Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[Gary Childress]

Here's an excerpt from a little swing piece me and the boys wrote recently called BigMike for your listening pleasure while browsing the thread.

https://streamable.com/32gouf

Nice! Well done, Prom!

[Alexis Jacobi]

Alexis, always reaching for the grand, sweeping pronouncements—"the true meaning of our time." But tell me, whose meaning are we talking about? Yours? Mine? Some universal cosmic force conveniently aligning with your worldview? Because meaning, as you present it, sounds suspiciously like something imposed from above—crafted with intent, designed with purpose. And if that’s what you’re suggesting, then let’s not dance around it: are you smuggling in God's purpose here?

You who are so ensconced within determinism, should be able to grasp a simple truth: we of the Occident, and we engaged with philosophy and, indeed, religious mythology which is part-and-parcel of our cultural heritage, and the intellectual modes of our heritage, are all of us very much within a current that rushes around us, and also sweeps us along.

You may say “There is no true meaning of our time” and in a sense this is irrelevant, because everyone seeks an interpretive key to understand this life. They and we are driven by a quest which is (I think) larger than any individual.

It is really A Question.

And you, Mike, are entirely within that quest and are driven by it. You mimic a “prophet” of specific “science-truths” that are irreducible and are therefore “fundamentalist truths” to which, according to you, all mist pay heed.

I offer you a chance (grab it fast!) to rise out of yourself and, floating in contemplative intellectualism, to see yourself and what you are up to with New Eyes.

[Also, if it’s no skin off your nose, would you please address me as Sri Jacobi or Bhagavan Alexis. Otherwise too much wear and tear on my ego …]

[Gary Childress]

Once upon a time there was cooperation and openness in the world. Then the great swami Alexis Jacobi appeared and gave everyone labels. He called the "sick" "sick" and the "healthy" "healthy". Then he called each people by their own name as a people. And the world fell into suspicion and distrust.

Alexis looked upon the world he created and said, "This is how it ought to be". And those who had believed in cooperation and openness had lost. Perhaps to resurface another day.

And Alexis' Jacobi's deeds were forever recorded by the "sick" bard named Gary Childress, back in the days when this was written.

Meh. AJ could only do what AJ could do. Not his fault. Otherwise, he would have broken conservation laws.

Key improv participants:

BigMike: the intrepid scientist seeking to spread knowledge.
AJ: The Intrepid seeker of reality.
Gary Childress: The "sick" bard of Philosophy Now

Special thinks to Promethean75 for the soundtrack which can be found here:

https://streamable.com/32gouf

[Alexis Jacobi]

Gary, a tasty tid-bit as you masticate anti-psychotics:

Clement of Rome taught that “God rules the world with a right and a left hand, the right being Christ, the left Satan.”

[Gary Childress]

Gary, a tasty tid-bit as you masticate anti-psychotics:

Clement of Rome taught that “God rules the world with a right and a left hand, the right being Christ, the left Satan.”

Oh no! Satan is a leftie! (At least that's what the Romans thought.)

[Dubious]

I agree, at present the scientific FS is the gold standard of credibility and objectivity.

There is no such thing as a gold standard being a measure of credibility and objectivity regarding anything. Such absolutes should be discouraged, especially so in science to avoid mutating into some quasi-religious endeavor.

Do you have a verifying and justifying system of reality and objectivity other than the scientific FS?

I have no idea why one would be necessary since Bayesian logic is the main operand determining the level of probability for any assumed theory and its truth validation. Within that paradigm, no matter how fixed a theory, it NEVER gets finalized into a certainty. At its penultimate, the door may close but is never locked.

[seeds]

I agree, at present the scientific FS is the gold standard of credibility and objectivity.

There is no such thing as a gold standard being a measure of credibility and objectivity regarding anything. Such absolutes should be discouraged, especially so in science to avoid mutating into some quasi-religious endeavor.

Do you have a verifying and justifying system of reality and objectivity other than the scientific FS?

I have no idea why one would be necessary since Bayesian logic is the main operand determining the level of probability for any assumed theory and its truth validation. Within that paradigm, no matter how fixed a theory, it NEVER gets finalized into a certainty. At its penultimate, the door may close but is never locked.

What VA cannot seem to get into his thick skull is that there are few things more annoying to a random reader who clicks on a post of, say, a 300-page thread on a philosophy forum,...

...only to find out that the post is replete with acronyms such as "FS" or "FSK" of which the random reader hasn't a clue as to what the letters stand for, because they were only defined in a post that appeared 200 pages ago.

As a practical example of what I mean, pretend that you, Dubious, were a random reader and had clicked on VA's post that contain the two sentences he used above, but they were written as follows...

I agree, at present the scientific SSA is the gold standard of credibility and objectivity.

Do you have a verifying and justifying system of reality and objectivity other than the scientific SSA?

I mean, how could you possibly make any sense of that without knowing what "SSA"* stood for?

The point is that unless an acronym becomes instantly and universally recognizable to everyone...

(such as, maybe, "KFC," for example, or, better yet, "U.S.A.")

...then without it being fully defined in pretty much every post,...

(which defeats the purpose of using a handy acronym in the first place)

...then other than for an extremely limited number of people (maybe 3 or 4 ), it is useless.

*("SSA" ---> System of Silly Acronyms.)
_______

[Dubious]

I agree, at present the scientific FS is the gold standard of credibility and objectivity.

There is no such thing as a gold standard being a measure of credibility and objectivity regarding anything. Such absolutes should be discouraged, especially so in science to avoid mutating into some quasi-religious endeavor.

Do you have a verifying and justifying system of reality and objectivity other than the scientific FS?

I have no idea why one would be necessary since Bayesian logic is the main operand determining the level of probability for any assumed theory and its truth validation. Within that paradigm, no matter how fixed a theory, it NEVER gets finalized into a certainty. At its penultimate, the door may close but is never locked.

What VA cannot seem to get into his thick skull is that there are few things more annoying to a random reader who clicks on a post of, say, a 300-page thread on a philosophy forum,...

...only to find out that the post is replete with acronyms such as "FS" or "FSK" of which the random reader hasn't a clue as to what the letters stand for, because they were only defined in a post that appeared 200 pages ago.

As a practical example of what I mean, pretend that you, Dubious, were a random reader and had clicked on VA's post that contain the two sentences he used above, but they were written as follows...

I agree, at present the scientific SSA is the gold standard of credibility and objectivity.

Do you have a verifying and justifying system of reality and objectivity other than the scientific SSA?

I mean, how could you possibly make any sense of that without knowing what "SSA"* stood for?

The point is that unless an acronym becomes instantly and universally recognizable to everyone...

(such as, maybe, "KFC," for example, or, better yet, "U.S.A.")

...then without it being fully defined in pretty much every post,...

(which defeats the purpose of using a handy acronym in the first place)

...then other than for an extremely limited number of people (maybe 3 or 4 ), it is useless.

*("SSA" ---> System of Silly Acronyms.)
_______

You bring up a very, very good point, because, to be honest, I have no idea what FS, as given, stands for. I was wondering about that and looked it up for possibilities, but nothing I read specifically applied. Based on its context, I simply improvised it into meaning a Foundational System as a shorthand abbreviation for the rigors of scientific logic. But I'm almost certainly wrong.

I don't mind being regarded as stupid or ignorant if it causes more clarity in the response. It wouldn't surprise me if in the future to expedite conversations into a more condensed shorthand there could be advanced courses in the use of acronyms. That would be one way to make ourselves more artificially int...oh, sorry, I meant to say AI intelligent.

Of course, such abbreviations could also cause confusion or even wars. AI, for example could also translate to Abysmally Idiotic...as in, please reverse the impetus to achieve AI perfection.

[Veritas Aequitas]

I agree, at present the scientific FS is the gold standard of credibility and objectivity.

There is no such thing as a gold standard being a measure of credibility and objectivity regarding anything. Such absolutes should be discouraged, especially so in science to avoid mutating into some quasi-religious endeavor.

I did not claim it is absolute.
I stated "at present" thus providing room the gold standard could change; personally I do see the possibility at all.
I am also not advocating "Scientism" nor absolute certainty of scientific knowledge.

I have stated elsewhere, whilst the scientific FS is the gold standard of credibility and objectivity at present, the scientific truths thereof are merely 'polished conjectures'.
I have also stated, the scientific FS incorporates 'faith' of low degrees in contrast to faith in theistic religions.

The term 'gold standard' merely means using some kind of agreeable and rational standard for comparative purposes.
Note units of length, time and others rely on agreeable standards which changes over time.
The standard for currency was related to the value of Gold [giving us the term 'Gold Standard] but now not so.
The standard for length was the length of someone's foot, then changed to meter represent by some steel bar.
Since 1983, the meter has been internationally defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second.

It is very rational to represent the gold standard of the credibility and objectivity of reality and knowledge by the Scientific FS.
If not, what and how else?

Do you have a verifying and justifying system of reality and objectivity other than the scientific FS?

I have no idea why one would be necessary since Bayesian logic is the main operand determining the level of probability for any assumed theory and its truth validation. Within that paradigm, no matter how fixed a theory, it NEVER gets finalized into a certainty. At its penultimate, the door may close but is never locked.

As I had stated, I have not claimed the scientific FS as the absolute 100% certain gold standard till eternity.
By definition, a Framework and System [FS] is grounded upon the human conditions via a collective-of-subjects; since human subjects are fallible, the FS cannot be absolute.

If the scientific FS is not to be the gold standard of credibility and objectivity, what is your alternative? or give the possibility there could be a better approach?

[Veritas Aequitas]

What VA cannot seem to get into his thick skull is that there are few things more annoying to a random reader who clicks on a post of, say, a 300-page thread on a philosophy forum,...

...only to find out that the post is replete with acronyms such as "FS" or "FSK" of which the random reader hasn't a clue as to what the letters stand for, because they were only defined in a post that appeared 200 pages ago.
_______

Complaining like some old toothless granny.

I have already linked 'what is FS & FSK' earlier in this thread;

viewtopic.php?p=754771#p754771
My grounding principle is:
Reality - ALL-there-is [including truth, knowledge, facts, etc.] are contingent upon a human-based [collective-of-subjects] framework and system [FS] of which the scientific FS as heavily empirically weighted is the most credible and objective at present, thus the gold standard.

What is an FS
viewtopic.php?t=43232

Why the Scientific FS is the most credible and Objective
viewtopic.php?t=43171

The onus of the participant of the thread is supposed to have read the whole thread.
Nevertheless, I have expressed FS as Framework and System many times subsequently.
In any case, if one is not sure, just ask.

Btw, did you post the whole of MY Chatgpt response to your ChatGpt?
I believe if you keep going with that, you may learn something, not necessary that you must agree with it.

[seeds]

What VA cannot seem to get into his thick skull is that there are few things more annoying to a random reader who clicks on a post of, say, a 300-page thread on a philosophy forum,...

...only to find out that the post is replete with acronyms such as "FS" or "FSK" of which the random reader hasn't a clue as to what the letters stand for, because they were only defined in a post that appeared 200 pages ago.
_______

Complaining like some old toothless granny.

I have already linked 'what is FS & FSK' earlier [ten pages back] in this thread;

Thank you, V, it's always helpful when the target of a complaint makes your point for you.

The onus of the participant of the thread is supposed to have read the whole thread.

Random (non member) readers aren't "participating" in threads.

No, logic suggests that they are just clicking on, perhaps, the OP, and then maybe skimming through a few of the posts to see if any of the posters have anything interesting or worthwhile to say.

And if all they encounter is your proprietary jargon in the form of undefined (unrecognizable) acronyms, then not only are they wasting their time and no doubt feeling annoyed at your presumptuousness in assuming that everyone would immediately understand what the letters "FS" and "FSK" stand for,...

..but you have also completely failed to draw them in to your sticky web of nonsensical blatherings about your personal deity, Kant [PBUH]...

...(which, come to think of it, is a good thing, so keep doing what you're doing )
_______

[accelafine]

What VA cannot seem to get into his thick skull is that there are few things more annoying to a random reader who clicks on a post of, say, a 300-page thread on a philosophy forum,...

...only to find out that the post is replete with acronyms such as "FS" or "FSK" of which the random reader hasn't a clue as to what the letters stand for, because they were only defined in a post that appeared 200 pages ago.
_______

Complaining like some old toothless granny.

I have already linked 'what is FS & FSK' earlier in this thread;

viewtopic.php?p=754771#p754771
My grounding principle is:
Reality - ALL-there-is [including truth, knowledge, facts, etc.] are contingent upon a human-based [collective-of-subjects] framework and system [FS] of which the scientific FS as heavily empirically weighted is the most credible and objective at present, thus the gold standard.

What is an FS
viewtopic.php?t=43232

Why the Scientific FS is the most credible and Objective
viewtopic.php?t=43171

The onus of the participant of the thread is supposed to have read the whole thread.
Nevertheless, I have expressed FS as Framework and System many times subsequently.
In any case, if one is not sure, just ask.

Btw, did you post the whole of MY Chatgpt response to your ChatGpt?
I believe if you keep going with that, you may learn something, not necessary that you must agree with it.

No one knows what your ridiculous initialisms mean.

[Atla]

You also have to read the fine print. "Scientific FS is the most credible and objective" is actually short for "scientific FS is the most credible and objective, unless it conflicts with Kant or with my interpretation of Kant".

In the end the VA-FSK always reigns supreme.

[Belinda]

Mike, referencing electro-chemical reactions is not an explanation or answer.

If you want me to accept ideas as material, then you must explain how, for example, justice (as a concept, an ideal, an idea) is material.

You can't just say electrical impulses firing in my brain, the neurotransmitters transmitting signals, the networks of neurons forming connections or the electrochemical processes that shape perception, memory, and cognition and leave it there, as though all that explains anything.

You see this, yes?

Henry, justice is a concept that your brainmind creates. There is no need to deny the existence of the brain and there is no need to deny the existence of the mind. Brain and mind are the same thing .

Are they?

When was this UNCOVERED and FOUND OUT BY 'humanity', EXACTLY?

Your brain is what a neurosurgeon can see and feel: your mind is what you and you alone can feel.

WHAT?

Talk about just CONTRADICTORY "yourself" in two sentences and CLAIMS.

you SAY and CLAIM that, 'brain' AND 'mind' are the SAME thing. HOWEVER, you ALSO SAY and CLAIM that ONLY the 'brain' can be seen and felt when the skull is cut open.

These are not separate but are the same thing (called Henry's 'brainmind') from different points of view.

Talk ABOUT ANOTHER PRIME example of WHY these human beings, here, took SO, SO LONG TO ALSO UNCOVER and SEE what the ACTUAL Truth of things IS, here, EXACTLY.

Spinoza explained brain and mind are two aspects of the same . 1661-1675.The book in which Spinoza explained this is called "Ethics".



When the "skull is cut open" the brain is perceived by the surgeon to be an object. When "the skull is cut open" The patient usually knows what is happening but can't directly perceive any pain or cognitive effects so the operation as it happens does not directly affect the patient .

[Alexis Jacobi]

Cutting through the chatter …

Please consider for a moment the declaration that science represents a “gold standard”.

Thinking about this, it seems to me that, yes, it has to do with science performed in the laboratory, and all the technological tests and readings, but also about the way that we believe we are approaching the hard and strange questions that still roil us. The “gold standard” is an attitude we take in respect to our own methodologies and that which we seek to communicate.

For example, consider the ENTIRETY of Mike’s presentation. Really, it is not an argument as much as it is (sorry Mike) a performance of an attitude of certainty. It states “I have invincible knowledge! I can crush all other perspectives!”

The facts are: that there is wide-ranging debate going on in “PhD circles” about the question of “free will” but moreover about the nature of consciousness itself and a great deal else. One might suppose that one epistemological system is on the verge of being challenged by a newer version, even a revisionist one.

Indeed there are idealist physicists who assert that mind determines matter (that being is mind of some sort), and who propose that mind does not emerge from matter (which is a determining concept and fences in the parameters of what is considerable) and their speculations (intuited models?) turn toward other descriptive models.

Even those who consider these far-reaching ideas are involved in that “gold standard” which could be understood as an explanatory method or a style of presentation. Or is it an attitude of speculative openness?

Now, I cannot help it that I naturally move from that rather pedestrian “gold standard” to a “platinum standard”, so please people don’t blame me …