A Psychologist Explains why Science does not communicate with Religion or Philosophy

[mfbukowski]

A new book is out- which I have not yet read- but appears to outline the problems between science and religion better than I have ever seen simply explained for those who are not familiar with current trends in philosophy, and which I have tried to explain continually here.  I know my Rorty quotes are getting rather old, but here we have it all in another set of words from another discipline.

I am pretty certain this article will help my cause!  Science has a blindspot!

And this blindspot I believe, can be relieved by seeing religion in a Postmodern sense.   Here he also speaks of Modernism and its effects.  The time has come to get over Modernism, imo.

 

Quote

 

There are many reasons why this fragmentation emerged, but one of the most important is that science has a massive blind spot within it. The recently released book, The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience, offers a powerful critique of the idea that science can discover a “God’s Eye” view of the world by revealing the pristine, true equations that determine the way energy and matter behave irrespective of human knowing. What we actually have is a science that is blind to human experience and the place of human knowledge in the universe. As such, we need a fundamental shift in our philosophy of science to see the world more completely with us as a part of it.

 

Crucial to understanding this analysis is the fact that science achieves much of its success by factoring out the individual subject. As I detail in my book, A New Synthesis for Solving the Problem of Psychology: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap, knowledge in natural science is achieved in part by dividing the world into (1) objective qualities that can be observed and systematically quantified and then mathematically modeled; and (2) subjective qualities that are experienced by an individual. This move was tremendously powerful in orienting scientists to generate data that could be measured and analyzed, experiments that could be replicated, and mathematical analyses that allowed us to map the world with unprecedented precision.

 

However, it also gave rise to a knowledge system that factored out human experience. In essence, the method of science gave rise to the language of science that essentially denies the language of the subject. And the two were never put back together. The result is what I have called the Enlightenment Gap. The gap refers to the fact that we never were able to achieve a coherent picture of the relationship between matter and mind (i.e., the ontological aspect of the problem) or the right relation between scientific knowing and subjective and social knowing (i.e., the epistemological aspect of the problem).

 

 

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-of-knowledge/202405/there-is-a-massive-blind-spot-in-our-knowledge

Edited May 6, 2024 by mfbukowski
clarification

[CV75]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

A new book is out- which I have not yet read- but appears to outline the problems between science and religion better than I have ever seen simply explained for those who are not familiar with current trends in philosophy, and which I have tried to explain continually here.  I know my Rorty quotes are getting rather old, but here we have it all in another set of words from another discipline.

I am pretty certain this article will help my cause!  Science has a blindspot!

And this blindspot I believe, can be relieved by seeing religion in a Postmodern sense.   Here he also speaks of Modernism and its effects.  The time has come to get over Modernism, imo.

 

 

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-of-knowledge/202405/there-is-a-massive-blind-spot-in-our-knowledge

It is said* that many of the various fathers of modern science shared the personality trait of Asperger's syndrome, which in addition to endowing them with extraordinary discipline and perseveration, influenced their general approach concerning people and subjective experience, and due to their genius and success, their impressionable patrons and admirers accepted and enshrined this blind spot as an essential feature of the scientific method. As a result, such personalities continue to be drawn into the sciences and make outstanding contributions. But the blind spot needn't continue to be an essential feature of the scientific method. I think science in general is increasingly coming to  appreciate a multidisciplinary approach, though grants and funding for such may lag a century or two behind those who got an early start!

* I Googled a few examples and recall references to this in a number of books I've read.

[mfbukowski]

15 hours ago, CV75 said:

It is said* that many of the various fathers of modern science shared the personality trait of Asperger's syndrome, which in addition to endowing them with extraordinary discipline and perseveration, influenced their general approach concerning people and subjective experience, and due to their genius and success, their impressionable patrons and admirers accepted and enshrined this blind spot as an essential feature of the scientific method. As a result, such personalities continue to be drawn into the sciences and make outstanding contributions. But the blind spot needn't continue to be an essential feature of the scientific method. I think science in general is increasingly coming to  appreciate a multidisciplinary approach, though grants and funding for such may lag a century or two behind those who got an early start!

* I Googled a few examples and recall references to this in a number of books I've read.

Yep.

I have been studying secular religions of late, as I mentioned in the thread currently being discussed about the "reality" of spirits, and mentioned that those dedicated to an atheistic worship of science take on an almost religious worship to the Omnipotence of Science which gives them great comfort, apparently considering the dogmatism they display.  There is almost a reverence there.

I believe that they are the ones who lose touch with the REALITY of human experience!

I really don't want to give up "red" in favor of a discussion about wavelengths and particles. 

 

[MiserereNobis]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

I have been studying secular religions of late, as I mentioned in the thread currently being discussed about the "reality" of spirits, and mentioned that those dedicated to an atheistic worship of science take on an almost religious worship to the Omnipotence of Science which gives them great comfort, apparently considering the dogmatism they display.  There is almost a reverence there.

Paul Feyerabend's "How to Defend Society against Science": https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/mn/MNSES9100/v16/pensumliste/environmental-ethics/feyerabend-how-to-defend-society-against-science.pdf

For those who don't know, Feyerabend is a famous and influential philosopher of science. The article is short and well worth a read. It's not some anti-intellectual rant.

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

I believe that they are the ones who lose touch with the REALITY of human experience!

I really don't want to give up "red" in favor of a discussion about wavelengths and particles. 

 

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there, does it make a sound?

Nope. We can surely and rationally assume that it creates vibrations in the air, but sound requires a subject to perceive it.

In the first philosophy class I took, the professor said we can hook a brain up to machines and (theoretically) completely understand what's going on in the brain while the person eats chocolate, but that will never be the experience of eating chocolate. He then said if we licked that person's brain, we still wouldn't know their experience of eating chocolate 😂

Science explains objects. And that's great! Yay for all the knowledge it has given us and may it give us much more!

But objects are only half of the equation, or even less. Subjects are what we experience and what ultimately matters to us. When I pray and meditate, science can tell me my brain states, and I welcome that knowledge. But there's a realm science can't measure, and that's my subjective experience of it. Who's to say that science is the only measure of reality? That's scientism. That's a logical fallacy. Science doesn't prove that the only thing in the universe is matter/objects. It can't prove it. All science can look at is objects, so it's silly to say that science proves there isn't anything except for objects.

I also like to point out that scientists aren't necessarily the experts on what science is. The realm of the scientist is whatever she is studying. The realm of the philosopher of science is science.

I know you agree, Mark, I'm just adding my thoughts.

[CV75]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Yep.

I have been studying secular religions of late, as I mentioned in the thread currently being discussed about the "reality" of spirits, and mentioned that those dedicated to an atheistic worship of science take on an almost religious worship to the Omnipotence of Science which gives them great comfort, apparently considering the dogmatism they display.  There is almost a reverence there.

I believe that they are the ones who lose touch with the REALITY of human experience!

I really don't want to give up "red" in favor of a discussion about wavelengths and particles. 

 

Like the back-and-forth I just had in that thread?

[Smiley McGee]

4 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I have been studying secular religions of late, as I mentioned in the thread currently being discussed about the "reality" of spirits, and mentioned that those dedicated to an atheistic worship of science take on an almost religious worship to the Omnipotence of Science which gives them great comfort, apparently considering the dogmatism they display.  There is almost a reverence there.

Okay...show me a religion that doesn't worship their own conceptualizations of "God", and dogmatically so, and I'll agree that this is only a problem with science. Organized religion is not a pristine laboratory of human experience and experiential knowledge. It's exactly what you criticize science for being. 

[CV75]

22 minutes ago, Smiley McGee said:

Okay...show me a religion that doesn't worship their own conceptualizations of "God", and dogmatically so, and I'll agree that this is only a problem with science. Organized religion is not a pristine laboratory of human experience and experiential knowledge. It's exactly what you criticize science for being. 

I don't think he's saying it is only a problem with science, but that some individuals have this problem in their use of science. And he's not saying that the use of science is the only area where someone might have this problem.

[ZealouslyStriving]

1 hour ago, Smiley McGee said:

Okay...show me a religion that doesn't worship their own conceptualizations of "God", and dogmatically so, and I'll agree that this is only a problem with science. Organized religion is not a pristine laboratory of human experience and experiential knowledge. It's exactly what you criticize science for being. 

https://www.bahai.org/

 

[mfbukowski]

12 minutes ago, CV75 said:

I don't think he's saying it is only a problem with science, but that some individuals have this problem in their use of science. And he's not saying that the use of science is the only area where someone might have this problem.

Yes of course, you are right.

Sigh.  It's still literalism, sola scriptura, believing that it is a DESCRIPTION of God "as  He really is".   No, that's Santa Claus. 

They/ he are still looking at religion as if it is science looking for THE "correct" view of who God when it is parables and stories which are symbolic and not literal, just as science is. 😲🤔.   

What are "paradigms" if they are not theories about reality?   Kuhn took William James-and other Pragmatist's views- and ran with what he learned, and got famous for ideas which were not originally his at all!

Paradigms rule science and paradigms rule religion.   We come up with ideas and then test them.  Moroni 10:4+.

Alma 32.  James 1: 5, all tell us  to "ASK GOD" and he will teach you.

The bottom line is that in both science and religion, one takes on a paradigm- a theory- a parable- a "what-if" idea - and sees if that idea "bears fruit" as displayed by HUMAN EXPERIENCE.

 

[rodheadlee]

This reminds me of " The Songs of a Distant Earth" by Arthur C Clarke. The planet Thalassa had been settled by colonist from Earth and in the memory banks of the main computer that raised the population from DNA all mention of God, religion, war, evil etc had been erased. It left a really bland population in thought deed and the arts in my humble opinion. I couldn't imagine music without pain and suffering, sadness. No Blues. Issac Asimov liked to write God out of the future too. How sad.

Carry on.

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Yes of course, you are right.

Sigh.  It's still literalism, sola scriptura, believing that it is a DESCRIPTION of God "as  He really is".   No, that's Santa Claus. 

They/ he are still looking at religion as if it is science looking for THE "correct" view of who God when it is parables and stories which are symbolic and not literal, just as science is. 😲🤔.   

What are "paradigms" if they are not theories about reality?   Kuhn took William James-and other Pragmatist's views- and ran with what he learned, and got famous for ideas which were not originally his at all!

Paradigms rule science and paradigms rule religion.   We come up with ideas and then test them.  Moroni 10:4+.

Alma 32.  James 1: 5, all tell us  to "ASK GOD" and he will teach you.

The bottom line is that in both science and religion, one takes on a paradigm- a theory- a parable- a "what-if" idea - and sees if that idea "bears fruit" as displayed by HUMAN EXPERIENCE.

 

While I don’t think C.S. Lewis’s “Pilgrim’s Regress” was that good of a book this part stuck out to me when the protagonist John surrenders to God:

Quote

 

My dream grew darker so that I have a sense, but little clear memory of the things that John experienced both in the pool and in great catacombs, paved sometimes with water, sometimes with stone, and upon winding stairways in the live rocks whereby he and Vertue ascended through the inwards of the mountain to the land beyond Peccatum Adae. He learned many mysteries in the earth and passed through many elements, dying many deaths. One thing has come through into my waking memory. Of all the people he had met in his journey only Wisdom appeared to him in the caverns, and troubled him by saying that no man could really come where he had come and that all his adventures were but figurative, for no professed experience of these places could be anything other than mythology. But then another voice spoke to him from behind him, saying:

‘Child, if you will, it is mythology. It is but truth, not fact: an image, not the very real. But then it is My mythology. The words of Wisdom are also myth and metaphor: but since they do not know themselves for what they are, in them the hidden myth is master, where it should be servant: and it is but of man’s inventing. But this is My inventing, this is the veil under which I have chosen to appear even from the first until now. For this end I made your senses and for this end your imagination, that you might see My face and live. What would you have? Have you not heard among the Pagans the story of Semele? Or was there any age in any land when men did not know that corn and wine were the blood and body of a dying and yet living God?’

 

 

[Anonymous Mormon]

On 5/6/2024 at 2:53 PM, mfbukowski said:

offers a powerful critique of the idea that science can discover a “God’s Eye” view of the world by revealing the pristine, true equations that determine the way energy and matter behave irrespective of human knowing. What we actually have is a science that is blind to human experience and the place of human knowledge in the universe. As such, we need a fundamental shift in our philosophy of science to see the world more completely with us as a part of it.

I am not science oriented and am waaaayyy out of my league here. I am also pretty sure that this is not referring to quantum physics and my understanding of quantum physics is just about zero. 

But, if my limited understanding is correct, light can change between a particle or a wave depending on whether or not it is observed / measured.

I wonder if a similar concept would apply to other spiritual matter (and spiritual matters), that it is physically impossible to measure and quantify, because the very act of measuring it changes its state.

For those with a deeper knowledge on the subject, could something like that be the case? Is what I am speculating even possible, and if so how might it be manifest in the real world?

[Nofear]

2 hours ago, Anonymous Mormon said:

But, if my limited understanding is correct, light can change between a particle or a wave depending on whether or not it is observed / measured.

Probably thinking of the double slit experiment. If you ask light how it interferes with itself by going through a double slit and looking at the interference pattern, well, that is a wave question. But, if you ask "which slit does the photon go through" then the interference pattern is destroyed. That is:

• If, with an experiment, we "ask" light a particle question then light will give a "yes" response and and say it is a particle.
• If, with an experiment, we "ask" light a wave question, then light will give a "yes" response and say it is a wave.

Note that this isn't just true of photons but all matter. It's just that "asking" a wave question of matter is much more difficult the more rest mass it has. But, electrons, protons, neutrons all have been observed to have this wave/particle complementarity. Does that mean the objects "change" between being a particle and wave. I personally wouldn't use such language. Nature is way weirder than we humans conceptualize and our language quite probably is tripping us up.

 

 

Edited May 8, 2024 by Nofear

[Nofear]

45 minutes ago, Anonymous Mormon said:

I wonder if a similar concept would apply to other spiritual matter (and spiritual matters), that it is physically impossible to measure and quantify, because the very act of measuring it changes its state.

The measurement problem is one that vexes quantum mechanics and there are many different interpretations of it. I'm somewhat partial to a Bohmian approach but it would be a mistake to be dogmatic about it.

[the narrator]

On 5/7/2024 at 10:38 AM, mfbukowski said:

I believe that they are the ones who lose touch with the REALITY of human experience!

 

Precisely why I want to punch Neil Degrasse Tyson pretty much anytime he tweets.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, the narrator said:

Precisely why I want to punch Neil Degrasse Tyson pretty much anytime he tweets.

I'll join you.   GRRRR.

JUST KIDDING_ THIS IS NOT A PLOT!   

[ZealouslyStriving]

3 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I'll join you.   GRRRR.

JUST KIDDING_ THIS IS NOT A PLOT!   

... just a friendly combination. ☠️

[mfbukowski]

On 5/7/2024 at 11:19 AM, MiserereNobis said:

Paul Feyerabend's "How to Defend Society against Science": https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/mn/MNSES9100/v16/pensumliste/environmental-ethics/feyerabend-how-to-defend-society-against-science.pdf

For those who don't know, Feyerabend is a famous and influential philosopher of science. The article is short and well worth a read. It's not some anti-intellectual rant.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there, does it make a sound?

Nope. We can surely and rationally assume that it creates vibrations in the air, but sound requires a subject to perceive it.

In the first philosophy class I took, the professor said we can hook a brain up to machines and (theoretically) completely understand what's going on in the brain while the person eats chocolate, but that will never be the experience of eating chocolate. He then said if we licked that person's brain, we still wouldn't know their experience of eating chocolate 😂

Science explains objects. And that's great! Yay for all the knowledge it has given us and may it give us much more!

But objects are only half of the equation, or even less. Subjects are what we experience and what ultimately matters to us. When I pray and meditate, science can tell me my brain states, and I welcome that knowledge. But there's a realm science can't measure, and that's my subjective experience of it. Who's to say that science is the only measure of reality? That's scientism. That's a logical fallacy. Science doesn't prove that the only thing in the universe is matter/objects. It can't prove it. All science can look at is objects, so it's silly to say that science proves there isn't anything except for objects.

I also like to point out that scientists aren't necessarily the experts on what science is. The realm of the scientist is whatever she is studying. The realm of the philosopher of science is science.

I know you agree, Mark, I'm just adding my thoughts.

And thanks for that! And in that sense for you, I can now see how Catholics see the Eucharist AS the actual Body of Christ.   I see it otherwise but again it is the rabbit/duck thing all over again.  And so that young priest was correct in saying, imo: "It's all the same anyway".   Strip away the "Substance" stuff and I can see it clearly your way as well.  It's all in non-provable metaphysics, according to each person's judgement from the Spirit.

And here is more on YOUR theory, published now in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Phil.   You are famous! 

Quote

 

1. History of the Underlying Ideas

The Knowledge Argument became the subject of intense philosophical discussion following its canonical formulation by Frank Jackson (1982). However, there are numerous precursors of this argument in the literature. Precursors of the Knowledge Argument typically involve at least one of two strategies which are familiar from Jackson’s formulation. The first is to appeal to what Daniel Stoljar & Yujin Nagasawa term the knowledge intuition: the intuition that no amount of knowledge of the physical information or physical facts concerning certain experiences can by itself suffice for knowledge of what these experiences are like, i.e., knowledge of their qualitative character or distinctive qualia (2004, 2–3). The second is to make use of thought experiments which are similar to Jackson’s famous example of Mary. These thought-experiments typically involve a being who has complete knowledge of the physical information or physical facts concerning certain experiences, but who (it is claimed) lacks knowledge of what those experiences are like.

As examples of the knowledge intuition, Stoljar & Nagasawa cite passages by Bertrand Russell (1998, 13–14) and by J.W. Dunne (1929). As Dunne puts it, quoting James Ward, physical descriptions cannot entail knowledge of what it is that “you immediately experience when you look at a field poppy” (1929, 5). Around the same time as Dunne was writing, C.D. Broad (1925) used a thought-experiment as part of an argument against a mechanistic version of physicalism. Broad argues that even if the mechanistic theory of chemistry were true there still would be a property of ammonia that a mathematical archangel endowed with unlimited mathematical skills and “gifted with the further power of perceiving the microscopic structure of atoms” could not predict, namely its smell:...

 

.... and so it continues....

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/

AND :

 

Quote

 

‘ … Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specialises in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wave-length combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal chords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence ‘The sky is blue’. (It can hardly be denied that it is in principle possible to obtain all this physical information from black and white television, otherwise the Open University would of necessity need to use colour television.)

What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a colour television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then it is inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism is false. Clearly the same style of Knowledge argument could be deployed for taste, hearing, the bodily sensations and generally speaking for the various mental states which are said to have (as it is variously put) raw feels, phenomenal features or qualia. The conclusion in each case is that the qualia are left out of the physicalist story. And the polemical strength of the Knowledge argument is that it is so hard to deny the central claim that one can have all the physical information without having all the information there is to have. …’

 

https://www.philosopher.eu/others-writings/frank-jackson-marys-room/

Edited May 8, 2024 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

9 hours ago, Anonymous Mormon said:

I am not science oriented and am waaaayyy out of my league here. I am also pretty sure that this is not referring to quantum physics and my understanding of quantum physics is just about zero. 

But, if my limited understanding is correct, light can change between a particle or a wave depending on whether or not it is observed / measured.

I wonder if a similar concept would apply to other spiritual matter (and spiritual matters), that it is physically impossible to measure and quantify, because the very act of measuring it changes its state.

For those with a deeper knowledge on the subject, could something like that be the case? Is what I am speculating even possible, and if so how might it be manifest in the real world?

Yes, imo, you are right on the money!

[mfbukowski]

On 5/7/2024 at 2:17 PM, Smiley McGee said:

Okay...show me a religion that doesn't worship their own conceptualizations of "God", and dogmatically so, and I'll agree that this is only a problem with science. Organized religion is not a pristine laboratory of human experience and experiential knowledge. It's exactly what you criticize science for being. 

At least we agree, then that neither has all the answers. Don't know if you wanted to imply that.but you did.  And yes religion is "SUBJECTIVE" so of course yes, of course it is... subjective. NOT exactly newsworthy imo.

In other words, in both cases, religion and science their theories are out there to be confirmed by personal experience, or if we are unable to do that, (I cannot tell you about the distance to Mars based on my own personal experience) then we are stuck with the scientific consensus, the Human Pool of Alleged Facts.

If science did not "Worship" the Scientific Method, and dogmatically so, it would NOT be "science".   It's job is to be out there to be verified by further human experience. Does it work?  Are the results "sweet"? Does it cure cancer or get us to Mars?

If LDS-ism did not worship LDS theology, and dogmatically so, it would not be "LDS" alleged non-theology or scriptural interpretation.  It's job is to be out there to be verified by further human SUBJECTIVE experience, called "The Spirit".   As in Moroni 10, James 5, Alma 32. Does if give us a fuller life?  Does it bring us closer to God? Do we feel our sins are forgiven?

So what's your point?  Objective results?  Science.  Subjective results? Religion.   Got it now?   Both are about human experience, one is subjective, the other is objective.  "GOT IT?"

[CV75]

9 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

At least we agree, then that neither has all the answers. Don't know if you wanted to imply that.but you did.  And yes religion is "SUBJECTIVE" so of course yes, of course it is... subjective. NOT exactly newsworthy imo.

In other words, in both cases, religion and science their theories are out there to be confirmed by personal experience, or if we are unable to do that, (I cannot tell you about the distance to Mars based on my own personal experience) then we are stuck with the scientific consensus, the Human Pool of Alleged Facts.

If science did not "Worship" the Scientific Method, and dogmatically so, it would NOT be "science".   It's job is to be out there to be verified by further human experience. Does it work?  Are the results "sweet"? Does it cure cancer or get us to Mars?

If LDS-ism did not worship LDS theology, and dogmatically so, it would not be "LDS" alleged non-theology or scriptural interpretation.  It's job is to be out there to be verified by further human SUBJECTIVE experience, called "The Spirit".   As in Moroni 10, James 5, Alma 32. Does if give us a fuller life?  Does it bring us closer to God? Do we feel our sins are forgiven?

So what's your point?  Objective results?  Science.  Subjective results? Religion.   Got it now?   Both are about human experience, one is subjective, the other is objective.  "GOT IT?"

I think it is great that you mentioned two standards of human experience, “Human Pool of Alleged Facts” and “Spirit” because it is the agreed-upon method of verification that is objective (e.g., physical measurement, discovery) or subjective (e.g., prayer, revelation), and not the experience of verification, which is fundamentally human and therefore subjective.

What do you see as the difference between discipline and dogmatism in science and religion, and do you consider one tendency more useful than the other? Your use of the term “dogmatically” conveys to me “disciplined,” entailing a paradigm of expanding the subjective experience (such the open-mindedness to verify further) when following the principles and rules of the system (whether scientific or religious).

[Smiley McGee]

11 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

At least we agree, then that neither has all the answers. Don't know if you wanted to imply that.but you did.  And yes religion is "SUBJECTIVE" so of course yes, of course it is... subjective. NOT exactly newsworthy imo.

Yep. My comment was flippant but my intention wasn't to engage in some whataboutism of the relative merits science vs. religion. My point is that the article doesn't just accurately critique science, but also religious behavior...it's the same thing just different subject matter. While I don't think the author is attempting to be deceptive, when the article is shared on a religious message as a counter to a "science vs. religion" thread, it tends to become ammunition for people who are unaware that they engage in the same thinking and behaviors as those they are criticizing. Yes, the mental models of science a useful for certain problems and useless for others. People mistake their mental models for the world out there. These models fail to describe subjective human experience (as words tend to do). But lest participants here think this is a science problem, understand that your theology is not God, it's your idea of God. Your theology fails to describe the subjective experience of God. You demonstrate an attachment to your theology that suggests you cannot discern between your mental models and the world out there, and this blind spot frequently causes you to deny the subjective human experience of millions. Your (valid) criticisms of people twisting science into scientism is equally matched by your attempts to turn religion in to garbage science. 

Edited May 9, 2024 by Smiley McGee

[CV75]

6 hours ago, Smiley McGee said:

Yep. My comment was flippant but my intention wasn't to engage in some whataboutism of the relative merits science vs. religion. My point is that the article doesn't just accurately critique science, but also religious behavior...it's the same thing just different subject matter. While I don't think the author is attempting to be deceptive, when the article is shared on a religious message as a counter to a "science vs. religion" thread, it tends to become ammunition for people who are unaware that they engage in the same thinking and behaviors as those they are criticizing. Yes, the mental models of science a useful for certain problems and useless for others. People mistake their mental models for the world out there. These models fail to describe subjective human experience (as words tend to do). But lest participants here think this is a science problem, understand that your theology is not God, it's your idea of God. Your theology fails to describe the subjective experience of God. You demonstrate an attachment to your theology that suggests you cannot discern between your mental models and the world out there, and this blind spot frequently causes you to deny the subjective human experience of millions. Your (valid) criticisms of people twisting science into scientism is equally matched by your attempts to turn religion in to garbage science. 

I think science and religion, however one wishes to differentiate them, become garbage when one allows dogmatism to replace discipleship, especially to the point of denigration, which undermines, directly or indirectly, the stated purpose of the respective systems. Perhaps a neutral example is offered in a non-fiction book, “The Art Thief” (Michael Finkel), where a quintessential connoisseur becomes so dogmatic in his quest for the beautiful experiences art evokes for him, that he ends up destroying this vehicle of his rapture when his entrenchment in the method finally overwhelms it.

[mfbukowski]

14 hours ago, CV75 said:

What do you see as the difference between discipline and dogmatism in science and religion, and do you consider one tendency more useful than the other? Your use of the term “dogmatically” conveys to me “disciplined,” entailing a paradigm of expanding the subjective experience (such the open-mindedness to verify further) when following the principles and rules of the system (whether scientific or religious).

I think discipline - in the sense that meditation requires discipline.   You do it daily and it can change your life, but DOGMATISM locks you into one position forever and progress becomes impossible.

Edited May 10, 2024 by mfbukowski

[Teancum]

On 5/7/2024 at 7:06 PM, mfbukowski said:

Alma 32.  James 1: 5, all tell us  to "ASK GOD" and he will teach you.

Yet "god" seems to give lots teachings to humans that conflict with each other and also cause entrenched ideas that someone's "god" is telling them what is right so everyone else ought to do it and follow it.  As I have said a thousand times here, this is an unreliable method for determining truth and proper living.  If there is a god it is pretty lousy at communicating its message to the hairless apes that are currently the most intelligent species on this planet.

Edited May 12, 2024 by Teancum