Re: Mind's Eye Re: Science and religion in modernity

With memories as bad as mine and yours Allan we have to invent for
fear of remembering we have forgotten everything.

On 21 Oct, 19:00, Allan H <allanh1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What happens when your whole concepts begin changing..   strange
> things like the entire universe becomes small  and you have to go out
> side its bounds..  Being a soul being what happens if the creation
> soul is earlier than than the creation of the universe?
> Allan
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> On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 6:09 PM, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Science doesn't fascinate me in the way some literature and people can
> > generally - I suspect the 'enthusiasm' of the popularisation of the
> > subjects.  I concur on the predicament element rigs - insightive.  It
> > seems a mistake to me to try and place god in some scientific-
> > dimensional space (though I miss Pat) and I wonder instead whether the
> > god-positions people hack out are as baseless as, say, phlogiston - we
> > need some new thinking.
>
> > Science and critical history have demonstrated much religious text is
> > fable.  We repeatedly see that image management hides much that is
> > foul under 'preaching' - here our current examples would be Jimmy
> > Saville, Baby P, priestly paedophiles and Hillsborough (scouting in
> > the US etc.) - but I'd say we may be on the brink of realising
> > economics is equally vile.
>
> > I can imagine spending a few weeks with a group living human-
> > constrained lives in a collective of the future.  A woman kisses me
> > goodbye.  She will not see me again because I'm off to a near-space
> > terminal built off Alpha Proxima.  From there I'm relativity
> > travelling to the edge of this universe to undertake genetic
> > transformation beyond the gene-splicing that has allowed me to travel
> > in space.  I see in 16 colours thanks to a shrimp and can enter
> > cryostasis thanks to genes from Arctic fish.  I interface with
> > machines and their learning directly.  I can no longer replicate as a
> > human - etc.  Now I'm off to meet and form a collective with beings
> > who perceive much of the world we can only postulate.  In traditional
> > science fiction these 'dark beings' would be bastards intent on taking
> > over the human world.  What I don't see is any focus on a future in
> > which the rather soppy human-emotional ties are broken - a future in
> > which ...
>
> > One might ask how the creature I have become would get his jollies.
> > One can go the other way in history and ask what religion has actually
> > done.  We are not inventive enough about god.
>
> > On 21 Oct, 14:50, rigsy03 <rigs...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> And some feel science is boring unless it can be translated into
> >> everyday life in meaningful ways.
>
> >> On Oct 20, 3:50 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > We travel at 60k plus miles an hour in the solar system and 500K
> >> > through the galaxy in our system.  I tend to believe we can measure
> >> > this kind of thing and that we are always left with questions like
> >> > Allan's about before after and beyond.  Hitch-hikers' Guide probably
> >> > gets to the irony.  Quite a few of us discount priests and text-
> >> > authority without giving up on spirit.  Spinoza remains the clearest
> >> > example.
>
> >> > Creation stories end up in infinite regress - scientific and otherwise
> >> > - and beg the question of 'what came before that' by positing a
> >> > fiction of something that needs no creator or origin.  I don't believe
> >> > god whipped up the Grand Canyon, but in the limits of our thinking
> >> > something whipped up something that led to the evolution of our planet
> >> > etc.  I tend to think science rather than literature may lead to a
> >> > different way of seeing this and surviving until this is possible.
> >> > Literature is generally bland and lacks depth - though there are great
> >> > moments.  I suspect one of the key issues is raised by Gabby a lot of
> >> > the time - we need to replace current authority and know the irony is
> >> > such attempts just produce the same old business as usual (WB Yeates
> >> > was good on this).
>
> >> > The stuff on thermodynamics above is very similar in method to
> >> > Einstein and what we might now term Wittgensteinian deconstruction -
> >> > trying to find the common elements and mistakes in various competing
> >> > arguments and readdress the apparent conflict.  Molly has some words
> >> > on this too.
>
> >> > On 20 Oct, 20:37, Molly <mollyb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > > google books had a copy up online, it may still be there.  Used book
> >> > > outlets like Alibris will allow you to put in the book you are searching
> >> > > for and notify you when a copy becomes available for sale by a store that
> >> > > uses their service.  Other than that, you may find some good articles about
> >> > > it with excerpts online.  for Einstein fans, it is a favorite.
>
> >> > > On Saturday, October 20, 2012 10:14:03 AM UTC-4, Allan Heretic wrote:
>
> >> > > > how does a person get a hold of the original text..??
> >> > > > Allan
>
> >> > > > On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 3:10 PM, Molly <moll...@gmail.com <javascript:>>wrote:
>
> >> > > >> The Einstein "The World As I See It," originally began as his ponderance
> >> > > >> of something greater than science, and acknowledgement of spirit in action.
> >> > > >>  The original edition is the best, as his editors put together texts with
> >> > > >> lectures for him under the same name, and those books have an entirely
> >> > > >> different flavor.
>
> >> > > >> From my view, "knowing" is not the end of it, but the beginning.
>
> >> > > >> On Saturday, October 20, 2012 8:09:19 AM UTC-4, gabbydott wrote:
>
> >> > > >>> Honestly, Vam, I don't think that it was Einstein's lack of knowledge
> >> > > >>> that made him pose such a daft (in the sense of limited) question. I read
> >> > > >>> this as a description of the state of occidental science at his time - the
> >> > > >>> conflict between the ontological and the constructivist explanatory models
> >> > > >>> of the nature of knowledge.
>
> >> > > >>> On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 8:41 AM, Vam <atewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > > >>>> You spoke of Einstein, about his " only " interest being whether God<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God> had
> >> > > >>>> any choice in manifesting the universe and this observed creation.
>
> >> > > >>>> My own suggestion is that if we do not know enough we will always think
> >> > > >>>> along those lines.
>
> >> > > >>>> To the uninitiate, the desktops of today would seem to be thinking
> >> > > >>>> entities ...
>
> >> > > >>>> *So, do we know enough ?*
>
> >> > > >>>> <https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-EBJSz8MhWQU/UIJGzwpvR3I/AAAAAAAAB0...>
>
> >> > > >>>> On Saturday, October 20, 2012 6:36:45 AM UTC+5:30, rigsy03 wrote:
>
> >> > > >>>>> I took a course on the Snow-Leavis(1959-1962) controversy in the
> >> > > >>>>> mid-'70's. Perhaps we should then conclude scientists do not
> >> > > >>>>> understand humanism? Other works involved included various essays and
> >> > > >>>>> books by Aldous Huxley ("Literature and Science") and Bronowski
> >> > > >>>>> ("Science and Human Values"). Not sure that "incomprehension and
> >> > > >>>>> dislike"(Snow) between the two groups has changed at all when
> >> > > >>>>> considering the gap between rich and poor nations, smart weapons, etc.
> >> > > >>>>> as science and militarism promote the self-interest of various
> >> > > >>>>> nations/
> >> > > >>>>> political theories and practices. Should we quibble that Nazi
> >> > > >>>>> scientists propelled the USA moon landing? At least the moon survived.
>
> >> > > >>>>> On Oct 19, 1:37 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > > >>>>> > The below is rather long, but physics is returning to some of the
> >> > > >>>>> > ideas of James Maxwell.  My dog is named after him.  Years ago, we
> >> > > >>>>> > were told their were two cultures ( CP Snow) - one knew the 2nd law
> >> > > >>>>> of
> >> > > >>>>> > thermodynamics and the other did not (literary types).  The 2nd law
> >> > > >>>>> > involved was a straw man.  The following, as Max needs his walk, is
> >> > > >>>>> > paraphrased from last week's New Scientist.
>
> >> > > >>>>> > A few decades after Carnot, the German physicist Rudolph Clausius
> >> > > >>>>> > explained such phenomena in terms of a quantity characterising
> >> > > >>>>> > disorder that he called entropy. In this picture, the universe works
> >> > > >>>>> > on the back of processes that increase entropy - for example
> >> > > >>>>> > dissipating heat from places where it is concentrated, and therefore
> >> > > >>>>> > more ordered, to cooler areas, where it is not.  That predicts a
> >> > > >>>>> grim
> >> > > >>>>> > fate for the universe itself. Once all heat is maximally dissipated,
> >> > > >>>>> > no useful process can happen in it any more: it dies a "heat death".
> >> > > >>>>> A
> >> > > >>>>> > perplexing question is raised at the other end of cosmic history,
> >> > > >>>>> too.
> >> > > >>>>> > If nature always favours states of high entropy, how and why did the
> >> > > >>>>> > universe start in a state that seems to have been of comparatively
> >> > > >>>>> low
> >> > > >>>>> > entropy? At present we have no answer, and there is an intriguing
> >> > > >>>>> > alternative view.
>
> >> > > >>>>> > Perhaps because of such undesirable consequences, the legitimacy of
> >> > > >>>>> > the second law was for a long time questioned. The charge was
> >> > > >>>>> > formulated with the most striking clarity by the Scottish physicist
> >> > > >>>>> > James Clerk Maxwell in 1867. He was satisfied that inanimate matter
> >> > > >>>>> > presented no difficulty for the second law. In an isolated system,
> >> > > >>>>> > heat always passes from the hotter to the cooler, and a neat clump
> >> > > >>>>> of
> >> > > >>>>> > dye molecules readily dissolves in water and disperses randomly,
> >> > > >>>>> never
> >> > > >>>>> > the other way round. Disorder as embodied by entropy does always
> >> > > >>>>> > increase.  Maxwell's problem was with life. Living things have
> >> > > >>>>> > "intentionality": they deliberately do things to other things to
> >> > > >>>>> make
>
> ...
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