Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[accelafine]

You know I love you guys

I'm pretty sure you don't...

[attofishpi]

You know I love you guys

I'm pretty sure you don't...

I honestly think he does

[accelafine]

You know I love you guys

I'm pretty sure you don't...

I honestly think he does

Neither of you know what love is. You have no life experience that would give you this insight. Prom hates his own mother and thinks that young girls are objects for his sexual gratification.

[Dubious]

No one pre-calculates their decisions based on whether they're predicated on free will or through the control of fixed laws.

But that's exactly what Mike is tryin' to do: he wants folks to formally reject free will and see themselves as meat machines.

Whatever our other attributes, free willed or not, we are indeed meat machines easily processed into homo burgers.

[attofishpi]

No one pre-calculates their decisions based on whether they're predicated on free will or through the control of fixed laws.

But that's exactly what Mike is tryin' to do: he wants folks to formally reject free will and see themselves as meat machines.

Whatever our other attributes, free willed or not, we are indeed meat machines easily processed into homo burgers.

Oh wow that's brilliant!! My dog would sooo scoff those down in one chomp!

(there would be no free will involved)

[accelafine]

No one pre-calculates their decisions based on whether they're predicated on free will or through the control of fixed laws.

But that's exactly what Mike is tryin' to do: he wants folks to formally reject free will and see themselves as meat machines.

Whatever our other attributes, free willed or not, we are indeed meat machines easily processed into homo burgers.

Apparently 'free will' renders our flesh inedible...

[accelafine]

I wonder how Henry would explain King Charles' sausage fingers that are clearly designed to be tantalisingly tempting to carnivorous mammalian predators...

[attofishpi]

But that's exactly what Mike is tryin' to do: he wants folks to formally reject free will and see themselves as meat machines.

Whatever our other attributes, free willed or not, we are indeed meat machines easily processed into homo burgers.

Apparently 'free will' renders our flesh inedible...

Nah, just a little tough if overcooked.

[attofishpi]

I wonder how Henry would explain King Charles' sausage fingers that are clearly designed to be tantalisingly tempting to carnivorous mammalian predators...

King Charles my arse.

My Mum shook his hand in the 80s. She was the personal secretary for the Director General of the Ordnance Survey - ya know, the firm that mapped the world.

[accelafine]

I wonder how Henry would explain King Charles' sausage fingers that are clearly designed to be tantalisingly tempting to carnivorous mammalian predators...

King Charles my arse.

My Mum shook his hand in the 80s. She was the personal secretary for the Director General of the Ordnance Survey - ya know, the firm that mapped the world.

What do his sausages have to do with your arse?

[BigMike]

You seem to suggest that the lack of a fully successful reduction so far is evidence against reducibility. I would frame it differently. The complexity of culture and politics means we need better tools and theories to bridge the gap between microscopic causes (physics) and macroscopic phenomena (social systems). But complexity doesn’t negate causality; it just makes it harder to trace.

So, if the claim is that culture and politics are somehow not caused deterministically or operate outside the bounds of physics, I’d respectfully challenge that. What’s needed isn’t the assertion that they are irreducible but a clear articulation of what makes them appear so—and whether those obstacles are practical (our current limits in understanding) or conceptual (a genuine disconnection from physical causation). If you think there’s something fundamentally "non-physical" about culture or politics, I’d be curious to hear what you think that is and how it operates.

To me, culture and politics are profound examples of how physical processes give rise to the astonishing complexity of human behavior and interaction. They don’t escape the laws of physics—they are the intricate dance of those laws playing out on a human stage. What are your thoughts? Could culture and politics have causal origins outside physical processes, or are we simply confronting their emergent complexity?

That's not what I've claimed at all. Instead, I've claimed that reductionist explanations of complex cultural phenomena have not yet been successful. Science is as science does. What good does it do to claim that some day physics may explain everything? Even popular reductionist explanations (like evolutionary psychology) fail to meet low scientific standards. Evolutionary psychology tends to restate the obvious and ignore cultural differences. It is also contaminated with logical errors, like assuming the antecedent. To examine ethical or legal systems by studying physics is unenlightening. On the other hand, if we study ethics or political systems by examining the history and development of ethics and political systems we might actually learn something.

Alexiev, thanks for clarifying. We seem to agree on an important point: explanations must meet standards of coherence and causation. If an explanation contradicts causation or determinism—for instance, by invoking "first movers" or phenomena operating outside physical laws—it can be discarded outright as incoherent.

That said, complexity doesn’t negate reducibility. The lack of a fully reductionist model for culture or politics doesn’t mean they escape physical causation, but rather that we haven’t yet developed the tools to trace the connections. I agree that studying ethics and political systems within their historical and cultural contexts is essential. But rejecting reductionism outright assumes we already know its limits—something science consistently challenges by uncovering new layers of understanding.

Let’s continue exploring: where do you see coherent limits to reductionist approaches, and how do we distinguish those from areas where the complexity is just daunting?

[BigMike]

But that's exactly what Mike is tryin' to do: he wants folks to formally reject free will and see themselves as meat machines.

Whatever our other attributes, free willed or not, we are indeed meat machines easily processed into homo burgers.

Apparently 'free will' renders our flesh inedible...

Do you think there's a meaningful difference between dead meat on a butcher block and a living "meat machine" with consciousness, brain plasticity, and the capacity for self-reflection? If so, where do you think that difference lies?

[accelafine]

Whatever our other attributes, free willed or not, we are indeed meat machines easily processed into homo burgers.

Apparently 'free will' renders our flesh inedible...

Do you think there's a meaningful difference between dead meat on a butcher block and a living "meat machine" with consciousness, brain plasticity, and the capacity for self-reflection? If so, where do you think that difference lies?

You should be asking Henry this. He's the one obsessed with meat. My comment was flippant.

[BigMike]

Apparently 'free will' renders our flesh inedible...

Do you think there's a meaningful difference between dead meat on a butcher block and a living "meat machine" with consciousness, brain plasticity, and the capacity for self-reflection? If so, where do you think that difference lies?

You should be asking Henry this. He's the one obsessed with meat. My comment was flippant.

Ah, my bad—I missed that Henry was the source of the meat metaphor. Thanks for clarifying! That said, the question still stands, flippant or not: what sets a living, thinking human apart from a slab of meat? It seems like a useful point to unpack, especially in the context of free will and determinism.

[accelafine]

Do you think there's a meaningful difference between dead meat on a butcher block and a living "meat machine" with consciousness, brain plasticity, and the capacity for self-reflection? If so, where do you think that difference lies?

You should be asking Henry this. He's the one obsessed with meat. My comment was flippant.

Ah, my bad—I missed that Henry was the source of the meat metaphor. Thanks for clarifying! That said, the question still stands, flippant or not: what sets a living, thinking human apart from a slab of meat? It seems like a useful point to unpack, especially in the context of free will and determinism.

I already pointed that out to Henry but he didn't want to know. I don't even 'get' his point when he rambles on about us being 'meat' if there's no free will. It makes no sense to me. He refuses to explain it (most likely because he can't).