[djf]

Extraordinarily interesting discussion, and very in kind with my philosophies.

If someone does have a science budget, then how does he go about studying non-scientific type issues?
Good question, it might not be possible.

I have argued on other threads that science is by it's very nature, limited in scope.

Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic, or so it is said.

What science deals with is the MECHANICS of things. The nuts and bolts. The scaffolding.

It has little to say about the MEANING of things. The morality. The beauty. The truth.

Here is an example. Imagine we knew absolutely everything we ever could know about a hydrogen atom. Does that explain the macro cosmos? Of course not.

I could name a single item here that even a total understanding of it would not yield even a small vision of the results.

A box of Legos.

We could know everything there is to know about every Lego that ever existed. It would not tell us a single bit about the things that have been built, their meaning or purpose.

We need to look at the universe as a reservoir of patterns. It is the macroscopic patterns that hold the interesting ideas. If we can combine the micro with the macro, we will be closer to seeing what roles science and spirituality play.

[betty boop]

Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic, or so it is said....

What science deals with is the MECHANICS of things. The nuts and bolts. The scaffolding.

A persistent cultural myth holds that the origin of science can be discovered in the activities of alchemists or in the forms of "shamanistic" activities. If you're a "high priest" of whatever persuasion, then the main thing is: You've got to get things "right," and most of the time. (If not, then you're presumably out of the job of foretelling the future....)

Questions: What is such scaffolding for??? What purpose does it serve?

It would perhaps be comforting to imagine that humans can freely intercede with Reality so as to adapt it to human "collective convenience." Then it merely reduces to a problem of:

Who determines what the "collective" is? Who determines what properties of Nature "universally" benefit whatever that "collective" is discovered to be?

These be the problems. JMHO FWIW.

[RightWhale]

A box of Legos.

Good find, etymologically. Is Legos Danish? Anyway from leg- to collect, bind. As also the greek word for word--logos, and its useful relative legein, to discourse or develop by logical argument. Also the root of the word legal, as in law, lex, meaning close to the word logos. And, not the least, logic. All the same root. All in a box of toy wooden blocks, and in the town that box of toy blocks built.