Re: Science, God and the ego.

the horizons of perception and the limits of knowledge impose mystery upon our experience. we can invent any number of gadgets, come up with any number of games, imagine any number of stories to explain reality: we'll still have a mystery on our hands. There is always something beyond the plane of our awareness, something which can't be made sense of or solved (made to go away). Mystery is constitutive of perception and experience. With no mystery, there is no experience.

the body is the interface which gives rise to the horizon of our perception (and therefore our perception itself).

I would rather say we are all mystics creating meaning with imagination. Scientists are doing they same thing, they just call it "discovering the facts."

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[kurtilein3]

science has nothing to do with mythology, it is completely based on reality ^^

and there is only one reality. as long as this reality does not change, science will be true. of course there are still new facts being discovered here and there. no need to invoke a matrix. if you dont rely on science, you are turning your back on reality! science is the best way to derive knowledge from reality.

[0ThouArtThat0]

reality is a myth.

[kurtilein3]

no it isnt. or it breaks down to pointless sematics and vocabulary issue.

then how would you describe the difference between a stone and a digital image of a stone? whats the difference?

[0ThouArtThat0]

the sense of the word "reality" that I think is a myth is the sense of a pre-existing, independent, external world. I think reality is constructed by our biological structure, social upbringing, and use of language. it is not waiting ready-made for us to discover. Every act of scientific investigation has already disturbed what may have existed prior to the experiment. there is no reality as such, there is only reality as experienced by human beings.

[denito9474]

your description of technology also works as a description of what life is, and your description of what comes after science works as a description of postmodernity. What do you say to the thesis that technology is alive? and what do you say to the idea of postmodernity?

[0ThouArtThat0]

"technology is alive"- in the sense that it is an autonomous element invoking change on the planet, i agree.

"postmodernity"- modernity is not an unfinished product, it is a failed experiment. so yes, we need to try something new. it hasn't materialized enough yet for me to be able to tell what it might look like, but I'm sure it is hovering right under the radar.

[unicorn187]

If everything is relative you are playing right into the hands of the ignorant and violent. If everyone's opinion is equal to everyone else's, you may as well welcome your Overlords now.

Might makes right in a relative Universe of where death is the only absolute and the main thing people have control over other than resources. We cannot and should not dull our sense of right and wrong just because we cannot be 100% certain of every probability. If it is all relative, why not be evil?

[6gording6]

Thats interesting how you said the heart has feeling.I think we all know that,but I guess science only makes certain that what you believe is not a lie.Of course not everyone believes the same thing but I guess turning your heart cold may really exist.Perhaps its loss of connection or feeling.Perhaps its like being brain dead.

[phvalue323]

Religion isn't ritual or superstition; that is what it has been made to be or seem by organizations of decite. Religionhood is a way of seeing things soberly, but appreciating them for their entirety. Lies are necessary, for you to understand truth. Duality is a nature of the god apparatus.

[Ignare]

The problem is not our knowledge it's how we act upon it.

[Ignare]

No need at all to fall into the mysticism litterature. I choose pragmaticaly that scientific litterature need more empiricaly based rationalisation.

[Ignare]

Science that understand that nowaday those cognitive predisposition that have evolve no longer give us the better chance at surviving because our environnement have drasticly change.(See evolutionnary psychology)That science exist, it is emerging, the notion that our capacity to tell the story of our existence is constrain and limit by the interraction of our central nervous system and our environnement is nowaday a scientific problem that I believe will lead to solution.

[Ignare]

We do not need to find another way to resolve the problem of technology we need better science, science who understand that we are biological organism situated in a cultural environnement and who understand that logic, rationality, language and explanation are product of a brain that have been naturally selected to produce certain type of representation because in a certain environnement it have help us to survive.

[Ignare]

In short, the point a wanna make is that Gregory Bateson saw back in the 70s what you are seeing now, that the alliance of our contemplative and technologycal epystemology is going to destroy our species. But that point CAN be adress and resolve by adding more science. Imagination and mysticism is not the answer because cognitive science and philosophy of cognitive science are starting to explain why we think the way we are thinking ! Science can see is own bias and try to limit the consequence.

[Ignare]

But as a 21st century scientist I question the world not in a dualitic way, i'm past Descartes, I consciously know that I have bias. And my quest is to establish a scientific theory of these bias, ans we are as a community of believers in the myth of science acheving some progress. (see situated cogntion (Varela), ecological (Gibson) and developpemental (Hirchfield) psychology)

[Ignare]

But since we all know that science is not giving an objective story of reality, because there`s no absolute picture of nothing. We have to choose a point a view ! We have to choose what we considered to be the best myth. I prefer science, because I'm a pragmatist. I prefer the myth of science because it's the more efficient myth I know. By that I mean that it offer a better predictability of the future event base on some initials conditions.