Originally Posted by
Head Injury /img/forum/go_quote.gif
The point I'm trying to make is that using "science" as a benchmark for human perception of the universe is simply a less than reliable resource.
Then what is a reliable resource?
The point I'm trying to make is that it simply doesn't matter whatever you believe a reliable resource might be - you cannot reliably predict how everyone will respond to a given stimulus. Put the human in the picture and resources be damned.
Actually, science has proven to be a very transient resource throughout our brief history in establishing so called "facts".
That's what makes it so much better than adamant beliefs. But, you can't just throw facts down the drain because you think they're wrong. You have to prove they are. Which you aren't doing.
How does that make either one better. Neither can prove anything beyond a shadow of doubt. "Proof" still does not take human perception into account. Again, there is the "fact" of chocolate ice cream - how do you "prove" anything about the way that tastes to an individual at specific moment in time?
Science once told us that the world was flat and that blood-letting cured diseases.
Really? These were proven using the scientific method and extensive research, testing, and observation? Do you have proof of this claim?
I have no source, but I recall reading that the whole flat world thing is nothing but a joke of sorts. Even ancient people knew the world was a sphere. It was just some silly group of cultists or whatever in the middle ages who pushed the flat world thing.
Since we seem to be relying upon internet resources, here you go.
Here's blood letting. There have been all matter of things understood by the most learned of people as fact that were later dis-proven or revised in the name of science.
As advanced as science has become it remains transient.
I'd rather rely on current facts that may be later proven false than on pure faith.
Have at it. No one is stopping you.
Today's discoveries are proved to be dated and antiquated faster than ever, or quite slowly in some cases.
That's those discoveries. Prog's research isn't antiquated yet. Antiquate Prog's research on audiophile myths, yourself or with links to research like he asked. Until you do, you have no weighty point.
As I indicated in a recent response, my own experiences have been different and that's all I have to go on. Whether my point is "weighty" or not, matters not one wit to me - I'm just sharing my own personal experience and take on this stuff.
As far as explaining things like the human mind, human perceptions, and our place in this vast universe, I don't believe it really begins to tell the whole story - thus the obvious connection to faith as some attempt to explain it.
So, science has part of the story. And faith makes the whole story up. It's like an unfinished research paper vs. fiction. You expect us to believe the fiction first?
I don't expect you to believe anything at all. I expect you'll choose what you want to believe. I don't want to dictate what you believe - just sharing my own experience in a discussion. I don't think either can explain why we're here and the vastness of the universe. I think what we don't know is so far in excess of what what we do as a grain of sand on huge beach.
Science has it's own theories. Neither can be proved beyond a shadow of doubt.
But at least science tries, instead of just whining about how it's impossible and we should just follow our hearts.
In part, our unquenchable thirst for knowledge and proof and control over nature will eventually, probably sooner than later, end our existence on this planet and destroy most of its natural resources. It's happening at an alarming rate, as we all can plainly see.
The thing that always comes to mind in this tired discussion is that we are not machines and do not experience the world as such....
Of course we're machines. Biological ones. We just go by what the chemical and electrical reactions in our mind tell us. That's why hallucinogens do what they do, and that's why modern medicine works (for the most part). Unless you want to convince us that we have souls etc., but that's a discussion for a very different sub-forum.
We disagree entirely here. I will not try to convince you of anything at all.
EDIT: I guess we don't disagree entirely - I simply don't believe that whether or not we might be a "biological machine", that we can reliably predict the response of every or any given individual to a given stimulus. As far as souls go, indeed, not appropriate here...in that we are in complete agreement.
so what, I ask you, is the point?
There is no point/spoon.
Meanderings aside, I'll just add a good book to suggest as being very much on point:
"This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession"
I'm not buying a book just to humor your argument. Cite it, quote it, something.
That's too bad. It's a very good book. I didn't mean it as "part of my argument", but as suggested reading that people interested in this topic might enjoy. It neither supports not disputes my positions here, as I recall - if anything it may support your own point of humans being a biological machine I suppose, though whether or not we have a full grasp of how it works is not made clear. I'm sorry you won't be reading it. What can I say?
Responses in bold, if you haven't guessed.