The Force as described by a physicist?

Then why does it go out of its way to smuggle in mystical gibberish? What ever that speech is, it has little to do with science. People of a scientific mind are still people and can find or produce comfort as needed, and whether they are comforted by science or not is different in all individually, but this is no science in either case and in my humble opinion it is bad or at least costly comfort regardless. Comfort or not, we can do better science than that; science or not, we can do better comfort than that.

It's just the wrong instrument for the job, unless the congregation are all scientists who interpret life in those terms - then its ideal perhaps!! What is needed at a funeral, who is it for. Those are the questions which probably define the nature of the funeral. I wonder though if the belief of the person who passes dictates the experience of passing - in which case thermodynamics might provide some connection to all things... or they might prefer to carry a physical 'body' over to some new realm of continued existence etc. The Tibetan Book of the Dead talks about this, and how the Monk can spend many day's guiding the deceased through that particular process (according to their beliefs). So maybe a funeral should be designed to support the belief of the person dying more!! I guess those who truly loved the deceased would want that more then something to make them feel better in their own suffering.
:blink:

I doubt you even have an idea of what it is we can measure.

I'm not anti science at all and while what we can measure is ever rapidly expanding my point is the more we know the more we realize what we don't know. That is a good thing.

I'm not picking and choosing, We have limits, we are expanding our limits but there will always have limits. That's part of our life's/human condition/challenges.

I am also absolutely of the belief we can know things in more ways than just science. That is not in any way the same thing as saying any thing is wrong with science. It's all complementary.

IMHO No Poo.

The limits of science lie where the limits of reality do. We can know things outside of that by other means, but inside those aforementioned bounds of reality all these means are incorporated deeply into science and neither anything more than it is required nor is anything less sufficient for within that realm.

there is a very real possibility that science is going to wipe us off the face of the earth

scientifically speaking, there is no real reason not to

all things being equal, THAT I FEEL LIKE IT is as good a reason to "drop the bomb" as any, and more and more entities have access to "the bomb" than ever in our history

i dont know that i accept the idea that a model of understanding reality which may very well result in the obliteration of the entire species is the only, or the best of all potential models

science is a baby from an evolutionary perspective, and still quite juvenile in terms of the history of human civilization

while its ability to create unpredictable and profound changes over extremely small time spans is undeniably impresive, these changes, their results and their implications, are not only, as mention before totally unpredictable, also in many cases irreversable, and ultimately out of the hands of even the scientists themselves

"mythology" and "religion" offer models of understanding reality which are much older, and which are equally "true" and very possibly much more functional for the maximal survival of the species, and the psychological well being of the individual

objective material reality is not the EXPERIENCED HUMAN REALITY which we live, so there is a limit to what knowledge of material objects, external to the self, can do for us

this is not to suggest that i am sitting here typing a message to the internet on my smartphone, in my air conditioned apartment, to say that i am ANTI science

i have a great fascination with scientific discovery and i dont hesitate to say that it benefits us in inumerable ways

i just like to promote an appreciation of ALL forms of useful, beneficial knowledge and wisdom, and that includes areas and subject which many consider to be unscientific

What, again? Alright, let's get on with it then...

OB1Shinobi wrote: there is a very real possibility that science is going to wipe us off the face of the earth

No, there isn't. No part of either the body of knowledge gained through science nor any part of the philosophy of science would motivate that. Now, the former may enable it in a very literal sense, in that it gives us potentially catastrophical tools, but whoever ends up using them to that end will be doing so on no scientific grounds.

scientifically speaking, there is no real reason not to

Agreed. There is no real reason not to, that includes that there is no scientific reason either.

all things being equal, THAT I FEEL LIKE IT is as good a reason to "drop the bomb" as any, and more and more entities have access to "the bomb" than ever in our history

And what if I don't feel like it? Will access to the bomb mean that I will wish to drop it all the more? See, I'm granting you that science can give us the bomb, but it can't give us reasons to drop it - or not to drop it.

i dont know that i accept the idea that a model of understanding reality which may very well result in the obliteration of the entire species is the only, or the best of all potential models

I don't know if it is the best possible either, but it is the best of all those currently available. But of course, science is not a very solid model at any rate. Its defining criterion is reliability, so if you find any reliable means to know things that are not currently part of science, they will become part of it that very instant. Ironically however your criticism will still apply, because regardless of how you go about knowing things, you will not end up with a real reason not to wipe everybody out, because motivations are subject to the individual whereas facts are subject to the collective and that is not a mere gap but a proper discontinuity.

science is a baby from an evolutionary perspective, and still quite juvenile in terms of the history of human civilization

And a thirty-year-old has only been adult for ten, maybe twelve years. So therefore her adulthood is by all means prepubescent. Look, I'm not saying science is flawless. There is a lot it lacks in. You however make it seem as though that is so bad that we should drop science in favour of something better rather than just watch out for its limitations. I'll join your side the instance you can present something that has achieved half the good in the past 30000 years that science has in the past 300 and if that isn't quite generous enough, I will allow the thing you suggest to also produce any and all kinds of evil along the way.

...
"mythology" and "religion" offer models of understanding reality which are much older, and which are equally "true" and very possibly much more functional for the maximal survival of the species, and the psychological well being of the individual

I'm no psychologist, so please correct me if I'm wrong in saying that there is little psychologically healthy about thinking of yourself as vermin deserving a fate worse than death nor in having continued relationships with invisible friends well into adulthood. At least a part of this is true of almost every religion and cultural mythology I ever heard of.
Neither mythology nor religion do offer models of understanding reality that are anywhere near as "true" as those offered by science by almost all definitions of truth that are not begging the question. As for their functionality for the maximal survival of the species I shall say this: Back in the day science and religion coexisted, at least as far as the latter would allow the former. Two of the ideas that were around in that day were that smallpox is a plague and that the Jews were a plague. Smallpox made people suffer to death. Jews didn't. Science left the Jews alone and took their labs to smallpox. Religion took their prayers to smallpox and their swords to the Jews. By the 1980's smallpox was eradicated. The Jews are still around to this day. They were never a threat, seldom fought back and no good would've come from wiping them out, and yet even at that religion failed.

objective material reality is not the EXPERIENCED HUMAN REALITY which we live, so there is a limit to what knowledge of material objects, external to the self, can do for us

Correct. And those limits are far. They are further than the limits of the alternative you suggest which keeps telling us to quit investigating even our full-caps experienced human reality.

this is not to suggest that i am sitting here typing a message to the internet on my smartphone, in my air conditioned apartment, to say that i am ANTI science

No, of course not; who would possibly think such a preposterous thing after in every thread science comes up you go out of your way to declare it inferior to superstition.

i have a great fascination with scientific discovery and i dont hesitate to say that it benefits us in inumerable ways

i just like to promote an appreciation of ALL forms of useful, beneficial knowledge and wisdom, and that includes areas and subject which many consider to be unscientific

No, it actually really doesn't include those. If it did, you could by now have named one piece of knowledge that was at all reliable, let alone useful or beneficial, that did not come from science. But you can't, because science is not by recognition but by definition the only thing that can generate any such knowledge - at least when it comes to actual reality.

Gisteron wrote: I'm no psychologist, so please correct me if I'm wrong in saying that there is little psychologically healthy about thinking of yourself as vermin deserving a fate worse than death nor in having continued relationships with invisible friends well into adulthood. At least a part of this is true of almost every religion and cultural mythology I ever heard of.

Neither mythology nor religion do offer models of understanding reality that are anywhere near as "true" as those offered by science by almost all definitions of truth that are not begging the question. As for their functionality for the maximal survival of the species I shall say this: Back in the day science and religion coexisted, at least as far as the latter would allow the former. Two of the ideas that were around in that day were that smallpox is a plague and that the Jews were a plague. Smallpox made people suffer to death. Jews didn't. Science left the Jews alone and took their labs to smallpox. Religion took their prayers to smallpox and their swords to the Jews. By the 1980's smallpox was eradicated. The Jews are still around to this day. They were never a threat, seldom fought back and no good would've come from wiping them out, and yet even at that religion failed.


No, it actually really doesn't include those. If it did, you could by now have named one piece of knowledge that was at all reliable, let alone useful or beneficial, that did not come from science. But you can't, because science is not by recognition but by definition the only thing that can generate any such knowledge - at least when it comes to actual reality.

first, i think we both use this same double standard, so before i will point it i will acknowledge my own culpability because i do it too

if "science" didnt attack the jews, where did the swords come from?

or the zyclon b nerve gas

we can add nuclear warheads or some crazy blend of small pox and ebola, which the guy in the video i link to below mentions, and in that he says "its a perfectly valid scientific endeavor; but its obviously INSANE"

did "science" do that?
well, no
no more but also NO LESS than "religion" did

moving on
a GREAT PLACE FOR YOU TO START would be joseph campbell, as he has already made this case much better than i can

https://www.templeofthejediorder.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1876

i would suggest "message of the myth" or "the first storytellers" or "masks of eternity"

also i have really been enjoying this guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07Ys4tQPRis

(although when i thought of you watching this second video especially i get a mental image of regan from the exorcist and her skin is smoking and shes growling all demon like; which is how i feel when i listen to rush limbaugh or ann cultour)

you express an understanding of religion and myth which is partial - because it is partial it is inaccurate

i dont mean this disrespectfully: youre expertise is not in these areas yet you make pronouncements of their worth which are in total contradiction to the pronouncements made by those who ARE experts in these fields

as you promote the idea that your prefered method of understanding reality is THE ONLY method, you simultaneously are DELIBERATELY REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE A REALITY THAT YOU DONT LIKE

obviously this is contradictory position - you cannot claim the superior methodology for determining reality if you are willfully blind to an obvious and inarguable truth of human existence

you can say "atoms and protons are REAL" and yes of course they are, but does that help me get a girlfriend or a job?
does it help me KEEP a girlfriend or a job? does it help me to become a better person, or even to understand what might be meant, practically and functionally by the idea of "becoming a better person"?
or why i should even want to do so?

no, it doesnt

and yet are these things not equally REAL to protons and atoms?

MORE REAL maybe

as for my personal views, you are free to interpret me however you want, but if i tell you "this is how i feel" and you dont belive that i am AWARE of how i feel, or that i am being honest about my own views, telling me what i must obviously belive based on your partial interpretation of my words, doesnt make you right in your conclusions or assertions about what i belive, it only makes you self assured

my view of science and religion is that they are ultimately the same thing: mans quest to understand reality

it might even be that the modern scientific method is a DIRECT RESULT of the love of truth which humanity came to value AS A CONSEQUENCE OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS AND MYTHOLOGICAL THEMES

the problem as i understand it is that people try to view them as different things to held to the same understanding of "truth"

when in reality they are the same thing, but each requires a differnt conceptualozation of "truth"

look, its not that we create myths and religions and then say "ok this is reality and everyone has to bow to it"

rather, the greatest of the mythological stories are deep observations of the psychological realities of human experience

we dont have to "follow" the religion, or "belive in" the myth

the religion and the myth are the articulations of essential realities which we already experience and truths which we already live by

in other words, the reality HAPPENS, the thing HAPPENS, and eventually, more and more sophisticated articulations develop which describe the thing

we call them myths

and religion - one way to understand religion, is as a specific cultural interpretation of a collection of myths

this isnt MY OPINION

this is the consensus of the people who spend their entire lives educating themselves on the topic

We can only describe what nature does.

We have no say on whether the sun comes up or sets, it will. Same goes for "science " what we call science is not just pure explanation but human envolvment . Will science be the end of us will tech be the end.... the end will be when we personally have released our selfs to it. That's a human condition, humans. We will be the short coming of us by the relying on more of everything else rather than our own heart and eyes.
There is always a bigger fish...
And there is always some one else... calling the shots. To change for the better and grow, we need to stop listening to others and take responsibility for what is presently now, ours.
My own opinion

Who created Zyklon B?

Fritz Haber.

Know what else he did?

He was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber-Bosch process, the method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen gases. This invention is of importance for the large-scale synthesis of fertilizers and explosives. The food production for half the world's current population depends on this method for producing nitrogen fertilizers

Interesting how that works out.

So, was, science to blame?

Or what people did with it?

Who invented the swords?

Well, who did the stabbing?

Most often its individuals with there religions and myths.

Articulations of realities where people think its ok to behead you or set you on fire because you dont ascribe to there specific story of an invisible man/force in the sky.

You say science may be the end of us all?

Well, im not so sure, given people have been killing in the name of there stories long before technology gave them more efficient means to do so.

Such is a pointless argument.

The man who is responsible for half the words food production also allowed story, and myth to indoctrinate him into being responsible to killing a whole lot of people.

The same guy.

So, lets not be pointing fingers, because we will run out quick. No one has the moral high ground in that debate.

Though we don't know what we don't know, and if the scientific method causes something bad to happen then can we really blame the scientist for applying it. I used to get in debates about what would happen if/when they were able to create and measure absolute zero - it was fun to consider would it destroy 'everything', with an almighty big bang!! Only heard by the Gods and Goddesses no doubt. Or running larger and more powerful particle colliders to annihilate matter more and more completely to understand the fundamental's of nature, what happens if they rip something that should not be ripped - in the name of science.

I don't think its naive to suggest science will not destroy the world, but I think it is a statement which cannot be considered true for anything except the present and past.