Naked Science Forum
On the Lighter Side => New Theories => Topic started by: DonQuichotte on 16/07/2013 01:14:53
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The Real Origin of The Scientific Method :
Source : Robert Briffault's " The Making of Humanity "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Briffault
Additional Corroborating relatively short essay source :
https://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&q=the+islamic+impact+on+western+civilization+reconsidered+by+koshul.pdf&oq=the+islamic+impact+on+western+civilization+reconsidered+by+koshul.pdf&gs_l=hp.12...232.43153.0.47906.71.39.0.28.28.4.2644.30473.2-4j9j6j2j9j6j0j3.39.0...0.0.0..1c.1.17.psy-ab.rTqr_7innpQ&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.48705608,d.d2k&fp=303b0adc67d3363b&biw=1024&bih=513
http://www.scribd.com/doc/45773561/Kosh ... vilization
Full thread from a Dutch site in English :
http://www.maroc.nl/forums/islam-meer/3 ... print.html
Source: Briffault's "Making of Humanity " you can download for free from here below :
The making of humanity : Briffault, Robert, 1876-1948 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive
Here you go :
Note that the author mentions the "Arabic civilization or Arabic science " instead of saying the islamic ones : Arabs were in the minority concerning the latters
Excerpt from "The Reconstruction of Religious Thought In Islam " by Sir Dr.Muhammad Iqbal you can download for free from here below :
The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam - Sir. Muhammad Iqbal | Feedbooks
Iqbal was quoting Briffault : chapter 5 : The spirit of muslim culture :
(....Europe has been rather slow to recognise the islamic origin of her scientific method .But full recognition of the fact has at last come .Let me quote one or two passages from Briffault's making of Humanity :
Quote :
"....It was under their succesors at that Oxford school that Roger Bacon learned Arabic & Arabic science .Neither Roger Bacon nor his later namesake has any title to be credited with having introduced the experimental method.Roger Bacon was no more than one of the apostles of muslim science & method to christian Europe, and he never wearied of declaring that a knowledge of Arabic & Arabian science was for his contemporaries the only way to true knowledge.Discussions as to who was the originator of the experimental method are part of the colossal misrepresentation of the origins of European civilization. The experimental method of the Arabs was by Bacon's time widespread & eagerly cultivated throughout Europe . -pp.200-01-
Science is the most momentous contribution of Arab civilization to the modern world ,but its fruits were slow in ripening .Not until after long Moorish culture had sunk back into darkness did the giant to which it had given birth rise in his might .It was not science which brought Europe back to life .
Other and manifold influences from the civilization of islam communicated its first glow to European life.
For although there is not a single aspect of European growth in which the decisive influence of the islamic culture is not traceable,nowhere is it so clear& momentous as in the genesis of that power which constitutes the paramount distinctive force of the modern world and the supreme force of its victory -natural science & the scientific spirit.
The debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not consist in startling discoveries or revolutionary theories, science owes a great deal more to Arab culture , it owes its existence .
The ancient world was , as we saw , pre-scientific .
The astronomy & mathematics of the Greek were a foreign importation never thoroughly acclimatized in Greek culture .The Greeks systematized, generalized & theorized , but the patient ways of investigation , the accumulation of positive knowledge ,the minute methods of science,detailed & prolonged observation, experimental inquiry ,were altogether alien to the Greek temperament .
Only in Hellinistic Alexandria was any approach to scientific work conducted in the ancient classical world, what we call science arose in Europe as a result of a new spirit of inquiry , of new methods of investigation ,of the method of experiment ,observation, measurement, of the development of mathematics in a form unknown to the Greeks .
That spirit & those methods were introduced to the European world by the Arabs -p.191-" end quote
The first important point to note about the spirit of muslim culture then is that ,for purposes of knowledge,it fixes its gaze on the concrete, the finite .
It is further clear that the birth of the method of observation and experiment in islam was due not to a compromise with Greek thought but to a prolonged intellectual warfare with it .In fact ,the influence of the Greeks who,as Briffault says ,were interested chiefly in theory ,not in fact ,tended rather to obscure the muslims ' vision of the Qur'an ,and for at least two centuries kept the practical Arab temperament from asserting itself & coming to its own .I want therefore to definitely eradicate the misunderstanding that Greek thought , in any way, determined the character of muslim culture.....)
Source : The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam by Sir Dr. Muhammad Iqbal , chapter 5 : the spirit of muslim culture :
Download the book for free :
http://www.maroc.nl/forums/nieuws-de...ml#post4903943
Further more , see in the above mentioned book of Iqbal how muslims were the first ever to discover evolution itself & much much more
see this 3-part docu on the matter too while u are at it , presented by a an Iraki-British scientist on the field :
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What ?
Not interesting enough ?
You, guys , practice science , so , you gotta know where the scientific method came from first , right ?
Guess so
Later
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Weird : nobody seems to be interested in this highly important issue , concerning the real origin of the scientific method .
How come, folks ? Come on
Let me know about your opinions on the matter , please .
Thanks, appreciate indeed
Take care
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What's going on ?
Are you shy , people ?
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Interesting and amusing, perhaps.
Important? No.
Dangerous? Very possibly.
I don't think we can dismiss all ancient Greek learning in the same breath as Aristotle's stupefying impact on physics: Pythagoras and Eratosthenes (?spelling) are still regarded as significant contributors to applied mathematics and cosmology.
Why dangerous? The scientific method clearly has practical and humanitarian value. My concern is that if its obscure origins (and they are indeed obscure and very ancient: I have observed a gorilla conducting a controlled experiment in gravitation, but there is no evidence that Galileo actually carried out the "leaning tower" test!) become associated with any particular philosophy or religion, that philosophy or religion can in some way appear to be validated, to the intellectual detriment of mankind.
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Interesting and amusing, perhaps.
Important? No.
Dangerous? Very possibly.
I don't think we can dismiss all ancient Greek learning in the same breath as Aristotle's stupefying impact on physics: Pythagoras and Eratosthenes (?spelling) are still regarded as significant contributors to applied mathematics and cosmology.
Why dangerous? The scientific method clearly has practical and humanitarian value. My concern is that if its obscure origins (and they are indeed obscure and very ancient: I have observed a gorilla conducting a controlled experiment in gravitation, but there is no evidence that Galileo actually carried out the "leaning tower" test!) become associated with any particular philosophy or religion, that philosophy or religion can in some way appear to be validated, to the intellectual detriment of mankind.
Hi there :
Thanks for your reply , appreciate indeed .
You are the very first person to reply to this thread , as you can see : i do salute you for just that .
Why do you think this topic's subject is amusing by the way ?
You seem to have a peculiar sense of humor .
Besides :
This topic's thread is very important , mind you : it concerns the real origin of the scientific method : if this is not an important issue, according to you at least , then , i do not know what's more important than the very genesis of science itself , science as one of the major players , if not THE major one, which had paved the path to the modern world ...
That said :
I suggest you try to take a close look at my above mentioned sources , especially that relatively short essay of Koshul on the matter .
Koshul had made his case brilliantly , methodically and scientifically : try to prove him wrong then, if you can at least , which i seriously doubt you can do .
The ancient Greek thought was not only unscientific, but was also hostile to science , despite the fact that Aristotle and others used to talk about sense -perception, observation, experience , induction ...as valid sources of knowledge, but that talk was just abstract and was thus almost never applied to reality .
Aristotle said once , for example , that women had more teeth than men haha , without even bothering to check out that extraordinary claim of his empirically , as he should have done, in the first place to begin with ...
There were some contributions though by some ancient Greek 'scientists " , but the latters were just exceptions to the rule , and had no idea about the scientific method as such , while "practicing " it , to some degree at least . intuitively .
Besides, Aristotle's legacy , for example , was one of the main obstacles which had to be fought against in order to achieve some degree of progress in modern philosophy, modern logic , the natural sciences ...
You were unlucky enough to pick Aristotle as a bet horse thus .
Kind regards
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Still waiting for a "dare devil " to address this highly important issue .
No pain , no gain indeed .
Best of luck ,folks
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I repeat:
My concern is that if its obscure origins........become associated with any particular philosophy or religion, that philosophy or religion can in some way appear to be validated, to the intellectual detriment of mankind.
Origins are unimportant at best, dangerous at worst. We have gleaned some useful science from Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, but I wouldn't want to dignify either regime by association with scientific knowledge and understanding.
Do you judge a man by his parentage or his actions? Does the good deed of a son excuse the evil of the father?
History may help us unravel some mistakes but for the most part, it is of interest only to historians. Science is about what works.
And I did indeed say that Aristotle was rubbish. Little point in replying if you don't read the replies.
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I repeat:
My concern is that if its obscure origins........become associated with any particular philosophy or religion, that philosophy or religion can in some way appear to be validated, to the intellectual detriment of mankind.
Origins are unimportant at best, dangerous at worst. We have gleaned some useful science from Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, but I wouldn't want to dignify either regime by association with scientific knowledge and understanding.
Do you judge a man by his parentage or his actions? Does the good deed of a son excuse the evil of the father?
History may help us unravel some mistakes but for the most part, it is of interest only to historians. Science is about what works.
And I did indeed say that Aristotle was rubbish. Little point in replying if you don't read the replies.
I do read the replies : you just miss the whole point of this thread :
This thread is not about scientific discoveries or about some contributions to science delivered by people from certain cultures, religions, philosophies or from other thoughtstreams, it's mainly about the origin of the scientific method or about the origin of science itself : so, do not confuse scientific discoveries or scientific knowledge , as you put it, with the scientific method or science itself = 2 different things, even though the latter leads to the first though :
Scientific discoveries are the unveiling of some secrets of the natural reality , while science is a tool or a method to approach the natural reality .
. .
If history had taught us anything , it did teach us that all cultures, religions, thoughtstreams had delivered some contributions to science , to some extent at least , from the ancient civilizations such as the Babylonian one , the ancient Egyptians, the ancient Greeks, ancient indians ....
So, you have been missing the whole point of this discussion, i am sorry to say .
You are the one who's not been reading this thread well, i am afraid .
Thanks anyway , appreciate indeed .
Kind regards
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"...There comes the rain again ,
I wanna talk like lovers do ....."
Silence is consent sometimes ....
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You are wrong on one fundamental issue. Religion is the antithesis of science and has never taught anyone anything. For that reason, I cannot allow you to dignify any faith by association witrh the scientific method.
Science: acceptance of those disprovable, explanatory and predictive hypotheses that have not been disproved
Belief: acceptance of a hypothesis in the absence of facts
Faith: acceptance of a hypothesis in the face of facts
Islam is no more intellectually respectable than any other faith.
All religions are ethically suspect: good deeds do not require supernatural justification, but such evils as crusades, fatwahs, inquisitions and pogroms can only be justified by reference to the ludicrous notion of divine authority. According to the scientific method, there is no authority in science, only observation.
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I suspect it is more likely to be historians (history of science) that are interested in the origins of the scientific method, and scientists are more likely to be interested in refining and implementing it than pondering its origins in any great detail.
I drive a car to get from A to B. The history and origins of the automobile are of passing interest, but of little importance to my journey.
Perhaps DonQuichotte can explain why the history and origins of the scientific method should be considered a 'highly important issue' as suggested?
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I suspect it is more likely to be historians (history of science) that are interested in the origins of the scientific method, and scientists are more likely to be interested in refining and implementing it than pondering its origins in any great detail.
I drive a car to get from A to B. The history and origins of the automobile are of passing interest, but of little importance to my journey.
Perhaps DonQuichotte can explain why the history and origins of the scientific method should be considered a 'highly important issue' as suggested?
I can put it this simple way :
The origin of the scientific method or the origin of science itself should be a matter of the philosophy of science , not only an issue for the historians of science .
I can even add that it should be a scientific issue as well .
If the genesis of science or the genesis of the scientific method as 1 of the major players that had paved the way to the modern time , if not THE major player ,is not highly important , then , what is ?
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You are wrong on one fundamental issue. Religion is the antithesis of science and has never taught anyone anything. For that reason, I cannot allow you to dignify any faith by association witrh the scientific method.
Science: acceptance of those disprovable, explanatory and predictive hypotheses that have not been disproved
Belief: acceptance of a hypothesis in the absence of facts
Faith: acceptance of a hypothesis in the face of facts
Islam is no more intellectually respectable than any other faith.
All religions are ethically suspect: good deeds do not require supernatural justification, but such evils as crusades, fatwahs, inquisitions and pogroms can only be justified by reference to the ludicrous notion of divine authority. According to the scientific method, there is no authority in science, only observation.
Then , i invite you to take a close look at my above mentioned sources , especially at the relatively short essay of Koshul on the matter : the islamic impact on western civilization reconsidered .
Koshul made his case brilliantly , methodically and scientifically: all you have to do is just take a close look at it .
Is that too much to ask ?
Besides :
That you happen to confuse christianity with other religions is not my responsibility .
That was / is the main unscientific unfounded generalization thought error of western enlightenment by the way = rejecting all religions ,just because of western Eurocentric legetimate and founded rejection of christianity .
That said :
Religion and science are indeed 2 different things : they both have different roles, functions, natures ...
In the case of islam, both science and islam complete each other , are necessary to each other , go hand in hand with each other , are the both sides of the same medal ...
The early muslims did "invent " the scientific method and did actively practice it , mainly thanks to the epistemology of the Qur'an they had interiorized so well at that time at least :
Religious extremism was 1 of the reasons which explain the fact that later muslims abandoned science and the seeking of knowledge in general ,and therefore deserved their decline ...
That epistemology of the Qur'an which used to consider / considers the use of reason, observation, experience , induction, work, the seeking of knowledge in the broader sense ....as religious duties, as forms of worship of God .
So, those early muslims used to consider science and the seeking of knowledge in the larger sense ...as religious duties, as forms of worship of God , while separating science proper from islam proper in the process, and then by trying to make a synthesis of both afterwards , in order to approach the ultimate reality .
Science was used by those early muslims as a tool to approach the natural reality , in order to understand and find out about God's secrets or signs both in ourselves and outside of ourselves , in nature , man, the universe , the world ...in the sense the more knowledge a believer can get , the closer he /she gets to God ...
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in the sense the more knowledge a believer can get , the closer he /she gets to God ...
What is "god"?
How do you measure your distance from it?
What experimental tests have been made of your method?
Science and fairytales do not mix.
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Perhaps DonQuichotte can explain why the history and origins of the scientific method should be considered a 'highly important issue' as suggested?
If the genesis of science or the genesis of the scientific method as 1 of the major players that had paved the way to the modern time , if not THE major player ,is not highly important , then , what is ?
I note you didn't answer the question:
Can you explain why the history and origins of the scientific method should be considered such a 'highly important issue' to a scientist?
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in the sense the more knowledge a believer can get , the closer he /she gets to God ...
What is "god"?
How do you measure your distance from it?
What experimental tests have been made of your method?
Science and fairytales do not mix.
What are you talking about ?
I said that early muslims used to separate science from islam ....Re-read what i said :
They used science as an effective tool to approach reality , the natural reality , and then they tried to make a synthesis from both islam and science , in order to approach the ultimate reality , because the natural reality is just one single level of reality or of the ultimate reality .
There are indeed many levels of reality, as there are many levels of human consciousness.
Islam also approaches reality , the ultimate reality , while science approaches just the natural reality .
So, science is not the only valid source of knowledge , science has no monopoly on the truth ...
See what post-modernism , for example, has to say about the latter , if you are not willing to broaden your horizon by approaching it via the islamic perspective at least .
P.S.: Heart's intelligence , heart as not emotions or feelings . heart as not the biological one , heart as intuition or intuitive insights , is the highest form of intelligence = intuition is the highest form of intellect :
See this unique book on the matter by Linda Jean Shepherd :
"Lifting the veil , the feminine face of science " , to mention just this one .
In short :
there is much more to man and life , the universe ,.... than just those poor human 5 senses .
P.S.: Modern science has been driven by the materialistic paradigms so far , so , i see not why it should not be driven by the islamic paradigms and epistemology that had created it from nothing , so to speak , in the first place to begin with :
The materialistic paradigms ,that have been exclusively monopolyzing science for more than 5 centuries now , post -modernism , for example , had largely discredited and refuted , the materialistic paradigms as just one view of the universe , man, nature , the world ...among many others thus .
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Perhaps DonQuichotte can explain why the history and origins of the scientific method should be considered a 'highly important issue' as suggested?
If the genesis of science or the genesis of the scientific method as 1 of the major players that had paved the way to the modern time , if not THE major player ,is not highly important , then , what is ?
I note you didn't answer the question:
Can you explain why the history and origins of the scientific method should be considered such a 'highly important issue' to a scientist?
Well, you are trying to make me explain the obvious to you , ironically enough .
The scientific method is a matter of epistemology in the first place , to begin with, one should find out about its origins , its real ones , not what you have learned in your schools and universities about .
Science has been transforming our world in ways no one could have imagined , say , some centuries ago , and this same science will be transforming our world and ourselves in the process in ways no one can imagine yet .
Besides :
You have no problem , as i have not , with the fact that science tries to find out about the origins of life , about all kindda origins , but you seem to disagree with the obvious validity and necessity of finding out about the origin of science itself :
Is that not a paradox ?
Be serious , please .
Kind regards .
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Islam also approaches reality , the ultimate reality ,
So, what is the ultimate reality, and how do you know how close you are to it?
"Proof by assertion" has no legitimacy in my world.
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.. you seem to disagree with the obvious validity and necessity of finding out about the origin of science itself
Not really; rather, I'm not persuaded simply by your assertion that there is 'an obvious validity and necessity' of finding out about the origin of science itself. That requires you to make a persuasive argument, which, so far, is notably absent.
Personally, I think it may be interesting, potentially useful, background information for some, but I was curious to know why you were making such a song and dance about it.
You continue to assert the 'obvious' importance of knowing the 'real' origins of the scientific method, without explaining what you think it is that makes it so important to a scientist today; perhaps you could give some examples of how this knowledge would help a scientist ?
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.. you seem to disagree with the obvious validity and necessity of finding out about the origin of science itself
Not really; rather, I'm not persuaded simply by your assertion that there is 'an obvious validity and necessity' of finding out about the origin of science itself. That requires you to make a persuasive argument, which, so far, is notably absent.
This is really a weird discussion : what do you want me to say to prove to you the very importance of the scientific method itself , or rather its origin : such a great scientific method or science that has been transforming our world and ourselves in the process, requires from us to try to find out about how it came to exist , in the first place to begin with .
The very evolution of science itself and of its philosophy of science , epistemology make such a research so vital and necessary to us ,that it would be foolish not to conduct such a research all the way to the bottom of it .
Why is epistemology in philosophy and in the philosophy of science so important , according to you ?
Practicing science without having a clue about its epistemology is rather a peculiar thing to do for a scientist , don't you think ? Especially when we consider the fact that that epistemology cannot be static , but rather dynamic and evolutionary , as post-modernism for example , had proven .
Personally, I think it may be interesting, potentially useful, background information for some, but I was curious to know why you were making such a song and dance about it.
An unexamined life or history are worthless : it's obvious that one should try to know the origins of things one practices and lives :
Man without awarness of his / her history in the broader sense is without future , i must add .
You continue to assert the 'obvious' importance of knowing the 'real' origins of the scientific method, without explaining what you think it is that makes it so important to a scientist today; perhaps you could give some examples of how this knowledge would help a scientist ?
See above
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Islam also approaches reality , the ultimate reality ,
So, what is the ultimate reality, and how do you know how close you are to it?
"Proof by assertion" has no legitimacy in my world.
I understand the ultimate reality as the very essence of things islam tries to approach as such, or as the whole picture : note that the whole is not the sum of its parts by the way .
The essence of things we cannot approach via science , reason or logic : that's something beyond the realm of science , reason, logic ...
The natural reality is just one single aspect or level of reality, once again :
If you think that the natural or empirical reality is all what there is , then , i really pity you for that .
Even modern maths had proven the fact that there are some true premises one cannot prove as such , like the very existence of intuition as the highest form of intellect ...
I see that we are getting nowhere .
I just started this thread in order to debunk the assertion or false premise of many prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett , Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and many others , who claim that science, reason , logic and evolution are the major "arguments " against religion , by trying to prove the fact that the scientific method or science itself originated from the very epistemology of the Qur'an , and that evolution was discovered by those early muslims, centuries before Darwin was even born , , thanks to the evolutionary spirit of islam ...and that the essence of things islam tries to approach as such is way beyond the realms of reason, logic , and science , that's all .
So, i am certainly not trying either to promote islam or "convert " anyone , let alone
that i was , supposedly , trying to "validate" islam ....
In short : i prefer to talk about islam only in this context , and in this context only, which means that i will not be responding to anything concerning islam outside of this context you were dragging me into.
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Without getting sidetracked into ultimate reality, I'm not convinced that you can identify the real origin of the scientific method in any written work.
The algorithm (a word with arabic roots) "observe, hypothesise, test" that we call the scientific method, is pretty much universal among sentient animals. You can see it being used by dogs and birds any day . It seems to have been the guiding principle of our remotest human ancestors, who clearly studied the migration of their prey and engaged in selective breeding of plants and animals - none of which is set down in anyone's bible - and in retrospect is the only way we could have evolved and survived as a naked collaborative ape. In contrast, the perverse and divisive foolishness of faith, replacing discovery with arbitrary authority, seems to be unique to recent humans.
Which just prompted an interesting thought! Anthropologists make a lot of play out of ancient burial rituals. The line usually goes something like "believing in an afterlife, the living provided the dead with ...... in the grave." There are two flaws in that argument. First, having no such belief, I have nevertheless put flowers on the graves of relatives, but on careful reflection I did it for me, not for them. Second, faith in a spiritual afterlife is not the only reason for grave goods. Your best friend isn't moving or breathing, so tidiness and hygeine demand that you should bury him. But suppose your diagnosis was wrong and he was merely in a deep sleep? Then it seems sensible to bury him in a coffin to prevent animals eating him, and to leave his knife and some food just in case he wakes up. "Just in case" is rational and based on experience of catatonia, whereas faith in an afterlife isn't.
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This is really a weird discussion : what do you want me to say to prove to you the very importance of the scientific method itself , or rather its origin : such a great scientific method or science that has been transforming our world and ourselves in the process, requires from us to try to find out about how it came to exist , in the first place to begin with .
The point I have bolded is the reason I asked you to explain why you seem so exercised about the origins of the scientific method. Whatever the knowledge of it's origins in the scientific community, they seem to be doing well enough. There may be some problems or concerns with the correct application of the method, or with the ethics of its application, but you seemed to be saying a better knowledge of its origins would be helpful in some way - some way you seem quite unable to articulate.
Why is epistemology in philosophy and in the philosophy of science so important , according to you ?
I haven't made any comment about its importance here, and it's too wide a topic to address properly in a paragraph.
Practicing science without having a clue about its epistemology is rather a peculiar thing to do for a scientist , don't you think ?
It might be, if that was really the case. I suspect that most scientists doing useful and productive work have a sufficient knowledge of the epistemology of their field; the scientists I know personally certainly do, and many scientist authors of popular science books clearly do. I don't have any wider data on scientists in general - do you?
An unexamined life or history are worthless : it's obvious that one should try to know the origins of things one practices and lives :
Man without awarness of his / her history in the broader sense is without future , i must add .
More assertion and platitude. If you believe it is obvious, you should be able to explain why - or is faith involved here?
Ironically, the epistemology of your assertion is absent.
This is not to say I disagree with the general point about epistemology; but you have yet to provide a reasonable (or any) argument to support your assertion of the exceptional importance of knowledge of the origins of the scientific method.
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I understand the ultimate reality as the very essence of things islam tries to approach as such, or as the whole picture : note that the whole is not the sum of its parts by the way .
The essence of things we cannot approach via science , reason or logic : that's something beyond the realm of science , reason, logic ...
How does one 'approach' things that are beyond, and unapproachable via, reason, logic, or science?
Is there some irrational, illogical, unscientific method?
Even modern maths had proven the fact that there are some true premises one cannot prove as such , like the very existence of intuition as the highest form of intellect ...
Bit of a red herring; intuition as a form of intellect is not a mathematical concern, and the Incompleteness Theorems only apply to axiomatic arithmetical systems, not the world in general. 'This sentence is false' and its ilk have no great relevance in the wider scheme of things.
I just started this thread in order to debunk the assertion or false premise of many prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett , Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and many others , who claim that science, reason , logic and evolution are the major "arguments " against religion , by trying to prove the fact that the scientific method or science itself originated from the very epistemology of the Qur'an , and that evolution was discovered by those early muslims, centuries before Darwin was even born , , thanks to the evolutionary spirit of islam ...and that the essence of things islam tries to approach as such is way beyond the realms of reason, logic , and science , that's all .
So all this talk about scientists and the epistemology of the scientific method, was intended to debunk the claims of atheists?
Leaving aside that 'atheist' and 'scientist' are not synonymous, it seems to me that it is the irrational, superstitious, paranormal, and supernatural claims of religion that the people you mention are wielding science against, and it has been very effective in those areas, hence 'God of the gaps', etc.
I think you'll find that Dawkins and co., have great admiration for the scientific and mathematical achievements of early scholars, Islamic and otherwise, but not for the irrational, superstitious, paranormal, and supernatural aspects of their belief systems. If we could strip out that stuff from all the scriptures of these belief systems, leaving the rational, the pragmatic, the scientific, and the philosophic, I'm sure those atheists would be overjoyed.
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author=alancalverd link=topic=48315.msg415989#msg415989 date=1375851342]
Without getting sidetracked into ultimate reality, I'm not convinced that you can identify the real origin of the scientific method in any written work.
Well, then just take a close look at that relatively short essay of Koshul, once again : the man made his case brilliantly , methodically and scientifically .
Deal ?
The algorithm (a word with arabic roots) "observe, hypothesise, test" that we call the scientific method, is pretty much universal among sentient animals. You can see it being used by dogs and birds any day . It seems to have been the guiding principle of our remotest human ancestors, who clearly studied the migration of their prey and engaged in selective breeding of plants and animals - none of which is set down in anyone's bible - and in retrospect is the only way we could have evolved and survived as a naked collaborative ape. In contrast, the perverse and divisive foolishness of faith, replacing discovery with arbitrary authority, seems to be unique to recent humans.
Arabs or muslims did much more than just discover Algorithms or modern Algebra :
See this : www.muslimheritage.com
www.1001inventions.com
Those muslims did much much more , including giving birth to science itself .
But i am talking here mainly about the fact that science owes its very existence to muslims indeed .
Besides :
Why then do you think it took humanity so much time to "invent " science as well as to practice it ,in full awarness of its root epistemology, if the 'scientific method " was that obvious from day 1 , according to you ?
That's a good question you gotta ask yourself , don't you think ?
If the scientific method was that obvious (It seems obvious to you today , simply because you happen to live in a time where science is so obvious though ) , then , we should assume that science should have existed a very long time ago , way beyond or before the stone age even , when humanity began to learn how to develop tools ...
Second : you should try to make the difference between the scientific method as such and between the primitive or early archaic developments of tools by humans in order to survive , not to mention that the early humans had to "read " their environment and act up on it , in order to survive , by observing it , by experiencing it , by interacting with it ...
Besides :
Those instinctive intuitive or innate behaviors of animals, for example , that had / have to "read " their environment also , by instinctively observing it , experiencing it ...in order to survive , were / are just that = intuitive instinctive innate behaviors = not conscious .
So, i am mainly talking here about the human full consciousness or full awarness of the scientific method or epistemology as such ,that was a matter of ...evolution , because early or ancient societies were mainly primitive , to some extent at least , relatively speaking , and therefore their understanding or awarness of epistemology was also primitive , if not mythical or magical , despite the fact that those ancient societies or civilizations did provide some sort of contributions to science , via those ancient " scientists " who were just exceptions to the rule, from the ancient Babylonians , ancient Indians, ancient Chinese , ancient Egyptians through the ancient Greeks and before all that .
Not to mention the fact that those ancient "scientists " used to espouse those mythical primitive or magical superstitious epistemology of their own cultures , combined or mixed with their "scientific works "
Further more , despite the fact that the ancient Greek thought was mainly speculative in its character , unscientific and hostile to science thus , there were also many ancient Greek "scientists " who contributed to science without having a clue about the scientific method as such , as there were some ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle , for example , who, ironically enough , used to consider sense -perception, observation , experience , and even induction ...as valid sources of knowledge (That's 1 of the "reasons" why the mainstream western consensus regarding the origins of science , attributes that to the ancient Greeks ) , but that was just abstract talk that was never applied to reality by those ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle and others .
Worse : the thought of those ancient Greek philosophers , including that of Aristotle indeed , was not only unscientific ,but was also hostile to science : no need to mention the ancient mainstream Greek disregard of the natural reality or sense -perception we find fully displayed in the philosophy of Plato, for example , , i must add .
So, you gotta try to make the difference between the human , animal and other instinctive intuitive ways to survive , between the human and animal development of tools ,and between the scientific method as such that was philsophically epistemologically and practically developed later on , in full awarness of what it meant on the reality ground .
If you read that relatively short essay of Koshul mentioned in this thread 's opening's article , you will discover that the pre-islamic period was pre-scientific , and that the birth of islam was the birth of the practical induction and science as such .
Those ancient 'scientists " who used to live in the periods prior to that of islam used to "practice science " intuitively without having any idea about the scientific method as such , or about epistemology ...once again , i have to repeat to you .
They did not separate their observation, experience ....from their relatively primitive mythical magical superstitious traditions ....
The early muslims were the first ever to lay the philosophical epistemological theoretical as well as the scientific practical foundations of the scientific method , and were also the first ever to practice the scientific method or science as such , in full awarness of what they were doing , while separating science from islam in the process.
Which just prompted an interesting thought! Anthropologists make a lot of play out of ancient burial rituals. The line usually goes something like "believing in an afterlife, the living provided the dead with ...... in the grave." There are two flaws in that argument. First, having no such belief, I have nevertheless put flowers on the graves of relatives, but on careful reflection I did it for me, not for them. Second, faith in a spiritual afterlife is not the only reason for grave goods. Your best friend isn't moving or breathing, so tidiness and hygeine demand that you should bury him. But suppose your diagnosis was wrong and he was merely in a deep sleep? Then it seems sensible to bury him in a coffin to prevent animals eating him, and to leave his knife and some food just in case he wakes up. "Just in case" is rational and based on experience of catatonia, whereas faith in an afterlife isn't.
This is irrelevent to our present discussion regarding the genesis of the scientific method as such , i am afraid , even though it might shed some sort of light on the mental and spiritual evolution of humanity which gave finally birth to ...science as such later on, by ...muslims , thanks to islam mainly .
The scientific method or science as such as the products of human evolution via the evolution of religions , the latter that gave birth to the final testament or final evolved message to all humanity = islam , islam that's still evolving as the universe is still expanding .
In short : the islamic epistemology that had given birth to science istelf is dynamic and evolutionary , which means that islam contains already the epistemological idea , for example , that intuition is the highest form of intellect ....
Who knows what evolutionary epistemology future humans will be able to extract from islam as well , so to speak, as the evolution of man and science go even further , as the universe continues to expand .....
Thanks for your interesting insights > i do mean it .
Kind regards .
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I do not understand why do you seem to deliberately prefer to stagnate or freeze in this stage of discussion, as if you were trying to derail the discussion deliberately , instead of addressing the subject of this thread .
You can't expect to make an emphatic assertion without being asked for an explanation of the reasoning behind it.
If asking you to explain the reasons behind the main assertion of your thread is derailing, colour me guilty ::)
what do you think that alleged importance , as you put it
You are mistaken; I haven't mentioned 'alleged importance'.
It would be paradoxical to practice science without having a clue about its epistemology
Paradoxical how?
I do not know what you are looking for as an answer to your repeated and stubborn scepticism regarding the obvious importance of the origins of science
As I have already said I don't disagree with your general point about the epistemology of science; I simply requested a reasonable (or any) argument to support your assertion of the exceptional importance of knowledge of the origins of the scientific method.
Obvious things are extremely difficult to explain thought , sometimes, not the other way around as you seem to understand .
Again ironically, it is the epistemology of science itself that should lead us to question our assumptions and seek explanations for what seems obvious. Looking for explanations and questioning is what scientists do. If something seems obvious, but is hard to explain, a scientist should ask why, and question the assumptions behind it, don't you agree?
i already mentioned the evolutionary character of epistemology and thus of science , that should be reason enough to consider the origins of science as highly important .
This is my final answer to you regarding that .
Epistemology and science evolve, therefore their origins are highly important? That's it?
OK. Time to move on.
I suggest you drop the according-to-you-at-least alleged importance of the origin of science and focus on this thread's subject .
Deal ?
As I already explained, that is putting words in my mouth; misrepresentation.
If you drop the misrepresentation, I'll have a stab at the origins of the scientific method - deal?
As you say, it has evolved over time. My understanding is that the first recorded methodologies concerning natural science are from Egyptian and Babylonian cultures (medical and astronomical/mathematical respectively) from around 1600 BC on. Babylonian astronomical science informs subsequent astronomy in India, Greece, the Islamic world, and the West. The pre-Socratic ancient Greeks (600BC) developed theoretical science based on natural causality, and both Indian & Greek thinkers subsequently theorised atomism. From around 400BC onwards, the philosophy and practice of science progressed in Greece, introducing deductive reasoning to maths, geometry, astronomy, and subsequently medical experimentation. Aristotle discussed empiricism, inductive reasoning, and a model of scientific inquiry via deductive syllogism.
It's worth noting, given your earlier mentions of intuition, that Aristotle is quoted as saying: ... it is clear that we must get to know the primary premises by induction; for the method by which even sense-perception implants the universal is inductive. … it follows that there will be no scientific knowledge of the primary premises, and since except intuition nothing can be truer than scientific knowledge, it will be intuition that apprehends the primary premises. … If, therefore, it is the only other kind of true thinking except scientific knowing, intuition will be the originative source of scientific knowledge.
During the low Middle Ages, it was the Islamic world, Arabic & Persian, that built on the somewhat piecemeal and embryonic Hellenistic legacy, integrating, rationalising, and developing it into more recognisable empirical scientific methodologies involving systematic observation, experiment, and argument, and using it to make considerable progress in a number of fields. Renaissance Europe emerged from the Dark Ages around the 12th century, inheriting both Islamic and Greek texts, achieving a preliminary synthesis with Grosseteste, leading to Bacon describing a detailed prototype of the modern scientific method (observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and independent replication & verification) in the 13th century.
That's probably far enough for origins.
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<mangled quoting>
If you can sort out your quoting in that post, I'll try to respond to it.
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I understand the ultimate reality as the very essence of things islam tries to approach as such, or as the whole picture : note that the whole is not the sum of its parts by the way .
The essence of things we cannot approach via science , reason or logic : that's something beyond the realm of science , reason, logic ...
How does one 'approach' things that are beyond, and unapproachable via, reason, logic, or science?
Is there some irrational, illogical, unscientific method?
You did obviously not understand what i was saying to you :
I said : science was used by those early muslims as an effective tool to approach the natural reality , while separating science form islam in the process ...and then afterwards , they tried to make a synthesis from both islam and science + from wisdom , personal experience + from other forms of knowledge, from art , literature ...in order to approach the ultimate reality or essence of beings and things or the whole picture, the latter as not the sum of its parts though ...I am not gonna repeat myself over and over again , next time , as you presently make me do .
So, as there are many levels of reality and therefore many levels of consciousness science cannot approach them all as such , simply because the natural reality as just one single level of reality is the realm of science , so, the rest is the realm of islam , even though islam has some say on the domain of science as well , but that's another discussion .
Even modern maths had proven the fact that there are some true premises one cannot prove as such , like the very existence of intuition as the highest form of intellect ...
Bit of a red herring; intuition as a form of intellect is not a mathematical concern, and the Incompleteness Theorems only apply to axiomatic arithmetical systems, not the world in general. 'This sentence is false' and its ilk have no great relevance in the wider scheme of things.
I just started this thread in order to debunk the assertion or false premise of many prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett , Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and many others , who claim that science, reason , logic and evolution are the major "arguments " against religion , by trying to prove the fact that the scientific method or science itself originated from the very epistemology of the Qur'an , and that evolution was discovered by those early muslims, centuries before Darwin was even born , , thanks to the evolutionary spirit of islam ...and that the essence of things islam tries to approach as such is way beyond the realms of reason, logic , and science , that's all .
So all this talk about scientists and the epistemology of the scientific method, was intended to debunk the claims of atheists?
Leaving aside that 'atheist' and 'scientist' are not synonymous, it seems to me that it is the irrational, superstitious, paranormal, and supernatural claims of religion that the people you mention are wielding science against, and it has been very effective in those areas, hence 'God of the gaps', etc.
No, no "God of the gaps " : if you would understand what i was saying , you wouldn't have uttered this non-sense :
God gave us reason, logic , senses ... to use them in order to find out about God's secrets in both ourselves and outside of ourselves within our 1 single level of reality , the other levels of reality we can approach via islam we cannot do without , via our personal experiences inspired by islam , wisdoms inspired by islam ...
Islam tells us nothing about DNA , cells , atoms , ....so, we have to find out about that via science ....
There are , once again , many levels of reality as there are many levels of human consciousness and the natural reality as the realm of science is just one single level of reality : so, to pretend that science can cover all those different levels of reality is a very stupid idea , simply because there are whole levels of reality outside of that poor single level of reality covered by science .
I think you'll find that Dawkins and co., have great admiration for the scientific and mathematical achievements of early scholars, Islamic and otherwise, but not for the irrational, superstitious, paranormal, and supernatural aspects of their belief systems. If we could strip out that stuff from all the scriptures of these belief systems, leaving the rational, the pragmatic, the scientific, and the philosophic, I'm sure those atheists would be overjoyed.
No, you cannot strip out that , you cannot ignore the existence of those other levels of reality , neither science , reason or logic can approach , otherwise you would be half blind or handicaped = that's what those Dawkins and co . are all about in fact .....
Science is not the only valid source of knowledge , science has no monopoly on the truth ...You will figure that out someday , as you grow further or evolve , i hope , for your own sake , as a human being .
I will talk to you about the boundaries and limits of science another day then ...
Take care .
P.S.: You know :
I personally think that all religions, cultures, philosophies or thoughtstreams ...do have some elements of truth ,to some extent at least , all of them , including the atheist thoughtstreams thus i do learn so much from, ironically enough , but you, guys , you do deliberately reduce the scope or spectrum of your horizons to the materialistic one only : i have a much broader horizon thus .
So, my biggest dream , a one much wider and much bigger than that of Martin Luther King , for example , is that all cultures , religions , thoughtstreams ....would come together some day , to achieve some synthesis of all those currents of thought at the level of ideas ... , or some cocktail from all of them ( I love cocktails from different cultures ,both literally and figuratively ) , for the benefit of all humanity , as this following artist (This is not a bribe haha, just a gift : but i always fear the gifts from the Greeks haha , as Slavoj Zizek talked about in some of his books ,referring to Troy's horse ... ) who succeeded in just that at the level of music at least , with the help of many other artists from different cultures, religions, thoughtstreams ...
Enjoy : Wonderful wonderful wonderful...awesome ...
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This is really a weird discussion : what do you want me to say to prove to you the very importance of the scientific method itself , or rather its origin : such a great scientific method or science that has been transforming our world and ourselves in the process, requires from us to try to find out about how it came to exist , in the first place to begin with .
The point I have bolded is the reason I asked you to explain why you seem so exercised about the origins of the scientific method. Whatever the knowledge of it's origins in the scientific community, they seem to be doing well enough. There may be some problems or concerns with the correct application of the method, or with the ethics of its application, but you seemed to be saying a better knowledge of its origins would be helpful in some way - some way you seem quite unable to articulate
.
I do not understand why do you seem to deliberately prefer to stagnate or freeze in this stage of discussion, as if you were trying to derail the discussion deliberately , instead of addressing the subject of this thread .
I already mentioned the evolutionary character of epistemology or of the scientific method as such , as post-modernism , had proved .
So, keeping in mind that epistemology is an evolutionary concept , it is thus highly important to find out about how that epsitemology or scientific method as such came to exist = logical : see the efforts of the philosophy of science in that regard as well , while you are at it , in the light of the shifts of paradigms in science provoked by quantum physics , by the theory of chaos in maths or the butterfly effect , as well as by the relativity theory and its concept of time-space , which make the Newtonian -Cartesian mechanical deterministic paradigm in science ...an outdated and largely refuted and largely discredited history .
Why is epistemology in philosophy and in the philosophy of science so important , according to you ?
I haven't made any comment about its importance here, and it's too wide a topic to address properly in a paragraph.
Right : well, what do you think that alleged importance , as you put it , of epistemology in philosophy as well as in the philosophy of science , what do you think they are all about ? , if not about the evolutionary character of epistemology and therefore also about the evolutionary character of the scientific method = about the evolutionary character of science also .
Practicing science without having a clue about its epistemology is rather a peculiar thing to do for a scientist , don't you think ?
It might be, if that was really the case. I suspect that most scientists doing useful and productive work have a sufficient knowledge of the epistemology of their field; the scientists I know personally certainly do, and many scientist authors of popular science books clearly do. I don't have any wider data on scientists in general - do you?
Exactly : that's my point also :
It would be paradoxical to practice science without having a clue about its epistemology , in the first place to begin with : that's why i find epistemology and therefore the scientific method as such , or rather its origins , so important , if we also take into consideration the very evolutionary character of epistemology and thus science , as i mentioned above .
An unexamined life or history are worthless : it's obvious that one should try to know the origins of things one practices and lives :
Man without awarness of his / her history in the broader sense is without future , i must add .
More assertion and platitude. If you believe it is obvious, you should be able to explain why - or is faith involved here?
Ironically, the epistemology of your assertion is absent.
This is not to say I disagree with the general point about epistemology; but you have yet to provide a reasonable (or any) argument to support your assertion of the exceptional importance of knowledge of the origins of the scientific method.
I do not know what you are looking for as an answer to your repeated and stubborn scepticism regarding the obvious importance of the origins of science :
Obvious things are extremely difficult to explain thought , sometimes, not the other way around as you seem to understand .
i already mentioned the evolutionary character of epistemology and thus of science , that should be reason enough to consider the origins of science as highly important .
This is my final answer to you regarding that .
I suggest you drop the according-to-you-at-least alleged importance of the origin of science and focus on this thread's subject .
Deal ?
Thanks , appreciate indeed .
Kind regards indeed .
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I do not understand why do you seem to deliberately prefer to stagnate or freeze in this stage of discussion, as if you were trying to derail the discussion deliberately , instead of addressing the subject of this thread .
You can't expect to make an emphatic assertion without being asked for an explanation of the reasoning behind it.
If asking you to explain the reasons behind the main assertion of your thread is derailing, colour me guilty ::)
I already gave you what i saw ,at least, as my arguments supporting my obvious-to-me-at least- claim concerning the huge importance of the origin of science : instead of trying to disprove me in that regard , you just say that i haven't delivered any reasons or arguments yet for that claim of mine .
So, let's just leave it at that then and move on , will we ?
Ok then, suit yourself , the origin of science is not highly important , just almost highly important then , or just 10 percent or less highly important then haha .
Better : the origin of science is unbelievably important = much more than just highly important in fact : The "discovery" of the scientific method coupled to its practical use at least was THE greatest achievement of humanity so far , i dare to add , my friend .
what do you think that alleged importance , as you put it
You are mistaken; I haven't mentioned 'alleged importance'.
Ok then , never mind , sue me then . kidding
It would be paradoxical to practice science without having a clue about its epistemology
Paradoxical how?
Do you know any carpenter who is not familiar with his/her tools ? or with how to use them ?
I do not know what you are looking for as an answer to your repeated and stubborn scepticism regarding the obvious importance of the origins of science
As I have already said I don't disagree with your general point about the epistemology of science; I simply requested a reasonable (or any) argument to support your assertion of the exceptional importance of knowledge of the origins of the scientific method.
I already did .sir .
Does any kindda evolution not require from us that we should consider its very roots and origins as highly important , so we can try to understand or approach its present and especially its future implications for us all ?
Ask Darwin about just that , my dear friend .
Obvious things are extremely difficult to explain thought , sometimes, not the other way around as you seem to understand .
Again ironically, it is the epistemology of science itself that should lead us to question our assumptions and seek explanations for what seems obvious. Looking for explanations and questioning is what scientists do. If something seems obvious, but is hard to explain, a scientist should ask why, and question the assumptions behind it, don't you agree?
I wish that was so simple , otherwise , we could solve most of humanity's problems via the scientific method ....
Science ,reason, logic ...are just some players in man's life , other way more important players in man's life do play more significant roles though , like the human nature (Greed, selfishness, stubborness, denials , emotions, feelings , self-preservation , intolerance, hate , ignorance , extremism, might ...power...) or psyche ,spirituality .....
I can only agree with you indeed : but sometimes, obvious things are extremely difficult to explain , even to the most intelligent or genius people on earth as Leo Tolstoy used to say , if they have already a-priori pre-formed ideas or pre-perceptions about them at least :
For example : the 911 was obviously an inside job, to me and to many people at least : see how this top docu on the matter proved just that as such , via the scientific method, ironically enough .
But most people would not be convinced by the obvious scientific explanations in that regard delivered by top experts on the matter :
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/911-explosive-evidence-experts-speak-out/
i already mentioned the evolutionary character of epistemology and thus of science , that should be reason enough to consider the origins of science as highly important .
This is my final answer to you regarding that .
Epistemology and science evolve, therefore their origins are highly important? That's it?
OK. Time to move on.
Exactly : it's about time to move on indeed ."Just scratch my back and i will scratch yours " . kidding
What arguments were you looking for in that regard by the way ? I am just curious
Do enlighten me on that , please ,thanks, appreciate, simply because i do not see the validity of your counter-reasoning in that regard , reasoning you haven't provided so far , ironically enough, i must remind you .
I suggest you drop the according-to-you-at-least alleged importance of the origin of science and focus on this thread's subject .
Deal ?
As I already explained, that is putting words in my mouth; misrepresentation.
If you drop the misrepresentation, I'll have a stab at the origins of the scientific method - deal?
Deal : i will do my best .Do yours as well .I am very curious about the potential outcome of just that : i "hold" my breath ....
I started this topic in order to encounter some solid counter-arguments i do not detect so far ,the same happened when i did put this very thread to the test in many atheists and science forums (Many of those forums just resorted to banning me permanently after some more or less extensive discussions on the matter haha: i hope i will not encounter the same thing in this forum ) so, go ahead , be my guest , knock yourself out and make my day .
I am serious , impress me .
I challenge you to do just that: that's not a personal thing ,i just love to put any claims of mine to the test ....and i can say, with full confidence ,integrity and trust , that you are a worthy discussion partner indeed , i do mean it .You are in fact more than just that : this is no bribe either haha, let alone that it could be a Greek's gift ...I am referring to Troy's horse ...
I doubt it very seriously though , with all due respect of course , that you can disprove the very certain , beyond a shadow of a doubt , islamic origin of the scientific method as such , let alone its major and extremely highly importance and worth= the epistemological "discovery " of the scientific method as such by muslims, thanks to islam, , its practice by muslims on the reality ground and its islamic origin : there is way too much overwhelming evidence in favor of this thread's claims you cannot cope with, handle or disprove , with all due respect to you ,of course .
As you say, it has evolved over time. My understanding is that the first recorded methodologies concerning natural science are from Egyptian and Babylonian cultures (medical and astronomical/mathematical respectively) from around 1600 BC on. Babylonian astronomical science informs subsequent astronomy in India, Greece, the Islamic world, and the West. The pre-Socratic ancient Greeks (600BC) developed theoretical science based on natural causality, and both Indian & Greek thinkers subsequently theorised atomism. From around 400BC onwards, the philosophy and practice of science progressed in Greece, introducing deductive reasoning to maths, geometry, astronomy, and subsequently medical experimentation. Aristotle discussed empiricism, inductive reasoning, and a model of scientific inquiry via deductive syllogism.
Greek Atomism was classical by the way , in total contrast with the later muslim atomism that was anti-classical , the muslim atomism was closer to modern physics....
Besides :
No doubt it has evolved indeed and it will continue evolving as well = the scientific method and epistemology in the broader sense .
How come then that the mainstream ancient Greek thought was mainly speculative in its character ,and had therefore such a disregard, if not worse , for sense -perception and the natural reality then, on the reality ground ?
As i mentioned earlier , Koshul's essay had proved the fact that that ancient Greek thought was not only unscientific , but was also worse = was hostile to science ,despite the fact that Aristotle and others used to consider sense-perception , observation, experience, induction ...as valid sources of knowledge , ironically enough , but that was mainly just abstract talk which was not applied to reality by those Greek philosophers.... .
Besides: all those ancient Greek, ancient Babylonians, ancient Indians, ancient Egyptians ..."scientists " as exceptions to the rule did use to "practice " science without being fully aware of its root epistemology= an understatement , once again .
Otherwise , why do you think that science as such did not flourish in those ancient civilizations ? How come it took humanity such a long time after those ancient civilizations ,before any serious approach to science was born ? if the scientific method was allegedly so obvious to those ancient 'scientists " prior to the islamic-era ?
I think that those ancient "scientists " did "practice science " instinctively intuitively without being fully aware of its root epistemology= yet another understatement .
Those ancient "scientists ", including the ancient Greeks , used to "practice science " in the above mentioned sense , while fully adhering to that mythical magical superstitious epistemology of their own people , the same goes for the other ancient civilizations you mentioned here above thus .
That full awarness and full consciousness , both at the philosophical theoretical as well as at the practical levels , had to wait for the right culture , mentality , environment (This is no racism or ethnicism or sectarianism... ), mindset ....to fully and proudly rise under the sun with all its glory ,in full awarness of itself and of its limitless power . mainly thanks to that epistemology of the Qur'an the early muslims used to interiorize so well at that time at least , and partly thanks to the practical character of the Arabs mainly (This is no racist statement either, but an anthropological one ,bound by and tied to its own historic space-time of certain people , which does not mean it was something innate to the Arabs that practical character of theirs at least, it was their harsh and extremely cruel and brutal desert environment that made them so practical , the latter meant the very difference between life and death for them at that time at least, islam did the rest when they used to embody it within and without ).
It's worth noting, given your earlier mentions of intuition, that Aristotle is quoted as saying: ... it is clear that we must get to know the primary premises by induction; for the method by which even sense-perception implants the universal is inductive. … it follows that there will be no scientific knowledge of the primary premises, and since except intuition nothing can be truer than scientific knowledge, it will be intuition that apprehends the primary premises. … If, therefore, it is the only other kind of true thinking except scientific knowing, intuition will be the originative source of scientific knowledge.
Right : many modern great mathematicians even, for example , did admit the fact that intuition was THE biggest player behind their works (And even feeling , feeling as a potential thought -project in the making ) .....but the definition of intuition i was talking about goes way further beyond that of Aristotle , as the Qur'an, for example , define it by saying on many occasions , and repeatedly , about some people : Do they not have hearts through which or with which they can reason ? : seems contradictory , because reason and the conventional understanding of heart as emotions and feelings do not go together ,as i mentioned earlier in some of my posts (But even emotions and feelings are thoughts-projects in the making though : see how that conventional difference between feeling or emotion and reason and that the latter cannot explain the firsts is ...history nowadays ): The Qur'anic definition of heart in this particular sense at least does not refer to the biological heart , but to intuition , intuitive insights , to heart's intelligence as the highest form of intellect , post-modernists had just discovered as such , so to speak : Many great muslim mystics such as Ibn Al Arabi and Rumi talked extensively about that Qur'anic definition of that particular heart which has many levels as the human consciousness has many levels ...But that's another discussion indeed .
During the low Middle Ages, it was the Islamic world, Arabic & Persian, that built on the somewhat piecemeal and embryonic Hellenistic legacy, integrating, rationalising, and developing it into more recognisable empirical scientific methodologies involving systematic observation, experiment, and argument, and using it to make considerable progress in a number of fields. Renaissance Europe emerged from the Dark Ages around the 12th century, inheriting both Islamic and Greek texts, achieving a preliminary synthesis with Grosseteste, leading to Bacon describing a detailed prototype of the modern scientific method (observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and independent replication & verification) in the 13th century.
Prior note : Islamic Spain mainly did indirectly trigger both the Renaissance as well as the protestant reformation and enlightenment thus = an understatement .
Besides:
Try to make the difference between abstract philosophical talk about epistemology and its practical pragmatic use on the reality ground : the early muslims linked the one to the other for the first time ever : see above what i said about that, as the early muslims knew very well that abstract belief is worth nothing without practically acting up on it .
One can possess, so to speak , all the knowledge and epistemology of this world , but all that is worth nothing if one does not act up on it , if all that does not reflect on one's life on the reality ground .
At the other hand , many people , in the past , present as well as in the future , did not / do not and will not need to be fully aware of epistemology to do what they do,simply because the scientific method as such is intuitively innately instinctively universal , but that did not make those ancient people give birth to science in the modern sense .
Only the full epistemological abstract theoretical combined with its practical wing did produce science as we know it : only the early muslims succeeded in combining the 2 necessary wings and therefore gave birth to science as such .
I will leave it at that then .
Thanks , buddy , for your time, patience , generosity , insights ...i do appreciate so much indeed , i have been learning so much from by the way .
Best wishes and nice weekend
Kind regards
Abdel
That's probably far enough for origins
Oh , i forgot about this latest statement of yours :
See above :
The birth of science required both of its wings : the philosophical epistemological theoretical as well as the practical one on the reality ground : only muslims were able to fly with both of those wings , while the prior rest were not ....
That's the very core point of this thread and discussion .
Bye , my friend
This took me really too much time to write ,(My internet connection is extremely slow today also, so ) but it's worth it and you are worth it , no false modesty , pretention, arrogance , or self-righteousness , am i writing it well ? .My apologies for my modest English though ...
Ramadan was over ,so, i have a little holiday i just dedicated some of it to you and to these dear people here .
Now, i am gone now ....really .
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You did obviously not understand what i was saying to you :
I said : science was used by those early muslims as an effective tool to approach the natural reality , while separating science form islam in the process ...and then afterwards , they tried to make a synthesis from both islam and science + from wisdom , personal experience + from other forms of knowledge, from art , literature ...in order to approach the ultimate reality or essence of beings and things or the whole picture, the latter as not the sum of its parts though ...I am not gonna repeat myself over and over again , next time , as you presently make me do .
I understood that part well enough, I didn't ask or want you to repeat it.
You also said, "I understand the ultimate reality as the very essence of things islam tries to approach", and "The essence of things we cannot approach via science , reason or logic", and "the essence of things islam tries to approach as such is way beyond the realms of reason, logic , and science", so I was curious about how one might approach this ultimate reality if it is beyond science, rationality and logic. Seriously, how?
It seems like a reasonable question.
So, as there are many levels of reality
Can you explain what you mean by 'levels of reality', and how you know there are many?
" if you would understand what i was saying , you wouldn't have uttered this non-sense "
You think the idea that science has been effective in debunking many irrational, superstitious, paranormal, and supernatural claims is non-sense? Really?
OK...
God gave us reason, logic , senses ...
People believe in many different gods; do you mean the god of Islam in particular? I assume you're aware that our reason, logic, and senses are the result of evolutionary processes - so how was this god involved?
There are , once again , many levels of reality as there are many levels of human consciousness and the natural reality as the realm of science is just one single level of reality : so, to pretend that science can cover all those different levels of reality is a very stupid idea , simply because there are whole levels of reality outside of that poor single level of reality covered by science .
In relating the levels of reality to levels of consciousness, are you suggesting that these levels of reality are mental constructs, internal perceptual realities our brains generate from our senses?
If so, do you have any links to information on this multi-level reality mental model?
If not, what is a 'level of reality', and what evidence is there for the existence of many of them? i.e. how do you know they exist?
Science is a system for explaining what we observe. If any of this stuff is observable (directly or indirectly), it is within the scope of science. If it isn't observable, directly or indirectly, how do you even know it's there?
... you cannot ignore the existence of those other levels of reality , neither science , reason or logic can approach , otherwise you would be half blind or handicaped
As it happens, I haven't noticed them at all, and my sight is fine, and my health is fine. At present I have no more reason to acknowledge these 'levels of reality' you mention than I have Russell's teapot, or the tooth fairy. What convincing evidence or plausible argument have you for their existence? for example, what convinced you?
Science is not the only valid source of knowledge , science has no monopoly on the truth ...You will figure that out someday , as you grow further or evolve , i hope , for your own sake , as a human being .
No figuring out required; any educated scientist knows that science doesn't claim to be the only valid source of knowledge, nor does it even address truth. I'm surprised you thought otherwise - or were you just being patronizing?
I will talk to you about the boundaries and limits of science another day then ...
I'll try to restrain my excitement ;)
Meanwhile, I'd be grateful if you could at least try to answer the questions I asked; you give the impression that you are knowlegeable about approaching what is 'way beyond the realms of reason, logic, and science', the multiple levels of reality, etc., and I'm sure you wouldn't post up stuff you didn't understand or couldn't explain, so you shouldn't have any problem explaining them to someone unfamiliar with such ideas.
As Einstein said, "If you can't explain something simply, you don't know enough about it", and "You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother".
... you do deliberately reduce the scope or spectrum of your horizons to the materialistic one only : i have a much broader horizon thus .
This is a science forum, it's intended to be constrained roughly within those boundaries. You'd have to ask the other members what scopes or horizons they have elsewhere. I suspect that, like me, science is just one facet of their interests and activities. Whose horizons are broadest, I wouldn't know.
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It would be paradoxical to practice science without having a clue about its epistemology
Paradoxical how?
Do you know any carpenter who is not familiar with his/her tools ? or with how to use them ?
I do know a couple of excellent carpenters who use their tools with great skill without knowing their history or origins. I'm still not seeing the paradox.
Does any kindda evolution not require from us that we should consider its very roots and origins as highly important , so we can try to understand or approach its present and especially its future implications for us all ?
Ask Darwin about just that , my dear friend .
You don't need to know how Darwin came up with the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection to use it, you just need to understand the theory. You don't need to know the origins of mathematics to apply it effectively - ask Ramanujan. Knowledge of these histories and origins is interesting and informative, and can be helpful, but not essential.
I wish that was so simple , otherwise , we could solve most of humanity's problems via the scientific method ....
You many have missed my point - science and critical thinking have repeatedly shown that what appears to be intuitively obvious may be mistaken, and should be questioned if reasonable explanations are not forthcoming. Intuition is a poor guide to reality.
Epistemology and science evolve, therefore their origins are highly important? That's it?
What arguments were you looking for in that regard by the way ? I am just curious
Whatever you've got. It seems to me that the scientific method is a very effective exploratory toolkit we have developed over a long period, and it continues to be refined. The history of its origins and development are interesting and informative, but I would argue they are not 'highly important' to the use of that toolkit, in the same way that the history and origins of his tools are not highly important to how well a carpenter makes furniture. Yes, he wouldn't have a saw if someone hadn't invented and refined it, but he doesn't need to know that to use it effectively.
As fa as I can make out, you have asserted that the history and origins of the scientific method are highly important to science today. I'd like to know why you you think that, why you say it so vehemently. For example, what might a scientist do differently in his work with the benefit of such knowledge compared to if he didn't have that knowledge? I can see that some knowledge of past errors and pitfalls in application of the toolkit, and some understanding of its limitations, can be useful, but I don't see how knowledge of its history or origins would be highly important in applying it. Enlighten me.
... i do not see the validity of your counter-reasoning in that regard , reasoning you haven't provided so far...
You haven't seen it because I'm not 'counter reasoning', I'm asking for explanations. I can't either agree with your reasoning or counter-reason without know your reasons first.
I doubt it very seriously though , with all due respect of course , that you can disprove the very certain , beyond a shadow of a doubt , islamic origin of the scientific method as such , let alone its major and extremely highly importance and worth= the epistemological "discovery " of the scientific method as such by muslims, thanks to islam, , its practice by muslims on the reality ground and its islamic origin : there is way too much overwhelming evidence in favor of this thread's claims you cannot cope with, handle or disprove , with all due respect to you ,of course .
Why would I want to disprove it? True, some elements of the scientific method are recognisable well before the Islamic scholars did their work, but there's no doubt they made a major contribution in developing and demonstrating it as a coherent methodology. If you wish to call that the 'true origin' of the scientific method, I won't argue. If you think it's important to pin a 'true origin' label somewhere, it's good enough, providing one acknowledges its antecedents.
That full awarness and full consciousness , both at the philosophical theoretical as well as at the practical levels , had to wait for the right culture , mentality , environment (This is no racism or ethnicism or sectarianism... ), mindset ....to fully and proudly rise under the sun with all its glory ,in full awarness of itself and of its limitless power.
Limitless power? Hyperbole apart, it was the right time, the right place, and the right culture, for that development; yes.
... many people , in the past , present as well as in the future , did not / do not and will not need to be fully aware of epistemology to do what they do,simply because the scientific method as such is intuitively innately instinctively universal , but that did not make those ancient people give birth to science in the modern sense .
If the scientific method is 'intuitively innately instinctively universal', on the one hand we wouldn't have had to explicitly develop it, the earliest hominins would have applied it intuitively, innately, and instinctively; and on the other hand, the Islamic advance you seem so enthusiastic about would not have been necessary. So no, the scientific method is not 'intuitively innately instinctively universal', it took a lot of intellectual effort by many clever people, and is as successful as it is precisely because it explicitly pre-empts and questions the intuitive, the innate, and the instinctive.
You do come across as having an extreme preoccupation with the achievements of the ancient Islamic world, which is understandable for a muslim, but beware that it doesn't distort your reasoning or unbalance your perspective on the history of science. Those ancient Islamic scholars achieved what they did by carefully unbiased study and exploration of their observations. Their great legacy is an explicit methodology for avoiding bias in exploration and discovery. It's an important lesson.
For my part, I have great admiration for the achievements of those early Islamic scholars; it's sad that such an enlightened and intellectually productive culture faded the way it did, and was subsequently eclipsed in scientific progress by the Renaissance in the West. This does seem to be the course and fate of many cultures, they rise to a peak of achievement, then decline. We're fortunate if they leave a legacy for others to build on.
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You did obviously not understand what i was saying to you :
I said : science was used by those early muslims as an effective tool to approach the natural reality , while separating science form islam in the process ...and then afterwards , they tried to make a synthesis from both islam and science + from wisdom , personal experience + from other forms of knowledge, from art , literature ...in order to approach the ultimate reality or essence of beings and things or the whole picture, the latter as not the sum of its parts though ...I am not gonna repeat myself over and over again , next time , as you presently make me do .
I understood that part well enough, I didn't ask or want you to repeat it.
Oh, dear boy : you are taking me again into a very delicate , misleading ,elusive, subtle , unknown territory i prefer to avoid as such , simply because it is 2 wide a subject to discuss this way at least , and because it is mainly offtopic .
I am gonna take you with me in this dynamic adventure field though anyway you are pushing me into , just this once then :
I know you did understand the above you responded to , it is just that you do not seem to wanna make the obvious difference between religion, or islam in this case , and science regarding their different natures , roles and functions .
Besides, there are also some rational sides of the islamic belief we can approach rationally , logically and scientifically though , the rest of it escapes any science , reason, logic ....simply because it lays outside of those realms , we can approach via personal experience , work , wisdom, active belief , active dynamic search .....
Islam as a dynamic evolutionary experience which does last a life time and beyond : so, the only way to approach those sides of the islamic belief is by living them, by experiencing them , ....via every bit of our beings .
And every religious experience of every muslim or of any believer for that matter , for example , is unlike that of any other muslim or other believer = there are varieties of religious experience as the father of pragmatism and modern psychology William James had tried to prove in his famous book : "The varieties of religious experience " .
So, we have to live as well as to experience islam in our lives ,if we wanna approach it or understand it as much as possible : that's the only way to do just that :
As you know : we can read about or watch movies , docus ...about adventurers , for example , but we can never be able to feel , taste , smell, know ,hear , sense ...exactly what they went through (The theory of mind has yet to approach that ) , unless we go through the same exact experience , and even then, we wouldn't be able to exactly match those adventures , simply because those adventurers experienced what they did via their own unique beings , via every part of their whole beings .
That's 1 f the reasons why mystic experiences, for example, are mostly uncommunicable .......
So, you see ? religion or islam, in this case , were the first ever to apply experience in the broader sense on the reality ground ,even in matters of belief itself , way before science ever learned to do , science ' s birth that was the direct product of the evolution of religions ....
Do not ask me about the validity of the personal experiences , or about the religious personal experiences though : it's a delicate area...
But when presonal experience is guided by islam, for example , it can pretend to have some elements of truth we cannot discuss this way either .
I already mentioned intuition (even though it's not always reliable ) , even the one outside of religion, as the highest form of intellect , so .
That should be sufficient .
We do not have yet the kindda sophisticated psychology to approach mystic or the true religious experiences ,so ,maybe we will have such a thing in the future , who knows .
Furthermore, science can , for example, neither prove nor disprove the very existence of our inner lives or human consciousness as such, science can tell us nothing about their natures either, even though science can say something about their functioning ,via neurophysiology .....to some extent at least though : those reductionistic mechanical deterministic materialistic attempts to approach the nature and function of the human consciousness are just that : materialistic only , in the sense that our human consciousness was the alleged product of the evolutionary complexity of our brains , something materialists cannot prove as such ( The so-called emergent property as a kindda "Theory of everything " for Biologists or evolutionary Biology ) ) : it would be paradoxical to say that our consciousness was produced by the evolution of our brain : how can our brain as one tool to apprehend reality via our senses give birth, so to speak , to our consciousness that's a mode to grasp reality , otherwise all our knowledge , including science and evolution , as the presumed products of evolution are ....illusions or survival strategies ,we cannot be sure of their truth or validity .
You also said, "I understand the ultimate reality as the very essence of things islam tries to approach", and "The essence of things we cannot approach via science , reason or logic", and "the essence of things islam tries to approach as such is way beyond the realms of reason, logic , and science", so I was curious about how one might approach this ultimate reality if it is beyond science, rationality and logic. Seriously, how?
See above , my friend : intuition or inspirations are some ways to approach the ultimate reality via our personal experiences , combined with other forms of knowledge .
There is much more to man, life , nature , the world, the universe ...than just those poor human 5 senses ,once again ,not to mention the fact that our epistemology is an evolutionary concept .
I just recall the argument of Thomas Paine in his "The age of reason " famous book against the alleged validity of revelation , which sounded like this :
Since revelation was presumebly revealed to one person, a prophet , it ceases to be a revelation and becomes hear-say to others :
Well, i see both intuition and inspiration , both within and outside of religion, as innate human valid sources of knowledge , as forms of revelations, even though they are not fully reliable .
It seems like a reasonable question.
It does and it is as well indeed : see above : but that's an extremely difficult one to deal with : Dr Sir philosopher and the greatest poet of the last century Mohammed Iqbal i mentioned in this thread as 1 of my sources , can inform you better than i could ever do about that in his masterpiece " The reconstruction of religious thought in islam " : the man was a liberal muslim who tried to reconstruct religious thought in islam , in the light of the modern western thought he studied extensively both in Oxford and Berlin ,,,,and within the islamic context : he was almost the only modern muslim thinker to do just that, within islamic terms .
He was also a kind of spiritual father of Pakistan when it separated itself from India that bloody atrocious terrible way ,but Iqbal was certainly not responsible for such a human disaster , as Nietzsche was not to be blamed for nazism = an analogy, no comparison though .
Thanks to Iqbal , i learned how to love Goethe's , Rumi's and other western giants' works ....to say just that .
So, as there are many levels of reality
Can you explain what you mean by 'levels of reality', and how you know there are many?
Empirical evidence proved just that partly : Linda Jean Shepherd i mentioned earlier in another post of mine , talked in that unique book of hers about some scientific experiences conducted both on humans and animals which proved the fact that since we are raised a certain way , in order to behave and think a certain way ,we do miss the whole spectrum of other potential levels of reality in the process.
Linda Jean Shepherd combined her feminist philosophy of science ,epistemology, ethics ....with the so-called depth psychology of Jung she studied for more than 15 years , with the theory of chaos , ..............
I will talk to you about that some more , next time , because i do not have much time now .
" if you would understand what i was saying , you wouldn't have uttered this non-sense "
You think the idea that science has been effective in debunking many irrational, superstitious, paranormal, and supernatural claims is non-sense? Really?
OK...
No, that's not what i meant .
Even though intuition , personal experience, inspirations ...are not very reliable sources . , and even though our religious experiences are not always reliable ....they are vital sometimes to grasp reality or some levels of it, science cannot approach as such .
So, what lays outside the realm of science cannot be always branded as irrational , superstitious ....It can't be always dealt with via that Russel's tea pot argument .Science has nothing to do outside of its natural relam
God gave us reason, logic , senses ...
People believe in many different gods; do you mean the god of Islam in particular? I assume you're aware that our reason, logic, and senses are the result of evolutionary processes - so how was this god involved?
They are not , not in the materialistic mechanical deterministic reductionistic prescriptive sense at least , descriptive science has nothing to do with .
Materialists cannot prove that contradictory allegation of theirs either = that the evolution of the brain produced consciousness ....
There are , once again , many levels of reality as there are many levels of human consciousness and the natural reality as the realm of science is just one single level of reality : so, to pretend that science can cover all those different levels of reality is a very stupid idea , simply because there are whole levels of reality outside of that poor single level of reality covered by science .
In relating the levels of reality to levels of consciousness, are you suggesting that these levels of reality are mental constructs, internal perceptual realities our brains generate from our senses?
Our consciousness is also fed by non-sensual sources , such as inspiration , revelation , intuition ....in the above mentioned sense , we can develop via our knowledge in the broader sense , via our life and religious experiences ....via wisdom ...That cannot be all just mental or cultural social constructs .
If so, do you have any links to information on this multi-level reality mental model?
If not, what is a 'level of reality', and what evidence is there for the existence of many of them? i.e. how do you know they exist?
Via intuition, experience , religious experience , life experiences , inspirations ....
Science is a system for explaining what we observe. If any of this stuff is observable (directly or indirectly), it is within the scope of science. If it isn't observable, directly or indirectly, how do you even know it's there?
Science is not the only valid source of knowledge .
islamic revelation is my source number 1 regarding epistemology (No wonder it gave birth to science itself , in the first place to begin with , ironically enough ) , then comes science ............into play .
There can be thus no conflict between the father , so to speak, simply put = islam , and his natural legetimate daughter haha = science .
... you cannot ignore the existence of those other levels of reality , neither science , reason or logic can approach , otherwise you would be half blind or handicaped
As it happens, I haven't noticed them at all, and my sight is fine, and my health is fine. At present I have no more reason to acknowledge these 'levels of reality' you mention than I have Russell's teapot, or the tooth fairy. What convincing evidence or plausible argument have you for their existence? for example, what convinced you?
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What convinced me in that regard was/ is my intuition , inspirations from islam and from many other thoughtstreams, from my religious experiences, my life experiences .....
Russel's tea pot argument is misleading and just partly true , depends on the perspective we take it from : it refers only to the "real " illusions we can neither prove nor disprove as such .
What Russel did not realise ( I read his history of western civilization ...) , despite his great genius , is that there were other forms of knowledge ,even within himself he ignored as a mathematician mainly (Intuition ) and as a materialistic half-blind philosopher thus , he did not realise that there were other valid sources of knowledge other than the conventional science reason, logic ...
He should have learned from David Hume in that regard who realised that common sense was/is as less infaillible as logic and reason were/are
Science is not the only valid source of knowledge , science has no monopoly on the truth ...You will figure that out someday , as you grow further or evolve , i hope , for your own sake , as a human being .
No figuring out required; any educated scientist knows that science doesn't claim to be the only valid source of knowledge, nor does it even address truth. I'm surprised you thought otherwise - or were you just being patronizing?
No , most scientists implicitly, if not explicitly , think that science is the only valid source of knowledge ,especially those hard core atheists scientists : Dawkins and co .
But your own reasoning self implies that only reason, logic , science ...are valid sources of knowledge ,so .
Science does approach the truth , my friend,in the sense that it is trying to prove the truth or falsehood of some things : truth as a dynamic concept though .
I will talk to you about the boundaries and limits of science another day then ...
I'll try to restrain my excitement ;)
No, seriously :
Science is just a form of universal culture , just a social human activity,just one single tool to approach reality .....practiced by scientists humans via their biological cultural social psychological ideological as well as via other backgrounds of theirs , even though science is highly methodic .
See how materialism as a paradigm , ideology or a view of life , man, the universe , nature ....has been exclusively hijacking science and the human sciences as well ,including anthropology, history, and the rest ....not to mention art , literature, philosophy that have been hijacked by materialism as well ....for more than 5 centuries now , excluding all non-materialistic paradigms in the process.
Neither universalism , truth nor objectivity do exist in this world, my friend .
Objectivity does not exist , not even at the level of exact sciences , let alone elsewhere : see how quantum physics proved the fact that the observer changes the observed by just looking at it , at the micro atomic or sub-atomic level at least : the butterfly effect expands that by proving the fact that tiny things or tiny beings can have huge and large effects .
So, the micro sub-atomic level can have large effects on us , nature , the universe ...as well ,and vice-versa , i presume at least , which makes it impossible to be ,,,objective in any field of knowledge or elsewhere .
Meanwhile, I'd be grateful if you could at least try to answer the questions I asked; you give the impression that you are knowlegeable about approaching what is 'way beyond the realms of reason, logic, and science', the multiple levels of reality, etc., and I'm sure you wouldn't post up stuff you didn't understand or couldn't explain, so you shouldn't have any problem explaining them to someone unfamiliar with such ideas.
See Muhammad Iqbal's masterpiece in that regard, as one of my sources .
Well, islam is elusive ,dynamic and evolutionary : i just try to grasp some of its finite and infinite sides via my modest being , experiences,knowledge ....= i can give you only an imperfect temporary and modest result in that regard that's mostly unique to myself as an adventurer on the mostly unknown and evolutionary road of islam .
So, the Truth as such with a big T we can only approach in life , we will know as such only after death ,so : that's the most certain fact on earth :
That we will die eventually and that we will know the absolute truth only after ...death ,are the only certainties we possess on earth .
That's why you have mysticism ....in life ......
As Einstein said, "If you can't explain something simply, you don't know enough about it", and "You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother".
I presume Einstein was talking about wordly mundane matters ,not about theology or metaphysics at least, otherwise , why don't you ask him to tell you about the truth he gotta know by now ...kidding
... you do deliberately reduce the scope or spectrum of your horizons to the materialistic one only : i have a much broader horizon thus .
This is a science forum, it's intended to be constrained roughly within those boundaries. You'd have to ask the other members what scopes or horizons they have elsewhere. I suspect that, like me, science is just one facet of their interests and activities. Whose horizons are broadest, I wouldn't know.
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Right : I admire your genuine modesty indeed :
But , i am tired of the fact that science gets presented by people as THE source, if not the only source, of knowledge , that's why i said what i said , no offense .
I did not mean it as a personal thing though .
Thanks, buddy
I will post this post and correct its potential errors later on .
Have a nice day , buddy .
Just try to read that masterpiece of the great philosopher Muhammad Iqbal you can download for free from feedbooks.com , that can enlighten you about most things we were talking about so far .
Kind regards and best wishes
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@ dlorde :
I will get back to you, soon enough , regarding your other interesting insights you did display here above , by trying to compress my replies , as much as possible , due to the wide scope of the subjects we were trying to cover .
Otherwise , it would cost the both of us too much time to reply to each other .
The wide scope of those subjects made it difficult for me to give some relatively short replies though .
I will try to resist the temptation, next time, to give long replies .
P.S.: That carpenter analogy was only about your question regarding the fact why i seemed to consider a scientist practicing science without any knowledge of its root epistemology a ...paradox , therefore a carpenter who's not familiar with his tools or with how to use them is a paradox, don't you agree ? .
That analogy was not about the origins of that carpenter's tools . let alone that it was referring to the origins of that carpenter's tools or to the origin of science .
I said why i still think that the origin of science or the birth of science itself were/are the biggest achievement of humanity ever = that's more than just highly important , once again .
So, all the modern truely scientific achievements of the west and of the rest of humanity originated from the origin or from the birth of science itself , from science thus ( and from all those earlier muslim really and truely scientific achievements ,simply because the pre-islamic era was pre- scientific , despite all those pre-islamic "scientific " contributions to science ) , proper science as such in the modern sense without which those modern scientific achievements would never have been able to take place , in the first place to begin with , don't you think ?
Take care and thanks again for your interesting insights i will think about more carefully ...
P.S.: I was mainly talking about intuition both in the islamic ( See Muhammad Iqbal's masterpiece in that regard or the works of Ibn Arabi or Rumi ...) and in the post-modern contexts .
I know that the conventional intuition is very unreliable, but intuition in the islamic sense ,for example, is way less unreliable than the conventional one , when it is guided by ....the islamic paradigms at least .
That islamic definition of heart or intuition is the true guide for true muslims .
Kind regards
Abdel
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We do not have yet the kindda sophisticated psychology to approach mystic or the true religious experiences ,so ,maybe we will have such a thing in the future , who knows .
You'll be glad to know considerable progress has been made, and it is now possible to produce some mystical and revelatory religious-like experiences be stimulating the areas of the brain that generate these experiences.
science can , for example, neither prove nor disprove the very existence of our inner lives or human consciousness
As previously explained, science is not concerned with proof, but with explanation. Nevertheless, we do now understand a fair amount about the processes that work together to generate consciousness, how consciousness ceases when they cease communicating, how conscious alters when different processes fail to function or to communicate correctly, and much more. You seem to be a way behind the curve on consciousness research; I'm sure you'll be fascinated, in the best traditions of the ancient Islamic scholars. Fortunately, there are plenty of online resources to bring you up to date.
... it would be paradoxical to say that our consciousness was produced by the evolution of our brain : how can our brain as one tool to apprehend reality via our senses give birth, so to speak , to our consciousness that's a mode to grasp reality , otherwise all our knowledge , including science and evolution , as the presumed products of evolution are ....illusions or survival strategies ,we cannot be sure of their truth or validity .
Not at all; when in doubt, follow the evidence. It's become clear in recent years that other species too have varying degrees of consciousness; some, like our close genetic relatives, recognisably similar to ours (though not as complex in terms of self-awareness). When behavioural traits associated with consciousness have been assessed in other species, the results, have been surprising. In general, the nature and degree of consciousness varies roughly according to complexity of social structure and interaction (which is thought to be one of the drivers of its evolution), and genetically related species tend to rate similarly. Suffice it to say, the evidence from a number of unrelated fields points beyond reasonable doubt to the evolutionary explanation - an explanation that has made testable predictions which have been subsequently borne out. Magic or god-did-it could also explain it all, except those explanations have no utility or predictive power.
Can you explain what you mean by 'levels of reality', and how you know there are many?
Empirical evidence proved just that partly : Linda Jean Shepherd i mentioned earlier in another post of mine , talked in that unique book of hers about some scientific experiences conducted both on humans and animals which proved the fact that since we are raised a certain way , in order to behave and think a certain way ,we do miss the whole spectrum of other potential levels of reality in the process.
I searched these forums for such a mention, but found none. Perhaps it was a different site. I'm guessing the book was 'Lifting The Veil'?
Our consciousness is also fed by non-sensual sources , such as inspiration , revelation , intuition ....in the above mentioned sense , we can develop via our knowledge in the broader sense , via our life and religious experiences ....via wisdom ...That cannot be all just mental or cultural social constructs .
On the contrary, it certainly can; the argument from incredulity was never a particularly robust approach. Again, a lot of new knowledge has emerged from research into these areas, and the experiences of people who've had certain kinds of brain damage have helped a lot. For example, there are cases of damage to certain brain areas that resulted in extraordinary, compulsive artistic inspiration (usually detrimental to other aspects of life). I already mentioned the work on religious experiences, which also shed light on out-of-body experiences and sensations of benign or malevolent presence. Unsurprisingly, drug induced experiences of those kinds also involve the same areas.
Science is not the only valid source of knowledge .
That wasn't the question. But never mind, I see a pattern here.
your own reasoning self implies that only reason, logic , science ...are valid sources of knowledge ,so .
A pattern that tells me I'm wasting my time.
I wonder what those ancient Islamic scholars would say.
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So, all the modern truely scientific achievements of the west and of the rest of humanity originated from the origin or from the birth of science itself , from science thus ( and from all those earlier muslim really and truely scientific achievements ,simply because the pre-islamic era was pre- scientific , despite all those pre-islamic "scientific " contributions to science ) , proper science as such in the modern sense without which those modern scientific achievements would never have been able to take place , in the first place to begin with , don't you think ?
This is an example of a logical fallacy known as 'affirming the consequent'. Wherever you define the origin of science, by definition its antecedents must be pre-scientific, and all following developments dependent. Where you define the origin is an subjective decision, and also a self-fulfilling one - it changes the definition of what science is considered to be to match the choice of origin. I hinted at this in an earlier post; this is why I said that you should avoid over-exaggerating the importance of assigning a particular 'origin' to science. The Islamic era is a reasonable choice, though debatable, but defining an 'origin' of itself doesn't objectively mean a great deal. What counts is the contributions various cultures have made, large or small - and you can still play "our contribution was greater than anyone else's", if that's what floats your boat.
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So, all the modern truely scientific achievements of the west and of the rest of humanity originated from the origin or from the birth of science itself , from science thus ( and from all those earlier muslim really and truely scientific achievements ,simply because the pre-islamic era was pre- scientific , despite all those pre-islamic "scientific " contributions to science ) , proper science as such in the modern sense without which those modern scientific achievements would never have been able to take place , in the first place to begin with , don't you think ?
This is an example of a logical fallacy known as 'affirming the consequent'. Wherever you define the origin of science, by definition its antecedents must be pre-scientific, and all following developments dependent. Where you define the origin is an subjective decision, and also a self-fulfilling one - it changes the definition of what science is considered to be to match the choice of origin. I hinted at this in an earlier post; this is why I said that you should avoid over-exaggerating the importance of assigning a particular 'origin' to science. The Islamic era is a reasonable choice, though debatable, but defining an 'origin' of itself doesn't objectively mean a great deal. What counts is the contributions various cultures have made, large or small - and you can still play "our contribution was greater than anyone else's", if that's what floats your boat.
Yeah, i do agree with some essence of your plea here above indeed, ironically enough : i expected you to say things like that, somehow .
Prior note : One should indeed try not to be either subjective or biased, but total objectivity does not exist in this world, my friend, as i said earlier = it's a myth .
I do my best in that regard ,but see how materialism as an ideology has been exclusively hijacking science for more than 5 centuries now , excluding all non-materialistic paradigms in the process, as i mentioned earlier ;
That said :
First of all , without science itself as such in the modern sense , all the modern scientific achievements of humanity wouldn't have taken place, in the first place to begin with = logical : what's wrong with this statement then ?
And i am not really being subjective about the real origin of science : i was just stating facts .
I maybe enthusiastic about it , as you said earlier ,i am rather passionate about it instead in fact as Dawkins , for example, is extremely passionate about evolution (About the materialistic interpretation of evolution, to be more precize ) , about his scientific work in general i do appreciate and he's being too extremely passionate about his crusades against religion as well , as if science is the only valid source of knowledge , as if science has the monopoly of the truth (He stated in his "Selfish Gene ", for example, and elsewhere that Darwin's theory of evolution is the only valid explanation of our origins ,and that all the prior explanations in that regard should not only be ignored and dismissed , but must be also disregarded totally ) ; his crusades against religion are even fanatic , despicable, intolerant , counter-productive, not to say fascist ,and ideological and haven't therefore much to do with science (Otherwise , how could a religion such as islam produce science itself , how could it be evolutionary? How could islam trigger such a great and revolutionary civilization from almost nothing , via those primitive cruel savage and almost barbaric Arab tribes of the desert and others ...to mention just that, if islam was a fairytale or a God's delusion.....Once again, i am not trying to "validate " islam ), but some reasonable degree of passion is useful in science , simply because it's a good motivation or drive that keeps the scientist going and therefore might produce some scientific results at the end .
So, i am passionate about the islamic origin of the scientific method and about the other great muslim contributions to science as well , without ignoring the other scientific contributions to humanity by other prior civilizations ... but that does not mean i was exaggerating the muslim origin of science : the latter is a fact : how can i exaggerate a fact then ?
I am so passionate about the above , also simply because i would love to see the current muslims waking up from their slumber ,by learning from the unparalleled magnificent scientific and other progress booked by the modern west , at the level of science in general, at the level of thought , ethics ............in order to contribute to the evolution of mankind at all levels .
The medieval west , for example , was clever enough to learn from the islamic civilization and had been able to surpass it in many areas , so, i would love to see muslims doing the same ,by learning from the modern west , in order to defeat their current decline, backwardness, ignorance, extremism, intolerance ...dependance .... and in order to serve properly islam as a message to all humanity, as they have been doing during the glory time of islam : that would be for the benefit of all mankind , also by working with other cultures, religions, thoughtstreams ...
Besides:
Look, fact is , for example , that evolution was discovered by muslims ,centuries before Darwin was even born, thanks to the evolutionary spirit of islam mainly , other prior civilizations to that of islam also knew the concept of evolution , but vaguely .
Those antecedents of evolution prior to the theory of evolution by Darwin do not mean that Darwin's exceptional contribution to science was not exceptional , it was , mainly because Darwin was the first ever , to give evolution its real scientific explanation , to some extent at least :
Almost the same ,if not more , does apply to the "discovery " of science itself by muslims , thanks to islam mainly , despite its earlier antecedents in other more ancient civilizations than that of islam ...
The muslims were the first to couple the epistemological theoretical philosophical sides of the scientific method to its practical use thus : those 2 wings of science were absolutely necessary to its birth : 1 without the other does not produce science as such ...
I think i explained that earlier ...
Thanks , appreciate
Kind regards
Abdel
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We do not have yet the kindda sophisticated psychology to approach mystic or the true religious experiences ,so ,maybe we will have such a thing in the future , who knows .
You'll be glad to know considerable progress has been made, and it is now possible to produce some mystical and revelatory religious-like experiences be stimulating the areas of the brain that generate these experiences.
I would love to see those scientists apply those methods to some great muslim and other ancient mystics such as Rumi, Ibn Arabi ....
I do not understand why we ,as human beings , are reduced to just neurophysiological , chemical , hormonal ...mechanical processes , unless we view life and the universe through the materialistic lense exclusively and only : weird .
I am aware of some of that progress , i just have some trouble with the materialistic interpretations of those scientific experiments (and of the scientific results in general), regarding religious experiences, mystic experiences ....via the so-called neurothology and the so-called science of spirituality , among other research on the matter .
Some scientists even say that even human love is just ...chemistry, to put it simply : weird .
science can , for example, neither prove nor disprove the very existence of our inner lives or human consciousness
As previously explained, science is not concerned with proof, but with explanation. Nevertheless, we do now understand a fair amount about the processes that work together to generate consciousness, how consciousness ceases when they cease communicating, how conscious alters when different processes fail to function or to communicate correctly, and much more. You seem to be a way behind the curve on consciousness research; I'm sure you'll be fascinated, in the best traditions of the ancient Islamic scholars. Fortunately, there are plenty of online resources to bring you up to date
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Sure , i am aware of some, just some , of those scientific breakthroughs concerning consciousness or how it might function ...But , i am not an expert on that .
I should have said that science can say nothing about the natures of both human consciousness and of our inner lives, can it ? .
... it would be paradoxical to say that our consciousness was produced by the evolution of our brain : how can our brain as one tool to apprehend reality via our senses give birth, so to speak , to our consciousness that's a mode to grasp reality , otherwise all our knowledge , including science and evolution , as the presumed products of evolution are ....illusions or survival strategies ,we cannot be sure of their truth or validity .
Not at all; when in doubt, follow the evidence. It's become clear in recent years that other species too have varying degrees of consciousness; some, like our close genetic relatives, recognisably similar to ours (though not as complex in terms of self-awareness). When behavioural traits associated with consciousness have been assessed in other species, the results, have been surprising. In general, the nature and degree of consciousness varies roughly according to complexity of social structure and interaction (which is thought to be one of the drivers of its evolution), and genetically related species tend to rate similarly. Suffice it to say, the evidence from a number of unrelated fields points beyond reasonable doubt to the evolutionary explanation - an explanation that has made testable predictions which have been subsequently borne out. Magic or god-did-it could also explain it all, except those explanations have no utility or predictive power
.
I know that other species do have some degrees of consciousness which cannot match ours , not even remotely close , especially those "related " to us or those closest to us ...
Some say that even atoms do have some degree of consciousness haha
Anyway ,once again , because i am not convinced , if our consciousness was produced by the evolution of our brain , evolution as a matter of chance, survival, accident , evolution as a "blind " process , then it's pretty logical to question the validity of our knowledge in general itself as a product of that "blind " evolution , including that concerning evolution itself ...
Am i wrong again ?
Can you explain what you mean by 'levels of reality', and how you know there are many?
Empirical evidence proved just that partly : Linda Jean Shepherd i mentioned earlier in another post of mine , talked in that unique book of hers about some scientific experiences conducted both on humans and animals which proved the fact that since we are raised a certain way , in order to behave and think a certain way ,we do miss the whole spectrum of other potential levels of reality in the process.
I searched these forums for such a mention, but found none. Perhaps it was a different site. I'm guessing the book was 'Lifting The Veil'?
"Lifting the veil : The feminine face of science " is the title of that unique book of Linda Jean Shepherd : I recommend strongly that you try to make time to read it : very interesting in many ways .
Our consciousness is also fed by non-sensual sources , such as inspiration , revelation , intuition ....in the above mentioned sense , we can develop via our knowledge in the broader sense , via our life and religious experiences ....via wisdom ...That cannot be all just mental or cultural social constructs .
On the contrary, it certainly can; the argument from incredulity was never a particularly robust approach. Again, a lot of new knowledge has emerged from research into these areas, and the experiences of people who've had certain kinds of brain damage have helped a lot. For example, there are cases of damage to certain brain areas that resulted in extraordinary, compulsive artistic inspiration (usually detrimental to other aspects of life). I already mentioned the work on religious experiences, which also shed light on out-of-body experiences and sensations of benign or malevolent presence. Unsurprisingly, drug induced experiences of those kinds also involve the same areas.
I am really puzzeled indeed by some of those experiments , especially those related to damaged areas of the brains of some people ....and how they trigger some radical changes in their behaviours , consciousness,personalities ....as if they become other people than they used to be ....Puzzling indeed .
I have no problems with scientific facts , just with their materialistic exclusive interpretations though .
Materialism which views even life itself as just material processes exclusively can only come up with material or materialistic interpretations of scientific results .
Do you believe in the existence of the human soul by the way ? I guess not, i do not know in fact
Science is not the only valid source of knowledge .
That wasn't the question. But never mind, I see a pattern here.
No, that's not a pattern: when i say that science is not the only valid source of knowledge , i actually mean materialism in science , materialism which excludes all non-materialistic paradigms ...materialism which considers itself to be scientific and true exclusively
"Science (and reason, logic ...) is the only valid source of knowledge " is the "conviction" of many scientists , especially the materialistic ones : that's what i meant also ...
your own reasoning self implies that only reason, logic , science ...are valid sources of knowledge ,so .
A pattern that tells me I'm wasting my time
.
You are not wasting your time , seen from my point of view at least
MY mistake then, sorry : what other valid sources of knowledge do you accept as such , outside of reason, logic , science ?
I wonder what those ancient Islamic scholars would say.
They would probably say that science , reason , logic , islamic revelation ...are all valid sources of knowledge , i presume , while separating science from islam in the process, i presume .
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... I do not understand why we ,as human beings , are reduced to just neurophysiological , chemical , hormonal ...mechanical processes , unless we view life and the universe through the materialistic lense exclusively...
That's all we need to explain it. It's a form of Ockham's Razor; if you can explain observations using the structure of existing knowledge, there is no need to introduce new phenomena. When the Emperor Napoleon read Pierre-Simon Laplace's discourse on secular variations of the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter, he asked "'But where is God in all this?"; Laplace replied "Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis". Quite.
Some scientists even say that even human love is just ...chemistry, to put it simply : weird .
The hormonal and neurological basis of many emotions is known in some detail, but knowing the why and the how doesn't make being angry or afraid or in love any less of an experience. For a detailed explanation of how consciousness is generated and structured, how emotions produce the feelings they do, and so-on, have a read of Antonio Damasio's 'Self Comes To Mind' (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Self-Comes-Mind-Constructing-Conscious/dp/0099498022). For a perspective on why knowing the science behind our experience only enhances it, see Feynman's 'Ode on a Flower' video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSZNsIFID28).
Quantum mechanics is weird and disturbing, but physicists don't reject it - because it works; it explains what we observe.
I should have said that science can say nothing about the natures of both human consciousness and of our inner lives, can it ?
Depends what you mean by 'nature'; it can tell you how consciousness is generated, why it behaves the way it does (for a fascinating explanation of the interaction and relationship between conscious awareness and the subconscious, check out Daniel Kahneman's 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0141033576)), and so-on. An indication of the power of an analytic approach, when applied effectively, is shown by a study of how we process colour perception in the brain, which predicted we should be able to perceive totally new colours that are not normally visible, and then demonstrated how to do it.. this paper, Chimerical Colours (http://web.gc.cuny.edu/cogsci/private/Churchland-chimeric-colors.pdf), actually describes and demonstrates those novel colours. If your monitor is correctly calibrated, or you have a photo-accurate printer, you can see them for yourself. Literally an eye-opener.
i am not convinced , if our consciousness was produced by the evolution of our brain , evolution as a matter of chance, survival, accident , evolution as a "blind " process , then it's pretty logical to question the validity of our knowledge in general itself as a product of that "blind " evolution , including that concerning evolution itself ...
Am i wrong again ?
Of course it's logical to question the validity of our knowledge - if you read Kahneman's book you'll discover just how unreliable our thinking processes are. It's a product of evolution and is only just 'good enough' for us to have survived. If it wasn't good enough we wouldn't have survived; perhaps some other hominid would have taken our niche. Any more than just good enough would have been an unnecessary drain on resources; brains are very energy-demanding, and skull size is limited by the female pelvis; so it's only 'good enough' by a process of literal elimination.
Even when we consciously focus our awareness on problems we make silly mistakes and blunders. This is a major reason progress was so slow until we finally developed and refined rules for critical thinking and a methodology for the reliable acquisition of knowledge - the scientific method. With these tools to assist us, and by following their rules, we can minimise the errors due to cognitive biases and intuitive thinking, and make the most of the limited faculties we have. Here we can see how culture itself has an evolutionary selective advantage, out-competing less organised social systems.
Materialism which views even life itself as just material processes exclusively can only come up with material or materialistic interpretations of scientific results .
Of course. I notice you keep using loaded language 'reduced to just...', 'just material processes', 'only come up with', etc. I refer you to Feynman's argument. It helps if you understand the many layers of complexity at each scale from sub-atomic particles to the human scale and beyond, and the many emergent behaviours on each level that contribute to the complexity of the next (e.g. knowing everything there is to know about a water molecule won't tell you that water is wet; that's an emergent property of water molecules in bulk). Check out this dynamic visualisation (http://htwins.net/scale2/) of different the scales of the universe. I suggest that your implicit denigration of materialism is another form of argument from incredulity - 'there must be more than this'. I was brought up in a Christian Catholic tradition, taught by Benedictine monks, but I dropped that belief system when my eyes were opened to the beauty, complexity and sheer awesomeness of the real, material world around us. It made their absurd contradictory god and the associated rituals seem meaningless. I could see the social and cultural advantages believers got from their religious club, but the rest was all wishful thinking, completely without evidence, fueled by a wish to belong, guilt, and a fear of death. There is more evidence for the tooth fairy (I used to get cash for my baby teeth!). But enough autobiography.
The point is, regardless of what you'd like and other wishful thinking, what's happening is that observations are being explained as simply as we can in terms of testable knowledge that makes predictions. So far, there is no requirement for any non-materialistic or non-physical explanations, and, understandably, no evidence has been found of any such thing. There are a few areas where we don't have enough information, or it's hard to see how to apply our knowledge acquisition rules (singularities. i.e. black holes, the origin of the universe, the nature of subjective experience, etc.), but even if we find that some such things are inevitably unexplainable, that doesn't make it reasonable to invent some non-materialistic fantasy around them. It is OK to say "we don't [yet] know".
Do you believe in the existence of the human soul by the way ?
Not as some paranormal or supernatural essence of self that transcends death, no. As a metaphor for the sum of an individual's mental life - experiences, beliefs, social, cultural, & moral stances, etc., yes.
No, that's not a pattern: when i say that science is not the only valid source of knowledge , i actually mean materialism in science , materialism which excludes all non-materialistic paradigms ...materialism which considers itself to be scientific and true exclusively
You misunderstand it; it simply has no need of non-materialistic paradigms - or anything else that has no discernable effect on the universe.
"Science (and reason, logic ...) is the only valid source of knowledge " is the "conviction" of many scientists , especially the materialistic ones : that's what i meant also ...
People are inherently prone to irrationality, magical thinking, superstition, and other shortcuts and simplifications. Scientists are human too. However, the statement is ambiguous; one could argue that a child playing in a sandpit, trying out ideas, seeing what succeeds and what fails, learning about sand and structure, is doing science - not applying an explicit methodology but observing, hypothesising, and experimenting. By this view any empirically based knowledge aquistion could be called science. One could equally argue that by 'valid' they mean suitable for addition to the established body of existing scientific knowledge; reliable, repeatable, independently verifiable, and so-on. I suspect the latter is closer.
what other valid sources of knowledge do you accept as such, outside of reason, logic , science ?
Depends what you mean by 'valid'. I accept imagination, reported experience, personal perception, etc., as valid sources of various kinds of knowledge, but I don't accept them as necessarily having any direct relevance or import to the body of accumulated human knowledge; i.e., not necessarily valid in a scientific sense.
I can learn interesting things about an imaginary world in literature or film that may not be reasonable, logical, or scientific, but it's only valid within the constraints of its particular context. It has no application or validity to the accumulated body of knowledge of the world, except in its indirect effects on the people who find it interesting or entertaining. For me, this also applies to magical thinking, superstition, and paranormal, supernatural and religious beliefs (in which I am very interested, from the point of view of finding people's reasons for believing in such things; sadly, for the most part, they either seem either unable to articulate their reasons, or the reasons are incoherent, failing even simplistic critical examination).
I wonder what those ancient Islamic scholars would say.
They would probably say that science , reason , logic , islamic revelation ...are all valid sources of knowledge , i presume , while separating science from islam in the process, i presume .
Quite. As I understand it (very little), they saw their task as discovering the wonders of the material world they found themselves in, without regard to immaterial religious considerations.
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Why not send it to me as private mail, and I'll quote it in a post?
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... I do not understand why we ,as human beings , are reduced to just neurophysiological , chemical , hormonal ...mechanical processes , unless we view life and the universe through the materialistic lense exclusively...
That's all we need to explain it. It's a form of Ockham's Razor; if you can explain observations using the structure of existing knowledge, there is no need to introduce new phenomena. When the Emperor Napoleon read Pierre-Simon Laplace's discourse on secular variations of the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter, he asked "'But where is God in all this?"; Laplace replied "Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis". Quite.
The simplest explanation is usually the correct one,just usually , not always .
The problem is : we are not just material mechanical processes, no matter how materialists try to reduce us to just that via their materialistic keyhole or tunnel vision .
( Try to take a look at the past to discover the very genesis of mechanical materialism introduced to the natural sciences by Descartes for the first time in medieval Europe ,and then afterwards to modern philosophy by others, to science as a whole later on , and elsewhere , in order to find out about the Eurocentric cultural social economic political historic ideologicak roots of materialism as a rebellion against medieval christianity , if you wanna know about the true nature of materialism as an Eurocentric ideology which has those false "universal, objective, true ) claims , post-modernism had largely refuted and discredited as such , even though post-modernism is driven by neo-Cartesianism )
Science can indeed approach us , nature , the universe ....from the material (=is not always synonymous of materialism ) perspective only , but that does not mean that that material side is what all there is : can you see the difference ?
I did not talk about God either in my statements here above you quoted, ironically enough .
Some scientists even say that even human love is just ...chemistry, to put it simply : weird .
The hormonal and neurological basis of many emotions is known in some detail, but knowing the why and the how doesn't make being angry or afraid or in love any less of an experience. For a detailed explanation of how consciousness is generated and structured, how emotions produce the feelings they do, and so-on, have a read of Antonio Damasio's 'Self Comes To Mind' (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Self-Comes-Mind-Constructing-Conscious/dp/0099498022). For a perspective on why knowing the science behind our experience only enhances it, see Feynman's 'Ode on a Flower' video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSZNsIFID28).
I will try to take a look at those links you provided > Thanks.
But, you did not answer my question relating to the "scientific fact " that human love is just ...chemistry : explaining the neurophysiological chemical hormonal ...biological thus side of love does not mean that that biological side of love is all what there is , as many materialists say.
Quantum mechanics is weird and disturbing, but physicists don't reject it - because it works; it explains what we observe.
I used the word "weird " in the sense that it makes no sense to say that love is just chemistry .as many materialists say .
I should have said that science can say nothing about the natures of both human consciousness and of our inner lives, can it ?
Depends what you mean by 'nature'; it can tell you how consciousness is generated, why it behaves the way it does (for a fascinating explanation of the interaction and relationship between conscious awareness and the subconscious, check out Daniel Kahneman's 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0141033576)), and so-on. An indication of the power of an analytic approach, when applied effectively, is shown by a study of how we process colour perception in the brain, which predicted we should be able to perceive totally new colours that are not normally visible, and then demonstrated how to do it.. this paper, Chimerical Colours (http://web.gc.cuny.edu/cogsci/private/Churchland-chimeric-colors.pdf), actually describes and demonstrates those novel colours. If your monitor is correctly calibrated, or you have a photo-accurate printer, you can see them for yourself. Literally an eye-opener.
Thanks for those links .
I meant by "nature " what consciousness or our inner lives actually are : science can say nothing about just that , simply because the natures of those 2 are immaterial .
i am not convinced , if our consciousness was produced by the evolution of our brain , evolution as a matter of chance, survival, accident , evolution as a "blind " process , then it's pretty logical to question the validity of our knowledge in general itself as a product of that "blind " evolution , including that concerning evolution itself ...
Am i wrong again ?
Of course it's logical to question the validity of our knowledge - if you read Kahneman's book you'll discover just how unreliable our thinking processes are. It's a product of evolution and is only just 'good enough' for us to have survived. If it wasn't good enough we wouldn't have survived; perhaps some other hominid would have taken our niche. Any more than just good enough would have been an unnecessary drain on resources; brains are very energy-demanding, and skull size is limited by the female pelvis; so it's only 'good enough' by a process of literal elimination.
(The so-called new science =neurotheology , explains only the material biological neurophysiological electrical chemical..sides of some presumed religious experiences though, otherwise , if we say that those true religious experiences are just organic or epileptic malfunctions or just evolutionary survival strategies : then is our scientific knowledge itself via our senses and brains is also a...delusion or malfunction or just an evolutionary survival strategy then = its validity is questionable )
So, our thinking (The evolution of our senses and brains ) was/ is just a survival strategy and hence our knowledge is just that also as a result ,which also means that our very knowledge of evolution itself are just survival strategies : a paradox : how can all that knowledge be valid or true enough then, including our knowledge concerning evolution itself then ?
Even when we consciously focus our awareness on problems we make silly mistakes and blunders. This is a major reason progress was so slow until we finally developed and refined rules for critical thinking and a methodology for the reliable acquisition of knowledge - the scientific method. With these tools to assist us, and by following their rules, we can minimise the errors due to cognitive biases and intuitive thinking, and make the most of the limited faculties we have. Here we can see how culture itself has an evolutionary selective advantage, out-competing less organised social systems.
The same above mentioned paradox can be applied to these words of yours :
How could those evolved methods of critical thinking ,including the scientific method , be reliable , let alone valid , if we take into consideration the "fact " that they were /are just survival strategies , thanks to the evolutionary complexity of our brains ,which has "given birth " to our consciousness then ?
Second : how come that Darwin's theory of evolution which was only concerned with the biological evolution, be extended to the so-called evolutions of cultures , thought , consciousness, politics, economy, science, ethics......that theory does not cover as such ?
Third : how come that some primitive forms of cultures , some primitive forms of religions , and even some "evolved " religions ...how come they still exist ?
Materialism which views even life itself as just material processes exclusively can only come up with material or materialistic interpretations of scientific results .
Of course. I notice you keep using loaded language 'reduced to just...', 'just material processes', 'only come up with', etc. I refer you to Feynman's argument. It helps if you understand the many layers of complexity at each scale from sub-atomic particles to the human scale and beyond, and the many emergent behaviours on each level that contribute to the complexity of the next (e.g. knowing everything there is to know about a water molecule won't tell you that water is wet; that's an emergent property of water molecules in bulk). Check out this dynamic visualisation (http://htwins.net/scale2/) of different the scales of the universe. I suggest that your implicit denigration of materialism is another form of argument from incredulity - 'there must be more than this'. I was brought up in a Christian Catholic tradition, taught by Benedictine monks, but I dropped that belief system when my eyes were opened to the beauty, complexity and sheer awesomeness of the real, material world around us. It made their absurd contradictory god and the associated rituals seem meaningless. I could see the social and cultural advantages believers got from their religious club, but the rest was all wishful thinking, completely without evidence, fueled by a wish to belong, guilt, and a fear of death. There is more evidence for the tooth fairy (I used to get cash for my baby teeth!). But enough autobiography.
Thanks for sharing some of your biography with me , appreciate indeed : t's good to have a human touch to this discussion .
I am afraid , your own personal experience with religion or with christianity in this case (Catholicism ) is just that : your own subjective personal experience : it's good to know about , but it cannot be generalized or be valid .
I know some christians who have the exact opposite to yours personal experiences with christianity though .
My own experience with islam is exactly the opposite of yours also : the more i read , learn, watch...about modern thought in the broader sense , science , art, literature ...the more i read about other religions, cultures , thoughtstreams ...the more i get closer to islam, instead of getting away from it : all those different cultures, religions, thoughtstreams , science ...do bring me closer to islam , ironically enough ....
Or as the great philosopher Muhammed Iqbal once said : western modern thought is just an extension (That had taken/takes its won materialistic though...path )of the islamic original one : most , if not all the goodies, of western modern thought were already developed by the early muslims ...
Note : Islam covers both the material as well as the spiritual mental intellectual ...sides of life by the way : islam says yes also to the material life indeed and islam considers the material side of life as necessary to the spiritual mental psychological intellectual ...evolution of believers and of mankind in general ,Islam deals with the material life moderately though , while christianity almost rejects the material side of life ....
Finate note here : The western enlightenment had made /has been making this following lethal unscientific thought error unfounded generalization :
western enlightenment rejected / rejects all religions, simply because it rejected / rejects christianity : the west had / has some good reasons to reject christianity though .
All religions are certainly not the same , even though they might have some common grounds and common properties with each other ...
The point is, regardless of what you'd like and other wishful thinking, what's happening is that observations are being explained as simply as we can in terms of testable knowledge that makes predictions. So far, there is no requirement for any non-materialistic or non-physical explanations, and, understandably, no evidence has been found of any such thing. There are a few areas where we don't have enough information, or it's hard to see how to apply our knowledge acquisition rules (singularities. i.e. black holes, the origin of the universe, the nature of subjective experience, etc.), but even if we find that some such things are inevitably unexplainable, that doesn't make it reasonable to invent some non-materialistic fantasy around them. It is OK to say "we don't [yet] know".
I can turn your own words upside down as follows :
How can you be so sure then of the "fact " that what escapes or lays outside of the realms of science , reason, logic ....does not exist as such ? You tell me ...
Does the abscence of evidence always mean the evidence of abscence ?
I have been following some interesting debates between prominent atheists such as Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris ,Dennett,Michael Schermer ...and between some prominent christian thinkers or scientists such as Dr D'Souza , John Lennox ...on youtube mainly : the latters do have some counter-arguments that would perplex you as they perplexed those atheists as well ,and vice versa : so, your argumentation and those of those atheists are very relative indeed : so, don't think your argumentation here is waterproof, the same goes for mine .
What then if there is a whole universe out there , whole levels of reality as i like to put , which escape any of our observations, reason, empirics,logic ....?
What then ? have you ever considered that possibility or option ? You should have as a rational scientific person , don't you think ? I am not referring here to that famous pragmatic argument of Pascal though, simply because one should believe in God and act accordingly in the process unconditionally , not out of fear or out of expecting some reward from God for that :
Or as 1 famous ancient mystic woman muslim : Rabia Al Adaouia : she was very known in the medieval christian world , as this muslim woman said in 1 of her mystic poetry :
Something like the following :
Oh My Beloved God ,if i happen to worship you out of fear for your hellfire, then burn me with it ,
And if i happen to worship you out of greed in relation to your paradise , then cast me out of it ...or don't let me enter in it .
Do you believe in the existence of the human soul by the way ?
Not as some paranormal or supernatural essence of self that transcends death, no. As a metaphor for the sum of an individual's mental life - experiences, beliefs, social, cultural, & moral stances, etc., yes.
I wonder what that means , if you happen to see life exclusively from the materialistic lense .
The Qur'an tells us ,for example, that only God knows about the very nature of our souls : i see a human soul as an evolutionary process on earth , which will keep on evolving after death : death as just the beginning of our most ultimate evolution .
No, that's not a pattern: when i say that science is not the only valid source of knowledge , i actually mean materialism in science , materialism which excludes all non-materialistic paradigms ...materialism which considers itself to be scientific and true exclusively
You misunderstand it; it simply has no need of non-materialistic paradigms - or anything else that has no discernable effect on the universe
.
You are arguing like someone who happens to look from a keyhole ,while pretending there is nothingelse out there , unfortunately enough .
Materialism is no more than a keyhole to me .
How can you be so sure there is nothingelse out there then ?
"Science (and reason, logic ...) is the only valid source of knowledge " is the "conviction" of many scientists , especially the materialistic ones : that's what i meant also ...
People are inherently prone to irrationality, magical thinking, superstition, and other shortcuts and simplifications. Scientists are human too. However, the statement is ambiguous; one could argue that a child playing in a sandpit, trying out ideas, seeing what succeeds and what fails, learning about sand and structure, is doing science - not applying an explicit methodology but observing, hypothesising, and experimenting. By this view any empirically based knowledge aquistion could be called science. One could equally argue that by 'valid' they mean suitable for addition to the established body of existing scientific knowledge; reliable, repeatable, independently verifiable, and so-on. I suspect the latter is closer.
Have you become an apologist for materialism ?
There are indeed some superstitions, fairytales, illusions ,delusions ...out there , but that's no reason to say that all what there is out there is just that : illusions, superstitions ....
Islam, for example , came also in order to debunk some illusions, superstitions, fairytales, delusions, idolatery........so, that's 1 of the reasons why the repeated urgent call for critical thinking , reason, logic ....the scientific method are so embedded in the Qur'an....
what other valid sources of knowledge do you accept as such, outside of reason, logic , science ?
Depends what you mean by 'valid'. I accept imagination, reported experience, personal perception, etc., as valid sources of various kinds of knowledge, but I don't accept them as necessarily having any direct relevance or import to the body of accumulated human knowledge; i.e., not necessarily valid in a scientific sense.
Why don't you then accept intuition, even thought it's not always reliable, feeling as a thought-project in the making , even though feeling is not always reliable , as relatively valid sources of knowledge ?
Taking into consideration the very evolutionary nature of our epistemology and scientific method , science ....what if , in the future, mankind would discover some other reliable sources of knowledge we do not know nothing about yet right now ?
Are you gonna keep on being agnostic about that also ?
What if humankind would develop , in the future , some sophisticated , not exclusively materialistic, psychology, science ....that would be able to approach mystic and the true religious experiences properly ? (Materialism will be history, soon enough = inevitable = just a matter of time : many scientists whistleblowers such as Linda Jean Shepherd and many others have turned their back on that exclusive materialistic approach in science and elsewhere by the way )
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@ dlorde :
The following is the rest of my reply to your above mentioned post : We should see a message display reporting the potential exceeding length of a post : That did not happen to be the case when i tried to post my reply on many occasions : I am very embarrassed as a result haha :
Materialism has been becoming a kindda orthodox conservative fanatic religion , science and humanity will get rid of , soon enough : materialism that has been turning science into a kindda exclusive religion : you know that conservatism ,fanatism , extremism, conformism ...in any area of life mean decline at the end ,as that happened to earlier muslims : so, we should learn from history in that regard as well . [/b]
I can learn interesting things about an imaginary world in literature or film that may not be reasonable, logical, or scientific, but it's only valid within the constraints of its particular context. It has no application or validity to the accumulated body of knowledge of the world, except in its indirect effects on the people who find it interesting or entertaining. For me, this also applies to magical thinking, superstition, and paranormal, supernatural and religious beliefs (in which I am very interested, from the point of view of finding people's reasons for believing in such things; sadly, for the most part, they either seem either unable to articulate their reasons, or the reasons are incoherent, failing even simplistic critical examination).
Make no mistake, buddy :
Imagination , feeling , emotion even , and intuition were/are and will be behind many scientific and other discoveries .
Imagination especially is very important in this regard : that's why Einstein said once :
"Imagination is more important than knowledge " : He knew that first hand : without imagination, he could never have been able to come up with his relativity theory ...
Sometimes, literature and art can convey some universal wisdom or approaches of some truths via symbols, fairytales , stories, fiction ....than science, reason,logic ...can ever do : that's 1 of the reasons why good movies, good literature, good art ...are so appealing , because they know how to touch the human soul, imagination and the deepest human consciousness and sub-consciousness in ways science, reason, logic ...can only dream about doing >
I see religion, or islam in this case , as the finest form of art ever also :
Most ,if not all, sophisticated forms of art and literature did come from religion in the broader sense and from islam :
I am a great fan of world literature and i see how the early muslim great literatures and poetry, art have impacted humanity in unparalleled ways :
See how even Dante's Divine Comedy , for example ,even though it demonizes the pophet of islam , had its original antecedent in the form of "The Epistle of forgiveness " by Al Maari .
" Robinson Crusoe " originated from Ibn Toefail 's " Hay Ibn Yakdhan " ...
Not to mention the islamic impact on Goethe's work ...
I can give you a long list regarding that all .
I wonder what those ancient Islamic scholars would say.
They would probably say that science , reason , logic , islamic revelation ...are all valid sources of knowledge , i presume , while separating science from islam in the process, i presume .
Quite. As I understand it (very little), they saw their task as discovering the wonders of the material world they found themselves in, without regard to immaterial religious considerations.
No, it's islam that encouraged them and helped them "invent " science as such , in order to discover God's secrets or signs both within and without : that was even a religious duty, a form of worship of God , in order to understand and serve islam and humanity better , with their eyes on the after-life in the same time , because this wordly life is just a phase leading to the other most and much more important life : the one after death .
And they did that while separating science from islam in the process.And then, afterwards , they tried to make a synthesis from both islam and science , art , literature, wisdom, poetry and from other forms of knowledge ...in order to approach the ultimate reality .
By the way : i think that the ultimate reality is ...spiritual , but that;s another discussion again .
High regards
Thanks
Abdel
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I used the word "weird " in the sense that it makes no sense to say that love is just chemistry .as many materialists say .
It's supposed to be an ironic joke, like when someone points to a raging ocean and you say "It's just water molecules...". An ironic joke that implicitly acknowledges that chemistry and a couple of billion years of evolution can produce something sublime - via the many levels of emergent behaviours and complexity I mentioned previously.
I meant by "nature " what consciousness or our inner lives actually are : science can say nothing about just that , simply because the natures of those 2 are immaterial .
They are processes.
So, our thinking (The evolution of our senses and brains ) was/ is just a survival strategy and hence our knowledge is just that also as a result ,which also means that our very knowledge of evolution itself are just survival strategies : a paradox : how can all that knowledge be valid or true enough then, including our knowledge concerning evolution itself then ?
Evolution doesn't really have a strategy, although people do tend to describe it in anthropmorphic terms. We still have the basic drives, survival, reproduction, curiosity, etc., but we also evolved the capability to reason and plan, so we can direct and focus those drives according to rational log-term goals (at least, in principle - in practice, the desire for short term gratification usually wins out). As I said before, we have developed methods & procedures for acquiring reliable knowledge - it works doesn't it? you can talk to almost anyone on the planet just by pushing a few buttons, you can perform wonders that earlier peoples would consider magic. The power of knowledge that works.
Second : how come that Darwin's theory of evolution which was only concerned with the biological evolution, be extended to the so-called evolutions of cultures , thought , consciousness, politics, economy, science, ethics......that theory does not cover as such ?
Darwin's theory was evolution by natural selection. Other forms of evolution have different drivers, but most involve the generation of variants on a theme, of which only the most successful go on to be the source of further variants and so-on. Stepwise development and refinement.
Third : how come that some primitive forms of cultures , some primitive forms of religions , and even some "evolved " religions ...how come they still exist ?
They fill their particular niches; as long as they don't compete directly or significantly enough with the mainstream forms to be the focus of their attentions, they may continue. Having said that, they're all going extinct at an ever accelerating rate. How many languages have been lost in the last 100 years? How many hunter gather tribes remain?, how many nomads?
I am afraid , your own personal experience with religion or with christianity in this case (Catholicism ) is just that : your own subjective personal experience : it's good to know about , but it cannot be generalized or be valid.
Well, yes; personal experience is personal experience. Whether it can be 'generalized' or be 'valid' rather depends on what you mean. Ultimately, we only have our personal experience, so we have to generalize it or be solipsistic. 'Valid' can mean a multitude of things in the context of personal experience.
How can you be so sure then of the "fact " that what escapes or lays outside of the realms of science , reason, logic ....does not exist as such ? You tell me ..
How can you be so sure science and materialism is a useless waste of time? What, you didn't say that? Tell you what - you stop telling me what I think, and I'll consider continuing the discussion.
What lies beyond science, reason, and logic is, by definition, illogical, irrational, and unscientific. I'm sure there are plenty of ideas that fit the bill. You're welcome to them.
Does the abscence of evidence always mean the evidence of abscence ?
Not necessarily.
don't think your argumentation here is waterproof, the same goes for mine .
I noticed.
What then if there is a whole universe out there , whole levels of reality as i like to put , which escape any of our observations, reason, empirics,logic ....?
What then ? have you ever considered that possibility or option ? You should have as a rational scientific person , don't you think ?
If it doesn't it impinge on us in any detectable way, how would we be aware of its existence? what should/could we do about something we are unaware of?
However, some cosmologists are developing various ideas about a multiverse, in which our universe is one of (possibly infinitely) many, none of which we can ever detect or interact with (well, in most ideas). So, yes, the possibilities have been, and are taken seriously. These ideas are based on the mathematics behind the physical models that explain the development of our own universe; rational speculation based on what is known, and the techniques developed have fed back to help work being done on the physics of our universe, so they're not entirely without practical value.
How can you be so sure there is nothing else out there then ?
How can you be so sure that the universe is shaped like a banana? what - you didn't say that?
There's a multitude of imaginable things I have no evidence of; some are reasonably likely, given what we know about the world; some are fairly unlikely; some very unlikely; and some contradict the most fundamental knowledge we have about the world. A reasonable man treats them accordingly.
Have you become an apologist for materialism ?
Weasel words. Have you stopped beating your wife?
There are indeed some superstitions, fairytales, illusions ,delusions ...out there , but that's no reason to say that all what there is out there is just that : illusions, superstitions ...
No, indeed.
Why don't you then accept intuition, even thought it's not always reliable, feeling as a thought-project in the making , even though feeling is not always reliable , as relatively valid sources of knowledge ?
Did I say that? Intuition can be extremely useful in appropriate contexts. Check out Malcolm Gladwell's 'Blink' (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0141014598). When you are expertly familiar with a field, intuition can be one of the most useful tools. In a field you are not expertly familiar with, it can make a complete fool of you. As Feynman said, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool".
Taking into consideration the very evolutionary nature of our epistemology and scientific method , science ....what if , in the future, mankind would discover some other reliable sources of knowledge we do not know nothing about yet right now ?
Are you gonna keep on being agnostic about that also ?
What am I being agnostic about?
What if humankind would develop , in the future , some sophisticated , not exclusively materialistic, psychology, science ....that would be able to approach mystic and the true religious experiences properly ? (Materialism will be history, soon enough = inevitable = just a matter of time : many scientists whistleblowers such as Linda Jean Shepherd and many others have turned their back on that exclusive materialistic approach in science and elsewhere by the way )
What if it turns out the Jews were right? what if we're all characters in a simulation? what if I'm a brain in a jar? what if I'm a butterfly dreaming I'm a man? what if the moon is made of cheese?
When the time comes, I will do what I think is right.
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Make no mistake, buddy :
Imagination , feeling , emotion even , and intuition were/are and will be behind many scientific and other discoveries .
Imagination especially is very important in this regard : that's why Einstein said once :
"Imagination is more important than knowledge " : He knew that first hand : without imagination, he could never have been able to come up with his relativity theory ...
Sometimes, literature and art can convey some universal wisdom or approaches of some truths via symbols, fairytales , stories, fiction ....than science, reason,logic ...can ever do : that's 1 of the reasons why good movies, good literature, good art ...are so appealing , because they know how to touch the human soul, imagination and the deepest human consciousness and sub-consciousness in ways science, reason, logic ...can only dream about doing
Make no mistake buddy, I'm well aware of the power of imagination; and if I hadn't been, this discussion would do it.
I can give you a long list regarding that all .
Please don't trouble yourself.
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I used the word "weird " in the sense that it makes no sense to say that love is just chemistry .as many materialists say .
It's supposed to be an ironic joke, like when someone points to a raging ocean and you say "It's just water molecules...". An ironic joke that implicitly acknowledges that chemistry and a couple of billion years of evolution can produce something sublime - via the many levels of emergent behaviours and complexity I mentioned previously.
Well, many materialistic scientists do not see that as a joke : they are very serious about it , as Dennet and others think seriously that the evolutionary complexity of the "organization " of neurons had produced human consciousness haha .
It would be really a weird joke to say that love is just chemistry though : what a weird and silly sense of humor that would be haha .
Besides : if human love is a product of evolution, then it is just a sophisticated pragmatic practical "sub-conscious " survival strategy or self-deceit without any intrinsic value : do you really actually think that your mother's or your other beloved's love for you is just that ? : that we love each other in order just to survive , deceiving ourselves and others in the process ?
What about values or virtues such as honesty , altruism , self-sacrifice , dedication, loyalty , solidarity ...then , or ethics in general ? Do you see them also as just pragmatic survival strategies ? What a sinister cynical world that would be if that was the case .
I know what evolutionary materialists say about all that : it just does not convince me really , not always though .
I just recall Spinoza's monism or monistic ethics, as the roots of modern rational liberal ethics by the way :
Spinoza used to think that neither free will, good or evil as such do exist : only what feels good for us or what benefits us is good , he thought , and only what is bad for us is evil : utilitarianism avant la lettre .
I prefer the neo-feminist ethics of care though to that at least ,which try to improve those heartless so-called rational liberal ethics (Kantian, contractarianist, utilitarianist ) by introducing to them the notions of love , feeling , solidarity, human loyalty .... , even at the global level .
See how those liberal ethics and ethics of the market have been even invading our own private , personal and familial spaces where they do absolutely not belong :
Try to read this interesting book on the matter : "Ethics of care : personal, political and global " By Virginia Held .
I meant by "nature " what consciousness or our inner lives actually are : science can say nothing about just that , simply because the natures of those 2 are immaterial .
They are processes.
I know : i already mentioned that human consciousness was/ is and will be a dynamic processes , i think : but it is not just material processes , even though science can study its material biological impact on or its interaction with the body ...
So, our thinking (The evolution of our senses and brains ) was/ is just a survival strategy and hence our knowledge is just that also as a result ,which also means that our very knowledge of evolution itself are just survival strategies : a paradox : how can all that knowledge be valid or true enough then, including our knowledge concerning evolution itself then ?
Evolution doesn't really have a strategy, although people do tend to describe it in anthropmorphic terms. We still have the basic drives, survival, reproduction, curiosity, etc., but we also evolved the capability to reason and plan, so we can direct and focus those drives according to rational log-term goals (at least, in principle - in practice, the desire for short term gratification usually wins out). As I said before, we have developed methods & procedures for acquiring reliable knowledge - it works doesn't it? you can talk to almost anyone on the planet just by pushing a few buttons, you can perform wonders that earlier peoples would consider magic. The power of knowledge that works.
I used the concept "survival strategy " in Dawkins' terms he displayed in his "Selfish Gene " : survival strategies via the natural selection as something not "conscious " :
in the same fashion that the mechanisms of DNA , "selfish gene " ...do not refer to conscious processes , but to just mechanical ones "we just dance to their music ", as Dawkins said in that book of his .
The whole point of that book was to prove the "fact " that we are just some kindda robots driven by DNA ....and that altruism, for example , is in fact just "selfishness in disguise " ..
So, if we are just robots driven by mechanical survival strategies via the natural selection , how come that we consider our knowledge , ethics , spirituality , consciousness, feelings,, emotions, love, conscience ....as real or valid concepts ? = makes no sense .
There is a big difference though between knowledge that works, as you put it = pragmatic practical knowledge , and between true knowledge .
William James changed our understanding of the concept of truth radically indeed : but that does not mean that his assumptions true though, not in the absolute sense at least .
Pragmatism and the truth are 2 different things , even though pragmatism = results on the reality ground can be easily confused with the truth ,despite the efforts of William James ,as one of the fathers of pragmatism,who tried to change the conventional subject-object relationship in philosophy and elsewhere radically , by trying to prove in his "Does consciousness exist ? " that the latter does not exist as such, not as an "entity " at least ( I agree with this at least ) :so, what works for you is the truth , as he used to say :
He also extended that to religion by saying that if belief in God makes you happy , than it is true = a paradox , not to mention that he reduced religion to just the belief in God ...
We "see " pragmatism nowadays extended to all areas , including to politics, science , economy , history , anthropology, sociology, psychology .....unfortunately enough .
Second : how come that Darwin's theory of evolution which was only concerned with the biological evolution, be extended to the so-called evolutions of cultures , thought , consciousness, politics, economy, science, ethics......that theory does not cover as such ?
Darwin's theory was evolution by natural selection. Other forms of evolution have different drivers, but most involve the generation of variants on a theme, of which only the most successful go on to be the source of further variants and so-on. Stepwise development and refinement.
Darwin's theory of evolution was only biological : why is it then applied to cultures , thought , ethics ...? That's what i should have said , even though , there are of course intellectual social cultural psychological political economic ...and even spiritual forms of evolution which occur at other levels than the biological one does , and therefore have some different set of "rules " : to apply the evolutionary biological "rules " of natural selection to thought, cultures, religions, ethics, politics, economics , society ....and so on , is simply incorrect thus .
Otherwise , how come that primitive cultures, primitive religions ....primitive societies even ...still exist ? , not to mention the fact that evolution is not always "progressive " = it fails to explain progress , for example, to mention just that .
BY the way : do you think that liberal secular democracy and its capitalist economic wing are the "highest " forms of culture ,or that they are "The end of history " ? , considering the fact that evolution is purposeless : high or low , developed or primitive judgements of value have no meaning in evolutionary terms.
Third : how come that some primitive forms of cultures , some primitive forms of religions , and even some "evolved " religions ...how come they still exist ?
They fill their particular niches; as long as they don't compete directly or significantly enough with the mainstream forms to be the focus of their attentions, they may continue. Having said that, they're all going extinct at an ever accelerating rate. How many languages have been lost in the last 100 years? How many hunter gather tribes remain?, how many nomads?
No, it's almost all man made ,almost all those changes you were referring to :
strong cultures or strong empires tend to oppress and annihilate the weaker ones ,on purpose , in order to dominate them : misuse of power : that's a conscious misuse of power that's deeply hidden in the human nature : that tendency to "crash , enslave , wipe out , cleanse ..." other weaker cultures , is a matter of free will . that can be resisted though .
See how globalism or Americanism in fact has been turning this planet into one global form of culture , thought , ethics ....(That's called imperialism in fact ) where almost everybody watches the same movies, eats the same food, thinks the same way , dresses the same way , listens to the same music , read the same books ...
That has nothing to do with evolution : that's what empires tend to do mostly : that's what the human nature , if not restrained , does to others and to other cultures :
And that's no irreversible development , simply because empires rise and fall ...simply because peoples tend to revolt against oppression, imperialism, injustices, slavery , inequalities .....
I am afraid , your own personal experience with religion or with christianity in this case (Catholicism ) is just that : your own subjective personal experience : it's good to know about , but it cannot be generalized or be valid.
Well, yes; personal experience is personal experience. Whether it can be 'generalized' or be 'valid' rather depends on what you mean. Ultimately, we only have our personal experience, so we have to generalize it or be solipsistic. 'Valid' can mean a multitude of things in the context of personal experience.
What i meant is that the value of your personal experiences or those of others are a matter of relativity, of the uniqueness of every individual .... .
Every personal experience is unique and relative , not to mention that it is mostly subjective, even though , it contains some cognitive elements ...
We can , relatively , learn from other people's experiences , and vice versa , but they are certainly not objective , let alone universal or true in the absolute sense .
How can you be so sure then of the "fact " that what escapes or lays outside of the realms of science , reason, logic ....does not exist as such ? You tell me ..
How can you be so sure science and materialism is a useless waste of time? What, you didn't say that? Tell you what - you stop telling me what I think, and I'll consider continuing the discussion.
My sincere genuine apologies if i have unintentionally hurt your feelings .I did not intend to do that .
You do not have to get angry . I just try to be honest with you : i do not see what hypocritical or politically -correct talk can do any of us any good , that's why i talked to you this way : i am not telling you what to think , i just question your words, that's all .
Besides, i do not reject science , i love it passionately , you have no idea : i just reject materialism in science as an ideology ,but not totally though , i just reject the materialistic interpretations of scientific facts , as i do reject the materialistic mechanical deterministic reductionistic exclusive paradigms in science , such as that materialistic outdated and largely refuted and discredited "Newtonian -Cartesian " paradigm in science , that's all .
What lies beyond science, reason, and logic is, by definition, illogical, irrational, and unscientific. I'm sure there are plenty of ideas that fit the bill. You're welcome to them.
We can "see" some of what lies beyond that as something existing in other dimensions , other universes ,or in other levels of reality , why not ?
As there might be other living species outside of our known universe , there can be whole of other levels of reality with their own set of rules, logic , reason ....as well , Why not ?
Is this not an option ?
Does the abscence of evidence always mean the evidence of abscence ?
Not necessarily
.
Well then, why should we exclude the possibility or probability that there might be some other levels of reality out there which require other forms of evidence than just our poor reason, logic , science ...can provide ?
don't think your argumentation here is waterproof, the same goes for mine .
I noticed.
Exactly : no one posesses the "truth " , the latter as a dynamic process though ...
Our accumulated data is not "The end of history ", not even remotely close thus
What then if there is a whole universe out there , whole levels of reality as i like to put , which escape any of our observations, reason, empirics,logic ....?
What then ? have you ever considered that possibility or option ? You should have as a rational scientific person , don't you think ?
If it doesn't it impinge on us in any detectable way, how would we be aware of its existence? what should/could we do about something we are unaware of?
Exactly , that's 1 of the reasons why the merciful creator informed us about that possibility in the form of revelations, i presume .
However, some cosmologists are developing various ideas about a multiverse, in which our universe is one of (possibly infinitely) many, none of which we can ever detect or interact with (well, in most ideas). So, yes, the possibilities have been, and are taken seriously. These ideas are based on the mathematics behind the physical models that explain the development of our own universe; rational speculation based on what is known, and the techniques developed have fed back to help work being done on the physics of our universe, so they're not entirely without practical value.
Right : the advances of cosmology itself are reasons enough to make us humble enough about what we can and cannot know about the universe (s).
We do not know much about the whole universe , not even remotely close , there are billions of galaxies discovered so far , and there might be much more than just that out there .Who knows?
So, why should we think that we can know everything about all that unknown , as a mortal species ?
How can you be so sure there is nothing else out there then ?
How can you be so sure that the universe is shaped like a banana? what - you didn't say that?
Banana ? haha
I love bananas ....why bananas ?
That put aside :
I do not know , i wanna know , but i know i cannot, as we cannot know all what there is out there to know ....We should be humble enough to acknowledge the limits of our knowledge .
There's a multitude of imaginable things I have no evidence of; some are reasonably likely, given what we know about the world; some are fairly unlikely; some very unlikely; and some contradict the most fundamental knowledge we have about the world. A reasonable man treats them accordingly.
Knowledge is dynamic , not static , a lots of things were not known to other humans , say ,some centuries ago, or just some decades ago ...or just some years ago ... or just some days ago...or some secs ago...
The progress of science is so overwhelming and rapid that it changes our knowledge and ourselves in the process in a matter of secs sometimes, so ...
Have you become an apologist for materialism ?
Weasel words. Have you stopped beating your wife?
You were trying to find excuses for materialism , so : that makes you an apologist of it , no offense , sorry .
I never beat my wife though , never , or vice versa haha ...we are way too ethical for that: i do not get easily hurt , you see ? haha
There are indeed some superstitions, fairytales, illusions ,delusions ...out there , but that's no reason to say that all what there is out there is just that : illusions, superstitions ...
No, indeed.
Well then
Why don't you then accept intuition, even thought it's not always reliable, feeling as a thought-project in the making , even though feeling is not always reliable , as relatively valid sources of knowledge ?
Did I say that? Intuition can be extremely useful in appropriate contexts. Check out Malcolm Gladwell's 'Blink' (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0141014598). When you are expertly familiar with a field, intuition can be one of the most useful tools. In a field you are not expertly familiar with, it can make a complete fool of you. As Feynman said, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool".
Agree , but i did encounter some illiterate people even who had some good intuitions about many things though , not always , so .
I think you should see this about intuition in maths :
Very enlightening indeed :
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/dangerous-knowledge/
Taking into consideration the very evolutionary nature of our epistemology and scientific method , science ....what if , in the future, mankind would discover some other reliable sources of knowledge we do not know nothing about yet right now ?
Are you gonna keep on being agnostic about that also ?
What am I being agnostic about?
..about unknown levels of reality ...
What if humankind would develop , in the future , some sophisticated , not exclusively materialistic, psychology, science ....that would be able to approach mystic and the true religious experiences properly ? (Materialism will be history, soon enough = inevitable = just a matter of time : many scientists whistleblowers such as Linda Jean Shepherd and many others have turned their back on that exclusive materialistic approach in science and elsewhere by the way )
What if it turns out the Jews were right? what if we're all characters in a simulation? what if I'm a brain in a jar? what if I'm a butterfly dreaming I'm a man? what if the moon is made of cheese?
Well, then you should be humble enough not to exclude any unknown existences that Russell's tea pot argument does not cover ,unless you are absolutely sure they do not exist .
When the time comes, I will do what I think is right.
What if science , reason, logic ...can't provide you with the evidence or with the non-evidence of what you might or might not be looking for ?
What then , what would you say to your creator when you will meet Him ? simply put .
Will you tell Him that science , reason, logic ....could not , per definition, prove to you His existence ...?
Thanks, appreciate
Best wishes
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Make no mistake, buddy :
Imagination , feeling , emotion even , and intuition were/are and will be behind many scientific and other discoveries .
Imagination especially is very important in this regard : that's why Einstein said once :
"Imagination is more important than knowledge " : He knew that first hand : without imagination, he could never have been able to come up with his relativity theory ...
Sometimes, literature and art can convey some universal wisdom or approaches of some truths via symbols, fairytales , stories, fiction ....than science, reason,logic ...can ever do : that's 1 of the reasons why good movies, good literature, good art ...are so appealing , because they know how to touch the human soul, imagination and the deepest human consciousness and sub-consciousness in ways science, reason, logic ...can only dream about doing
Make no mistake buddy, I'm well aware of the power of imagination; and if I hadn't been, this discussion would do it.
Right , i know , i just reminded you of that though .
I can give you a long list regarding that all .
Please don't trouble yourself.
It was just a though though
Thanks, buddy
Kind regards
Take care
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@ dlorde :
I recommend strongly this nice book to read : "Geography of Thought , or how westerners and Asians think differently, and why ? "" By Nisbett ( I will give you his full name later on )
Note : i do have some trouble with his liberal evolutionary "Geography " of thought concept and paradigm though ...
(There has been a global brain-surge or thought revolution going on , in order to bring East and West together, that's how or why that book was born, among many others as well .)
But , it's every enlightening in many ways anyway .
Most of us do think that we, as human beings , do think " the same universal way " , if we are educated enough at least , bu that's not the case , not in the absolute sense at least .
Nisbett's final thought in the book was the expression of his hope and optimism , regarding the future of humanity at the level of thought , cultures, religions ....when humanity will come together to make a truely universal synthesis of thought , cultures , religions ...via their universal common grounds , for the benefit of all mankind , instead of just those exclusive dominating Eurocentric western thought , ethics, western cultures...
I do agree with the essence of his latter plea i do share with him as well , as i told you earlier via that concert of Yanni , i just see that occuring in the future differently , as i do think differently than he does as a westerner ...
That unique book of his was also and mainly a pragmatic utilitarianist practical approach as well , ironically enough , but there is nothing wrong about that , in essence at least .
His final expressed wish to see a certain fusion or nice cocktails of all humanity 's thought , cultures ,ethics, religions, thoughtstreams ...was not absolutely Eurocentrism-free though ,sub-consciously at least , i must add : but that's ok, simply because we are all products of our cultures and societies , relatively speaking .Only very very very few geniuses can rise above their own cultures . social and mental constructs, to some extent at least .
Bye: it has been a real pleasure talking to you , i have been learning a lot from you as well . I mean it .
See ya later , alligator .
kidding .
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Well, many materialistic scientists do not see that as a joke : they are very serious about it , as Dennet and others think seriously that the evolutionary complexity of the "organization " of neurons had produced human consciousness haha .
I think they're right.
It would be really a weird joke to say that love is just chemistry though : what a weird and silly sense of humor that would be haha .
I can only explain it, I can't make you understand it.
.. if human love is a product of evolution, then it is just a sophisticated pragmatic practical "sub-conscious " survival strategy or self-deceit without any intrinsic value : do you really actually think that your mother's or your other beloved's love for you is just that ? : that we love each other in order just to survive , deceiving ourselves and others in the process ?
It's intrinsic value is it's contribution to the survival of the species. The associated rewarding emotional feelings are another form of intrinsic value. The latter is the chief driver of the former.
What about values or virtues such as honesty , altruism , self-sacrifice , dedication, loyalty , solidarity ...then , or ethics in general ? Do you see them also as just pragmatic survival strategies ?
Yup. Again with the loaded qualifier 'just' - your bias is showing...
What a sinister cynical world that would be if that was the case .
Naked appeal to emotion? Objectively they are rooted in pragmatic survival strategies. Subjectively they are core of human social & cultural experience. The distinction between objective and subjective is important. However you view it, the natural world is what it is, and has no obligation to pander to your tender sensibilities.
i already mentioned that human consciousness was/ is and will be a dynamic processes , i think : but it is not just material processes , even though science can study its material biological impact on or its interaction with the body ...
A process is what material things do; it is not itself material, it is conceptual.
I used the concept "survival strategy " in Dawkins' terms he displayed in his "Selfish Gene " : survival strategies via the natural selection as something not "conscious "
Dawkins doesn't exclude the development of consciousness from evolutionary survival strategies; He's saying all evolutionary strategies (including cognitive strategies) can be viewed in terms of genetic survival because the gene is the unit of heredity and genetic change supplies the variation on which natural selection operates.
The whole point of that book was to prove the "fact " that we are just some kindda robots driven by DNA ....and that altruism, for example , is in fact just "selfishness in disguise "
If you think that was the point of the book, you missed the point... (he has said that, with hindsight, he wouldn't have used 'selfish' in the title because so many have misunderstood it). Did you actually read it?
So, if we are just robots driven by mechanical survival strategies via the natural selection , how come that we consider our knowledge , ethics , spirituality , consciousness, feelings,, emotions, love, conscience ....as real or valid concepts ? = makes no sense .
We have evolved the capacity for creative, flexible, adaptable behaviour that enables us to more effectively achieve our goals. It's entirely up to you whether you want to call that 'just robotic' or not.
There is a big difference though between knowledge that works, as you put it = pragmatic practical knowledge , and between true knowledge .
Hmm, is that 'false dichotomy' or 'no true Scotsman'? The former, I suspect.
Darwin's theory of evolution was only biological : why is it then applied to cultures , thought , ethics ...?
I explained that. The fundamental principle applies beyond biology.
Otherwise , how come that primitive cultures, primitive religions ....primitive societies even ...still exist ?
I already discussed this.
not to mention the fact that evolution is not always "progressive " = it fails to explain progress , for example, to mention just that .
It depends what you mean by progress. Evolution by natural selection is undirected and agnostic on complexity; it acts to remove variations that are not fit for (good enough to survive) their environment. Sometimes the fittest variations are more complex than their predecessors, sometimes less (there are many examples of evolutionary simplification). Drivers like predator prey 'arms races', or sexual selection, often rapidly increase complexity.
BY the way : do you think that liberal secular democracy and its capitalist economic wing are the "highest " forms of culture ,or that they are "The end of history " ? , considering the fact that evolution is purposeless : high or low , developed or primitive judgements of value have no meaning in evolutionary terms.
Unless the world ends tomorrow, they aren't the end of history. Whether they are the 'highest' forms of culture depends on your choice of criteria for height. In practice, they are not without flaws. Churchill amusing said "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
strong cultures or strong empires tend to oppress and annihilate the weaker ones ,on purpose , in order to dominate them : misuse of power : that's a conscious misuse of power that's deeply hidden in the human nature
Quite; it's an expression of some of our most basic evolutionary drives.
... that can be resisted though .
Yes; the same consciousness can rationalize a broader view, extending the group/tribe to encompass humanity as a whole. It's a struggle, because the natural tendency is towards smaller groups and competition.
That has nothing to do with evolution : that's what empires tend to do mostly : that's what the human nature , if not restrained , does to others and to other cultures
That's contradictory, as human nature is a product of evolution - the clue is in the word 'nature'. So it has a lot to do with evolution.
Every personal experience is unique and relative , not to mention that it is mostly subjective, even though , it contains some cognitive elements ...
Unique and relative personal experience is pretty much the definition of subjectivity. Conscious experience is all cognitive...
My sincere genuine apologies ... i am not telling you what to think , i just question your words, that's all .
Apology accepted. If you want to question my words, why not just do that instead of putting words in my mouth?
We can "see" some of what lies beyond that as something existing in other dimensions , other universes ,or in other levels of reality , why not ?
I know of no evidence of such things. Can you describe what you 'see' and how you distinguish it from imagination?
As there might be other living species outside of our known universe , there can be whole of other levels of reality with their own set of rules, logic , reason ....as well , Why not ?
Is this not an option ?
You can speculate about whatever you can imagine. Let me know when you find plausible arguments and/or evidence to support whatever it may be.
.. why should we exclude the possibility or probability that there might be some other levels of reality out there which require other forms of evidence than just our poor reason, logic , science ...can provide ?
By all means speculate and fantasize to your heart's content. Others feel the observable universe is a more productive use of their time.
So, why should we think that we can know everything about all that unknown , as a mortal species ?
We don't, that's why we keep on questioning.
You were trying to find excuses for materialism , so : that makes you an apologist of it , no offense , sorry .
You're welcome to your opinion, but if you think describing how science and critical thinking work is excusing materialism, it probably says more about your agenda or bias than mine.
Well, then you should be humble enough not to exclude any unknown existences that Russell's tea pot argument does not cover ,unless you are absolutely sure they do not exist .
Indeed, we should all be so humble.
What then , what would you say to your creator when you will meet Him ? simply put .
Will you tell Him that science , reason, logic ....could not , per definition, prove to you His existence ...?
Yes, I probably would. If a hypothetical creator seriously wanted to be acknowledged, one might expect it to do a better job of being noticed.
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Well, many materialistic scientists do not see that as a joke : they are very serious about it , as Dennet and others think seriously that the evolutionary complexity of the "organization " of neurons had produced human consciousness haha .
I think they're right.
I think not , for the obvious reasons that the implications of that make no sense whatsoever :
If we are just mechanical material processes driven by DNA ...via the natural selection, then there is no reason to assume that we have such "things" as love , ethics, knowledge , consciousness ....to put it simply : Think about it : material processes do not generate immaterial ones , as real machines cannot feel, think , love , ....Obvious.
Ethics or morality , love, emotions, consciousness , feelings , thought, progress ....are even meaningless in evolutionary terms, that's why are those Spinoza's approaches of ethics or modern materialistic monism instead is dominant in science nowadays .
It would be really a weird joke to say that love is just chemistry though : what a weird and silly sense of humor that would be haha
.
I can only explain it, I can't make you understand it.
A joke is mainly a matter of taste , not of cognition .
.. if human love is a product of evolution, then it is just a sophisticated pragmatic practical "sub-conscious " survival strategy or self-deceit without any intrinsic value : do you really actually think that your mother's or your other beloved's love for you is just that ? : that we love each other in order just to survive , deceiving ourselves and others in the process ?
It's intrinsic value is it's contribution to the survival of the species. The associated rewarding emotional feelings are another form of intrinsic value. The latter is the chief driver of the former.
I thought that love should be ...unconditional, not a sub-conscious or conscious transaction : utilitarianism or pragmatism have no place under the beautiful umbrella of true love .
Do you really believe in love though ? You shouldn't believe in the existence of love as such , if you are a true materialist , i think , if you wanna be consistent with yourself at least , because that mechanical deterministic reductionistic materialism is the very logical negation or denial , per definition, of the existence of love as such .
What about values or virtues such as honesty , altruism , self-sacrifice , dedication, loyalty , solidarity ...then , or ethics in general ? Do you see them also as just pragmatic survival strategies ?
Yup. Again with the loaded qualifier 'just' - your bias is showing...
See above : if we are just mechanical processes ....ethics would have no meaning : ethics have no meaning in evolutionary terms, ethics as just survival strategies = illusions in order to survive .
Ethics should have an unconditional human intrinsic value, not just an utilitarianist, contractarianist , Kantian or pragmatic practical basis, otherwise they are just transactions without any intrinsic value , exactly as paper money mostly is .
What a sinister cynical world that would be if that was the case .
Naked appeal to emotion? Objectively they are rooted in pragmatic survival strategies. Subjectively they are core of human social & cultural experience. The distinction between objective and subjective is important. However you view it, the natural world is what it is, and has no obligation to pander to your tender sensibilities.
You do sound like Dawkins ' soul mate : the natural world is what it is : a mechanical one : nature does neither care nor reflect , nature is just is , as he likes to say : but that's a matter of controversy , especially the nature of humans or human nature .
We are unique,even though we have many things in common with other animals , at the biological level at least .So, do not confuse the biological processes with the conscious ones, otherwise ethics , human consciousness, love , feelings , emotions ....have no meaning .
Try to think about that .
i already mentioned that human consciousness was/ is and will be a dynamic processes , i think : but it is not just material processes , even though science can study its material biological impact on or its interaction with the body ...
I used the concept "survival strategy " in Dawkins' terms he displayed in his "Selfish Gene " : survival strategies via the natural selection as something not "conscious "
Dawkins doesn't exclude the development of consciousness from evolutionary survival strategies; He's saying all evolutionary strategies (including cognitive strategies) can be viewed in terms of genetic survival because the gene is the unit of heredity and genetic change supplies the variation on which natural selection operates.
Once again , biological evolution cannot be extended to the human mental intellectual social cultural political , spiritual ...areas : those both categories do evolve , but at different levels , and via different set of "rules "
This deterministic reductionistic materialistic , no offense , view of man, life , nature , the universe ...of yours is not only outdated and largely discredited , but it does also make no sense : see how the theory of chaos in maths had kissed mechanical determinism and predictability goodbye :
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/high-anxieties-the-mathematics-of-chaos/
The whole point of that book was to prove the "fact " that we are just some kindda robots driven by DNA ....and that altruism, for example , is in fact just "selfishness in disguise "
If you think that was the point of the book, you missed the point... (he has said that, with hindsight, he wouldn't have used 'selfish' in the title because so many have misunderstood it). Did you actually read it ?.
Yes i did , some time ago , why ?
Dawkins concluded in that book of his that altruism does not exist in nature , and that it had never existed in history either .Humans should try to develop altruism, he added, in themselves though haha : a paradox , in others and in the next generations ...
How can altruism be developed or learned by humans if they are just material determined mechanical processes ? You tell me .
I do not understand , and it's a mystery to me how you cannot see the intrinsic contradictions of materialism at these levels we have been talking about .Really .
So, if we are just robots driven by mechanical survival strategies via the natural selection , how come that we consider our knowledge , ethics , spirituality , consciousness, feelings,, emotions, love, conscience ....as real or valid concepts ? = makes no sense .
We have evolved the capacity for creative, flexible, adaptable behaviour that enables us to more effectively achieve our goals. It's entirely up to you whether you want to call that 'just robotic' or not.
[/quote]
Maybe you happen to have some unique to yourself definition of the word "robot " , i do not know : a robot , a machine , or any organic biological determined mechanical processes cannot , per definition , generate "things " like human consciousness, love , feelings , emotions ....
I would love to hear you explain to me how we were supposed to develop all those skills , consciousness , love , feelings , emotions, thinking ...via those mechanical biological processes that were/are driven by the natural selection ....Really : how does that happen ? via the different levels of that emergent property theory ? Come on, be serious .
There is a big difference though between knowledge that works, as you put it = pragmatic practical knowledge , and between true knowledge .
Hmm, is that 'false dichotomy' or 'no true Scotsman'? The former, I suspect.
Ok, let me put it this way then :
Do you think that the pragmatic practical approach of the truth concept is true or valid ?
That what works for you is true, and vice versa ?
That if the belief in God makes you happy , then is that belief ...true ?
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@ dlorde :
The following is the rest of my reply to your above displayed latest post :
Darwin's theory of evolution was only biological : why is it then applied to cultures , thought , ethics ...?
Quote by dlorde : I explained that. The fundamental principle applies beyond biology.
Beyond biology ? You are contradicting yourself again : i thought that Darwin's theory was all about biology and ecology ,in the material and materialistic senses .
Darwin's theory of evolution does not cover what is supposed to be beyond biology , simply because it is only about biology -ecology .
Otherwise , how come that primitive cultures, primitive religions ....primitive societies even ...still exist ?
I already discussed this.
Your arguments failed to address that issue , i should remind you .
"It grieves me that those religious neurophysiological biological processe do not go away , religion has a tenacity to survive " as Dawkins said , or in words to that same effect at least : is this what you meant earlier ?
But , religion is here to stay , my friend, until the end of time and beyond , i must disappoint you : religion should disappear , according to evolutionary geniuses : why does it not disappear then ?
How come that even many highly intelligent people and geniuses believed and do still believe in ...religion ? ,If the materialistic evolutionary approach of religion is true .
not to mention the fact that evolution is not always "progressive " = it fails to explain progress , for example, to mention just that .
It depends what you mean by progress. Evolution by natural selection is undirected and agnostic on complexity; it acts to remove variations that are not fit for (good enough to survive) their environment. Sometimes the fittest variations are more complex than their predecessors, sometimes less (there are many examples of evolutionary simplification). Drivers like predator prey 'arms races', or sexual selection, often rapidly increase complexity.
Evolution is all about just survival , let me remind you , progress is beyond just survival : progress is unnecessary in evolutionary terms : progress means nothing even , in evolutionary terms .Or is progress just a side effect of evolution, as music, for example , "is " ? How come that evolution can produce such side effects which go against the very nature and function of evolution : makes no sense .
BY the way : do you think that liberal secular democracy and its capitalist economic wing are the "highest " forms of culture ,or that they are "The end of history " ? , considering the fact that evolution is purposeless : high or low , developed or primitive judgements of value have no meaning in evolutionary terms.
Unless the world ends tomorrow, they aren't the end of history. Whether they are the 'highest' forms of culture depends on your choice of criteria for height. In practice, they are not without flaws. Churchill amusing said "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
"Liberal democracy and its economic capitalist wing as he end of history " (The end of history and the end of time are 2 different things though ) means that they are the last cultural developments mankind can ever achieve at the levels of culture , politics , economy , society ....as that Japanese -US thinker stated in that famous book of his , i do not recall either his name or his book's name tight now , later then , after the fall of the Soviet Union : democracy and capitalism as the end of history -= their alleged final victory .
How come ? Evolution is supposedly still taking place though , not to mention progress which falls outside of any evolutionary approaches .
strong cultures or strong empires tend to oppress and annihilate the weaker ones ,on purpose , in order to dominate them : misuse of power : that's a conscious misuse of power that's deeply hidden in the human nature
Quite; it's an expression of some of our most basic evolutionary drives.
... that can be resisted though .
Yes; the same consciousness can rationalize a broader view, extending the group/tribe to encompass humanity as a whole. It's a struggle, because the natural tendency is towards smaller groups and competition.
Where or when did you see that happening lately , that hypothetical utopian vision to encompass all humanity : via the western Eurocentric thought , ethics , cultures ... ??? which do claim to be "universal, objective, true " in the absolute sense : see what post-modernism did to that modernistic false vision : Eurocentrism as mainly a western white racist phallogocentric paternalistic imperialistic vision in disguise .
That has nothing to do with evolution : that's what empires tend to do mostly : that's what the human nature , if not restrained , does to others and to other cultures.
That's contradictory, as human nature is a product of evolution - the clue is in the word 'nature'. So it has a lot to do with evolution.
These are just semantics : the human nature and nature as such are 2 different things , even though the biological sides of humans has some common similarities with other living species in nature .
Second : If you think that the human nature was produced by evolution ,then is human nature just a mechanical deterministic process as well : how can that mechanical process called human nature produce "things " like greed , unnecessary ethnic -cleansing , unnecessary genocide ,love, hate , exaggerated unnecessary power lust -abuse, ...? I thought that evolution was a very efficient energy-manager .
Every personal experience is unique and relative , not to mention that it is mostly subjective, even though , it contains some cognitive elements ...
Unique and relative personal experience is pretty much the definition of subjectivity. Conscious experience is all cognitive...
There are subjective as well as "objective " cognitive elements to human personal experiences : think about all your sub-conscious and conscious decisions making , even though the roots of decision making are very controversial .
If we apply only materialistic determinism to decision making ,then, it's pretty logical to exclude any degree of human free will in decision making .
Worse : subjective or objective cognitive processes mean nothing in the evolutionary mechanical deterministic terms .
You have been contradicting yourself all along : i just informed you of some of that i detected .
My sincere genuine apologies ... i am not telling you what to think , i just question your words, that's all .
Apology accepted. If you want to question my words, why not just do that instead of putting words in my mouth?
Thanks . Don't worry about that : it's something inevitable sometimes, since i cannot read your mind , or always understand the exact meaning of your words as you exactly intended them to be : the theory of mind tells us a lot about that .
Look, even when we read books , we never get the very exact meanings of what the writer intended to say completely : we understand them our own unique ways , via both our subjective and objective filters .
We can "see" some of what lies beyond that as something existing in other dimensions , other universes ,or in other levels of reality , why not ?
I know of no evidence of such things. Can you describe what you 'see' and how you distinguish it from imagination?
I just do not exclude the probable existence of other dimentions, levels of reality ....
My personal dynamic religious and other experiences , among other ways, make me approach those levels of reality my own unique way :
See William James ' " The varieties of religious experiences ", even though i do not agree much with his pragmatic approaches in general , not always at least .
As there might be other living species outside of our known universe , there can be whole of other levels of reality with their own set of rules, logic , reason ....as well , Why not ?
Is this not an option ?
You can speculate about whatever you can imagine. Let me know when you find plausible arguments and/or evidence to support whatever it may be.
As i said earlier , there might be some levels of reality which would require other forms of evidence than just the conventional ones : science , reason, logic ...
.. why should we exclude the possibility or probability that there might be some other levels of reality out there which require other forms of evidence than just our poor reason, logic , science ...can provide ?
By all means speculate and fantasize to your heart's content. Others feel the observable universe is a more productive use of their time.
Well, yes, i do not ignore the natural observable empirical reality i interact with every single moment of my life , i just do not think that natural reality is all what there is though .
So, why should we think that we can know everything about all that unknown , as a mortal species ?
We don't, that's why we keep on questioning.
No, you have already made up your mind by ignoring or rejecting the probability or possibility of the existence of other levels of reality ,so, Didn't you ? when you embraced materialism , i guess.
You were trying to find excuses for materialism , so : that makes you an apologist of it , no offense , sorry .
You're welcome to your opinion, but if you think describing how science and critical thinking work is excusing materialism, it probably says more about your agenda or bias than mine.
Once again , i love science very much , i just reject many aspects of materialism in science , that's all : talking about putting words in somebody's mouth , ironically enough .
Well, then you should be humble enough not to exclude any unknown existences that Russell's tea pot argument does not cover ,unless you are absolutely sure they do not exist .
Indeed, we should all be so humble.
You are not ,excuse me for saying that , in the sense that you pretend to know there are no other levels of reality , don't you ?
What then , what would you say to your creator when you will meet Him ? simply put .
Will you tell Him that science , reason, logic ....could not , per definition, prove to you His existence ...?
Yes, I probably would. If a hypothetical creator seriously wanted to be acknowledged, one might expect it to do a better job of being noticed
.
God already made Himself known to humans , on many occasions, via revelations ...
You know :
Prophet Abraham 's attempts to "find " God on his own, via reason, logic ... failed pathetically , so, he cried out , in despair and hope at the same time : God, if you happen to be out there ,if you really exist , just let me know you are there , otherwise , i would be lost .
And then,and only then, God made Himself known to Abraham, somehow .
The essence of this story is that God "makes Himself known " to people ,only if they surrender to Him totally , and only if they are genuinely interested in "knowing " Him ...
Enough preaching now haha I do not like or do any preaching in fact normally though .
That was just a final thought i wanted to share with you, that's all .
Thanks ,buddy
Have fun
Bye
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@ dlorde :
The name of the author of " Geography of Thought ..." is : Richard E.Nisbett
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History of the origin of the scientific method must be rewritten :
Someone should correct what wikipedia says about the origin of science :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method
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My nice discussion partner left me without saying a word and without any explanation whatsoever haha , despite all the good things and good times we used to have together and used to share with each other ...: i have been dumped before by a couple of my former or ex-girl-friends , but they always had the decency and courtesy to tell me why though
The reason?
I think i will quit these discussions , simply because their scope is too wide to debate this way , and simply because they do cost me too much time i can hardly afford...
I took that to mean you were going and/or did not want to spend any more time here.
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Oh, and the other reason - you'd stopped discussing with me and were disparaging various naive stereotypes and strawmen of your own devising. Clearly time to move on.
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Oh, and the other reason - you'd stopped discussing with me and were disparaging various naive stereotypes and strawmen of your own devising. Clearly time to move on.
haha
Where is your sense of humor . buddy ?
I was just teasing you by being ironic ,that's all , because when i saw no replies from you to my reactions to your posts , i just assumed you were not interested in any further discussions with me ,that's all, ironically enough .
My mistake then.We were both mistaken thus .
Well, just try to go back to the discussion then , please, and i will try to answer your replies .
But , we should keep it short though .
Deal ?
I will erase those irrelevent posts of mine i was teasing you you with : when i mentioned those couple of ex-girl-friends who dumped me , i was referring to you ,somehow , ....if you haven't noticed yet .I think you have .
Take care
See ya soon then
Bye
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I think I've said what I wanted to say about the OP - unless you have some particular issue you're prepared to discuss reasonably; I'm not here for juvenile point-scoring and disparagement.
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I think I've said what I wanted to say about the OP - unless you have some particular issue you're prepared to discuss reasonably; I'm not here for juvenile point-scoring and disparagement.
I am serious , i was just kidding for a change .I said why .Come on.
Besides, those accusations of yours never crossed my mind .
Anyway : I am interested in discussing the following with you , i am extremely fascinated by :
Evolutionary biology / genetics + computer science technology have been applied to what one calls artificial intelligence, to mention just that :
Some scientists say they will be able to make future machines or robots match or even surpass human consciousness, feelings , emotions, thinking , ...and even love .
We are all familiar now with computer viruses ....for example : computer science copying those biological language , notions, techniques, mechanisms ...and applying them to machines.
Future intelligent machines will be able to be conscious , have feelings , emotions ....and will be even able to ...love : i do not buy that .
There are many science -fiction movies out there on the subject as well , as you know .
Artificial intelligence advances seem to corroborate and confirm the validity of those materialistic mechanical evolutionary approaches of human consciousness , life, emotions, love ... ....thus as just determined mechanical material processes .
The notion of Cyborgs, for example = human-machine , is getting more real than ever : some sort of chips can be implanted in human bodies in order to correct some deficiencies, handicap , brain damage ....
If the materialistic view of life in general , human consciousness , emotions, ...gets completely validated some day , then, we will be able to download or upload knowledge , personal experiences, skills , emotions ....from or to a machine ,from or to our brains , computer or from humans to humans, in both ways : that would be awesome though .
I would love to download the contents of the US library of congress some day, to my brain haha .kidding .
I am really fascinated by all that though, seriously .
I think that biology/genetics combined with computer science and with other sciences will shape the future of humanity in ways we can only imagine today : that would be even beyond our own imagination : the sky is the limit .
Look, if the nature as well as the function of our human consciousness is just a matter of material processes which originated from the evolutionary complexity of the human brain (Emergent property theory ), our consciousness , thoughts , knowledge , ethics , progress ...and the rest are just illusions then : just mechanical material determined processes .....I do not buy this either ,i have been struggling with, for some time now .
Otherwise , why can't we convert neurophysiological electrical, chemical ...brain waves to thoughts ,and vice versa ?
How come we cannot read the minds of people that way , via that activity of the brain , we should be able to convert to thoughts , in the future maybe ? ...even though it is a fact that electro-magnetic fields can alter the functioning of the human brain , and make people imagine things that are not real in the process, as a result ( This reminds me of that so-called God helmet designed by a scientist he subjected even Dawkins haha himself to ,in vain though, simply because Dawkins' predisposition to that was too low ,"God helmet " which makes people that are subjected to it have some religious feelings even or imagine the presence of some entity out there that does not exist ...).
What do you think about all that ?
Can the scientific method or science finally decipher or decode those mysteries of the human consciousness, thought , thought process ....as science did much earlier at the level of biology at least ,in relation to the secrets of the molecule of life , the architect of life and its replication : DNA .?
I would love to download all the human existing knowledge , experiences ,skills....to my brain : not all of them though haha : i cannot tolerate to experience the evils of nazism , fascism , communism ....for example ...
Later , duty calls .
Kind regards
Bye
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BTW, all-bold text doesn't aid readability...
Look, if the nature as well as the function of our human consciousness is just a matter of material processes which originated from the evolutionary complexity of the human brain (Emergent property theory ), our consciousness , thoughts , knowledge , ethics , progress ...and the rest are just illusions then : just mechanical material determined processes
They're not illusions, they're real emergent phenomena, unpredictable and qualitatively different from the properties of neurons; like the wetness of water is a real emergent phenomenon, unpredictable and qualitatively different from the properties of water molecules, and heat and pressure are emergent phenomena of the movement of atoms and molecules.
Otherwise , why can't we convert neurophysiological electrical, chemical ...brain waves to thoughts ,and vice versa ?
How come we cannot read the minds of people that way , via that activity of the brain , we should be able to convert to thoughts , in the future maybe ?
...
What do you think about all that ?
We are already making progress in this area. By studying brain activity it is possible determine what someone is reading, and what someone is thinking about in a limited way; i.e. the brain activity associated with certain thoughts is measured and then can be recognised later. The current problems are that the measuring devices are fairly crude, although improving rapidly, and that no two brains are the same, so what they are thinking needs to be learned for each individual. It is possible to imagine a 'companion' system that could learn how a person thinks over many years, observes their facial expressions, behaviour, and body language and so knows what they're thinking, their mood, etc. How that could be used is an interesting speculation.
Past experiences, sensations, emotions, memories, etc., can be 'replayed' by stimulation of the appropriate brain area during surgery; one can imagine making this possible from outside the skull. A lot of ethical issues there.
Can the scientific method or science finally decipher or decode those mysteries of the human consciousness, thought , thought process ?
I think so, eventually.
I would love to download all the human existing knowledge , experiences ,skills....to my brain
I would imagine it's more likely that such information would be made available to you on demand transparently, or with minimum effort, rather than be actually stored in your brain in advance.
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author=dlorde link=topic=48315.msg416517#msg416517 date=1376900663]
BTW, all-bold text doesn't aid readability...
Ok, I will try to skip that next time .Sorry.But , sometimes, i just like to make a point that way ,that's all .
author=DonQuichotte link=topic=48315.msg416493#msg416493 date=1376855477]Look, if the nature as well as the function of our human consciousness is just a matter of material processes which originated from the evolutionary complexity of the human brain (Emergent property theory ), our consciousness , thoughts , knowledge , ethics , progress ...and the rest are just illusions then : just mechanical material determined processes
They're not illusions, they're real emergent phenomena, unpredictable and qualitatively different from the properties of neurons; like the wetness of water is a real emergent phenomenon, unpredictable and qualitatively different from the properties of water molecules, and heat and pressure are emergent phenomena of the movement of atoms and molecules
.
You do not seem to get my point yet , and you have been just giving me material emergent property phenomena as examples : how on earth could those biological material determined processes give birth to something immaterial such as human consciousness....thought...ethics...
How can the material give birth to the immaterial or conceptual ?
I discussed this issue of human consciousness , the latter as the alleged product of the evolution of the human brain, with many materialists and atheists , but they could not come up with convincing explanations in that regard ,and nobody can prove yet, if ever , that allegation that human consciousness was the product of evolution .this allegation just makes part of those materialistic beliefs or materialistic theology ,or materialistic historicity in science with no reasonable proof of that .
Materialism just replaced the theology or the metaphysics of the church by its own, ironically enough .
That's why i said once that materialism has become a kindda exclusive religion,while pretending to disprove religions via science, ironically enough .
That's why i also said that materialism as a world view has been hijacking science exclusively for more than 5 centuries now, excluding all the non-materialistic world views in the process, as a result .
That's why i also said that materialistic scientists think that only reason, logic , science are the only valid sources of knowledge .
That's also 1 of the reasons why i said that materialists think they have the monopoly of the truth , by considering materialism as the one and only valid or true world view , materialism which considers itself to be scientific ...
......
Those guys i used to discuss this issue of human consciousness with just resorted to comparing the human body to a computer , for example, and the human consciousness to windows haha, for instance , or they just gave the following analogy in that regard , or things like that :
The projection of a film on a white screen or white sheet : the projector would refer to the body and the film to the human consciousness via the light of the projector , as you have been doing all along, failing to see that both the projector and the film were material entities , the same goes for computer and windows .
So, emergent property theory fails to explain that , simply because it just refers to material phenomena, while consciouness is not a material phenomena .
Emergent property theory can just explain some material levels or scales of those material biological processes, no more , no less .
Try to see this extremely fascinating alternative approach of consciousness :
He exposes the problems science has been encountering in explaining consciousness via that exclusive materialist world view , and proposes an alternative world view in that regard ,he considers the mind as being more fundamental than matter , the key to which shift lies in our revolutionary ...understanding of light ....An alternative world view which makes sense of much of modern physics...
An alternative world view which confirms what old muslim and other mystics used to say about human consciousness by the way also :
<repeated link (removed) over multiple pages comes across as evangelising. Please stick to responding to the topic - thanks, Mod>
Otherwise , why can't we convert neurophysiological electrical, chemical ...brain waves to thoughts ,and vice versa ?
How come we cannot read the minds of people that way , via that activity of the brain , we should be able to convert to thoughts , in the future maybe ? ...
What do you think about all that ?
We are already making progress in this area. By studying brain activity it is possible determine what someone is reading, and what someone is thinking about in a limited way; i.e. the brain activity associated with certain thoughts is measured and then can be recognised later. The current problems are that the measuring devices are fairly crude, although improving rapidly, and that no two brains are the same, so what they are thinking needs to be learned for each individual. It is possible to imagine a 'companion' system that could learn how a person thinks over many years, observes their facial expressions, behaviour, and body language and so knows what they're thinking, their mood, etc. How that could be used is an interesting speculation.
I have read about and watched some interesting docus regarding what you said here above :
When someone reads something , a book , a magazine...or thinks about something , feels something ....certain regions or areas of the brain are activated , a brain scan or other device can detect and display on certain monitors indeed , but that's just the the brain activity in action related to those thoughts, feelings ..., not the actual thought process, or feeling process ...themselves.
Please , try not to confuse between those 2 processes : they have different natures , while interacting with each other , somehow .
We do not know yet how body and mind actually interact with each other though, let alone how the mind heals the body , how the mind even changes the body , and vice versa,even though we can "see" , relatively speaking , how the mind actually changes the body , and vice versa ... but we cannot yet explain just that or how it actually occurs exactly .
I do think that the mind is way more primordial fundamental and stronger than the body in many cases , that's why i said once to you that the ultimate reality is spiritual : see how even modern physics' views of matter itself have changed radically thanks to both quantum physics and to the relativity theory with its space-time concept :we do not actually know what matter really is , some say it is energy , some say it is action, let alone that we know what the nature of the human mind or spirit is .
You know : this issue of the human mind or spirit was/ is so a huge real challenge to materialistic evolutionists that they just decided to consider it as just the evolutionary product of the brain : how ? via the emergent property theory : how the physical biological material evolved human brain did give birth to the human mind,via the emergent property theory and natural selection ? Well, in order for materialists to escape this lethal trap for materialism, they say , well, the mind is just a word , just semantics , there is no such a thing , as we understand it to be at least called mind , mind as an immaterial "entity" or rather process , it is just a material phenomena, that's all : here ,in this case and elsewhere, we see how materialism obviously tries to validate itself so desperately , instead of searching of the unconditional truth on the matter out there ...= truth in the service of ideology, not the other way around ,as one should expect ...
To get back to your above mentioned statements :
Certain brain activity can inform us just about what specific or particular areas of the brain which fire or get activated when we do this or that ,say this or that , think about this or that , experience this or that ... but they can actually say nothing about our actual thoughts , feelings ,experiences ....related to that brain activity .
No wonder that materialistic scientists think they can deduce or "extract " our thoughts , feelings . consciousness ... from our brain activity , simply because of the very nature of materialism itself which considers brain activity and consciousness as being both material : don't you get it ? They can come up only with those kindda interpretations of those experiments , otherwise , they would go against materialism itself : they set a trap for themselves they cannot afford to escape ,otherwise they would contradict themselves .
Therefore, i think, personally , that we will never be able to "convert " brain activity to thought or vice versa, for example, simply because the 2 have different natures .
A phone can, for example, convert the sound waves of our voices to electrical signals and otherwise at the other end of the phone ,so we we can hear each other clearly on both ends of the phone , but that's simply because both our voices and electrical signals are both material phenomenas....That does certainly not mean that the phone or whatever can "convert " our thoughts to electricity-magnetism and otherwise for the other guy at the other end of the receiving phone to read : Do you get the difference ?
We can try to read people's minds , relatively speaking , via body language , and via other ways , via reading the related brain activity on a monitor, but we can never be able to actually read people's minds , their real thoughts , no way , for the above mentioned reasons .
Body language , brain scans,other devices, and other ways can only inform us about the fact that the mind can have effects on the body and vice versa , that does not mean that we actually read people's minds those ways : Get it ?
Past experiences, sensations, emotions, memories, etc., can be 'replayed' by stimulation of the appropriate brain area during surgery; one can imagine making this possible from outside the skull. A lot of ethical issues there
.
Certainly not ethical indeed : those surgeons scientists can trigger certain memories , emotions, experiences , sensations,...as you put it , via their biological side , but that does not mean that the actual memories, sensations, experiences...are also biological ,material or that they can be located or stored ,somehow, in the brain .
Again, we come across this materialistic world view in science you just mentioned by saying what you said .
I remember the fact when i was a teen-ager in the biology -class how our teacher talked about memory ,....as if it were , somehow , stored , like in a computer , in the hard drive of man or in the brain : i used to challenge his view passionately that made no sense to me and which still does not make any sense to me , all he could say to try to prove his materialistic view is by saying , well, there is no other valid explanation for that ,something you can expect from a materialist : one cannot expect from him as a materialist to try to search for an alternative explanation or interpretation outside of materialism , that's the problem with materialists mainly :
I do remember reading a book called " Are we unique ? The unparalleled intelligence of the human mind " or something like that written by a self-declared materialistic scientist who tried to explain the relative uniqueness of man and the relative uniqueness of human consciousness, for example, among other things , via that emergent property theory , while demonstrating the striking similarities between us and other animals , in the sense that we are unique indeed , but not that unique , to put it simply .
He stunned me in that book of his when he said that he believed in the existence of the human free will , unlike many other materialists : a real paradox or contradiction from the materialistic point of view though .
That put aside :
He said somethingelse very interesting as follows :
Most , if not all, scientists deliberately ignore some facts ,while hoping they would go away some day , or that they would be proven to be false some day , try to integrate them in their world views or theories, paradigms... if they can at least , but the only thing they could not / cannot do is deny their existence .
That's 1 of the reasons why i said to you that total objectivity ,even in science , is a myth .
Materialists just stick to their world view ,paradigms, theories , interpretations ...despite the existence of alternative ones : they cannot afford to see the world but through that materialistic narrow-minded exclusive key hole of theirs , otherwise , they would be no materialists > do you get this ? And that's what is really happening ...
I remember also a materialistic quantum physics ' scientist , if i am not mistaken at least , in Linda Jean Shepherd's unique book saying to her , that if she was right about the non-deterministic nature of the universe , he would put a gun to his head and pull the trigger ...
Can the scientific method or science finally decipher or decode those mysteries of the human consciousness, thought , thought process ?
I think so, eventually.
I do not think so ,if science remains exclusively dominated by materialism , but if science allows itself to be taken on the path of other alternative world views , other than or in combination with materialism (We cannot reject all aspects of materialism in science , as i said earlier : some are true indeed ) , then the sky is the limit .
But , if science remains confined within the boundaries of materialism , then i fear the worst for science and the truth as a result .
I am afraid some fanatic hard core materialistic scientists such as Dawkins and co. are the real threat to science , not religious extremists : the latters clash with science out of ignorance , but the formers say some , do some things in the name of science , science has nothing to do with ,unfortunately enough .
Dawkins and co are the kindda ultimate Frankenstein's monsters who can take science down with them in the process, even though their purely scientific works are ,relatively speaking, beneficial to science,relatively speaking then .
I would love to download all the human existing knowledge , experiences ,skills....to my brain
I would imagine it's more likely that such information would be made available to you on demand transparently, or with minimum effort, rather than be actually stored in your brain in advance.
Right , but that can never be stored in my brain the way i mentioned by "downloading it " from other humans or from machines , computers ...for the above mentioned reasons relating to the different natures of both body and mind , not to mention the fact that human individual experiences, skills, talents , knowledge , feelings , emotions ....are "located " in the whole beings of those individuals ....in their souls : i see a soul as not "something" separate from the body : i see it as "something" integrated with the whole beings of humans , in every atom ,cell ,and organs of theirs : the soul permeates or espouses the body from within and without .
In other words :
Consciousness is not the product of evolution, it's "something " inherent to humans.
No wonder that an old great muslim mystic dared to say : "I am God " , but conservative muslims did misunderstand him in that regard , and they killed the poor wise guy unjustly , as a result : you would understand the why or how of that "I am God " expression ...
Take care
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@ dlorde :
A final note :
Intelligent machines can only be able to some day simulate (Like some simulators do in other regards ) human consciousness, thought , feelings, emotions , experiences ....but they will certainly never be able to actually think, feel, experience..."things " like we actually do ,no way, ,let alone they would be ever able to be ...conscious or to ...be , like we actually are or do .
Only humans can be or do all that , their human unique ways at least .
Machines or non-human living species , no matter how intelligent they might ever be , can never be , almost only we can .
We should actually change that conventional outdated and discredited cogito of Descartes by the way : "I think, therefore i am ".
We should replace it by : " I can , therefore i am ", simply because action is our root nature .I do not know.
P.S.: The scientific method or science cannot, per definition, cross its own natural boundaries : the realm of science = the natural reality , and therefore can never be able to say anything about the nature of our supernatural human consciousness as such : Descartes was indeed right about the latter at least .
Second : as the link i provided earlier to you had proved : "Dangerous knowledge " docu , or the other documentary maybe : "High anxieties-the mathematics of chaos ", i do not recall which one exactly, brilliant mathematicians even had proved the fact that some things are unprovable, per definition ...................that there are also some true premises or facts we cannot prove them to be as such ...
See ya
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@ dlorde :
See this fascinating scientific study video : "Placebo-cracking the code " ,regarding the power of belief and the mind ,and how the mind heals the body ...:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/placebo-cracking-code/
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I would spend time explaining the various lines of evidence I find convincing, but there seems little point - you've just told me it's all wrong - although, on your soapbox of incredulity, you clearly neither know nor understand of most of it.
In the absence of reasoned arguments to address, I'll leave you to it.
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author=dlorde link=topic=48315.msg416555#msg416555 date=1376951082]
I would spend time explaining the various lines of evidence I find convincing, but there seems little point - you've just told me it's all wrong - although, on your soapbox of incredulity, you clearly neither know nor understand of most of it.
(Prior note :well, that brilliant cristal-clear lecture of quantum physicist Peter Russell here above proved the essence of my above mentioned plea to be true ...cristal- clearly, to my great delight , i must admit , to be honest : I do recommend strongly that you see it ,even though i disagree with some aspects of it, especially that part relating to that secular humanistic "I am God " expression or interpretation )
Weird resistance , psychological defenses , denials and false assumptions of yours :
First of all , i did not say it was all wrong what you said or what materialists say on the issue of human consciousness and the human brain : human mind and brain , mind and body ... .
Second : i used no incredulity "argument " as the brilliant awesome lecture of physicist Peter Russell showed .
Third, i do know the general lines of "evidence " presented by materialists regarding the origin ,nature and function of the human consciousness...
No doubt , materialism has booked a lots of magnificent achievements at the level of matter where it belongs, in the first place to begin with ,at the level of exact sciences at least ( Modern physics do refute the materialistic world view in science , even at the level of matter though, even at the level of exact sciences thus , ironically enough,as quantum physicist Russell showed in his lecture ) , to be more precize , but materialism fails pathetically at the level of human sciences ........and at the level of other non-exact sciences , not to mention at the level of human consciousness ...for obvious reasons related to the very nature of materialism itself , i must repeat though .
As Russell demonstrated in that brilliant lecture of his : taking into consideration the very subjective nature of human consciousness and internal human lives , materialistic scientists cannot say anything intelligent or provable , let alone something empirical about them ,relatively speaking , i must add though .:
Human consciousness and internal human lives as a matter of personal experiences mainly thus .
So, science can neither prove the very existence of human consciousness and internal human lives , nor say anything about their natures or processes , i must say ..
Russell proved not only that there are levels of consciousness in every living organism , but also that the ultimate reality is spiritual, in the sense that consciousness is all what there is , all is mind ,relatively speaking then again , so, time ,space, causality ,matter and the rest do not exist as such ,not as we perceive them to be at least .
As Russell's lecture also shows ,new or alternative theories or new paradigms are first ridiculed ,then opposed and then finally accepted as obvious evidence afterwards .
And even scientists can rarely change their minds , the more when it comes to certain shifts of paradigms : the fascinating lecture of Russell showed even that the meta-paradigm of science which underlies all the other paradigms in science had to be revised= that reality is material .
That put aside :
Is that all you have to say ? ,despite all the time and energy i invested in my replies to you here above .Thanks a lot for just that indeed .Amazing attitude of yours .I am stunned by that .
What i said is no incredulity : the core point of my plea was/ is : how can the unconscious matter give rise to the immaterial consciousness ? as a scientist was quoted saying in that lecture .
See what physicist Peter Russell had to say about all that , via my above mentioned link,once again .
"Even matter is not made of matter " as some scientist was quoted saying in that fascinating lecture : if you would watch and listen to the latter carefully , you would understand clearly what i tried to say my clumsy humble way ,even though i made some mistakes regarding what Peter Russell said about consciousness and matter in my above displayed posts to you (I happened to have watched and listened to that lecture some time ago ,so, and i did watch it and listen to it again yesterday night and then i discovered some errors of mine relating to Russell's approach of consciousness and matter : those were minor errors though ).
You would even understand your own behavior or denial you displayed in this post of yours , if you watch that lecture.
Besides, I know about the general lines of "evidence " delivered by materialists in relation to human consciousness and the human brain though ,despite what you might think of that .
In the absence of reasoned arguments to address, I'll leave you to it.
That's just your own perception or interpretation of what i said .
Well, ok then , do not listen to me in that regard , just listen to a qualified source on the subject : Peter Russell .
Deal ?
See ya after you will ,hopefully, undergo all those natural stages of denial Russell talked about ...
Ciao
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The Primacy of Consciousness By Peter Russell
Source : keentalks.com
Peter Russell explores the problems science has explaining consciousness and proposes that consciousness is not created by the brain, but is inherent in all beings.
He shows why mind is more fundamental than matter, and the the key to this shift is the revolution in our understanding of the light.
Many have made such claims from metaphysical perspectives, but the possibility has always been ignored by the scientific community.
In this talk, he discusses the problems the materialist scientific worldview has with consciousness and proposes an alternative worldview which, rather than contradicting science, makes new sense of much of modern physics.
He presents a reasoned argument that shows how they are pointing towards the one thing science has always avoided considering – the primary nature of consciousness.
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"More than anything else, the future of
civilization depends on the way the two
most powerful forces of history, science
and religion, settle into relationship with
each other."
Alfred North Whitehead
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Peter Russell explores the problems science has explaining consciousness and proposes that consciousness is not created by the brain, but is inherent in all beings.
Panpsychism is one of the oldest philosophical theories - that there isn't a problem of consciousness if everything conscious - which of course only spreads the original difficulty to everything in the universe; you might as well go the whole hog and say god did it.
There are plenty of contemporary versions of this idea (e.g. Tom Campbell, et al), but Russells arguments are particularly poor (a mixture of argument from ignorance and special pleading), and his examples flawed. His namesake, Bertrand, must be spinning in his grave. Not surprising, as he's a physicist who admits he's spent all of 6 months on it. He defines consciousness as 'the capabiity for experience' (not awareness) then equivocates between passive experience (e.g. a stone experiences weathering), experience as a dynamic adaptive response to the environment (e.g. simple living organisms), and experience as consciousness (mind). He introduces philosophical zombies to try to emphasise how tricky consciousness is, but it's known to be an incoherent concept - if it does everything that an acknowledged consciousness does, i.e. it satisfies all the criteria we have, then it too must be acknowledged conscious.
He starts with his conclusion then tries to find arguments & evidence to fit. In doing so, he fails to consider even the most obvious alternative explanations to his favoured explanation (e.g. giving a dog an anaesthetic proves we think they are conscious; really? let's conveniently ignore the fact that if you don't they will bite and scratch and struggle...).
He spends way too long explaining 'paradigm' and 'metaparadigm' in an attempt to give his insubstantial claims more weight. He bemoans the lack of potential explanations within the current paradigm or metaparadigm, and, tossing Ockham's Razor to one side, rushes in search of a 'new' metaparadigm. Did he even pause to consider obvious alternatives in the existing paradigm, such as emergence, the primary candidate? No; don't tell the audience, they might catch on.
And for a physicist to bring quantum mechanical observers into a talk about consciousness is also telling (hint an 'observation' in QM is any particle interaction - consciousness is irrelevant). Any neurobiologist could also tell him that not all knowledge is 'structured in consciousness', despite the Maharishi's pseudo-profundities; the vast majority of knowledge in the brain is not accessible to consciousness.
He makes a lot of our converting perceptual reality into a map of the world that doesn't represent what's really out there; but, of course, a map is a representation, and an evolutionary biologist could tell him why we represent the world the way we do (hint - it helps us survive).
He equivocates matter as experienced and in reality - matter is mostly empty space, and particles are not really particles, so he introduces solidity as if it's contradictory - but any physicist knows it isn't, knows that electrostatic forces explain why some matter is solid, why we don't fall through the 'empty space' of the floor and can't walk through or see through walls and, if nothing else, this point makes it clear that he's deliberately misleading to make his point fit his conclusion.
Having tried to build a case the that our experience doesn't represent reality because reality is different from our experience of it, he then claims that 'all the indications are that there may not be an objective reality' (so what does he think he was supposedly studying all those years as a physicist?), sawing away at the very branch he sits on and teetering on the edge of solipsism. He claims 'there is only consciousness... a consciousness field ... which we experience and translate in the mind into shape & form & matter...' but, one is tempted to ask, if there's only consciousness, where does this 'mind' come from to translate it into shape & form & matter? String theory consists of strings of consciousness? no, they are simply mathematical constructs. If you could travel at the speed of light? You can't. From light's point of view it doesn't exist in space & time? No; it doesn't have a 'point of view' because it has no valid reference frame. Under the very theory of Special Relativity he uses to introduce these ideas, they are invalid by definition. It's total gibberish, and he must know it. But in his rush to use SR to undermine objectivity and external reality, he also conveniently forgets that SR is an explicitly objective theory that explains the subjective experience of the observer.
He quoted Kant - "Space & time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality" (my emphasis) in support of his suggestion that space & time are not 'part of the external world'; the complete opposite of what Kant was saying. If anyone noticed, they kept quiet. Next he gets applause for bamboozling them with the principle of least action and the emission & absorption of light. It's standard physics, folks. He laughs at the 'average scientist' for thinking that stuff is outside our mind when it's inside our mind. I suspect the average scientist know the difference between the map and the territory. That's what they do for a living.
He never gives a proper argument to support panpsychism, only the supposition from ignorance - we don't know how it arises so let's say it's universal - conveniently ignoring the evidence that it appears to involve brains (creatures without brains show no apparent consciousness), and the more complex the brain the greater the apparent degree of consciousness.
He prefers intuition to reason - 'we intuitively know jellyfish are conscious despite having no nervous system because we'd rather unplug a computer than throw a jellyfish on the fire'. Really - that's supposed to be an argument? Forgetting, for a moment, the millions who'd happily throw a jellyfish on the fire rather than unplug their computer, did he not consider that we perhaps identify more with a fragile living thing than a human-built machine? or that maybe we know that you can plug a computer back in but you can't unburn a jellyfish?
There are far better proponents of this kind of speculation than Russell, and at the end of it all, you still have the problem you're trying to solve - what is consciousness? but instead of narrowing it down, you've made it axiomatic, universal, unfalsifiable, impossible to solve, and as an explanation, it has no utility whatsoever, and no predictive power. Rather like the god explanation - which he introduces at the end.
It's full of holes (it's practically made of holes) and I don't buy it. I buy this (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=8956859&postcount=31) though.
-
Peter Russell explores the problems science has explaining consciousness and proposes that consciousness is not created by the brain, but is inherent in all beings.
Panpsychism is one of the oldest philosophical theories - that there isn't a problem of consciousness if everything conscious - which of course only spreads the original difficulty to everything in the universe; you might as well go the whole hog and say god did it.
There are plenty of contemporary versions of this idea (e.g. Tom Campbell, et al), but Russells arguments are particularly poor (a mixture of argument from ignorance and special pleading), and his examples flawed. His namesake, Bertrand, must be spinning in his grave. Not surprising, as he's a physicist who admits he's spent all of 6 months on it. He defines consciousness as 'the capabiity for experience' (not awareness) then equivocates between passive experience (e.g. a stone experiences weathering), experience as a dynamic adaptive response to the environment (e.g. simple living organisms), and experience as consciousness (mind). He introduces philosophical zombies to try to emphasise how tricky consciousness is, but it's known to be an incoherent concept - if it does everything that an acknowledged consciousness does, i.e. it satisfies all the criteria we have, then it too must be acknowledged conscious.
He starts with his conclusion then tries to find arguments & evidence to fit. In doing so, he fails to consider even the most obvious alternative explanations to his favoured explanation (e.g. giving a dog an anaesthetic proves we think they are conscious; really? let's conveniently ignore the fact that if you don't they will bite and scratch and struggle...).
He spends way too long explaining 'paradigm' and 'metaparadigm' in an attempt to give his insubstantial claims more weight. He bemoans the lack of potential explanations within the current paradigm or metaparadigm, and, tossing Ockham's Razor to one side, rushes in search of a 'new' metaparadigm. Did he even pause to consider obvious alternatives in the existing paradigm, such as emergence, the primary candidate? No; don't tell the audience, they might catch on.
And for a physicist to bring quantum mechanical observers into a talk about consciousness is also telling (hint an 'observation' in QM is any particle interaction - consciousness is irrelevant). Any neurobiologist could also tell him that not all knowledge is 'structured in consciousness', despite the Maharishi's pseudo-profundities; the vast majority of knowledge in the brain is not accessible to consciousness.
He makes a lot of our converting perceptual reality into a map of the world that doesn't represent what's really out there; but, of course, a map is a representation, and an evolutionary biologist could tell him why we represent the world the way we do (hint - it helps us survive).
He equivocates matter as experienced and in reality - matter is mostly empty space, and particles are not really particles, so he introduces solidity as if it's contradictory - but any physicist knows it isn't, knows that electrostatic forces explain why some matter is solid, why we don't fall through the 'empty space' of the floor and can't walk through or see through walls and, if nothing else, this point makes it clear that he's deliberately misleading to make his point fit his conclusion.
Having tried to build a case the that our experience doesn't represent reality because reality is different from our experience of it, he then claims that 'all the indications are that there may not be an objective reality' (so what does he think he was supposedly studying all those years as a physicist?), sawing away at the very branch he sits on and teetering on the edge of solipsism. He claims 'there is only consciousness... a consciousness field ... which we experience and translate in the mind into shape & form & matter...' but, one is tempted to ask, if there's only consciousness, where does this 'mind' come from to translate it into shape & form & matter? String theory consists of strings of consciousness? no, they are simply mathematical constructs. If you could travel at the speed of light? You can't. From light's point of view it doesn't exist in space & time? No; it doesn't have a 'point of view' because it has no valid reference frame. Under the very theory of Special Relativity he uses to introduce these ideas, they are invalid by definition. It's total gibberish, and he must know it. But in his rush to use SR to undermine objectivity and external reality, he also conveniently forgets that SR is an explicitly objective theory that explains the subjective experience of the observer.
He quoted Kant - "Space & time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality" (my emphasis) in support of his suggestion that space & time are not 'part of the external world'; the complete opposite of what Kant was saying. If anyone noticed, they kept quiet. Next he gets applause for bamboozling them with the principle of least action and the emission & absorption of light. It's standard physics, folks. He laughs at the 'average scientist' for thinking that stuff is outside our mind when it's inside our mind. I suspect the average scientist know the difference between the map and the territory. That's what they do for a living.
He never gives a proper argument to support panpsychism, only the supposition from ignorance - we don't know how it arises so let's say it's universal - conveniently ignoring the evidence that it appears to involve brains (creatures without brains show no apparent consciousness), and the more complex the brain the greater the apparent degree of consciousness.
He prefers intuition to reason - 'we intuitively know jellyfish are conscious despite having no nervous system because we'd rather unplug a computer than throw a jellyfish on the fire'. Really - that's supposed to be an argument? Forgetting, for a moment, the millions who'd happily throw a jellyfish on the fire rather than unplug their computer, did he not consider that we perhaps identify more with a fragile living thing than a human-built machine? or that maybe we know that you can plug a computer back in but you can't unburn a jellyfish?
There are far better proponents of this kind of speculation than Russell, and at the end of it all, you still have the problem you're trying to solve - what is consciousness? but instead of narrowing it down, you've made it axiomatic, universal, unfalsifiable, impossible to solve, and as an explanation, it has no utility whatsoever, and no predictive power. Rather like the god explanation - which he introduces at the end.
It's full of holes (it's practically made of holes) and I don't buy it. I buy this (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=8956859&postcount=31) though.
Regardless :
Since you do not seem to be qualified to have any degree of heart's intelligence ,sorry, heart's intelligence as the highest form of intellect ,as i said before , then i will have to take you with me on this alternative unconventional factual-not emotional path :
I will take you back to basics in a moment , back to our core issue ...
Just bear with me , maybe you might see other perspectives , horizons ...outside of your dark suffocating key hole space without any windows within which boundaries you have been confining yourself deliberately, just try to follow me on this path , just out of curiosity then , in order to be able to smell the outside fresh air under the bright sun .
So regardless of the man's natural inevitable and other alleged holes :
And that's not the point either : if you only focus on the errors or holes of others ,instead of on the facts or good things they might say ,by confining yourself only within the boundaries of your own world view in the process as a result , then you will never be able to grow or evolve as you should try to be or do as a decent human being .
The point is : nobody is perfect indeed ,and nobody possesses the truth ...we can only try to approach, by also learning from other people's insights,even though we might disagree with them ,especially when it comes to hard issues like consciousness ,science can offer nothing valid about ...Halloo, wake up .
We can never learn anything really new if all what we would do is try to absolutely refute other world views than ours : I do learn a lot from Dawkins and co , as i told you before , even though i do despise them in fact , i must admit , to be honest , for the fact that they misuse science for their own ideological and other purposes and agendas (But i would never try to discard them totally ,simply because they also have some elements of the truth , let alone that i would even think of robbing them of their God given freedom, freedom of thought, freedom of belief in the broader sense ...) .
I do learn from all cultures, religions,thoughtstreams .....in fact , even though i would not agree with some aspects of those currents of thought i do respect anyway , mostly then .
But the people or currents of thoughts i cannot respect are those who try to exclude other people and other currents of thoughts, as your Dawkins and co.actually do , implicity or explicitly .
I also do not agree with all what Peter Russell said in that lecture of his ....Who said he or anyoneelse for that matter can be waterproof then ?
First this unconventional factual-not emotional necessary Prior note ,before going back to our core issue,if ever ,once again :
I will have to take off my polite subtle ..gloves for a while , sorry : no pain, no gain indeed,no offense,simply because there is nothing more stimulating for human intelligence than shocks ... .
First of all, who the hell do you think you are , pretending to possess the golden key to unveiling the secrets of the most greatest challenge to all humanity ever ?: Human consciousness , even modern science itself considers it to be as a hard problem , and rightly so , even modern science cannot say anything about ,despite all those materialistic make-believe phony claims on the issue ...
I am really stunned by your arrogance, self-projections and self-righteousness ....as if you, somehow , happened to find the holy grail .
What knowledge do you possess , what qualifications do you have , what experiences , wisdom ...or career do you have to "justify" reducing Russell's to almost nothing this way ? just because he happens to hold a non-materialistc view
You tell me .
You do stick to your materialism also , what makes you better than he is ?
Even the so-called top thinkers or top scientists ever were /are and will always be relatively ignorant , together with tons of their human shortcomings and flaws...they intrinsically inherently and inescapably inevitably have to carry around within and without themselves
So, why do you seem to think like you are some sort of exception to that rule then ?
I came to this site in order to have some human interactions with these people from different cultures ....simply because i think that all different people from different races, cultures, thoughtstreams....enrich all humanity and vice versa ,simply because we are 1 species that should be one :
But i detect no "humanity " in you, i feel like talking to a cold robot .
See this "Global brain " vision of Peter Russell you were trying to ridicule by the way on the subject :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=the+global+brain&go=Go
Have you ever done things like that ?
Besides :
We all are inclined to prefer certain ideas , certain world views, certain beliefs ...to others , as Michael Schermer's "The believing brain " showed , relatively speaking,even though i disagree with most of what he had to say on the matter :
You do go along with your materialistic world view too,despite the existence of other more or less valid alternative world views .
What makes your world view better than his or better than mine then ? You tell me .
Science ? Well, muslims "invented " science ,thanks to Islam mainly : science would be on our side then , so to speak, not on yours, not always then :
You materialists have been hijacking science for so long now, exclusively , while excluding all non -materialistic world views in the process ........while early muslims who came up with science excluded none of those other world views ...
Russell does not know everything , nobody does indeed : one would find holes in the arguments of every one of us : we are all full of holes by the way haha literally and figuratively .
We are all full of sh1t fools, the one more or less than the other ,and therefore nobody can pretend to possess the "truth " : this is no incredulity ,emotional ,pleading or apologetical "argument " = this is an indeniable fact .
Peter Russell admits, as he should do indeed , in 1 of his books " From science to God ..." that he only can come up with temporary (Most of our knowledge is by the way , simply because knowledge or the truth are dynamic concepts or processes ) explanations and speculations in accordance with the available data of this time we are living in,while getting inspired by other ancient wisdoms,by other alternative world views , by personal experiences ,by other people's experiences ... :
....
So, some things here you said are a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact (Science is a matter of fact ,a fact i must remind you of , even though science needs speculations, theories, hypotheses ,paradigms, meta-paradigms ...in order to progress ) :
Try to prove those materialistic "facts " relating to human consciousness instead then :
Just respond to the core issue here :
How can the unconscious matter give rise to the immaterial consciousness ?
How ? The emergent property theory does not explain just that , not convincingly,no way .
Do you agree that human consciounsess is something immaterial like thoughts are ?
Do you agree that human consciousness is something subjective science cannot approach as such as a result ?
Do you agree that science can neither prove that we are conscious ,nor prove that we have inner lives ?
Do you agree that even science itself cannot exist , let alone function , without human consciousness ? That's 1 of the reasons why human consciousness is way much more primordial and important than matter ever can be .
Can you tell me what matter is ? Can you prove that the universe is exclusively material ?
Do you therefore agree that quantum physics do refute that materialistic view of the universe ?
............Try to respond to just that then, and we will try to go further from there ...if ever ...Who cares ....
Deal ?
You know what ?
Just spare me your exclusive intolerant handicaped half-blind narrow -minded reductionistic deterministic materialistic key hole world views ...
Ciao
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you do not seem to be qualified to have any degree of heart's intelligence...
First of all, who the hell do you think you are , pretending to possess the golden key to unveiling the secrets of the most greatest challenge to all humanity ever ?
I am really stunned by your arrogance, self-projections and self-righteousness ...
What knowledge do you possess , what qualifications do you have , what experiences , wisdom ...or career do you have...
what makes you better than he is ?
why do you seem to think like you are some sort of exception to that rule then ?
...i detect no "humanity " in you, i feel like talking to a cold robot .
What makes your world view better than his or better than mine then ?
Just spare me your exclusive intolerant handicaped half-blind narrow -minded reductionistic deterministic materialistic key hole world views ...
Very nice...
A barrage of insults because I explained why I think the "brilliant cristal-clear" "awesome" lecture you urged me to watch is a bit rubbish.
Says it all, really.
[p.s. Forum rules (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=8535.0): Do not use insulting, aggressive, or provocative language.]
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you do not seem to be qualified to have any degree of heart's intelligence...
First of all, who the hell do you think you are , pretending to possess the golden key to unveiling the secrets of the most greatest challenge to all humanity ever ?
I am really stunned by your arrogance, self-projections and self-righteousness ...
What knowledge do you possess , what qualifications do you have , what experiences , wisdom ...or career do you have...
what makes you better than he is ?
why do you seem to think like you are some sort of exception to that rule then ?
...i detect no "humanity " in you, i feel like talking to a cold robot .
What makes your world view better than his or better than mine then ?
Just spare me your exclusive intolerant handicaped half-blind narrow -minded reductionistic deterministic materialistic key hole world views ...
Very nice...
A barrage of insults because I explained why I think the "brilliant cristal-clear" "awesome" lecture you urged me to watch is a bit rubbish.
Says it all, really.
[p.s. Forum rules (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=8535.0): Do not use insulting, aggressive, or provocative language.]
Russell's lecture was rubbish ? All of it ? Not just some of it ? as one should normally expect in these particular cases at least ,when one tries to tackle such a huge , fundamental and almost impossible eternal challenge for humanity haha in the form of the nature of consciousness .
That's a matter of opinion indeed ,you are perfectly entiteld to .
self-projections again, i see .
You do not get it yet , do you ?
The materialistic approach of consciousness is much worse than rubbish in fact = an understatement (This is a fact , no insult though ), it is a dishonest ideological cheap phony make-believe in the name of science , science has nothing to do with, for the obvious above and below mentioned reasons .
The materialistic approach of consciousness is in fact just that : materialistic = relates only to materialism itself as a world view ,but materialists are dishonest enough to sell it to the people as a "fact " in the name of science ,while Russell made no such scientific claims in trying to explain consciousness , even though he involved physics , maths... in that approach of his .
Russell was honest enough to clearly admit ,from the beginning, that science cannot obviously approach our subjective consciousness, for obvious reasons, while materialists are dishonest enough to pretend the untrue opposite , via selling their materialistic world view regarding consciousness as a scientific fact , to the people : see the difference ?
You did obviously understand nothing of the essence of what i was saying then : those were no insults either or provocative aggressive language as you put it,just facts ,or life facts instead .... .
You are so self-centered or egocentric ,as a materialist , no wonder, that you blame everything on others , and never on yourself : i presume you are not familiar with self-reflection,self-criticism or introspection = that's a matter of consciousness , ironically enough, or of self-awareness you seem to lack ,as a direct result of your materialistic view regarding consciousness or self-awareness, i guess .
I wonder whether you are really conscious or whether you do have some degree of consciousness in yourself or not , otherwise , you would not have adhered to that paradoxical materialistic view of consciousness absolutely and blindly , in the first place to begin with,while deliberately ignoring other alternative world views on the subject , ironically enough .
No wonder that you try to project all that on others .
That zombie philosophical concept can be applied to materialists perfectly ,thanks to the direct implications of that materialistic view of consciousness in relation to materialists themselves thus .
I suggest you try to re-read what i said ,or not , who cares ,because you obviously missed the whole point of my words .
I was also stunned by your lack of integrity or dishonesty ,when instead of responding to the core issue of the discussion ( How can the unconscious matter give rise to the immaterial consciousness, the subjective nature of consciousness science cannot approach as a result , the fact that science cannot prove we are conscious , ...),instead of that , you have focused on less important issues regarding the inevitable mistakes anyone can make when one tries to address the highly hard problem of human consciousness ,the approach of which depends mainly on the world view of the speaker or researcher on the subject ......which reveals the fact that you were just trying to refute Russell's world view .
Once again, the approach of consciousness is no exact-science , science cannot , per definition, even approach it even .
The approach of consciousness is certainly no science .It's an art mainly.
The approach of consciousness depends mainly thus on the world view through which one tries to do just that .
So, in order to avoid the core issues of consciousness itself and its relationship or non-relationship instead with science , you just tried to ridicule Russell and his world view ,that cheap dishonest way ...also by claiming that the materialistic world view regarding consciousness is ..."scientific", while science has absolutely nothing to do with it = you were not only dishonest in that sense , but you were also lying by trying to present that materialistic phony make-believe regarding consciousness, as scientific facts ,or were you just deceiving yourself sub-consciously ,without even being aware of that ? = you were in fact just trying to validate your materialistic world view so desperately via science as all materialists were/are doing in fact ....Can't you realise just that ? My God ....
I have no problem with any world view for that matter , unless it does claim things that are untrue by deceiving people ,especially when a certain world view pretends to be scientific, while science has nothing to do with it .
I have no problem with any other world view as long as it does not exclude other world views ,as long as it does not deliberately tries to exclude other people ,simply because they hold different beliefs or different world views , in order to validate itself,at their expense mainly, that cheap dishonest disgusting way .
I would never wanna be in your shoes , that's for sure : your self-deceit , lies and dishonesty in the name of science , science has nothing to with , are simply appaling and pathetic ,in the same fashion those of Dawkins and co.are :
you are just imitating them in fact,by just repeating what they say : that's 1 of the reasons why i said earlier that Dawkins and co. are the real threat to science and to the truth , not religious extremists who do clash with science out of ignorance only:
Dawkins and co. are much worse than those ignorant religious extremists ,simply because they deceive the people in the name of science , by promoting their own exclusive intolerant world view as scientific facts ,despite their indeniable and purely scientific works , i must repeat .
It's even childish even to try to ridicule other world views or other people who happen to believe in different world views ,while pretending that your view is scientific at the same time ,in order to validate your own materialistic belief ,that cheap immature tragic-hilarious way : in the sense :
oh, look how scientific , rational logical i am , in comparison to my irrational illogical unscientific stupid opponents who seem to know nothing about what they pretend to talk about :
they do not even deserve my time to explain my scientifc truth haha to them (Science , logic, reason have in fact nothing to do with all those extraordinary claims of materialists in relation to consciousness or in relation to other issues as well ,despite the magnificent achievements in science ,thanks to materialism :
i think those great materialistic scientific achievements had turned materialists into arrogant intolerant exclusive ignorant conservative fanatic ....fools as a result afterwards , i guess :
that might explain their implicit or explicit current fascist attitude in relation to other world views, i assume, especially in relation to religion by projecting their own irrational illogic unscientifc materialistic beliefs on religion ...despite some elements of truth materialism has in that and other regard ... )
In other words and in short :
I am very disappointed in you ...as i expected you to be , unfortunately enough ,despite my optimism regarding the human nature ...
People are mostly very predictable indeed, while they should not be in fact .
I do have no respect for exclusive people or exclusive intolerant thoughtstreams ,as i explained above, the more when they try to validate themselves and their world views ,in the name of science , science has absolutely nothing to do with , those deceptive cheap immature disgusting exclusive ways .
Those exclusive world views are in fact , per definition, self-refuting and self-defeating : they do not even need enemies to try to do just that against them ,simply because they are their own worst enemies .
Their very exclusive and intolerant nature is an argument enough against them .and against their "rational logical scientific" claims ,simply because true beliefs or true world views cannot be neither exclusive nor intolerant ,let alone fanatic : their truth speak for themselves ....
See my point or not yet ?
You are perfectly entiteld to believe in whatever you wish to believe in , as long as you do not try to impose your beliefs on me , via misusing science , that deceptive dishonest appaling outrageous way .
I am afraid you are not conscious, self-aware , or mature enough to acknowledge the obvious logics of what i have been saying , despite your intelligence and fancy talk,which brings me back to the fact that cognitive intelligence is by far way below the level of heart's intelligence as the highest form of intelligence :
no wonder that highly intelligent and highly knowledgeable people such as Stephen Hawking,for example (He was once the supervisor of Russell by the way at the university ) are such existential pathetic idiots = existential or spiritual or heart's intelligence they pathetically lack ,is the highest form of intellect they can only dream of trying to approach , let alone reach , not even remotely close , unfortunately enough .
It 's such a shame and waste that such intelligent people are just a bunch of existential idiots = a fact , no insults .
No wonder that despite all modern humanity's scientific technological material and other achievements , this world we live it , this tiny planet we all inhabit , are such a pathetic hopeless sad tragic intolerant violent ...mess.
Take care
All the best of luck in your own short journey on this tiny planet , on this much much much ...less than a single sort of drop of water amidst that huge huge huge ...ocean of billions of galaxies out there and beyond ....
Who the hell are we then to even think of pretending to know anything about the very nature , let alone about the origin of consciousness , not to mention about what is in fact much much much ...greater than just that ...
Sweet dreams in your own wonderland, mr. insensitive heartless unsubtle immature cold mechanic Alice.
The world would just look and sound like you , as it does actually indeed .
Ciao
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You are so self-centered or egocentric ,as a materialist , no wonder, that you blame everything on others , and never on yourself : i presume you are not familiar with self-reflection,self-criticism or introspection.
I was also stunned by your lack of integrity or dishonesty
you were not only dishonest in that sense , but you were also lying
your self-deceit , lies and dishonesty in the name of science ... , are simply appaling and pathetic
you are not conscious, self-aware , or mature enough to acknowledge the obvious logics of what i have been saying
Sweet dreams in your own wonderland, mr. insensitive heartless unsubtle immature cold mechanic Alice.
OK. Feel better now?
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You are so self-centered or egocentric ,as a materialist , no wonder, that you blame everything on others , and never on yourself : i presume you are not familiar with self-reflection,self-criticism or introspection.
I was also stunned by your lack of integrity or dishonesty
you were not only dishonest in that sense , but you were also lying
your self-deceit , lies and dishonesty in the name of science ... , are simply appaling and pathetic
you are not conscious, self-aware , or mature enough to acknowledge the obvious logics of what i have been saying
Sweet dreams in your own wonderland, mr. insensitive heartless unsubtle immature cold mechanic Alice.
OK. Feel better now?
haha
You got that right indeed : i do indeed ,i must admit , to be honest, while having some regrets and guilt feelings at the same time afterwards , in the process .
I am only human, too human, as Nietzsche used to say .
I do realise afterwards i did go too far indeed , relatively speaking then, and i let myself get carried out by emotions also as well ,relatively speaking also ...
The following will help you relatively understand my previous behavior :
I was in fact extremely horrified depressed shocked traumatised ... by what 's been going on in both Egypt (the deliberate cold inhumane barbaric massacre of thousands of unarmed and innocent civilians protesters in the streets of Egypt by the Egyptian security forces and army + by gangs of criminals supported by the Egyptian "government " ...)and in Syria (Those horrific graphic pictures of dead kids,women, old people ... displayed on tv that horrific unethical way ...) did play some role in triggering my relative anger displayed above ,sub-consciously , i presume : i did some introspection afterwards indeed .
All the hope was suddenly gone those horrific ways, displayed on tv for everybody to see , all that hope which was triggered by the so-called Arab spring was gone ( even though the so-called Arab spring was certainly orchestrated by the US mainly , in order to regain control of North_Africa and the M-East from the economic "invasion" of China mainly , Russia ...as many overwhelming convincing data proved it to be , the US department could neither deny nor confirm as such , for obvious reasons).
The civil war in Syria ,for example, was the direct effect of the fact (From the US western israeli point of view at least ) that Iran Syria Hizbollah Hamas alliance as an active resistance to the US israeli new M-East ,had to be broken and defeated ,taking advantage of and playing the legetimate grievances of the Syrian people that had to addressed of course , something the 2006 israeli war on Hizbollah and Lebanon ,which was actively backed up by the US, failed to achieve ...
All that played some role, sub-consciously, once again, in my response to you: that relative anger and relative despair at least , as a result .
My sincere and genuine apologies for some of what i said thus ,i should not have said that ,really ,but nevertheless, there is some truth in what i was saying to you also , so .
I watched a nice movie yesterday + did other creative things as well ...which inspired me , chilled me , cheered me, and brought back hope to my heart though .
"The majestic " was the title of that movie ,which almost brought me to tears , even though, i am not an oversensitive guy : normally , it takes a very good movie or some other things to almost bring me to tears ,combined with some other special circumstances , like the ones occurring in Egypt, Syria, Irak, Tunesia, Libya, Pakistan,Lebanon ...like the ones occuring in our societies thus ...
The decline of muslims has been taking worse and worse shapes , and there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel as well, unfortunately enough : it seems that things will only get worse , before they can eventually get any better , if ever .
But, there are always seeds of potential ,opportunity ,salvation, improvement, goodness, and hope in every crisis as well , no matter how worse it might be or get , as the Chinese wisdom used to say indeed.
That movie was all about doing the right thing ,courage, realistic ideals, justice,love,forgiveness, democracy, freedom, beauty ....which make our trivial , ambitions, careers...and everyday lives sound and look just that = trivial ,unimportant,worthless ... if they fail to have love , honesty , courage ,justice,forgiveness, creativity ,ideals,justice, beauty, freedom ,....in them.
Jim Carry (If i spelled his name right ) i like very much , was the main character of that movie .
I have been listening to that concert of Yanni i provided you, earlier , with a link for in youtube, while writing this to you ,by the way .
..........
I did read that link of yours concerning that materialistic alternative "explanation " of consciousness and other things ,via that unnuanced concept of computation that was extended to consciousness , for obvious materialistic "reasons " , instead of keeping it relatively confined to biological processes only,relatively speaking :
That computation mechanism, process or concept applied to consciousness is just what i can call the materialistic zeitgeist of the moment= no scientific fact ...which proves what i was saying all along about materialism as an exclusive world view in science,which tries to sell to the naive people its materialistic view regarding consciousness as a scientific fact , in order to validate itself...while excluding all non-materialistic views on the subject in the process as well,by calling them irrational superstitious magical , or worse .
Fact is , biological and non-biological processes in man are 2 different categories of processes or of evolution, which occur at different levels and with different set of rules :
so, to apply those biological processes to the non-biological ones that materialistic absolute unnuanced way is simply fundamentally incorrect ,simply because man, the universe ,are not exclusively material entities or rather processes .
The non-materialistic approaches of consciousness are therefore no irrational "magical or superstitious " approaches of it , they just try to come up with temporary approaches of consciousness ,considering the very subjective and elusive nature of human consciousness the approach of which does depend on the given world view trying to do just that , since science is , per definition, logically empirically rationally excluded from approaching the subjective human consciousness, as i said above in my latest post to you .
The approach of human consciousness as certainly no science , but mainly an art which relies mainly on human experiences, wisdom, world views , philosophies ....an art which cannot rely on science thus,relatively speaking, despite all those neurological scientific advances .
P.S.: The following has something to do with the subject of this thread also: the scientific method ( I did raise the highly controversial issue of human consciousness in the same spirit,even though science cannot approach human consciousness , in my eyes at least, and mainly because science cannot do without consciousness .
Not to mention that the increased level of self-awareness and self-consciousness ,via certain world views, can bring about enormous changes within and without , in almost the same fashion the butterfly effect describes at the material level at least ), even though , the following appears to be offtopic , at first sight , but appearances are deceptive, as you know :
Do you think that liberal democracy and its economic capitalist wing are the "highest" or best forms of culture, so to speak ? or that they succeeded in achieving their final victory ,after the fall of the Soviet -Union , as the current global developments at the political economic ethical social ....levels seem to prove ?
In other words :
Do you think that the western values, norms, principles ......of freedom, individual freedom, equality , democracy ,justice.....are the best developments humanity can ever come up with ?
Do you think that democracy is the best government system ever , the best philosophy ....or do you see some future developments beyond those western ideals ...? ,as one should expect , since man is still evolving ...
Thanks, appreciate indeed.
Take care
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Do you think that the western values, norms, principles ......of freedom, individual freedom, equality , democracy ,justice.....are the best developements humanity can ever come up with ?
Do you think that democracy is the best government system ever , the best philosophy ....or do you see some future developments beyond those western ideals ...? ,as one should expect , since man is still evolving ...[/b]
I'm no expert in socio-political systems, but it seems to me that those principles are desirable, although I'm not particularly enthusiastic about the way the democratic process is organised in the UK. I'm with Churchill on that question. Then again, having been raised in a Western democratic tradition, I would say that, wouldn't I?
Unfortunately, these principles are implemented by human beings, and so tend to be corrupted by human failings, which seriously degrades the system. Whether a different system would be more resistant to corruption, I don't know. Whether we can come up with anything better, that depends on your criteria, and who knows what the future will bring?
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Do you think that the western values, norms, principles ......of freedom, individual freedom, equality , democracy ,justice.....are the best developements humanity can ever come up with ?
Do you think that democracy is the best government system ever , the best philosophy ....or do you see some future developments beyond those western ideals ...? ,as one should expect , since man is still evolving ...[/b]
I'm no expert in socio-political systems, but it seems to me that those principles are desirable, although I'm not particularly enthusiastic about the way the democratic process is organised in the UK. I'm with Churchill on that question. Then again, having been raised in a Western democratic tradition, I would say that, wouldn't I?
Unfortunately, these principles are implemented by human beings, and so tend to be corrupted by human failings, which seriously degrades the system. Whether a different system would be more resistant to corruption, I don't know. Whether we can come up with anything better, that depends on your criteria, and who knows what the future will bring?
You quoted unfinished statements : see above ,later .
Try to respond to what i said about that materialistic computation mechanism refferring to the "emergence " of human consciousness from the brain as well,you provided a link for previously, if you want to at least ,while you are at it
Bye
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Do you think that the western values, norms, principles ......of freedom, individual freedom, equality , democracy ,justice.....are the best developements humanity can ever come up with ?
Do you think that democracy is the best government system ever , the best philosophy ....or do you see some future developments beyond those western ideals ...? ,as one should expect , since man is still evolving ...[/b]
I'm no expert in socio-political systems, but it seems to me that those principles are desirable, although I'm not particularly enthusiastic about the way the democratic process is organised in the UK. I'm with Churchill on that question. Then again, having been raised in a Western democratic tradition, I would say that, wouldn't I?
Unfortunately, these principles are implemented by human beings, and so tend to be corrupted by human failings, which seriously degrades the system. Whether a different system would be more resistant to corruption, I don't know. Whether we can come up with anything better, that depends on your criteria, and who knows what the future will bring?
Since almost all the philosophic ethical political intellectual social ,economic....goodies of western growth can be traced back to those fundamental previous Islamic influences , since western thought was / is just an extension of the Islamic original one ,western thought which had taken a materialistic U turn path since , as philosopher Muhammad Iqbal said , since there is no single aspect of western growth which cannot be traced back to those fundamental Islamic influences, as Briffault said , and considering the very evolutionary nature of Islam, i think that Islam is better suited to come up with better values, norms, principles, systems of governments , social systems ....in the future, if only the current muslims would wake up from their slumber , ignorance, backwardness, extremism ....and try to rise to or at least try to approach the level of islam in that regard ,but that's something for the far future , i am afraid .
Philosopher Muhammed Iqbal developed the notion of Islamic evolutionary democratic futuristic societies in that book of his ,so
I don't know what the future will bring ...I just assume that western modern thought will be surely surpassed : evolution of man does not stop at this modern western phase .
I do not know .
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The so-called computation mechanisms cannot be applied to non-biological processes such as human consciousness, for obvious reasons only materialists cannot detect ,even the blind can see ,even the deaf can hear , even the slow of mind can understand ....even the scientific method can acknowledge as such, ironically enough .
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You quoted unfinished statements : see above ,later .
I can't parse that sentence.
Try to respond to what i said about that materialistic computation mechanism refferring to the "emergence " of human consciousness from the brain as well,you provided a link for previously, if you want to at least ,while you are at it
I don't recall posting such a link - perhaps you could repost it. I can't make out much of your discussion beyond that you seem to prefer a non-materialist explanation.
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The so-called computation mechanisms cannot be applied to non-biological processes such as human consciousness
Those of us who think consciousness is a biological process must differ.
... for obvious reasons only materialists cannot detect ,even the blind can see ,even the deaf can hear , even the slow of mind can understand ....even the scientific method can acknowledge as such, ironically enough .
No idea what you mean by that.
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The so-called computation mechanisms cannot be applied to non-biological processes such as human consciousness,
Would you care to define consciouness?
Having defined it, please identify a nonbiological system that possesses it.
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An interesting coincidence - an article by Mustafa Akyol in the 'Hurriyet Daily News' (Istambul), quoted in 'The Week':
... Between the seventh and 13th centuries, Muslim scientists and thinkers were "the most erudite and productive ones in the world". ... So what went wrong? There are many complicated reasons behind the loss of influence, but one factor is the change in Muslim outlook. Back then, Muslims were part of a confident, cosmopolitan civilisation that was open to foreign cultures. Today, by contrast, the "common Muslim mind" is "insular", focused on protecting the "Islamic" sphere from the ideas of "the unbelievers".
Having been a target of the unpleasant side of this 'protective' attitude on this thread, I have to agree.
The article continues: If Muslims want more Nobel Prizes, and the knowledge and success that goes with them, "we must begin by challenging this close-mindedness".
Quite; I wish them luck.
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An interesting coincidence - an article by Mustafa Akyol in the 'Hurriyet Daily News' (Istambul), quoted in 'The Week':... Between the seventh and 13th centuries, Muslim scientists and thinkers were "the most erudite and productive ones in the world". ... So what went wrong? There are many complicated reasons behind the loss of influence, but one factor is the change in Muslim outlook. Back then, Muslims were part of a confident, cosmopolitan civilisation that was open to foreign cultures. Today, by contrast, the "common Muslim mind" is "insular", focused on protecting the "Islamic" sphere from the ideas of "the unbelievers".
Having been a target of the unpleasant side of this 'protective' attitude on this thread, I have to agree.
Prior note :
My earlier "targeting " of materialism as an exclusive narrow-minded reductionistic mechanical deterministic ...world view which pretends to be scientific ,ironically enough (What an irony that you quoted someone who happened to mention that close-mindedness of many current muslims ) , and therefore my "targeting " of you as a materialist were certainly not a matter of close-mindedness in relation to materialism ,absolutely not : it was a matter of fact :
You seem to suffer from some sort of selective amnesia as well , i see : i did mention the fact that all cultures, thoughtstreams, religions ...do have some elements of truth , all of them without any exception whatsoever , relatively speaking ,to some extent at least though , including the materialistic and atheistic world views as well , i do learn a lot from as well ...but that does not mean that i have to agree with all those claims of all those non-islamic cultures, htoughtstreams, religions...
Besides,i do agree with what your provided quote stated , and i even did mention the fact , on many occasions on this thread ,regarding the ignorance, backwardness, extremism...of many current muslims today , as some of the reasons which do explain the current muslim decline ,when muslims abandoned science , reason, logic ...a fact which resulted in the rise of superstition, intolerance ...among muslims , and a fact which resulted finally in the deserved decline of muslims .
I agree with that quote you provided : I can't ,by the way, but mention the following fact on the subject as well :
The extremely conservative stagnating rock-solid character of the Otthoman empire was one of the retrograde forces of history which paved the way for muslim decline by closing the door (those of the mind heart of muslims at that time as well ) to any innovations, creativity , ....by closing that extremely innovative dynamic creative reviving intrinsic islamic door = Al Ijtihad door = islamic theological and other islamic dynamic creative self-reviving think - tanks in islam which were/are and will always be so important in and to the evolutionary islam .
The article continues: If Muslims want more Nobel Prizes, and the knowledge and success that goes with them, "we must begin by challenging this close-mindedness".
Quite; I wish them luck
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Thanks for that : but current muslims do need much more than just luck to regain their lost access to the true revolutionary, evolutionary ,open-minded and tolerant spirit of islam which is open to all cultures, religions, thoughtstreams .........
I certainly do not see how current Turks have been doing just that : they just embraced western secular thought , values, principles .....while almost entirely abandoning or rejecting their islamic heritage in the process:
The Turkish current model cannot serve as an example for what current muslims should be doing in relation to modernism in fact .
P.S.: I did also mention the unique vision in that context of philosopher Muhammad Iqbal ,as a muslim liberal ,an original vision of his which tried to reconstruct religious thought in islam , in the light of modern western thought , and within the islamic context and terms : See that masterpiece of Iqbal on the subject ,as 1 of my sources for this thread :
You seem to prefer that ironic hypocritical vague vision of that guy from that Turkish newspaper ,to that masterpiece of Iqbal on the same subject , ironically enough :
Iqbal did study western thought and philosophy , western literature , ethics ...and did confront them with those original ones of islam as well, within the islamic terms, and in light of the modern western thought ...
Did i not mention that Iqbal proved in that master piece of his, that modern western thought was just an extension of the islamic original one ? , an extension which has been taking its own materialistic secular path ?
Did i not mention that Iqbal proved the fact that most great ideas of western modern thought were already developed by prior ancient muslims ?....
Did i not mention the fact stated by Briffault as well as by Koshul and Iqbal, among many others ,the fact that the islamic fundamental influences were so far reaching that there was / is no single aspect of western growth which could not / cannot be traced back to those islamic influences ?
Did i not mention the fact of this thread as well regarding the indeniable fact that those islamic influences were so far reaching that they were the true originators of the scientific method itself ?
As Iqbal stated , current muslims should learn from the great advances of modern western thought ,within the original islamic terms which gave rise to modernism , in the first place to begin with , in order for current muslims to catch up with all those lost centuries of muslims' slumber .
Koshul was even more clear on this same subject at the end of his above mentioned essay ,as 1 of my sources for this thread afterwards: he stated the fact that medieval backward barbaric superstitious ...Europe back then, was clever and open-minded pragmatic enough to learn from those prior islamic influences , and was therefore able to surpass them in many ways afterwards :
So,current muslims should do the same ,by trying to learn from the modern west ,in order to defeat their own current backwardness, ignorance, superstition , extremism...
Iqbal was qualified enough to stand between and to know both worlds : the islamic as well as the western one : and he was original enough to try to reconstruct the islamic religious thought which has been stagnating for more than 5 centuries now , for the above mentioned reasons , in the light of western modern thought , but within the islamic original terms and contexts .
Instead of taking a close look at that islamic liberal vision of Iqbal, you prefer to quote someone whose own culture had chosen to abandon its own islamic original identity by almost entirely replacing it by the western secular modern thought ...= weird attitude of yours which reveals your exclusive and narrow-minded Eurocentric materialistic world view on the subject , ironically enough .
Not to mention that i talked to you , earlier, about that "Geography of Thought ..." of Nisbett , and that "Global brain" vision of Peter Russell , you seem to have completely discarded ....= your exclusive narrow-minded materialistic Eurocentrism is very revealing indeed : you just want muslims to be completely subjected to Eurocentrism in fact , deep down ,so.
Do correct me if i am wrong though , please .
Final note :
i think you should read Edward Said 's "Orientalism " masterpiece , in order to know about that exclusive narrow-minded racist paternalistic imperialistic western Eurocentric vision regarding Islam mainly .
Thanks, appreciate indeed .
Kind regards
Abdel
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The so-called computation mechanisms cannot be applied to non-biological processes such as human consciousness,
Would you care to define consciouness?
I am not qualified enough to do just that : human consciousness is as obvious as human free will is that they do not need to be defined really though, i guess.
Or as Augustine used to say regarding the human free will, for example : i do not know what free will is , where it begins or where it ends , but i do know that free will does exist .
Having defined it, please identify a nonbiological system that possesses it.
Please do identify a biological non-human system, as you put it , or a non-human living organism which does possess human consciousness .
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The so-called computation mechanisms cannot be applied to non-biological processes such as human consciousness
Those of us who think consciousness is a biological process must differ.
Indeed : you are perfectly entiteld to that opinion of yours : just do not tell me it is a scientific fact : see the difference ?
... for obvious reasons only materialists cannot detect ,even the blind can see ,even the deaf can hear , even the slow of mind can understand ....even the scientific method can acknowledge as such, ironically enough .
No idea what you mean by that.
What i meant is : that so-called computation or emergence property theory cannot be applied to human consciousness, for obvious reasons ,simply because human consciousness is a non-biological process ,otherwise ,science should be able to approach human consciousness as such = science can obviously neither prove the fact that we are conscious and therefore have inner lives , nor can science approach the subjective human consciousness as such , for obvious reasons, even though our human consciousness does have some universal elements , in the sense that all humans are , in principle at least , ...conscious beings .
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You quoted unfinished statements : see above ,later .
I can't parse that sentence.
Never mind , i was not done with that post of mine when you quoted it ,that's all .
But , that sentence you happened to quote was indeed finished though , my mistake , sorry .
Try to respond to what i said about that materialistic computation mechanism refferring to the "emergence " of human consciousness from the brain as well,you provided a link for previously, if you want to at least ,while you are at it
I don't recall posting such a link - perhaps you could repost it.
Here is your quote and link : regarding that lecture of Peter Russell :
It's full of holes (it's practically made of holes) and I don't buy it. I buy this (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=8956859&postcount=31) though.
I can't make out much of your discussion beyond that you seem to prefer a non-materialist explanation.
Self-projections , i presume :
You are the one who seems to prefer a materialistic explanation, above all ,ironically enough .
Worse : you present it as a scientific fact ,which is certainly not .
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Do correct me if i am wrong though , please .
Wrong in as much as my last post was simply referring to the unpleasant nature of some of your responses (e.g. the ones you apologised for).
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Never mind , i was not done with that post of mine when you quoted it ,that's all .
Oh, I see. Perhaps it would help if you finished writing it before posting it.
I can't make out much of your discussion beyond that you seem to prefer a non-materialist explanation.
You are the one who seems to prefer a materialistic explanation, above all ,ironically enough .
Well yes, that's true; you prefer a non-materialistic explanation, I prefer a materialistic one. How is that ironic?
Worse : you present it as a scientific fact ,which is certainly not .
No; as always, I suggest it is the most plausible explanation given prior knowledge and the evidence to date.
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@ dlorde :
Never mind my bold and harsh language : i mean it well .
It's only via some honest passionate hard talk that we can progress indeed .
No disrespect intended or meant ,no harm done or intended , let alone meant .
Np hard feelings , i hope .
I will respond to your comments later on, when you will finish responding to mine as well .
Thanks , appreciate indeed .
I have respect for you and for your world views , as long as you do not try to impose them on me , as ...scientific facts .
All the best
Nice talking to you again : the pleasure is all mine
I just like to shock people sometimes , which does bring me in trouble with people haha , simply because there is nothing more stimulating for human intelligence than shocks ...
High regards
Good night, sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite . kidding
Bye
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Those of us who think consciousness is a biological process must differ.
Indeed : you are perfectly entiteld to that opinion of yours : just do not tell me it is a scientific fact : see the difference ?
I wouldn't dream of it; it's simply the most plausible explanation for the available evidence - see the difference?
What i meant is : that so-called computation or emergence property theory cannot be applied to human consciousness, for obvious reasons ,simply because human consciousness is a non-biological process
Clearly, if you make the a-priori assumption that consciousness is non-biological, then you can't examine it from a biological perspective. But why make that assumption?
Consciousness gives every indication of being intimately connected with the function of a specialised biological organ (the brain) of biological creatures (us), and as (despite intensive study) we have no evidence of it functioning independently and no plausible mechanism for it to do so, it seems reasonable to assume it is a biological process until we have plausible evidence that it isn't.
By studying it as a biological process, we have learned a great deal that we would not otherwise have learned. That's all we aim to do; learn about and try to explain what we observe.
For proof and truth try mathematics or logic.
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Never mind my bold and harsh language : i mean it well .
Insults are rarely meant well.
It's only via some honest passionate hard talk that we can progress indeed .
Progress is made by informed debate. If you want to be taken seriously, try omitting the ad hominem attacks; they're are usually taken as a sign that you don't have a good argument or refutation. If you have a good argument or refutation use it, concisely if possible.
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Would you care to define consciouness?
I am not qualified enough to do just that : human consciousness is as obvious as human free will is that they do not need to be defined really though, i guess.
Or as Augustine used to say regarding the human free will, for example : i do not know what free will is , where it begins or where it ends , but i do know that free will does exist .
In other words, you don't know what you are talking about, and you know the name of someone else who didn't know what he was talking about.
Having defined it, please identify a nonbiological system that possesses it.
Please do identify a biological non-human system, as you put it , or a non-human living organism which does possess human consciousness .
I didn't "put it". But since you ask, a biological nonhuman system could be a bacterium or a tree. However as you won't tell me what you mean by consciousness, I can't possibly tell you if either of them possesses it, and by your own admission above, you wouldn't understand the answer anyway.
Face it, Don, just stringing words together does not constitute intelligent conversation, especially if you don't know what they mean.
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Those of us who think consciousness is a biological process must differ.
Indeed : you are perfectly entiteld to that opinion of yours : just do not tell me it is a scientific fact : see the difference ?
I wouldn't dream of it; it's simply the most plausible explanation for the available evidence - see the difference?
Good then , i just do not think that 's the most plausible explanation to date ,no way : may i ?
Try to convince me then instead .
What i meant is : that so-called computation or emergence property theory cannot be applied to human consciousness, for obvious reasons ,simply because human consciousness is a non-biological process
Clearly, if you make the a-priori assumption that consciousness is non-biological, then you can't examine it from a biological perspective. But why make that assumption?
Well, i can turn those statements of yours upside down ,by stating the exact opposite of your words : Clearly, if you make the a-priori assumption that consciousness is biological , then you cannot examine it from a non-biological perspective .But , why make that assumption then ?
What makes you think that consciousness is biological ?
It would startle haha you somehow to read about this great mystic poet's theory of evolution : Rumi who happened to live many centuries before Darwin was even born by the way : I am giving you a link to it ,not for its 'scientific value " though , just try to read this little essay on the matter , just for the fun of it :
Rumi saw universal love mainly as THE drive behind human evolution ,not the natural selection : via the google search link below you can download that little essay for free , first link with (PDF) label : enjoy : do not read it via your scientific mind though : but via your heart : just for a change then :
https://www.google.com/search?q=rumi%27s%20theory%20of%20evolution.pdf&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=np&source=hp
Consciousness gives every indication of being intimately connected with the function of a specialised biological organ (the brain) of biological creatures (us), and as (despite intensive study) we have no evidence of it functioning independently and no plausible mechanism for it to do so, it seems reasonable to assume it is a biological process until we have plausible evidence that it isn't.
Look, my personal experiences (Human consciousness is a subjective process mainly , i must remind you of , even though consciousness has some universal elements as well ,we all seem to share with each other ,as human beings ) ,my humble knowledge , ancient wisdoms, personal experiences of others on the matter , ...my own beliefs ..my intuition ...my common sense ...do tell me that humanity will never be able to know what the nature or function of human consciousness are , but i might be wrong indeed : you have to come up with some serious explanation of human consciousness ,if you wanna convince me ,simply because i do not buy that materialistic explanation of consciousness that has more to do with materialism as a world view than with science itself though , a materialistic explanation or rather interpretation of human consciousness which does make no sense to me whatsoever .
I see consciousness as being intimately connected with our whole beings , with every cell , organ and atom of our beings ,not just with our brains our consciousness cannot do without ,but this humble statement of mine has no scientific claims ,as your above statement seems to have .
And who said that consciousness functions independently via some mysterious "mechanisms " ,otherwise it would not need our bodies .
Our consciousness will not need our bodies after death though (This is also no scientific statement of mine as well ) :
I think that the next level of human evolution will occur at the level of human consciousness (and then , some evolved humans at the level of consciousness thus will become some sort of "gods " somehow ,metaphorically speaking then , by actively participating in the further dynamic creation of the universe by God , as the universe is still expanding,which might result in the establishment of some sort of highly evolved democratic societies of human "gods " ,the latter is a metaphor, once again ) and then , after death ,that ultimate evolution of man will go on ,resulting in the independence of our souls delivered from the burden and weight of our bodies = our ultimate evolution will be spiritual ,as the ultimate reality is .
By studying it as a biological process, we have learned a great deal that we would not otherwise have learned. That's all we aim to do; learn about and try to explain what we observe.
Well, see above : human consciousness has a biological side it cannot do without indeed : our brain mainly : that's what gives you the illusion that consciousness is biological only = our brains or bodies are just its hosts it cannot do without on this earth and in this life on earth at least , but the ultimate nature and function of our consciousness is not biological :
Otherwise , just try to explain to me then and once again , something i asked you many times to do ,but you did not try to do so far , explain to me then how , on earth, can the unconscious matter give rise to the immaterial consciousness ?
For proof and truth try mathematics or logic.
I assume that my earlier links concerning maths had proved to you the fact that there are unprovable things out there ,and that even maths cannot prove certain true premises to be true .
You just ignored that fact which was demonstrated by some brilliant mathematicians ...
Besides, our reason, logic , science ....cannot cross the boundaries of the realm of the natural reality ,once again : there are many other levels of reality out there ,you cannot just deny the possible existence of via reason, logic , science ...even though , there are also superstitions , fairytales , illusions , delusions ...out there as well that famous tea pot argument of Bertrand Russell does not and cannot absolutely cover .
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Would you care to define consciouness?
I am not qualified enough to do just that : human consciousness is as obvious as human free will is that they do not need to be defined really though, i guess.
Or as Augustine used to say regarding the human free will, for example : i do not know what free will is , where it begins or where it ends , but i do know that free will does exist .
In other words, you don't know what you are talking about, and you know the name of someone else who didn't know what he was talking about.
Funny : that's a rather peculiar way of looking at what i was saying that really made me laugh ,because it was so funny indeed :
No, i said that , simply because i do not know what consciousness is,or rather what the nature of consciousness is ,as Augustine and many others did not /do not / will never know ,not in this life on earth at least : you should try to look for the simplest explanation of my words= Occams' sort of razor , instead of speculating about them wildly .
Having defined it, please identify a nonbiological system that possesses it.
Please do identify a biological non-human system, as you put it , or a non-human living organism which does possess human consciousness .
I didn't "put it". But since you ask, a biological nonhuman system could be a bacterium or a tree. However as you won't tell me what you mean by consciousness, I can't possibly tell you if either of them possesses it, and by your own admission above, you wouldn't understand the answer anyway.
I just stated a fact by saying i do not know
Ok, Mr.unique unparalleled-in-the-history-of-all-mankind so far genius Messiah : do please tell me what the nature of human consciousness is then,then we can all solve this almost eternal impossible issue definitively ,thanks to you we have been waiting for all along during all these thousands of years of humankind's existence on this tiny planet and go on about our business afterwards ,instead of wasting our time here .
Face it, Don, just stringing words together does not constitute intelligent conversation, especially if you don't know what they mean.
Bombastic hollow pretentious statements neither in fact .
The intelligent thing to say when one does not know something is to say : i do not know , i just did that again .
But you are so bombastic as to say that you do know the answer to that i might not even understand : well, try me then, bombastic genius : you might be the only person on earth to know the answer ,who knows ? We might be all idiots indeed in that regard : enlighten us then , Einstein .
Pleeeease do .
Deal ?.
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.. i can turn those statements of yours upside down ,by stating the exact opposite of your words : Clearly, if you make the a-priori assumption that consciousness is biological , then you cannot examine it from a non-biological perspective .But , why make that assumption then ?
What makes you think that consciousness is biological ?Consciousness gives every indication of being intimately connected with the function of a specialised biological organ (the brain) of biological creatures (us), and as (despite intensive study) we have no evidence of it functioning independently and no plausible mechanism for it to do so, it seems reasonable to assume it is a biological process until we have plausible evidence that it isn't.
Look, my personal experiences ... ,my humble knowledge , ancient wisdoms, personal experiences of others on the matter , ...my own beliefs ..my intuition ...my common sense ...do tell me that humanity will never be able to know what the nature or function of human consciousness are , but i might be wrong indeed
Indeed. The history of knowledge acquisition shows that uncorroborated personal experience, intuition, ancient wisdom, and common sense, are poor guides to objective reality; that's precisely why the scientific method you made such a fuss about earlier has been so successful - it attempts to minimize the effects of those influences.
you have to come up with some serious explanation of human consciousness ,if you wanna convince me...
I don't want to (and clearly can't) convince you. Only you can do that.
And who said that consciousness functions independently via some mysterious "mechanisms " ,otherwise it would not need our bodies .
Our consciousness will not need our bodies after death though
To me, this is contradictory. If consciousness doesn't need the body after death, then it must be able to function independently. To do this, there must be some means to sustain it, i.e. some unspecified and unevidenced (mysterious) mechanism.
This is also no scientific statement of mine as well
Nor is it coherent or consistent.
human consciousness has a biological side it cannot do without indeed : our brain mainly : that's what gives you the illusion that consciousness is biological only = our brains or bodies are just its hosts it cannot do without on this earth and in this life on earth at least , but the ultimate nature and function of our consciousness is not biological
Which is it - consciousness can't exist without the biological body, or it can?
just try to explain to me then and once again , something i asked you many times to do ,but you did not try to do so far , explain to me then how , on earth, can the unconscious matter give rise to the immaterial consciousness ?
I've already explained and provided references for how it arises from coordinated brain processes. What is not yet explained is the nature of subjective experience - beyond simply 'that is what it is like to be a human/ape/dolphin/etc'. Nevertheless, it is early days in the exploration of the nature of subjective experience. So far, all indications are that it is a complex emergent phenomenon generated by brain processes. If you have evidence to the contrary, by all means present it.
For proof and truth try mathematics or logic.
I assume that my earlier links concerning maths had proved to you the fact that there are unprovable things out there ,and that even maths cannot prove certain true premises to be true .
You just ignored that fact which was demonstrated by some brilliant mathematicians ...
I'm well aware of Godel's Incompleteness Theorems. He proved them using mathematics and logic. That axiomatic systems can make certain true statements that are not provable within the system is a restricted result; it has no effect on mathematical provability in general. I assumed you would know that.
So, to date, I've given numerous reasoned explanations why I take the approach and viewpoint that I do. All I've seen from you is screeds of handwaving, ad-hominems, misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the science, and (mainly) argument from incredulity and assertions of belief. No reasoned or rational arguments at all.
If you wish to maintain that consciousness is somehow special, and can't be treated like any other phenomenon arising from physical processes, yet can't or won't give a reasoned explanation for that position, that's a fallacy known as 'special pleading (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special_pleading)'. But you knew that, right?
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Never mind my bold and harsh language : i mean it well .
Insults are rarely meant well.
No, those were no insults ,just hard talk = my own expression of tough love for you as a fellow human being .
It's only via some honest passionate hard talk that we can progress indeed .
Progress is made by informed debate.
What i mean by hard talk is informed non-hypocritical , non political -correct talk .
If you want to be taken seriously, try omitting the ad hominem attacks; they're are usually taken as a sign that you don't have a good argument or refutation. If you have a good argument or refutation use it, concisely if possible
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I was just trying to make you realise the fact that you do confuse materialism as a world view with scientifc facts , that's all .
So, i was trying therefore to address materialism as a world view .
The materialistic approach of human consciousness has thus more to do with materialism as a world view ,than with science itself .
If you want me to refute that materialistic view regarding human consciousness , then,it's pretty logical to expect from me that i just address that materialistic world view regarding consciousness ,which is certainly not a scientific fact .
Finally , since science cannot approach our subjective consciousness, then , my reaction to that materialistic view of consciousness would be via alternative non-materialistic world views , not via science : see the difference ?
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Never mind , i was not done with that post of mine when you quoted it ,that's all .
Oh, I see. Perhaps it would help if you finished writing it before posting it.
Indeed.
I can't make out much of your discussion beyond that you seem to prefer a non-materialist explanation.
You are the one who seems to prefer a materialistic explanation, above all ,ironically enough .
Well yes, that's true; you prefer a non-materialistic explanation, I prefer a materialistic one. How is that ironic?
Right : you are indeed perfectly entiteld to hold any world view you might prefer to hold , that's just ironic in the sense that materialism is an exclusive world view : so, when you quoted that Turkish guy talking about that true close-mindedness of many current muslims , you did not realise that materialism is also and mainly an exclusive close-minded ,narrow-minded world view = there is the irony you did not detect .
Worse : you present it as a scientific fact ,which is certainly not .
No; as always, I suggest it is the most plausible explanation given prior knowledge and the evidence to date.
No , it's not : i responded to that earlier : you just make the available data concerning neuro-science fit into your materialistic view of human consciousness = which makes it just a world view , not a scientific one : see the difference ? Hope so .
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.. i can turn those statements of yours upside down ,by stating the exact opposite of your words : Clearly, if you make the a-priori assumption that consciousness is biological , then you cannot examine it from a non-biological perspective .But , why make that assumption then ?
What makes you think that consciousness is biological ?Consciousness gives every indication of being intimately connected with the function of a specialised biological organ (the brain) of biological creatures (us), and as (despite intensive study) we have no evidence of it functioning independently and no plausible mechanism for it to do so, it seems reasonable to assume it is a biological process until we have plausible evidence that it isn't.
Look, my personal experiences ... ,my humble knowledge , ancient wisdoms, personal experiences of others on the matter , ...my own beliefs ..my intuition ...my common sense ...do tell me that humanity will never be able to know what the nature or function of human consciousness are , but i might be wrong indeed
Indeed. The history of knowledge acquisition shows that uncorroborated personal experience, intuition, ancient wisdom, and common sense, are poor guides to objective reality; that's precisely why the scientific method you made such a fuss about earlier has been so successful - it attempts to minimize the effects of those influences.
Well, you are missing the main point of our discussion here : our subjective immaterial human consciousness cannot be approached by the material ( do not confuse the material or the physical or biological with materialism as a world view though ) science , for obvious reasons , despite what materialists would say about just that , that's 1 of the reasons why materialists see consciousness as just a biological process ,simply because it suits them so well, otherwise ,they would be refuting their own materialism as a result : can't you see that ? : so, we are dealing here with just materialism as a world view regarding human consciousness , a materialistic world view that can be only addressed by alternative non-materialistic world views : do not involve science in areas where it does not belong thus .
Therefore, we can only address human consciousness via personal experiences, world views, wisdoms...as i said earlier .
you have to come up with some serious explanation of human consciousness ,if you wanna convince me...
I don't want to (and clearly can't) convince you. Only you can do that.
You're so right about that i must give you credit for indeed : we can only take people to the fountain ,but we cannot make them drink from it indeed : teachers ,thinkers ...do not teach us anything , we do .
Besides, i have been struggling with materialism as a world view in the exact sciences and in life in general , in human sciences, in art , literature , philosophy,anthropology ,history ,psychology......,since my early teenage time now ,without being ever able to swallow that world view, no way , even though i happened to have a materialistic life style during some certain phase of my life without adhering to materialism of course , and even though my relatives, friends , beloved ones used to tell me back then that i was a materialist at heart , a life style i turned my back to since : materialism as a world view is just that : a world view ,which was the product of Eurocentric philosophic historic cultural economic political ...circumstances of medieval Europe , as a rebellion against the church = materialism as a world view is just Eurocentric = not universal ,not in the absolute sense at least, not even remotely close thus .
And who said that consciousness functions independently via some mysterious "mechanisms " ,otherwise it would not need our bodies .
Our consciousness will not need our bodies after death though
To me, this is contradictory. If consciousness doesn't need the body after death, then it must be able to function independently. To do this, there must be some means to sustain it, i.e. some unspecified and unevidenced (mysterious) mechanism
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Well, i see that or rather speculate about that as just the evolution of man through this life to the next one : in this life the body had to be 'attached " to the spirit , for reasons i do not know, with this life on earth as just a temporary phase man gotta go through : after death , our souls get liberated from our bodies in order to be able to go to the next and ultimate level of evolution = the spiritual one ...I do not know for sure :
There are only 2 absolute certainties or absolute truths in life though = our death is absolutely certain , and absolute certainty or the absolute Truth with a big T do exist only after death : so, i was just speculating about the above .
This is also no scientific statement of mine as well
Nor is it coherent or consistent.
See above . those metaphysical matters regarding the meaning of life , regarding death and beyond death do escape our reason, logic, science ,so : they are beyond the latters .We can only speculate about them thus via our own personal experiences, via those of others , via certain world views , via certain wisdoms...
human consciousness has a biological side it cannot do without indeed : our brain mainly : that's what gives you the illusion that consciousness is biological only = our brains or bodies are just its hosts it cannot do without on this earth and in this life on earth at least , but the ultimate nature and function of our consciousness is not biological
Which is it - consciousness can't exist without the biological body, or it can?
It's pretty obvious that consciousness cannot exist without the body , in this life at least : see above : death will be the means to liberate our souls from our bodies in order for us to "upgrade " to the next level of human evolution = the spiritual one .
I am just speculating again , in abscence of the existence of any other alternative explanation or interpretation in that regard in this life at least .
just try to explain to me then and once again , something i asked you many times to do ,but you did not try to do so far , explain to me then how , on earth, can the unconscious matter give rise to the immaterial consciousness ?
I've already explained and provided references for how it arises from coordinated brain processes. What is not yet explained is the nature of subjective experience - beyond simply 'that is what it is like to be a human/ape/dolphin/etc'. Nevertheless, it is early days in the exploration of the nature of subjective experience. So far, all indications are that it is a complex emergent phenomenon generated by brain processes. If you have evidence to the contrary, by all means present it.
Again, that's just a materialistic world view regarding human consciousness , i can address only via other alternative non-materialistic world views .
Besides, i do neither buy the materialistic "fact " that the evolved brain gave rise to consciousness , nor the materialistic "fact " that science can approach the nature of our subjective experiences ,simply because they are subjective .
In short :
You are just talking about the materialistic world views regarding consciousness, regarding our subjective experiences : do not involve science in that , once again, please .
We cannot approach consciousness and our subjective experiences just via biology neurology ....Do not confuse the one with the other = 2 totally different things , even though they do interact with each other and cannot do without each other .
For proof and truth try mathematics or logic.
I assume that my earlier links concerning maths had proved to you the fact that there are unprovable things out there ,and that even maths cannot prove certain true premises to be true .
You just ignored that fact which was demonstrated by some brilliant mathematicians ...
I'm well aware of Godel's Incompleteness Theorems. He proved them using mathematics and logic. That axiomatic systems can make certain true statements that are not provable within the system is a restricted result; it has no effect on mathematical provability in general. I assumed you would know that.
Then, i suggest you watch those videos again ,but i am no expert on the matter though , not even remotely close : i just know that there are things we cannot prove to be true as such ,even though they might be true ...= there might be other levels of reality out there which escape any human reason, logic , science ...simply because we are just a very tiny tiny tiny part of the huge universe or multiuniverses which are still expanding = the materialistic key hole or tunnel vision is just that in fact .
So, to date, I've given numerous reasoned explanations why I take the approach and viewpoint that I do. All I've seen from you is screeds of handwaving, ad-hominems, misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the science, and (mainly) argument from incredulity and assertions of belief. No reasoned or rational arguments at all.
No , you were just confusing materialism as a world view with science , once again .
Second : human consciousness, our subjective inner lives ...do escape any reason, logic, science , which means that we can address them only via world views , personal experiences, wisdoms...
If human consciousness is just a biological process, then one should expect it to be 'captured " , localised , ....Did you ever see it ,touch it ....?
Science might as it actually does shed some important bright light on how our brain functions ....but that has little , if no , effect in trying to explain consciousness as such or rather its nature .
If you wish to maintain that consciousness is somehow special, and can't be treated like any other phenomenon arising from physical processes, yet can't or won't give a reasoned explanation for that position, that's a fallacy known as 'special pleading (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special_pleading)'. But you knew that, right?
No, see above : the nature or function of human consciousness do escape any reason, logic , science ....we can only address the firsts via world views, personal experiences, wisdoms ...
Final note :
The issue of human consciousness can only be addressed at the levels of world views, personal experiences ...= that's a form of art mainly , no science .
When science "will be able " to say something about consciousness , then and only then i will listen to you ....
Deal ?
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Quote :
"The theory of evolution ,however, has brought despair & anxiety , instead of hope & enthusiasm for life , to the modern world .
The reason is to be found in the unwarranted modern assumption that man's present structure , mental as well as physiological , is the last word in biological evolution , and that death , regarded as a biological event , has no constructive meaning .
The world of today needs a Rumi to create an attitude of hope , and to kindle the fire of enthusiasm for life .
His inimitable lines may be quoted here ;
First man appeared in the class of inorganic things,
Next , he passed therefrom into that of plants ,
For years , he lived as one of the plants ,
Remembering naught of his inorganic state so different
And when he passed from the vegetive to the animal state
he had no remembrance of his state as a plant
Except the inclination he felt to the world of plants
Especially at the time of spring & sweet flowers
Like the inclination of infants to towards their mothers
which know not the cause of their inclination to the breast.
Again the great creator ,as you know
Drew man man out of the animal into the human state
Thus man passed from one order of nature to another..."
........... End quote .
Source : The reconstruction of religious thought in islam by Muhammad Iqbal
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No, those were no insults ,just hard talk = my own expression of tough love for you as a fellow human being .
It speaks volumes about you.
I was just trying to make you realise the fact that you do confuse materialism as a world view with scientifc facts , that's all .
Little danger of that, they're entirely different, though complementary, concepts.
The materialistic approach of human consciousness has thus more to do with materialism as a world view ,than with science itself .
Not really; it is more a result of taking a scientific approach.
If you want me to refute that materialistic view regarding human consciousness, then,it's pretty logical to expect from me that i just address that materialistic world view regarding consciousness ,which is certainly not a scientific fact .
I don't particularly want you to refute a materialistic view of consciousness, but just provide some reasoned argument for your own view. I'm curious to know whether you just believe what you've been brought up to believe, or whether you've somehow reasoned yourself into the view you take, and if so, by what arguments.
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Right : you are indeed perfectly entiteld to hold any world view you might prefer to hold , that's just ironic in the sense that materialism is an exclusive world view : so, when you quoted that Turkish guy talking about that true close-mindedness of many current muslims , you did not realise that materialism is also and mainly an exclusive close-minded ,narrow-minded world view = there is the irony you did not detect .
I'm open to a reasoned exposition of your world view - I've been asking you for some time now. So far, you've been unable or unwilling to provide it.
... I suggest it is the most plausible explanation given prior knowledge and the evidence to date.
No , it's not : i responded to that earlier : you just make the available data concerning neuro-science fit into your materialistic view of human consciousness = which makes it just a world view , not a scientific one : see the difference ? Hope so .
The available data happens to fit; if it didn't you'd have been able to show how it supports a different view. But you couldn't.
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... our subjective immaterial human consciousness cannot be approached by the material ( do not confuse the material or the physical or biological with materialism as a world view though ) science , for obvious reasons...
'for obvious reasons', <handwaving> isn't much of an argument. I think we'll leave you to get on with the handwaving, while we continue to learn about the real world.
Well, i see that or rather speculate about that..
... so, i was just speculating about the above .
We can only speculate about them ...
...I am just speculating again ...
OK; in that case, I'll leave you to it.
Again, that's just a materialistic world view regarding human consciousness , i can address only via other alternative non-materialistic world views .
OK, go ahead. Address the multiple lines of evidence that point to consciousness being a process of the brain via other alternative non-materialistic world views.
... i am no expert on the matter though , not even remotely close : i just know that there are things we cannot prove to be true as such ,even though they might be true ...= there might be other levels of reality out there which escape any human reason, logic , science ...simply because we are just a very tiny tiny tiny part of the huge universe or multiuniverses which are still expanding = the materialistic key hole or tunnel vision is just that in fact .
Ah... no. There could well be other universes, it's a very promising hypothesis, but Godel's Incompleteness Theorems have nothing to do with it.
So, to date, I've given numerous reasoned explanations why I take the approach and viewpoint that I do. All I've seen from you is screeds of handwaving, ad-hominems, misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the science, and (mainly) argument from incredulity and assertions of belief. No reasoned or rational arguments at all.
... human consciousness, our subjective inner lives ...do escape any reason, logic, science , which means that we can address them only via world views , personal experiences, wisdoms...
Odd how it always comes down to either evasion, 'I'm just speculating', or the most egregious special pleading, 'you can't use reason, logic, or science...'. A complete waste of time.
If human consciousness is just a biological process, then one should expect it to be 'captured " , localised , ....Did you ever see it ,touch it ....?
It is localised - within the brain that produces it, and you can't see or touch a biological process - only its physical effects. Can you see or touch digestion? photosynthesis?
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Quote :
"The theory of evolution ,however, has brought despair & anxiety , instead of hope & enthusiasm for life , to the modern world .
The reason is to be found in the unwarranted modern assumption that man's present structure , mental as well as physiological , is the last word in biological evolution , and that death , regarded as a biological event , has no constructive meaning .
Wow, what a miserable so-and-so; two straw man arguments for the price of one - and he grasps the wrong end of the stick with such confidence...
I doubt you'll find anyone with even a modest knowlege of evolution, who would make the asinine assumption that 'man is the last word in biological evolution'. It is indeed entirely unwarranted, and an obvious straw man.
Likewise, death has a primary constructive meaning - it's the driving force of evolution itself, and essential to ecosystem life in general.
Nature is oblivious to your wishful fantasies of life after death, it just recycles your constituents. There's no reason to think you'll be any more conscious after death than you were before birth, and plenty of reasons to think you won't.
But if it makes you feel better, dream away.
The world of today needs a Rumi to create an attitude of hope , and to kindle the fire of enthusiasm for life .
Rumi writes sweet poetry, but Iqbal needs counselling...
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Quote :
"The theory of evolution ,however, has brought despair & anxiety , instead of hope & enthusiasm for life , to the modern world .
The reason is to be found in the unwarranted modern assumption that man's present structure , mental as well as physiological , is the last word in biological evolution , and that death , regarded as a biological event , has no constructive meaning .
Wow, what a miserable so-and-so; two straw man arguments for the price of one - and he grasps the wrong end of the stick with such confidence...
I doubt you'll find anyone with even a modest knowlege of evolution, who would make the asinine assumption that 'man is the last word in biological evolution'. It is indeed entirely unwarranted, and an obvious straw man.
Likewise, death has a primary constructive meaning - it's the driving force of evolution itself, and essential to ecosystem life in general.
Nature is oblivious to your wishful fantasies of life after death, it just recycles your constituents. There's no reason to think you'll be any more conscious after death than you were before birth, and plenty of reasons to think you won't.
But if it makes you feel better, dream away.
Ho, ho, what turned you suddenly into this sort of 'beast " you seem to have become ?
Iqbal wrote that in the 1930's -1935's , i guess ,so :
Try to compare those errors of Iqbal with (no comparison in fact ) how western Eugenics , social darwinism , racist western anthropology back then, racist imperialist western orientalism back then ...to mention just that ...how they all were not only unscientific and stupid ,but were also criminal .
Besides, i was only trying to display that poem of Rumi about evolution though .
So, you were just trying to score this pathetic juvenile way , i am afraid : this is no competition , dude , just an exchange of opinions and ideas , insights ...That's all .
As for the rest of your words = that's a form of pathetic pleading , ironically enough .
We can absolutely not prove what lies ahead after death , either way ....so, you seem to have lost your mind suddenly : weird .
I hope you are alright though .
The world of today needs a Rumi to create an attitude of hope , and to kindle the fire of enthusiasm for life .
Rumi writes sweet poetry, but Iqbal needs counselling...
Both Rumi and Iqbal were just men of their ages , as we are all in fact , including the women then = nobody is infaillible , not even remotely close .
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No, those were no insults ,just hard talk = my own expression of tough love for you as a fellow human being .
It speaks volumes about you.
That's only your own perception ,interpretation or representation of the reality of my words .
Why is that ? I meant what i said , simply because i do not like hypocritical or political -correct talk you displayed sometimes on this board , that's why i resorted to that informed hard talk as a kindda tough love for you as a fellow human being , really , i mean it : that was genuinely candidly and harmlessly meant .
I was just trying to make you realise the fact that you do confuse materialism as a world view with scientifc facts , that's all .
Little danger of that, they're entirely different, though complementary, concepts.
No , buddy : you , guys , are so indoctrinated and brainwashed by materialism as a world view for so many centuries now that you cannot but confuse it with science proper , unfortunately enough .
The materialistic approach of human consciousness has thus more to do with materialism as a world view ,than with science itself .
Not really; it is more a result of taking a scientific approach
.
No , my friend, not really , not always though : materialism as a world view has been hijacking science exclusively for more than 5 centuries now that most people cannot but confuse materialism with science ,mostly then : just try to take a look back at history to find out about the real roots of materialism then .
If you want me to refute that materialistic view regarding human consciousness, then,it's pretty logical to expect from me that i just address that materialistic world view regarding consciousness ,which is certainly not a scientific fact .
I don't particularly want you to refute a materialistic view of consciousness, but just provide some reasoned argument for your own view. I'm curious to know whether you just believe what you've been brought up to believe, or whether you've somehow reasoned yourself into the view you take, and if so, by what arguments
.
Well, if you read my latest post to you carefully , you would notice that i was a kindda materialist myself without adhering to materialism as a world view or philosophy , paradigm...of course .
I have been struggling with the issue of muslims ' decline and the rise of the west in order to understand how when and why that happened , so i can address my own legetimate natural doubts as a result concerning my own faith whose extremely evolutionary , revolutionary , creative dynamic self-reviving intrinsic think tanks were tragically closed by muslims themselves for more than 5 centuries now :
But i did find out that Islam itself was not the problem ,on the contrary , muslims were/are ,those current and ancient muslims who were guilty enough and responsible enough for their own decline , for the rise of the materialistic atheistic secular west = that's a huge tragedy and a huge crime against humanity what those muslims have been doing in the above mentioned sense , humanity will need a very long time to recover from, if ever , despite all those western material scientific technological and other great achievements :
I like to imagine what this violent intolerant , deceptive , full of hatred , extremism , bigotry,racism, xenophoby, make-believe,wars , hunger , inequalities, genocides, ...full of lies even in the name of science ...world would really look like , if muslims did not abandon science , reason, logic .....combined with the true access to the tolerant open-minded cosmopolitan spirit and essence of Islam : i would like to imagine how this world would look like in that case , simply because human consciousness shaped by the right and true spirituality ,combined with true science,true science as also a religious duty , as a form of worship of God in Islam at least ,combined with the truths contained in all cultures, religions, currents of thought ....would turn humans into some sort of "gods " , metaphorically speaking , instead of materialistic animals thanks to this down-to-earth materialistic secular atheistic civilization .
My life experiences thus , humble knowledge , research, reason, logic , the very nature of science ....had convinced me , beyond the shadow of a doubt , of the exclusive ideological nature of materialism in all areas of life , especially in science : i told you i have been struggling with this issue of materialism since an early age ,did i not ?
Besides, when i take a look back at history to see how early muslims whose "invention " and practice of the scientific method had revolutionized the world .when i saw how those early muslims were able to remain open to all world views , to all cultures, to all human races , currents of thought ...thanks to Islam mainly that had shaped their conmsciousness that way ,i cannot but remark (an understatement ) that suspicious exclusive dominance and exclusive monopoly of materialism in all sciences,in human sciences , in literature , art , .....materialistic exclusive monopoly of the truth at all levels which excludes all non-materialistic world views in the process ....
So, when i take a look back at those tolerant and open-minded early muslim encyclopedic cosmopolitan scientists who used to exclude no world view whatsoever , i cannot but despise that exclusive narrow-minded materialism as a result , sorry .
All i wish for you is that you would realise those facts about materialism some day , in order to be able to wake up from your slumber , to broaden your own tiny horizon which is exclusively confined within those exclusive reductionistic mechanical key hole or tunnel vision boundaries of materialism , and eventually expand the scope of your own consciousness and level of reality .
Best of luck and best wishes , my friend,from the very bottom of my heart .
I do despise materialism indeed ,as i said, to be honest , i must admit once again , materialism as an exclusive world view which pretends to be scientific ,which misuses sciences and other fields of human knowledge and activity , in order to validate itself so desperately,in order to impose itself as the one and only truth , but i do have respect for you as a fellow human being , and for your materialistic world views even , as long as you do not try to impose them on people , as scientific facts,as long as you do not try to mislead and deceive people in the name of science and in the name of materialism in science and elsewhere .
Early muslims were confident enough and used science just as an effective tool to find out about the secrets and signs of God within and without , they were certainly not doing just that in order to validate Islam or in order to impose islam as the one and only truth , absolutely not :
They were just doing that for practical and pragmatic reasons as well as a way to understand Islam istelf somehow in the process,and because practicing science was a religious duty and a form of worship of God in Islam as well , in the sense that the more knowledge in the broader sense , experience , scientific knowledge , belief ,wisdom , practice ,work ...a believer can get or do , the closest to God he /she would get .
You are just yet another relatively voluntarily victim of materialism ,so : i cannot blame you for that indeed .
victims of materialism as a world view are better described by this experiment mentioned by Linda Jean Shepherd in that unique brilliant book of hers i talked about earlier :
Indians (From India , not those massacred American natives ) used to conduct the following experiment in order to tame the elephants :
They used to tie up new born elephants to soft leafs via soft ropes ,those new born elephants babies learned that way not to escape from that , despite the softness of their "chains " , but the amazing thing that happened was as follows :
When those elephants grow up as adult elephants , they would destroy their metal solid chains tied up to big trees,together with those trees in fact , but when one ties them up via soft ropes to soft leafs , they do not even try to "liberate " themselves form those soft "chains "
This was no pleading , let alone insults ,just facts, or just life facts instead then .
Take care
Have a nice week-end and life : life is too short , enjoy it while you can : when you will eventually die ,then and only then you will know the Truth with a big T when those fake veils of reality in this life will be removed from your eyes mind and heart , as we all will indeed .
Bye
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As for the rest of your words = that's a form of pathetic pleading , ironically enough .
We can absolutely not prove what lies ahead after death , either way ....so, you seem to have lost your mind suddenly : weird .
I hope you are alright though .
I'm fine; I was just passing time until you came up with your reasoned argument for your world view. The reasons don't have to be logical, rational, or scientific - I'm just curious to know what they are and why they convince you.
I'll come back if something interesting like that shows up.
ETA: stop the presses - a new post arrives: From what I can make out, it's all grounded in your enthusiasm for Islam, despising materialistic world views, and a nostalgia for the heady but ancient days of Islamic primacy in science. Let me know if I missed anything major.
Mostly context, little explanation, but fair enough; no surprises there.
OK, thanks for that.
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As for the rest of your words = that's a form of pathetic pleading , ironically enough .
We can absolutely not prove what lies ahead after death , either way ....so, you seem to have lost your mind suddenly : weird .
I hope you are alright though .
I'm fine; I was just passing time until you came up with your reasoned argument for your world view. The reasons don't have to be logical, rational, or scientific - I'm just curious to know what they are and why they convince you.
I'll come back if something interesting like that shows up.
ETA: stop the presses - a new post arrives: From what I can make out, it's all grounded in your enthusiasm for Islam, despising materialistic world views, and a nostalgia for the heady but ancient days of Islamic primacy in science. Let me know if I missed anything major.
Mostly context, little explanation, but fair enough; no surprises there.
OK, thanks for that.
Well, science , reason , logic ...are not abscent in islam, on the contrary : see that Qur'anic epistemology which gave rise to the scientific method , it's just that science , reason, logic ....can only cover some areas of this universe , can only cover the natural reality , but fail to address other levels of reality and other levels of consciousness,fail pathetically to address consciousness itself ...that's where belief comes in : that's no God gap .
As for the rest of your words again, they are just speculations : i am a restless truth seeker , and i would try to find it even in the devil himself, so to speak haha , i just regret and condemn the fact that materialism is in fact the enemey of the truth , partly then , that's all .
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@ dlorde :
When you will acknowledge ,recognize and realise the obvious limits of science , reason, logic ....when you will stop confusing materialism as an exclusive world view with science ....then and only then , we can progress in this discussion, otherwise it would be an utter waste of time , as you just realised ,...............unfortunately enough .
Otherwise , just keep on cherishing your own materialistic illusions ,delusions and fairytales in your own materialistic wonderland , dear Alice .
I was just trying to give you my points of view , i am not gonna be lost haha without you, do not worry , if you just leave me to these issues , as you said , don't worry .
I am a big boy , i am not afraid of the dark, i can find my way without you,i can confront my own demons as well, and i can take care of myself , thank you very much .
It's only logical rational and especially ethical to just despise exclusive world views ,especially when they pretend to be scientific , especially when they deceive mislead and lie to people in the name of science , just in order to impose themselves on people as the one and only truths , at the very expense of the truth thus = that's even the very definition of ...fascism as the enemy of the truth , no matter how true materialism can ever be , no matter how many truths are contained in materialism indeed .... .
Congratulations .
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Many scientific research proved the fact that consciousness could not or cannot be produced by the brain: those materialists who pretend to prove the opposite do not realise the paradoxical ramifications and implications of their false assumptions in that regard ...
To say that the materialistic approach of consciousness fits the up to date data is simply a twist of facts ...and just a materialistic interpretation of the data ...
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Many scientific research proved the fact that consciousness could not or cannot be produced by the brain.
OK, I'll bite. What scientific research (link to sources please)?
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Many scientific research proved the fact that consciousness could not or cannot be produced by the brain.
OK, I'll bite. What scientific research (link to sources please)?
Plenty : i will try to make a selection for you ,later on .
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I personally think the scientific method may have been independently invented by several people in several places prior to its take off in Renaissance Europe. The scientific method is a very useful invention. What allowed it to take off in Europe, from 1543 onward?
1) It's utility.
2) The printing press.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Revolution)
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I personally think the scientific method may have been independently invented by several people in several places prior to its take off in Renaissance Europe.
Not a bad summary of the thread, although it's debatable how far back in history, precisely when it's identifiable as the scientific method, and how independent the inventions.
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I personally think the scientific method may have been independently invented by several people in several places prior to its take off in Renaissance Europe. The scientific method is a very useful invention. What allowed it to take off in Europe, from 1543 onward?
1) It's utility.
2) The printing press.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Revolution)
Hi there : welcome to the thread : it's been becoming a bit boring to talk to just one member here about the subject of this thread ,even though the person in question is a very worthy discussion partner indeed .
Besides, before jumping to any a-priori conclusions, please try to read that relatively short essay on the subject by Koshul , you can download for free , as mentioned above in this thread's opening 's article : the man made his case scientifically and methodically ,so.
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Many scientific research proved the fact that consciousness could not or cannot be produced by the brain.
OK, I'll bite. What scientific research (link to sources please)?
Try this ,for starters : if i am not mistaken at least : "Brain is not needed for consciousness ",try to download the article related to the subject as well from a link below the video on youtube :
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Try this ,for starters : if i am not mistaken at least : "Brain is not needed for consciousness ",try to download the article related to the subject as well from a link below the video on youtube..
I read the article (which is only a discussion article, not a scientific research publication), and it simply doesn't support your assertion that "scientific research proved the fact that consciousness could not or cannot be produced by the brain".
These quotes from the article make it clear enough:
Kenneth Till, a former neurosurgeon at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, London, has this to say: "Interpreting brain scans can be very tricky.There can be a great deal more brain tissue in the cranium than is immediately apparent." Till echoes the cautions of many practitioners when he says, "Lorber may be being rather overdramatic when he says that someone has 'virtually no brain.'
...
As to the question "Is your brain really necessary?" Lorber admits that it is only half serious. "You have to be dramatic in order to make people listen," concedes the tactician. Bower's answer to the tongue-in-cheek question is this: "Although Lorber's work doesn't demonstrate that we don't need a brain, it does show that the brain can work in conditions we would have thought impossible." Bower occasionally complains that Lorber's style is less scientific than it might be.
Lorber's studies of hydrocephalics shows that a few have negligible detectable functional impairment, which is unexpected, given the degree of brain distortion. There is some debate as to whether deep brain structures (unaffected by hydrocephalus) contribute more to high level function than had been thought. Studies show that it's the white matter (the neural fibres) that is squashed most, but the cortical nerve cells are still present. When a shunt is implanted to relieve the pressure, the brain structure generally recovers roughly normal appearance. Sadly, the majority of hydrocephalics are seriously functionally impaired.
So, in summary, Lorber has discovered that the cerebral cortex is far more resilient to long-term developmental distortion than was previously appreciated. This is in line with discoveries in recent years that the brain has far more neuroplasticity than previously thought. Science moves on apace.
But no, it doesn't support your claim.
You said there is "Many [sic] scientific research", which I take to mean more than one discussion article. Have you got something better, like a published research paper in a peer reviewed journal of repute; something that actually supports your claim?
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Try this ,for starters : if i am not mistaken at least : "Brain is not needed for consciousness ",try to download the article related to the subject as well from a link below the video on youtube..
I read the article (which is only a discussion article, not a scientific research publication), and it simply doesn't support your assertion that "scientific research proved the fact that consciousness could not or cannot be produced by the brain".
These quotes from the article make it clear enough:
Kenneth Till, a former neurosurgeon at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, London, has this to say: "Interpreting brain scans can be very tricky.There can be a great deal more brain tissue in the cranium than is immediately apparent." Till echoes the cautions of many practitioners when he says, "Lorber may be being rather overdramatic when he says that someone has 'virtually no brain.'
...
As to the question "Is your brain really necessary?" Lorber admits that it is only half serious. "You have to be dramatic in order to make people listen," concedes the tactician. Bower's answer to the tongue-in-cheek question is this: "Although Lorber's work doesn't demonstrate that we don't need a brain, it does show that the brain can work in conditions we would have thought impossible." Bower occasionally complains that Lorber's style is less scientific than it might be.
Lorber's studies of hydrocephalics shows that a few have negligible detectable functional impairment, which is unexpected, given the degree of brain distortion. There is some debate as to whether deep brain structures (unaffected by hydrocephalus) contribute more to high level function than had been thought. Studies show that it's the white matter (the neural fibres) that is squashed most, but the cortical nerve cells are still present. When a shunt is implanted to relieve the pressure, the brain structure generally recovers roughly normal appearance. Sadly, the majority of hydrocephalics are seriously functionally impaired.
So, in summary, Lorber has discovered that the cerebral cortex is far more resilient to long-term developmental distortion than was previously appreciated. This is in line with discoveries in recent years that the brain has far more neuroplasticity than previously thought. Science moves on apace.
But no, it doesn't support your claim.
You said there is "Many [sic] scientific research", which I take to mean more than one discussion article. Have you got something better, like a published research paper in a peer reviewed journal of repute; something that actually supports your claim?
[/quote]
I do salute and appreciate the fact that you did make some efforts to read that article at least : good that you try to examine any perspective relating to consciousness at least .
(Prior note : I think you should read this interesting book : "You are not your brain " : sort of mindfulness combined with neurology , by Jeffrey M.Schwartz and Rebecca Gladding........
Besides,there are also many non-materialistic approaches of consciousness out there : buddhist , and other , that i did not wanna mention , simply because they are not really scientific ...= it's extremely difficult to brand any approaches of consciousness ,for that matter ,as being totally scientific though , simply because they all rely heavily on their corresponding world views on the subject , as the materialistic approach of consciousness do as well ...= no single approach of consciousness whatsoever can be really called totally scientific , including the materialistic one thus = a fact you should realise ,recognize and acknowledge as such =a fact i mentioned many times ....no wonder when consciousness or the subject tries to study itself = the subject trying to study the subject = the subject or consciousness as a process that's mainly shaped by world views . )
Anyway : I also expected that above mentioned case of that guy with "no brain " to be exaggerated indeed , but that nevetheless proves the fact that the brain ,in a way , is less necessary , to some degree at least , for consciousness .
Besides, i do agree with what that guy on the radion in the video said about the fact that materialists do confuse correlation between the 2 "systems" = brain and consciousness,with causation = the brain does not cause or produce consciousness , there is just a certain correlation or interaction between them .
That said , i read about some scientific studies concerning the brain and consciousness ,some time ago, concerning the fact that the first cannot produce the second : they are so marginalized though ,due to that materialistic paradigm that's dominating in science ,so, it's difficult to find them .
I will look for them ,later on then .
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I also expected that above mentioned case of that guy with "no brain " to be exaggerated indeed , but that nevetheless proves the fact that the brain ,in a way , is less necessary , to some degree at least , for consciousness .
Nope, not even slightly. You're clutching at straws that don't exist. Please explain how any of it supports your assertion.
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I also expected that above mentioned case of that guy with "no brain " to be exaggerated indeed , but that nevetheless proves the fact that the brain ,in a way , is less necessary , to some degree at least , for consciousness .
Nope, not even slightly. You're clutching at straws that don't exist. Please explain how any of it supports your assertion.
The very fact that he seems to be missing some parts at least of his brain is evidence enough for the fact that the brain, or rather some parts of it at least , is not always needed for consciousness,even though scientific studies had shown that some damaged areas of the brain can indeed affect some parts of our consciousness .
Why do you seem to have the materialistic habit or assumption assertion view that the brain causes consciousness, instead of just correlating or interacting with it ? : correlation and causation are 2 totally different processes , even though some people do think that even causation itself as such does not exist= just an illusion .
But , i cannot see how science can function or explain anything without causation though ...
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The very fact that he seems to be missing some parts at least of his brain is evidence enough for the fact that the brain, or rather some parts of it at least , is not always needed for consciousness,even though scientific studies had shown that some damaged areas of the brain can indeed affect some parts of our consciousness .
That's been known for a very long time. Not only are many parts of the brain not involved in consciousness, but consciousness is (as I have already described) the result of a large number of processes, in various parts and structures of the brain, interacting. Damage or destruction to these areas damages the relevant aspects of consciousness, but it can sustain, albeit increasingly degraded, considerable damage before it is no longer apparent. If you've lived with someone developing dementia (e.g. Alzheimer's) you'll know what I'm talking about.
Why do you seem to have the materialistic habit or assumption assertion view that the brain causes consciousness, instead of just correlating or interacting with it ?
I addressed this in an earlier post.
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The very fact that he seems to be missing some parts at least of his brain is evidence enough for the fact that the brain, or rather some parts of it at least , is not always needed for consciousness,even though scientific studies had shown that some damaged areas of the brain can indeed affect some parts of our consciousness .
That's been known for a very long time. Not only are many parts of the brain not involved in consciousness, but consciousness is (as I have already described) the result of a large number of processes, in various parts and structures of the brain, interacting. Damage or destruction to these areas damages the relevant aspects of consciousness, but it can sustain, albeit increasingly degraded, considerable damage before it is no longer apparent. If you've lived with someone developing dementia (e.g. Alzheimer's) you'll know what I'm talking about.
Why do you seem to have the materialistic habit or assumption assertion view that the brain causes consciousness, instead of just correlating or interacting with it ?
I addressed this in an earlier post.
Just try to read the following strong refutation of materialism in science which gets confused with science by many people , including you , especially concerning the materialistic dogmatic magical approach of consciousness, the latter as a so-called emergent property from the complexity of the evolved brain ....written by a physicist :
http://www.superconsciousness.com/topics/science/why-consciousness-not-brain
Why Consciousness is Not the Brain
FALL 2010
The Science of Premonitions
Author: Larry Dossey
Excerpted from The Science of Premonition: How Knowing the Future Can Help Us Avoid Danger, Maximize Opportunities and Create a Better Life by Larry Dossey. Copyright 2009 by Larry Dossey. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Physicist Freeman Dyson believes the cosmos is suffused with consciousness, from the grandest level to the most minute dimensions. If it is, why aren’t we aware of it?
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“We don’t know who first discovered water, but we can be sure that it wasn’t a fish,” the old saw reminds us. Continual exposure to something reduces our awareness of its presence. Over time, we become blind to the obvious. We swim in a sea of consciousness, like a fish swims in water. And like a fish that has become oblivious to his aqueous environment, we have become dulled to the ubiquity of consciousness.
Why Consciousness is Not the Brain - The Science of Premonitions - Larry Dossey
In science, we have largely ignored how consciousness manifests in our existence. We’ve done this by assuming that the brain produces consciousness, although how it might do so has never been explained and can hardly be imagined. The polite term for this trick is “emergence.” At a certain stage of biological complexity, evolutionary biologists claim, consciousness pops out of the brain like a rabbit from a magician’s hat. Yet this claim rests on no direct evidence whatsoever. As Rutgers University philosopher Jerry A. Fodo flatly states, “Nobody has the slightest idea how anything material could be conscious. So much for our philosophy of consciousness.”
In spite of the complete absence of evidence, the belief that the brain produces consciousness endures and has ossified into dogma. Many scientists realize the limitations of this belief. One way of getting around the lack of evidence is simply to declare that what we call consciousness is the brain itself. That way, nothing is produced, and the magic of “emergence” is avoided. As astronomer Carl Sagan expressed his position, “My fundamental premise about the brain is that its workings – what we sometimes call mind – are a consequence of anatomy and physiology, and nothing more.” Nobelist Francis Crick agreed, saying “[A] person’s mental activities are entirely due to the behavior of nerve cells, glial cells, and the atoms, ions, and molecules that make up and influence them.”
This “identity theory” – mind equals brain – has led legions of scientists and philosophers to regard consciousness as an unnecessary, superfluous concept. Some go out of their way to deny the existence of consciousness altogether, almost as if they bear a grudge against it. Tufts University cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett says, “We’re all zombies. Nobody is conscious.” Dennett includes himself in this extraordinary claim, and he seems proud of it.
Consciousness can operate beyond the brain, body, and the present, as hundreds of experiments and millions of testimonials affirm. Consciousness cannot, therefore, be identical with the brain.
Others suggest that there are no mental states at all, such as love, courage, or patriotism, but only electrochemical brain fluxes that should not be described with such inflated language. They dismiss thoughts and beliefs for the same reasons. This led Nobel neurophysiologist Sir John Eccles to remark that “professional philosophers and psychologists think up the notion that there are no thoughts, come to believe that there are no beliefs, and feel strongly that there are no feelings.” Eccles was emphasizing the absurdities that have crept into the debates about consciousness. They are not hard to spot. Some of the oddest experiences I recall are attending conferences where one speaker after another employs his consciousness to denounce the existence of consciousness, ignoring the fact that he consciously chose to register for the meeting, make travel plans, prepare his talks, and so on.
Many scientists concede that there are huge gaps in their knowledge of how the brain makes consciousness, but they are certain they will be filled in as science progresses. Eccles and philosopher of science Karl Popper branded this attitude “promissory materialism.” “[P]romissary materialism [is] a superstition without a rational foundation,” Eccles says. “[It] is simply a religious belief held by dogmatic materialists . . .who confuse their religion with their science. It has all the features of a messianic prophecy.”
The arguments about the origins and nature of consciousness are central to premonitions. For if the promissory materialists are correct – if consciousness is indeed identical with the brain – the curtain closes on premonitions. The reason is that the brain is a local phenomenon – i.e., it is localized to the brain and body, and to the present. This prohibits premonitions in principle, because accordingly the brain cannot operate outside the body and the here-and-now. But consciousness can operate beyond the brain, body, and the present, as hundreds of experiments and millions of testimonials affirm. Consciousness cannot, therefore, be identical with the brain.
In science, we have largely ignored how consciousness manifests in our existence. We’ve done this by assuming that the brain produces consciousness, although how it might do so has never been explained and can hardly be imagined.
These assertions are not hyperbolic, but conservative. They are consistent with the entire span of human history, throughout which all cultures of which we have record believed that human perception extends beyond the reach of the senses. This belief might be dismissed as superstition but for the fact that modern research has established its validity beyond reasonable doubt to anyone whose reasoning has not clotted into hardened skepticism. To reiterate a single example – the evidence supporting foreknowledge – psi researchers Charles Honorton and Diane Ferrari examined 309 precognition experiments carried out by sixty-two investigators involving 50,000 participants in more than two million trials. Thirty percent of these studies were significant in showing that people can describe future events, when only five percent would be expected to demonstrate such results by chance. The odds that these results were not due to chance was greater than 10 to the twentieth power to one.
One of the first modern thinkers to endorse an outside-the-brain view of consciousness was William James, who is considered the father of American psychology. In his 1898 Ingersoll Lecture at Harvard University, James took a courageous stand against what he called “the fangs of cerebralism and the idea that consciousness is produced by the brain. He acknowledged that arrested brain development in childhood can lead to mental retardation, that strokes or blows to the head can abolish memory or consciousness, and that certain chemicals can change the quality of thought. But to consider this as proof that the brain actually makes consciousness, James said, is irrational.
Why Consciousness is Not the Brain - The Science of Premonitions - Larry Dossey
Why irrational? Consider a radio, an invention that was introduced during James’s lifetime, and which he used to illustrate the mind-brain relationship. If one bangs a radio with a hammer, it ceases to function. But that does not mean that the origin of the sounds was the radio itself; the sound originated from outside it in the form of an electromagnetic signal. The radio received, modified, and amplified the external signal into something recognizable as sound. Just so, the brain can be damaged in various ways that distort the quality of consciousness – trauma, stroke, nutritional deficiencies, dementia, etc. But this does not necessarily mean the brain “made” the consciousness that is now disturbed, or that consciousness is identical to the brain.
British philosopher Chris Carter endorses this analogy. Equating mind and brain is irrational, he says as listening to music on a radio, smashing the radio’s receiver, and thereby concluding that the radio was producing the music.
To update the analogy, consider a television set. We can damage a television set so severely that we lose the image on the screen, but this doesn’t prove that the TV actually produced the image. We know that David Letterman does not live behind the TV screen on which he appears; yet the contention that brain equals consciousness is as absurd as if he did.
My conclusion is that consciousness is not a thing or substance, but is a nonlocal phenomenon. Nonlocal is merely a fancy word for infinite. If something is nonlocal, it is not localized to specific points in space, such as brains or bodies, or to specific points in time, such as the present.
The radio and TV analogies can be misleading, however, because consciousness does not behave like an electromagnetic signal. Electromagnetic (EM) signals display certain characteristics. The farther away they get from their source, the weaker they become. Not so with consciousness; its effects do not attenuate with increasing distance. For example, in the hundreds of healing experiments that have been done in both humans and animals, healing intentions work equally well from the other side of the earth as at the bedside of the sick individual. Moreover, EM signals can be blocked partially or completely, but the effects of conscious intention cannot be blocked by any known substance. For instance, sea water is known to block EM signals completely at certain depths, yet experiments in remote viewing have been successfully carried out beyond such depths, demonstrating that the long-distance communication between the involved individuals cannot depend on EM-type signals. In addition, EM signals require travel time from their source to a receiver, yet thoughts can be perceived simultaneously between individuals across global distances. Thoughts can be displaced in time, operating into both past and future. In precognitive remoteviewing experiments – for example, the hundreds of such experiments by the PEAR Lab at Princeton University – the receiver gets a future thought before it is ever sent. Furthermore, consciousness can operate into the past, as in the experiments involving retroactive intentions. Electromagnetic signals are not capable of these feats. From these differences, we can conclude that consciousness is not an electric signal.
Then what is it? My conclusion is that consciousness is not a thing or substance, but is a nonlocal phenomenon. Nonlocal is merely a fancy word for infinite. If something is nonlocal, it is not localized to specific points in space, such as brains or bodies, or to specific points in time, such as the present. Nonlocal events are immediate; they require no travel time. They are unmediated; they require no energetic signal to “carry” them. They are unmitigated; they do not become weaker with increasing distance. Nonlocal phenomena are omnipresent, everywhere at once. This means there is no necessity for them to go anywhere; they are already there. They are infinite in time as well, present at all moments, past present and future, meaning they are eternal.
Researcher Dean Radin, whose presentiment experiments provide profound evidence for future knowing, believes that the nonlocal events in the subatomic, quantum domain underlie the nonlocal events we experience at the human level. He invokes the concept of entanglement as a bridging hypothesis uniting the small- and large-scale happenings. Quantum entanglement and quantum nonlocality are indeed potent possibilities that may eventually explain our nonlocal experiences, but only further research will tell. Meanwhile, there is a gathering tide of opinion favoring these approaches. As physicist Chris Clarke, of the University of Southampton, says, “On one hand, Mind is inherently non-local. On the other, the world is governed by a quantum physics that is inherently non-local. This is no accident, but a precise correspondence ...[Mind and the world are] aspects of the same thing...The way ahead, I believe, has to place mind first as the key aspect of the universe...We have to start exploring how we can talk about mind in terms of a quantum picture...Only then will we be able to make a genuine bridge between physics and physiology.”
When scientists muster the courage to face this evidence unflinchingly, the greatest superstition of our age – the notion that the brain generates consciousness or is identical with it – will topple. In its place will arise a nonlocal picture of the mind.
Whatever their explanation proves to be, the experiments documenting premonitions are real. They must be reckoned with. And when scientists muster the courage to face this evidence unflinchingly, the greatest superstition of our age – the notion that the brain generates consciousness or is identical with it – will topple. In its place will arise a nonlocal picture of the mind. This view will affirm that consciousness is fundamental, omnipresent and eternal – a model that is as cordial to premonitions as the materialistic, brain-based view is hostile.
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Just try to read the following strong refutation of materialism in science which gets confused with science by many people , including you , especially concerning the materialistic dogmatic magical approach of consciousness, the latter as a so-called emergent property from the complexity of the evolved brain ....written by a physicist :
Plenty of unsubstantiated assertions, arguments from intuition, and argumentumn ad populum, but no scientific research.
Where's the 'many scientific research' you said you knew about?
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Just try to read the following strong refutation of materialism in science which gets confused with science by many people , including you , especially concerning the materialistic dogmatic magical approach of consciousness, the latter as a so-called emergent property from the complexity of the evolved brain ....written by a physicist :
Plenty of unsubstantiated assertions, arguments from intuition, and argumentumn ad populum, but no scientific research.
Where's the 'many scientific research' you said you knew about?
The guy said true things about materialism though ..
As for the rest , later on then : i have a life of my own also , things to do, responsibilities , duties, people to take care of ...so
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History must be rewritten indeed ...............