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'Explore as much as we can': Nobel Prize winner Charles Townes on evolution & intelligent design
UC Berkeley News ^ | 06/17/2005 | Bonnie Azab Powell,

Posted on 05/16/2007 6:54:51 AM PDT by SirLinksalot

click here to read article


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To: edsheppa
there is no knowably certain knowledge

So, how long have you had that problem?

341 posted on 06/10/2007 1:56:17 PM PDT by cornelis
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To: grey_whiskers
Let's see, honest writers at the third grade level. Here's a nice sequence for studying how people grapple justice and the knowledge of kinds of truth: Homer's Odyssey for a warm-up, then Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, Sophocles Oedipus Rex, Antigone, and The Book of Job, and Plato's Apology.

Truth is, great literature written for beginners and the advanced.

342 posted on 06/10/2007 2:08:24 PM PDT by cornelis
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To: cornelis

Haha.


343 posted on 06/10/2007 2:09:10 PM PDT by edsheppa
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To: edsheppa
Haha.

That's one way of looking at it.

344 posted on 06/10/2007 2:13:09 PM PDT by cornelis
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To: js1138
So what aspect of humans is supposedly in God's image?

To reflect his attributes. Sovereignty is a big one. We are all gods, you know. But they say God is love. The power of love can make a blind man see.

345 posted on 06/10/2007 2:15:21 PM PDT by cornelis
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To: betty boop

Well, we’re getting a little far afield. The 200 milliseconds is the anchorpoint and what we build on that will have to answer the usual problems such as whether today is a good day to go to the mall. Most of the thirty or fifty final judgments of the nature of reality still remain as they were depending on the school. The brain prepares itself for action and the claustrum is the locus where either permission is granted to go ahead or not. Usually not or we would be simple creatures such as microbes that just follow the food gradients.


346 posted on 06/10/2007 2:21:50 PM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the Treaty)
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To: cornelis

Yes, being able to good naturedly acknowledge a jibe at your own expense is a good thing even when the humor is weak.


347 posted on 06/10/2007 2:22:27 PM PDT by edsheppa
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To: edsheppa

Humor? Plotinus is the jokester! RightWhale is a runner-up.


348 posted on 06/10/2007 2:29:01 PM PDT by cornelis
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To: betty boop
what is the basis of our "moral judgments?"

Ask Paris. She'll have a couple suggestions for what doesn't work.

349 posted on 06/10/2007 2:33:06 PM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the Treaty)
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To: RightWhale
Read the AntiFederalist papers, which is the stenographers note of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, there being no journalists reports allowed. Closed-door, bipartisan, secret, rushed through—sound familiar?

Well, the parallel becomes even better when you consider what ended up happening to the existing inhabitants and dominant culture, upon passage of said 'closed-door, bipartisan etc. etc.' ;-)

Thx for pointers; the more so about ocular preservation.

Cheers!

350 posted on 06/10/2007 3:39:16 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: RightWhale
Positivism is dead. Has been since the 1930s.

Solipcism lives because I say so. I haven't found anyone else able to refute it, either. :-)

Cheers!

351 posted on 06/10/2007 3:42:23 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: RightWhale
Completely different word even though spelled and pronounced the same, like half our wonderful language.

Yes, but which half?

Cheers!

352 posted on 06/10/2007 3:43:43 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: grey_whiskers

Many famous philosophers made their start in philology, which began for them when they looked up a word they thought they knew but surprise! and next thing you know they are acquiring Latin dictionaries and Greek grammars and can’t speak their native language anymore.


353 posted on 06/10/2007 3:53:49 PM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the Treaty)
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To: grey_whiskers

The half that looks familiar until the deja vu fades.


354 posted on 06/10/2007 3:55:02 PM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the Treaty)
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To: Alamo-Girl
The most certain - and therefore, highest priority - type of knowledge for me is divine revelation.

Both true and false at the same time. Not in a Hegelian sense; but the problem for all of those except the 'insightee' (to coin a phrase) is how to know *when* it was truly divine revelation; when a mistake; when diabolical.

And then to borrow from RightWhale's point about needing to know both languages *and* the source material, all too often divine revelation seems to be a distillation of the infinite wisdom of God, into the vessel of a single human spirit and mind...lots of room for error, especially for the students of the one who had the insight, and for later generations. There'd be some analogy to the apparent contradiction in experience between someone falling into a black hole and what is seen by someone outside the hole observing them...

...and finally, you have the problem (by analogy to parents and children) you have the possibility of the following: Dad: David, please ask your sister to come downstairs.

David [Running up the steps excitedly]: Mary, Dad says get down here RIGHT NOW! Boy, are YOU in trouble!!!

(And all the time Dad had just wanted to surprise Mary with a candy bar from the store...]

There are great analogies to human religious experience there...

Cheers!

355 posted on 06/10/2007 4:07:41 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: Coyoteman
If that is the case, you should never attempt, nor even offer opinions, in the field of science. You lack the qualifications.

Kekule might beg to differ ;-)

Cheers!

356 posted on 06/10/2007 4:08:51 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: RightWhale
There is no human creativity. All creativity is Divine. What else you got?

New can of worms--is it 'intrinsically divine' or the calling card of 'being made in the image of God'?

J.R.R. Tolkien has some interesting writings in this regard.

Cheers!

357 posted on 06/10/2007 4:09:49 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: Coyoteman
You have, by your statement, disavowed the scientific method. Why should you then feel qualified to offer opinions in the field of science?

Why then issue the statement "ECREE" ??

There are *degrees* of confidence; and saying that one level of evidence [or 'proof', whatever that turns out to be] is superior, does not forever disqualify the others.

Think by analogy to forensic circles where DNA evidence may happen to trump eyewitness testimony -- but only under the circumstances where the chain of custody is unbroken and the exhibits have not been tampered with, nor falsified.

We do not completely reject eyewitness testimony, but we decide whether or not to accept an assertion, or how much weight to put on it, depending on the extent and reliability of the evidence.

Cheers!

358 posted on 06/10/2007 4:13:29 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: grey_whiskers

That was probably Herder, or it might have been Lessing about Liebniz. Of course, William Law and Jacob Boehme have some commentary on how much we can do on our own.


359 posted on 06/10/2007 4:14:20 PM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the Treaty)
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To: edsheppa
That doesn't follow although I suppose one could say instead that she has disavowed the scientific method as the most certain source of knowledge.

DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING!

"Hast hit it, friend Wiggle."

Cheers!

360 posted on 06/10/2007 4:14:46 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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