Comments on: Stories about Nature

By: Michael Kircher

Michael Kircher — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 01:04:37 +0000

From Amis:
“Then the following

“The more important lesson, that finding the right guru isn’t really the path to enlightenment, remained elusive.”

implies that certain lessons can’t be learnt. (how come all the comments?)”

I disagree.

There’s a difference between learning from other various people and spending your life jumping from one guru to another, constantly seeking that special being who has all the wisdom of the world and if only you just follow their “way” all will be right in your world.

By: Amis

Amis — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 06:49:37 +0000

Then the following

“The more important lesson, that finding the right guru isn’t really the path to enlightenment, remained elusive.”

implies that certain lessons can’t be learnt. (how come all the comments?)

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 15:43:08 +0000

Sean said:

“Science can’t know everything, but it can study how the physical world behaves, and everything we’ve learned about that behavior leads us to conclude that death is the end of consciousness.”

Sorry Sean, consciousness is not in the same category as Russell’s silly teapot orbiting Saturn, since that is totally ad hoc, does not fit in with physics in any way, and has no conceivable reason (unless tea-loving litterbug aliens passed through). As for consciousness, just think carefully how it could possibly arise from chemicals or electro-chemical impulses. What is the fundamental difference between chemicals in a test-tube and in the brain? If you say ‘organization’, then is a computer conscious and why? Using a term like ‘emergent property’ is more bogus than so-called ‘mysticism’. Consciousness is a tremendous mystery, which does not fit in at all with materialism, and you cannot simply sweep that under the rug. At the same time, you are right to criticize ‘What the Bleep’, because that movie implies that we can wave a magic wand and create ‘our’ reality as the say, and that is patently false. We have no control over the laws of nature.

Also, intelligent design should most certainly not be taught as science, since it totally violates the scientific technique, which is based on correlated observations. It might be the case, however, that some kind of ‘God’ intended the primordial soup to cook up some life through natural processes, but that idea is still outside of the domain of science.

Physicists are extremely brilliant, but most of them need a good philosophy course. It’s not quite as trivial as they suppose.

By: lago

lago — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 13:55:53 +0000

“Real scientists will take what Nature tells them, and make sense of it as honestly and courageously as they can, regardless of what it says about their own place in the cosmos.”

Finally, an explanation of why physicists are so humble.

By: Fyodor

Fyodor — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 01:53:16 +0000

“Science can’t know everything, but it can study how the physical world behaves, and everything we’ve learned about that behavior leads us to conclude that death is the end of consciousness. ”

Way to go, Sean! This is what we need, scientists who will honestly tell it how it is, and not go in for intellectual multiculturalism ["the question of the so-called truth of statements about the afterlife is not relevant here...we have to be sensitive to the way different cultures have different *discourses* when dealing with the human condition....."] or straight-out bullshit of the non-overlapping magisteria kind….

By: Sean

Sean — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 22:43:23 +0000

Benjamin, science dismisses things it has not had a chance to observe all the time. (Whether such dismissal is “arrogant” is a subjective matter.) As Bertrand Russell mentioned, he confidently rejects the idea of a perfect china teapot orbiting the planet Saturn, even though he had no direct evidence either way. Science can’t know everything, but it can study how the physical world behaves, and everything we’ve learned about that behavior leads us to conclude that death is the end of consciousness.

By: Clifford

Clifford — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 22:32:38 +0000

Torbjorn, My point is that this depends upon the religion in question.

-cvj

By: Torbjorn Larsson

Torbjorn Larsson — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 22:15:46 +0000

Clifford, both religion and science can be used for altruistic or selfcentered means. But as David observes in a memorable way, religions glorify the human position.

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 22:06:19 +0000

The proper scientific response to ‘metaphysical’ questions such as God or afterlife is ‘I don’t know’ and not arrogant dismissal. You are quite right that such issues are excluded from the purview of science, but to suppose that science can know everything is not scientific. You do NOT know what will happen to your consciousness after you die, because you have not yet been able to observe it. Also, there are well-known serious issues regarding the interaction of consciousness and quantum mechanics. However, where that movie went wrong was to suppose that we can create the fantasy world that we wish.

By: Brad

Brad — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 20:34:11 +0000

I agree that you were probably a little hard on the audience.
I gave a talk last year in Santa Monica to the “Los Angeles
Futurist Society” about the age of the universe. I went in
expecting more or less the audience you describe, but I was
pleasantly surprised. Yes, there were the “life coaches”,
the screenwriters whose plots involved dark matter, the
aged hippie who used the word “grok” without any trace of
irony, but the majority of the audience were pretty down to earth.
There were many people from IT fields, some of whom were doing some seriously cool stuff, and many intelligent questions.

By: Clifford

Clifford — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 19:27:33 +0000

Sean, I’m not deliberately trying to be contrary here. In case it’s not clear, what I am basically saying is that we should not glibly (and in fact with no concrete evidence) dismiss the possibility that the very people we are trying to reach are just as capable of reason and critical thinking as we are. Otherwise, why are we bothering?

Cheers,

-cvj

By: Clifford

Clifford — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 17:10:56 +0000

Maybe you’re right, Sean. I don’t know. But there are rich people who can think scientifically too, right? Maybe they came along for one thing, but were convinced by David to come away with a different point of view… Just a thought.

-cvj

By: Dean Kimball

Dean Kimball — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 17:06:46 +0000

I greatly appreciate this post. However, I do think you were a little hard on the audience. While it is true that such an event will attract a bunch of new-age wackos, it will also attract a few curious and/or critical folks. For instance, I would have liked to attend to have the chance to critique the comments of the other members of the panel.

By: Sean

Sean — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 16:48:57 +0000

By “that sort of thing,” I presume you mean a weekend event where you pay hundreds of dollars to listen to spirit warriors being channeled from beyond the grave? I imagine it’s a different audience than Categorically Not!

By: Clifford

Clifford — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 16:36:14 +0000

Nice story. Two comments spring to mind:

(1) Let’s give at least some of the Santa Monica audience the benifit of the doubt. Maybe some of them agreed with what David said because they “got it”. I’m guessing he did not poll all of them later on to find out why the agreed with him. Having been in all the audiences of the Categorically Not! series, I have faith that the stereotype that all Santa Monicans who’d go to that sort of thing are hopelessly “gullible New Agers” is not correct.

(2) While I support your sentiments about scientific thought being a vitally important way to approach the world, I don’t agree with your rather narrow characterisation of all religion as being quite so self-centred.

Cheers,

-cvj