gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg Kuperberg) (01/05/85)
Sir Eccles and many other people, and probably Ken Arndt, argue that since reason alone cannot answer all questions, we must resort to faith. Well, this is simply silly. It's about as silly as some doctor saying: "We at the Mayo Clinic have seen for ourselves that medicine alone cannot prevent or cure all diseases and deformities. Therefore we have decided to go with blood-letting." Lack of a right answer does not mean that we should go with a wrong one. --- Greg Kuperberg harvard!talcott!gjk
rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (01/12/85)
>> Lack of a right answer does not mean that we should go with a wrong one. >> --- >> Greg Kuperberg > Ah, but you jump to conclusions. No one mentioned faith. Intuition > is a better word. Lack of a scientific answer does not mean lack of > an answer. It *DOES* mean, of course, lack of an answer we are likely > to agree on. There is certainly a vast subjective domain (in which > reside soul, love, consciousness, and misc. things that go bump in the > night) where such agreement is not necessary nor even useful. [GADFLY] Intuition may be thought of as the "skipping over" of logical rational processes by the brain to reach a certain conclusion. Whether or not the logical processes are simply going on in the background (subconscious) or conditioned (the brain sees a similar pattern that it analyzed before and jumps immediately to an assumed result, "instinctively") is an interesting question, but the value of an intuitive idea lies, not in whether or not it was ultimately resulting from logic, but rather, in its applicability and validity. If the resulting intuition is not logically sound, then it's faulty. Saying "intuition is a sound process" is like saying "rain is a good thing". Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. It depends on the validity and usefulness of the result. Feeling something intuitively doesn't necessarily make it right. The great minds who use intuition to achieve original ideas/goals are "great" for a reason: the result of *their* intuition bears fruit. Perhaps THEY can "intuitively" know what intuitive ideas are sound or unsound, and parse them out. As the gadfly says, lack of a scientifically determined answer does not mean lack of an answer. But the "vast subjective domain" he described is just that: vast and subjective. The ideas and thoughts therein are subject to the lack of hard-nosed objectivity they stem from. The answers coming from that domain are not verifyable, nor are they anything more than consistent with a preconceived set of wishful thinking ideas about the universe. With that in mind, they're not worth accepting. [This is more philosophy than religion, hence the cross posting.] -- "Those without forms must appear, however briefly, at the Bureau's Astral Offices on Nooker Street..." Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
gadfly@ihu1m.UUCP (Gadfly) (01/16/85)
-- >> As the gadfly says, lack of a scientifically determined answer >> does not mean lack of an answer. But the "vast subjective domain" >> he described is just that: vast and subjective. The ideas and >> thoughts therein are subject to the lack of hard-nosed >> objectivity they stem from. The answers coming from that domain >> are not verifyable, nor are they anything more than consistent >> with a preconceived set of wishful thinking ideas about the >> universe. With that in mind, they're not worth accepting. >> Rich Rosen Since all of objectivity rests on axioms of shared experience, viz. "Are stars are really in the sky and not in our eyes?", the only inherent value in objectivity is its track record. After all, one could dismiss all of science as mass hypnosis. When it comes right down to it, the only truly verifiable criterion for accepting any idea is functionality, and that must be subjective. People will believe in god(s) for the same reason they believe in gravity--it works for them. Or they think so. But it's not like the problems of how we know things just came up the other day. I can understand how most adolescents think that they discovered sex, but why do so many young computer scientists think that they discovered epistomology? -- *** *** JE MAINTIENDRAI ***** ***** ****** ****** 15 Jan 85 [26 Nivose An CXCIII] ken perlow ***** ***** (312)979-7188 ** ** ** ** ..ihnp4!iwsl8!ken *** ***
gadfly@ihu1m.UUCP (Gadfly) (01/16/85)
-- >> Sir Eccles and many other people, and probably Ken Arndt, argue that >> since reason alone cannot answer all questions, we must resort to >> faith. Well, this is simply silly. It's about as silly as some >> doctor saying: "We at the Mayo Clinic have seen for ourselves that >> medicine alone cannot prevent or cure all diseases and deformities. >> Therefore we have decided to go with blood-letting." >> Lack of a right answer does not mean that we should go with a wrong one. >> --- >> Greg Kuperberg Ah, but you jump to conclusions. No one mentioned faith. Intuition is a better word. Lack of a scientific answer does not mean lack of an answer. It *DOES* mean, of course, lack of an answer we are likely to agree on. There is certainly a vast subjective domain (in which reside soul, love, consciousness, and misc. things that go bump in the night) where such agreement is not necessary nor even useful. And you know, real doctors really do exactly what you quoted. They don't know what causes a host of diseases, but they treat them just the same. The blood-letting has been superseded by needless surgery or psychoactive drugs, but then this *is* the 20th century. My question to the sociobiologist hot to find the physiochemical determinants of love is the same one I asked the speed-reading salesman who promised I'd be able to polish off a 300-page novel in 45 minutes: "Why on earth would anybody want to?" -- *** *** JE MAINTIENDRAI ***** ***** ****** ****** 09 Jan 85 [20 Nivose An CXCIII] ken perlow ***** ***** (312)979-7188 ** ** ** ** ..ihnp4!iwsl8!ken *** ***