is there any rational reason... for RATIONALITY??

yes

and no

parody threads

where all is rational, there are no surprises and nothing is learned, only reconfirmed.

I don't know what you are taking to mean rational, but that's kind of a misunderstanding of what I understand to mean by it ... i.e. using the Scientific Method. You can certainly be surprised, even while following it. Results don't always conform to one's hypotheses.

(The trick is, really, knowing what kind of circumstance to apply the scientific method, and what circumstances it is inappropriate.)

I have been reading a very interesting book on the Philosophy of Science by Mary Midgley, which is where all my thinking about Rational and "rational" methodologies is coming from.

And how the meaning of this word, and "Scientific" has become twisted and redefined. Originally (Enlightenment era), it meant, thinking out for yourself rather than relying on the received information of The Ancients or The Church.

It certainly bears thinking about, and discussing, albeit playfully.

Yeah, I hate when people say that "science" is "just an ideology" or "no different from religion"... Of course science as a social phenomenon can sometimes get sorta rigid and resistent to change, but on the basic level the scientific method is the exact opposite of religious or ideological thinking.

It's not the exact opposite, Tuomas, it's just different. And many different approaches are needed in order to examine different aspects of life.

You could do with reading some Mary Midgley yourself - Science is as rife with its own myths and mythology as any other human institution.

Freedom of choice is an illusion, maaaan.

Yeah, religion = Adam and Eve, Science = Dinosaurs.

Who chose to write that? Was that a conditioned reflex? A random eddy in the spacetime continuum? Wait, I didn't hear anything, did you?

x-post

theres a great novel called 'everything is illusionated' that really will change your life if you read it

like if you append 'on weed' to every statement ever made the world becomes much more tolerable

same kinda deal if youre 'on weed' yourself

Science is NOT omnicompetent. There are some questions it simply cannot answer - or provides meaningless and inappropriate "answers" to.

Physics can't tell you who to marry. Neurobiology cannot tell you whether to have children or not.

Have you ever thought *why* so many people have turned to religion recently when Science promised it would simply fade away? it can't simply be because every single one of them is stupid or deluded or indoctrinated or suffering from Freudian father-complexes exploited by wiley priests.

I suspect that a part of it - maybe a small part, but still a significant part of it - is that this misrepresentation of Science as omnicompentent and its being pushed and twisted to make it so has made many people simply discontent with it. It doesn't provide all the answers. Nor should it. And you drive people away from it if you claim it can.

but, you know, some people would rather just smoke weed and dodge the questions... whatever floats your boat.

what the fuck

That last line was an x-post.

But you know, whatever... on weed.

Masonic Boom, if religion and science are not "exact opposites," as you remarked to Tuomas above, then why are these people who you claim are being driven away from science by its claims to "omnicompetence" (and just who is making these claims, and where are they making them?), why are they turning as a result to religion? (I'm granting a lot of unexamined premises here, but they're the ones you've proposed, so I'll deal with them as-is.) If they aren't opposites, then a drive away from science should be equally likely to lead to, hell, I don't know, shuffleboard or Magic 8-Ball.

There are some questions it simply cannot answer

There's something Godelian about simply stating this categorically. How can you possibly know whether this statement is true or not?

I didn't mean to say science and religion are opposites in every regard, but in their methods of figuring out the truth about our world and the universe I think they are.

I.e. the scientific method of trying to figure out the truth is the opposite to the "religious method".

You have a workbench of tools with which to deal with your life and the questions in it. If a screwdriver doesn't work on your particular problem, you might try a wrench. If that doesn't work, you try a hammer. You'd never say that a hammer is the *opposite* of a screwdriver, just that it does a different job.

Hence why, on your life-toolbench, you might have a series of different tools for different questions - the Scientific Method, a metaphorical approach, religion, psychology, emotion, culture, new age bobbins, asking-your-mum, etc. and so forth.

If you were told that a screwdriver was the ONLY tool you could ever use, that it excluded all other tools, if you used a screwdriver, you could never use anything else - wouldn't you be tempted to say "OK, I'm not going to use you, screwdriver, as my hammer never tells me that I cannot occasionally use a wrench or a spirit level or a soldering iron."

There are questions in life to which science returns meaningless answers. If you don't think so, then go ahead. Explain to me, who I should marry, using only particle physics.

I'll even be generous and throw in astrophysics if you're really stumped.

x-post, Tuomas, what is this "religious method" of which you speak?

Catholic? Protestant? Quaker? Hindu? Buddhist? Zen?

I really think you should be a bit more specific, please.

im really not trying to be a dick here but what the hell are you guys talking about

Jewish? Taoist? Islamic? Voodoo? Jedi? Confucian?

x-post, don't worry, deeznuts, go and smoke some weed.

Rastafarian?

i got hit on by a rasta chick the other week it was cool

seriously though im only asking because you should probably ask yourself the same question & because im curious as to what the answer would be

Um, well, I'm just having a really slow day at work, and I'm bored, so I'm discussing philosophy of science because I find it entertaining and interesting to think about these kinds of questions.

Are there some questions that the scientific method can't answer? that's a really interesting question to me (and Godel and Turing and Roger Penrose and Mary Midgley and other people I enjoy reading/reading about.)

I suppose we're talking about whether science - or indeed human knowledge - has limits, and ifso what/where they are.

thats sorta the idea of studying science

The Science of Science! Scienceology? (though not Scientology... though that's another one to add to my list of potential religious methods that Tuomas could object to.)

If a screwdriver doesn't work on your particular problem, you might try a wrench. If that doesn't work, you try a hammer.

If you're doing anything at all in which you try using, in series, a screwdriver, then a wrench, then a hammer, I might submit that you're a bit of a fuckup. Even metaphorically.

If you were told that a screwdriver was the ONLY tool you could ever use, that it excluded all other tools, if you used a screwdriver, you could never use anything else

Again, who are the people making these claims that there is one and only one tool you may use, to the permanent exclusion of all others? To the extent that these people exist, it's my experience that they are about a million times more likely to be wearing a bishop's mitre than a lab coat.

There are questions in life to which science religion returns meaningless answers. If you don't think so, then go ahead. Explain to me, who I should marry, using only particle physics Catholicism.

Game, set and match.

Catholicism provides, to Catholics, pretty meaningful answers about who they should marry - someone who has the same spiritual and cultural values, preferably another Catholic. I'm not saying it would be right for me, but it certainly works for some people in terms of finding compatible mates with similar belief systems and goals.

And I have actually executed a DIY project which required attempting to use a screwdriver, a wrench then finally resorting to a hammer. I was attempting to remove something which was already badly threaded. Maybe that makes me a fuckup, I'd prefer to think of myself as resourceful. Also, who says that I was using them all for the same job? If I were trying to build a large project like, oh, a life, I'd have to use all of them eventually.

Still, regardless, it is a metaphor, not an actual example. Your mind clearly doesn't work well with symbolism. Different people's brains work in different ways - literal or symbolic - and require different systems.

Finally, how many bishops do you, personally know? I have to confess that I know several. The last bishop I had supper with, we actually had a lovely discussion of Stephen Hawking and he wanted me to reccomend him more books like that. Funnily enough, the people telling me most often how I should live my life or make my decisions are random atheists on the interweb working out their own oedipal issues of bitterness at the religion in which they were raised.

I don't see conversations as tennis matches or competitions to win or lose. I'm sorry that you do, you must find this very frustrating.

catholics are infamous for their arranged marriages

touchdown 6 points

Your mind clearly doesn't work well with symbolism.

Uh . . . ok. I'm not sure how you got from there to here, but whatever.

Finally, how many bishops do you, personally know?

Let's see . . . one, a bishop in an evangelical demonination, just passed away a few months ago. So that leaves me with two.

Funnily enough, the people telling me most often how I should live my life or make my decisions are random atheists on the interweb working out their own oedipal issues of bitterness at the religion in which they were raised.

Uh huh. That's why the National Academy of Scientists feels making proclamations about who should and should not be legally permitted to marry, and the Catholic Church does not. OH WAIT THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF THAT IS TRUE.

I, by the way, grew up with a Jewish father and a Protestant mother and was not raised in any religion, so if you think you're being clever there, you're not.

I don't see conversations as tennis matches or competitions to win or lose. I'm sorry that you do, you must find this very frustrating.

Are you familiar with the term "plonk?" Don't ascribe to me motivations which you have no way of knowing, please.

Wow, you sure are defensive. I must really have touched a nerve there. I'm not really interesting in this kind of point-scoring debate, I don't find it very useful. I'm not trying to win an argument, just throw around some ideas I've been reading about recently which made a lot of sense to me.

Still, I'd reccomend reading Mary Midgley, she is a very interesting writer.

field goal attempt BRICK zero points

The text is on the internets, after all!

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=E7l9ZbOnZOcC&dq=mary+midgley+%22the+myths+we+live+by%22&pg=PP1&ots=Z0EEIUn42U&sig=b67qkK8jzMth9JJ9PM1dfy-BzA4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA1,M1

(I hope that works, otherwise google Mary Midgley and "the myths we live by")

Wow, you sure are defensive. I must really have touched a nerve there.

Well, no, you're just being sort of a dick. I'm not making any attempts to read your mind, so a little reciprocity is probably in order. "Your mind clearly doesn't work well with symbols is" . . . what's the charitable word here? . . . unhelpful. At best. At worst, it's aggressively assholish, and contingent on information you have know way of knowing; as well as itself being a defensive response to my mockery of your metaphor.

You've yet to respond to my question from several posts up, so I'll reiterate it here, with a followup. I think you're dodging it, frankly: Who, exactly, are the people who are claiming that science is "omnicompetent," and in what fora are they making these claims?

Followup: Do you honestly, seriously submit that "science," generally, is more likely to try to tell people how to live their lives then "religion," generally? (Keeping in mind that the Catholic church, among others, attempts to force people who are not even believers in their religion, let alone their denomination, to adhere to moral strictures that go far beyond what's needed to make a society run smoothly.)

wow, "is there any rational reason... for RATIONALITY??" has spurred a conflict only 40 posts in. way to go max!

You're all on the Devil's Advocaat.

thx surmo but i think we all know if u put kate and deeznuts in a thread together fireworks are sure to result

Pancake, I find it very unhelpful to have arguments which just reduce down to SCIENCE = GREAT, RELIGION = SUCKS over and over again. Becauase religion would not continue to be so powerful and persuasive to a lot of people if it had nothing going for it. I'd rather work out what it is about religion that people are attracted to.

If I am dismissive and patronising to you, it's because I have no interest whatsoever in having yet another one of those dualistic black and white discussions. Life is not a tennis match.

Many scientists (and there are quotes and examples in Midgley's book, to which I linked up there, starting on page 2) *do* suggest that science is omnicompetent. And dismiss anything to which the Scientific Method does not apply as meaningless. Which renders large amounts of life pretty meaningless.

I have never said that "SCIENCE!!!" is any more or less likely to tell people how to live their lives. All I say is that I have encountered more dogmatic and simplistic and one-sided thinking in arguments with atheists on the internet than I ever did within the church in which I was raised.

Intead of shouting loudly about how awful religion is and how much better science is, why not ask what it is about religion that is so appealing to people?

Physics has no meaningful answers to the question of who you should marry, whether you should have children, and ifso, how many, etc. etc. Catholicism, for example, and only one example, does claim to have answers to these questions. If you were a person whose main interest in life was getting married and having children, to which tool would you turn in making that decision?

One which says "I can't provide a meaningful answer to that question" or one which provides a ready-made answer? (Whether or not you agree with that answer, it still provides a framework for a troubling question.)

Before you go dismissing that person as an idiot or a flunky, think for a moment. Not everyone in the world is of above-average intelligence. Not everyone in the world has a literal, reductive mind of the kind suited to the scientific method.

You can't write off the whole of religion as a concept because you disagree with specific creeds.

Anyway, it's taken me so long to write this that I'm sure there have been a million zings in the meanwhile.

(xp) Science is as likely to give people reasons to tell others what to do as religion. Many religions are more aggressive about it due to prostylization baked into their dogma but the thing you're missing here is that both are driven by human beings, who en masse seem to have an almost pathological desire to tell others what to do.

rape would not continue to be so powerful and persuasive to a lot of people if it had nothing going for it

suicide bombing would not continue to be so powerful and persuasive to a lot of people if it had nothing going for it

meth would not continue to be so powerful and persuasive to a lot of people if it had nothing going for it

responding to kate st claire posts would not continue to be so powerful and persuasive to a lot of people if it had nothing going for it

That's something that Midgley addresses quite early on, Dan...

It turns out that the evils which have infested religion are not confined to it, but are ones that can accompany any successful human institution. Nor is it even clear that religion itself is something that the human race either can or should be cured of.

I cannot recommend this book quite enough. Though you probably wouldn't realise that from my clumbsy, caffeine-fuelled bumbling.

thx surmo but i think we all know if u put kate and deeznuts in a thread together fireworks are sure to result

-- max, Wednesday, August 20, 2008 9:58 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

ok definitely the best abbrev to date

ethan, you can pretty much take any long-running human activity, constructive or destructive, and put that phrase in front of it. Doesn't negate the argument that they are still worth looking into.

What does rape say about gender relations and violence?

What does suicide bombing say about the desperation of people that resort to?

What does drug abuse say about the human mind's need for stimulation, and the patterns of exploitation that drive the illegal drugs trade?

Are these not things that are worth talking/thinking about?

You don't have to talk to me if you're not as bored at work as I am.

...and on that note, I'm gonna go and try to concentrate on doing some gender analyses by architect type for the Information Centre.

science is not synonymous with reason! the rational validity of things like inductive and especially abductive inference has always been a major issue.

What does rape say about gender relations and violence?

What does suicide bombing say about the desperation of people that resort to?

What does drug abuse say about the human mind's need for stimulation, and the patterns of exploitation that drive the illegal drugs trade?

Are these not things that are worth talking/thinking about?

You don't have to talk to me if you're not as bored at work as I am.

-- Masonic Boom, Wednesday, August 20, 2008 10:22 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

no one has said religion isn't worth "looking into", or "thinking about". you're arguing that something is worth practicing if lots of people are doing it. it'd be like going onto a thread about dating and saying "there's two sides to dating - consensual sex and rape. rape has existed for all of human history, and offers a different experience than consensual sex. you can't just take it off the table and say that consensual sex has all the solutions!"

xp re. science & marriage

The scientific method is, basically, "best guessing". You assume that nothing is 100% true, come up with a set of guesses and then try to make those guesses better by experimentation and observation. At some point these guesses work well enough and new stuff is built.

Dating is, basically, "best guessing". You assume that no potential partner is 100% perfect, come up with guesses of who you'd be able to mate with and then try to improve those guesses by experimentation and observation. At some point these guesses work well enough for marriage and babies are built.

If I am dismissive and patronising to you, it's because I have no interest whatsoever in having yet another one of those dualistic black and white discussions.

Well, a certain way to make sure that you get there in record time is to ascribe to compelte strangers motivations which you cannot possibly know and to make unwarranted assumptions about them. So, if that was your goal, mission accomplished. If, as you say, it wasn't, you might want to get a better screwhammewrench.

Intead of shouting loudly about how awful religion is and how much better science is, why not ask what it is about religion that is so appealing to people?

I know exactly what about religion is so appealing to people. That doesn't make it right, useful, or anything else. Lots of things that are appealing are also wrong.

Physics has no meaningful answers to the question of who you should marry, whether you should have children, and ifso, how many, etc. etc.

Nor does it claim to, and any scientist (or layperson) anywhere who says that it does is a buffoon.

Catholicism, for example, and only one example, does claim to have answers to these questions.

Yes, it claims to, but does it? Does it answer those questions more successfully, on average? I say it does not.

You can't write off the whole of religion as a concept because you disagree with specific creeds.

Well, yeah, I can, because it's my contention that what the average joe on the street would consider "religion" is based on assumptions about how the universe works that are fundamentally incorrect. The parts that are not can, I think, be comfortably absorbed under the heading of "philosophy." (Or maybe ethics, in some cases.)

xpost no I think the point was that if lots of people are doing it, there must be something behind it, not necessarily to join in with it.

there's two sides to dating - consensual sex and rape. rape has existed for all of human history, and offers a different experience than consensual sex. you can't just take it off the table and say that consensual sex has all the solutions!"

But it does!

xp see, pancakes isn't doing science. nothing is ever "incorrect", just "very unlikely according to theories we currently have." absolutism is not scientific (probably...)

oh boy it's the science-doesn't-know-everything crowd

early bird special!

science doesn't claim to know anything though!

xp see, pancakes isn't doing science. nothing is ever "incorrect", just "very unlikely according to theories we currently have." absolutism is not scientific (probably...)

-- Thomas, Wednesday, August 20, 2008 10:35 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

how do you practically distinguish between these two? if you're alone in your apartment and i call to ask you if george w bush is hiding in your closet, you can't say he isn't because you don't know! it's just very unlikely according to theories you currently have!

no one has said religion isn't worth "looking into", or "thinking about". you're arguing that something is worth practicing if lots of people are doing it. it'd be like going onto a thread about dating and saying "there's two sides to dating - consensual sex and rape. rape has existed for all of human history, and offers a different experience than consensual sex. you can't just take it off the table and say that consensual sex has all the solutions!"

Ethan if you're going to mix your metaphors, I'm going to posit it another way...

it's like you're looking at religion and saying it's all rape, when actually, there's many different threads to sexual intercourse - consensual, S&M, ritual, semi-coerced, date rape, violent rape etc. etc. etc. - and there are as many different threads to religion.

You cannot point to the most dogmatic aspects of, say, Catholicism and from that, extrapolate that every religion across the board, from Confucianism to Voodoo, from Quaker to Zen, is all equally bad bad, evil evil, wrong wrong.

And with that, I really am done, damn the inevitable x-posts... because when I'm reduced to arguing with Ethan, it really is time to get off the internets.

yeah, that's what I meant above about "best guesses being good enough" ie there is a remote possibility that dubya is in my closet, but my "best guess" that he isn't is good enough to give you an absolute answer.

although, there is a nagging doubt. perhaps i ought to check?

the harmful or helpful effects of religion don't really matter for the purposes of determining truth - whether it hurts people is incidental to that. religion is false because it makes false claims. regardless of its failures, science is making a sincere effort to understand the world based on evidence.

amazing

always liked this essay by gregory bateson: http://www.oikos.org/m&nschoolboy.htm

and Thomas OTM throughout...

By education most have been misled;
So they believe, because they so were bred.
The priest continues what the nurse began,
And thus the child imposes on the man.
- John Dryden, The Hind and the Panther

this guy is otm even if he doesnt mean to be

and fwiw, i feel like a distinction needs to be made between religion as orthodoxy (which really just uses the idea of religion for social control) and religion as a genuine effort to understand the world...

how does religion make a genuine effort to understand the world? i think the word you're searching for is "philosophy"

http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=religion

# S: (n) religion, faith, religious belief (a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny) "he lost his faith but not his morality"

hey guess what part i have a problem with

well yeah that's true! so you if you want to call religion that makes a genuine effort "philosophy" that's fine by me...

it's not me who wants to call it that, it's, uh, dictionaries

dictionaries = received wisdom, i.e. the opposite of science.

Just sayin' like...

yeah man, fuck dictionaries!

you really are that dumb, huh

Let's have a debate on the philosophy of lexicography! The Oxford descriptive approach versus the Academie Francaise prescriptive approach!

dictionaries change constantly based on how language is used -- they are observed, not received

xp lol in english anyway

fair enough about dictionaries of course...but religion and philosophy were essentially the same thing for most of human history...and my only point is that they are MASSIVELY intertwined. and in fact i'd say Science is another part of that big menage a trois...

religion and humanity were the same thing for most of humanity..they are MASSIVELY intertwined...and i love threesomes

I think all interesting questions in philosophy can be examined without recourse to religion at all.

yeah except people be religious so what u gonna do about that

new respect for pancakes hackman from this thread

actually typing out explanatory arguments to kate st claire.... thats like some purple heart medal of honor shit right there

more purple heart than medal of honor tho

just to make my point a little better: if you start with a figure like Plato, where philosophy, science, and religion all seem to coexist---and then you look over the history of human inquiry you start to see that these disciplines are sorta starting to branch out, differentiate, "specialize." so yes they are different and they have different criteria for truth and rationality, but they also each have unavoidable blind spots and presuppositions.

ryan wtf does science necessarily have to do w/ the human condition?

philosophy & religion are all about narcissism basically; science operates on much broader turf

i dont really get why these three are being grouped here

science is a human activity done by humans!

I may be dumb for making a lame joke about "look it up in the dictionary" being the new "look it up in the bible" but my god, Ethan, you are just a rude little pedant.

Whatever I may be, all I can do is be glad that I'm the opposite of you.

finally, something we agree on

BUT...are you really the opposite of him, when you think about it?

DEEZNUTS you are worse at articulating yourself than captainlorax

what the hell are YOU talking about

Pancakes and Ethan are being incredibly stupid on this thread.

if only we could compete with the towering intellect of kate st claire

you may be arguing with kate but youve got deeznuts on your side, so i think it evens out

no he doesnt

my point is really theyre the same person, like hitler & stalin

deeznuts isn't on anyone's side

im on roosevelts side bitch

If I could reach the towering intellect of Ethan, do you think that would teach me his fantastic social skills or perhaps his basic empathy?

can't you two just get a room and stop the playfight flirting?

Jon, remind me again why you haven't drowned in your own vomit, you walking abortion?

-- MIS Information (kate), Monday, July 11, 2005 8:02 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

F D motherfucking R people

jpg of something crashing into something

http://www.forumspile.com/Thread-I_like_where_this_thread_is_going.jpg

jpg of something crashing into something

-- contenderizer, Wednesday, 20 August 2008 16:55 (15 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

wow. either you are entirely tasteless or you haven't read today's news yet.

it's on now

how dare you make a joke about something crashing into something, you monster

The rational reason for rationality is useful self-deception through "reasoning

"

Madrid air crash.

What I don't understand is how you've all managed to replicate the scene on the deck at pretty much every house party ever so perfectly.

Seriously, can I bum a smoke from one of you guys?

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/check_yo_elf.jpg

thanks ed. this thread needed a bit of elf-awareness.

If people discuss the works of Mary Midgley on the deck at your house parties, can you invite me to the next one because that sounds great.

someone post the ascii art of the guy rubbing his forehead

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fuck new ilx

answers in milk placement and butter on toast threads making me seriously doubt it

for reference: the milk placement and butter on toast threads.