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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 7, 2010 - 09:01pm PT
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Yeah, Okay Whatever, cannot disagree with any of that.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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High Fruc,
No Okay, I'm frustrated that three billion people (including about a billion Muslims) would rather cling to an ancient theology as their conceptual foundation for how the world works (What Is) than embrace a new belief discipline model based on the sciences.
I can appreciate your frustration. Imagine if you would, a spiritualist that knows there is a God, but also knows science has its use. Imagine also that you are a spiritualist who sees science going off into false premises simply because it doesn't have the tools to prove God exists. What if you knew that God was the creator and designer of hormones? How would you deal with scientist who wont accept any theory that involves God? And how would you deal with scientist who claim they "know" what created us simply because they can't prove scientifically that God exists?
So perhaps you could see the frustration from the other side of the equation. Your tone about the bronze age sounded belittling to me. If we accept religious thinking, then we are back in the bronze age which by your tone you mean is less then current thinking. If you did not mean it as such, then I would accept that. But please try to see that yours is not the only perspective. I agree that we have learned much since the bronze age. That still hasn't ruled out the existence of God, though you might think so. That is your opinion and not a proof. There is no current way to scientifically prove God exists, or doesn't exist.
So by your belief system, I should just shut up and let you continue on your path. Okay, but I retain the right to refute your so called "facts". So far many of them haven't been.
Edit: Now I am off to dinner.
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okay,whatever
Trad climber
Charlottesville, VA
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Good point, Fritz... I think that would be me on the left, but self-assessment is difficult!
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Brian
climber
California
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Sorry HFCS, was out for awhile...
First, to answer your question, I work in environmental philosophy (the Ph.D. is in philosophy). My main focus these days is applying (generally Aristotelian) virtue-theory to environmental issues. So, I work closely with folks who are straight-up climate scientists, wildlife biologists, etc. This focus, along with my earlier interest in biology and physics, explains my admiration for science.
However, while I believe that science is one of the best tools we have for understanding reality (back to Ed's point, again, about the importance of understanding). I also have an appreciation for the limits of science, which brings me to...
There are three important subjects: (1) What is. (2) What matters. (3) What works. Science is the tool for investigating the first one. The first one. The second and third are our responsibility.
And, I'd add, philosophy is, inescapably, the source for your second subject. If you are talking about "what matters," you are doing philosophy. Whether you are doing it well or poorly, grounded in science or grounded in theology, etc. is another matter. It's still philosophy and, I'd argue, essential for a meaningful (i.e., what "matters") life.
The third subject probably goes back to science, or perhaps politics and economics depending on the "what" you are concerned with.
I have a spiritual discipline (for life guidance) and it's all about the "what matters" and "what works" questions in addition to the "what is." And, delighted to say, it doesn't have an iota of supernaturalist doctrine or belief in it. Was it hard-won in a culture still largely superstitious? Yes.
First, if you think your account of "what matters" does not have "one iota" of belief it it, you are sorely deluded. See above on my comments to some of Dingus' claims about being belief-free. I'd wager a good deal of your account of "what matters" is grounded in belief. Think about it.
I'd be interested in hearing how (i.e., in what way) your "what matters" is grounded in a strict eliminative materialism. That is to say, what is your answer to "what matters" and how, exactly, is in grounded in your appreciation for the mechanistic structure of the cosmos (or chaos, depending on your view)? I want to be clear that there are, of course, ways for this to be coherent; however, I've never met a person whose sense of what matters is actually in line with a strict eliminative materialism (and, as I noted, I'm a friend or acquaintance of a number of good eliminative materialists!).
My own perspective is pretty darn far from the position you appear to be skewering, and from your position as well. Still, it would be great to have an actual conversation over a beer, because short of typing a book into a supertaco thread I think it is going to be hard to make clear the common ground I think we share on some of the issues you are bringing up!
Brian
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
Top of the 5.2-5.12 Boulder
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"that's what We are".......hmmm.
Got a mouse in yer pocket?
I won't be "we" with just anybody, y'know.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 7, 2010 - 10:20pm PT
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Brian... not one iota of supernaturalist belief... Reread.
Of course I have belief, a head chock-full of belief. Belief in my world simply means "mental holdings." I believe (i.e., I hold) in all kinds of things. (Above, I don't get Dingus at all defining belief like he did.)
Anyways,
Down the road, you and I are likely to part company. For I'm much in Dennett's camp. Philosophy as practiced traditionally has probably mucked things up more than clarified them, esp since the Renaissance in regard to how the world works.
Thank goodness the world today is more of a science and engineering mind, less philosophy and science mind. Many a philosopher lets pursuit of the perfect get in the way of the good as the saying goes. Thank goodness for the Steven Jobs and Stephen Wosniacs and Bill Gates and even Richard Bransons out there who sport an engineering modeling type of mind.
Maybe more later... have to run to Walmart.
But I'll say this. If philosophy doesn't modernize... taking cues from engineering models... as a discipline in college, as a discipline of higher learning, it's going to follow theology right down the dinosaur path.
Lastly, take that last quote. At any time in the last two hundred years, philosophy as a discipline could've developed the what is, what matters, what works trilogy as a basis for a new belief discipline. But did it? No. It clings to the past, using abstruse language that only philosophers seem to get and drops the ball.
EDIT Brian, appreciated the last paragraph. Cool. Gotta head out now, but must say, you're throwing me with this word "eliminative." How are you defining it. Also, I think earlier you used the word materialistic. Over in the engineering modeling camp, the preferred term is mechanistic (so it's not confused with economic associations, easy to do in this capitalistic society).
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Fritz
Trad climber
Hagerman, ID
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Yah! Yah got a point there Skully. Maybe I was thinking of me and my intestinal flora.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
Top of the 5.2-5.12 Boulder
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And Fauna, too?
You gots to cover ALL your bases, Don't cha?
Oh, I forgot. I'm a robot.
Nevermind.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Hagerman, ID
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Skully: It was the W-Mart stuff that created all this yesterday. Is he posting from corp HQ?
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Brian
climber
California
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HFCS,
I misread your disjunction regarding belief. Sorry.
Regarding philosophy's willingness to take on the "what works" model of things, you really ought to read some William James. You'd like it. I did a fair bit of works with James' thought, and still incorporate a good deal of it into my own perspective. In very brief and rough terms, James' pragmatism says that "what's true" is "what works," but don't take that rough approximation at face value (which is what too many critics do).
If you have not read this, you should.
http://www.amazon.com/Pragmatism-Philosophical-Classics-William-James/dp/0486282708
I think it is good stuff, and genuinely think you will find that you agree with a good deal of it. (Of course, you have to cut James some slack because his grasp of chemistry, biology, and psychology is no longer contemporary). It is an easy read; you could tear through it in a day.
Brian
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
Top of the 5.2-5.12 Boulder
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Dude.
Engineering IS philoshphy.
Tongue in cheek?
Follow it to its fullness & report back.
I think you'll discover a bit of interconnectedness there.
Or some such.......
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
Top of the 5.2-5.12 Boulder
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Oh, yeah, I forgot. I'm a robot.
Nevermind.
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Rob_James
Mountain climber
Aoraki/Mt. Cook Village, New Zealand
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Challenge is Dawkins did all his thinking some time ago. All he does now is argue.
And HFCS you longfellow - rock on dudette. And please share. If we were to be robots, what comes next....?
The revolution will not be televised. Regurgitating books won't do it either.
Full circle.
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WBraun
climber
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"Dawkins, all he does now is argue."
This means he's become insane ......
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Port
Trad climber
San Diego
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"A human being is originally free from all material entanglement."
A human child requires food to survive, therefore they are not free of material entaglement. They are also made of the same elements that exist in the universe, they are part of the material universe.
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JOEY.F
Social climber
sebastopol
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I took a turn for the nurse, ahem, worse.
Lovely girls,
Flora and Fauna.
wcfields
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Any man who marries a time lord (esp that one, who used to be married ton another time lord) can't be all bad...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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brother Dingus is trying to get at an important point... but I am afraid of misunderstanding his language. Excuse me for "cut-and-paste" but we could start with the definition of that fine verb: to create.
From Merriam-Webster: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/create
Main Entry: cre·ate
Pronunciation: \krē-ˈāt, ˈkrē-ˌ\
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): cre·at·ed; cre·at·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin creatus, past participle of creare; akin to Latin crescere to grow — more at crescent
Date: 14th century
transitive verb
1 : to bring into existence
2 a : to invest with a new form, office, or rank b : to produce or bring about by a course of action or behavior
3 : cause, occasion
4 a : to produce through imaginative skill b : design
intransitive verb
1 : to make or bring into existence something new
2 : to set up a scoring opportunity in basketball
How very ironic that if comes to us from the Romans, their verb "to grow" put into services by Europeans in the 14th century to explain an act of God, as the first sense in the definition would indicate.
Dingus could have used a number of verbs in his question to the OP's author, but choose to ask "who created the robot" which I believe is a leading question, but I just want to get it's intent.
Now one could have asked: "who built the robot?" but create brings in all of the various other aspects of design, crafting of parts, fabrication, assembly, conceiving of and writing the program that the robot follows, debugging this program, testing the hardware and software, firing the little bugger up and watching it go.
The act of creation.
So much more mechanical then the act of human procreation, don't you think? What do humans do? Go to a party, get drunk, have a wild one night stand and be a bit unlucky... or lucky... and 9 months later, we've created.
I guess it is different. But I'd like Dingus' take on it.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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The noun Robot, is derived from the Russian verb работать - Robatat, to work.
The idea was that humans could create a 'race' of autonomatons, a slave race that would earnestly do our work while we watch youtube, and eat bonbons.
this is subtly different from the way the OP uses the term, or even how Dr Asimov promoted the construct.
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