About beliefs and "scientific impotence" - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by Danneq 

Okay, then explain what is "reality"?

Reality - I can poke you in the eye, therefore you are.

Sorry if I derail this thread. I do not want to be a party pooper. When it comes to subjects as this, the philosopher in me awakens and the more people use absolute terminology, the longer the white Socrates beard grows on me.

I might seem to contradict myself when I in another thread in the Sound science forum defended a DAP that doesn't do very well in tests and talk about how the persons perception is important. Then I talk critically about persons beliefs and prejudices (from a philosophical standpoint).

Well, no matter how I try to live a life of complete congruity between my thoughts and actions, it is almost impossible and quite frankly a bit boring to do it 100% of the time. While the important things in life (things that deal with morals and our relationships to other people and other living creatures) I am very strict to myself, but when it comes to simple epicurean enjoyments such as music and other culture I just choose to do what gives me enjoyment. So I do not mind listening to music through what others consider to be a substandard medium, nor do I mind watching an old worn out video cassette on an old tube TV as long as the music or movie is to my liking.

Well, just a note to explain the person behind the keyboard...

 Quote from Just or Unjust in GTA IV:

I think this paper would be a good read for audiophiles who are struggling between subjectivism and objectivism-

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prog Rock Man 

Reality - I can poke you in the eye, therefore you are.

Short and to the point! I like it much better than circular reasoning, i.e. defining a word with abstract meaning with another word with abstract meaning.

Quote:

Originally Posted by haloxt 

Eugenics is a science, and does have results, ie. primitive Tongans' sexual selection for height. But I distrust modern people's ability to practice it intelligently, they'll probably just cripple humanity the same way they've crippled many modern livestock, and probably give them the same behavioral traits heh heh. Knowledge is a dangerous tool like fire, and the problem is some people think it's right to set things on fire or sterilize people for very wrong reasons. It's not fire's fault, and it's not science's fault, it's people's fault, and it's people's fault again for not trying to stop the misuse, even more so when they claim to speak for "science".

Eugenics is more the result of a certain belief than science. Well, strictly speaking, eugenics was a scientific discipline less than a man age ago. It is a perfect example of using the scientific method to justify your prejudices. In this example with terrible consequences...

It is fun that you bring up Tongans' sexual selection. (that would make a great signature!) I have studied anthropology at the university and that discipline was created by white Europeans and Americans as a way of finding out about mankind through studies of "primitive" people. So men in waxed mustaches and safari hats went to live with these primitive people and observe their ways. Then they came back home and lectured about their experiences and wrote treaties' about the primitive people. But did this really teach them anything about humanity or did it just confirm their already existing beliefs about the "primitives"?

I took philosophy for a year at University. A tutorial where we had to debate 'how did we know a certain pencil was red' and 'how do we know trees make a sound when they fall in a forest and no one is around' I found very annoying. It was a game of semantics and meaning which ignored the science that tells us a certain wavelength of light appears as red when it bounces off a certain surface and kinetic energy from a falling tree is converted to sound and heat.

That is why philosophers are often bedfellows of pseudoscience as they use logic and reasoning and semantics to argue their point. 

(Please note that I am Scottish from Yorkshire stock and we don't really do nonsense!! To make that even more so I work with in the legal system and evidence is pretty important!!)

Quote:

Originally Posted by xnor 

 

This doesn't make sense to me.

What do you mean by that and how is it connected with that article?

Believing is something that requires a leap of faith. Its something devoid of science. If i showed a devout Christian a fossil that was 3 million years old, they would still believe that the Earth was created 5,000 years ago. There is nothing I can do about it. Its impossible to argue with belief. That is why belief and science cannot coexist. Science is forged with argument and fact. Tomorrow,  Evolution could be a thing of the past, black holes could lead to a multitude of universes and quarks could move faster the speed of light, because they are science.  It is almost impossible to believe that tomorrow Christ won't be a Christian's savior. Note I am not trying to say one is inferior. There are many scientists who are religious, and devout. They just separate it, or try to prove intelligent design. So when I say that you cannot believe in science it is because belief is generally forged and strengthened by an emotional or mystical element. This is something we scientists learn to control when doing our work.It is the same way with much of the audio world. I willing to bet you hear  differences with your $100 cable and $1000 cable if you say you do, no one here lies, but it comes from emotion and placebo and not scientific fact.

For that reason, we reject science, because we naturally reject things that oppose our viewpoints. Since emotion has become such an integral part of our society, science has been in decline. Our engineers and scientists from the 40's,50's,60's, and 70's are dying and retiring and there is no one stepping up to fill the voids. It is having a huge societal impact. 

I wish school would teach more religion, and more science. While they are both there to answer the same questions, they serve totally different purposes in life. One can be devout and work in the sciences. Its a big problem no one is talking about.

I ran across your discussion on science here and found it very interesting. I'm a Christian and so it feels like I'm stepping in to a realm very seldom talked about by many people I know who are Christians. So my question is do you believe there is any absolute truth? or is all fiction? or somewhere in between?

Ah! A Scotsman! I like Scottish people. Many philosophers come from Scotland with David Hume and Adam Smith being the most well known.

It sounds like you studied theoretical philosophy at University? At least it is called that in Sweden. I studied moral philosophy which is more directed at man as a thinking being.

I do agree that those examples you mention are pretty pointless and I agree with your description of light and sound. Those examples are like mind games but do not prove much.

However your conclusion is a bit far fetched. Do you mean that everything that cannot be measured and therefore has to be analyzed with logic and reasoning does not exist?

Morals? - the egoistic behavior of the animal that man is.

Love? - a hormonal intoxication to promote the production of offspring.

Music and cultural activities? - Well, can science say anything about the purpose of these?

And is using logic and reasoning to prove your point really pointless? That would mean that we would not be able to discuss anything at all. Or am I wrong?

I am not familiar with the field of pseudoscience, but I suppose that creationism would be included there. A fine example of trying to use the scientific method to justify your belief.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jcrawford777 

I ran across your discussion on science here and found it very interesting. I'm a Christian and so it feels like I'm stepping in to a realm very seldom talked about by many people I know who are Christians. So my question is do you believe there is any absolute truth? or is all fiction? or somewhere in between?

Truth is based on perception. Saying absolute truth, or something that holds truth values in all frames of reference would be a hard argument to make valid, let alone true.From the Existential thought processes: Of A does not imply B. A being relative truth, while B is Absolute Truth. We can always believe that there is absolute truth, but if I were writing in a scientific scope, I would never write about absolute truth. Even Einstein's quest for a Unified Theory may not be absolute, although he treated it as if it were the key to the kingdom. He did not what we know today.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by xnor 

What I find the most interesting is that: "Regardless of whether the information presented confirmed or contradicted the students' existing beliefs, all of them came away from the reading with their beliefs strengthened."

I am not sure and I can only guess. We all have our beliefs that are formed from early childhood by our parents' upbringing and enforced by the educational system. When we become young adults we usually rebel and look for our own "truths", but often keep the "truths" that we have been taught. Perhaps we see these "truths" as an integrated part of ourselves, the person that we are, and when something contradicts that we object and try to protect "our truth". When it is confirmed, we are happy that our belief is "right". So the beliefs that are an integrated and never questioned part of ourself is perhaps confused by ourselves as being our "personality"?

This is just speculation, though...

I must say that you guys are extremely intelligent. I have only a simple fraction of what you seem to know ( and I say seem because I do not know any of you on a personal level). But I can tell you that before I came to the knowledge that God existed, my truth was my truth because I thought it.

You said before that: Love? - a hormonal intoxication to promote the production of offspring.But I see love as being an action (something you do) not a feeling or a chemical reaction. Those things are really just a byproduct of the action, not the definition itself. 

Sorry this is coming in bits and pieces but I'm at work and have to type inbetween projects.

And there can only be one truth to anything. That is what truth is. There can be an opposite to that truth but that would be false. If you say green is green we can do an empirical study and find out that green really is green, but the shade of green may change between your eyes and my eyes. So the truth is that green is still green because many people testify that is the same color we are all seeing, and many people also testify that there may be many shades of green which is not false but a piece of the study leading to the truth. false would be someone coming up and saying that the color he sees is really red. And we know its false because of the number of people that say it is green. we can not know what he really sees or why he calls it red (could be any number of reasons) but can we think of green as being red?