Our grand scientific theories and masterful technology may be psychological schemes to create the illusion of our heroic stature, to insure our scientific immortality, to proclaim our cultural superiority, or to demonstrate our intellectual prowess.

To what extent have we created scientific concepts and theories to satisfy our deepest psychic and spiritual needs? It is fruitful to explore physics from a psychic and mythical point of view and to compare its metaphors with those of alternative systems of knowledge, belief, and wisdom.

In many primal and ancient cultures, matter is not inanimate but has spirit or soul. Space is not empty but enfolds within it intelligence and insight. Time is not linear and relentless but has a cyclic, cumulative, and enriching quality.

To our peril, we have allowed science to discount and reject this precious lore. Yet science has its own nourishing mythology and spirit, if only we are wiling to acknowledge it.

MYTHOLOGIZING PHYSICS

It may seem incongruous and anachronistic to look at physics from a mythical point of view. Scientists pride themselves on the achievements of the scientific era and attribute their success to the rejection of myth, superstition, and anthropomorphism. But it has become clear in the closing years of the twentieth century that both the theoretical ideas and the practical consequences of science are capable of doing harm as well as good.

Quantum theory provides no clear or meaningful picture of a ”physical world” but only abstract probabilistic calculations. The legacy of technology includes the bomb and pollution. In exploring physics from a humanistic point of view, which is the program of this book, it is necessary to take subjective, aesthetic, and psychological considerations into account.

Physics simply is not an objective body of facts and established theories. It incorporates its own system of beliefs, conventions, tacit knowledge, biases, assumptions, misconceptions, lore, and myth. It cannot stand above aesthetic judgment and psychological analysis.

While Freud’s couch isn’t as mandatory or authoritative as it once was, the idea that there are unconscious motives and themes in all human endeavors is here to stay. The desire for power and the fear of death undoubtedly play a role in physics. Sigmund Freud, Brigid Brophy, and Norman O. Brown have emphasized how deeply our psyches and lives are influenced by our knowledge and fear of death.’ No one has explored better than Ernest Becker how the denial of death has profoundly affected all human activity.

MYTHIC THEMES

It is not only the mythical content of the ideas and concepts of physics but the mythical force of many of its assumptions, laws, and theories that unconsciously influences us. We have already discussed the big bang as a creation myth. Scientists may balk at applying a mythical status to a scientific theory, but it is not entirely inappropriate.

To begin with, there are conjectural beliefs and assumptions within the big bang theory that are incapable of verification and that will always remain articles of faith. Have the laws of physics been unchanging over fifteen billion years? Have space and time always been the same? What does it mean to describe a state of the universe that never has been observed and never can be? Where did all the matter, energy, and space-time of the universe come from? What initiated the big bang?

But more to the point is the psychological force and unconscious influence of the big bang, which is taken as an authoritative description of how we got here and why. The big bang scenario implies a universe devoid of meaning, purpose, and value.

Because science is so widely and naively accepted and because it effectively plays the role of a state religion in our society, the big bang has become our consensus view of reality – our creation myth – that counters and rejects all previous religious and mystical views of existence.

Other candidates in physics for themes with powerful mythical force are the conservation of energy (in fact, the whole idea of conservation laws) and the materialistic and reductionist presuppositions of modern science.

We have inherited from the Greeks our quest for permanence and constancy amidst the flux and change of the material world. There is no reason whatsoever to believe in the ultimate truth of such an idea. The 2,500-year-old religion of the Buddha is based on quite the opposite belief, namely, that in its deepest nature all of existence is fleeting and impermanent. Nothing is conserved.

As for materialism and reductionism, they are canons of faith, and prejudiced ones at that. We haven’t a particle of evidence that consciousness, life, and history can be reduced to the dance of electrons. We can’t even derive the wetness of water from the properties of the hydrogen and oxygen atom.

Are matter and spirit separate but equal, the same but different, illusions, reality? Science may assume answers to these questions but can prove nothing. It’s all a system of belief – mythology.

Then there are physics myths that characterize the twentieth century, but they are really nothing new. Consider, for example, relativity, quantization, complementarity, indeterminacy. That different observers should describe reality differently would hardly surprise mystics, seers, and practitioners of meditation.

A quantized discrete structure of reality is part and parcel of I Ching divination, astrological analysis, and cabalistic mysticism. Complementarity is fundamental to Taoist philosophy, as Bohr knew only too well. He incorporated the Taoist yin-yang symbol into his personal coat of arms.

As for indeterminacy, the arbitrary and whimsical interference of the Greek gods in natural events is an easy forerunner of quantum randomness. Science plays a central role in the human desire and need to rationalize and make sense of existence. Even the denial of sense has a logic and mythical character of its own. Whether it seems appropriate or not, we cannot deny the psychological, religious, spiritual, and mythical force of science.

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For one thing, those boundaries where the post modernists and new agers like to insert themselves, such as in string "theory" is typical, it's like the "God of the Gaps". When experimental physicists verify or repudiate string hypothesis, then the post modernists and new agers will attach themselves like limpets on the next fuzzy boundary of theoretical physics.

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Because science is so widely and naively accepted and because it effectively plays the role of a state religion in our society

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The bold is yours, I take it, and not the authors.

Talk about a self fulfilling prophesy! For decades now, we've been educated by those who have through design or ignorance confused the words "theory" and "hypothesis", who have taught us that everyone is entitled to their belief and opinion, in a way that implies that everyone is entitled to be right.

"Science" without scepticism, without critical analysis IS a religion, because it IS NOT science-- it is psuedo-science, and this is where the Jones' and Deepak Chopra's make thier living.

Witness the common view in the debate a few years ago spawned by the Kansas school board decision re creationsim.

Evolution is "just" a theory, just like "Creationism"! they are both equal guesses! they could both be right! Lets give equal time to each!

Jews claim the holocaust happened, Ernst Zundle guesses it never did! they are both equal guesses! they could both be right! Lets give equal time to each!

This is the post modernist world, and it's a very slippery slope we are on.

[ August 11, 2002: Message edited by: Tommy_Paine ]

PS. I wish my brain worked that fast!!!

[ August 11, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

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TP: This is the post modernist world, and it's a very slippery slope we are on.

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-The danger of scientific discoveries applied automatically, without much thought how it would effect us. The opponents are silenced as "anti-science' heretics.

- The danger of humanistic considerations brushed aside because they are not 'scientific' and 'unprovable'.

- The danger of denying the existence of unusual phenomena, because they are not fit for laboratory experiments, thereby depriving humanity the chance of learning valuable lessons about ourselves.

Many, many other dangers come from using science 'dogmatically' as opposed to with the humility it should be used with.

In the best case science is a beautiful, marvelously effective, liberating and enlightening tool. In the worst case it is a dangerous, destructive, stultifying and paralyzing dogma. Just like religion has been most of the time.

PS. What is so unfair in the typical comparison of science and religion is comparing the best of what one could be with the worst of what the other has been.

PS. ...and this 'trick' can be used both ways.

[ August 11, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

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Oh, fer the love of pete.
"Scientism".

I will explain this again, not, sadly for the last time I bet.

Religion lays out "truths". When new information comes in, and proves these truths to be incorrect, religion goes into a kind of denial. Particularly fundamentalist views know that one factual inacuracy brings their whole house of cards down.

Science also lays out "truths". When new information comes in and proves these truths to be incorrect, science does not go into denial. Science adopts the new truth.

This is what makes science not a religion.

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The scientific method, or science, is not, and cannot be a worldview and I obviously never claimed otherwise - scientism, however, is most definitely the current dominant worldview. Taylorism and scientific materialism are the two dominant faces of this worldview.

Why do you lack even the most basic capacity for discernment TommyPaine, if not for some reactionary prejudice?

Not very scientific, oldboy.

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Unlike the use of the scientific method as only one mode of reaching knowledge, scientism claims that science alone can render truth about the world and reality. Scientism's single-minded adherence to only the empirical, or testable, makes it a strictly scientifc worldview, in much the same way that a Protestant fundamentalism that rejects science can be seen as a strictly religious worldview. Scientism sees it necessary to do away with most, if not all, metaphysical, philosophical, and religious claims, as the truths they proclaim cannot be apprehended by the scientific method. In essence, scientism sees science as the absolute and only justifiable access to the truth.

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I thought I had linked to the site.

Here is where that specific quote is from.

http://www.meta-library.net/gengloss/sciism-body.html

There are people to whom no strange shit has ever happened - maybe. Or it has, and they didn't take note. Or it has, and they called it something else.
There are people who have never heard music, and to whom it would be impossible to prove that music exists. In fact, music has no independent reality: it is a product of the human mind. Sound exists in nature, but i can't think of a way to prove this to a deaf person: he either takes the word of those who can hear, or he assumes that it's all a deception or illusion.

There are people who don't understand mathematics. In fact, numbers don't exist: they are a product of the human mind. Those of us who are aware of the reddish-brown goat, the golded-brown goat and the brown brindled goat can't see, or don't need, the number three. Others see three goats and can't tell their colours apart.
Different people have different perceptions.

So then, how does one go about studying a thing or event that one cannot control, measure, count, submit to instruments or perceive directly?
One way is by listening to those who can.
Consider the phrases: 'hearsay', 'anecdotal evidence' and 'eyewitness testimony'. The first is usually dismissed; the second has played a vital part in financial and personal decisions; the last has hanged many a villain.

What is your argument against such a differentiation?

(Edited to add - "on you?")

[ August 12, 2002: Message edited by: flotsom ]

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-The danger of scientific discoveries applied automatically, without much thought how it would effect us. The opponents are silenced as "anti-science' heretics.

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This is, and will continue to be a big problem. However, I think it has more to do with profit motives than it does a societal commitment to science-- not in these credulous times. In fact, the lack of science understanding in society will do nothing but make this situation worse.

The only route to countering the anti-Global Warming psuedo-scientists is with science. And this job is hard when there's people going around doing thier best to repudiate science, be they true believers in the paranormal, or would be new age guru's, or religious fundamentalists.

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- The danger of humanistic considerations brushed aside because they are not 'scientific' and 'unprovable'.

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I think it is science that has shed much light on who and what we are as a species, and the newish field of study, evolutionary psychology, seeks to illuminate what makes us tick behaviorally and therefore tells us much more about our humanity than the 'post modernists' and the devout can handle. It's my view that religion in particular has been brushing aside our humanity, not embracing it.

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- The danger of denying the existence of unusual phenomena, because they are not fit for laboratory experiments, thereby depriving humanity the chance of learning valuable lessons about ourselves.

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It's funny, the more we "debunk" claims of the paranormal, the more science discovers about our humanity.

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Why do you lack even the most basic capacity for discernment TommyPaine, if not for some reactionary prejudice?

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Elvis "died" on August 16, 1977 - almost 13 years to the day of first meeting the Beatles.

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Scientism sees it necessary to do away with most, if not all, metaphysical, philosophical, and religious claims, as the truths they proclaim cannot be apprehended by the scientific method. In essence, scientism sees science as the absolute and only justifiable access to the truth

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