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compatibility of science and religion #206077
05/11/08 02:39
05/11/08 02:39
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fastlane69 Offline OP
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Polish cosmologist wins religion prize
Physics Today "Issues and Events", May 08, pg 27

Catholic priest and cosmologist Michael Heller is this year's winner of the Templeton prize. According to the Templeton foundation, which bestows it, the prize is intended to "serve as a philanthropic catalyst for discovery in areas engaging life's biggest questions, ranging from explorations into the laws of nature and the universe to questions on love, gratitude, forgiveness, and creativity." The Templeton prize is the largest annual award to an individual and was designed to have the bigger purse than the Nobel Prize. This year it is worth about $1.6 million.
Heller, a member of the philosophy faculty at the pontifical Academy of theology in Kraków, Poland, first became a priest and then studied physics. Although he served in the parish at one time, he now pursues those interests as a scholar. He began his scientific career looking at dissipative processes in cosmic evolution.today his focus is on using noncommunicative geometry to construct a theoretical model to unify gravity and quantum mechanics. On the religious side, he says, "my idea is not so much philosophy of science but philosophy in science." Time, space, causality, and determinism, he says, were traditionally in the realm of philosophy and are now a part of physics. "it is my passion to investigate these problems as they are present in physical theories." For Heller, science and religion inhabit "to non-intersecting planes. They are methodically different, they require conceptually different equipment. But they interact with each other - they did that in history very often."
Under communism, the polish authorities were officially and sympathetic to both religion and intellectualism. But, Heller says, "to be in such a system is in a sense and rich and because you can better know human nature and human stupidity." Both professions, he adds, "require an entire few in life. But it was easy, for me at least: I just followed my passions."
Heller says his temples and money will go towards funding the Copernican center "to further research and education in science and theology as an academic discipline." The center traces back to an interdisciplinary discussion group originally formed in the 1960s by Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II.


Re: compatibility of science and religion [Re: fastlane69] #206116
05/11/08 10:06
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 Quote:
For Heller, science and religion inhabit "to non-intersecting planes. They are methodically different, they require conceptually different equipment. But they interact with each other - they did that in history very often."


In the past this claim made sense but nowadays I dont think so.
Physics are digging the essence of matter and Biology the foundation of life
That's said I dont mean Science has definitly excluded religion but for sure religion and science must get along otherwise religion is lost

Re: compatibility of science and religion [Re: AlbertoT] #206161
05/11/08 18:33
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"Physics are digging the essence of matter and Biology the foundation of life"
Yes , and they are doing a good job in once sence , learning things , and a bad job in another , twisting all findings to push their own religion , evolution.

It is prophecised that religion will rise again , so science is going to take a hit soon , however , all of this ironically wont be for the better, but from what I understand for the worst.

Re: compatibility of science and religion [Re: Why_Do_I_Die] #206174
05/11/08 20:07
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 Quote:

It is prophecised that religion will rise again , so science is going to take a hit soon


Yet the point of the article is that science and religion need not be in contention but rather can work together towards a common good. No need for one to replace the other; rather one should complement the other. After all, I've hear prophesied that science will ultimately undo religion... and I don't believe that either!

 Quote:
Yes , and they are doing a good job in once sence , learning things , and a bad job in another , twisting all findings to push their own religion , evolution.


That statement is self-contradictory: If they are doing a good job at "learning things", then we are also doing a good job at "learning things" about life, ie Evolution. However, if science "twists all finding to push their own religion", then it CANNOT be doing a good job of learning thing. To state that an entire single field of scientific study is a sham is to say that EVERY scientific field of study is a sham since the way that we arrived at evolution (the scientific method) is exactly the same way as we arrived at a Round Earth, Moons around Jupiter, and the semiconductors that power your computer.

 Quote:
however , all of this ironically wont be for the better, but from what I understand for the worst.


Every major religious leader who has commented on evolution feels otherwise; from Pope Pius XII over 50 years ago, to John Paul II 20 years ago, to the Dalai Lama today, they all:
1) feel that evolution is a coherent account life on earth.
2) note that evolution is not in contention with a persons religion
3) do not, I repeat, do not advocate replacing evolution with another set of teachings.

So mainstream religion disagree with this analysis.
So does mainstream science.
Could it be possible therefore that this analysis may be possibly if we hypothesize and imagine and with all due respect... wrong?



Re: compatibility of science and religion [Re: AlbertoT] #206176
05/11/08 20:19
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fastlane69 Offline OP
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 Quote:
Physics are digging the essence of matter and Biology the foundation of life


True. But neither science can speak to love and hate. That is where I feel religion is necessary and reigns supreme: in the realm of human relationships.

Likewise, religion will never be able to explain why the spectra of the Sun and Alpha Centauri are different. In the realm of the body, that is where physics reigns supreme.

This will always the case as far as I can see and the point of this posting (the incompatability of science and religion)

Re: compatibility of science and religion [Re: fastlane69] #206237
05/12/08 09:33
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 Originally Posted By: fastlane69
 Quote:
Physics are digging the essence of matter and Biology the foundation of life


True. But neither science can speak to love and hate. That is where I feel religion is necessary and reigns supreme: in the realm of human relationships.


I disagree with this completely. You don't need religion to know or practice love, nor do you need religion to know hate.

It's psychology that happens on a lot of different social scales and honestly I see religion as something bad because of this... because they abuse this. Even when it comes to morals, something that usually gets mentioned when it's about whether religions are good or bad.. Really, don't talk about morals when on one hand you worship a convict (no disrespect, but for example Jesus did end up on the cross for having 'broken the law' and Mohammed wasn't exactly a nice guy either to say the least) and on the other hand those very same religions and Gods get called upon in times of (preemptive) war.

 Quote:
But neither science can speak to love and hate.


Perhaps I misunderstood what you're talking about here, but what about psychology, philosophy, various kinds of arts and so on? Also when it comes to chemistry and biology, there's a lot biology and chemistry can show about these two subjects. Don't forget there's a lot of knowledge coming from behavior-related biology (+chemistry) and psychology research.


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Re: compatibility of science and religion [Re: PHeMoX] #206241
05/12/08 10:16
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ven when it comes to morals, something that usually gets mentioned when it's about whether religions are good or bad..


But science has zero say about morals. There is nothing in science that points to the golden rule or to murder as bad. In fact, science distinguishes itself by being unswayed by morals and thus only be guided by experimental facts.

Conversely, the world's religion's have studied these topics over thousands of year. And while I am certainly NOT espousing their anthropomorphic dogma, I am saying that when it comes to human relationships, religions and spiritual philosophy's have done more "research" than science and are thus more trustworthy in matter of human relationship than science.

Our best attempt at this, psychology and sociology, merely gives us statistical inferences and broad generalizations... nothing in it conclusively points to why it just "feels" wrong to kill you or why I love my family. As further proof, I know of no individual, no family, no country, no community, no no one that uses psychology or sociology to guide them in their daily decisions or moral choices. Not even atheists use these sciences as guidance AFAIK; they just aren't usable like that yet.


 Quote:
Perhaps I misunderstood what you're talking about here, but what about psychology, philosophy, various kinds of arts and so on?


Again, when it comes to a framework in my dealings with other human beings, neither art nor philosophy nor psychology give as much insight and guidance as a religion will. Again, let me emphasize that I am NOT talking about dogma and ritual and am merely talking about the teachings of religions. Sorry for not making that clear. I should say "spiritual teaching" or some other word but religion is just so much easier IF we could only take out that "mean angry guy" in charge.

Consider Freud vs. Buddha... both spoke to the human condition... both tried to make things better. Yet based on the statistics, Buddhism is still superior to Freud or Jung or Maslow as a framework upon which people base their lives upon.

Now consider Scientology, a "sciento"-logical way of approaching belief. While I seriously doubt that it is based on good science, it still goes to show that modern man made human relationship belief systems are not mature enough to compete with ancient man made human relationship spiritual texts/beliefs.

 Quote:
Don't forget there's a lot of knowledge coming from behavior-related biology (+chemistry) and psychology research.


Absolutely there is. And undoubtedly we will have many more great discoveries and it is not my intent to diminish their accomplishments. But in spite of what science has accomplished, we are still a long way from chemically, psychologically, or behaviorally truly pinning down how to distinguish between the "love" emotion and the "hate" one. Psychology can show statistical patterns of people in love, medicine can show the physical reactions to love, and brain doctors can show the chemical reaction to love... but none of these can predict WHO a person will love... none of these sciences can ALTER who someone will love based on changing chemicals or environment. We are fundamentally blocked since science relies on the scientific method yet our morals (nothing scientific about this BTW) prevent us from experimenting on human beings to fully discover what these laws are.

Therefore our only tool (used by both psych and soc) is to observe adn record what we see of human relationships. Science has been doing this for 50 years; religion has done nothing else but focus on this subject for 2000+. Thus the scientist in me has no choice but to go with the religion in this matter since it has the larger data set until such time as psychology and/or sociology, for lack of a better word, "catch up" by providing a complete substitute to what these spiritual systems offer.

Re: compatibility of science and religion [Re: fastlane69] #206248
05/12/08 11:53
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 Quote:
Therefore our only tool (used by both psych and soc) is to observe adn record what we see of human relationships. Science has been doing this for 50 years; religion has done nothing else but focus on this subject for 2000+. Thus the scientist in me has no choice but to go with the religion in this matter since it has the larger data set until such time as psychology and/or sociology, for lack of a better word, "catch up" by providing a complete substitute to what these spiritual systems offer.


I understand, however explaining the observed through science is one thing, competing with it through science is an entirely different thing. I think I see where you are going in general with this though, science is not a religion and as such it can't ever compete with religion.

 Quote:
Science has been doing this for 50 years; religion has done nothing else but focus on this subject for 2000+


True and I don't deny that, quite the contrary. It's one of the reasons why I think it's obvious that religions (but mostly the bible-like scriptures that are being worshiped) usually are constructed around a very clever system of social psychology.

From the famous 'God works in mysterious ways' to the countless amount of times the Bible explicitly 'warns' you for things.

It's all pointing in one direction and surprisingly it's not (meant) 'to convince' people, but rather to trap them into believing something out of mostly fear. From a psychological point of view it's not surprising that people tend to believe in the Bible, but in reality a lot of it doesn't really make sense. I think that explaining that would require a new thread though.

 Quote:
But science has zero say about morals. There is nothing in science that points to the golden rule or to murder as bad. In fact, science distinguishes itself by being unswayed by morals and thus only be guided by experimental facts.


Actually, the social sciences do say a lot of things about 'morals', however it's pretty complicated as they are simply a result of social behavior and arbitrary (socially orientated) human laws. Again, you are right in that these sciences usually describe what they observe, but there are also quite some (more philosophy / theory-orientated) theories about the 'how' and 'why'.

For example, it is believed that a group of people that have clear morals and (as result) laws is better able to organize themselves, which ultimately leads to better being able to survive basically. Social studies can not really do a lot of research without observation and a lot of it has to do with interpretations of data whilst following certain kinds of logic.

 Quote:
Our best attempt at this, psychology and sociology, merely gives us statistical inferences and broad generalizations... nothing in it conclusively points to why it just "feels" wrong to kill you or why I love my family.


Actually neither does religion. For example in Christianity, the Bible tells stories in which something happens (people die or get killed for example) and although we can derive that indeed those things feel 'wrong' morally, it's only just a description that's good enough to explain the emotion/morality.

 Quote:
As further proof, I know of no individual, no family, no country, no community, no no one that uses psychology or sociology to guide them in their
daily decisions or moral choices.


Religion doesn't either, how else is it possible for religious people to murder, hate and so on when it comes to guidance in their life? You could argue that those people weren't strict in following the guidance, but basically all it proves is that we are really (only?) humans and that (big?) parts of everything that happens on a social level is not just neutral or good, but also evil and sometimes people do stupid or wrong things for seemingly no reason. Social circumstances are incredibly important for certain kinds of behavior, and to be honest with you I don't think we really have gotten to the bottom of how all this works, both on a biological/chemical level, but also social scientific level.

It doesn't make religion a better alternative though. Think for example of people with a huge trauma or war PST that go havoc at a certain time. Religion would probably describe them as 'being possessed by the devil' and their solution might be exorcism, which in it's essence is nothing more but the same psychology applied under a different name. (There are no 'evil spirits' actually leaving the minds of people, instead they get into a certain kind of psychological trance, receive a shtload of suggestions (think hypnotism) and yes this can make insane people 'better', at least temporarily.)

 Quote:
Not even atheists use these sciences as guidance AFAIK; they just aren't usable like that yet.


It's really questionable whether anyone really uses anything as guidance except their own free will. I'm pretty confident there are basic (or universal) but very abstract psychological subconscious 'ideas' that drive a lot of our actions. Circumstances matter a lot, personal preferences matter a lot, learned behavior is important, however the deeper morality for which we really don't need a book like the Bible to figure them out must be something we simply share because it's our human nature. The Bible does accurately describe our 'humanity' so to speak, but what else would you expect? Other books can be equally as impressive when it comes to morality and humanity.

 Quote:
Consider Freud vs. Buddha... both spoke to the human condition... both tried to make things better. Yet based on the statistics, Buddhism is still superior to Freud or Jung or Maslow as a framework upon which people base their lives upon.


I would say that we can blame the lack of (more) active preachers for Freud here and the typical philosophical nature of his ideas (as in he didn't have the intention to control a mass of people with his ideas).

Also I'm not entirely sure, but I think Freud never promised eternal life or the happy thought of reincarnation. ;\) If something isn't 'mainstream' enough, it will never be able to compete with something that grew as big as Buddhism. Does this mean those 'niche' ideas aren't mature enough? I don't think so. It just shows that Buddhism is more successful in it's psychological approach towards masses of people. I have to note here that some of the Freudian teachings have been quite successfully 'abused' in feminism and Marxism in the past.

In the end though, consider the difference between asking for support for an idea in a somewhat blunt and complicated way, versus sending someone a letter with flowers and countless 'pretty please' kind of phrases, together with a big promise if you follow a certain kind of belief. That's about the difference between Freud and Buddhism I think.

 Quote:

Now consider Scientology, a "sciento"-logical way of approaching belief. While I seriously doubt that it is based on good science, it still goes to show that modern man made human relationship belief systems are not mature enough to compete with ancient man made human relationship spiritual texts/beliefs.


Scientology is an excellent example of how a pseudo-science religion leans too much on intimidation to ever become mainstream. It's pretty successful nonetheless. Scientology definitely shares the same kind of psychology to convince (or mind-trap) people. A lot of it is based on incredibly simple human psychology that gets abused... The fact that it's packaged in something much more modern than the Bible is pretty irrelevant.

 Quote:
Psychology can show statistical patterns of people in love, medicine can show the physical reactions to love, and brain doctors can show the chemical reaction to love... but none of these can predict WHO a person will love... none of these sciences can ALTER who someone will love based on changing chemicals or environment.


There are a couple of philosophers that pretty much doubt / question how real these psychological phenomenon are, as they are purely a reaction towards circumstances. So... how could we ever predict who will love whom when we don't know the future situations people will get into? There are way too much unknowns, I personally believe it is possible to some extent to predict characteristics of the people you 'could fall in love with', but to be honest it's difficult just the same.

Apart from that, is love really as real as we think? In other words how can you know for sure whether or not the one person you 'love' now is really the one you would love the most? Quite frankly you can't, as you might walk into a much more 'lovable' person the next day. It's the nature of our relativistic existence and personally I think the concept of 'love' itself is no different. We probably are much more like animals than we tend to think in this respect.

It doesn't mean people can't be happy and in love for years and years, it does mean it's a very complex social thing, but at the same time also a very simple biological one. In this context also think of Freud his ideas of the ego and the id. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ego_and_the_Id )

 Quote:
We are fundamentally blocked since science relies on the scientific method yet our morals (nothing scientific about this BTW) prevent us from experimenting on human beings to fully discover what these laws are.


That's probably for the best, but yeah, there are limits indeed.


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Re: compatibility of science and religion [Re: PHeMoX] #206301
05/12/08 20:29
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Here is as simple as it can be explained. If there is no god , and we are evolved bacteria, there is no one to answer to for murdering people , other than other people , but i dont believe any man is worth more than me , I am as equal as every other human on this planet (we are all bacteria right) , what reason is there to not do what we all want ? Yet , we have a TON of laws and restrictions which we must live by , are you saying Phemox you are obidient to other more dominant and powerfull men's orders ? Is that why you follow the laws appointed ? Because you are dominated by other men ? I follow the laws I believe were set by God , and not anything set by man , as I am equal to any other man on earth and will never bow my head or obey another man , you would have to cut off my testicles before this happens (they're not there for nothing you know).

So think about what all this means to you , if there is no god , there is no reason to not steal kill and rape , it would in fact mean , that we should actually be steaking killing and raping people , since our sole purpose is our survival and every human on earth is a worthless bacteria. This is the perspective evolution teaches , it is in fact now obvious why the people ruling the world have no believe in god , and are all athiests and evolutionists , you would have to be to do the things they do . You must have no morals to enslave the world , and trick young humans into fighting for "their" country , to be used as mercenaries , and expendable assets.

The Bible clearly states all that is happening was going to happen , and it states God will come , and destroy the system , save his people , and abolish the rule of satan. We are close to the end , you all will get to see it, there is no doubt there is little time left , just look at the atrocity we call our governments.

So Phemox , you can choose to obey other men , I choose to obey God , for I fear no man , they are just flesh and blood as am I.

Re: compatibility of science and religion [Re: PHeMoX] #206308
05/12/08 21:30
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Quote:
It's one of the reasons why I think it's obvious that religions (but mostly the bible-like scriptures that are being worshiped) usually are constructed around a very clever system of social psychology.


I really liked this line so I wanted to start with it. "A clever system of social psychology"... I've never heard religions described that way but it does summarize my feelings exactly! Consider that unlike science and my earlier point about non-experimentation, religion HAS experimented on humans for all those thousands of years and thus their results.

Quote:
science is not a religion and as such it can't ever compete with religion


Equally important is the flip side: religion is not science and is such is not equipped to comment on what science saysing (trying to avoid competition here so it's not a "them vs. us" argument but a "Can't we all just get along?" arguement)

Quote:
but rather to trap them into believing something out of mostly fear.


I think some disambiguation is in order. AFAIK, all religions have some version of "hell". It could be the physical hell of the Christians or the karmic hell of the Hindi. But I believe modern theological scholors take these "hells" to represent the bad consequences of not following morals. Yes, there is fearmongering from the pulpits, but the core understanding is merely to reinforce that there is good and if you do it good things happen and there is bad and if you do that, bad things happen.

Remember that people respond better to simple ideas put in simple terms. Thus talking about how "Hell" is an analogy for the human condition and reflects more a law of Karma than a Disney-esque journey into the underworld would get lost! However you say "Do bad or you'll go to hell". Very tidy. Very compact. Very effective. Can't blame these "clever social psychologist" (CSP) for taking that approach.

Quote:
Actually, the social sciences do say a lot of things about 'morals', however it's pretty complicated as they are simply a result of social behavior and arbitrary (socially orientated) human laws.


True. But as many of our previous discussion painfully prove, knowing something is not the same as being to explain it. Thus refining my earlier point, I can say that the CSP's have found a much more efficient and effective way of transferring these lessons. Thus if the sciences do have these lesson (IF... I'm too ignorant on these science to conclusively say they have moral thought mappped our or not), they are still a long way from effectively teaching it to the masses.

Quote:
Social studies can not really do a lot of research without observation and a lot of it has to do with interpretations of data whilst following certain kinds of logic.


It's the difficulty of experimentation that makes the social sciences such a hard science to accept as a scientist. I know they do experiments within the bounds of human decency (and sometimes beyond) and they follow the scientific method but it's going to be slow going.

HOWEVER, the bright side to this discussion is MMOGs! Huh? What? Check it: the main problem we have had is the inability to experiment with human society because the only society we have had up until now is the physical one. However today, we have another choice: virtual societies. And there, we can go wild. I've gone HOARSE telling my sociology and psychology friends that MMOGs/Virtual Worlds are the tool that they have been looking at but they have been really slow to adopt. Can't blame them really... all the sciences are basically ignorant of the potential boon MMOGs are as social laboratories. They'll catch on however and then, yes then, we can re-evaluate how these sciences stack up to religion!

Quote:
Actually neither does religion.


I believe in Karma. This guides me not because of a fear of hell (as I did in my Christian days) but because of my natural predisposition towards balance and equilibrium. This is also why I believe in the Tao.

What does the physicist in me say about this? He comments, he snickers sometimes, but he knows his place. Nothing in my Physics education was aimed at teaching me morals. Everything in my religious upbringing was. The one way in which science DID help is in making me question why I should believe christianity over buddhism, or judaism, or hindi, or anything! That objectivity lead me down a spiritual path that lead me to karma and the way. Not science... science only showed that there are moral options in what I choose to believe... it did not comment on what those options where or which is the best.

Quote:
to be honest with you I don't think we really have gotten to the bottom of how all this works, both on a biological/chemical level, but also social scientific level.


That's my fundamental point: as religions provide better answers for these topics NOW, it behooves us to pay attention to them. NOT to the exclusion or dismissal of science, but rather as a vary valuable set of data points on what billions of former humans believe was the right way to live. Not truth. Not immutable. Merely the best data we have right now!

Quote:
Religion would probably describe them as 'being possessed by the devil' and their solu


In the interests of objectivity, it seems that you are exclusively focused on JudeoChristianity... and a conservative sect at that. My father goes to Church almost every day, I kid you not. He visits the pope and is as devout as can be. He is also a nephrologist and a good one and everyone loves him in the hospital. If someone came in with Kidney problems, his first thought is not "the devil has got you" or "what sin have you committed" but "dialysis or transplant".

So I just want to clear up that your comment applies to the smallest, smallest minority of mainstream religious practice.

Quote:
t's really questionable whether anyone really uses anything as guidance except their own free will.


That is a great sociological question. I think we see plenty of evidence everyday that given a religious duty (Church on Sunday) and a personal one (NFL on Sunday), a lot of very devout people will choose the NFL over church. They "know" they might go to hell for it, but don't care.

This is why I follow religio-spiritual teaching that emphasize free will above all else. In the case of Karma, I am free to do bad... I just have to be aware of the consequences or fix that bad down the line. With the Tao, it is a realization that once you are on the right way, you can do no bad by merely being yourself. Free will.


Quote:
I would say that we can blame the lack of (more) active preachers for Freud here and the typical philosophical nature of his ideas (as in he didn't have the intention to control a mass of people with his ideas).


Buddhism has no central leadership. There is no Buddhist Pope and there are no tithes to pay. Thus if Buddhism is about "control", who's doing the controlling? Again I think that you are focusing on a certain set of religions.

But back to teh above, Frued had several comments about society which may not be taken as a desire to "control" it, but I argue that he did try his best to get his world view to be teh accepted one... and it worked for a while!

"I have found little that is "good" about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think. "

"Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock. "

"The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization."

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n the end though, consider the difference between asking for support for an idea in a somewhat blunt and complicated way, versus sending someone a letter with flowers and countless 'pretty please' kind of phrases,


If it's in my realm of study and porported understanding, I will choose complicated every day. But if it is in a subject that I know very little about, I will choose flowers.

Consider my current round of funding. I'm going to raise 1 million dollars at least selling the promise of my educational world. Now, I ask you Phemox what the better approach is: do I ask for support in a blunt and complicated manner, speaking their economic language mind you, or do I send in a one page description of what I intend to do? As I present myself for the first time, which is the better approach and why?

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There are way too much unknowns, I personally believe it is possible to some extent to predict characteristics of the people you 'could fall in love with', but to be honest it's difficult just the same


Exaclty. And by the time you have finished describing exactly what we DON"T know, I could have said "Love you neighbor" and it would resonate as "true" with most people instantly. Again, it's not about the a complete inability of these sciences to comment on these topics, it's the inability of these sciences to proceed forward in any direction they want (due to the before mentioned problems with experiments) that makes these sciences rely on almost observation alone for the time being and this is what religion has been doing for 3000 years!

This is why social experimentation in virtual worlds is so critical for understanding modern society.


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Apart from that, is love really as real as we think?


LOL that's the kind of comment I expect from Why_do! But I know what you mean: is it in the "soul" or is it just chemicals?

As I scientist I say "I don't know"...
...but as a human I say "I don't care"... I know what love is TO ME and what it is to a few others... I don't really concern myself with trying to know what love is for everyone! I'm not Barry Manalow or Tina Turner after all!

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Kompaktes W�rterbuch des UnendlichenCompact Dictionary of the Infinite


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