Posted on 05/25/2005 3:41:22 AM PDT by billorites
Utilitarian solutions do not reach to the problems of the human soul, but I appreciate them very much all the same. There is room for all of us, it seems. A scientist will work out the calcs that the engineer will use to design the stuff that another guy will build that we all will use.
The ultimate "why" and "wherefor" usually doesn't get addressed during the workday of any of us, except in the quiet times, since most of us have our hands full with the needs of the moment and those quiet times are few and far between.
The pure theorist you refer to is another breed. The guy who spends his time staring into the dark at the edge of the camp isn't always respected by the people who tend the campfires, but there is room for a few of these guys, and even a crying need for them, but its not work everyone is capable of. You can be a mediocre scientist, or engineer, or plumber, and still do valuable work. The mediocre visionary isn't much use to anyone.
Some people are simply drawn to it, they can't help themselves. Its pointless to complain that there aren't more of them.
The scientific explanations for what we see do not exclude the possibility that God is ultimately responsible for the universe. You might be amused to know that Catholics who hold otherwise, are in conflict with church doctrine and committing apostesy. Most catholics can manage to hold on to their faith in the face of science, and it strikes me as showing little confidence in God, to imagine that you somehow need to defend Him from science.
Which, to wrap up my aside, is another reason why I express such disdain for religion: if all such creativity and ingenuity were harnessed toward achieving scientific progress, we'd be so much further along than we are to date.
But in the nexus between science and religion, science is the long-range, generational endeavor; whereas, religion is the immediate, personal coping mechanism in a hostile universe. The saving grace for religion is the solace and structure it provides for the interim, but I have a hard time looking beyond the modern-day drawbacks to that.
If religion did not impede science, which is an unfortuitous consequence of the particular religion that happened to prevail in the civilization that has been at the vanguard of science, then it would not concern me in the slightest.
It does so by Scientists allowing for that to be a possible conclusion.
Let's go back to a scientist who witnesses a man walking on water. He investigates the water and finds nothing solid just below the surface that could have supported the man. He investigates the man himself and finds nothing in his bodily make-up (natural bouyancy, etc) which would allow the liquid to have supported him. As much as he is able, he investigates the body of water to discover whether some denizen of the deep could have been floating just beneath the surface for the entire course of the walk and can not find any evidence of any, nor can he hypothesize any. What does he do? Does he conclude that what he saw never happened? What if there are 2, 5, 50, 100 people who saw the same thing? Does he conclude that they were all hypnotized?
Is he forced to avoid the conclusion that he witnessed a miracle? Is that not an option for him?
In order to be honest, the miracle must be an option for him. He should be skeptical of that conclusion, perhaps even more than an atheist. But he must be allowed to conclude it once he has exhausted all else.
Shalom.
The honest problem with your exemplar is that no scientist has observed a man walking on water.
I just realized that you are arguing at the same
time, that scientists do, and don't, have absolute
convictions of certainty. Hard to lose an argument
that way, eh?
Your assertion that my purpose is to uncover God is false on the face simply because you cannot read my mind.
Further, I testify that ‘uncovering God’ is not my purpose – I neither desire nor need to uncover the Person in whom I live and Who lives in me. We are on a first name basis. He gives me understanding freely as I ask it or as I need it.
Of a truth, my interest in science is inspired by Him (Psalms 19, Romans 1) and facilitated by Him – but it is not to “uncover” Him. That is impossible per se.
I also object to your characterizing my interest as “pseudoscience” especially considering the scientists and mathematicians whose work I hold most illuminating: Cumrun Vafa, Max Tegmark, Gregory Chaitin, Claude Shannon, Tom Schneider, Luis Rocha, Chris Adami, Jurgen Schmidhuber, Roger Penrose, Albert Einstein, Lisa Randall, P.S. Wesson, Paul Steinhardt, Burt Ovrut, H.H. Pattee.
you: Not really. The latter is a 'meta' question with no real practical bearing. It serves to pass the time of philosophes and mystics, but achieves little more.
AFAIK, the Shannon definition offered at post 2034 is the only mathematical definition of life v non-life/death in nature. Without such a definition, I would never seriously entertain any theories of abiogenesis, near death experiences, etc. With it, I am able to evaluate alternative theories, observations and the ilk.
Thanks.
If you think that is the writing of a man in favor of religious liberty, you're whacked. But perhaps you should ask Dawkins if his evil twin wrote it?
That says nothing about his wanting to ban it though, just that he doesn't like it much. I think you are reading too much into it.
At bottom, conjecture is all anyone has. My conjecture is not that conjecture paralyzes brains, but that it logically results in an "anything goes" set of postulations. Science ought to be able to operate with as much, but it is indeed strange to see science occasionally omit altogether any propsitions that might issue forth from a text several millennia old.
It is common for most people who do not live in a vaccuum to understand that some facets of objective reality are more consistent, persistent, and verifiable than others. Science too often asserts certitude when it is lacking. Bias is inherently blind to itself.
It does the heart good to see you point out that what most people call a "fact," namely "1 + 1 = 2," contains a host of assumptions behind the scenes, or denotes a set of conventions that may be outside of standard practice, of which most people are typically unaware. I tend to think lower education classes should cut to the chase, present things more easily ascertained by reason, and leave the semantic monkeyshines to the perfessers.
It also does the heart good to see certain scientists, when asked what they think about the bigger picture, to attribute an orderly universe to intelligent design.
Yes, that tends to be the way they present themselves. When someone makes a statement without qualifiers, what does that make the statment? A "fact?" What unnamed assumptions are behind that statement? Every declarative statement carries a certain burden of proof, and a certain degree of assumption. It is no shame to science that it carries varying degrees of certitude in the staements it makes, but it is a shame they maintain an air of certitude as if their statements are wholly matters of fact.
But I would not be right to paint all scientists with the same brush. Dogmatic evolutionists exist, they have their convictions, and I am happy to hear them speak their convictions in the public arena. Far be it from me to accord them a sole voice.
Your equation included more operations than just addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, under which the set of rationals is indeed closed. It included the operation of infinite summation under which the set of rationals is most definitely NOT closed. Any infinite, nonrepeating decimal is an example of an infinite summation of rationals that yields an irrational result, for example.
The calculation terminates. The result is a rational number truncated to the accuracy of the machine on which the program is implemented. 1000 is a bit short of limitless.
Your desert of information requires no comment other than calling it what it is, a desert of information. No refutations just grousing.
That is false bravado.
Obtuse as usual I see. How do you get along in life? Do they keep you in a special environment?
How does that change my question?
Shalom.
No, but there is something very wrong with, "I don't know, but I know there is a natural explaination."
Shalom.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.