Discuss

[LeeG]

Re: Discuss

Do not put meat products into compost, it attracts rats.

Tan the hide for leather goods, make buttons from the horns and boil the hooves, waste horn, and other stuff for glue.

How would you craft guts, blood, heads and feathers?

[Osborne Russell]

Re: Discuss

How would you craft guts, blood, heads and feathers?

Ukelele strings and a war bonnet?

[AndyG]

Re: Discuss

You may have gone off the rails with “ viewers velocity “.

Not me.

I'm running with a fifty-foot ladder towards a forty-nine foot long barn, at 60000 km/s.

A stationary observer will perceive my ladder will fit, momentarily. I know it will not.

We're both right.

Andy

[Breakaway]

Discuss

I think you have to make a distinction between physical reality and human ideas about physical reality. (And for the sake of simplicity, I'm not going to get all cute and quantum-mechanical; let's stick with things on the scale of hose clamps.)

I have a problem with my car. The first mechanic thinks it needs one thing repaired, the second mechanic thinks it needs more things repaired. The car has not changed in the slightest. The arrangement of atoms in the hose clamps and the polymers of the hoses and the metal of the engine is exactly the same. What is different is the thoughts in the brains of the people, their perception of what exists, guesses about how likely it is to fail (i.e. predictions of the future), and judgements about the best course of action. That is not at all the same thing as saying that external reality is different. It's not; only our thoughts are. Not that thoughts aren't important; they are, and they certain affect our actions, - also, very likely our thoughts are part of physical reality; patterns of neurons firing inside our heads - but the car is still the same. And I sure as hell don't want a mechanic who doesn't believe in objective external reality.

Yes, but

You, the person needing car repair, will be out more, or less, time or money, depending upon the mechanic he chooses. So, there will be a physical change depending upon which truth he chooses: more or less bills in the wallet.

Of course money isnt real. Its just a concept or thought.

Unless you need to buy groceries.
And time. Time isnt real. Its just a concept or thought.

Until you run a heading between wayloints for too long and then run aground.

What about love? Its real, right?

But, like time and like money it is not made of molecules. There is no love particle. These things are real, despite not existing physically.

That being the case, that some of the most significant things in life are not physical, why should we limit discussion of reality or truth to only that which is physical?

Kevin





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Peerie Maa]

Re: Discuss

How would you craft guts, blood, heads and feathers?

Sausage casing, black pudding, feather pillows, feed the rest to the dogs.

Next?

[Peerie Maa]

Re: Discuss

What about love? Its real, right?

But, like time and like money it is not made of molecules. There is no love particle. These things are real, despite not existing physically.

Love is hormones, they are molecular. Love is genetic, that is science.

[LeeG]

Re: Discuss

Sausage casing, black pudding, feather pillows, feed the rest to the dogs.

Next?

Until I turned on the electeic fence the lab got first dibs. These are chicken feathers, not just downy fluff. It all returns to the earth as rich compost. About 25 gallons of misc kitchen scraps (I get the neighbors scraps) goes in every two weeks along with a couple tractor bucket loads of tree/bush wood chips.

[CWSmith]

Re: Discuss

Dawkins et al are engaged in the task of why Hominids evolved a belief in the not natural. So your statement is incorrect.

Dawkins is involved in the task of finding spurious reasons to support his preconceived opinions, so my statement is entirely correct.

[Keith Wilson]

Re: Discuss

You, the person needing car repair, will be out more, or less, time or money, depending upon the mechanic he chooses. So, there will be a physical change depending upon which truth he chooses: more or less bills in the wallet. . . .

Well, of course. What we think affects what we do. What we do affects the physical world. This is hardly a surprise. But physical reality doesn't care what we think. It is what it is. The position or depth of the shallows doesn't change because you think they're somewhere else, and your boat is where it is, wherever you imagine yourself to be.

And I'd certainly never claim what we think and feel isn't important. But physical reality is not affected by our thoughts or beliefs, only by our actions. And if our actions are based on ideas that don't correspond to how physical reality actually is, they are pretty likely to not turn out the way we expect.


FWIW, Dawkins is a bit too dogmatic for my taste; he thinks we know more than we really do. I don't know nearly enough to be an atheist, for example, although I think I know enough to not be a Christian. I could be wrong.

[skuthorp]

Re: Discuss

"FWIW, Dawkins is a bit too dogmatic for my taste; he thinks we know more than we really do."
Dawkins is a 'professional' atheist..if that's what he calls himself, and I agree about the dogmatic bit. I don't call myself any kind of theist. When I go I may know if I was wrong, or I just may not exist. 'Frankly ladies and gentleman, I don't give a damn'.

[skuthorp]

Re: Discuss

"There once existed a single individual female who was the most recent ancestor shared by you and a baboon. That one individual female had two individual children, one of whom is your ancestor, the other is the baboon’s ancestor. Discuss."
But which sub-species of Homo Errectus was the father, and was it the same sub-species for both?

[WI-Tom]

Re: Discuss

And I'd certainly never claim what we think and feel isn't important. But physical reality is not affected by our thoughts or beliefs, only by our actions. And if our actions are based on ideas that don't correspond to how physical reality actually is, they are pretty likely to not turn out the way we expect.

That's a pretty good summary of the double slit experiment, the gateway to all quantum weirdness.

Tom

[Peerie Maa]

Re: Discuss

Dawkins is involved in the task of finding spurious reasons to support his preconceived opinions, so my state e t is entirely correct.

There are two strands to Dawkins:

• Understanding genetics and evolution. That is pure science
• His opinions on the harm that religion is used to justify by the ignorant. That too is based on observable facts. There are two subsets to that. Denial of basic human rights, (Taliban, the GOP, et al.) and denial of established evidence based facts (Young Earth Creationists).

[CWSmith]

Re: Discuss

There are two strands to Dawkins:

• Understanding genetics and evolution. That is pure science
• His opinions on the harm that religion is used to justify by the ignorant. That too is based on observable facts. There are two subsets to that. Denial of basic human rights, (Taliban, the GOP, et al.) and denial of established evidence based facts (Young Earth Creationists).

You left out his most significant effort that has gained him popular attention - the denial of theology and using scientific observations to deny the existence of any god. That is really the only point he is trying to make.

This is very simple - you cannot use the observations of the physical world to test theories of the spiritual world.

And you can't extrapolate time backwards through the quantum and gravitational singularity of The Big Bang.

[Hallam]

Re: Discuss

“There is a real world out there, and the only way to learn about it is objective evidence gathered by the scientific method.” Discuss.

It seems to me that most if not all of Dawkins 'beliefs' fall within the notion of empiricism. I find it simplistic and an unrealistic position to hold to the exclusion of further possibilities in the gaining of knowledge. From the various positions that can be held flow many profound consequences in relation to human behaviour and choice especially in the area of free choice and determinism. In the study of the theory of knowledge there are more positions that are valid that can be explored. I personally hold that it is by no means a fait accompli that free will does not exist. To hold such a view that free will does not exist, with determination that one is absolutely correct is a 'faith based position' and an example of a closed mind.
I really don't have an in depth knowledge of these subjects and feel I just scratch the surface so I normally post a link to an article I think offers more info on a given subject as a beginning to looking into it. This one will do for this post:

Rationalism vs. Empiricism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)