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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Interesting commentary to wake up to. For the record, I got my Ph.D. in cultural anthropology and ethnolinguistics from the the Etudes Hautes en Sciences Sociales , one of the colleges of the Sorbonne, the worlds oldest university. My thesis was titled, The Sherpas of Rolwaling: A Study in Cultural Ecology. I passed a two hour public defense of my thesis entirely in the French language. The success of my thesis was based on my ability to learn Sherpa which is an unwritten dialect of Tibetan, itself a tonal language in the greater Chinese language family and to survive a year at 12,200 feet, eight days walk from the nearest electricity, heat, running water, post office and medical facilities. That was after I had traveled for three months alone through southeast Asia and India on third class trains sleeping on the floors of railway stations.
More than most anthropologists I have always had one foot in the humanities and the other in the sciences. My most cited journal article interestingly enough, is one on ethnobotany. I was also asked to review the major encyclopedic work on Nepalese ethnobotany for the journal of that name. I also have a co-authored article on Sherpa fertility in the Annals of Human Biology. I have ethnographic and linguistic chapters in several books, and two books near completion - an ethnography and a history of the Sherpa people. The latter combines interviews I did on ethnohistory during a 6 month, 500 mile trek across Nepal with information I gathered on clans, linguistics, and kinship in combination with blood samples that were gathered by a colleague and more recently, the latest DNA information on Sherpas.
Believe it or not, there is more to life than test scores.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Cool. Thanks for the reply.
But really the last line was quite unnecessary.
The original row if you recall was over your idiosyncratic conception of the word "truth." Please know that umpteen millions both professional and not, technical and not, hard-science or not, have a markedly different conception of it, one rooted in facts, just as I expressed or implied previously.
Truth as I understand it has more to do with the values by which we live our lives. -Jan
I won't ever be sharing this particular rabbit hole with you. Perhaps that's one among the countless sources of confusion, miscommunication, general messes we encounter on these threads.
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The other half of many an engineer's work is right-brain creative tasking. Design of a machine, for eg. Design of a skyscraper, eg. Design of an industrial plant, for eg. Design of a microprocessor, for eg. Design of a solution to a problem. Design of a formula to meet some need. Just putting it out there for any not fully aware of this.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbonne_(disambiguation);
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbonne
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_Sorbonne
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris-Sorbonne_University
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Believe it or not, there is more to life than test scores.
So true. So much to life that is beyond quantification, though quantification seems to be the lifeblood of science.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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quantification seems to be the lifeblood of science
Just a suggestion: Maybe you've been reading too much Largo? and then in the usual disparaging or tendentious context?
Try some Sagan or Dawkins.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Some of the smartest people I've known were totally illiterate. They couldn't even write their own names. Of course they lived in countries where schools were deliberately kept scarce in order to maintain control over the population. The only way people in those areas could become literate (boys only) was by attending religious schools run by priests and monks.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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So much to life that is beyond quantification, though quantification seems to be the lifeblood of science.
true there is, but to make scientific statements rigorous requires prediction, and the calculations which go into making the prediction can be tested through observation that is quantified, and not just quantifying the answer, but the uncertainty of the answer too.
If you read your horoscope you are familiar with a rather qualitative form of prediction, which is difficult to test precisely. But certainly you can take any horoscope, mix the statements for the various signs, and ask readers if they disagree.
In similar tests, handing out horoscopes to a class, asking them if they agree with the predictions, then have them exchange the horoscopes, to realize that they were all the same...
The predictive power of horoscopes would seem to be rather weak and not supportive of the underlying assumptions of astrology.
If there is any sense to Picasso's statement that "art is the lie that tells the truth" then one wonders what "truth" is, and why it is so important to appropriate it for the purpose of establishing validity.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Just a suggestion: Maybe you've been reading too much Largo? and then in the usual disparaging or tendentious context?
Try some Sagan or Dawkins.
I've read both.
Still I understand the degree to which Shakespeare is not mere entertainment and Star Trek is. Ironic that you would equate the two insofar as that's a strident meme of the post-structuralist/post modern crowd you seem so at odds with.
How does Shakespeare inform us and in a similar way how do sacred texts inform us as something beyond entertainment? Don't answer that just think about it.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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The predictive power of horoscopes would seem to be rather weak and not supportive of the underlying assumptions of astrology.
I would say the predictive power of astrology is non existent. However, reading your horoscope as a kind of stepping stone into an analysis of your personality, your desires and needs, is beneficial in the same way a tarot card reading facilitates a self examination of needs and desires. Taking these things seriously as intentional predictors of future prospects ignores the self reflective insights they might offer. You don't need to be a believer to gain that benefit and if you read a Tarot deck as a scientific tool gone wrong you've missed the point.
If there is any sense to Picasso's statement that "art is the lie that tells the truth" then one wonders what "truth" is, and why it is so important to appropriate it for the purpose of establishing validity.
What Picasso was referring to was the notion of the majority of art as illusion and since illusions by definition are not real they are, in a sense, a lie. Of course, one could say this about our senses as well as in there is no experience of "blue" beyond what takes place in the mind: an illusion of sorts that allows us to navigate ourselves through the world, though since our navigation is successful there must be some truth in there somewhere. Contemporary philosophy uses the term veristic to describe any representation that reflects an appearance through the senses: perspective, color, etc. What truth is, well that's a big question don't you think?
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WBraun
climber
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What truth is, well that's a big question
Everyone already knows what it is.
But then deny because they don't want it, and then the idiots say "No One Knows!".
St00pid .....
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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thanks werner...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
What truth is, well that's a big question don't you think?
I agree that it is a big question, and I do not think it is an important question to answer for science. Obviously it has been debated for a very long time.
While we talk about "scientific truths" we generally do so about things we already know, not things we are in the process of knowing.
Is SuperSymmetry "true" well right now we have it's predictions for the LHC experiments and they aren't seeing anything. Can we modify the theory? is it there in the data but at such a low level that it cannot yet be teased out with analysis? Are there other explanations which are more compelling than our current "orthodox" guess?
Similarly, there is good evidence for "Dark Energy" but we do not know, among many candidate theories, which one is "correct," if any of them are. Are they "true" are they "false"
One can say that the "speed-of-light" is scientific truth, that it is a universal speed limit, and we know how this comes about. But now that we have the "Dark sector" we can consider the possibility that it could act as a sort of aether, that can alter space-time, or at least the propagation of electromagnetic waves. The alteration would be very small, and currently beyond what we could measure, but the limits of our measurements are set by the way we make the measurements, and not yet by any physical limit in measuring.
What is "truth" if it is modified by our ability to improve our measurement?
So how does "truth" become scientifically important? especially if we already know the finiteness of our ability to sense "reality." The scientific method has making a prediction (posing an hypothesis) and then testing the prediction with observation and measurement. While the observation and measurement might conclusively disagree with the prediction, and thus lead us to falsify the particular assumptions upon which the predictions were made, when the observations and measurements are consistent with the prediction, that is as much as we can say.
What do we take as "truth"?
Any other prediction, perhaps arrived at by very different sets of assumptions, that are consistent with those observations and measurements is also viable.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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What can science learn from religion?
Well, from just the above bit, it looks like from a scientific analysis / investigation of the world religions (much like any other scientific analysis of just about anything) we can learn a great deal about them: their basis for being, their evolutionary development over history, their functionality, their comparative performance. Last but not least, via "applied science" - resulting from such analyses - we can then test ways and then learn ways we might actually improve on religious systems (secular as they are, fully natural as they are, just as DeSteno admits) to optimize their system performance right along with ultimately human performance.
Maybe I'm not following the argument but this looks like a switch-a-roo to me.
Let's swap religion for bacteria.
We can learn a great deal about bacteria, their basis for being, their evolutionary development. Etc.
So yes, science can study religion just like any other area of investigation. But after having done so, science is no different than before. Bacteria won't have 'taught' science how to be different.
So again, outside of being one more area of study, not seeing what religion is teaching science.
And for the final point in the bolded part, isn't secular religion an euphemism for philosophy?
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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I don't know about that. A lot of creationist and climate deniers seem hostile to at least some parts of science.
I don't see anyone on this thread who doesn't acknowledge the benefits of science.
Sure. I don't see anyone on this thread who doesn't acknowledge the benefits of science at least part of the time.
But there are plenty of posts on this site, if not necessarily this thread, where people are happy to dismiss scientific evidence in some narrow situation where it conflicts with their belief.
I can acknowledge the benefit of Christianity teaching people to take care of the weak, forgive their enemies, etc.
But given that I completely reject the supernatural parts (and that I am opposed to teaching kids to believe the supernatural parts), I would imagine most Christians would think me hostile to Christianity.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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So at least somebody read the post. Yes, August, it was your "switch-a-roo," otherwise known as a change of perspective or change of framing.
Science is now learning a great deal from religion, just as it has, is now and will, from culture and language and bacteria and countless other areas /systems / categories / processes.
Science, the world at large, and general life experience at large in recent decades have learned so very much from religion, all the world's many and various religions, that new systems re sense making, community support, etc are bound to emerge, perhaps even from your philosophy category. Time will tell.
Because of all the countless advances of the modern age and because of changing attitudes, religion or religious systems no longer get a free pass, an exemption, from study, inquiry, investigation.
Religion as practiced in terms of God (e.g., God Jehovah and His Son, God Jesus) and theology, immortality and supernatural forces and beings needs to come to an end and be replaced / superceded*** - that's the view of many - just as astrology (by way of giving way to astronomy, a science) came to an end.
***At least for the reasonably educated.
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"given that I completely reject the supernatural parts (and that I am opposed to teaching kids to believe the supernatural parts), I would imagine most Christians would think me hostile to Christianity"
Thank you for not standing on the sidelines re what many consider important and for speaking up.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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But there are plenty of posts on this site, if not necessarily this thread, where people are happy to dismiss scientific evidence in some narrow situation where it conflicts with their belief.
I certainly don't do that and I don't see anyone else in this discussion doing that. I've said here many times that religion must submit to our nature knowledge, but that doesn't mean religion isn't important to billions of human beings, the majority of which are not psycho fundamentalists blowing people up but sincere human beings attempting to reconcile themselves to the tragedy of living. I don't see science as having an exclusive hold on truth and certainly not an exclusive hold on eudaimonia.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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I don't see science as having an exclusive hold on truth...
Certainly not the way Jan defines it.
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FWIW, I have a "spiritual fitness program." It doesn't have a bit of God Jehovah or God Jesus in it, nor a single bit of appeal to the supernatural in any way or form, nor a single bit of belief in immortality or immaterial demons... nor, FWIW, do I call it "religion."
What's more, I have a physical fitness program.
They work together as a whole, in a kind of systemic whole. Synergistically, you could say. I can't help but think my eudaimonia profits from it.
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WBraun
climber
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Fruitloops says -- I have a spiritual fitness program ...
No, you don't, you're completely clueless as usual and making up more bullsh!t than ever,
Nothing spiritual about it at all period.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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I don't see science as having an exclusive hold on truth...
I bet you could get 100s of "grievance study" "scholars" to agree with you. And 100s of postmodernists or postmodern sympathizers to agree with you too.
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re: the physical/spiritual fitness program
As soon as someone gets around to naming this "systemic whole" - be it an academic, a celebrity, a songwriter musician type, or a popular whomever - and the word-symbol-name-meme sticks in the English language system, it's likely to out-compete "religion" even "spirituality" starting with the reasonably educated. That's the way it works.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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I bet you could get 100s of "grievance study" "scholars" to agree with you. And 100s of postmodernists or postmodern sympathizers to agree with you too.
Fascinating. Anyone that finds an equivalency in Star Trek and Hamlet is much more of a postmodernist than I ever dreamed of being. I'm not sure you understand what is meant by the term.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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I wanted to add this...
I bet you could get 100s of "grievance study" "scholars" from far left liberal arts colleges to agree with you.
Carry on.
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[Click to View YouTube Video]
Timestamp: 1:47:00... Taking the red pill, a demoralizing matter, time for mental training, a "free will" that's free to respond, public shaming, teaching mindfulness to six year olds, etc
"Now some people find this to be a frankly demoralizing picture, okay, well you're telling me I'm just a robot..." -Sam Harris
https://youtu.be/ZA106wrMUe4?t=6478
Turns out, ST is not the only venue with public conversation difficulties.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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He he, well if they agreed they'd be right wouldn't they?
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