[DonQuichotte (OP)]

.. 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

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

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.

[alancalverd]

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.     

[dlorde]

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.

[dlorde]

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.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

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 .

[dlorde]

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.

[dlorde]

<mangled quoting>

If you can sort out your quoting in that post, I'll try to respond to it.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

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 ...

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

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 .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

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 .

[dlorde]

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.   

[dlorde]

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.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

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?

[/quote]

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.

[/quote]


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

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

@ 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

[dlorde]

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.

[dlorde]

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.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

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

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

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

.

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 .

[dlorde]

... 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'. For a perspective on why knowing the science behind our experience only enhances it, see Feynman's 'Ode on a Flower' video.

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'), 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, 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 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.