Science and religion

@Scattered,

OK...... Uh, I have to say that sounds like a very religious and metaphysical description of truth, which is OK, but a bit baffling. I'm more prone to scientific, logical or rational truths. Those are more useful to me as I am exploring science and not religion. Are you sure that's remotely philosophy and not actually pure religion?

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@Scattered,

Scattered wrote:

"Everything you can think of is true..." ??? I wonder of your respect for truth.

It's just a song lyric, dude, get a grip.

Regarding truth,

Until someone shows me that truth is anything beyond a human convention, and objective truth is anything beyond an ideal, then all this invocation of God and metaphysics seems more like a mental game.

The harder you try to define truth, the farther away from it you get.

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@Scattered,

***********
Scatterd
I do not do for, or seek for your approval, you asked is reason enough. Any one can seem complicated by quoting and referring to writings and never need to understand. No different then one who copies and past scripture to prove they know something about what God said but yet have no understanding thereof. It seems as though you can't see past 2+2 or what is in your hand to prove that it is. What good is that, anyone can see that without your help.
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The Living God is the true Reason, and the true Reason is the Living God. It most assuredly can not be chaos for if that where so there would be no order or reason or reasoning nor the need for a reason or a knowledge of anything, nor the pursuit of purpose of any kind, even to eat, if it were chaos . No life could be maintain nor experienced nor would there be experience. Being born in the flesh is most certainly not sufficient for the reason for there is a need for reason and a reason even for flesh to do and be. Also man who must have reason and a reason surly can convince himself that death is the reason but there is no reason in death being the result of experience of life in the flesh, so a reason and the knowledge thereof is required even if it is not the Truth, but the Truth there of ignored or not the experience of life in the flesh requires the experience of the death of the flesh. Even those that profess there is no God still require reason and a reason for and the knowledge thereof. So there must be a reason and that reason must be God. Life is, experience is, how can that be denied?

If there is a reason for all things then all things must come to the reason for all things.
It is understood that nothing is from nothing. Even what is considered the big bang there is still a reason for the big bang, as in the result of something, or by reason of.

One can perceive with eyes open or eyes closed but it does not change the reason for. To refuse or deny the true reason would seem to be for the fear of the lose of one's own reasons.
The reason living things act, is to live, and to give life of their own life that has been given them. But mankind's reasons for their actions do not necessarily coincide with the reason for life and or the giving of life. Mankind in his own imaginations can make up his own reasons for. Surly one who starves his fellow man, and prosper by it, has reasons of his own, not the reason for life or of life.
Surly the will of life is to live and give life. And this is not necessarily the will of man.
The will of God is Life, that lasts for ever. But the will of mankind dies with him. And if one loves the will of life more than his own will, then he lives. Mankind for his own reasons, perverse and devour the life of their own and the life of his fellow man.
All things go on as a result of the reason for them, except mankind's own reasons. And the reason for all things will out last all of mankind's reasons.
There is the reason till now, and till now to the reason. And to live is the only reason for all things. For without life there is no reason. But there is life, therefore there is reason.
One must be able to separate one's own reasons from the true reason. But how does one do that without knowing the true reason. If one only knows there own reason then the true reason is not with them.
That which is based on the foundation of life, lives and gives life offered openly without reservation. But that which is based on death, not only dies but kills everything that has not the true reason to live.
Jesus lives and is the gift of life, for the Word of God is Life everlasting. And he who receives the gift of Life, shall live in Him forever.
If man acts according to his own reason, then surly it is not the reason for life.
How is one to understand good judgement in the liberties of oneself, if one only has one's own reason and not the reason for life. And for what reason other than life is there a reason. Which does not necessarily include man's reason.
Is not everything the result of Truth. Does even science prove that one can understand how something has come to be? Was not the Truth there before one came to the understanding of what the Truth is? How long was the Truth there before one came to realize it. A day, a month 10,000 years, or forever. And how long will it be the Truth?
Does one have to be religious to know the reason for Life? No. Must one become a scientist to know the reason for Life? No. Can anyone control or change the true reason for Life? No. Can anyone who breaths know the true reason for Life? Yes. Mankind can control his own reason. But mankind cannot control the true reason for Life, nor can he control the Truth, or the Way, or the Life. It is Jesus the Word of God, given in the flesh to the world so that those who hunger for Truth may have it. Those who thirst for the knowledge of God may have it and have it abundantly, no one controls that. No religion, no church, no scientist, no worshiper of other gods, no king, nation or philosophy can control the Kingdom of God which lives and gives Life, which is the reason for Life, which is the will of God.
It is the will of mankind to reject that which he cannot control. For the Will, the Word and the Spirit of God can not be controlled by the will of man, nor the words of man, nor his soul.
He who thinks to be in control of the Truth shall be burned by it.
Nether the will of mankind or the flesh can stop the reason for Life. It is the Will of the Living God the is the reason for Life. And the Way to live is His Word Jesus the Christ. Who is the revelation of His Father's Will, and is Life. For in order to live failure is not an option. But the mercy of God who provides for Life, forgives failure if one turns back from error. Is made up of earthly material and made by God but the soul is of the breath of God that can be alive in the Spirit of God, by His Word which reveals the Will of God.
Thus one can except the Will of God reveled by His Word by trusting His Word, Jesus, the One to Trust.
There is no way to defeat God the reason for Life. Man can but his trust in what ever he wants, or he can but his trust in the reason for Life.
Ether religion is what one believes, which could be anything including science. Or religion is the few that control or manipulate the many using or abusing the trust of what they believe.
Just as one could say that the vastness of the universe is like unto the mind of God but it is not the mind of God. A profit of the Living God could repeat the Word of God but is not the Word of God. In this the profit may be like unto but not.
If one lives in the flesh and not the Spirit of God. Then surly one sees or has no reason or need for a soul. When one seeks for things through the flesh and in the world and not of God. One does not value the things of God. For the things of God do not accommodate man's own reasons for Life.
To prove that one has a soul, it is up to the individual to search oneself for it. To prove that there is a Living God one has to ask Him to show one, that He may be known. To prove to prove that one knows God is that God would choose to reveal Himself through one. For no one, nor nothing, controls the Will, the Word, or the Spirit of the Living God.

****
It is the Living Justice that God justifies He who Loves Him in His Truth and by His Mercy. You can kill the flesh of a man who Loves the Living God in His Truth and By His Mercy, but you can not kill that which the Living God gives Him, Life, Life eternal in His Truth and by His Mercy.

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@Scattered,

Holy cats dude. You are really sincerely into religion, which is fine, but it doesn't offer the truths I seek. As far as I ahve been able to find, there is nothing in the scriptures about ecology or genetics. There is stuff about survival strategies, specifically the teachings of Jesus, but again there is a lot missing for the problems of today.
At the same time, part of this started from a discussion with a religious person where I postulated that in religious terms we need a new scripture to deal with the new things in the world. So I see no reason that the truths I am wondering about couldn't be inspired by God. All things considered from my point of view, they well may be. If God wants to teach humans new truths, who am I or you to say he can't?

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@Scattered,

Quote:

This statement is based on assumptions about God that Kant himself said were inherently invalid since no assumptions can be made

I think Kant said that atheistic arguments are invalid, my statement was by no means atheistic. I just said they are not scientific.

Quote:

>Kant showed that any reasoning about God cannot be
>scientific, since God is beyond the reach of human intelligence
Who says and based on what evidence????

I say, and this is why: In order for us to have valid cognitions (thoughts that correspond with reality), our sensibility and our understanding must work together, for our sensibility without the understanding is disorganized and our understanding without the sensibility is empty.

Kant's aim was to show what a priori truths we can know, and how we know that we can know them. He proved that we must have certain a priori knowledge by showing that it is necessary to have that a priori knowledge, for if we didn't, we wouldn't be able to experience the world. For example, if we didn't have the a priori knowledge of space and time, we could not organize the objects around us or distinguish them in sequential order.

So, how does God fit into this? We cannot experience God, and it isn't necessary that we have a priori knowledge of God, so therefore we can never know if God exists or if he doesn't exist.

I have thought about this and came to the conclusion that when we talk about 'metaphysics' we must be talking about a priori knowledge, since by definition a priori knowledge is 'above experience'. I've also thought that any knowledge of God must be metaphysical, since we cannot experience him with our 5 senses (or our sensibility), thus any knowledge about God must be a priori, and the only a priori truths we can know are those that correspond with our sensibility.

I know part of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is showing how we cannot know God, I think it is part of the TranscendentalDialectic. However, I haven't got that far yet.

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@Scattered,

Hmmmm. I don't think we are in perfect communication about Kant, but that is fine.
May I respectfully critisize the rest of your commentary on a few grounds.
Perceptual studies show that the eyes and mind (careful seperating those) follow a natural sequence of distinguishing the objects looked at. The outlines are recognized. Then the shapes. Then the location. We have more than a priori knowledge, we have some genetic programming to help us along. We are designed to "organize the objects around us or distinguish them in sequential order". That is from perceptual studies. Still, that is not the point.
>>So, how does God fit into this? We cannot experience God, and it isn't
>>necessary that we have a priori knowledge of God, so therefore we can
>>never know if God exists or if he doesn't exist.
Say what? If God wants us to know he exists, we can then know.
>>I've also thought that any knowledge of God must be
>>metaphysical, since we cannot experience him with our 5 senses
Say what? Who says? Though from my research it generally seems that the strongest impression of God is emotional, which makes sense, but I am OK with emotions. I have studied them a great deal.
I'm sorry, but these look like complicated sophist type arguements that come from peoples imaginings of what God might be with little data to work with. I'm a much simpler kinda guy than that. May I paste in what I put in a prior post:
Anselm of Caterbury said "Nor do I seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand. For this too I believe, that unless I first believe, I shall not understand." ...... What is needed is a proof with a good enough foundation that it does not rely on prior belief. If a scientist says that they have found magnetized particles in a bird's brain that seem to act like a compass, you need no prior belief to find that it seems true. It fits with previous knowledge and a previous way of reasoning. The same should be with God. You need to find a principle that logically leads to God where you say "ah ha, that makes sense". Yah, it might leave you a bit stunned, but you would mostly get over it in a year or two.
So you see, I am taking this from a very simple and direct view. Now for it to be that good, it would have to cover an amazing number of issues and cover them well. ... God, heaven, angels, purpose, afterlife, morals... uh.. what else did I list with this?
Don't tell me whether it can be done or not. Tell me what would be your reaction if someone said "add fact A and fact B to get God and Heaven" (fact A is rather complicated, B is simple). "The primary objections to God are that he never reveals himself and he allows evil in the world, that would be explained by fact C and fact D". Afterlife is fact B. Angels would be part of fact A as would God's purpose for humans and the key to all the rest is faith". "Oh, and by the way, none of these facts are so remarkable, they just never got put together for understandable reasons".
Sorry, not really a sophist style arguement, but most arguements in science aren't. They are much simpler. Science is to explain things. What if science could be used to explain God? I think it could. That is the way it has been in history. Scientific explanations tend to be far simpler than philosophical or metaphysical explanations.
Think of what it would imply if it worked out that way. No more need for magic. God just knows how to make it happen... Or think of it this way. (This is a convenient human model, not necessarily an opinion). Most miracles could be accomplised with good nano-technology. You might be surprised how simple it is to reach a description of God simply with current observable forces in history, science and technology. This all with the truths that have been taught through the ages intact.

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@dpmartin,

dpmartin wrote:

If a man seeks his own wisdom for what would that be? To gratify himself? For some, seeking truth is a matter of preference to honor themselves, not God. For the Truth is and can not be changed. The Truth does not fit man. Man must come to the realization of the Truth by the source of the Truth revealing the Truth of it to man. Is there matter of facts? Yes; all the result of the Truth. Man can search high and low for facts and not know the reason. Never knowing, or the knowledge of, the source thereof, or the Truth of the Reason.

Truly if there is a Living God and He has Created, then surly He speaks:
His Word is Truth for if He speaks it, it will be. The Almighty cannot lie for if He speaks it. It will be. Through His Word is that which all may know Him and all of creation obeys Him. For the Truth is the Truth no matter what the Truth is. Whether all mankind is aware of it, or not. It is still the Truth.
The Truth always was, always is, and always will be. It always was true that parting of the sea would happen, even before time. It always is true that parting of the sea happened, and it always will be true, forever. If one had foreknowledge of the Truth about the parting of the sea, before the parting of the sea , one could "prophesy", or repeat the Truth about parting of the sea . Thus Moses knowing the Truth via the revelation of the Truth to Moses that the sea was going to part. He was able to demonstrate to the Israelites the Truth was with him when he raised his staff so that the sea would part. Just because something is manifest in matter doesn't mean it was not true before it became apparent to the world, via a witnessable event in matter. The world can be like a family man. He is the last one to know, and doesn't believe it, until he sees it himself.

The Truth need not time, to exist. For it always was true that time would exist. The Truth need not energy, to exist. The Truth need not space, to exist. The Truth need not matter, to exist. All four need the Truth in order to exist. But the souls which dwell in the earth needs these things in order to exist, and to come to know the Truth. Though all things of the earth respond to the Truth accordingly, the souls that dwell in the earth, do not. For it is only to the souls of mankind, that it is given to choose not to obey the Word of God.

All things that are, are of the Truth. For if they are, then they are true. One cannot hold all the things that are true, in one's mind. All the collective minds of mankind cannot know all that is true. But of Truth, all things are.
If you think that you would create truth by doing something so that it's true. Think again, for it always was true that you would do that thing. It always was true that you would think to do that thing. it always was true that you would read this, it always was true that you were born into the world to think and do that thing. And you had no control over that. Needless to say it goes farther back then that. The Truth is, and there are a series of events, or responses to execute that which is true, that are all also true.

No matter how you think or believe living things came about in the earth, it is true, that living things came about in the earth. Thus living things or, animated matter, if you prefer, are the result of Truth.

Thus, Truth prevails as above all. Or greater then all. For the Truth cannot be created. The Truth is the source of all we can perceive or understand. Other then lies. But it is true that a lie is a lie, and that the lie was told.
If it were to be true, that there is no truth , then that would be the truth, thus Truth exists, and it is false that Truth does not exist. That which would teach you otherwise, knows this.

If you want to say that there is no Truth in the world, that is conceivably possible, but the Truth does not need the world to know the Truth, in order for the Truth to exist. Just because something is perceived as true in the world does not necessarily make it true. Or if the world insists that something is not true, does not necessarily make it not true. In the world, lies are the order of the day. As in, "what can I say to get them to believe me", not, "this is the truth, whether you like it or not".

The Truth cannot be a lie. Thus the Truth is perfect and incorruptible. Though some try to portray it otherwise. It stands forever, no one can change it. Ether you embrace it, turn from it, or lie about it. If you embrace it, you go with it. If you do not embrace it, what you are, remains where it is. If you are seeking The Truth, you are seeking a Living God. For the Truth is God, not all of God, but God none the less. Who knows and repeats the Truth, is another issue. Don't trust me, trust The Truth, The Word of God.

It is the Will, Love, Truth, Wisdom, Mercy of the Living God to reveal Himself in Jesus the Christ, His only begotten Son, to offer mercy to all man in the flesh that the man in the flesh may be resurrected in the flesh for it is mans purpose to live in the flesh with and in God's presents. The resurrection of Christ is the flesh of the son of man in the presents and at the Right Hand of God. Intrusted by God and ordained by God in His Loving Mercy to those condemned to death by virtue of the will of the flesh.

It is tough to tell where the child begins and the blood ends, so pick up anything that cries.

Did it ever occur to you that you are a wool coat away from being the perfect victim? They say this, you say this, they say that, you say that. What does God tell you directly? People are usually not sensitive to the voice of God. They get their God second hand even when their clothes are new. So what does God tell you?

I love to brag, and in the words of Jesus, this is my reward. My wife and I know this poor woman with two children, and she has known this woman for a long time, and stuck with her through drug addiction and poverty always trying to do something for her. Her kids are pretty rotten to her and can't wait to screw up their own lives. The other night, her son showed at the door, and I have not seen this kid for a while, and he looked thin, scare crow thin, and thinking drugs I asked him: you're not bringing drugs in here are you? No. The kid ain't old enough to drive and he told me how long he'd been sober. He had a few christmas cookies, and I gave him a ride home, as he'd missed his ride at the Y. When I got him home I said: here is twenty dollars I owe your mother. When he gave his mother that twenty of which she was sorely in need she said: He doesn't owe me any money! And she thought for a moment and said: this is God. She told me this, later. And, as I say, I am taking my reward. Because if God is ever going to be real it will be because people are willing to do what God would do if he had the kindness only people can show to people in pain. I can look away. I can make people ask, and I usually do, but I cannot not know what I know about people I know. I don't have to give everything to be the hand of God. I don't have to know everything to have the mind of God. All I have to do is not deny the obvious, and when it hurts more to not give than to give, I give. Who is my brother? When I can recognize my brother I will have found God.

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@Scattered,

[quote] Hmmmm. I don't think we are in perfect communication about Kant, but that is fine. [/quote]

I misspoke, I should have said that my statement was agnostic and was not founded on knowledge of God, but on knowledge of the knowledge we can possibly have. My error.

[quote] Say what? Who says? [/quote]

Scattered, I wonder why you always ask me 'who says'. Does it have to come from a professional for it to be correct? I even went out on a limb on that comment and said it is a thought of my own. That thought was derived from analyzing what Kant has to say about a priori knowledge, metaphysics, and the limits of human knowledge.

[quote] If God wants us to know he exists, we can then know. [/quote]

Believe it or not, I agree. I think that God wrote his existence into the universe he created for us. But you must notice that I used one key word... Believe. I believe a lot about God and what he has done, but it is hard for me to verify those beliefs with universal distinction.

[quote] May I respectfully criticize the rest of your commentary on a few grounds [/quote]

I always welcome criticism, especially if it is constructive. I believe that a person has to respect what others say about their thoughts in order to be a philosopher. This stems from my background in Plato, who thought he was the wisest man because he realized that he was ignorant.

[quote] sophist type arguments that come from peoples imaginings of what God might be with little data to work with [/quote]

I think you are viewing my posts from the wrong perspective. I was not starting with what God might be, or what he is capable of. I was starting from what we can possible know. Also, sophist type arguments, that's a little insulting, and I did try to logically back up my arguments as best I could. From what I understand the sophists were not concerned with what the right answer was, in fact they didn't care, they were only concerned with proving their answer, and if I came off this way, I apologize.

Again, I will thank you for helping me understand what I wrote by criticizing it.

Additionally, I think science can help us understand a part of God, and that is his creation. But I don't think we can, with certainty, extend this to saying it is Knowledge of God.

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@Scattered,

Fido: That was great. Very very good.
de Silentio: Sophist was probably not the correct term, but it just seemed like a way too complicated arguement. I'm sorry if it was taken as an insult. I do though suspect that even though Sophists were able to argue both sides of an arguement, they had their own beleifs.
Really my whole point is that when I look at the progression of thought, science and technology, there is refinement and things retain their meaning and purpose, but become simpler. Machines are made with fewer parts. A scientist comes up with some arcane theory and 40 years later someone writes a book to make it accessible to laymen. (There has been discussion that the discoverer must die before an interpretation is allowed) That sort of thing.
Discussions about God, whether from you, Thomas Aquinus, dpMartin, Anselm and many others seem so complicated. They also tend to go to the idea that nothing about God can be undestood. I simply don't believe it.
Consider the space shuttle. It is constructed of trick materials, fabricated in unimaginable ways, given vital with tons of sophisticated software. It's methodology of navigation is beyond me by miles. The details are beyond my comprehension, yet still, I can understand where the shuttle came from and what it is about. I think this is true of God as well.
I just don't like complicated reasonings and I have legitimate reasons for that . I have repeatedly demonstrated that complicated things can be described more simply. I deal with software and I hear the term "it is magic". That is a warning that there may be design flaws. Somebody came up with a complicated solution where it wasn't necessary. Apply some object design to it and the problem is simplified.
That is not the point. There are a number of things about God and in religion that I have seen, that are usually described as mysteries. Actually using very current concepts, it seems easy to provide simple explanations for those mysteries. It is not to debunk them, but to give explanations that are understandable. That is what science is for, to explain things. Better, when there is a reasonable explanation, the mystery seems for more probable than when I have to rely on faith to believe it.
I go on and on about morality. I say that we need a morality based on reason and understanding, rather than authority and prescidence. It is true for our understanding of God. I found the reason and understanding behind morality, based on genetics and related subjects, such that I could give a useful explanation. I think the same thing could be done for God. It doesn't need to be complicated. If it is complicated, it is not useful.

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@Scattered,

Fido,

your ok, I don't care what they say about you.

Hope every one rejoices in the Holidays...

1 Reply

@dpmartin,

dpmartin wrote:

Fido,

your ok, I don't care what they say about you.

Hope every one rejoices in the Holidays...

I never quit rejoicing, or joicing for that matter. Best.

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@Scattered,

Sorry Scattered, I forgot to add the smiley face after saying that your comment was insulting. I was not insulted, it takes quite a lot to insult me.

[quote] Scattered - Really my whole point is that when I look at the progression of thought, science and technology, there is refinement and things retain their meaning and purpose, but become simpler [/quote]

Would you agree that the understanding of things typically start out complicated, then as we learn more and understand them further they become simpler? For example, understanding why an apple falls to the Earth rather than falling up to the sky began with Newton's which is a complicated publication. Now, however, understanding why an apple falls to the ground is quite simple.

It seems to me that our understanding of things is simple because those things are generally excepted and understood. You say that you can understand where the space shuttle came from and what it is about, but this is only because you rest your simple understanding on the complicated understanding of others.

To use your example of software code, you can only make someone else's code simpler to a point, and even at this point, that code is most likely complicated. Yes, it may have started out more complicated than it is now, but believe me, it is still complicated. Personally, I have a hard time with code because of my limited mathematical experience. You, I am assuming, find code to be much simpler, since you have the knowledge and general understanding. Likewise, I am a Network Admin, and like you, when I am designing a system, I must go through complicated reasonings to get to an end product for myself or my customer. My end product is usually straight forward, and laid out pretty simple, but it rests on hours upon hours of complicated work and reasonings.

I think this can be applied to religion, at least the Christian religion, also. A lot of what Christian believe is rested on the complicated works of Augustine. For example, explaining how Jesus could have been God. Most Christians will say: "How is Jesus God? Oh, the Trinity. What is the Trinity, it is one God in his three forms, they are separate, but the same." Augustine, on the other hand, worked over many pages.

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On a personal note, I think it is the simple aspects of God that are the most important, all of the other stuff is simply exercise. Personally, I enjoy the complicated reasoning, and spend a lot of time trying to reconcile God, my experience, and logic. I find these things have brought me closer to God, and understanding him. However, I do recognize they are everybody.

1 Reply

@de Silentio,

de Silentio wrote:

Sorry Scattered, I forgot to add the smiley face after saying that your comment was insulting. I was not insulted, it takes quite a lot to insult me.

Would you agree that the understanding of things typically start out complicated, then as we learn more and understand them further they become simpler? For example, understanding why an apple falls to the Earth rather than falling up to the sky began with Newton's which is a complicated publication. Now, however, understanding why an apple falls to the ground is quite simple.

It seems to me that our understanding of things is simple because those things are generally excepted and understood. You say that you can understand where the space shuttle came from and what it is about, but this is only because you rest your simple understanding on the complicated understanding of others.

To use your example of software code, you can only make someone else's code simpler to a point, and even at this point, that code is most likely complicated. Yes, it may have started out more complicated than it is now, but believe me, it is still complicated. Personally, I have a hard time with code because of my limited mathematical experience. You, I am assuming, find code to be much simpler, since you have the knowledge and general understanding. Likewise, I am a Network Admin, and like you, when I am designing a system, I must go through complicated reasonings to get to an end product for myself or my customer. My end product is usually straight forward, and laid out pretty simple, but it rests on hours upon hours of complicated work and reasonings.

I think this can be applied to religion, at least the Christian religion, also. A lot of what Christian believe is rested on the complicated works of Augustine. For example, explaining how Jesus could have been God. Most Christians will say: "How is Jesus God? Oh, the Trinity. What is the Trinity, it is one God in his three forms, they are separate, but the same." Augustine, on the other hand, worked over many pages.

------

On a personal note, I think it is the simple aspects of God that are the most important, all of the other stuff is simply exercise. Personally, I enjoy the complicated reasoning, and spend a lot of time trying to reconcile God, my experience, and logic. I find these things have brought me closer to God, and understanding him. However, I do recognize they are everybody.

one of the facts that led to the trashing of the ptolemaic conception of the universe was the constant corrections that had to be applied to it. It is amazing how long people hang onto an outmoded explanations of human behavior like capitalism, which really produces no good, but justifies a lot of misery- long after it has done all the good it can. Not to side track anything. The truth is always more simple than what it replaces.

1 Reply

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

The truth is always more simple than what it replaces.

Except when it's not.

Human pathophysiology is a bit more complicated than Galen's four humors would have us believe, for example.

Science, by its nature, is reductionist. There are always new details being added. It's pretty seldom that some law or some paradigm shift comes along. At face value evolution is nice and simple, the germ theory of disease is nice and simple, DNA as the genetic element is nice and simple. But the thing is these concepts don't exist in a vacuum and they only have meaning in the context of overwhelming detail.

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Except when it's not.

Human pathophysiology is a bit more complicated than Galen's four humors would have us believe, for example.

Science, by its nature, is reductionist. There are always new details being added. It's pretty seldom that some law or some paradigm shift comes along. At face value evolution is nice and simple, the germ theory of disease is nice and simple, DNA as the genetic element is nice and simple. But the thing is these concepts don't exist in a vacuum and they only have meaning in the context of overwhelming detail.

A difficult as they may seem on their face they are much more simple than any simple thing that does not address the problem. If you are looking for simple and non functional go back to the the four humors, and byob.

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@Scattered,

I think it's a rationalization to say that a complex thing is simple because it better addresses the problem. That's a redefinition of the word simple.

It was simple and non-functional to say that stress caused heart attacks, and that you could prevent heart attacks by preventing stress.

It's now complex and extremely functional to say that circulating cholesterol in the form of oxidized LDL and VLDL, endothelial dysfunction due to diabetes, smoking, and hypertension lead to inflammatory endovascular plaques that cause heart attacks when they rupture, leading to occlusive platelet aggregation.

The latter is simple only in that it's more easily demonstrable; but it's mechanistically far more complex.

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@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

I think it's a rationalization to say that a complex thing is simple because it better addresses the problem. That's a redefinition of the word simple.

It was simple and non-functional to say that stress caused heart attacks, and that you could prevent heart attacks by preventing stress.

It's now complex and extremely functional to say that circulating cholesterol in the form of oxidized LDL and VLDL, endothelial dysfunction due to diabetes, smoking, and hypertension lead to inflammatory endovascular plaques that cause heart attacks when they rupture, leading to occlusive platelet aggregation.

The latter is simple only in that it's more easily demonstrable; but it's mechanistically far more complex.

You are absolutely right that it is a rationalization. It is the most rational conclusion I have come to today. It can never get more simple than what it is. All explainations which do not explain obfuscate. I am sorry if it seems complex. You are on the cutting edge of reality, and that has got to be scary. But you know it first. And that complex terminology is the price you pay for a simple understanding. People get sick and die. There; simple, true, and hardly to the point. We do not have to propitiate any Gods. We don't have to hunt up a kid to throw on the alter. I would say the rational explaination is the best and simplest we can do; always.

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@Scattered,

I guess you can look at it as if it's a "best fit line" on a graph, in which we just have data points and we're trying to guess the actual line. In those terms then it is simpler to get closer to the truth, because the variation about that line is minimized.

That said, the "rational explanation" isn't necessarily right or wrong -- it's just the best we can do based on what we know empirically. It's just all the details upon details upon details that allows us to refine the rational explanation.

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@Aedes,

It seems that this post has sort of digressed, which is OK as I have found that it didn't fit here. This is a philosophy board. Reflections here come from philosophy. What I am best at is biology and what I have discovered about God and religion is from biology, though it is unprecedented enough to qualify more as philosophy than any science. It is pretty amazing stuff and it is more than one point that I have discovered. It is rather revolutionary ideas, but it also something whose time has come. So I will finish up my posts here with a thought.
May I first give some background so that if I claim something rather outrageous, but don't back it up, you will at least know where I am coming from. I am going to write what I concluded, but not how or why. I hope you will excuse me, because I am still writing on it and I have reasons not to tip my hand so to speak. ... or you can skip to the last paragraph.
I started out as this big pasty looking nerd at age 15 in LA. Something happened, but I still don't for sure know what. I asked the question, "why is that person different from me".
Shortly after that, I started studying biology and in my last year of high school, had a very inspiring biology teacher. It is clear that by then I was on the path I have followed since and that I already had calculated in the factors of disease and recombination. My question had become a theoretical question of "how could humans again achieve a stable ecology". This was a nice form as it allowed me to bring to the problem the tools of science that I had been learning. Immediately, the science of biology makes it clear how dangerous it is for a specie to exist without a stable ecology, something we had not had since the time of the "hunter/gatherer" ecology. We have gone through transitional ecologies, but even agriculture seems to have a limited projected time limit due to natural soil depletion. Of course it is all dependant on population size, which doesn't look likely to stabilize either.
I thought about it some. It turns out that it is widely believed that disease is again going to become the primary natural selective effect it has historically been for humans. I saw another more esoteric problem, genetic load from recombination.
I thought about it long enough to get a degree in biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz. There I found The Evolution of Man and Society written by the British geneticist C. D. Darlington. It is brilliant, but not currently politically correct for a reason he calls the Third Forbidden Question in Science, heredity. That is so because currently studies of heredity leads to Social Darwinism which leads to racist arguments and conflicts such as WWII. If you study heredity, you will be labeled a racist and rejected from both academia and polite society. I didn't know any better and I came up with a new idea that has the opposite result. Call this my primary idea. I studied it for 25 years. I wrote about it before PCs existed. I then typed about it when they did. It would make racism meaningless and counter survival, but that was a secondary effect. My purpose and result was to come up with much of how humans could again achieve a stable ecology. Since I concluded that the solution would take behavioral adaptation as well as the genetic adaptation I had studied, I started looking at learned survival strategies, called moralities, that are an essential part of human survival. Historically, most moralities have been based on authority and precedence, but in the future will have to be based on reason and understanding or they will not adequately serve.
Then, a buddy of mine got me to look at religion. He didn't like religion. Well, I hadn't thought about it much. I was raised in a family that mostly gracefully balanced religion and science, but it had never been that important to me. Religion sounds great, but if you like the tools of science, it is hard to study. My friend got me to think about it. A bit surprisingly, based on reason and background data, for various reasons I concluded that God(s) probably existed as did at least heaven. Considering the ancient stories, perhaps angels and the rest of the supernatural genera existed as well. What was far more surprising to me though was that the reasoning was based on the genetic principles that I had been studying so long that I referred to above as my primary idea. The point is that I am a biologist, first and last.
OK, that's all I have to say for now. I'm study genetics and found some interesting stuff, but based on that I found a rather easily supportable (fact and reason based) argument that God(s) exist, heaven exists and God's purpose (something most religions don't claim to have). It is not a complicated argument, but it is not something that has been put together before. It was not my goal, but it is where my studies led.
That is where I am coming from and where I am trying to figure out where to proceed from. If heredity is the Third Forbidden in Science, I suspect that the Fourth is God.
Enjoy, Scattered
PS. This wasn't reductionism, as I just followed facts and reasons to a larger idea

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@Scattered,

How does one reason from the finite to the infinite? Does it not always involve a leap of faith?

Personally I don't care. If you want to believe, then believe. If you want to; then avoid belief as much as possible. We neither need God to be good, nor, for our science to be correct. God, if there is such a thing, or nothing, does not need us -to be God. We are mutualy independent. And I look at the good book, and from Genesis on not one human being has offered to regurgitate adam's apple. According to our myth, God put us into the way of knowledge. I am not keeping my portion of that original sin by accident or ignorence. If it had been me I would have turned that tree into so many apple pies. And for a simple reason. With knowledge it is possible to endure any suffering up to death and even death. The great advantage of knowledge is not that it lets us deal death, but to surmount it, and percieve a meaning beyond death.

What if it matters that our larger existence is a shadow of God? Only there then does it matter, for all around us, in our reality, is order and regularity. We have often shown that no matter what crime we are behind that God leaves us to our own justice. We can draw no conclusions from this like: If God does not do justice we must act as God in doing justice. -We cannot say we are Gods for acting as God would if he could. I think we should conclude that we are on our own, and that we have to find our own reasons for treating our own as we should, and if we cannot do that -then, to at least make all our crimes as audacious as our first.

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