I'm not religious whatsoever and I think Richard Dawkins is a troll. Just because you're a scientist doesn't mean you must rule out the vastness of unobservable phenomena. Anyone with me?

File: 132 KB, 500x333, Dawkins.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:37:14 2011 No.3398021 [Reply] [Original]

I'm not religious whatsoever and I think Richard Dawkins is a troll.

Just because you're a scientist doesn't mean you must rule out the vastness of unobservable phenomena.

Anyone with me?

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:38:14 2011 No.3398025 Anything that can't be observed doesn't exist

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:40:14 2011 No.3398030 >>3398025 Not necessarily true but... Fine, let me correct myself by saying "All things that do not fit within the paradigm of modern science"

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:40:14 2011 No.3398032

The fact that there are indeed vast amounts of things we have not and cannot yet observe, is no justification for making grand metaphysical claims about creator gods and such.

There is currently no reason to believe in such things. But it's true that we don't have the knowledge that such a thing does not somehow exist somewhere in all of existence, which is why someone who has thought this out well would call themselves an agnostic atheist, as opposed to a gnostic atheist or a pure agnostic.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:41:14 2011 No.3398038 >>3398030 What are these things, and what paradigm do you think they fit into?

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:41:14 2011 No.3398039 >>3398025 So your imagination doesnt exist. >Cool story bro

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:42:14 2011 No.3398041 >>3398025 i can't observe your penis from here and i never will.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:43:14 2011 No.3398043 >>3398032 I lie where you're going but we must be aware of the fact that there is plenty of Observable phenomena we cannot yet call fact.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:45:14 2011 No.3398051

>>3398038

Well at the risk of having a discussion on consciousness alone I might mention the phenomena of consciousness itself. Something inherent to our every being and we still struggle to explain it's origin withing the paradigm of material science.

And Fail.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:47:14 2011 No.3398054 >>3398021 Richard Dawkins is a True Believer [tm]. And no, reasonable scientists don't think utter shit like this guy: >>3398025

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:50:14 2011 No.3398057 I'm not gay whatsoever but I think OP is a faggot. Just because you're stupid doesn't mean you must post on /sci/. Anyone with me?

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:50:14 2011 No.3398058 >The fact that there are indeed vast amounts of things we have not and cannot yet observe, is no justification for making grand metaphysical claims about creator gods and such. this now fuck off /end of thread

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:51:14 2011 No.3398060

>>3398051

What do you mean by "consciousness", exactly. It's always important to establish that.

Sounds like you're referring to reflexive self awareness, here.

And no, it's not really unexplainable in material terms. We've got big complicated brains that are capable of a lot more than most creatures.

If you're referring to the problem of how subjective experience cannot be observed by an outside, well, observer of another individual, subjective experience is quite dependent upon physical phenomena in order to occur, so there's no reason to assume some mental substance separate from everything else.

No sense organs, no corresponding experience. No data for those organs to receive, no experience. Conscious experience may not be a physical phenomena but it is conditionally linked to the physical and this should not be ignored.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:51:14 2011 No.3398063 >>3398054 Richard Dawkins is a halfwit. He's narrow minded and thus will never perceive the whole picture. He wastes his time arguing with derps like Ray Comfort whereas a philosopher would scarcely waste his time.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:52:14 2011 No.3398065 >>3398039 >>3398041 Butt mad philosofags

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:54:14 2011 No.3398074

In the end, who the fuck cares? The question cannot be conclusively answered at this time. Either suggest a way forward to a state where we can conclusively answer the question or stop trying to shove your opinion about what the answer will be down our throats. Dawkins is different from the Christians who patrol the streets and try to guilt you into taking pamphlets only in the specifics of his conclusion-not in the intensity of self-righteousness behind it.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:55:14 2011 No.3398076 >>3398039 My "imagination" is not tangible. It has not properties, cannot be observed, proven real, or measured. The chemical processes occurring throughout my brain to process images are real though. >>3398041 You mom observed it last night

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:55:14 2011 No.3398080 >>3398060 sigh No. Just... no.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:55:14 2011 No.3398081

>>3398060

By consciousness I am referring to the state of being aware on any level. We can argue that a rock has no awareness whereas a plant is at least aware of the position of the sun. It's sense organs are minimal but it senses.

Nevertheless, science is at a loss as to the causation of phenomena such as experience. How does mind appear from matter? One might ask. To this there is no answer.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:58:14 2011 No.3398095

>>3398076
>My "imagination" is not tangible. It has not properties, cannot be observed, proven real, or measured.
>The chemical processes occurring throughout my brain to process images are real though.

Other way around. What is real is what is experienced. The chemical processes are models, not reality

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:59:14 2011 No.3398101 >>3398076 chemical processes dont simulate flight.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:59:14 2011 No.3398106 >>3398074 Fuck materialists and fuck Christ fags, they are two side of a bullshit coin. The truth lies elsewhere.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 19:59:14 2011 No.3398104

When we only have access to preoperational awareness, then the Kosmos appears as magical. When we have access to concrete operational awareness, then the Kosmos appears as mythical. When we have access to formal operational, the Kosmos appears rational-scientific (and it can, as a secondary issue, then be reduced to the flatland cosmos; this flatland then makes the previous magic and mythic structures look all that more appealing, a fact exploited by the Romantics.)

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:00:14 2011 No.3398108 >>3398095 >Other way around Re read that a few times and try again

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:01:14 2011 No.3398111 >>3398104 So what you're saying is reality is dependent upon our perception?

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:03:14 2011 No.3398117 >>3398021 The only people that claim such things are those who have only seen his media portrayal and never read his books.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:03:14 2011 No.3398118

>>3398108
Did it. Ended up the same. What are you suggesting?

>>3398111
Interpretation of reality certainly seems to be dependent upon the perspective one perceives reality with. Wilber is making a bit of a mistake, though, arranging those modes of thought in hierarchies.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:04:14 2011 No.3398123 >>3398117 I've read the table of contents of his book and it was retarded. Didn't care to waste my time. Thanks. No offense, really.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:04:14 2011 No.3398124 >>3398081 It's a similar animal to the question of the origin of life, and like that, we have information and ideas even though we don't have solid answers. It's far from some magical mystery.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:06:14 2011 No.3398132 >>3398080 Fuck you I'll do what I want.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:09:14 2011 No.3398135 >>3398132 You are welcome to be wrong. You're very good at it, I wouldn't want to quash a talent like that.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:14:14 2011 No.3398153 This thread started herpin the derp really fast 5/10 troll You've got the idiots and pseudo intellectuals into another "OMG CONSCIOUSNESS DOESN'T EXIST. AM I REAL?" debate

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:15:14 2011 No.3398155

>>3398111

what he is trying to say is that people like Dawkins don't understand that religious beliefs are just a product of a certain stage of human development that all humans go through.

So the solution is not to try and purge or rebuke religion, the solution is to promote higher levels of development.

Try all you wan't, people at the mythic stage of development will never accept your rationality, ever.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:19:14 2011 No.3398171
File: 22 KB, 500x400, PANTS-ON-HEAD-RETARDED.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

Imagine a scale.

On the right side of the scale is placed lack of physical evidence against the existence of God

On the left side of the scale is placed lack of physical evidence for the existence of God

Add to the left side of the scale a tiny weight ... eyewitness accounts for the existence of God

I win.

In before eyewitness accounts are irrelevant. In this case they are fully relevant because no physical evidence for or against God exist eyewitness testimony tips the balance in my favor regardless of how little weight we apply to them.

I find atheists to be pants on head retarded.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:21:14 2011 No.3398175 >>3398155 Of course, Wilber goes beyond what /sci/ would consider the most developed mental state into something that would prolly be considered woo. And in any case, the rational-scientific is less developed than the mythic.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:25:14 2011 No.3398193 >>3398135 Let me guess, you're one of those dualists we've had poking around here lately? I second that welcome.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:25:14 2011 No.3398198 >>3398175 What does that even mean?

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:26:14 2011 No.3398200 Have you ever heard of Tao? The world kinda functions like that, especially in terms of people.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:28:14 2011 No.3398211
File: 3 KB, 200x32, 50256_112090285471077_9255_n[1].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>3398171
Well I have eyewitness accounts that god isn't real. My family was transported into a realm of things that do not exist, and I found, fought, killed and looted god before returning to this dimension.
Pic related, it's the loot he dropped.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:28:14 2011 No.3398208 >>3398021 >unobservable phenomenon >rule out laughingwhores.jpg inb4 russels teapot

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:31:14 2011 No.3398221 >>3398211 >implying the guy you're replying to will get the joke

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:32:14 2011 No.3398225 >>3398193 Bad guess. >>3398198 That post was from Ken Wilber's work. He posits levels of mental cognition beyond (better then) the rational-scientific.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 20:47:14 2011 No.3398279 >>3398225 What you'd call positing I'd call pulling out of the ass.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 21:00:14 2011 No.3398339 >>3398225 Oh, you're a fan of Wilber. I did guess wrong, and in retrospect I understand your previous statements better. He's about of the same quality as Paul Laffoley, though better organized.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 21:06:14 2011 No.3398359

>>3398021
> Just because you're a scientist doesn't mean you must rule out the vastness of unobservable phenomena.
> science: rules out unobservable phenomenon in favor of naturalistic explanations.
Uh, yeah, that is in fact what being a scientist means.

>>3398030
> Just because you're a scientist doesn't mean you must rule out all things that do not fit within the paradigm of modern science
Yeah, that's still what it means. Observable things fit the paradigm of modern science. Unobservable things do not.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 21:11:14 2011 No.3398375

>>3398279
Yes, ignorance of a subject will indeed warp one's perspective.

>>3398339
I'm not particularly a fan of Wilber's. As I mentioned, I think his hierarchy is wrong, and to a great extent he is still brainwashed by the cultural perspective he's trying to get out of.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 21:12:14 2011 No.3398377 >>3398021 Fanatics rule things out. After viewing this busy thread I see he is a troll.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 21:15:14 2011 No.3398389 >>3398375 But his hierarchy places rational thought above mythic religious. You're claiming that mythic though it above rational. You're fucking kidding right?

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 21:16:14 2011 No.3398391 >>3398375 That would explain your warped perspective.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 21:23:14 2011 No.3398415 >>3398389 No, I'm not. >>3398391 Nice try.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 21:32:14 2011 No.3398446 >>3398415 Then explain why a mythic world view is greater than rational world view? Oh that's right, you can't explain it since doing so would be completely contradicting yourself.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 21:38:14 2011 No.3398466 God exists, God is the experience you get when doing psychedelics.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 21:48:14 2011 No.3398511

>>3398446
In a sense, you're right. I don't think a mythic perspective can be entirely communicated in purely rational terms. However, you are likely familiar with other ways of thinking than the purely rational, so it might not be impossible.

Wilber's "higher" states of consciousness have the character that they transcend and encompass the previous states. To transcend does not mean that they are more valuable, but that they operate in ways that the prior state does not or cannot deal with, as well including the prior state's ways.

Rational thought is relatively simple. Ideas in rational cognition are usually pretty clear cut, right or wrong, one thing or the other, and it's generally objective with regard to individuals. Mythic thought is comparatively complex. Ideas are mostly right or mostly wrong, or both at the same time. Things can be what they appear, symbols, ciphers or hieroglyphs. And it's very much a fluid state of reality with regard to the individual. However, while rational cognition generally doesn't have much of a place for the mythic, the mythic cognition does include the rational within it. And on the developmental scale, you can teach an adolescent science, but myth is rarely understandable until much later (such as the forties, as Kabbalah would suggest).

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 21:52:14 2011 No.3398528 >>3398021 no go away

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 21:53:14 2011 No.3398531 >>3398517 If he was right, and in a sense he is, then it's actually in support of my point. A more sophisticated system generally cannot be expressed in terms of a less sophisticated system. That's not a surprise, nor a refutation.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 21:55:14 2011 No.3398541

Dawkins is a tenth the troll his apologist equivalents are.

And he's hardly being rude. Nobody would have a problem with pointing out that communism is a bad way to run society, or that the Odyssey is not a historical text, or that pixies and sprites do not exist, or that classical physics is not the most accurate we have. He lives his advice, that we should not put religious claims on a pedestal, to be shielded from criticism. And like telling a friend who has been crashing on your couch for the last three months to move out, withdrawing your previously saintly levels of patience is not the same as being out and out rude.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 22:02:14 2011 No.3398563

>>3398541
Interesting examples you chose.
>Nobody would have a problem with pointing out that communism is a bad way to run society
Actually this is a very contentious claim (less so with the death of /new/).
>or that the Odyssey is not a historical text
Eh, if the Iliad got Troy right, why so quick to dismiss the Odyssey?
>or that pixies and sprites do not exist
Now that's just silly. Of course they exist.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 22:03:14 2011 No.3398566 File: 22 KB, 544x400, 1303343550504.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] /sci/- Religion & Philosophy

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 22:05:14 2011 No.3398570 >>3398563 The examples were apt. The point is that discussion is possible with these things. Instead of pixies I probably should have said alien visitation or bigfoot/yeti, just to keep to non-supernatural examples.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 22:06:14 2011 No.3398574
File: 3 KB, 126x95, ghagadfg.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

I just started reading The God Delusion about a week ago and i can tell OP and other people in this thread have no idea of what Dawkins actually think

You're probably just judging him off of your youtube videos where he's at conventions just answering broad questions with frank and knowledgeable answers.

Read a fucking book or even an article of his and then you'll understand where he's coming from.

The fucking ignorance of 4chan.

8/10

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 22:07:14 2011 No.3398575 >>3398570 Oh, I see now. My bad.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 22:09:14 2011 No.3398579

>>3398574

Really? I thought just the opposite. The God Delusion was embarrassingly emotional, and I had the strong impression that Dawkins was just as bad as the people he claimed to be opposing.

But after watching a few debates and discussions with actual apologists, I could see that he is ten times the gentleman that they were.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 22:09:14 2011 No.3398582

>>3398511

If you are really familiar with Wilber's work then you would understand that a pure mythic perspective does not have room for rationality period.

"If you don't believe that Allah or God is the one or true savior, then you're an infidel who should be purged and burned for disobeying gods truths."
That is a true mythical and magic world view where rationality is simply doesn't exist at that stage.

However what you're describing is what Wilber would call the "trans-rational" perspective or world view, which is very different from mythic and magic.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 22:10:14 2011 No.3398589 >>3398566 yea well I'm pretty sure a /phi board was the most requested but moot never made one so yea /sci will take the brunt of philosophical discourse because /b is retarded.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 22:12:14 2011 No.3398599

>>3398579

Well he's undoubtedly a gentleman, but i find in some of his videos he can be a bit harsh. Not that he's trying to, it's just that the answer isn't meant to be sugar-coated.

where as in his books he always makes a statement before his big schpeels about not trying to be personal when saying his beliefs regarding certain religions.

Simply put, if you're(in a general sense) offended by Dawkins then you're probably just ignorant and butthurt.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 22:14:14 2011 No.3398603 >>3398021 /sci/ is for science discussion. Stop it with the religion or philosophy crap. Posts like these should be immediate bans.

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 22:17:14 2011 No.3398614
File: 24 KB, 695x567, 1287902471861.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>implying the universe doesnt have a set amount of anti matter and matter that makes it so that its total energy is zero
>implying that doesnt mean, through quantum fluctuations and infinite time it wasnt inevitable for our universe to be created
>implying there wasnt enough matter created for it to be statistically likely for life to form
>implying the theory of the big bang, isnt well supported
>implying we arent just the product of above phenomena looking for an easy answer in religion

checkmate theist fags

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 22:21:14 2011 No.3398628

>>3398582
I am familiar enough with his work to know that the way he casts the mythic perspective is as you say. However my disagreement with his hierarchical placement stems from a disagreement as what the character of the mythic/magic perspective really is.

>"If you don't believe that Allah or God is the one or true savior, then you're an infidel who should be purged and burned for disobeying gods truths."
>That is a true mythical and magic world view where rationality is simply doesn't exist at that stage.

The problem being that that is not at all the kind of cognition that yields a proper mythical/magical worldview. The fundamentalism described above is a severe regression, not capable of either mythic insights nor rational ones, following solely authoritarian emotional responses. As I mentioned, I think Wilber is still in the grip of the cultural mindset he's trying to escape, and thus he assumes that the mythic perspective must be less sophisticated than the contemporary popular authoritarian and rational modes, simply because it came historically before. But that is part of the modern myth, that we have a more advanced consciousness than the "barbarians". He seems to have bought into this wholeheartedly, however I am quite unconvinced. Having investigated the mythical and magical perspective (or a fraction of them), I find his characterization to be plain wrong.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 22:37:16 2011 No.3398678 >>3398171 That's ridiculous All those eye witness accounts are anecdotal evidence and can't be proven I saw a giant flying black penis yesterday Does my eye witness account now mean flying nigger dicks exist until proven otherwise?

Anonymous Fri Jul 15 23:28:14 2011 No.3398944

>>3398628

Absolutely, i get the intention what you're saying and the point i did a poor job of trying to explain, was that Wilber clearly points out that the different states and stages are inherently interlinked.

At higher stages you can still acknowledge and embrace the lower stages, through the perspective of whatever that higher stage you're on is. That is ultimately as some mystics would say "the supreme path".

Dissociating and trying to "purge" the lower stages as in the example of Dawkins, does no good. That path stunts growth by leading to pathologies and so on.

My problem with your original statement was that it had a tone of trying to rebuke and purge rationality, which i like Wilber, i find inherently problematic.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 15 23:57:14 2011 No.3399091 A genuine philosophical discussion in a /sci/ thread? wow i never thought i'd live to see this day.

Anonymous Sat Jul 16 00:03:14 2011 No.3399115

>>3398614
> >implying the universe doesnt have a set amount of anti matter and matter that makes it so that its total energy is zero
What the FUCK are you smoking. First off, we've never observed free antimatter in the universe on an even meteor sized mass-scale, let alone sun or black hole.

As for "total energy is zero", NIGGA, ANTIMATTER IS MADE UP OF REAL ENERGY. LIGHT IS IT'S OWN ANTIPARTICLE

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 16 00:11:14 2011 No.3399153 >>3398614 on the internet, infinity*r=r is this really the most coherent theory that atheists have come up with? I'm seriously asking, since this has nothing to do with science so I'm not expected to know it

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 16 00:17:14 2011 No.3399183 >religious people have TV shows dedicated to preaching about people going to hell >oh how lovely! >some British guy complains about religious people in some books >OH WHAT A TROLL FUCK OFF YOU'RE SO INTOLERANT YOU'RE JUST A SAD MAN

Advanced search
Text to find
Subject [?]Search by post subject. Leave empty for any.
Username [?]Search for user name. Leave empty for any user name.
Tripcode [?]Search for tripcode. Leave empty for any.
Email [?]Search by email. Leave empty for any.
Filename [?]Search by image filename. Leave empty for any.
From Date [?]Enter what date to start searching from. Format is YYYY-MM-DD
To Date [?]Enter what date to start searching until. Format is YYYY-MM-DD
Image hash
Search in	All Posts OPs Only
Deleted posts	Show all posts Show only deleted posts Only show non-deleted posts
Internal posts	Show all posts Show only internal posts Show only archived posts
Order	New posts first Old posts first
Capcode	All Posts Only by Users Only by Mods Only by Admins Only by Developers
Results	Posts Threads
Action	[ Simple ]

/sci/ - Science & Math