In writing about modernization in the Western World, Armstrong points out that some scientists and scholars came to embrace the principle that "the only information upon which we could safely rely came from our five senses," and "anything else was pure fantasy". In their view, she writes, "[p]hilosophy, metaphysics, theology, art, imagination, mysticism, and mythology were all dismissed as irrelevant and superstitious because they could not be verified empirically."

Does your own experience of life prompt you to agree or disagree with this point?



Mr. P.

Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 10/30/05 10:18 pm

So this IS where Dissident gets much of his world view!!! I hate to say it...but it is a shame he decided to leave during this particular discussion.

I believe that science, policy and any facet of existence that will directly effect the population as a whole should be decided and implemented solely on empirical evidence and a pragmatic, secular POV.

However, I do not discount art, philosophy, imagination and mythology, as mentioned in this question, as irrelevant to our existence and our understanding of it all.

We need to separate these two paradigms and realize that one really has no business meddeling in the affairs of the other.


Mr. P.

A feeling is a real feeling, be it awe, fear, love, or lust. It may or may not coincide with other real things. There is no need to disdain art for rationality; philosophy I'm not too sure about; theology is the most useless excercise ever invented by humankind. When it comes to practical decisions, though, evidence is the way to go.

---

If you make yourself really small, you can externalize virtually everything. Daniel Dennett, 1984

Nothing that has evolved with us and made us survive to the point we are at is 'useless', IMHO. Theology grew from simple faith and the misinterpretation of the world around our ancestors. It helped us along. It was a 'miss', but a 'miss' that helped our forebears cope and survive.

It is time to let it go, now that we have a better understanding of our universe and realize that it was just a pipe dream. I think we are better than that now.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of Pain

HEY! Is that a ball in your court? - Mr. P

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

What about the intellect!!!

Leibniz was right... about that!

Just as a point of interest, somewhere i saved a list of the 19 senses humans have, to some degree (some better than others).

SENSE -- TYPE OF INPUT
Sight -- Visible Light
Hearing -- Vibrations in the Ear
Touch -- Tactile Contact
Taste -- Chemical Molecular
Smell -- Olfactory Molecular
Balance -- Kinaesthetic Geotropic
Vestibular -- Repetitious Movement
Temperature -- Molecular Action
Pain -- Nociception
Eidetic Imagery -- Neuroelectrical Image Retention
Magnetic -- Ferromagnetic Orientation
Infrared -- Long Electromagnetic Waves
Ultraviolet -- Short Electromagnetic Waves
Ionic -- Airborne Ionic Charge
Vomeronasal -- Pheromonic Sensing
Proximal -- Physical Closeness
Electrical -- Surface Charge
Barometric -- Atmospheric Pressure
Geogravimetric -- Sensing Mass Differences

I took issue with critics of early astronomers that said that the moons of a distant planet could not have any effect on human spirituality, therefore they don't exist. It's one thing to say that art, love, or other subjective things cannot be empirically measured, therefore they can't be used. It's another to say that they don't exist.

For example, if every human were born with an LED display of the strength and object of their affection, child placement issues would be simplified.
Daddy loves Timmy with a reading of 8 heartjoules, while Mommy loves Timmy with a reading of 12 megaheartjoules. Well, not simplified, maybe. They'd bitch about whether womanlove was on the same scale as manlove...and there's still the question about who's BEST for the boy... never mind.

But anyway, there's no rational way to completely discount the effects of emotions, even if we can't measure them. The number of of pushups i did in boot camp when i was alone was drastically less than what i did for the final physical exam, when the rest of the guys were cheering me on.

Keith's Place

Of course the five sense reality we are tricked into believing is nothing more than a illusion. For me personally this is beyond doubt based upon my own empirical spiritual experiences.
If you awoke one night to see a Non human being made out of light standing over you, talking to you then after such an experience you would never claim the physical world is the only reality again.
The default position if you will for humanity always has been to experience, spirits, fairies etc.
People who do not experience such may well have something wrong with their brains.
We know from scientific experiments that by passing stong electro magnetic currents around and through the cranium we can alter people's perceptions to give them the God experience.
Even an avowed Atheist in Richard Dawkins who underwent such an experience acknowledged we will always have religion with us, because the religious impulse is something that emanates from within. At the moment science cannot test for proof of God or quantify people's spiritual experiences.
For me one of the main problems here is actually understanding and thus getting to grips with consciousness, what is it and where does it come from.
The traditional view from neuroscience is that consciousness is something that arises from the brain, however after 150 years of modern neuroscience there is no conclusive evidence for this assumption which may well just be down to cultural conditioning in a similar way to the Ancient Greeks who believe they thought form their hearts.

The default explanation for these experiences is that they all share in common being birthed from the human mind. You used the word empirical. Your anecdotal experience is not empirical. There were likely thousands of controls that you didn't "control". It's not a cop out to say that people hallucinate and see things which aren't real. It's a fact. It's also an explanatory hypothesis that is far more likely than to believe that all these scattered fantastical(and sometimes mutually exclusive) beliefs are byproducts of the human brain.



Why do you say there is no conclusive evidence? There is indeed conclusive evidence, from all across the world. Each and every thought and action various subjects had in numerous experiments had a corresponding neural activity that matched in intensity, type, and duration. It's conclusive enough that if you want to claim there are some "thoughts" we have which aren't the manifest effect of a group of neurons, you need to provide a great deal of evidence.



Your conclusion is non-sequitur. You see a glowing person. You rule out hallucinations of all types, coincidental phenomena, psychological phenomena, and immediately believe this apparition must be supernatural. It's always the same sloppy conclusion building.

And they would be wrong, they know the five senses can and do lie to us. It comes down to electrical impulse going to the brain to be deciphered. Problem is these signals can and in all probability are being hacked by various means. We know they are using subliminals in films and advertising they don't call it social engineering for nothing!


We’ll know our disinformation is complete when everything the American public believes is false.
William Casey CIA director 1981

Some people know we are blind in this universe best summed up by this banner/statement:

http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos- ... 3378_n.jpg


Science is a tale told by an idiot.
Religion is a whistling past the
graveyard. We are not within
5 percent of understanding reality.
Terence McKenna