God of little things

[Flying_Monkey]

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."

[green eggs and ham]

Steady on.

[The Glue Man]

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.

[Flying_Monkey]

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?

[alchemy]

I've only understood about 10% of what's been said here but the dummy spitting that's going on is making great viewing.

[Flying_Monkey]

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.  ???

[The Glue Man]

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.

[Flying_Monkey]

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!

[Mal Volio]

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.

'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 ?

[Mal Volio]

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

[The Glue Man]

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.

[Mal Volio]

Intellectual steamrolling ?

Pointy-finger time I think !

[Tourist Tony]

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.

[Flying_Monkey]

Sorry to misread your position.

Thanks - apology accepted.

Nothing to see here, move along now...

[The Glue Man]

[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) .....

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.

[The Glue Man]

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.