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  => acf 1.0 => Library => Topic started by: The Glue Man on March 21, 2006

Title: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 21, 2006
There's an undeniable thread on this board and as a theist I'm bound to speak up.
Okay my God looks like the Archbishop of Canterbury with a personal trainer in a Ray Harryhausen movie but yon Godless also like:

computers,
photography
and high tech bike parts.

Not wishing to take the fun out of rationalist fundamentalism but it can look like a narrow church sometimes. What other things do people fill their god-shaped gap with?
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: alexjrice on March 21, 2006
I don't have a 'god shaped gap', but I do appreciate beauty in the world around me and in my relationships with others.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: bardsandwarriors on March 21, 2006
I suspect only the ex-godfearing folk have a god-shaped gap. They grew up with a god-shaped virtual organ, and when it was taken away it left a virtual hole. Which includes me; and in mine I have put -

- a general sense of spirituality, and a kind of playful polytheism for any reasonable belief, without seriously believing in any of them.

- 6th senses and a connection to the Mendi which nearly makes me my own god. But I'm never quite whether I made that bit up, or whether I really do have 'special' senses ;). Sadly, I think it runs in the family. My dad, for a number of years, believed he had a personal one-to-one connection with his god, and insisted that I believed in his god aswell.

- that church stuff probably helped to create a community-spirit-shaped gap aswell, with all that singing and listening to sermons and trying to act for the greater good; and there I have a void which I partially fill right here, and other places like this one. But in RL it is still a hole.

- creative talents like music, writing, poetry, art, architecture, design, inventions, etc; some of which directly lift up society; and others of which I hope one day to make good use of, to leave a positive mark on this terrible little world. I generally aim for that in everything I do, although that is without achieving much in the meantime. But if I get inspired, look out world.

ok, I admit it, I'm not Bad. Being Bad was a phase, and I wasn't Bad even then. I'm a disenchanted but hopeful son of a preacher man, with a god-shaped hole and a sense of adventure. Enter the bicycle, that zen-like appliance which, amongst other things, gives me direct contact with the many gods of Nature*, the ether in my hair, and a chance to reach a higher state of one-ness a few times a week :)

* Due homage to the p* faeries, who are without a doubt the mightiest of them all.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: philmalcolm on March 21, 2006
Beauty of agnosticism (if that's the word) i don't know if i have a gap or not.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: monstadog on March 21, 2006
Fortunately I have no need to fill my God shaped space with anything other than that which is already there.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Frenchie on March 21, 2006
Science, nature, education, everyday pleasures... but these are not really a gap; for me god would probably be the "perturbating" element.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: pcolbeck on March 21, 2006
The music of the spheres  !

Abandoning the notion of god doesn't leave a hole it removes a blindfold and lets you see the awesome beauty and scale of the universe.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: monstadog on March 21, 2006
The music of the spheres  !

Abandoning the notion of god doesn't leave a hole it removes a blindfold and lets you see the awesome beauty and scale of the universe.


Why would beleiving in God be a blindfold to the beauty and grandeur of the universe?
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: pcolbeck on March 21, 2006
Because it removes the unknown, the mystery of chance and the granduer of the infinite, if you belive in any of the three major relegions your world view is esentially narrowed down to "it's Gods plan and he designed it that way and eventually it will all end and there will be a judgement". Even supporting Darwinism as the Catholic Church  does now just moves the explanation back one remove (it's now God who sparked the big bang and set the rules of physics up so things would pan out like they have). 
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: monstadog on March 21, 2006
I agree that in some way it removes the mystery of chance, but that is only relevant if you can comprehend the wonder of the universe in totality, which I cant. I have no real grasp which is why the world, the universe, life, everything is a wonder, whether there by plan or accident.

 
And believing in God doesnt necessarilly mean you follow or agree with organised religion.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 21, 2006
I reckon we all have our Gods. It may be carbon fibre or a Leitz Noctilux f1.0 lens or some Jimmy Choos or a Doris Troy 45 or a hefty salary or the ballet. Personal altars keep us going.

An overarching spirit does me fine and the fact that grumpy bachelors in white collars roughly agree shouldn't counter my suspicions.
I am very much anti-scientism, the Dawkinian Torqemada that tries to shut the lid on the bulging trunk of past conceits as though they were children's toys. I'm rather big on toys.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 21, 2006
....the Dawkinian Torqemada that tries to shut the lid on the bulging trunk of past conceits as though they were the children's toys.

Sorry, too clever for me. 

Conceits ?

What did you mean ?
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 21, 2006
Scientism takes a testable hypothesis (science) and turns it into a rallying cry.

There's something of the inquisition about Prof Dawkins, a glint in the eye. He reminds me of a priest. Or a salesman.

Multiple universes kind of smell right though, if any lab coats are selling those still I'd take a couple.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 21, 2006
I'm sorry, still don't get what you are saying.

Rallying cry ?

Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Frenchie on March 21, 2006
Must be too late for me... I am lost.

I don't take science as a rallying cry... I just like the framework and rigour it offers... as well as the models of nature it provides which I can rationally understand.

Going back to the original question, whenever I feel a "gap" either my partner or my "thoughts" provide me comfort; as does cycling!
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 21, 2006
And how does a rallying cry relate to past conceits ?


Sorry, I feel I'm missing something.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 21, 2006
I'm sorry, still don't get what you are saying.

Rallying cry ?



It looks to all intents and purposes like a belief system with the evangelical zeal that goes with it.
A desire to see babies get heart valves shouldn't preclude prayers to the black madonna or St. Jude or a whole host of angelic upstarts. Dick Dawkins seems to think that would be letting the side down. I'm not so sure.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Jaded on March 21, 2006
My God is tall and has a perfect bottom.

I don't know her name.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Frenchie on March 21, 2006
But is it okay to feel awkward when a scientist mixes religion and work... I am uncomfortable with the idea. I don't feel science, unlike theatre maybe, needs a deus ex machina... I feel science offers a sufficient for me as far as nature is concerned; for the rest, well, I am lucky to have dear ones, lovely friends, a work I enjoy, good society...
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: scaglifr on March 21, 2006
My God ( for what it is worth ) is simply " doing the right thing " whatever that may be under the circumstances.  Sounds trite and too simple but TRT might be a simple decision not to treat or to leave the undiagnosed undiagnosed, it might be hearing the click click of a mech adjusted " just-so " or bowling at one of the sons in just the right way to stretch him just the right amount.

A philosopher friend once told me that my philosophical problem was that I was not aware that I had a philosophical problem ( but then he programs in LISP for fun !! ).

Tolerance is TRT.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 21, 2006
They don't call it an operating theatre for nothing.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 21, 2006
Sorry.  You keep posted 2 things I can't follow: " children's toys", "rallying cry".

 "Belief system" I think I can understand, but are you then saying that any positon on any issue is equally valid irrespective of context, evidence or testability ?

That seems to be a position whish can't be argued against.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 21, 2006
Sorry.  You keep posted 2 things I can't follow: " children's toys", "rallying cry".

 "Belief system" I think I can understand, but are you then saying that any positon on any issue is equally valid irrespective of context, evidence or testability ?

That seems to be a position whish can't be argued against.




The exact phrase illudes me but Joseph Campbell said something along the lines of myth being the truth beneath the illusion of reality.
I feel like the chap on one of those early photos of cycle speed records, pedalling like crazy on some boards in the railroad tracks while the guys in the caboose hang out the back thinking 'rather you than me mate'.
We're both going to the end of the line but by different methods while looking in opposite directions. Some things can best be spoken of figuratively. It isn't an evasion but rationalists can bring you down to the hands on the clock while you're wishing on a star.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Sane Man on March 21, 2006
There's something of the inquisition about Prof Dawkins, a glint in the eye.
Whatever you think of Richard Dawkins, he has the advantage of being right.

Face it losers, even the Archbishop of Canterbury said in the paper today he backs science over "The Bible" and is against creationism being taught in schools. God is dead.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 21, 2006
Sorry.  You keep posted 2 things I can't follow: " children's toys", "rallying cry".

 "Belief system" I think I can understand, but are you then saying that any positon on any issue is equally valid irrespective of context, evidence or testability ?

That seems to be a position whish can't be argued against.




The exact phrase illudes me but Joseph Campbell said something along the lines of myth being the truth beneath the illusion of reality.
I feel like the chap on one of those early photos of cycle speed records, pedalling like crazy on some boards in the railroad tracks while the guys in the caboose hang out the back thinking 'rather you than me mate'.
We're both going to the end of the line but by different methods while looking in opposite directions. Some things can best be spoken of figuratively. It isn't an evasion but rationalists can bring you down to the hands on the clock while you're wishing on a star.

If  the exact phrase escapes you, then it most certainly escapes me.

This is completely pointless. Night night



Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 21, 2006
There's something of the inquisition about Prof Dawkins, a glint in the eye.
Whatever you think of Richard Dawkins, he has the advantage of being right.

Face it losers, even the Archbishop of Canterbury said in the paper today he backs science over "The Bible" and is against creationism being taught in schools. God is dead.

He has appalling shoes though and his trousers aren't nice. If that's certainty I'm with the animist in the Oswald Boateng two piece.
Actually certainty is for suckers. The man has no standards.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Johnny Thin on March 22, 2006
I once practised the same sequence of (very tough) yoga exercises every day for several weeks, as had been taught in a class by a spiritual leader visiting London.  After a few days I felt it an absolute necessity to have a God to worship, so supplemented the yoga with readings from the book I had for the purpose (which, incidentally, had nothing to do with the Xtian or the visiting teacher's preferred creed).
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Heretic on March 22, 2006
Man created god in his own image, not the other way round. If I were to get religion it would be of the pre-christian fertility variety.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: BigDaveSkinnyTyre on March 22, 2006
I never had a god shaped hole, but I have managed to squeeze in some fundamentalist Atheism, unfortunately I don't have much to be fundamental about :-\
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 22, 2006
We're a binary bunch. I was hoping for a God thread that took in dark matter and angels on a pin head, mammon and multiverses and whether the lotus blossom flowered in 531 more than cro-moly.
These threads normally implode on the certainty principal about now. I hope this doesn't.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: bardsandwarriors on March 22, 2006
These threads normally implode on the certainty principal about now. I hope this doesn't.
I usually understand, at least I think I do, everything you write - and find humour in most of it. But you'll have to explain "the certainty principle" ;)

As for finding religion in the poetry of steel, I'm too much of a pragmatist when it comes to bike components! My religion is in the wind that blows through me, and the appreciation of space, time and adventure; the steel is merely my steel horse, robust and dependable with a few tricks up its sleeve. In Conan's time I could have got that religion much more, but now there is so much to choose from it's more of a utilitarian thing for me.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: HumesC on March 22, 2006
My God-Shaped hole (created by pentecostal upbringing which was not pleasant) was filled firstly by extreme marital bliss* (hubby has been affectionately termed my "god-form" for some years now!) and then settled into a spiritualism of a vaguely nature-based preference.

This has become more and more vague over the years until it has become a kind of gentle, curious agnostic state.

This is good for me as it leaves me free to dismiss or question the more outrageous and unbalanced statements and claims.  It also leaves me receptive and open-minded to all sorts of other news from alien landings to the latest origin of the species theories.

I like Scott's comment about us being "semi-evolved primates".  That mirrors how I feel exactly - we are precious and possibly unusual and interesting, but the level of our arrogance and short-sightedness constantly shocks me.  

I feel that the phrase about the dog being one meal away from being a wolf sums our species up nicely too.  We've not come as far as we thing we have.

*double entendre alert!
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 22, 2006
It was a play on this 'Bards. Doh you got me explaining my gags now.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/u/uncertai.asp
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: pcolbeck on March 22, 2006
Quote
Not wishing to take the fun out of rationalist fundamentalism but it can look like a narrow church sometimes. What other things do people fill their god-shaped gap with?

The same thing that fills my Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas shaped holes :)
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: redshift on March 22, 2006
There's an undeniable thread on this board and as a theist I'm bound to speak up.
Okay my God looks like the Archbishop of Canterbury with a personal trainer in a Ray Harryhausen movie but yon Godless also like:

computers,
photography
and high tech bike parts.

Not wishing to take the fun out of rationalist fundamentalism but it can look like a narrow church sometimes. What other things do people fill their god-shaped gap with?

Assumption on your part: The existence of a gap
Assumption on your part: That the gap, if it exists, is 'god-shaped' (whatever that means)
Assumption on your part: That the gap, if it exists, is in need of filling

'Rationalist fundamentalism' is what, exactly?  Is there a particular text/interpretation/set of rules you have in mind?  Or is it just another assumption that somehow, removing 'god' requires that it be replaced by another belief system?  Describing it as a 'narrow church' merely emphasises that you seem to see 'absence of belief' as a statement of ...er belief, which isn't necessarily so.

The only narrowness I see, lies in the need to interpret things through a 'god-shaped' filter.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 22, 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Frenchie on March 22, 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism

This link is rather dubious!!
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 22, 2006
See if this one opens up okay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Guide_For_The_Perplexed
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: scaglifr on March 22, 2006
It was a play on this 'Bards. Doh you got me explaining my gags now.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/u/uncertai.asp

Never forget the heisenburg theory of NHS funding
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Frenchie on March 22, 2006
See if this one opens up okay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Guide_For_The_Perplexed

Interesting, but still a lot of negative words used in there! And I for one like Descartes whose integral volume (one part at least) sits on my shelf...
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 22, 2006
It seems a legitimate criticism.

There was a good bit of trash telly a few weeks back, Psychic Challenge on C5.
A range of experiments whittled down the cold readers and self deluding until one lady, a Welsh woman you wouldn't argue with, showed a serious hit rate across various tests including finding a dug in SAS soldier and a hidden child with B-line accuracy.

A panel of professional skeptics did what they do best but were left increasingly incredulous.
She unravelled an old murder case without knowing it was anything of the sort giving information way beyond anyone other than forensics could have known. All of it was confirmed.
Finally she provided a detailed description of the killer who hadn't been caught that was accurate or convincing enough for police to re-open the case.

Now this kind of thing deserves serious attention by the scientific community imo. It may well have a legitimate scientific basis but instead it gets swept away as anomalous and unworthy of serious study.
It's the unwillingness to contemplate such things in case they don't yield to scientific method that is worrying.

Of course it takes us no nearer to small gods.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 22, 2006

It's the unwillingness to contemplate such things in case they don't yield to scientific method that is worrying.

It was TV.

Such things have been investigated many times, and when this is done by proper method, with controls and blinding, they evaporate.  I don't think there is any "unwillingness", just a slight weariness in some quarters as permanent  ghostbusting.

Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 22, 2006
In the end there is the use of your intellect to describe the world, development of world models by testable, verifiable and modifiable hypotheses.  And then there is faith. 

Faith is orthogonal to rationality, can't be subject to rational analyses and can't be challenged by rationality.  Fine.

But it is ultimately arrogant to expect others automatically to tiptoe around ones beliefs and faiths.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 22, 2006
In cases that operate in the margins of probability the  scientific method assumes that the conclusions are impossible. That's just bad science.

 
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: pcolbeck on March 22, 2006
No thats just not understanding probability. If you get something that shows a 1% deviation from what you would expect by chance then it is not significant unless you have a large sample set (ie you can get this 1% difference 100s of times) since chance is very lumpy in small sample sets. Consider tossing a coin, its a 1 in 2 chance that you get a head but if you toss it ten times you usually don't get five heads and five tails you get two heads and eight tales or four heads and six tales and no one thinks thats anything special. Even ten heads in a row is not that suprising. If you tossed in 1000 times and got 55% heads though then that would be a significant result as you have a big enough sample.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 22, 2006
Probability may be the wrong definition.

The woman was taken to a rural location. She was given no indication of an any event as the 'tests' were getting harder.
She made a straight line for a lane in one particular direction describing the last steps of a schoolgirl in an obscure murder on the other side of the country in the 80's.
As the killer hadn't been caught most of the information had not been released. She went to a concealed pond and described the path the body was dragged to the extent that it was found only partly in the water and the girl died of drowning not the head injury she had suffered which was also described in detail.

She talked of the heavy fog that covered the district on the night of the murder. At no point was she given nods or assurances. The sound had to be muted as the description became more graphic and went into a detail on the killer. One was left with the impression the man was known to the police and the case was being re-opened.

If and it's a big if, the woman had a means of ascertaining this information without being told it, something unusual and interesting was going on. It's incumbent on the scientific community to provide an explanation other than 'it's impossible' or demean it as occluded and irrational.

Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 22, 2006
If and it's a big if, the woman had a means of ascertaining this information without being told it, something unusual and interesting was going on. It's incumbent on the scientific community to provide an explanation other than 'it's impossible' or demean it as occluded and irrational.



I agree

So what is needed is a proper double-blind trial, with prior-established statistical power.

This isn't science trying to discredit, it is a logical approach t ascertaining whether occurence is better than chance.

And when this is done, the anecdotes evaporate and what is left moves into the corpus of knowledge.    This is how understanding develops, by testing, and by subsequent modification of world model when indicated.

The problem in the case you cite is that this scenario has popped up so often, has been investigated and has found not to stand up.  Maybe this time is different, maybe, and if it is then the world will change.

But the other thing to consider is the unicorn question*.  The context.  If there is a corpus of knowledge, a functional and rational world-model, then something which is not in conflict with that doesn't require a paradigm shift.  If the acceptance of something requires our accepted worls model to be thrown out then you can expect that it will be subject to a great deal of scrutiny.

*If I tell you there's a horse in my garden you night not be too surprised, if you knew I lived in the country.  If I told you it was a unicorn you might seek clarification, at the very least
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 22, 2006
Quote from: Mal Volio
And when this is done, the anecdotes evaporate

An a priori conclusion and spoken like a scientist.

'It (scientism) implies a reliance on science unbalanced by, and therefore susceptible to, unconscious influence by other life factors such as experiences, emotions, values, dogmas, beliefs, and motive. These influences, and necessarily, the resulting science, are unscientific to the extent that they are unexamined in connection with the development of the science'.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Flying_Monkey on March 22, 2006
Just when I was beginnig to like the Glue Man, he turns into your standard anti-rationalist.

Redshift had it right...

You don't need to subscribe to (someone else's definition of) 'scientism' (which as I understand it is simply an unjusifiable belief in the explanatory power of scientifiic method  or the incorrect assumption that everything has been explained by science) to reject the description of the 'gap' which The Glue Man provides.

Why do some people think there has to be a gap? What are THEY missing??

Goedel showed that mathematics had mathematical laws had limits, humans have a limited perspective on the universe. That's fine. Accept what you are and live with it. If you're always wondering what you're missing, it's probably because you aren't living... the 'God-shaped hole' is simpy your own frustration at being a relatively insignificant and limited being in a universe even whose size and age is basically beyond our everyday abilities to grasp (whatever we 'know' about it).

As Tanikawa Shuntaro says:

"When I look at the hole in my heart
all I see is the cloudy night sky."
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: green eggs and ham on March 23, 2006
Steady on.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 23, 2006
Your approval is meaningless to me Flying Monkey.

However I take issue with your description of me as anti-rationalist. I'm fully aware of proceedural logic in the framework of peer review as any ex-academic would be. That I choose not to apply it in the context of a cycling message board should not detract from the trope of the discussion.

I used terms familiar to those with a knowledge of organised religion, especially Judeo-Christian monotheism as a way of opening out a discussion on unusually privelaged facets of our lives.
Many people 'got' the gist of it and didn't feel the need to be partisan, seeing the use of a deity as a metaphor. 'Yon godless' may have been a clue to the mode of address.

Unsurprisingly some took it as an affront. This lead to a discourse -admittedly through the shorthand of popular definitions- on scientism and the rejection of what Charles Fort might have called 'damned' information. Last week I put a link to a Stephen Hawking lecture and the compelling commentary by Philip Pullman on the narrative of science being a more exciting, credible and involving fabula than the myths of religion (my summary).

That I find movement on the eddies of reason absorbing and seek viable explanations to them doesn't blind me to the weight of the mainstream. Sadly, some responses suggest that an unselfconscious scientism is alive, if only on this board.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Flying_Monkey on March 23, 2006
Your approval is meaningless to me Flying Monkey.

etc.etc.


Handbags aside, the fact remains that aside from the obfuscation of language (see also your responses to Mal Volio) and categorising Redshift's (and perhaps my) response as 'scientism', you haven't actually addressed the substance of either of our rather different responses, which regardless of what anyone else may or may not think, deserve a bit more than to be patronised or evaded, perhaps?
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: alchemy on March 23, 2006
I've only understood about 10% of what's been said here but the dummy spitting that's going on is making great viewing.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Flying_Monkey on March 23, 2006
And I thought I was being relatively polite with a bit of a jokey aside thrown in at the start... everyone reads things differently, I suppose, and some people feel defensive more easily than others.  ???
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 23, 2006
If there's a thin skin it ain't mine. I feel neither wounded nor wounding.
The original question was posited in a knockabout
cycling site whose stock in trade is the problematics of bolt circle diameters.

If this was a desiccated academic journal I may be compelled to ride your hobbyhorse awhile, as it is I'm happy to watch. If you feel the notion of scientism is an epistemological gaff it's up to you to unsaddle it.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Flying_Monkey on March 23, 2006
I see...

I post what I thought was an interesting, slightly Buddhist-inspired challenge to the underlying assumptions of the original rather interesting question, topped and tailed with a joke and an excerpt of a favourite poem.

In return, we get some kind of strange assertion of academic credentials, a finger-wagging telling off for my provocation, and some unecessary lessons in how to read, wadded in obscuring verbiage...

I just hope others will find something rather more positive in my posting!
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 23, 2006
Quote from: The Glue Man link=topic=12288.msg146251#msg146251
An a priori conclusion and spoken like a scientist.

No and yes.

No, not a priori.  Interesting that you automatically assumed that.  Actually based on evidence.  And in that way- yes, spoken like a scientist.  No apologies from me for evidence-based conclusions.

Quote
'It (scientism) implies a reliance on science unbalanced by, and therefore susceptible to, unconscious influence by other life factors such as experiences, emotions, values, dogmas, beliefs, and motive. These influences, and necessarily, the resulting science, are unscientific to the extent that they are unexamined in connection with the development of the science'.
How do dogmas, beliefs and motives affect a double-blind trial unless someone cheats ?
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 23, 2006
Quote from: Flying_Monkey

You don't need to subscribe to (someone else's definition of) 'scientism' (which as I understand it is simply an unjusifiable belief in the explanatory power of scientifiic method  or the incorrect assumption that everything has been explained by science) .....

Which I think summarises it neatly.

I have no problems in pointing to the places where scientific method doesn't apply (eg faith), and where there are basic holes in our rational world model (wave-particle duality, most of quantum mechanics, probably string theory too.)

That doesn't mean that because some ratings-chasing TV show gave us  an apparent mystic, we should immediately abandon all rational debate about our world
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 23, 2006
I see...

I post what I thought was an interesting, slightly Buddhist-inspired challenge to the underlying assumptions of the original rather interesting question, topped and tailed with a joke and an excerpt of a favourite poem.

In return, we get some kind of strange assertion of academic credentials, a finger-wagging telling off for my provocation, and some unecessary lessons in how to read, wadded in obscuring verbiage...

I just hope others will find something rather more positive in my posting!

I don't see it like that at all. I was under the impression your's was a lesson in intellectual steamrolling and when I didn't comply to the adversarial rigour you've hopped about trying to find a more sympathetic stepping stone.
Sorry to misread your position.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 23, 2006
Intellectual steamrolling ?

Pointy-finger time I think !
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Tourist Tony on March 23, 2006
Agreed with the response from Mal. In common with a lot of people I would love it if such things as mental/psychic powers existed, especially if they could be developed. I doubt they do, but am open to proof. That proof requires definition and reinforcement by proper testing, not a single TV programme. For an example, I propose the previous "proof" of homeopathy's effectiveness that evaporated under proper double-blind testing.
Being an atheist (except for FSM and the Great Cthulhu, may you be touched by his slimy tentacle) does not make me blind to possibility. Give me an hypothesis and let it be tested. If it works, I will change my world view. Tell me about your garden unicorn, but don't tell me I simply have to have faith.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Flying_Monkey on March 23, 2006
Quote from: The Glue Man
Sorry to misread your position.

Thanks - apology accepted.

Nothing to see here, move along now...
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 23, 2006
[quote author=Flying_Monkey link=topic=12288.msg146263#msg146263

You don't need to subscribe to (someone else's definition of) 'scientism' (which as I understand it is simply an unjusifiable belief in the explanatory power of scientifiic method  or the incorrect assumption that everything has been explained by science) .....
Quote

Which I think summarises it neatly.

I have no problems in pointing to the places where scientific method doesn't apply (eg faith), and where there are basic holes in our rational world model (wave-particle duality, most of quantum mechanics, probably string theory too.)

That doesn't mean that because some ratings-chasing TV show gave us  an apparent mystic, we should immediately abandon all rational debate about our world

Suggesting that well developed instincts are a denial of  rationality elides a large corpus of philosophical thought.

My observation is that rather than conform to the dictum 'whereof one cannot speak one must remain silent'
-a reasonable response to ideas of faith- some, and only some scientists pick at the logical scab as an affront to a unifying theory.
It was you who bought up the ghostly hokum to perceived  mediumship, I could offer a range of borderline and esoteric but still scientific means which remain unexplored because of a paradigmatic prejudice.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 23, 2006
Quote from: The Glue Man link=topic=12288.msg146429#msg146429
Sorry to misread your position.
[quote

Thanks - apology accepted.  :)

Nothing to see here, move along now...
I don't see it like that at all. I was under the impression your's was a lesson in intellectual steamrolling and when I didn't comply to the adversarial rigour you've hopped about trying to find a more sympathetic stepping stone.
Sorry to misread your position.

Inc above quote in full purely for reasons of completeness.

Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 23, 2006
...And we haven't even touched on motives and emotions yet?
Some other time maybe.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 23, 2006
Suggesting that well developed instincts are a denial of  rationality elides a large corpus of philosophical thought.

My observation is that rather than conform to the dictum 'whereof one cannot speak one must remain silent'
-a reasonable response to ideas of faith- some, and only some scientists pick at the logical scab as an affront to a unifying theory.

Now there I agree, but that is a shift form your original position

Quote
It was you who bought up the ghostly hokum to perceived  mediumship,

Was it ? It must have been via paranormal activity; either that or else I have no idea what meaning those words are trying to carry.
Quote

I could offer a range of borderline and esoteric but still scientific means which remain unexplored because of a paradigmatic prejudice.


If it is consistent with rationality and with hypothesis testing, modification and/or rejection, then it is consistent with science.  Otherwise it is faith.  Science can be borderline and esoteric, or mainstream, as can faith.  Doesn't mean that one morphs into the other or that a clear separation of them is in any way prejudiced.

As we've agreed (I think) it is a Good Thing
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 23, 2006
Suggesting that well developed instincts are a denial of  rationality elides a large corpus of philosophical thought.

My observation is that rather than conform to the dictum 'whereof one cannot speak one must remain silent'
-a reasonable response to ideas of faith- some, and only some scientists pick at the logical scab as an affront to a unifying theory.

Now there I agree, but that is a shift form your original position

Quote
It was you who bought up the ghostly hokum to perceived  mediumship,

Was it ? It must have been via paranormal activity; either that or else I have no idea what meaning those words are trying to carry.
Quote

I could offer a range of borderline and esoteric but still scientific means which remain unexplored because of a paradigmatic prejudice.


If it is consistent with rationality and with hypothesis testing, modification and/or rejection, then it is consistent with science.  Otherwise it is faith.  Science can be borderline and esoteric, or mainstream, as can faith.  Doesn't mean that one morphs into the other or that a clear separation of them is in any way prejudiced.

As we've agreed (I think) it is a Good Thing

If I admit to puckishness on the subject it is because I'm not selling anything.
There is no mental door closed, certainly not to quantum mechanics or what I know of string theory, no institution to please, no research grant to bolster, etc, etc. 
End of the day it's just chat. Not that chat is ever just.
I don't mean to chide but you jumped on the spookiness angle.

My take on psychic tabloid tv is of a willing suspension of disbelief similar to one I would exercise on any creative text.
If, as was being implied through the language and medium (sic) of television the woman had the abilities that were being suggested, I want to know how.

It maybe that the facility is there but doesn't yield to taxonomic abstraction in a way we can yet understand. It may be an extreme sensitivity to brain function we have yet to unravel it might even be simultaneity at some quantum level. She may yet speak to the dead. Frankly I have no idea.
That I find some science to be a sledgehammer to turn the pages of a pocket book may not have universal currency but there you go.
The language I use may be my own but it's intended to throw light, not close shutters.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 23, 2006
Agreed with the response from Mal. In common with a lot of people I would love it if such things as mental/psychic powers existed, especially if they could be developed. I doubt they do, but am open to proof. That proof requires definition and reinforcement by proper testing, not a single TV programme. For an example, I propose the previous "proof" of homeopathy's effectiveness that evaporated under proper double-blind testing.
Being an atheist (except for FSM and the Great Cthulhu, may you be touched by his slimy tentacle) does not make me blind to possibility. Give me an hypothesis and let it be tested. If it works, I will change my world view. Tell me about your garden unicorn, but don't tell me I simply have to have faith.

Sorry TT. You'll have to take whatever responses are going and cut and paste.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 23, 2006
I don't mean to chide but you jumped on the spookiness angle.


I commented on the requirement for proper trials.  I jumped on nothing, and certainly not spookiness.  The example of psychic woman was yours. I'd apply the same approach to eg mobile phone safety issues.

Quote
It maybe that the facility is there but doesn't yield to taxonomic abstraction in a way we can yet understand. It may be an extreme sensitivity to brain function we have yet to unravel it might even be simultaneity at some quantum level. She may yet speak to the dead. Frankly I have no idea.
That I find some science to be a sledgehammer to turn the pages of a pocket book may not have universal currency but there you go.

Well, I agree about the pssibilities of course.  So letsinvestigate them. Until we do so they remain anecdotal.  Interesting also that you see science as  a sledghammer approach.  On the contrary, it can be subtle and precise as a scalpel.  What it won't do is gently waft with warm zephyrs te possibility of something which can't be made manifest via evidence
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 23, 2006
Well if you're going to deny the efficacy of woolly thinking there's no point continuing.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: sam on March 23, 2006
Does anyone else remember the great Borg-McEnroe tennis matches?
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: pcolbeck on March 23, 2006
Yes but is Mal Volio or Glue Man Borg ? and I feel sorry for whoever is the referee as I seem to remember him coming in for a great deal of stick.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: bardsandwarriors on March 23, 2006
Glue Man, your old lady on the telly sounds remarkable. Some would say, she is the random exception which proves the rule. But I've always held that the exception disproves the rule, and a better, more widely encompassing rule is needed. Such a rule would include both science and mysticism, by explaining or allowing both as parts of something else. It is only by aggressively honing in on the exceptional case, or the grossly misfitting detail (in the style of Sherlock Holmes), that a true picture of reality can be found; and such a realisation is often fundamentally different to what you had imagined, and quite startling.

I think we need one of those, but in the meantime I believe in both science and the old lady, metaphorically speaking, and (to me) the old lady is far more interesting. I like nice cogs, but the spirit of invention is what grabs me.

Quote
Mal Volio: the requirement for proper trials.
Quote
The Glue Man: 'whereof one cannot speak one must remain silent'

MV: Science is very easy to talk about in an authoritative way, if black and white is all you need. Once you know your facts, you are a masterful source of wisdom and knowledge. Facts are easy.

But there is a consensus reality beyond science which cannot be proven, and some of which might not be mass delusion either. Because they aren't pinned down precisely, woolly thinking is all they have. These things, in time, may be explained and filed neatly in the science box, at which point I will get bored by them; and you will start believing in them.

My point is that perhaps we are all on the same staircase to wisdom. Near the bottom, where there is certainty and authority, sits you; and higher up, where everything gets fuzzier, sniffing the air and watching wisps go by, sits Glue Man. The difference is only in temperament, and which step you prefer to sit on.

In the meantime, you think yourself much more convincing than GM. But if one day GM figures out something important, or says something that inspires someone else to greatness, you might be saying how useful he is, sitting up there musing about unproven things.

I can see why your reliance on bare, indisputable facts gives you confidence; but doesn't it also reduce your world to a lump of rock floating in space?

PS. I am the clever person in the crowd :) Someone else can change the scoreboard.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 23, 2006
MV: Science is very easy to talk about in an authoritative way, if black and white is all you need. Once you know your facts, you are a masterful source of wisdom and knowledge. Facts are easy.

But there is a consensus reality beyond science which cannot be proven,

....I can see why your reliance on bare, indisputable facts gives you confidence; but doesn't it also reduce your world to a lump of rock floating in space?



Facts aren't the point B&W.  Facts can be found in a book. Facts are sterile, a bare rocky place indeed.

Science isn't a body of knowledge.  It is a process.  A damn pointy one.  But I'm not talking about science per se here, I'm talking about rational thought.

A reality which is by its nature not investigable, not testible, irrational, must be not materially manifest, a myth.  Faith. 

If you are talking about something possible but not yet known, that is not in itself inherenetly unknowable.  Just that we haven't looked yet

I think that there are things that are unknowable, but I also think that because of that they must lie outside our experience. Permanently.

Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 23, 2006
And your staircase is circular: the analogy only holds if there is a greater truth, one which mere mortals like me are not worthy to be privy to.

It actually relies on your belief, otherwise it doesn't go anywhere.   The Emperor's new landing.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: bardsandwarriors on March 23, 2006
A lot of what you think is unknowable, is probably knowable. In the past the power of the gods has moved on from explaining the weather, emotions, plague and disease, the stars and rivers, fortune and misfortune, to other things as those things have been explained away by science. The gods are like the labour party, moving their ground when they start losing arguments on the old ground. As a god collective, they hold many of the most interesting ideas which are strange and - to you - perhaps 'unknowable'. But many of the things that the gods represent now, will become the science of the future. It is rational process which causes that, agreed. But right now, the myths and the beliefs are what sustain those concepts in the culture, and encourage more thoughts in those terms.

My staircase has at its top, the gods of our time and their 'powers' - not the weather, but the workings of the brain; the soul, underlying realities, motivations, the philosopher's "problem of subjectivity" (or whatever it is called). Who are you to say these things are unknowable? Your neanderthal equivalent - the wizard of his day, who died on an ice slope with a bag of fire-making equipment - thought that the gods which destroyed the crops could never be fully understood, and he was completely wrong. But it is vague and woolly up there. Thought processes are tenuous and imprecise, and not easily explained.

At the bottom are the things which everyone agrees on. Things which have already been explained by science and moved into the domain of common knowledge. You daren't go past that step which other people agree on. You dare not open yourself to the ridicule of unsympathetic people.

Program on Radio 4 earlier today: Newton, Boyle, et al, and their "Royal Society". They tested natural remedies to see if they worked. They looked for two-headed calves. At the time, that was a noble quest. But they were ridiculed for "weighing air". What seemed ludicrous, was the most proftable result of all. If someone hadn't previously "believed" that air was a substance which could be weighed, they wouldn't have thought to test such a wild idea. But in those days, two-headed calves were ten a penny ;)
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 23, 2006
A lot of what you think is unknowable, is probably knowable.

I was thinking about how you can have complete knowledge of the entirety of a system (the universe) from within/as a component of that system. I'm pretty sure (can't recall the details) that it is impossible.
Quote

My staircase has at its top, the gods of our time and their 'powers' - not the weather, but the workings of the brain; the soul, underlying realities, motivations, the philosopher's "problem of subjectivity" (or whatever it is called). Who are you to say these things are unknowable? Your neanderthal equivalent - the wizard of his day, who died on an ice slope with a bag of fire-making equipment - thought that the gods which destroyed the crops could never be fully understood, and he was completely wrong. But it is vague and woolly up there. Thought processes are tenuous and imprecise, and not easily explained.

At the bottom are the things which everyone agrees on. Things which have already been explained by science and moved into the domain of common knowledge. You daren't go past that step which other people agree on. You dare not open yourself to the ridicule of unsympathetic people.


Not at all. I am quite happy to have any of my ideas challenged, though ridicule is a little harsh.

The ideas you put at the top of your stairs appear to be things that you consider can't stand up to analysis and questioning, by the sympthetic or unsympathetic.  If they can, then they are most definitely a part of a rational world system.  If they lie beyond rationality (and rationality is not time-constrained, unlike knowledge) then they are matters of faith.

I think you are maybe confounding my ideas about the power of the human mind to comprehend, with a wish to deny all that is not yet known that I most certainly would never espouse.

Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 23, 2006
The pot is still on the hob I see.

My ire was raised because a subject that has absorbed the nations of the world since time immemorial, the key thinkers, the great artists -and I'll still take my Renaissance masters against C20th self harmers, diverting as their works may be- not to mention the underpinnings of the British judicial system, was considered too primitive a subject for a cycling message board.
Well get me.
I hadn't realised I'd set up my amulet stall in the middle of the British Humanist Society annual knees-up.

To suspend as many judgements for as long as possible seems an entirely human thing to do.
For all but the last few seconds of the world clock we haven't had the tools to test our notions, right or wrong. The subtle knives of science aren't the only cutlery in the place and anyway, the leeches have barely had the lid put on.
If the question is, 'how to be?' so-called primitive societies could show us a thing or two and one suspects those of a generation or ten back might despair of us, ringworm and scurvey not withstanding. I don't buy into the one dimensional ladder of progress.

Bards is a handier man with a metaphor than I and has common sense too ( and why I hold him in such esteem ) and especially like the labour party metaphor in spite of habitually voting for them.
I still don't see a single God as an especially outdated notion. Sure, he/she/it comes with a certain baggage but there may be life in the old dog yet and there are better things for science to do than take her bone away. More so as they seem to think they've let the cat out of the bag.
Even Mal Volio, a chap I can't conceive of without a bell jar and a dead mouse, an enlightenment sage in a frock coat in the National Portrait Gallery, seems to be a good cove.
So much for non sequiturs. As the chap who started the rumpus it's the best I can do for closure. I do shit butties too (not work safe) and pop songs (arts and entertainment) and have been told I dance rather well, if overly influenced by period Soul Train moves but as for the Big Stuff, one may have thrown more heat than light.
Do carry on without me.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Mal Volio on March 23, 2006
You have no idea about me do you ?  ;)

Well done.  The point was about 10,000 leagues thataway.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: redshift on March 23, 2006
Upshot:
Esoteric metaphor and non-sequitur;

Result:
Those who get god, get god.
Those who don't get god,  get to say "See, the emperor wears no clothes!"
Those who don't care, get to say "There's an emperor?"

So, no change there, then.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: The Glue Man on March 24, 2006
It's Saint Joan and her tormentors all over again, quarks and dark matter standing in for whispering Saint Cat and Micky the Ark. I always fancied the French chick with the bespoke armour. It's a tomboy thing.

Pity the poor Welsh Witch who intervened in the first place. At least they only want to give her a steel hat with some wires sticking out and not lay a bonfire for her vanity. How chatting with dead folks affects the moon shot I can't work out. Sadly, I'm too busy for a while to marshall the troops Sam.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Frenchie on March 24, 2006
Facts aren't the point B&W.  Facts can be found in a book. Facts are sterile, a bare rocky place indeed.

Science isn't a body of knowledge.  It is a process.  A damn pointy one.  But I'm not talking about science per se here, I'm talking about rational thought.

A reality which is by its nature not investigable, not testible, irrational, must be not materially manifest, a myth.  Faith. 

If you are talking about something possible but not yet known, that is not in itself inherenetly unknowable.  Just that we haven't looked yet

I think that there are things that are unknowable, but I also think that because of that they must lie outside our experience. Permanently.

I would agree with above. The limits of what lies outside our experience is however only mainly limited by man's imagination, i.e. until someone pushes the envelope a bit further, which science keeps on doing permanently. The lack of understanding does not mean the need for a god, the easy way out in a sense; rather the need for more investigation.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: bardsandwarriors on March 24, 2006
Having gods is our natural way of dealing with important questions which don't have good answers. MV said that my list were important to me - true, they are; and that is why we have different gods, and even the same 'god' can have different meanings for different people.

The gods are a holding pattern for those questions and concepts, developing and investigating them, until they can be resolved in a better way. So we don't 'need' a god, true - but it can be useful to put unresolved things into a box and give it a name. It's like a black box for all of your black boxes.

I'm not sure yet how small gods fit into this. I think they are important aswell, but relate more to your personal values, than to unresolved issues.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: Frenchie on March 24, 2006
Having gods is our natural way of dealing with important questions which don't have good answers.

If that was strictly true, why spend so much money/effort on the birth of the universe? dare I ask... Religion is a (social?) code of conduct; and a spiritual matter. Not the answer to the unknown and to everything.
Title: Re: God of little things
Post by: bardsandwarriors on March 24, 2006
Allow me to explain. This is because there are 2 types of gods.

(a) The 'explaining'-type gods, which 'hold' explanations of complicated things like the weather, and personal concepts of great import. The Weather Man (bless His Socks) is one of the spokespersons for the Gods of Weather, and there are many who believe his daily words of wisdom. You may think Michael Fish is an actual person, but in fact he isn't; he is an apparition sent by The Weather Girls to help you. (Ask yourself, would a real person have a moustache like that?) If the behaviour of the god explains the system well enough, there is no need for everyone to learn the technical details. These Gods can be very useful.

An ex-explaining god is one which has been officially explained away by science, but is still useful as a handy label. eg. Sod McMurphy and His Famous Law, or The God of Brigands and Robbers.

(b) Other gods are 'aspirational' - they can show you how to behave as a society, or give you idylls to aspire to and idols to imitate. They mean you don't have to take degrees in sociology. Just follow the rules and you'll be fine.

You can select one of the Major Gods off the shelf if you like, such as Allah (bless Him), or Jesus and his Holey Father. The biggest gods explain all kinds of popular things, and give you a profitable, sociable way to live - like a package holiday.

Some types of religion have a whole pantheon of gods, such as the Ancient Greeks. These are Medium-Sized Gods. Before them were The Titans (Very Big, but not omnopotent), and before them The Ancient Ones (also Very Big, but scarier because of being not very pleasant) of whom The Great Chthulhu is one, and rumoured to be awaiting his return from a city under the sea. I am not sure whether Flying Spag Monst is an offspring of The Great Cthulhu, but he has plenty of tentacles, and it would be quite worrying if he is.

But Small Gods are the modern way. They deconstruct life into separate issues, so that you can mix n match a number of them to suit your lifestyle. They include the Small Gods of money, luck, mirrors, travelling safely, good stools, and good photographs. Each has been known by different names in different civilisations, but they are basically the same species.

The God of Cycling Components, for example, appears to some people in a dazzling flash of images of perfect reliability and function, all beautifully designed by wizards, and crafted from the best metals in the hottest fires by master craftspeople. ie. an 'aspirational' god. They are known to work secretly in hidden sheds, and only by joining a secret society (such as acf) and undergoing 2 years training as an acolyte under the best tuition, will you know where to find their hallowed portals.

The Triple Goddess of Cycling is another which some of us maybe familiar with.

The p* faeries (apologies for using your name so frequently of late, oh great ones, for you are very real indeed and I humbly beg your forgiveness) are an 'explaining' type of Small God. It is very useful to know that they are basically random and excitable creatures. They have a powerful sense for detecting tyres where the rubber has been worn thin, especially if they are pumped up really hard. They often live under hedges and spring out when you're not looking; and there are invisible ones who dance around piles of broken glass in the road, trying to stick a tiny shard into your tyre as you go past. Sometimes they will move things into your path deliberately, to catch you out. Strange, but true.

Be sure to have a few explaining-gods and a few aspiration-gods in your portfolio, to help you on your way.

You can also get sacred things for your god(s). They act like a caveman's animal paintings -  an image which can be meditated on, and used to trigger a whole collection of positive thoughts before going out to get dinner. You just need to imbue them with the right characteristics to trigger the ideas that are important to you. The more beautifully crafted or naturally symbolic the sacred things are, the more power they have to become sacred. (Glue Man's amulets are a very fair price, I might add).