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-   -   Spirituality is right. The world is unknowable. So? (https://tree-of-souls.net/showthread.php?t=4530)

Clarke 09-06-2011 02:15 PM

Spirituality is right. The world is unknowable. So...?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Fkeu'itan (Post 155655)
But yu are still human, are you not? You are still restricted to a human brain, and a human perception of the world, even with a languages like Mathematics, we still apply it as *humans*. We see in 2d, we exist in 3d. There may be other forms that we cannot ever contemplate with our restrictions,but can make vague allusions to.

How can you allude to something you can't contemplate? How can you even make a statement about something that you cannot understand?

Assume science is not all there is to the world. What then? What can do we do about it? How can we leverage this to help ourselves or others?

In short:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/string_theory.png

(Also, IMO, this becomes a debate as soon as someone says, "I object!" That shouldn't happen.)

Moco Loco 09-06-2011 06:06 PM

I still reserve my right to object to things >.> But I always think it's important to state why and not to say "you're wrong because x y z".

Isard 09-06-2011 06:40 PM

Actually we see in 3d. We have the predatory styled eyes in the front of our head, which allows us to superimpose 2d images into a 3d image. A person who was blind in one eye or creatures like whales would see in 2d. (but, whales have a wider field of vision)

Tsyal Makto 09-06-2011 07:48 PM

If we already know the destination, then I guess all schools of thought (science to spirituality, and everything in between*) aim to define the journey. Just as noble, though.

* YES, there is an in-between. IMO a false dichotomy is playing a major role in this forum-wide debate. People seem to be thinking that you can only hold one specific school of thought, and the other is to be denegrated as rubbish. Why? I believe in both science and spirituality. The majority of people do. Most people in the world are not absolutists.

Empty Glass 09-06-2011 08:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto (Post 155740)
If we already know the destination, then I guess all schools of thought (science to spirituality, and everything in between*) aim to define the journey. Just as noble, though.

* YES, there is an in-between. IMO a false dichotomy is playing a major role in this forum-wide debate. People seem to be thinking that you can only hold one specific school of thought, and the other is to be denegrated as rubbish. Why? I believe in both science and spirituality. The majority of people do. Most people in the world are not absolutists.

GREAT post.

LOVEavatar 09-06-2011 08:39 PM

I definitely agree with your post Tsyal Makto, but we can't change other people's views here and force them to think different. Just because the majority might be the ones "in-between" does not help the problem here

Moco Loco 09-06-2011 08:53 PM

If someone doesn't agree with that post, I will be sincerely surprised. I don't think I've ever seen someone on here intentionally force their belief on someone else. Generally, I believe the animosity is misplaced.

apache_blanca 09-06-2011 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto (Post 155740)
... People seem to be thinking that you can only hold one specific school of thought, and the other is to be denegrated as rubbish. Why? I believe in both science and spirituality. The majority of people do. Most people in the world are not absolutists.

^^^the 3rd one to agree.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LOVEavatar (Post 155758)
I definitely agree with your post Tsyal Makto, but we can't change other people's views here and force them to think different. Just because the majority might be the ones "in-between" does not help the problem here

No, we can't - as soon as someone is trying to force something - especially thinking differently - there is a whole load of resistance & resentment. However I find inspiring the way you put majority...

LOVEavatar 09-06-2011 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by apache_blanca (Post 155769)
No, we can't - as soon as someone is trying to force something - especially thinking differently - there is a whole load of resistance & resentment. However I find inspiring the way you put majority...

Evaluate please.

Clarke 09-07-2011 10:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto (Post 155740)
Why? I believe in both science and spirituality. The majority of people do. Most people in the world are not absolutists.

Are there mystical, or unexplainable elements to spiritualism?

Tsyal Makto 09-07-2011 11:19 PM

There are mystical or unexplainable elements to everything, what's your point? Like I said before, if we already know what the destination is (unexplainableness), then different people have different means of making the journey to this destination. Some spiritually, some scientifically, most somewhere in between. Either way, a hardline approach in either direction usually leads to more harm than good.

stdout 09-08-2011 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto (Post 155984)
There are mystical or unexplainable elements to everything, what's your point? Like I said before, if we already know what the destination is (unexplainableness), then different people have different means of making the journey to this destination. Some spiritually, some scientifically, most somewhere in between. Either way, a hardline approach in either direction usually leads to more harm than good.

Ok, say you're aiming to explain the as-yet unexplained. Could you specify some of the 'means' you're talking about for 'making the journey'?

Tsyal Makto 09-08-2011 11:29 AM

Well, science or spirituality, to name the subjects being discussed. ;) One looks outward to explain the universe (science), the other, inward (spirituality). Even if certain things at the very basis of the universe are inexplainable, there are other important truths which one learns through the journey. For scientists, the laws of physics, the elementary particles and forces, the nature of space-time, etc. For spiritualists, the nature of the self, the higher relationships one has with other beings and the universe, holism, etc. IMO they can both complement each other for a well-rounded human experience.

*maybe I missed the point of the original post. All I was saying is that there's more ways to understand the universe than just one. More than one way to crack an egg, you know?

auroraglacialis 09-08-2011 07:44 PM

Well spoken, Tsyal.
For me personally, the topics of science and spirituality are major points in what is in my mind. I am a scientist, I learned the tools of the trade beginning with Physics and Chemistry in school about 25 years ago. But there are some things missing, and I am not so much referring to unexplainable things in the physical reality of science. What I think is a problem is, that, as Charles Eisenstein put it so nicely, we have reduced the world to a mechanism. That this thought if applied to its end makes life, everything utterly pointless and irrelevant. Just expressions of a machine that runs its course.
I think what should not be done is to say that the other is wrong. Science is not wrong - within its realm, it can give explanations and tools and control over nature, which is one of the primary goals. Modern, Newtonian, mechanistic science I might add. Wolfgang Goethe had it more right some hundred years ago when he said that this mechanistic, physical, reductionist view is only a part of the whole. And I would like to add that it is also a matter of perspective, of (and i keep saying that) what is primary. Spirituality exists, science exists, but the problem I think many face now is that either one or the other (in the form of "Scientism" or in the form of dogmatic religion) regards itself as primary, as absolute. Either one accepts that the world was made by god in 7 days or one accepts that there is no god and all is just a product of particles and forces acting according to natural laws. One understands love, compassion, care, as expressions of a human soul, of a humans humanity, while the other tries to explain it in terms of neurons firing and hormones. Maybe both are right, just the question is what do we think is primary. Is the physical world primary - do we love and feel as a result of neurons and hormones and genes - or are neurons and hormones the way we as human beings manifest love and feelings. What is primary. And i think this is where people differ so much, because both views descrie the same thing, just one talks about eggs and the other about hens.
Where i have a problem with that is that if one insists on the physical to be primary, this allows for many many things that are devoid of what the others insist on to be primary - emotions, feelings,...
If we are all just bodies that react according to genes and memes and physical impulses, this carries with it the word "just". In a way it devaluates things, it makes a living thing just a collection of dead things. This is not healthy - it allows people to forget what is important, what makes us human and what makes this world special. And i think this is the task of spirituality - to look not only to the physical, tangible, scientific world, but to what else there is, what is inside of us, what makes us human, what makes this world a good one.
This is why we need spirituality. We can also have science, but both have their own realms and as much as I do not want spiritual people to try and build "orgon generators" to make electricity from the free energy of the world, so much I would also not like scientists to try and "explain away" human emotions and experiences that are "unscientific". Something does not have to have a weight, be constructed of matter to - well - matter (language says something about what we generally value more in this case ;) )
This is what i say.

Human No More 09-08-2011 11:30 PM

It is the beauty of life that is's what we make of it, and that includes understanding everything if we choose to.
Ancient humans would never have understood why the moon stays in the sky (or indeed, what it was). Things that 'can not be explained' now will not be seen the same way in 50 years.

It is an intriguing occurrence how the correct combination of neurotransmitters can give a strong response, but everything, from love to enmity, can be seen at their cores as a drive to survive, to outcompete others. Humans are free in terms of conscious decision, but deeper down, instinct automates just as much, even if it can be consciously overridden in a way many other animals can not, this is not unique.

None of this used to be understood, because people simply accepted it. People can still choose to do so, because knowing something doesn't diminish it. I could describe the basic function and design of every single significant part of a computer, but that does not give me a problem in using one - indeed, I would say it gives me a greater appreciation. The same goes for the realisation of everything in the world's function, from large scale interactions of lifeforms, to the fact that in each breath, the average adult takes in 5x10^21* molecules of oxygen.

* 5000000000000000000000 molecules


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