Seasons

Bev, thanks. I had a really nasty doctor interaction yesterday, which probably explains my rant on a bot forum.

Cerk, Wait, we need a reason to rant now? (Yeah, you can tell I've been bored the last few days and here a lot more than I should be too).

What if the baby is possessed by demons and will rain down the fires of hell upon you. That's not possession, that is what babies do. It's grandparents revenge.
disapprove of every war since the invention of bombs and artillery
NO DUH! Life would be much better if young men could stop killing young men, and old men try to die in glory by destroying cities.
averse to doctors. some need mental health evaluations, if you ask me.
what about poverty and pollution
YEP! EVIL.
CelibacyCelibacy is much better than a lousy relationship.

Nah, Bev, you keep the masses entertained. I might get out of this chair if you didn't keep it up.

Prob123 (message 5542):

Well, you are indeed consistent, and, IMHO, correct.

Irina, now you are the peace maker and I am blatantly looking for debates. I didn't mean to troll. Sometimes I am just in a mood and this is one of the few forums that doesn't answer an argument with "STFU!" or the like. (That's a generalization about other Internet sites but I am convinced my generalizations are warranted at some level all the same). I think I and scaring the new people though. I will try to back off the attack mode and update the silly bots.

LoL @ Prob123. So are babies born evil then? Or is the evil only their parents' karma?

YES, we are born evil, and it is fully refined in the two year old. We spend the rest of our lives trying to do the right thing but still succumb to the seductive call of a hot fudge sundae.

I was going to answer the call of Cthulhu, but the machine picked it up, and evil never leaves a number where it can be reached. Honestly, I respect evil, Prob, especially the pure ego evil of a toddler. It's the luke-warm "I'm not really evil" evil or the "lesser of two evils" evil that I object to . Nothing worse than evil that does not know it's place. Once evil admits it's evil, I can accept it and move on to the cake.

Bev, I agree that "a change in our understanding of physics [neither] proves [nor] disproves a philosophical position", and I do not think "math and science are the most basic of philosophies". Maths & science can be considered a philosophical disciplines, or perhaps, tools. The "original" scientist was a natural philosopher. Newton's principal work is titled Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica - Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. For those people, science was a method, and math was a language, not a philosophy, or a worldview. The way they understood it, science examines and studies God's World, as it were. The questions such as the world's origin and ultimate purpose were outside the domain of science, and the scientists were perfectly happy with it. These issues were discussed by, you guessed it - philosophers, theologians, mystics... and the scientists, being natural philosophers, added their particular insight about the physical properties of the world, gained through their new art (of science). I may add that many scientists today take an agnostic view on metaphysical questions, rather than claiming that science has, or ever will provide all the answers.

When it comes to reductionist materialism, there is nothing philosophical about it at all, but rather, it is a 20th century cultural dogma, an ill-conceived attempt to provide science with its own (quasi)philosophical framework. This is, of course, my view only, and the argument here largely concerns history and, specially, politics of science, and not so much methodology, or a (lack of) philosophical position.

Now, I agree that "the spooky effect, uncertainty principal and the like" don't "prove or disprove anything mystical or metaphysical", but I do think they show, i.e. demonstrate that reductionist materialism is a way to simplistic a rendering of the world that cannot accommodate not even more mundane quantum physics postulates, never mind the "mysteries". Again, I'm talking specifically about "reductionist materialism", a doctrine, and not about materialist worldview and philosophies as such. These have a long history, and are a legitimate part of (philosophical) discussion, although I would bet my money on a position that transcends any either - or (mind - matter, body - soul/ spirit, good - bad, black - white...) dualism.

I can also agree with the idea that we may never be able to exactly pinpoint THE TRUTH, but will only ever be able to just approximate it slightly... even stronger, I would not bet a cent on any Theory of Everything.

Before we criticize "materialism", we should perhaps define it clearly. In the past, many self-styled "materialists" defined materialism as the view that everything was some aspect of matter in motion. This view would be refuted by Electromagnetism, since the magnetic field exists but is not made of matter (does that make it 'spiritual'?).

Interzone wrote:

I would bet my money on a position that transcends any either - or (mind - matter, body - soul/ spirit, good - bad, black - white...) dualism.

Then you should bet your money on reductionistic materialism, since this is a monist position. If mind can be reduced to matter, then there is no justification for psychophysical dualism.

Interzone--thanks. I kind of realized that after my rant, but also after the edit/delete option was gone (I looked up the term I was fuzzy on after ranting, never said I was smart). I have a high sensitivity "conclusive proof" and "What the Bleep" reasoning though, and you caught me on a bad day. (Ok bad week).

I apologize. I do kind of hope for a Theory of Everything. I would be more elegant.