/atheism/ - Atheism

>>2819
Then they don't understand why those are true. They just believe in something that happens to be true, so it's a lucky guess.

Belief is thinking something in the absence of evidence or in the absence of investigation of evidence. Gravity and evolution are things to be acknowledged, not believed in. Though many people do believe in these things because they haven't gone over the evidence.

But there are non-supernatural beliefs, like aliens or supposed events where there is no evidence or insufficient evidence but that doesn't stop people from believing in these things.

>>2820
>Belief is thinking something in the absence of evidence or in the absence of investigation of evidence

>>2826
Scrutiny is the cornerstone of science.

>>2829
>This is why good science scrutinizes even the most basic findings

But do people engaging in scientific endeavors ever first gather evidence that science would truly be the proper way to investigate the subject of a given endeavor? Does science ever scrutinize whether it is appropriate in a given circumstance?

>>2835
*tips conical straw hat*

>>2839

I'm >>2834 since there are no ID's. I liked your response, but here's what I was really getting at. There's no doubt that there are aspects of inquiry and life in which the application of science can pretty much be said to serve people best.

But I am highly concerned with the trend that has been called "scientism", which not only stipulates that science has done some things better than other things, but that any approach other than the scientific one can be said to be inferior. And if science cannot answer a certain question, the question is thrown away as "irrational" and we are told to be stupid for caring about "x".

Mainly my concerns are with the intersection of a more general application of "logic" with politics, and a belief that certain aspects of culture which are irrational (which simply means achieved by methods other than cold reason) should not be allowed to inform our politics.

>>2835
日本カブレさん, 無神論者に悟りを教えるの？ まず、 スサノオの有功と天照大神の存在を説き伏させて下さっていただけませんか?

>>2843
Let me illustrate what I mean. This is a copypasta of a post I made on /philosophy/. The situation was, you have a cardboard box, and the question is what is inside it. You gather three people:

1)A doctoral candidate in material physics
2)A romantic playwright
3)A structural semiologist

The material physicist shakes the box around, listening to the rattling. He presses his nose up against the box and sniffs real hard. He pulls out some instruments to measure electromagnetic waves, radiation levels, and the weight of the box.

I presume there is a two pound sphere of depleted uranium inside due to yada yada yada.

The romantic lays down on his side and just stares at the box for forty five minutes.

It is the sublime. Look at this scene: three people have been pulled away from their professions simply to behold and ponder the contents of this box as a test of their aptitude. No, more than that! At stake is their professions themselves! The hidden item induces us to stumble over ourselves in taxing our talents to divine its identity. And the moment it is to be revealed, we will stand before it like a bachelor gazing at his sweetheart's mouth, waiting for her to accept or reject his proposal for marriage.

The semiologist doesn't look at the box even once, instead lighting a cigarette and saying he doesn't have time for this and needs to get going. But he offers you this:

What is inside the box is the box itself. Why do we refer to that receptacle as a box and not a cubical piece of cardboard? Because a box holds things. So what makes something a box or not is dependent not on how it is made, or what it is made of, or who made it. It is the fact that the box anticipates itself in conveying to us not just a capacity, but an essential identity, as a holder of things. It is the uncanny truth that the box is actually the object being contained, and not the receptacle we see. Without the object inside, or at least the promise of an object inside, or the promise that objects have been and will go inside, there is no box. Only cardboard.

>>2853
>I hope I didn't butcher your point.

No you've been very sympathetic and patient! I've gotten flamed by people in the past for bringing up points like these, and was kinda wondering how you were gonna take it. Also, you've perfectly understood what was conveyed.

Now, here's the focus. The question really is "What is in the box?" at the most bare basic level. It's basically like asking "What is the truth?" This goes into what the Austrian philosopher of science, Paul Feyerabend, laid out (the experiment is mine, but an application of his thinking).

Each of the three experts has their methods of inquiry which they are specialized in: science, art and philosophy. All methods, by necessity of being methods, have rules and systems and boundaries (however clear or vague) which allow them to dive into certain questions while leaving others unanswerable (How do you scientifically portray the beauty of a sunset? How do you artistically determine the spin of an electron?). All methods have to amplify facets of the perceptible world in order to proceed further, while fettering us to other facets.

Now this is fine, so long as you can return to your original perceptive state, or "primordial openness to Being" (we are getting into Martin Heidegger here). It is even fine to develop a proficiency in one or some methods. But all methods (and Heidegger was particularly worried with science here) have the potential to imprint on you so heavily that they "enframe" your "Being-in-the-world". The valuations and stipulations they carry will effectively codify your relationship with reality.

It reduces your engagement with it to that handful of aspects, out of the whole you primordially encounter but are filtered from advancing along the cognitive train of thought. If I haven't bored you (and I understand if I have) I can get into a more practical application of this in the next post. Just worried about this one running too long!

>>2857
Damn, not sure we're on the same page anymore.

>Feyerabend's quote
I have to disagree. Scientific knowledge is so elegant in the way theories converge. Take String Theory, it's only a working part of M Theory. But that's theoretical. Experimentally the inverse square law applies to gravity, electrical charge, sound, light anything that can be measured as an intensity. There is no conflict here. You can model any measurable system into a transfer function, treat thermal systems as circuits. There is no reason to think physics can't be unified.

Incompatibilities from what I can tell arise from not getting it right and worse enforcing said factoid as fact. This universe with all its glitches has mechanisms in order function as it is a system as hard as it may be to grasp. So it's made of working parts, just very complicated. Even the illusion or hologram is a system made of working parts to make the experience.

>How do you scientifically portray the beauty
Lets take beauty in general just because this stuff is in its infancy and I can't find anything specific to sunsets. There have been attempts by science at it formulating beauty.
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic1020020.files/Recommended%20Reading/Science%20of%20Art.pdf
Faces:
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/blinded-by-science
If you meant draw this is where engineering comes in.
http://www.informatik.uni-konstanz.de/en/edavid/paintings/
http://aaronshome.com/aaron/gallery/FS-main-galleryS4.html
http://www.thepaintingfool.com/index.html
Science could answer this question, give it more time.

>have the potential to imprint on you so heavily that they "enframe" your "Being-in-the-world".
If my existence is dependent on natural phenomena, it seems to be, and currently the best way to understand this is through science then the environment enframed me. Rationally I see no other choice. Even if this is an illusion the part of the universe I interact in run on these natural phenomena which for so many science is able to predict the response of.

>The valuations and stipulations they carry will effectively codify your relationship with reality.
>It reduces your engagement with it to that handful of aspects
Well and it seems to be that these laws is how the universe operates so really the universe itself reduced or rather limited my abilities and thus possibilities in engagement. Only in the case where something wrong is accidentally taken as fact or vice versa does science for that time being limit possible engagement. And that's not really science but what scientists deem fact at a time, hence why rigor and scrutiny are so necessary. But most importantly in understanding how a system operates can you figure out how to actually do more and science does this very well.

>If I haven't bored you
Not at all. This was a very interesting conversation. I just have a lot of labwork and midterms coming up to focus on over these weeks so it may take some time for a thorough response. But don't worry about this running too long.

>>2859
>Scientific knowledge is so elegant in the way theories converge

Are you saying that what is not scientific is not knowledge? Even if you are right in saying that the different theories and models within what is generally called science are compatible , what about that which is outside of the general boundary of science?

>Those beauty links

I wasn't asking for rationally translatable patterns of what is beautiful, I was asking that something beautiful be depicted. The first link even starts off with saying that it would scientifically describe the conscious and unconscious principles which artists already use. That is, said aesthetic knowledge can be known without science, and was even developed without the use of science originally.

As for the two links for computer programs doing art, the first is clearly just rendering already existing images into a pencil style, the other is generating things randomly while abiding by a laundry list of principles. If you look at any of the criticisms of modern "art", they are specifically that it is aimless creativity; inventiveness for the sake of being a special snowflake and not to genuinely communicate a worldview, which is what art is for.

>Rationally I see no other choice.
>Rationally

So basically science is the supreme way of thinking because science says so.

>Well and it seems to be that these laws is how the universe operates so really the universe itself reduced or rather limited my abilities and thus possibilities in engagement

This is only the case if you can demonstrate that the laws which science exposes are comprehensive. The task then becomes for science to prove that there is nothing else to learn by means other than science. Since science is a method, and in order to complete this task you would have to operate by unscientific guidelines in order to test said guidelines, it basically cannot conduct this experiment without corrupting its very essence.

>I just have a lot of labwork and midterms coming up to focus on over these weeks so it may take some time for a thorough response.

Good luck man!