|
On April 02 2013 21:58 jdsowa wrote:
Life is already far too long and tiresome. By the time most people hit 30 they've stopped being curious about books, music, etc. It's just about raising your kids and preparing for them to take over.
That is a pretty depressing place you are living/growing up in, also it is not true. Some people stop doing something with their life when they are 12, others when they are 90/when they die.It is a personal choice though, age has very little to do with it as long as you are healthy.
Also, hell no, we won't live forever in this lifetime. I also think that there are other priorities. So far with every new generation human life has improved a bit roughly at least and each new generation does introduce a new world perspective. I don't think stagnating this will be beneficial to mankind. But, I think just living a bit longer in good health, like to a 150/200 might actually benefit mankind as a whole. We will also need some kind of age manipulation to make space travel viable. So I am sure it will get a higher priority once we start space traveling more.
|
Should have known this was prone to be googled. Did you read section 5? This doesn't compare to a religious dogma at all, just an err by Crick that stuck.
I think we appreicate each others positions, no need to take it further into PM. I'll just leave you with this gem of a teaser (always a good way to try to round something up, NOT :p):
"Philosophy of science is about as useful for scientists as ornitology is for birds"
|
There is so much we don't understand about cellular chemistry and the complex inter-dynamics in even a single cell, that I doubt it will be soon. The more you study and learn about biology especially on the cellular level the more you realize just how far we have to go. There is a LOT of work to be done before this could ever become a reality.
(credentials: I'm a research engineer for a major orthopedics company)
|
On April 02 2013 20:45 Gianttt wrote:
My religion says my ghost will be absorbed by a tree after I die.
Speaker for the Dead?
|
What's considered unlocking immortality? The concept, biological chemistry and living immortal organisms already exist so wouldn't that be already considered 'unlocking' immortality in science?
Or is the question when it will be applied? Because biological immortality would be defined on the genetic level and you cannot change the DNA of every cell in an full grown human being with our modern day technology. So it's impossible for our generation to experience that kind of immortality regardless of whether we know how it works and what needs to be done to a human DNA to create an non-aging human body.
|
On April 02 2013 23:08 Leafren wrote:Should have known this was prone to be googled. Did you read section 5? This doesn't compare to a religious dogma at all, just an err by Crick that stuck. I think we appreicate each others positions, no need to take it further into PM. I'll just leave you with this gem of a teaser (always a good way to try to round something up, NOT :p): "Philosophy of science is about as useful for scientists as ornitology is for birds"
ye i read section 5, i thought it was funny  but ye as a joke, it means pretty much nothing to our conversation.
if i was a philosopher of science i would be offended XD luckily im more at home in metaphysics!!!
|
On April 02 2013 22:32 TSORG wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2013 21:53 Leafren wrote:
You can come up with an alternative method which would be judged on its merits and accepted if better that the current scientific method.
If you genuinely want a debate you might want to avoid the word stupid in your first sentence. I was not talking about the practical application of the falsification scientific philosophy. You're right, it is not used in scientific practice generally. I was however talking about the criterion of testability to distinguish between practical science and practical religion.
Too get this back on topic (more or less):
I'm intrigued, would you elaborate on better methods on the "pragmatic level" and scientific dogmas in (molecular) biology as this is the scientific field covering this topic? like i said, it was not aimed at you specifically, it just annoys me that many people randomly throw that word in without knowing anything about it. if that is not the case for you, then dont feel adressed. I'm not claiming i know a better method on a pragmatic level, but what you described in your opening sentence, accepting a method that is better than the current one, that is a pragmatic decision. we would go for the alternative because it works better not because you can say it is better on a theoretic level (assuming that both theories/method are atleast adequately worked out). To compare practical science to practical religion is a futile exercise imo, they really have nothing in common and it is due to arrogance on both sides that they want to claim something about the other they have no right to claim. practical religion should shut up about science and the age of the earth, and vica versa science has really nothing to say about a potential existence of any type of god. or about a religious experience. theoretic science and theology have more in common, but still they make use of different methods and usually discuss different domains. (to make a comparison, its like trying to explain certain social phenomenon through psychology or through economy or through biology.) in the end science is based on a few fundamental assumptions which cannot be proven by the scientific method because it would be a circulary argument, and even if the method would change (which it has over the years) it is only a pragmatic change, it is not a fundamental change in the sense that the foundations (eg these assumptions) are touched. we can go into detail about it but i dont want to derail the thread further. you can pm if you want to talk about it some more  ps: i stumbled upon this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Dogma_of_Molecular_Biology
What assumptions would those be? Are you talking about basic axioms? I really can't think of any assumptions which aren't there for pure pragmatism, and they aren't really seen as assumptions, but rather constraints without which we would not get anywhere.
|
i read a while ago that scientists are trying to upload knowledge into a human brain. so you dont have to read a book anymore, you just upload the whole story in your brain and thats it, like they did in The Matrix.
What if scientist will be able to download everything we experienced and know into a robot, i think it could work similar to uploading something into a brain, wouldnt it?....just think about that.
Everyone would be immortal and we wouldnt have to deal with ageing or deaseses.
And as far as i can remember, the text said that it shouldnt take that much time till they are able to do so.
|
On April 02 2013 23:36 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2013 22:32 TSORG wrote:On April 02 2013 21:53 Leafren wrote:
You can come up with an alternative method which would be judged on its merits and accepted if better that the current scientific method.
If you genuinely want a debate you might want to avoid the word stupid in your first sentence. I was not talking about the practical application of the falsification scientific philosophy. You're right, it is not used in scientific practice generally. I was however talking about the criterion of testability to distinguish between practical science and practical religion.
Too get this back on topic (more or less):
I'm intrigued, would you elaborate on better methods on the "pragmatic level" and scientific dogmas in (molecular) biology as this is the scientific field covering this topic? like i said, it was not aimed at you specifically, it just annoys me that many people randomly throw that word in without knowing anything about it. if that is not the case for you, then dont feel adressed. I'm not claiming i know a better method on a pragmatic level, but what you described in your opening sentence, accepting a method that is better than the current one, that is a pragmatic decision. we would go for the alternative because it works better not because you can say it is better on a theoretic level (assuming that both theories/method are atleast adequately worked out). To compare practical science to practical religion is a futile exercise imo, they really have nothing in common and it is due to arrogance on both sides that they want to claim something about the other they have no right to claim. practical religion should shut up about science and the age of the earth, and vica versa science has really nothing to say about a potential existence of any type of god. or about a religious experience. theoretic science and theology have more in common, but still they make use of different methods and usually discuss different domains. (to make a comparison, its like trying to explain certain social phenomenon through psychology or through economy or through biology.) in the end science is based on a few fundamental assumptions which cannot be proven by the scientific method because it would be a circulary argument, and even if the method would change (which it has over the years) it is only a pragmatic change, it is not a fundamental change in the sense that the foundations (eg these assumptions) are touched. we can go into detail about it but i dont want to derail the thread further. you can pm if you want to talk about it some more ps: i stumbled upon this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Dogma_of_Molecular_Biology What assumptions would those be? Are you talking about basic axioms? I really can't think of any assumptions which aren't there for pure pragmatism, and they aren't really seen as assumptions, but rather constraints without which we would not get anywhere.
that there is a world which exists independently of our perception and that we can understand it with our senses and reason, that there is such a thing as (absolute) truth and that we can know it, causality, there are probably more but id have to read up. theyre all trivial on the pragmatic level, but any serious theory will have to account for the inherent problems it brings. but ye in the end, as mentioned by the other guy, for the practice of science its pretty much obsolote and we do not need to know the answers to these questions in order to cure diseases, make cars and blow up the earth 100x. we do not need to know if there is actually something that corresponds to an atom or a quark as long as the model works and helps us invent stuff we need.
you are right, without assuming these things or something which would replace them, you would get nowhere and would have to embrace total skepticism which is the only thing which is pretty much 100% true but is also practically impossible. which is why i said before, that it comes down to something called a fundamental choice, you will have to choose between a few of these assumptions and from there on out you will start to make sense of the world. you cannot really say that one choice is better than the other except that one choice seems to have more useful/agreeable/etc consequences.
|
On April 02 2013 23:56 TSORG wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2013 23:36 Tobberoth wrote:On April 02 2013 22:32 TSORG wrote:On April 02 2013 21:53 Leafren wrote:
You can come up with an alternative method which would be judged on its merits and accepted if better that the current scientific method.
If you genuinely want a debate you might want to avoid the word stupid in your first sentence. I was not talking about the practical application of the falsification scientific philosophy. You're right, it is not used in scientific practice generally. I was however talking about the criterion of testability to distinguish between practical science and practical religion.
Too get this back on topic (more or less):
I'm intrigued, would you elaborate on better methods on the "pragmatic level" and scientific dogmas in (molecular) biology as this is the scientific field covering this topic? like i said, it was not aimed at you specifically, it just annoys me that many people randomly throw that word in without knowing anything about it. if that is not the case for you, then dont feel adressed. I'm not claiming i know a better method on a pragmatic level, but what you described in your opening sentence, accepting a method that is better than the current one, that is a pragmatic decision. we would go for the alternative because it works better not because you can say it is better on a theoretic level (assuming that both theories/method are atleast adequately worked out). To compare practical science to practical religion is a futile exercise imo, they really have nothing in common and it is due to arrogance on both sides that they want to claim something about the other they have no right to claim. practical religion should shut up about science and the age of the earth, and vica versa science has really nothing to say about a potential existence of any type of god. or about a religious experience. theoretic science and theology have more in common, but still they make use of different methods and usually discuss different domains. (to make a comparison, its like trying to explain certain social phenomenon through psychology or through economy or through biology.) in the end science is based on a few fundamental assumptions which cannot be proven by the scientific method because it would be a circulary argument, and even if the method would change (which it has over the years) it is only a pragmatic change, it is not a fundamental change in the sense that the foundations (eg these assumptions) are touched. we can go into detail about it but i dont want to derail the thread further. you can pm if you want to talk about it some more ps: i stumbled upon this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Dogma_of_Molecular_Biology What assumptions would those be? Are you talking about basic axioms? I really can't think of any assumptions which aren't there for pure pragmatism, and they aren't really seen as assumptions, but rather constraints without which we would not get anywhere. you cannot really say that one choice is better than the other except that one choice seems to have more useful/agreeable/etc consequences.
We colloquially call it the better choice
|
On April 02 2013 23:56 TSORG wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2013 23:36 Tobberoth wrote:On April 02 2013 22:32 TSORG wrote:On April 02 2013 21:53 Leafren wrote:
You can come up with an alternative method which would be judged on its merits and accepted if better that the current scientific method.
If you genuinely want a debate you might want to avoid the word stupid in your first sentence. I was not talking about the practical application of the falsification scientific philosophy. You're right, it is not used in scientific practice generally. I was however talking about the criterion of testability to distinguish between practical science and practical religion.
Too get this back on topic (more or less):
I'm intrigued, would you elaborate on better methods on the "pragmatic level" and scientific dogmas in (molecular) biology as this is the scientific field covering this topic? like i said, it was not aimed at you specifically, it just annoys me that many people randomly throw that word in without knowing anything about it. if that is not the case for you, then dont feel adressed. I'm not claiming i know a better method on a pragmatic level, but what you described in your opening sentence, accepting a method that is better than the current one, that is a pragmatic decision. we would go for the alternative because it works better not because you can say it is better on a theoretic level (assuming that both theories/method are atleast adequately worked out). To compare practical science to practical religion is a futile exercise imo, they really have nothing in common and it is due to arrogance on both sides that they want to claim something about the other they have no right to claim. practical religion should shut up about science and the age of the earth, and vica versa science has really nothing to say about a potential existence of any type of god. or about a religious experience. theoretic science and theology have more in common, but still they make use of different methods and usually discuss different domains. (to make a comparison, its like trying to explain certain social phenomenon through psychology or through economy or through biology.) in the end science is based on a few fundamental assumptions which cannot be proven by the scientific method because it would be a circulary argument, and even if the method would change (which it has over the years) it is only a pragmatic change, it is not a fundamental change in the sense that the foundations (eg these assumptions) are touched. we can go into detail about it but i dont want to derail the thread further. you can pm if you want to talk about it some more ps: i stumbled upon this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Dogma_of_Molecular_Biology What assumptions would those be? Are you talking about basic axioms? I really can't think of any assumptions which aren't there for pure pragmatism, and they aren't really seen as assumptions, but rather constraints without which we would not get anywhere. that there is a world which exists independently of our perception and that we can understand it with our senses and reason, that there is such a thing as (absolute) truth and that we can know it, causality, there are probably more but id have to read up. theyre all trivial on the pragmatic level, but any serious theory will have to account for the inherent problems it brings. but ye in the end, as mentioned by the other guy, for the practice of science its pretty much obsolote and we do not need to know the answers to these questions in order to cure diseases, make cars and blow up the earth 100x. we do not need to know if there is actually something that corresponds to an atom or a quark as long as the model works and helps us invent stuff we need. you are right, without assuming these things or something which would replace them, you would get nowhere and would have to embrace total skepticism which is the only thing which is pretty much 100% true but is also practically impossible. which is why i said before, that it comes down to something called a fundamental choice, you will have to choose between a few of these assumptions and from there on out you will start to make sense of the world. you cannot really say that one choice is better than the other except that one choice seems to have more useful/agreeable/etc consequences.
While I agree that, for example, one could say it's an assumption that there exists a world independently of our perception, I would say there's still a clear difference between the scientific "assumption" and religious blind faith. The difference being that in science, you don't claim to know that there's an independent world, and you don't claim to know anything about it. You don't even really assume there is one. What you do, is say that our current perceptions indicate a certain pattern, and we use this pattern as groundwork to predict patterns. If there happens to be no independent reality, that doesn't really matter much to science, because the groundwork works, so it becomes mostly a matter of definition.
The same isn't true for religion. In religion, you blindly do assume that there is something beyond which we can't comprehend, which effectively controls us, and you don't accept this as an abstract constraint to work from, you in fact do see it as absolute truth. This has "benefits" in the sense that it gives some people comfort, but it slows down progress since it doesn't give us any effective means of progression. You can ask god for better medicine, but compared to the patterns found by science, the pattern that praying works has left us wanting.
So yeah, I agree with what you're coming from in regards to science, but I still find gap between religious faith and scientific belief to be quite big. That said, some people certainly have blind faith in the products of science. I guess this thread relates to that, though I personally don't see it as blind faith to think that a development we have seen historically (average life span increasing a lot) has a good chance of continuing.
|
As with many things in science, it is always 10-20 years away..... always. We have been 10 years away from a grand unified theory of physics since the 1940's and we are still 10 years from a grand unified theory today, the simple fact is that nobody knows when we will crack it!
Immortality may be impossible, it would after all violate the laws of entropy. All things die, even the universe. It is inevitable. We may one day learn to stall death, we may even be able to extend our lives to many hundreds of years but we will, in the end, die. Why would you want to live forever anyway? Only the young want to live forever, I promise you that once you hit thirty you won't be quite so keen to live forever. Forever is a looooooong time. I would love to live for a couple hundred years and I might get to do that, predictions say that people of my generation (those hitting 30 now) will probably live to be 120-150 and spend most of that in good health. Thats enough for me.... especially if they don't raise the retirement age, I can't imagine what I'll do from the age of 65-150 if I was retired!
The key thing to immortality is that we are now approaching the point at which the rate we age and the rate science can extend your life are beginning to close, every year the life expectancy of most people goes up, eventually life expectancy increase will outstrip the ageing process and then we will live for many many many years. Will we be immortal? I doubt it. You can repair the body quite easily, replace your organs with cloned parts etc but the human brain is so far beyond our comprehension at this point that we have no clue how to repair the damage that simply being alive does to it. How long your brain can keep functioning without repair will ultimately be the thing that determines how long we can live. You can't clone a brain, the brain requires your entire life experience to create "you", so our only option would be to repair damage. You might have to even replace obsolete parts of your brain if you lived long enough, we have no idea how much information it can store, maybe living longer than 150 years would mean your brain runs out of space and needs a format/disk clean up to make room for new information.
|
@tobberoth
well it comes down to whether or not you accept the arguments provided. there are plenty of arguments to make the belief that there is a god, grounded and justified. however many people reject these arguments nowadays because they arent scientific arguments and pretty much get ignored.
and while it is true that many people have a blind faith in certain religious assumptions, undoubtly more people than that have blind faith in scientific assumptions, it is wrong to say that every such religious belief is blind. much of it comes down to education and the culture you grow up in, and i say it often and i believe in it utterly, that alot of people who now believe in the big bang wouldve believed the bible word for word had they been born 500 years ago.
while science vs religion is an interesting debate its mainly interesting because of many misunderstandings that surround it, imo they can easily co-exist.
|
On April 03 2013 01:00 TSORG wrote:
@tobberoth
well it comes down to whether or not you accept the arguments provided. there are plenty of arguments to make the belief that there is a god, grounded and justified. however many people reject these arguments nowadays because they arent scientific arguments and pretty much get ignored.
and while it is true that many people have a blind faith in certain religious assumptions, undoubtly more people than that have blind faith in scientific assumptions, it is wrong to say that every such religious belief is blind. much of it comes down to education and the culture you grow up in, and i say it often and i believe in it utterly, that alot of people who now believe in the big bang wouldve believed the bible word for word had they been born 500 years ago.
while science vs religion is an interesting debate its mainly interesting because of many misunderstandings that surround it, imo they can easily co-exist.
I am sorry but there is no argument that makes a belief in god grounded or justified. There never was. It is an assumption which can not be tested. There have always been people who rejected god on that basic principle, always, it isn't a modern thing. The difference now is that more of the population are educated about science. God was created by man to fill a hole, that hole is ever decreasing as we learn more about the universe. We needed god because we became smart enough to predict our own death, to come to terms with the fact that we will die, we created gods.
everyone is an Atheist. You don't believe in Mars or Jupiter as gods do you? No. You don't believe in Ishtar or Athena. It is your right to believe in god, if it makes your life a little easier then who am I to judge. But do not try to claim that a belief in god is justified by anything. You can show me any evidence of god you like and I can show you a better, simpler explanation. God is such a complex idea that it makes no sense. One of the greatest scientific axioms is "the simplest explanation is usually the correct one". E=MC2, 5 characters that can describe a large chunk of how the universe came to be as we find it today and you want insert some complex, vast and unknowable presence that makes it all go?
If god exists, he/she is a hyper advanced alien with no attachment to humans. Any being capable of creating such a universe would not care about one tiny little planet, orbiting an unremarkable star in an unremarkable part of an unremarkable galaxy in an unremarkable part of the universe. Belief in a loving, caring god who intervenes in our lives is so egocentric that it can only be a construct of the human mind. There are countless other races out there in the universe, we are not special. If god exists then why do millions die of AIDS and malaria? I want nothing to do with a god who doesn't make a point of appearing to the pope and telling him to shut the fuck up about gays or comdoms, what god in their right mind would allow such things? One who doesn't care. So there we go, if god exists, he/she/it doesn't care about you or me or anyone else. God is a scientist and the universe is their experiment, simply to see what happens. That kind of god I am open to, because it would make some sense.
Anyways that was way off topic!
The difference between accepting god and accepting science is simple, in science, when something is proven wrong, we change our minds in a heart beat. In religion, its the exact opposite.
|
On April 03 2013 01:19 emythrel wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2013 01:00 TSORG wrote:
@tobberoth
well it comes down to whether or not you accept the arguments provided. there are plenty of arguments to make the belief that there is a god, grounded and justified. however many people reject these arguments nowadays because they arent scientific arguments and pretty much get ignored.
and while it is true that many people have a blind faith in certain religious assumptions, undoubtly more people than that have blind faith in scientific assumptions, it is wrong to say that every such religious belief is blind. much of it comes down to education and the culture you grow up in, and i say it often and i believe in it utterly, that alot of people who now believe in the big bang wouldve believed the bible word for word had they been born 500 years ago.
while science vs religion is an interesting debate its mainly interesting because of many misunderstandings that surround it, imo they can easily co-exist. I am sorry but there is no argument that makes a belief in god grounded or justified. There never was. It is an assumption which can not be tested. There have always been people who rejected god on that basic principle, always, it isn't a modern thing. The difference now is that more of the population are educated about science. God was created by man to fill a hole, that hole is ever decreasing as we learn more about the universe. We needed god because we became smart enough to predict our own death, to come to terms with the fact that we will die, we created gods. everyone is an Atheist. You don't believe in Mars or Jupiter as gods do you? No. You don't believe in Ishtar or Athena. It is your right to believe in god, if it makes your life a little easier then who am I to judge. But do not try to claim that a belief in god is justified by anything. You can show me any evidence of god you like and I can show you a better, simpler explanation. God is such a complex idea that it makes no sense. One of the greatest scientific axioms is "the simplest explanation is usually the correct one". E=MC2, 5 characters that can describe a large chunk of how the universe came to be as we find it today and you want insert some complex, vast and unknowable presence that makes it all go? If god exists, he/she is a hyper advanced alien with no attachment to humans. Any being capable of creating such a universe would not care about one tiny little planet, orbiting an unremarkable star in an unremarkable part of an unremarkable galaxy in an unremarkable part of the universe. Belief in a loving, caring god who intervenes in our lives is so egocentric that it can only be a construct of the human mind. There are countless other races out there in the universe, we are not special. If god exists then why do millions die of AIDS and malaria? I want nothing to do with a god who doesn't make a point of appearing to the pope and telling him to shut the fuck up about gays or comdoms, what god in their right mind would allow such things? One who doesn't care. So there we go, if god exists, he/she/it doesn't care about you or me or anyone else. God is a scientist and the universe is their experiment, simply to see what happens. That kind of god I am open to, because it would make some sense. Anyways that was way off topic! The difference between accepting god and accepting science is simple, in science, when something is proven wrong, we change our minds in a heart beat. In religion, its the exact opposite.
sigh and here come all the cliches...
it is the argument that makes the belief justified, it is accepting the argument that makes the belief your own. i never said people in times before our own did not reject these arguments, many did, even within the catholic church (taking catholicism as the proto religion for this now).
most of what you say really makes it look like you havent read what i said or havent understood it, no offense intended. God is actually a very simple idea, it is vastly more simple than many scientific theories. just because you can put the law of gravity into 5 little digits doesnt make it simple. Thats like saying that God is even simpler because it has only 3 digits. cmon...
and as to your last point, which is a valid one to raise, only sadly it is misguided. You can read Thomas Kuhn about it, his research makes clear very well that within science alot is more rigid than many people want to believe. things do not change within a heartbeat, in fact they often barely change at all. if you allow me this caricature, from the christian explanation to the big bang theory now, actually very little has changed, we went from first there was god and nothing, then god created something out of nothing to there was no god and nothing and then nothing created something out of nothing (buuut there actually couldve been a god before the big bang we just cant say anything about it...)
|
On April 03 2013 01:34 TSORG wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2013 01:19 emythrel wrote:On April 03 2013 01:00 TSORG wrote:
@tobberoth
well it comes down to whether or not you accept the arguments provided. there are plenty of arguments to make the belief that there is a god, grounded and justified. however many people reject these arguments nowadays because they arent scientific arguments and pretty much get ignored.
and while it is true that many people have a blind faith in certain religious assumptions, undoubtly more people than that have blind faith in scientific assumptions, it is wrong to say that every such religious belief is blind. much of it comes down to education and the culture you grow up in, and i say it often and i believe in it utterly, that alot of people who now believe in the big bang wouldve believed the bible word for word had they been born 500 years ago.
while science vs religion is an interesting debate its mainly interesting because of many misunderstandings that surround it, imo they can easily co-exist. I am sorry but there is no argument that makes a belief in god grounded or justified. There never was. It is an assumption which can not be tested. There have always been people who rejected god on that basic principle, always, it isn't a modern thing. The difference now is that more of the population are educated about science. God was created by man to fill a hole, that hole is ever decreasing as we learn more about the universe. We needed god because we became smart enough to predict our own death, to come to terms with the fact that we will die, we created gods. everyone is an Atheist. You don't believe in Mars or Jupiter as gods do you? No. You don't believe in Ishtar or Athena. It is your right to believe in god, if it makes your life a little easier then who am I to judge. But do not try to claim that a belief in god is justified by anything. You can show me any evidence of god you like and I can show you a better, simpler explanation. God is such a complex idea that it makes no sense. One of the greatest scientific axioms is "the simplest explanation is usually the correct one". E=MC2, 5 characters that can describe a large chunk of how the universe came to be as we find it today and you want insert some complex, vast and unknowable presence that makes it all go? If god exists, he/she is a hyper advanced alien with no attachment to humans. Any being capable of creating such a universe would not care about one tiny little planet, orbiting an unremarkable star in an unremarkable part of an unremarkable galaxy in an unremarkable part of the universe. Belief in a loving, caring god who intervenes in our lives is so egocentric that it can only be a construct of the human mind. There are countless other races out there in the universe, we are not special. If god exists then why do millions die of AIDS and malaria? I want nothing to do with a god who doesn't make a point of appearing to the pope and telling him to shut the fuck up about gays or comdoms, what god in their right mind would allow such things? One who doesn't care. So there we go, if god exists, he/she/it doesn't care about you or me or anyone else. God is a scientist and the universe is their experiment, simply to see what happens. That kind of god I am open to, because it would make some sense. Anyways that was way off topic! The difference between accepting god and accepting science is simple, in science, when something is proven wrong, we change our minds in a heart beat. In religion, its the exact opposite. sigh and here come all the cliches... it is the argument that makes the belief justified, it is accepting the argument that makes the belief your own. i never said people in times before our own did not reject these arguments, many did, even within the catholic church (taking catholicism as the proto religion for this now). most of what you say really makes it look like you havent read what i said or havent understood it, no offense intended. God is actually a very simple idea, it is vastly more simple than many scientific theories. just because you can put the law of gravity into 5 little digits doesnt make it simple. Thats like saying that God is even simpler because it has only 3 digits. cmon... and as to your last point, which is a valid one to raise, only sadly it is misguided. You can read Thomas Kuhn about it, his research makes clear very well that within science alot is more rigid than many people want to believe. things do not change within a heartbeat, in fact they often barely change at all. if you allow me this caricature, from the christian explanation to the big bang theory now, actually very little has changed, we went from first there was god and nothing, then god created something out of nothing to there was no god and nothing and then nothing created something out of nothing (buuut there actually couldve been a god before the big bang we just cant say anything about it...)
Very accurate description of the big bang, I guess.
|
I honestly do not think that we will unlock immortality before we die. or i rather. However, there is a chance that we will be able to make medications that will make our life longer.
|
On April 03 2013 01:43 RaelSan wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2013 01:34 TSORG wrote:On April 03 2013 01:19 emythrel wrote:On April 03 2013 01:00 TSORG wrote:
@tobberoth
well it comes down to whether or not you accept the arguments provided. there are plenty of arguments to make the belief that there is a god, grounded and justified. however many people reject these arguments nowadays because they arent scientific arguments and pretty much get ignored.
and while it is true that many people have a blind faith in certain religious assumptions, undoubtly more people than that have blind faith in scientific assumptions, it is wrong to say that every such religious belief is blind. much of it comes down to education and the culture you grow up in, and i say it often and i believe in it utterly, that alot of people who now believe in the big bang wouldve believed the bible word for word had they been born 500 years ago.
while science vs religion is an interesting debate its mainly interesting because of many misunderstandings that surround it, imo they can easily co-exist. I am sorry but there is no argument that makes a belief in god grounded or justified. There never was. It is an assumption which can not be tested. There have always been people who rejected god on that basic principle, always, it isn't a modern thing. The difference now is that more of the population are educated about science. God was created by man to fill a hole, that hole is ever decreasing as we learn more about the universe. We needed god because we became smart enough to predict our own death, to come to terms with the fact that we will die, we created gods. everyone is an Atheist. You don't believe in Mars or Jupiter as gods do you? No. You don't believe in Ishtar or Athena. It is your right to believe in god, if it makes your life a little easier then who am I to judge. But do not try to claim that a belief in god is justified by anything. You can show me any evidence of god you like and I can show you a better, simpler explanation. God is such a complex idea that it makes no sense. One of the greatest scientific axioms is "the simplest explanation is usually the correct one". E=MC2, 5 characters that can describe a large chunk of how the universe came to be as we find it today and you want insert some complex, vast and unknowable presence that makes it all go? If god exists, he/she is a hyper advanced alien with no attachment to humans. Any being capable of creating such a universe would not care about one tiny little planet, orbiting an unremarkable star in an unremarkable part of an unremarkable galaxy in an unremarkable part of the universe. Belief in a loving, caring god who intervenes in our lives is so egocentric that it can only be a construct of the human mind. There are countless other races out there in the universe, we are not special. If god exists then why do millions die of AIDS and malaria? I want nothing to do with a god who doesn't make a point of appearing to the pope and telling him to shut the fuck up about gays or comdoms, what god in their right mind would allow such things? One who doesn't care. So there we go, if god exists, he/she/it doesn't care about you or me or anyone else. God is a scientist and the universe is their experiment, simply to see what happens. That kind of god I am open to, because it would make some sense. Anyways that was way off topic! The difference between accepting god and accepting science is simple, in science, when something is proven wrong, we change our minds in a heart beat. In religion, its the exact opposite. sigh and here come all the cliches... it is the argument that makes the belief justified, it is accepting the argument that makes the belief your own. i never said people in times before our own did not reject these arguments, many did, even within the catholic church (taking catholicism as the proto religion for this now). most of what you say really makes it look like you havent read what i said or havent understood it, no offense intended. God is actually a very simple idea, it is vastly more simple than many scientific theories. just because you can put the law of gravity into 5 little digits doesnt make it simple. Thats like saying that God is even simpler because it has only 3 digits. cmon... and as to your last point, which is a valid one to raise, only sadly it is misguided. You can read Thomas Kuhn about it, his research makes clear very well that within science alot is more rigid than many people want to believe. things do not change within a heartbeat, in fact they often barely change at all. if you allow me this caricature, from the christian explanation to the big bang theory now, actually very little has changed, we went from first there was god and nothing, then god created something out of nothing to there was no god and nothing and then nothing created something out of nothing (buuut there actually couldve been a god before the big bang we just cant say anything about it...) Very accurate description of the big bang, I guess.
i said it was a caricature
|
On April 03 2013 01:19 emythrel wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2013 01:00 TSORG wrote:
@tobberoth
well it comes down to whether or not you accept the arguments provided. there are plenty of arguments to make the belief that there is a god, grounded and justified. however many people reject these arguments nowadays because they arent scientific arguments and pretty much get ignored.
and while it is true that many people have a blind faith in certain religious assumptions, undoubtly more people than that have blind faith in scientific assumptions, it is wrong to say that every such religious belief is blind. much of it comes down to education and the culture you grow up in, and i say it often and i believe in it utterly, that alot of people who now believe in the big bang wouldve believed the bible word for word had they been born 500 years ago.
while science vs religion is an interesting debate its mainly interesting because of many misunderstandings that surround it, imo they can easily co-exist. I am sorry but there is no argument that makes a belief in god grounded or justified. There never was. It is an assumption which can not be tested. There have always been people who rejected god on that basic principle, always, it isn't a modern thing. The difference now is that more of the population are educated about science. God was created by man to fill a hole, that hole is ever decreasing as we learn more about the universe. We needed god because we became smart enough to predict our own death, to come to terms with the fact that we will die, we created gods. everyone is an Atheist. You don't believe in Mars or Jupiter as gods do you? No. You don't believe in Ishtar or Athena. It is your right to believe in god, if it makes your life a little easier then who am I to judge. But do not try to claim that a belief in god is justified by anything. You can show me any evidence of god you like and I can show you a better, simpler explanation. God is such a complex idea that it makes no sense. One of the greatest scientific axioms is "the simplest explanation is usually the correct one". E=MC2, 5 characters that can describe a large chunk of how the universe came to be as we find it today and you want insert some complex, vast and unknowable presence that makes it all go? If god exists, he/she is a hyper advanced alien with no attachment to humans. Any being capable of creating such a universe would not care about one tiny little planet, orbiting an unremarkable star in an unremarkable part of an unremarkable galaxy in an unremarkable part of the universe. Belief in a loving, caring god who intervenes in our lives is so egocentric that it can only be a construct of the human mind. There are countless other races out there in the universe, we are not special. If god exists then why do millions die of AIDS and malaria? I want nothing to do with a god who doesn't make a point of appearing to the pope and telling him to shut the fuck up about gays or comdoms, what god in their right mind would allow such things? One who doesn't care. So there we go, if god exists, he/she/it doesn't care about you or me or anyone else. God is a scientist and the universe is their experiment, simply to see what happens. That kind of god I am open to, because it would make some sense. Anyways that was way off topic! The difference between accepting god and accepting science is simple, in science, when something is proven wrong, we change our minds in a heart beat. In religion, its the exact opposite.
One crucial point: there is a difference between accepting science and accepting scientific results (more commonly referred to as the difference between believing in science and believing science is useful). There is a big difference. When people showed that the mathematical equations that govern general relativity predict Mercury's orbit, show the bending of light that Sir Thomas Eddington found, etc., they showed we have good reason to believe that general relativity is useful.
Does matter "bend" the geometric structure of spacetime resulting in the field we know of as gravity? That is the question of accepting or believing science, which, though related, does not strictly follow from accepting the scientific results. It is (very) possible that there is an unconceived alternative that also gives equations that work. In fact, it's no surprise that the "high" topic in mathematics at the time of Einstein was non-Euclidian geometries, so the fact that we understand relativity through the framework of geometry could very likely be because coincidentally that was one of the big topics in mathematics at the time. Newton and Leibnitz formulated calculus at the same time Newtonian mechanics was made, it's not surprise that it is understood through calculus and differential equations. The mid-1900's had massive research in Hilbert and Banach spaces, it could very likely be that quantum mechanics is formulated and understood using Hilbert spaces because that was the popular math at the time. And now that braid and brane theory is such a huge topic in mathematics, it's no wonder that so many mathematicians are trying to use this new mathematics to make the next model known as String Theory.
The fact that we understand gravity to be a product of space-time geometry because geometry was at it a peak in mathematical research when questions about understanding the constancy of light and gravity arose due to the Michaelson-Morley experiment's inability to find the ether. That does not mean it is not useful to think of it in a geometric framework, you can make the correct predictions all the time with GR. But to then "believe" the science would be to say that "matters bends the structure of spacetime", which we do not have good reason to believe (any many scientists don't believe it! That's why they're trying to come up with forms of string theory and supersymmetry to show that GR is actually an approximation to some particle formulation!).
This is a very important issue for everyone to understand. We have good reason to believe in the usefulness of science, but believing that the models are anything more than a "good approximation" (like Newtonian mechanics) goes beyond what our evidence gives us. The result is that there definitely is room for "religion". We have no idea "why" our equations work. Does matter bend geometry, or is there some particle we haven't found? And why does this even happen? All we know are different measurable quantities, a model that relates them, and the fact that these relations are satisfied. We don't know if these "measurable quantities" exist (does a "proton" in the early 20th century formulation exist? No. It's really just quarks/etc., but it makes the model easier to just say "proton" and measure things like the mass of a "proton"), whether our model is actually the underlying model (or if it is a byproduct of the real model, for example see Bohmian Mechanics vs Quantum Mechanics where they have exactly the same experimental results but different philosophical implications because the models are different!), and why these things are true in the first place!
The problem religion could have is if it oversteps its bounds and states that something we can measure is not true. No, it better give a very damn good reason as to why our perception must be skewed then. But there are definitely a whole lot of things we must take on pure faith if we are to take any step towards saying "I know kind of how the world works".
P.S. Getting ready for dinner with Lisa Randall in a few hours. Should be interesting!
|
On March 31 2013 13:52 Demonhunter04 wrote:
I hope so, but probably not. As it is right now, death from any cause other than simple aging is the norm, so even if aging itself is prevented, which itself is highly unlikely to happen in this century, you're going to die some way or another eventually.
Completely agree with you. And as far as I know, we're not exactly close to being rid of aging/ death by natural causes anyway.
Why are people talking about the existence of a deity? Even if a god exists, he's not going to help us solve the restrictions on longevity. That's all been thanks to science and its breakthroughs (e.g., medicine, vaccination, cleanliness, etc.).
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
