[wonderboy416]

I agree that's fair.

It's obvious that you and hipster have a profound understanding of philosophy and science and since there's very few things I understand so well (obviously not being either of those subjects) I can really appreciate your knowledge.
However, I do disagree with some of your assertions and even you must admit that everything we're talking about is speculative. I simply think we can understand things in a fashion that probably won't ever be significantly updated or changed (other than filling in the blanks on various established theories). That's all I'm trying to communicate, I admit my arguments are poorly structured versus yours and that certainly doesn't help do them any justice.

That said, I think I've still communicated my opinions and I'm grateful for yours and hipster's, I just don't see any added value and since things are getting personal it's probably best just not to discuss this topic amongst ourselves any further. You're obviously beating a dead horse (me) and I'm defending my opinions from my dead horse grave as best as I can but it's not going anywhere.

Moving forward I'm going to refrain from repeating myself and will only post if I think I have something to add. I think this thread's become rather redundant, similar to the global warming and 9/11 poll threads.


Yours truly,
Dead Horse who can still type

 

[gristle]

Cool.

While I certainly would not define my understanding of either science or philosophy as being "profound," I've come to understand enough to know that the aim of acquiring absolute truth and objective certainty are simply unobtainable. They are lovely ideas, but they can never possess any actual content. I think it is important to note that this goes both way regarding the topic of this thread: while science can never achieve absolute truth nor acquire objective certainty, neither can any religion assert a claim of having achieved similar knowledge.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

Cool.

While I certainly would not define my understanding of either science or philosophy as being "profound," I've come to understand enough to know that the aim of acquiring absolute truth and objective certainty are simply unobtainable. They are lovely ideas, but they can never possess any actual content. I think it is important to note that this goes both way regarding the topic of this thread: while science can never achieve absolute truth nor acquire objective certainty, neither can any religion assert a claim of having achieved similar knowledge.

not to be a dick, but among other things, you are certain of uncertainty. don't you see something conflicting here? wouldn't indeterminism be a better approach?

for example:

-it is unknown whether science can achieve absolute truth and/or acquire objective certainty

-it is unknown whether acquiring absolute truth and/or objective certainty are obtainable

but let me critique my self as well. how do i know it's unknown?

this might be an even better approach:

-i don't know whether science can achieve absolute truth and/or acquire objective certainty

-i don't know whether acquiring absolute truth and/or objective certainty are obtainable

but then the question arises, how do i know i don't know? and if i know i don't know, how can i be certain?


p.s, i think if we keep this up, the universe might implode!

 

[cacruden]

Where did the idea of morality come from in religion?
PEOPLE.

Where does morality come from in our society?
The same place religion got its morals from, PEOPLE.

Is religion even that moral?
Is it moral to teach people to be good and to worship god so they can go to heaven? Is that truly the reason why we should be good to our fellow humans? To me that's morally corrupt and not a lesson I would ever want to teach my children. Lets be good to ultimately reward ourselves with the gift of eternal bliss... I'm sorry but what a crock of sh...

A pride of lions will live together, hunt together, share their meals together and will all follow the "rules" of living in a highly organized social structure.
Where did they get their morals from?

So Morals came from people? There is nothing more? There is no right or wrong, just learned behaviour? Are morals genetic? If so, we are in deep trouble if we ever come into contact with beings from another planet/realm....

There seems to be a core set of morals that seem to be across religions and across species.

For most people we know there is a right and wrong, even if we choose not to abide by them. Generally the morals we have are not the domain of any religion, but even so - how do we define them with science only, yet even in science we usually abide by a moral code - even if science cannot explain them, test them, etc. Moral codes hold back science in certain ways, we cannot fully test some things because in doing so we would have to ignore what we believe is moral behaviour. Now if morals are just genetic through evolution to allow society to survive, then as a society as a whole we might want to enforce them -- but if it holds back scientific discovery - why don't we just give science an exception - do what is best for science.

I have not the faintest idea of how to quantify morals using science.

 

[wonderboy416]

So Morals came from people? There is nothing more? There is no right or wrong, just learned behaviour? Are morals genetic? If so, we are in deep trouble if we ever come into contact with beings from another planet/realm....

Why wouldn't they come from people? Just as in my example, the lions learned their morals from lions... and in some cases certain species learn to depend on each other through mutually beneficial relationships (such as fish who enter another's mouth to clean their teeth and get a meal out of it, in return they are not eaten). This demonstrates the principle of social advantage, much like natural selection, a species (human or otherwise) adopting good morals is actually increasing their chance for survival. We have a highly socialized society. There have always been humans that operated counter to this (such as highway men) but for the most part they have not been successful. Imagine the incredibly limited resources we once had (fire, gathered/hunted food) and the interdependence on one another (the role of the female in primitive society vs the role of the male). It was within everyone's best interest to act within their roles in society, otherwise they'd risk being outcast or punished and would be deprived of the advantages of following the rules.

yet even in science we usually abide by a moral code - even if science cannot explain them, test them, etc. Moral codes hold back science in certain ways, we cannot fully test some things because in doing so we would have to ignore what we believe is moral behaviour.

Science itself has no morals, it's those practicing the science that do. Those morals are obtained the same way everyone else gets them. That is why stem cell research isn't universally practiced, not all people in all areas have the same moral beliefs so some societies do not tolerate it. Where it gets dangerous is when people inject religious values and morals into their society with the belief that it is for the greater good. One must question where those morals arose from if they are not the product of social evolution. Was it not the pope who said that condoms spread aids? Society has never drawn that conclusion, only "the word of god".

Christianity itself is very confused about the concept of morals. Many modern Christians state that Christianity represents moral relativism, yet if one were to read the bible one could only conclude that it's actually based on the principles of moral absolutism, the word of god must be followed. This is an inherent contradiction. Fundamentalists obviously hold the view of moral absolutism while many others only maintain certain aspects of it. There are so many different sects practicing and preaching so many different values from one religion that one can only conclude its practiced under the principle of human guidance... Except for the fundamentalists, they are in essence adapting their core beliefs to suit modern society. Does this remind you of something? Even religion must evolve in order to stay relevant.

Lets take a look at the ten commandments:

1: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'
2: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'
3: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'
4: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'
5: 'Honor your father and your mother.'
6: 'You shall not murder.'
7: 'You shall not commit adultery.'
8: 'You shall not steal.'
9: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'
10: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'

The first four seek to do nothing more than gain control over an individual (so much for free will). They also reveal that God is quite jealous, why not just create man to be incapable of believing in other Gods? Honouring thy mother and father promotes the idea of obedience without respect, even if said mother and father were to say, RAPE YOU, you must honour them. Not stealing or bearing false witness are quite similar aren't they? I'd just group them into one "thou shall not be dishonest", there is after all only 10 precious commandments, why waste 2 on such a similar concept? The same can be said for not committing adultery or coveting thy neighbour's wife. Also, is merely coveting something or someone immoral or at the very least, harmful in any way? As my ex-gf used to say, I don't care where you get your appetite, as long as you eat at home. Thou shall not commit murder seems obvious, yet Christianity has no problem promoting murder itself (as do most religions). More people have been killed in God's name than for any other reason. I guess it depends on who's doing the killing right?

I guess rape, selling your daughter (and stoning her to death if she fails to please), slavery etc etc are all not immoral as they come highly endorsed by Christianity.

It's evident that society has guided itself to a very different set of moral values from religion. It's scary to think that there are politicians who feel religious values should be the guiding principle of our legal systems.

 

[Hipster Duck]

not to be a dick, but among other things, you are certain of uncertainty. don't you see something conflicting here? wouldn't indeterminism be a better approach?


but then the question arises, how do i know i don't know? and if i know i don't know, how can i be certain?

We went over this last week. You either don't know, you know you don't know, or you don't know that you know. You are uncertain in all 3 cases.

 

[Hank]

Knowing you don't know doesn't sound uncertain to me. It's certainty of uncertainty no doubt, but it's certainty nonetheless.

That being said, I think that this whole discussion went well off track. Whether science can reveal the "ultimate truth" or not, it's still a lot more helpful if you're looking for a predictable, repeatable way to explain how our universe works (or at least how we fallible humans perceive that it works) than one can get by looking at any one of a variety of creation myths.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

hipster, here's one for you, how does uncertainty at the quantum level prove that everything is uncertain?

 

[Admiral Beez]

For the last time, wonderboy, nobody is championing religion over science. From here on in, your rebuttals should be focused on debating the bounds of human rationality and our notion that human constructed methods can never fully describe the nature of the universe.

Hipster, nice try, but I don't think anyone is home. I put WB416 on the Ignore List and this entire thread is much more enlightening and educational for me without his thousand word, repetitive rants.

My thinking on creationism vs. evolution was pretty clear, until I started reading this thread from the beginning again, especially once I filtered out the new fellow's lengthy rants. My original thinking was that something beyond a random occurrence must have started off the universe and man's place in it, and that this could be (but not must be) a divine or somehow conscious entity. This occurrence would have been followed by natural selection through the survival of the fittest model.

Now, I'm not so sure, and perhaps it is possible that we're here by random chance, followed by natural selection. So, I do not disagree that natural selection is the driving force of animal and plant changes on Earth, as we see it every day, and will see it happen quickly assuming climate change theory is on track to forcing animals such as the polar bears to find a new food source, relocate or perish. What I am still uncertain about it how it all started, not how we got to this point.

 

[wonderboy416]

once I filtered out the new fellow's lengthy rants.

L.O.L. to that, I've been a UT member long before this turkey... anywho back to the discussion

 

[gristle]

not to be a dick, but among other things, you are certain of uncertainty. don't you see something conflicting here? wouldn't indeterminism be a better approach?

for example:

-it is unknown whether science can achieve absolute truth and/or acquire objective certainty

-it is unknown whether acquiring absolute truth and/or objective certainty are obtainable

but let me critique my self as well. how do i know it's unknown?

this might be an even better approach:

-i don't know whether science can achieve absolute truth and/or acquire objective certainty

-i don't know whether acquiring absolute truth and/or objective certainty are obtainable

but then the question arises, how do i know i don't know? and if i know i don't know, how can i be certain?


p.s, i think if we keep this up, the universe might implode!

Are any of the words you employ here actual entities that have an existence separate from human usage?

Just how accurate is your conception of certainty? What do you mean by certainty? What presupposes this concept?

Sure Prometheus, if you want to play word games, fine. In the end, that is exactly what these exchanges are - word games. You can operate on assumption that words like "certainty" and "objectivity" make some sort of direct reference to an actual phenomena, measurement or object, but that really would be a leap of faith on your part - and a big leap at that. The words, at best, speak to a kind of agreement between users, and as a result those words have very obvious and considerable limitations.

If you can find some form of "certainty" in my statements, then go ahead and do so. Regardless of how extensive human knowledge grows, there is always uncertainty. Determining what is "certain" is clouded by uncertainty - be it the limited nature of the word or the inability to calculate to the next ten decimal places.

Your examples might be suggesting that someone knows. Pray tell, who would that be?

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

gristle, i'm not sure i know what it is that you're talking about.

 

[gristle]

Words.

As in your confusing words for notions revolving around the existence of supposed actual states or objective truths.

 

[Hipster Duck]

hipster, here's one for you, how does uncertainty at the quantum level prove that everything is uncertain?

First of all, when I say "certainty" - I mean absolute certainty with not a shred of doubt. If you understood how a particle functions with absolute certainty, you would be able to predict what it will interact with and where in 10 billion years. Heisenberg 's uncertainty principle postulates that you cannot know both the speed and the position of a particle. If you knew one, you would disturb the other, so you don't know where it's going to go or when it's going to interact.

The limitations to our understanding of phenomena at the quantum level is just one of the ways in which we cannot attain certainty. Don't forget that one of the most important reasons why truth is not attainable is because all understanding is filtered through the human brain, which is muddled by subjective biases (values), limitations in processing capability and limitations in communication power. The biologist E.O. Wilson once remarked that science has been created to "see" into the "unseeable". But the tools of science that we have employed to do this, like scanning electron microscopes and powerful supercomputers, are still bound by the fact that they were designed by fallible humans, and ultimately a human is on the other end making interpretations of the observations or output. Then there is the trouble of humans communicating the findings to other humans (or back to their machines) in a language that is suitable to capture the depths of understanding required.

Not to throw another ingredient into the pot, but there is also the possibility that there is no truth in the universe. Regardless of whether we will be able to attain understanding of it, there may be no objectivity out there to search for.

 

[Hipster Duck]

gristle, i'm not sure i know what it is that you're talking about.

BTW, this line perfectly demonstrates why language (and its subjective interpretation) is another barrier to objective understanding.