From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Sun Apr 06 2003 - 17:47:37 BST
Hello David,
> DMB says:
> Once again, Rick has saved me lots of work. I'd only add to his objections
> here. While it may be true in the broadest and vaguest of terms that both
> "apatheia" and science involve some mental discipline, it seems obvious
that
> they have little else in common and can hardly be compared. They have
> completely different standards, practices and aims. Surrendering your will
> to God can hardly be compared to the systematic investigation of the
world.
What seems obvious to some is completely opaque to others.
> Science is trivial? Gotta give Sam points for orginality on that one.
Never
> heard that one before.
Not original to me. "I may find scientific questions interesting, but they
never really grip me. Only conceptual and aesthetic questions do that. At
bottom I am indifferent to the solution of scientific problems."
(Wittgenstein 1949).
My point only makes sense when it is philosophically precise, ie that
"science" is predicated on emotional distancing. Scientific work is
important when you are emotionally involved in the outcome, eg finding a
cure for cancer, but the assessment of that scientific work as non-trivial
is not a scientific assessment - it is a value judgement, ie you are not
emotionally distanced. As such it seems more like technology - I have this
problem and I am now going to solve it, which you can only do by caring
about the outcome (as described by Pirsig in Zen). To my way of
understanding it is effectively a tautology, flowing from a proper
understanding of the terms, that science is trivial - it has to be in order
to be science. Perhaps 'trivial' is needlessly provocative - 'emotionally
neutral' is what I mean.
> I disagree and think science is awesome, exciting and
> profoundly important.
Science is a tool. I think there are people who use that tool to do awesome,
exciting and profoundly important things, but that is because they are human
beings bringing their human qualities to the situation, engaging with issues
that matter (and some that don't). The assessment of what matters and what
doesn't matter is not a scientific assessment. That's why I think science
_per se_ is trivial. It's trivial in exactly the same way that hammer and
nails are trivial - it's useless on its own.
> And if theology were a more "far-reaching intellectual
> framework", then we would use theology to investigate philosophy, rather
> than the other way around.
Your use of the word 'we' there is a little parochial. Some people do use
theology to investigate philosophy - with interesting results. Yet I forget,
you haven't actually read any theology....
> Presposterous is exactly the right word; the back
> is where the front should be. And if that is not enough, Sam said....
>
> A good case could be made that Newton was the first fundamentalist.
>
> I think science is included within religion.
>
> It's the ideology that says such things *need* to be 'backed up' that is
in
> question.
>
> Why then were most of the 9/11 leaders people with scientific degrees?
>
> Our fundamental intellectual stance is not a matter of rational enquiry.
>
> DMB continues:
> I don't want to actually engage with any of these assertions, but they
> provoke a strange kind of morbid curiousity. Is this an April Fools Day
> joke? Is it madness? Has Sam so far over-reached that his arm will need to
> be surgically re-attached? Ouch! Was there very much blood? I only hope
he's
> well insured. :-)
We actually have engaged with elements of these assertions before. It's a
pity you don't want to engage with them further - you might learn something
;-) (so might I, of course, that's why I take part in the discussion).
Sam
"For a philosopher there is more grass growing down in the valleys of
silliness than up in the barren heights of cleverness" (Wittgenstein)
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