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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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It's interesting that in the dichotomy of science and religion each tends to read the other as itself, leading to considerable confusion. The truths of religion are neither science nor the product of science and as a result go unrecognized perhaps, and the truths of science offer nothing but unmitigated fact in which consolation is irrelevant, so to read them from a religious standpoint is foolish. Anecdotally, I'd say those of a more poetic sensibility appear to accept the viability of science more than those in the scientific community are able to accept the aesthetic and or mythological truths found in religion or even Shakespeare for that matter. Can quantification really ever inform us as to the experience of beauty and the sublime?
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WBraun
climber
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Transcendental qualities are not measured with material instruments.
They are measured by the spiritual soul.
The gross materialists have no real clue to the source of creativity.
They foolishly mental speculate and guess to creativity's true origin.
The gross materialists always fail due to their poor fund of knowledge.
The gross materialists are always deluded and in illusion to true reality thus they always try to artificially model with their st00pid computers .....
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Byran
climber
Half Dome Village
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Paul
I'd say those of a more poetic sensibility appear to accept the viability of science more than those in the scientific community are able to accept the aesthetic and or mythological truths found in religion or even Shakespeare for that matter. Can quantification really ever inform us as to the experience of beauty and the sublime? Perhaps you believe this because you have no appreciation for the aesthetics of the natural world or for the beauty of logic and scientific methodology. So should someone express their opinion that the factual history of the universe is a far richer and more beautiful story than any creation myth begot by humans, you instantly jump on them for lacking any appreciation for mythology. But really it's just that you have so little appreciation for the natural world that it never even occurs to you that their perspective could be justified.
And to answer your rhetorical question - yes, the discovery of quantitative information does often lead to sublime experiences for many people. But I guess you've never laid out under the Milky Way at night and contemplated the number of stars in the galaxy, or number of galaxies in the universe. Or maybe you have, and you just weren't stirred to any emotion by these "unmitigated facts".
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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If you do not understand the language of poetry its beauty might be lost on you.
So too for science.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Ah, the magic and beauty of science, the immeasurable part of practicing science that stirs and inspires the spirit! A kind of material spiritualism?
And, on the other hand, is consumption of spirituality, where the collection and display of knowledge and experience is more important than the practice itself. A kind of spiritual materialism?
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John M
climber
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The truths of religion are neither science nor the product of science
Every human life is a scientific experiment. Each person is betting their existence on the belief that they have the Truth. Without God, science does not exist. Science is simply a method of attempting to understand life. If one truly understands religion, then they know that that is also what religion is supposed to be about, but just as the practice of science can be corrupted when one is looking for a certain outcome rather then the Truth, so too is religion corrupted. The frailties of the human mind, the spiritual heart and the ego are never more exposed then when one is looking for a particular answer, rather then the Truth.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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And to answer your rhetorical question - yes, the discovery of quantitative information does often lead to sublime experiences for many people. But I guess you've never laid out under the Milky Way at night and contemplated the number of stars in the galaxy, or number of galaxies in the universe. Or maybe you have, and you just weren't stirred to any emotion by these "unmitigated facts".
The experience of the sublime is most often a product of the mystery of experience. The exposure of a particular reality deflates that mystery, think the Wizard of Oz. The vastness of the universe, its prodigious nature, are as mysterious as any experience. If you enjoy that view it's certainly not because you know, it is, in fact, precisely because you don't know. The same can be said of beauty. The experience of beauty is a mystery and will perhaps always remain so. Why one composition compels and another repels, well that's hard to say.
If you do not understand the language of poetry its beauty might be lost on you.
So too for science.
I agree.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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The experience of the sublime is most often a product of the mystery of experience.
"most often" ≠ "always"
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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The experience of the sublime is most often a product of the mystery of experience.
"most often" ≠ "always"
The driving force behind science is the desire to know, when to know means the discovery of an underlying rational truth. The whole point is to expose the reality behind the mystery. And it's a fine methodology for doing just that. Religion on the other hand embraces the mystery in an act of consolation and reconciliation and is a fine methodology for doing just that. The truths of religious thought are based in the psychological responses and needs of the individual. Art does a similar thing. When science dismisses religion as simply not true it judges mythologies as a kind of crude or incapable science which they are not. Myths are psychological responses of reconciliation that have a tested validity over millennia and to dismiss them is to miss out on a cultural heritage of significant wisdom. In that wisdom there is truth every bit as important and meaningful as what one might find through science. It's just different.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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The experience of the sublime is most often a product of the mystery of experience.
"most often" ≠ "always"
--
They key word here is "experience." Some believe that once you have quantified the stuff, this serves to explain experience itself. As though through quantifying observable stuff, you are somehow comprehensively covering experience with the selfsame figures, even though there is no experiential quotient in said equations. Of course we don't require a 1st person quotient to explain stuff, but the belief that we are simultaneously "explaining" or even talking about experience itself has always struck me as a strange, even blinkered line of reasoning.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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The driving force behind science is the desire to know, when to know means the discovery of an underlying rational truth.
I know this is your impression of science, it is a common enough sentiment, but it is possible that it just might not characterize the activity.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Some believe that once you have quantified the stuff, this serves to explain experience itself.
Who?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Some believe that once you have quantified the stuff, this serves to explain experience itself.
Who?
Anyone who says, in so may words ... If you wanna understand consciousness and to "know thyself," you need only study brain function.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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I know this is your impression of science, it is a common enough sentiment, but it is possible that it just might not characterize the activity.
It's my impression of the why behind science not the activity. What else could be behind that activity beyond the desire/need to know?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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What else could be behind that activity beyond the desire/need to know?
Many scientists I know also quite enjoy the creative process through which they come to quantify this quark and that shooting star. I have friends that work at JPL and when a big project is online the communal stoke burns white hot. But the pay off, no question, lies with the data, and what it confirms or doesn't. When nothing new becomes "known," or when this or that widget or rover tanks, the stoke dies fast. So it goes with most all human pursuits fixed on an outcome.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Brahma Years
A year of Brahma is composed of 360 day/night cycles of Brahma, or 720 kalpas, or 3,110,400,000,000 human years.
Brahma Life
The lifespan of Brahma is 100 Brahma years, or 72,000 kalpas, or 311,040,000,000,000 human years.
At the end of the life of Brahma, all worlds are completely dissolved (mahapralaya). No one is reincarnated from these worlds ever again.
Cyclical Universe Model
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_model
A Recycled Universe
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-recycled-universe/
"Our Universe Continually Cycles through a Series of 'Aeons'"
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/09/we-can-see-through-the-big-bang-to-the-universe-that-existed-in-the-aeon-before-.html
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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The number 432,000 is one used in a variety of belief systems from Norse to Aryan to eastern. Pretty fascinating as it's used in Christianity as the Remanent 144,000 as one third, and coupled with its opposite 234, 432 becomes the dreaded 666. Campbell thinks it has something to do with heart rate in a 24 hour period 86,400 x 5 = 432,000. Interesting stuff speaking to the syncretic nature of religious thought.
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