Science is intelectualy bankrupt
it cant tell us
what is mass/matter
what is charge
what is life
it uses these things in its equations or ideologies
but it cant tell us what they are
scientific materialisim
leads to the conculsion that because all there is are laws of nature governing matter
then life/humans are nothing but mindless stimulus response machines
you dont exist all there is in that bag of chemicals called a human are laws of nature
ladyjane, are you playing the devil’s advocate concerning the sciences? For someone who appears to know a good deal about them, you seem to disavow such tenets. It’s hard to tell where you stand in your arguments. Could you please qualify this in your points of view? Thank you.
Science is no more special or unique compared with another tool like that of a firearm.
Science attempts to describe how matter and life behave. It does this very accurately. How is that intelectually bankrupt?
What is matter?
What is life?
These are philosophical questions.
I’m a scientist and a taoist. I understand that science can nerver totally describe reality. But this is a good thing because science will just continue to describe nature to greater and greater accuracy but without ever giving a complete discription. But, with each improved description, we will learn new things about the universe and are able to apply these discoverys in ever more fascinating ways.
scientific materialisim is a result of western dualistic philosophy. I reject its(or rather ladyjanes) conclusions on the grounds of science’s description always being incomplete.
Dualism would have us believe we can have seperate concepts such as energy, matter, space, time etc etc. Where as eastern thought rejects this notion. Instead we has realise that there is just one eternal way or Tao. Western science is slowly coming to the same conclusions. e.g. We can’t talk of space and time but only spacetime.
“the way that can be described is not the eternal way” Lao tzu
here descriptions could mean words or maths. But I don’t believe this means we can not ‘know’ the eternal way. It means we could come to an understanding of the way without being able to describe it or by any sort of verbal thinking process. This is why there is so much stress put on meditation in eastern philosophy.
Also there is some pretty deep answers given by science as to what charge is( as well as life and matter) I would say the description is incomplete but its never the less a highly intlectually stimulating subject.
In Physics we find that the ways in which the universe is symmetric lead to consevations of different quantities. Thus for every symmetry we will have a conserved quantity. This is a mathematicl theorm known as noether’s theorem. Charge is due to the symmetry of the phase of the universe. Energy-mass is due to the symmetry in time. Angular momentum the symmetry in rotation.
So science does tell us what charge is by route of a mathematical theorem.
hey you got you got it
yes all is intelectual bankrupt
just as colin leslie points out
ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL products of human thinking end in meaninglessness-self contradiction
hey tortise in your soul thread it turns out there is no “I” all you are is a bag of feces responding to stimuli
so your belief in matter and its laws contradicts the notion of an “i” that feels anything
so you views end in meaningless -contradiction
you materialism contradicts your view that you are an “i”
your no more an “i” as your pc is-both just respond to matter and its laws
oh your perhaps the pc thinks its operating system is it "i "/mind hahaha
hey your “i” is just the humans serial number on a pc
apart from that what is responding to my post is not a “you” or an “i” but a stimulus response machine
you cant have it both ways
to say all there is is matter and its laws
then say your “i” is outseide this matter and its laws
then all you are is a stimulus response machine with a serial number called “i”
i thought i was i
Sorry about that last post -i- just couldn’t resist.
Ladyjane:
Emergence duality is something you may want to ponder. Are we also and always that from which we originally emerged?
What do you think we emerged from, nothing?
Would this make us nothing, just a stimulus response machine?