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Do you believe there is extra-terrestrial life?
Topic Started: May 13 2008, 01:58 AM (1,395 Views)
Horace
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HOLY CARP!!!
Axtremus
May 20 2008, 05:35 PM
Horace
May 20 2008, 08:57 PM
Religion is applied sociology, and science is applied physics.

As far as I'm concerned they're both science, and both rooted in trial and error and gradual optimizations over time.

To you, is there a distinction between "religion" and "faith"?

If you're going to claim that "religion" is also science, I'd say that "religion" is "bad science." As far as responding to trial and error, "science" pwns "religion." :D

In that 'religion' and 'faith' have distinct definitions in common usage, yes, there is a distinction. I don't play rhetorical games around the subject though. What I recognize is that the rhetoric which surrounds religion appeals to people due to sociological factors which is why I call it applied sociology. It's bad science only in that bad science appeals to people, making it good science if you see my meaning.
As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good?
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Axtremus
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HOLY CARP!!!
Horace
May 20 2008, 11:11 PM
Axtremus
May 20 2008, 05:35 PM
Horace
May 20 2008, 08:57 PM
Religion is applied sociology, and science is applied physics.

As far as I'm concerned they're both science, and both rooted in trial and error and gradual optimizations over time.

To you, is there a distinction between "religion" and "faith"?

If you're going to claim that "religion" is also science, I'd say that "religion" is "bad science." As far as responding to trial and error, "science" pwns "religion." :D

In that 'religion' and 'faith' have distinct definitions in common usage, yes, there is a distinction. I don't play rhetorical games around the subject though. What I recognize is that the rhetoric which surrounds religion appeals to people due to sociological factors which is why I call it applied sociology. It's bad science only in that bad science appeals to people, making it good science if you see my meaning.

OK, I'll grant you that "bad science appeal to (some) people" bit.

But I wouldn't call "religion" "applied sociology," but rather a phenomenon studied by sociology.
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Bernard
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Senior Carp
I don't know if there is extra-terrestrial life. No one does. I can't think of any good reason to believe there is, but I can't think of any good reason to believe there isn't.

I don't think one can make any probable prediction one way or the other since we do not know how life got started here on earth. We only have conjecture. It may be that something more than the physical conditions we enjoy on earth is required. Of course we do know that if physical conditions were not as they are we would not be, but that tells us little about our origins.

I have a romantic notion of the origins of life on earth and it's quite Reichian. I guess that would be my religion. Yes, shock as it may be to some, I tend to believe in "purpose" . If life is to be meaningful it must have purpose, if it has purpose I hope there is god. The trick is in finding "purpose." Perhaps our purpose is simply to experience and behold the beauty of life in awe.

Science will never be able to disprove the existence of god. If anything, it will prove the existence of god. I am not saying it will, but it cannot disprove. And I do not see that science and religion necessarily need to be at odds with one another.

That's my .02 worth ($1 with inflation).
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Horace
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HOLY CARP!!!
Axtremus
May 20 2008, 07:19 PM
Horace
May 20 2008, 11:11 PM
Axtremus
May 20 2008, 05:35 PM
Horace
May 20 2008, 08:57 PM
Religion is applied sociology, and science is applied physics.

As far as I'm concerned they're both science, and both rooted in trial and error and gradual optimizations over time.

To you, is there a distinction between "religion" and "faith"?

If you're going to claim that "religion" is also science, I'd say that "religion" is "bad science." As far as responding to trial and error, "science" pwns "religion." :D

In that 'religion' and 'faith' have distinct definitions in common usage, yes, there is a distinction. I don't play rhetorical games around the subject though. What I recognize is that the rhetoric which surrounds religion appeals to people due to sociological factors which is why I call it applied sociology. It's bad science only in that bad science appeals to people, making it good science if you see my meaning.

OK, I'll grant you that "bad science appeal to (some) people" bit.

But I wouldn't call "religion" "applied sociology," but rather a phenomenon studied by sociology.

In the same way that physical reality dictates what happens in a scientific experiement, sociological reality dictates how they respond to religion. In the same way that scientific theories adapt to experimental evidence, religions are formed and continually adapt based on how much sociological good they do for their adherents. Science is bound to physical reality, religion is bound to sociological reality.
As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good?
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Axtremus
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HOLY CARP!!!
Horace
May 21 2008, 12:33 AM
... religions are formed and continually adapt based on how much sociological good they do for their adherents.

OK, this I can agree with. :)
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CHAS
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Middle Aged Carp
Please, there should be labels warning about those posts which discuss both religion and science and try to reconcile them.
LOL, the vatican would make a nice museum.
Martin Luther did not waste his life, I hope. Let people think for themselves.
Sheep =
"You want to be Nice, or you want to be Effective? Make the law or be subject to it?"-Roy Cohn
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
ETs and religion are both unanswered questions.
Humans do not like unanswered questions; we have huge egos.

Personally I think, "I don't know." is sufficient and we should just leave it at that.
"Sorry little Susie, nobody knows what happens after we die."

Pretending we know stuff, and worse, acting sure leads to problems (like flying jets into buildings, Holy Crusades and stuff).
I think the passion of the believers is fueled by their insecurity about their "answered" questions.
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Axtremus
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HOLY CARP!!!
kenny
May 21 2008, 12:41 AM
"... nobody knows what happens after we die."

Ahem... "eternal supply of good beer and great sex." :yesgrin:
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
Axtremus
May 20 2008, 08:46 PM
kenny
May 21 2008, 12:41 AM
"... nobody knows what happens after we die."

Ahem... "eternal supply of good beer and great sex." :yesgrin:

I sometimes wonder if everything is true.

Perhaps whatever you believe happens after death really does happen.
It's just as plausible as what anyone else "believes".

I believe in maggots. Posted Image
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CHAS
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Middle Aged Carp
Axtremus
May 20 2008, 08:35 PM
Horace
May 21 2008, 12:33 AM
... religions are formed and continually adapt based on how much sociological good they do for their adherents.

OK, this I can agree with. :)

Ax,
I have stood next to you when you had a great piano to play. I have stood next to you when you had a superb piano to play. I have stood next to you when you had a holy s*** piano to play. Thank you.
Will keep banging on my piano. 'Thank you and the others
C
"You want to be Nice, or you want to be Effective? Make the law or be subject to it?"-Roy Cohn
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Klaus
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HOLY CARP!!!
Orlando Gibbons
May 21 2008, 01:09 AM
Science can only measure, describe and predict phenomena which are physically manifest.

Some scientists would argue, though, that all phenomena are physically manifest.
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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Moonbat
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Pisa-Carp
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Well, in any case you should at least admit that this whole notion of "reality is (at least approximately) how science describes it" is completely unprovable, and there is also no evidence in favor of it. There are just successful predictions, but this doesn't mean anything with regard to the proposition above. It is in fact in itself a very unscientific proposition and subscribing to it it is just a matter of belief or faith.

Not admitting this basic and trivial fact is academic dishonesty.

It is, by the way, also quite interesting to see that these trivial facts about reality are also at the core of many quite old Asian philosophies. For example, Buddhists hold that one can only discuss objects which are not reality itself and that nothing can be said of reality which is true in any absolute sense. Similarly, Taoists have a famous saying, that the Tao that can be named is not the true Tao. You can of course say that all Buddhists and Taoists are stupid or superstitious, too, but I'm not sure whether this would make your point more convincing.


Well proof has nothing to do with science - but successfull predictions are evidence - they are evidence for the accuracy of a theory. We think it's right that particles move the way we say they move because when we check what would be true if particles moved the way we say they do we find the same thing as when we look the real world. That's how evidence works.

This disconnect between the world and predictions is incomprehensible to me - you don't seem to be bothered by the fact that you can't answer me when i ask why it is that some theories work and others don't - clearly the answer is that some theories are capturing aspects of reality but you don't seem to want to say that. It baffles me.

Your concept of truth doesn't seem to be the everyday usage of the word like "It's true that George Bush is the president of ths US" or "it's true that the stuff you find in petrol pumps is mostly hydrcarbons" "it's true that water freezes at 0 degrees", etc. etc. . it seems to be some special phillosophical concept. When i say some scientific theory or statement about the world is true or approximately true i mean it in exactly the same way as the normal mundane applications of the term rather than a super-duper philosophical concept which ultimately i'm not totally convinced has meaning.

Also it looks to me like your actions in everyday life are inconsistent with this ideology you have - i mean if you think that no theories are truer than other theories then you shouldn't favour one theory over another theory. You should take the theory that if you get hit by car you will get super powers equally seriously to the theory if you get hit by a car you're likely to get injured. You shouldn't favour planes build using the principles of aerodynamics over Iccarus style wax wings constructed according mythological accounts. If no account is anymore likely to be true than any other account, if science is not truer than mythology then given mutually exclusive accounts you should not give preference to either. However you do give preference whenever anything matters you trust scientific theories not mythological theories. Thus your claims that one is not truer than the other ring somewhat hollow to me - if you really believed that no description is truer than another you would not be alive.

Now i'm quite happy to say that the world is not as we imagine it, we have a notion of "solidness" which is clearly not how reality it is, we can kind of cope with the idea that particles are points in a three dimensional space but quantum mechanics has already knocked that one down, it's perfectly sensible to imagine further revolutions - perhaps the things we see are projections from some higher dimensional space, perhaps the most accurate description will be fundamentally unimaginable to us (and indeed some already claim QM is unimaginable in this sense). It's quite plausible to say that there are other things out there in reality that we have no connection too (in the sense that they do not interact with anything we interact with) but that are there are doing stuff. That's also perfectly coherent and i'd accept it's feasible. Even the neo-kantian ideas that our most fundamental notions, our building block ideas that we cannot escape from like concepts of a position or momentum are ultimately a kind of approximation and are not the way reality is at it's most fundamental level. I'm tentatively open to such notions.

But none of that means that all descriptions are equal, none of that alters the fact that an eclipse is the shadow cast by the moon. None of this makes mythology as true as science - a notion that is totally absurd.

I quite like Taoism and Buddism, i certainly prefer them to the monotheist religions, i mean they can virge into metawaffle but some of the notions are interesting but again this is back to the super-duper philosophical concept of reality which i don't really care about- i don't care in the sense that if something is unknowable by definition then it's a waste of time thinking about it and it's not totally obvious to me that it actually means something, perhaps it does, i'm not sure.

However regardless it doesn't mean an eclipse is not the shadow cast by the moon it is. It is the shadow cast by the moon! The fact that you might be able to understand that picture in more detail by thinking about a series of projections from an 11 dimensional space or even some mystical super-duper-unknowable stuff makes no difference.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Klaus
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HOLY CARP!!!
Moonbat
May 21 2008, 10:23 AM
I quite like Taoism and Buddism, i certainly prefer them to the monotheist religions, i mean they can virge into metawaffle but some of the notions are interesting but again this is back to the super-duper philosophical concept of reality which i don't really care about- i don't care in the sense that if something is unknowable by definition then it's a waste of time thinking about it and it's not totally obvious to me that it actually means something, perhaps it does, i'm not sure.

OK, then we are not such a long way from each other, because now you are basically saying what I said earlier: That it is irrelevant for science whether their theories capture reality.
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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Moonbat
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Pisa-Carp
Well we have very good reason to think our theories do capture reality - that the description of an eclipse in terms of the moon blocking light from the sun is capturing the way reality is (even if that description is not infinitely fine-grained). The same is true of a description of hot air balloons in terms of heat flow from a gas flame, the expansion of gas within the balloon and hence a density which means that the bits of air that are pushing up on the balloon push harder than the combination of the bits of the of air pushing down on the ballon + the weight of the balloon hence the balloon goes up.

These descriptions are not fictions or flights of fancy like the various mythologies or religious descriptions of the world and creation. Scientifc theories are the best bet for true descriptions of what is actually happening, has happened and will happen in the world around us.

Whether or not there is mystical unknowableness is irrelevent not because science is not about describing reality - of course it is, the whole point is to explain the phenomena we observe, it's irrelevent because by definition if it's unknowable you can't find out about it - you can't know it. (I mean not only that but i'm not sure about this concept because the word "true" is a word that applies to descriptions/ideas/concepts, a description is true if it matches the world, to talk about "unknowable" truth an undescribeable truth therefore seems incoherent what is this notion supposed to mean?)

I think the best you can do is say that perhaps we cannot get a complete description of reality however just because you might have an incomplete description that doesn't mean what you do have is not true. Further whilst i'm willing to accept that perhaps there could be something that is somehow mystically unknowable we are not justified in simply assuming there has to be, and more importantly we should always proceed on the assumption that there isn't.

See that's what's wrong with the Neo-Kantian stuff that's what's wrong with the anti-realist interpretations of quantum mechanics - they just involve giving up. Oh well I can't explain X well that's because it's mystically unknowable. See you can wheel that out for any phenomena you can't explain. "Oh well i can't understand lightening well it must be because it's mystically unknowable", "oh well i can't understand how life passes on information from one generation to another, it must be mystically unknowable". "Oh well i can't understand quantum mechanics it must be because it's mystically unknowable" This is junk, this is just giving up any time you can't understand something you can just wheel this stuff out. But you must never do it, you must never assume that something is mystically unknowable you must always keep looking for an explanation otherwise you will miss things. You will give up when the answer was there to be found to be understood.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Klaus
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Moonbat
May 21 2008, 01:02 PM
See that's what's wrong with the Neo-Kantian stuff that's what's wrong with the anti-realist interpretations of quantum mechanics - they just involve giving up

No, I never propose to give up. I love scientific research and results, and I'd never say such a stupid thing.

What I am proposing is just the point of view that there may very well be many distinct explanations of the same thing, and they may all be true (or, more precisely, capture aspects of the truth) at the same time.
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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Moonbat
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Pisa-Carp
Quote:
 

What I am proposing is just the point of view that there may very well be many distinct explanations of the same thing, and they may all be true (or, more precisely, capture aspects of the truth) at the same time.


Ok I can accept that we might not be able to come up with theories that are not missing something important and hence be stuck with multiple different accounts that are equally wrong (but also are capturing some aspects of reality). But you should never accept it if that's what you find it, you should try and find one that is not missing something important and hence can defeat the opposition. For the vast majority of broadly accepted scientific knowledge i think that's actually the case. For stuff like ideas of evolution or eclipses or the composition of microbial cell walls, or the reaction mechanism of hydroxide and bromomethane there are not multiple distinct explanations there is essentially one and when has one it represents the best bet for what is actually going on.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
Anyway, back on-topic: I think there is a distinct possibility for extra-terrestrial life. Indeed, the universe is so vast, it seems to me that the possibility is great enough that it enters the realm of plausible probability.

If they are intelligent, they will avoid planet Earth, though. Friggin' trailer park of the universe...
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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