The New "Religion Vs Science" Thread

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Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Sep 30, 2015 - 11:03pm PT
As a result of this the chemistry in the object would be grinding to a halt relative to it's surroundings, so it would take literally infinite energy to get an object going the speed of light. At least that is what I think.

but if that were the case, then a chemist in that reference frame would be able to tell what speed the frame was going at... which violates the principle or relativity

the chemistry proceeds exactly the same as if the reference frame was not moving at all, no matter how close to the speed-of-light
paul roehl

Boulder climber
california
Sep 30, 2015 - 11:45pm PT
I think many in science sell humanity short…. When I read here that dolphins are equally intelligent or more so to/than humans and the implication that they (dolphins) don’t aspire to machines and libraries as they’re above that kind of thing or that our consciousness is “just” or “only” a more complex form of what might be found in a single cell and that our existence is insignificant, an accident and our actions are but manifestations of evolutionary processes and the prime directive of reproduction and that we’re just another species in an array of comings and goings and extinctions on a lost dust speck in the middle of endlessness or that the planet would be better off without us as we are the cause of its denigration. I don’t see science but a system of thought that has, ironically, produced a nearly toxic romanticism.

The triumph of sublime nature and the mediocrity and diminishment of humanity in comparison to nature’s overwhelming fineness is the stuff of Rousseau.

Most don’t deny the processes of evolution but the reality is that humanity through its remarkable consciousness and ability to “know” and record that knowledge has risen above the simple paradigm of procreation and continuance into the realms of virtue and justice and, as in art, celebrates those things perfectly unnecessary to any evolutionary dictate. We may have gotten here through evolutionary process but there was something that inclined us to the realization of a higher state. Just ask the Greeks.

I don’t see life as meaningless because humanity can and does pour meaning into existence and that meaning doesn’t come from no where, it’s a product of the conscious mind which is in turn a product of the universe no less than consciousness itself. To make experience into something so profound it can offer consolation to existence is a noble thing. That humanity finds ways to cope with an inevitable mortality or the overwhelming experience of love or loneliness; these coping systems/religions/myths are the remarkable achievement of the human mind. They have advanced far beyond the evolutionary needs of the race as in hunter/prey or procreation into something infinitely more mysterious and remarkable. Dismissing morality as just an evolutionary product discounts the fact that such ideas take us far beyond individual or group survival into the realm of self-sacrifice for something we recognize as the good. Virtue is a product of evolution only in the sense its means is evolutionary, but the product itself rises above such processes and elevates us to a position of nobility.

Myth/religion must always function within the nature/science knowledge of a culture, but science must recognize the gift that reconciliation is: the necessary, anodyne and noble product of a higher consciousness.
BLUEBLOCR

Social climber
joshua tree
Oct 1, 2015 - 12:11am PT

Using examples drawn from human history and from the natural history of social insects, Wilson made a case for multilevel selection as the driver of social evolution in a series of papers and, at length, in The Social Conquest of Earth (2012). He argued that the evolution of eusociality occurred at the level of the group—regardless of genetic relation—prior to occurring at the kinship and individual levels. By his reasoning, the emergence of eusocial animals such as ants (and, arguably, humans) could be attributed to a genetic predisposition to act altruistically toward even unrelated conspecifics and to act in concert with one group against another group. Wilson was excoriated by many of his colleagues, who maintained that he had erroneously contradicted his own earlier ideas regarding kin selection as the primary driver of social evolution. His detractors—among them English evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and Canadian American evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker—claimed that the idea of group selection was predicated on a fundamental misunderstanding of natural selection. They argued that, though animals inarguably benefit from sociality, a group of organisms was not a unit of selection in the manner of a gene or individual organism and that altruistic social behaviour was more than adequately explained by kin selection

Ed Wilson jus became my new hero tonight. I can feel the evolution churning inside me..
MikeL

Social climber
Seattle, WA
Oct 1, 2015 - 08:51am PT
I think the conversation is getting close to notions of wisdom, which would seem to transcend *and include* physical understanding.
MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
Oct 1, 2015 - 09:20am PT
I think many in science sell humanity short


Hurrah for calumny!





Dismissing morality as just an evolutionary product


Three cheers for umbrage!
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Oct 1, 2015 - 10:09am PT
wtf is a geonome?
Norton

Social climber
Oct 1, 2015 - 10:23am PT
Myth/religion must always function within the nature/science knowledge of a culture

interesting that you conclude that, Paul, but why do you?

there are many of us, increasing in number and voice, who reason that the future of humankind would greatly benefit from the eradication of mythology and religion


, but science must recognize the gift that reconciliation is: the necessary, anodyne and noble product of a higher consciousness.


science, which is the Scientific Method of theory and validation, does not really have to recognize any discovery of nobility, or morality, largely leaving that to philosophy
paul roehl

Boulder climber
california
Oct 1, 2015 - 10:54am PT
science, which is the Scientific Method of theory and validation, does not really have to recognize any discovery of nobility, or morality, largely leaving that to philosophy


Perhaps not, but the human practitioners of science do. As scientists human beings are not above the moral impulse.
paul roehl

Boulder climber
california
Oct 1, 2015 - 10:57am PT
It is by no means proven out that these adaptions will succeed. They might just be an aberration of the geonome and actually doom those afflicted with them to evolutionary extinction.

But that's just it, virtue is not about evolutionary success. So what is its source? And why do we see it as so important?
Jan

Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
Oct 1, 2015 - 11:52am PT
I once heard Kalu Rinpoche, a very highly placed Tibetan lama, state to an American audience that Buddhism is against evolution. We were all dismayed as the general understanding of Buddhism in America is that it has escaped the dogmatic conflicts that have ensnarled Christianity and is much more compatible with science.

He then went on to explain that Buddhism stands for thinking of others before one's self, and therefore is against the selfish principles of evolution, not the scientific understanding of it. I believe this is true of any great religion, though some seem to have lost sight of it.
jgill

Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
Oct 1, 2015 - 12:03pm PT
Science texts are devoid of artistry (Syc)

Have you noticed how some literature devotees express a degree of certainty that borders on the religious? Note that Syc didn't qualify by saying "some" or "most" but asserted confidently that all science texts are devoid of artistry. Either that or she was being clumsy with language.

We see the same thing with some of Largo's metaphysics from time to time.

Ralph Boas Invitation to complex analysis is a delightful read and shows stylistic and expressive artistry imho. However, it would be heavy lifting for Syc.
GuapoVino

climber
Oct 1, 2015 - 02:41pm PT
Interesting talk about intelligent design by Neil DeGrasse Tyson

[Click to View YouTube Video]
cintune

climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
Oct 1, 2015 - 02:49pm PT
Jan: He then went on to explain that Buddhism stands for thinking of others before one's self, and therefore is against the selfish principles of evolution,

But we've already been over the arguments for an evolutionary advantage to compassion. Since eight to ten percent of the world's population is Buddhist, there must be some adaptational perk hidden in there somewhere.

paul roehl

Boulder climber
california
Oct 1, 2015 - 04:22pm PT
But we've already been over the arguments for an evolutionary advantage to compassion.

Problem with that sort of "nuero-scienctific" explanation is that it doesn't go far enough in its account of the complexity and refinement of human compassion especially in the face of its increasingly dis-advantagous evolutionary nature. Such an explanation doesn't account for the nature and complexity of the law, morality, expectations of behavior or let's say the Gnostic decision to not procreate. If evolutionary advantage was the only and final paradigm of existence then strength and will would result in the most successful outcomes and would always mediate human compassion. It hasn't.

Seems to me Compassion is devalued somewhat when it is declared simply an evolutionary advantage when, in fact, it is a noble human trait..
cintune

climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
Oct 1, 2015 - 05:39pm PT
Compassion may be disadvantageous to the individual, but it is highly advantageous to groups, which is where evolution does its thing. There's no reason a rational understanding should take away from any effusions of "nobility" that one might want to use to decorate the notion.
paul roehl

Boulder climber
california
Oct 1, 2015 - 06:00pm PT
Birthrates in most western countries have fallen precipitously out of compassion for what? Personal pleasure? Compassion for the environment. I would hardly call that evolutionary success for that group. Gnostics who refused to have children out of compassion for the unborn spirit could hardly be called evolutionarily successful.

Humanity has pulled from the hands of evolutionary inevitability a social directive and made it into something we call morality. Morality leaves behind evolutionary success for the sake of a consensus of the good. And what is the good? Well its something far beyond simply reproducing.

Nobility is much more than a decoration on rational explanation; it is the product of virtue.
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Oct 1, 2015 - 08:18pm PT
I guess if you buy into those sorts of things... but by most senses of the word, most of us aren't "noble"

maybe you actually meant to imply that there is a "noble" class of humans, and then the rest of us...
...but the use of that particular word is strained, at best.

on the other hand, it does represent the character of humans, that is, to define some of us better than most of them...

a truly noble sentiment.


nobility
[noh-bil-i-tee]
noun, plural nobilities.

1. the noble class or the body of nobles in a country.
2. (in Britain) the peerage.
3. the state or quality of being noble.
4. nobleness of mind, character, or spirit; exalted moral excellence.
5. grandeur or magnificence.
6. noble birth or rank.
paul roehl

Boulder climber
california
Oct 1, 2015 - 08:44pm PT
on the other hand, it does represent the character of humans, that is, to define some of us better than most of them...

Really? That's just sophistry... try number 4 on your list.
MikeL

Social climber
Seattle, WA
Oct 1, 2015 - 10:25pm PT
Ed: by most senses of the word, most of us aren't "noble"

The use of the word is as an adjective. In that sense, most of us are. Not as a noun. Quit nitpicking. Stay with the object of the conversation; don’t intellectualize it.
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Oct 1, 2015 - 10:27pm PT
oh, of course, the literate redefining the meaning of the words (and their origins) telling
"the lie that makes the truth"

I get it now... and thanks for accusing me of being intellectual. I'll wear it instead of my freak flag...
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