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Question about Atheism
To Mega Therion
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Posted 11/21/09 - 06:14 PM:
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#311
atightropewalker wrote:
Don't get me wrong - I love science, I love knowing. So in that way it helps my life. But science is just the observation of real-world items (the word science comes from the latin for knowledge). Now knowledge can inform your decisions but it does, but on its own knowledge doesn't build us houses, cars etc. When someone has made a house, car we can have knowledge of it but we can't have knowledge of something that doesn't exist or that we are unaware of having any experience of. Engineering is this action - making something new, simplistically speaking (I obviously don't mean the applied scientist degree). But science is too oft used in the wrong way. Science says that drinking alcohol is bad is rubbish, for example. Science tells us that drinking x amount of alcohol causes y problem but it can't take the next step and say alcohol is bad - only human thought can decide that. Science doesn't tell me to drink less - my opinion and others allow me to make a decision for myself. Just like my knowledge of nuclear reactions can enable me to make nuclear reactors but it is not science making them.

Now all I'm saying is that knowledge can only tell us what is and that doesn't improve life unless you want more knowledge. Now obviously if we know more we can create more complex things but knowledge doesn't create these things - it just enables them. So a good scientist is very likely a good engineer, and someone who knows nothing isn't going to make anything new but you can easily use religion to engineer something (and yes, if Hubbard had put some of his obvious vigour into something I deem useful such as curing cancer it would have been of far greater benefit for me - and I'm hoping many people have a similar opinion). Science can only tell me what is though - an items utility is entirely down to me.

And were I to be dumped in the desert merely observing whats going on won't help me unless I do something (engineer a solution). I cannot have scientific knowledge of the unknown. But I have to decide how to use the science. Science can tell me say that 9 times out of 10 a tree means an oasis but that's it. Armed with that I have to decide how to proceed. Science can tell me that going to a tree is better - its entirely an ethical question. If someone wanted to commit suicide and wandered out into the desert they would have the same observational knowledge but would steer clear of the oasis. Science can not tell us which one to do, it just informs that decision

Now I am a scientist but it annoys me the arrogance of some people to think that science makes the world a better place - science just tells us what is. We have to put in the effort to make the world a better place - for every cure of cancer we get a nuclear bomb. Science can only inform us, it cannot tell us how to proceed. Proceeding is the engineering and we can do that without this scientific system (as they used to in the ancient days). Now I know the interchageability of engineer and applied scientist makes the demarcation seem fuzzy, not least beacuse the best scientists are potentially the best engineers. But just because you work as a scientist, or as an engineer, it doesn't mean you only partake in scientific observation or inventing things, respectively. Both jobs involve both science and enigneering (both processes) with the scientist doing more science and the engineer more inventing. But it is fallacious to think that an engineer only carrys out the act of engineering without some informed knowledge and its ridiculous to think that a scientist cn't arm himself with knowledge and not see a potential utility for it (if he sees that A kills cancer he would obviously assume it would make a good drug but that's not science, it uses science) and act upon it. The demarcation between the actions 'science' and 'engineering' is clear (applied science is not science, the science is presupposed) but I'll admit it is not at all clear between the careers.


I have never claimed that science is concerned with values; this would be ridiculous. But given a certain set of values we hold (and, to annoy thewatcher, we always already hold a set of values) we can most succesfully function using scientific theories. Even someone who wants to kill himself benefits from science; if his society doesn't know about sleeping fills, or gunpowder, he is missing a few grand opportunities for offing himself.

And you minsconstrue how science works. Not primarily by observation (staring at the ammeter gets you nowhere, nor does the readout magically include Maxwell's equations), but by inventing theories and selecting them based on their preformance. Just like the engineer, who invents ideas, blueprints and prototypes, and selects them based on their expected or actual preformance.

And if you'll maintain that science doesn't make the world a better place, it seems to me that you will also have to argue that engineering doesn't as well. After all, paraphrasing you, engineers can only provide a blueprint. It is up to the workers to actually produce whatever the blueprint was for.

thewatcher wrote:
Sure I did. The earlier explanations did not have less explanatory power.


So the 'it's Zeus' theory explained as much as Maxwell's equations? And I suppose it predicted the unification of optical and electromagnetic phenomena as well?

thewatcher wrote:
As for the cleaver, context is the sole barometer by which functionality can be determined. Functionality implies directedness towards a purpose, which in turn implies contingent and contextually formed notions of what things ought to do, what things can do and so on.

I have this crazy theory the purpose was to chop things. Look, I will agree that no idea makes sense without a context, but I would dispute what you seem to imply; that such contexts are mutually unintelligible. After all, modern civilisation has interacted with less technologically advanced culture, and at the very least their technology is intelligible to us.

thewatcher wrote:
You misunderstand. What I was saying was that your reference to some sort of base reality in reference to which science has some sort of superior explanatory power is misguided. Furthermore, there is more than mere philosophy at stake here. Intellectual possibility writ large is the product of contingent contexts, not merely philosophy as a discipline.


The thing is, I agree with you in principle, if by a 'base reality' you mean some external reality science/philosophy is supposed to mirror. I would say, though, that there is a base of sorts for our theories in our practice. I really don't see the problem with contingency, either; did anybody actually claim there is something necessary in any of our theories? I know it wasn't me.

thewatcher wrote:

Absurdist joke? Now I think I apprehend the depths of your misunderstanding.

:eyebrowgrinisguised political rant? Rorty's point is quite explicitly that philosophy is reducible to politics.


Unless you can come up with a credible, sensible and interesting interpretation of, say, Derrida or Virillio, that is exactly how they should be viewed. Not a good joke, either.

thewatcher wrote:

I see no reason to believe that the totalizing scientific reductionist worldview should necessarily be more productive of technological advancement than any other. The fact of the matter is, technology has always advanced even in contexts you would regard as antithetical to scientific advacement. You fail, in a word, to explain how technology develops at all in contexts other than the one you advocate. I, on the other hand, have provided an account of how technology can develop in virtually any intellectual context.


I never claimed that technology doesn't develop in the absence of a clearly defined scientific method; what I would claim is that, with a few pathological cases (such as contact with a more advanced civilisation) aside, the procedures employed are at least prescientific; and that the proper scientific methos is more successfull than any other.

thewatcher wrote:

Again you repeat your mistake of reducing worldview to the theoretical. Are you suggesting that only theorists are possessed of worldviews?


Are you suggesting only theorists have theories?

thewatcher wrote:

Empirical fact? Again with these references to base reality, yet another in a long string of examples in your totalizing view of the world. Likewise, you slip in your little jabs which suggest my moral culpability for not sharing your view (the mention that I do not live in a cave, implying that I am not "appropriately thankful" for all I supposedly "owe" to your worldview). The people colonized and slaughtered by the great powers were similarly called ungrateful by their oppressors. After all, had the great powers not brought the light of Reason, Science, and Civilization to these people?

I am not at all confident that the world has derived much, if anything, to be thankful for from the ideology you advocate. By contrast, however, I am quite confident that a most horrific list of wrongs may be laid firmly at its doorstep.


Well, you do not live in a cave. You use a computer. And you claim science doesn't work more than, say, Hermetic magic. It is a bit hard to be serious.

And I would like to see at least a part of that list...

thewatcher wrote:

And there it is again. An obsession with function that entails and indeed requires your complete abandonment of responsibility for the consequences of your ideas. What I am advocating is the restoration of the awareness of the relationship our ideas have to each other and the consequences that our ideas have for physical, social, political and material realities.

"Agriculture is now a motorized food industry, the same thing in its essence as the production of corpses in the gas chambers and the extermination camps, the same thing as blockades and the reduction of countries to famine, the same thing as the manufacture of hydrogen bombs."- Martin Heidegger

The great horror of machination, of the blind, function, obsessed viewpoint that you expose, is that it robs us of our ability to see how these things are connected to one another. Thus we lurch forward, concerned only with the proximate business of "making things work" and heedless of the horrific consequences of our efforts.


Of course, agriculture is as bad as the Holocaust. Well, knowing Heidegger, he probably didn't consider the second all that bad; but I still fail to see what 'deeper consequences of illness' (to use your example) you're talking about. The job of a doctor is to cure the disease, period. Are you suggesting he should be preoccupied with something else.

And exploring how things are connected is of course the exemplar task of science. I really fail to see your point.

thewatcher wrote:


thewatcher wrote:

"To express the same idea in another way, I think human knowledge is essentially active. To know is to assimilate reality into systems of transformations." - J. Piaget
atightropewalker
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Posted 11/21/09 - 07:11 PM:
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To Mega Therion wrote:


I have never claimed that science is concerned with values; this would be ridiculous. But given a certain set of values we hold (and, to annoy thewatcher, we always already hold a set of values) we can most succesfully function using scientific theories. Even someone who wants to kill himself benefits from science; if his society doesn't know about sleeping fills, or gunpowder, he is missing a few grand opportunities for offing himself.


There is no doubt science is currently the most effective model for knowledge (I believe it always will be because it acknowledges its fallibility). But I'd argure he benefits because whether or not he benefits is down to him - science just tells him more ways to kill himself. As for which is best I guess he'll never know - he'll only get one attempt (or maybe two if their is an afterlife - maybe theres an after-afterlife?) and I think this is what scares people (myself included) about death: you'll never know.


To Mega Therion wrote:
And you minsconstrue how science works. Not primarily by observation (staring at the ammeter gets you nowhere, nor does the readout magically include Maxwell's equations), but by inventing theories and selecting them based on their preformance. Just like the engineer, who invents ideas, blueprints and prototypes, and selects them based on their expected or actual preformance.


Science postulates theories about what exists whereas engineering actions theories that could be (you could argue it postulates theories that don't exist i.e. a cure for cancer). Whereas Science is considered true if it is carried out properly, an engineered method is considered true if it is verified by science (or religion etc.). In science you see that mass appears to effect gravitational force so you try to figure out how (this will of course involve postulates). In engineering you know mass affects gravitational force and so you use that information to create something that exploits that (the science is presupposed). In science it appears platinum kills cancerous cells so you test ideas. In engineering you know platinum kills cancerous cells so you set about exploiting this fact (engineering a drug using platinum)

To Mega Therion wrote:
And if you'll maintain that science doesn't make the world a better place, it seems to me that you will also have to argue that engineering doesn't as well. After all, paraphrasing you, engineers can only provide a blueprint. It is up to the workers to actually produce whatever the blueprint was for.


I'll maintain that none of these models make the world a better place, particularly engineering. They are all abused to be self-serving and so whereas I can use them to be of benefit to me (and I kind of intend to) it also means anyone can (ab)use them for their own benefit. Now it wasn't science that gave us the nuclear bomb it was the person who thought it was a good idea. Now the fact that people can engineer for their own ends immediately means I'm going to disagree some of the time, if not most, so ergo I'm not going to always like it. Science in theory should be immune to such circumstances but people seem to oft to consider science the end of the matter (particularly on ethical issues) where itsdomain does not reach. Maybe I'm just too cynical about the world but I can see problems with science, religion, engineering et al. and so am convinced the best way forward is to decide for myself..

"We do what we must, because we can." -GLaDOS
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Posted 11/21/09 - 10:36 PM:
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"Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it. But we are delivered over to it in the worst possible way when we regard it as something neutral; for this conception of it, to which today we particularly like to do homage, makes us utterly blind to the essence of technology."

-Martin Heidegger, "The Essay Concerning Technology"
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Posted 11/21/09 - 10:55 PM:
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thewatcher wrote:
"Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it. But we are delivered over to it in the worst possible way when we regard it as something neutral; for this conception of it, to which today we particularly like to do homage, makes us utterly blind to the essence of technology."

-Martin Heidegger, "The Essay Concerning Technology"

To make it clearer what gibberish this statement (and it's like) amounts to, just substitute instances of "technology" for the term "technology" such as "opposable thumbs" "language" "stereoscopic vision" "a neocortex" "kinship structure" "numbers" etc. Old Marty posits "technology" as a problem but in fact it is the use/misuse/abuse of it, like any other extension, or augmentation, of agency, that is problematic (i.e. risk-bearing, or dangerous). So what? We're enabled by that which can possibly immiserate or destroy us. Well, what's the alternative? Sitting around the bonfire singing 'Hitler Youth Camp" songs about "das Geviert"?! raised eyebrow

The question isn't "What do I believe?" but rather "What do I least disbelieve?"

Absence of necessary evidence is evidence of necessary absence.

[What cannot be done?[What cannot be hoped?[What cannot be known?]]]
To Mega Therion
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Posted 11/22/09 - 11:32 AM:
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atightropewalker wrote:
There is no doubt science is currently the most effective model for knowledge (I believe it always will be because it acknowledges its fallibility). But I'd argure he benefits because whether or not he benefits is down to him - science just tells him more ways to kill himself. As for which is best I guess he'll never know - he'll only get one attempt (or maybe two if their is an afterlife - maybe theres an after-afterlife?) and I think this is what scares people (myself included) about death: you'll never know.



Uh... pardon? My point was that if he wants to kill himself he will do so more effectively by using science than by trying to provoke Indra into striking him down with thunder. Again, do you dispute this?


atightropewalker wrote:
Science postulates theories about what exists whereas engineering actions theories that could be (you could argue it postulates theories that don't exist i.e. a cure for cancer). Whereas Science is considered true if it is carried out properly, an engineered method is considered true if it is verified by science (or religion etc.). In science you see that mass appears to effect gravitational force so you try to figure out how (this will of course involve postulates). In engineering you know mass affects gravitational force and so you use that information to create something that exploits that (the science is presupposed). In science it appears platinum kills cancerous cells so you test ideas. In engineering you know platinum kills cancerous cells so you set about exploiting this fact (engineering a drug using platinum)


Scientific theories usually deal with both the preceding theoretical situation as well as still unobserved phenomena. In this, they're different from engineering only in degree, not in kind.

atightropewalker wrote:
I'll maintain that none of these models make the world a better place, particularly engineering. They are all abused to be self-serving and so whereas I can use them to be of benefit to me (and I kind of intend to) it also means anyone can (ab)use them for their own benefit. Now it wasn't science that gave us the nuclear bomb it was the person who thought it was a good idea. Now the fact that people can engineer for their own ends immediately means I'm going to disagree some of the time, if not most, so ergo I'm not going to always like it. Science in theory should be immune to such circumstances but people seem to oft to consider science the end of the matter (particularly on ethical issues) where itsdomain does not reach. Maybe I'm just too cynical about the world but I can see problems with science, religion, engineering et al. and so am convinced the best way forward is to decide for myself..


But this is a moral question, and the point of my original practice was that science works in the sense that it enables us to interact with our environment more successfully; whether that means a better cure for polio or a better way to blow up the orphanage is besides the quesrion.

Nice and thorough reply, by the way, thewatcher.

"To express the same idea in another way, I think human knowledge is essentially active. To know is to assimilate reality into systems of transformations." - J. Piaget
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Posted 11/22/09 - 12:45 PM:
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To Mega Therion wrote:


Uh... pardon? My point was that if he wants to kill himself he will do so more effectively by using science than by trying to provoke Indra into striking him down with thunder. Again, do you dispute this?


Science has told him what methods of suicide work but no ore than that. Hes better off informing his decision with science (some religious people have commited heinous acts so they are 'spirtually dead' or whatever they believe) in my opinion but its still his choice. If he wants to let religion decide how to kill him then so be it. But neither method is more right, I use science because it is correct more often but there is no inherent correctness in any knowledge.

"We do what we must, because we can." -GLaDOS
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Posted 11/22/09 - 02:12 PM:
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180 Proof wrote:


To make it clearer what gibberish this statement (and it's like) amounts to, just substitute instances of "technology" for the term "technology" such as "opposable thumbs" "language" "stereoscopic vision" "a neocortex" "kinship structure" "numbers" etc. Old Marty posits "technology" as a problem but in fact it is the use/misuse/abuse of it, like any other extension, or augmentation, of agency, that is problematic (i.e. risk-bearing, or dangerous). So what? We're enabled by that which can possibly immiserate or destroy us. Well, what's the alternative? Sitting around the bonfire singing 'Hitler Youth Camp" songs about "das Geviert"?! raised eyebrow


Always with the Nazi cracks.

I think you rather misunderstand Heidegger's point. First of all, all agency is dangerous (hence Heidegger's appropriation of Holdelein's "Where the danger lies, lies also the saving power").

What's more, Heidegger's point is nothing so limited as "technology can be misused." Rather, technology is something that we are, in a sense, stuck with and this can be positive or negative depending (not merely how we use technology) on where we stand in relation to technology (that is, where technology fits into the broader context/tableu/episteme). More specifically, your own perspective (that technology is neutral, a tool to be used or misused like any other) is precisely the sort of perception that creates the conditions for the possibility of the most horrendous misuses of technology (by giving us license to loose track of the relationship between technology and our broader context).

When Heidegger compares the technology of mechanized farming to that of gas champers and such like, he is not equating these things but rather tracing their conceptual relationship to each other. To wit, the holocaust is, for Heidegger, the product of the machinization of society and the reckless and unguided interplay of ideas and forces (what Foucault would later call power) such as to produce that tragedy. When people are conceptually reducible to animals, it bcomes conceptually and socially possible to slaughter them like animals. When people become merely instrumental components in a larger technical apparatus (which is precisely what the state becomes) then it becomes possible, conceptually and socially, to be absolved of all responsibility for the products of that apparatus' function. And on and on it goes.

Heidegger's point, then, is not that technology is evil or that it should be done away with or even limited. It is rather that we should be aware that science has often unforseen influences upon the realm of intellectual and social possibility and that we should stand in a relationship with science such that we never loose sight of this (because doing so was precisely why the holocaust was able to happen).
To Mega Therion
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Posted 11/22/09 - 03:02 PM:
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atightropewalker wrote:
Science has told him what methods of suicide work but no ore than that. Hes better off informing his decision with science (some religious people have commited heinous acts so they are 'spirtually dead' or whatever they believe) in my opinion but its still his choice. If he wants to let religion decide how to kill him then so be it. But neither method is more right, I use science because it is correct more often but there is no inherent correctness in any knowledge.


The point is that if he decides to base his suicide on religion, we all know it won't work. Or has anybody ever killed himself by irritating Indra? Bugging the Buddha? Angering Ahriman? There is of course no Ultimate Infalible guarantee that science will work, it's just that, well, it does.

"To express the same idea in another way, I think human knowledge is essentially active. To know is to assimilate reality into systems of transformations." - J. Piaget
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Posted 11/22/09 - 04:44 PM:
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180 Proof wrote:
thewatcher wrote:
"Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it. But we are delivered over to it in the worst possible way when we regard it as something neutral; for this conception of it, to which today we particularly like to do homage, makes us utterly blind to the essence of technology."

-Martin Heidegger, "The Essay Concerning Technology"

To make it clearer what gibberish this statement (and it's like) amounts to, just substitute instances of "technology" for the term "technology" such as "opposable thumbs" "language" "stereoscopic vision" "a neocortex" "kinship structure" "numbers" etc. Old Marty posits "technology" as a problem but in fact it is the use/misuse/abuse of it, like any other extension, or augmentation, of agency, that is problematic (i.e. risk-bearing, or dangerous). So what? We're enabled by that which can possibly immiserate or destroy us. Well, what's the alternative? Sitting around the bonfire singing 'Hitler Youth Camp" songs about "das Geviert"?! raised eyebrow

From what I can tell, Heidegger is talking about is that not that technology is wrong or evil, it is that the technological view point has flaws. The belief that the world instead of being sacred is instead something for one to use from ones wants and needs can be dangerous. People that have no empathy for anything other then themselves often only care about their own desires and can not see the long term consequences of their actions.

Although viewing the world as a set of processes instead of living breathing thing is efficient for science it can also make us desensitized when we need to kill or destroy something for our own means. People that come from cultures that don't think in terms of processes are often more nervous in destroying natural things around them since they think that nature has a way of fighting back.

In the end no matter what system of beliefs one adheres to there is always going to be some degree of dogma and flaws. This is true of theism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and even atheism/materialism/rationalism/hedonism.

No, you don't get it, thats why I'm telling you. You think you get it, which isn't the same as actually getting it. Get it?-Kakashi Hatake

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
And vice sometimes by action dignified-Friar Lawrence

The state of mind that questions is much more important than the question itself.Any question may be asked by a slavish mind, and the answer it receives will still be be within the limitations of its own slavery...Freedom of desire for an answer is essential for the understanding of a problem-Krishnamurti
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Posted 11/23/09 - 12:23 AM:
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To Mega Therion wrote:


The point is that if he decides to base his suicide on religion, we all know it won't work. Or has anybody ever killed himself by irritating Indra? Bugging the Buddha? Angering Ahriman? There is of course no Ultimate Infalible guarantee that science will work, it's just that, well, it does.


Yeah I agree, things known through science is the way to kill yourself (you can of course know how to jump off a cliff without carrying out even a smidgeon of science though). Science, as knowledge is, is inherently neutral its how use it that decides if its a benefit or not.

"We do what we must, because we can." -GLaDOS
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