Science - Good And Bad?

[Muppet]

i personally dont believe there is a reason to existance,

Snap, it's purely coinsidental to the rest of the universe that we exsist at all, as an apple tree 'apples' so the earth has 'peopled'.

[Arnold Layne]

i personally dont believe there is a reason to existance

I see so much significance in the natural world that I have to marvel at your robust faith in there being no existential relevence.

[kilgore trout]

I see so much significance in the natural world that I have to marvel at your robust faith in there being no existential relevence.

ah i think the universe is wonderful, dont get me wrong and human beings are splendid too, but life, when i manage to live it properly, which is very rarely, is a joy in itself and needs no goal to make it have meaning.

if anything, for me, the search for meaning detracts from its splendor

Edited March 22, 2007 by kilgore trout

[squirrel]

It can and has. We exist to reproduce. You might not like the answer but that does not mean science hasn't answered the question.

Ah, but has Science answered the question correctly? That may be the scientific consensus currently, but it's by no means proven. It would be more accurate to say "As far as we can tell at the moment, we exist only to reproduce." But science is only just starting to learn the genetic alphabet, and has even less understanding of how our minds work. They can tell you that activity or inactivity in certain areas of the brain usually mean certain things, but that's it. They have no clue how the operating system works, or what it is or is not capable of.

Do we have souls? Science can only say "we haven't been able to detect them", but that doesn't prove anything. It couldn't detect radiation or radio waves until the early twentieth century, but that doesn't mean they weren't there.

[Arnold Layne]

Do we have souls?

Probably not. But we are soul, and we are body. To say we "have a soul" shrinks the concept of soul into its being a "part", a sort of spiritual organ. Pedantic as fekk, me!

Kilgore, it is exactly the splendour of the universe that demands and insists upon a meaning, for me. Its like I can hear it shouting but cannot discern the word.

[kilgore trout]

Its like I can hear it shouting but cannot discern the word.

yeah i know what ya mean there, i think, but it kinda shouts to me "just be" "just do", wheni can manage to hear it

[Father McPot]

I think the fact that we can ponder and interpret the nature of life may be the beginning of the answer.

Or is it the beginning of the question?

[Om]

Right ok I've just read this topic for a seventh time and I am still confused. I'm gonna give up now cos my head just exploded

[cf]

Right ok I've just read this topic for a seventh time and I am still confused. I'm gonna give up now cos my head just exploded

:wink: and thats the problem we all have i reckon Om.

Our brains our very good for stuff like "quick get in the cave theres a dinosoaur coming!" or whatever the modern equivalent is , that what they were 'designed/evolved' for , all this pondering stuff comes a lot harder.

the first creatures that developed an eye were supposed to be these 'proto' fish, they had a light detecting cell on one side of their bodies, the cell simply registered light (or not) so the 'fish' could tell which way up it was .no light and the fish would flip over until the cell told it it was the right way up.

from this developed (through evolution) the eye we know today capable of delivering reams of subtle info for our delight .

i reckon our brains are a bit like this , capable of keeping us upright, breathing and breeding but not yet versed in the metaphysical ponderings, but if we keep using it for these 'higher' purposes then the brain will develop like the eye did.

Om Shankar

[landsker]

Its like I can hear it shouting but cannot discern the word.

(Arnold Layne.)

That is, imo, a lovely affirmation of human existence.

Hi Arnie, Have you ever read the poem.... Called....

Anarchy

by John Henry Mackay

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ever reviled, accursed, ne'er understood,

Thou art the grisly terror of our age.

"Wreck of all order," cry the multitude,

"Art thou, and war and murder's endless rage."

O, let them cry. To them that ne'er have striven

The truth that lies behind a word to find,

To them the word's right meaning was not given.

They shall continue blind among the blind.

But thou, O word, so clear, so strong, so pure,

Thou sayest all which I for goal have taken.

I give thee to the future! Thine secure

When each at least unto himself shall waken.

Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest's thrill?

I cannot tell - but it the earth shall see!

I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will

Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!

... I know we might not see agreement on all things, but for sure, words are what seperate the human race from others, blessing or curse who knows.

All the rules and facts of science will exist whether we humans understand them or not.

Without words we are unable to describe that which we know, so perhaps language is the highest human discovery?

Which is pretty much how the bible goes isn`t it? "In the beginning was the word".....of course, the word belongs in equal measure to all, doesn`t it?

Edited March 25, 2007 by landsker

[Arnold Layne]

Right ok I've just read this topic for a seventh time and I am still confused. I'm gonna give up now cos my head just exploded

<Kaboooom>

Put the pipe down Om, it'll melt in the heat!

i reckon our brains are a bit like this , capable of keeping us upright, breathing and breeding but not yet versed in the metaphysical ponderings, but if we keep using it for these 'higher' purposes then the brain will develop like the eye did.

Or is this something we've lost with the rise of technological knowledge? I somehow suspect we were much more attuned to metaphysical ponderings in the distant past, but that the passage of time has led to the closing of many cerebral walkways we used to traverse on a daily basis. Our brains function via filtration, and the use of sensory filters. I think our filters are shutting down more and more as we come to depend upon technology. This is the anxst of the modern age. We're descending into binary blindness!

Which is pretty much how the bible goes isn`t it? "In the beginning was the word".....of course, the word belongs in equal measure to all, doesn`t it?

Great poem, thanks for putting it up here; its worth a fair few readings for sure.

Biblically speaking, "The Word" (Gk - Ho Logos) is a very strange term. It appears in John's Gospel, and is probably drawn from Philo in some way - no-one seems too sure about its original. In John's terms of reference the Word is fully Divine, yet fully independent. Here we have the emerging data which would end up as Trinitarian dogma. "All things were made by the Word, and without Him was not anything made that was made", and "The Word was with God, and God was the Word". The latter is very intriguing - Gk: The Word was "Pros ton theou" (pardon my Gk, its all from memory), a phrase of absolute intimacy between two parties; I have heard one scholar translate it as "Face to face with God". So whilst we (as part and parcel of the things "that were made") depend on the Word for our existence, yet we cannot really be said to "own" the Word in any way, as the Word is Alpha and Omega, before and beyond our own mere existence.

Other New Testament authors have a modest amount to say on this. The writer of "Hebrews" (a most interesting text, if ever there was one) takes things differently. In the opening chapter (1:3) he describes the "Son" as "upholding all things by His word of power". So for Him the Son is not so much the word, as the speaker of the word.

Either way, it matters not, the central thought comes through. The Word is a Divine vibration filled with creatorial power which far from "creating and running" (the daft "Clockwork creator" theory) creates and sustains. In other words, nowt happens apart from the Word. In this the Word does not belong to us, but we and all things belong utterly and existentially to it.

You and I are, because the Word is sounding, vibrating across the vast oceans of Being and eternity to bring existence and time/space into reality.

Athanasius, writing in "Contra Gentes" had a most colourful analog. He urged his readers to consider creation and its relation to to the Divine not in terms of a Painter and his painting (which once finished can be considered apart from its painter), but as a song and the singer (no singer singing - no song).

My own personal view is somewhat different, but I do find the Biblical model attractive and enlightening.

Coming back to "words" as human differentiation from other animals Landsker: I recall reading an Anthropologist (which one escapes my memory right now), who insisted that language and the use of our lingual abilities came about as a result of emerging forest apes leaving the forests and foraging on plains rich in magical mushrooms. He suggested that the first effect of various compounds within the mushrooms was to stimulate the lingual centres of the brain. So maybe the first ever human word was "Wow, man, groovy" or some such thing.

If not in this universe, in some other one!

You still with us, Om?

Edited March 25, 2007 by Arnold Layne

[Guest Gert Lush]

It can and has. We exist to reproduce. You might not like the answer but that does not mean science hasn't answered the question.

Why's that, then?

That is, Why do we exist to reproduce?

It's not that I "dislike" the answer you propose, it just sounds like glib incomplete bullshit to me. Are you sure that "science" says so, and not some twat who thinks he "Is" science?

Can't see that It's within "science"'s remit to answer WHY we exist. HOW, maybe - not WHY!

Stick to religion, Reverend, I think youmight be better at it

[HvyFuel]

Everything exists to reproduce Gert. I thought it was a simple fact understood by everyone but it's obviously not simple enough.

[dr_green_thumb1974]

think answer to ur question is duality

science by nature is a double edged sword, what makes good science can also be used to make bad science

take wolrd smost famous theory its the best example most us can see around us.

E=Mc2 somple as it gets energy = mass x speed light squared

on one hand it makes electricity possible for millions and all benefits come with power to operate anything from a lightbulb to a life support machine.

It also allows for the creation of nuclear devices that can destory the earths species and depletion of fossil fuels to make electricity in power stations and polution of the atmosphere.

Another example..... Edisons lightbulb, let there be lght and there was....we grow ganja with technology came on the back of the mans invention, we also polute our night skies with light due to them

all science has dual uses really it depends on its application as to whether it becomes good or bad i think

[squirrel]

Or is this something we've lost with the rise of technological knowledge? I somehow suspect we were much more attuned to metaphysical ponderings in the distant past, but that the passage of time has led to the closing of many cerebral walkways we used to traverse on a daily basis. Our brains function via filtration, and the use of sensory filters. I think our filters are shutting down more and more as we come to depend upon technology. This is the anxst of the modern age. We're descending into binary blindness!

Not blindness. The way we think and perceive is evolving at a furious rate. In Jesus' time people were routinely possessed by demons, and Jesus could drive them out. Now we would speak of mental illness, and apply heavy drugs. Whether the demons ever really existed, or were just misunderstood psychiatric conditions, is a debatable point : the people in Jesus' time certainly believed in them. We don't believe in demons any more, not deep down, and real or not, that robs them of their power over us.

Science enables us to see more of the universe, more clearly and in more detail than ever before, down to the atom and billions of years into the past. Perhaps we may eventually learn why we are here, if there is a why.

yeah i know what ya mean there, i think, but it kinda shouts to me "just be" "just do", when i can manage to hear it

That really struck a chord with me. I sometimes wonder if God created us just to see what we might do, in the same way we watch wildlife in the garden.

Edited March 25, 2007 by squirrel