when someone talks about the source, it's common for a few ignorants to assume you are referring to a celestial man in a white beard, a tooth fairy or a stay puffed marshmallow man, or that you belong to some religion now in a ruinous state compared to that of the ancients.
The limits of science
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tkhoffman wrote:
So in a sense, as humans, we all tend towards a type of religion. It seems to be part of our nature. We have beliefs to help us make sense of the world. The question then becomes what religious views best fit the world we experience?
I agree if there is a supernatural being who created the universe we will not be able to comprehend that being fully. But what if that being revealed something of himself? Might we be able to comprehend partially?
I think this is a part of the truth, but not all of it. While, indeed, we strive to make sense of the world (and we don't always do it through logic), we also are able to discern knowledge from attempts to cover lack of knowledge. For example, if I observe a dot in a telescope with a spectrum that looks like that of a small old star, but I also know that this spectral signature can be present in quasars, then the scientific argument would be "It is probably either a star or a quasar, but we don't know which". However, there is always a temptation to rush with a conclusion: "This is a star, it must be! Quasars are rarer than stars, and I am studying stars in this survey in any case, so I should include it as a valid data point". These two approaches is what separates science from faith, in my view. You could say that science is also a type of faith, in a sense, since the rigorous logical approach used there is also a convention (nobody has ever managed to prove that "scientific method" is the objectively correct way to make sense of the world) - however, it is a more organized and refined approach, than less strict attempts to narrow down what we observe to how we can try to explain it with our current knowledge.
One of the core elements of true learning, in my opinion, is the ability to acknowledge when you simply don't have enough information on something and, hence, cannot make sense of it at the moment. When humanity only-only learned about how to make campfires, they surely had theories on what caused the logs to burn - but they obviously didn't have enough information to make a decisive conclusion, hence their attempts to explain it by magical means were a learning mistake, and they came to unfounded, if not plain incorrect, conclusions as a result.
This approach may be natural, humans always rest easier when they feel in control, when the world around them seems clear and understandable. But I think true learning starts when we start asking honest questions, such as, "I don't understand how this works. How can I remove a big of the shroud and gain some knowledge on how it works?" While "How does this work? I want the answer." leads to a more superficial and often arbitrary world view.
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Regarding the being revealing something of itself to us, I think it would only add a lot of confusion to our understanding of the world. Imagine, for example, a human uploading part of its knowledge into an ant's brain. The ant would experience strong dissonance between what its body receptors and personal experience tell it, and what the human let it see: the human's level of existence is much higher, his/her body and brain operate in a much more complex way, and the ant would simply not know how to process this information.
Attempting to communicate in any way with the supernatural being would be like attempting to communicate with a complex billions years old AI created by an ancient alien civilization, that uploaded itself in many galaxies and presents a neural network hundreds millions light years wide. We would understand something about its structure, but its "thoughts", its "motivations", its "goals" - whatever it can tell us on these subjects will be so deep, so alien, that grasping even a tiny part of it would probably overload our brains and cause our civilization to crash under the weight of the knowledge we uncovered long before being able to process it.
And a supernatural being able to construct entire Universes will be probably much more alien to us than even such a monstrous artificial intelligence. Assuming this being even acknowledges our existence, it is probably better to hope that it never attempts to interact with us.
Sheesh
MayCaesar wrote:
tkhoffman wrote:
So in a sense, as humans, we all tend towards a type of religion. It seems to be part of our nature. We have beliefs to help us make sense of the world. The question then becomes what religious views best fit the world we experience?
I agree if there is a supernatural being who created the universe we will not be able to comprehend that being fully. But what if that being revealed something of himself? Might we be able to comprehend partially?
I think this is a part of the truth, but not all of it. While, indeed, we strive to make sense of the world (and we don't always do it through logic), we also are able to discern knowledge from attempts to cover lack of knowledge. For example, if I observe a dot in a telescope with a spectrum that looks like that of a small old star, but I also know that this spectral signature can be present in quasars, then the scientific argument would be "It is probably either a star or a quasar, but we don't know which". However, there is always a temptation to rush with a conclusion: "This is a star, it must be! Quasars are rarer than stars, and I am studying stars in this survey in any case, so I should include it as a valid data point". These two approaches is what separates science from faith, in my view. You could say that science is also a type of faith, in a sense, since the rigorous logical approach used there is also a convention (nobody has ever managed to prove that "scientific method" is the objectively correct way to make sense of the world) - however, it is a more organized and refined approach, than less strict attempts to narrow down what we observe to how we can try to explain it with our current knowledge.
One of the core elements of true learning, in my opinion, is the ability to acknowledge when you simply don't have enough information on something and, hence, cannot make sense of it at the moment. When humanity only-only learned about how to make campfires, they surely had theories on what caused the logs to burn - but they obviously didn't have enough information to make a decisive conclusion, hence their attempts to explain it by magical means were a learning mistake, and they came to unfounded, if not plain incorrect, conclusions as a result.
This approach may be natural, humans always rest easier when they feel in control, when the world around them seems clear and understandable. But I think true learning starts when we start asking honest questions, such as, "I don't understand how this works. How can I remove a big of the shroud and gain some knowledge on how it works?" While "How does this work? I want the answer." leads to a more superficial and often arbitrary world view.
---
Regarding the being revealing something of itself to us, I think it would only add a lot of confusion to our understanding of the world. Imagine, for example, a human uploading part of its knowledge into an ant's brain. The ant would experience strong dissonance between what its body receptors and personal experience tell it, and what the human let it see: the human's level of existence is much higher, his/her body and brain operate in a much more complex way, and the ant would simply not know how to process this information.
Attempting to communicate in any way with the supernatural being would be like attempting to communicate with a complex billions years old AI created by an ancient alien civilization, that uploaded itself in many galaxies and presents a neural network hundreds millions light years wide. We would understand something about its structure, but its "thoughts", its "motivations", its "goals" - whatever it can tell us on these subjects will be so deep, so alien, that grasping even a tiny part of it would probably overload our brains and cause our civilization to crash under the weight of the knowledge we uncovered long before being able to process it.
And a supernatural being able to construct entire Universes will be probably much more alien to us than even such a monstrous artificial intelligence. Assuming this being even acknowledges our existence, it is probably better to hope that it never attempts to interact with us.
That is why only a special person capable to interact (communicate) with supernatural being.Through him we learn divinity.
Have you ever seen protons and neutrons revolving around the nucleus of an atom much the same way as planets revolve around a sun?
There was once a time we thought an atom was the smallest particle but we now know atoms are made of smaller particles and in the same way the universe is never ending, there may be endless smaller particle all behaving in the same way as planets circling a sun?
There was once a time we thought an atom was the smallest particle but we now know atoms are made of smaller particles and in the same way the universe is never ending, there may be endless smaller particle all behaving in the same way as planets circling a sun?
So just as we once thought we'd fall off the end of the world if we travelled too far out to sea. We didn't know then that we could travel never ending into infinity, so perhaps it's the same the other direction? Things keeps getting smaller never ending into infinity?
(I think I've killed this thread)
Aug 18, 2017
0
#51
somehow i don't think people centuries back were as thick as they are made out to be. the ancient Egyptians had brains that dwarfed those of chess nobs.
I'm sensing your anger, though I think you've missed the suggestion I was trying to make.
Aug 18, 2017
0
#53
Endapuppy wrote:
Have you ever seen protons and neutrons revolving around the nucleus of an atom much the same way as planets revolve around a sun?
There was once a time we thought an atom was the smallest particle but we now know atoms are made of smaller particles and in the same way the universe is never ending, there may be endless smaller particle all behaving in the same way as planets circling a sun?
There was once a time we thought an atom was the smallest particle but we now know atoms are made of smaller particles and in the same way the universe is never ending, there may be endless smaller particle all behaving in the same way as planets circling a sun?
I don't think they do, being nucleons.
Aug 18, 2017
0
#54
president_max wrote:
Endapuppy wrote:
Have you ever seen protons and neutrons revolving around the nucleus of an atom much the same way as planets revolve around a sun?
There was once a time we thought an atom was the smallest particle but we now know atoms are made of smaller particles and in the same way the universe is never ending, there may be endless smaller particle all behaving in the same way as planets circling a sun?
There was once a time we thought an atom was the smallest particle but we now know atoms are made of smaller particles and in the same way the universe is never ending, there may be endless smaller particle all behaving in the same way as planets circling a sun?
I don't think they do, being nucleons.
And then they said protons could not get any smaller. Now they have split those, as well.
Lol have I harmed you in a previous life bishoptakesrookpawn?
Could you excuse us bishoptakesrookspawn, we are in the middle of something here.
You're right presidentmax, I stand corrected, the protons and neutrons make up the nucleus, it's the electrons that orbit them.
You're right presidentmax, I stand corrected, the protons and neutrons make up the nucleus, it's the electrons that orbit them.
You cannot know for a certainty that something does not exist, but of course it is possible to know for a certainty that something does exist.
While, indeed, it is impossible to know with 100% certainty that there is no supernatural being - it is possible to know with 100% certainty that all the gods from human religions are made up. It doesn't haunt me whatsoever, I can acknowledge my ignorance of the structure of the Universe, while also rolling eyes when looking at people believing in some ethereal deity based solely on some book's testament.
And how does one determine which of the religions are human religions? Could the belief in no God also be considered a human religion?
All religions known to man are human religions - that's what I meant, at least. Belief in no God is essentially lack of belief in God, hence for most religions it would mean lack of religious views. Granted, a religion doesn't have to feature God in it to be a religion, and lack of belief in God in itself doesn't necessarily mean lack of religious views in general - a faithful, zealous belief in lack of God could, of course, also be considered a form of religion.
My personal view is, if there IS some supernatural being, someone/something that created our Universe, then this being's level of existence, reasoning (or lack of there of), goals and such will be too far beyond our ability to comprehend it.
So in a sense, as humans, we all tend towards a type of religion. It seems to be part of our nature. We have beliefs to help us make sense of the world. The question then becomes what religious views best fit the world we experience?
I agree if there is a supernatural being who created the universe we will not be able to comprehend that being fully. But what if that being revealed something of himself? Might we be able to comprehend partially?