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Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
Q: "Who foresaw the Web 50 years ago?"
A: Vannevar Bush
It's hard to deny a transcendent element to nature and nature's laws. Why precisely can't this transcendence emerge direct from evolution, rather than positing some mystical "self-organization" X factor as an equivalent to Godhead?
Oh well, if it weren't for Glenn Greenwald I wouldn't be visiting the site. I don't need to be told what I should see in nature, if God were so self-evident. If something as exotic as relativity and quantum mechanics can be accepted so universally (at least until a better theory comes along), why can't God?
P.S. Oh no, don't even try equating Jesus with Allah or Zeus or Vishnu, or Methodist with Baptist or Mormon. At least get your God straight first.
These are nice ideas -- I especially like the phrase "God enough for me" -- but I am pretty pessimistic about the idea of using these ideas to somehow bridge the gap between adherents to a traditional understanding of God and atheists. There have been Christian and Jewish groups saying the same type of thing about God for decades (check out Bishop Spong, for an Episcopalian example), and it seems only to add another layer of contention to the issue.
I would suggest that a far more viable alternative is to stop approaching the issue with the idea that there is some imperative to find common intellectual ground about the existence and nature of God. We can work together and enjoy life together and feel awe together without needing to have the same framework for understanding the experience. It is the experience itself that matters, and the actions we take in response to that experience. I work side by side on social justice issues with people whose idea of God (or lack thereof) is totally foreign to me and feel no less fellowship for that disagreement; and I go to church with people who think about God the same way that I do, and this does nothing to guarantee that I will connect with them in any meaningful way.
So I guess my point is that the ideas are a distraction, it's the experiences that ought to be "fellowship enough" for us.
...and do YOUR part to boost Salon's sagging ratings.
You'll be glad you did!
...drivel.
Diversity is logical not divine.
When he calls this "ceaseless creativity" God, it starts to sound like the next incarnation of intelligent design creationism. I don't think this is what he intends. Scientists don't want the word "God" there, and theists don't want a God defined as other than their own. Strange coming from a self-described secular humanist. Is he perhaps starting to doubt his disbelief?
Wank in 5...4...3...2...
As the cliche goes, we are all one with everything. It's all the Big Enchilada, and we are all connected, both literally and figuratively. If you consider that we are all part of the whole, and that what happens to one of us happens to all of us -- be we human, nonhuman, or otherwise -- then you understand what "sacred" means. There is no need to believe in God, or multiple gods, or some other such unknowable and unprovable mythology, to believe that because we all all part of the universe, we must treat each other with respect and compassion.
And once again, we get the Pavlovian bell, bringing on the usual division of comment labor. A majority of condescending atheists called Kauffman's ideas infantile nonsense, a minority of spiritual folks arguing in favor of them, and too few people who can set aside their own biases long enough to actually look at what the man is saying.
Sigh. 200+ self-referential attempts to say, "Look how evolved/spiritually democratic I am!" Have at it, folks. I'm going to watch Jon Stewart.
This guy's air-headed rantings about God or Dawkins' foaming-at-the-mouth fundamentalism.
The question of consciousness is an interesting one, and this guy seems to be out of his league. Everything covered in this interview is discussed by Harold Morowitz in an article from Psychology Today in 1980 (reprinted in The Mind's I).
He doesn't mention the G word, but he does mention how many areas of physics have turned from reductionism, while the field of biology is beginning to embrace it, ala Dawkins.
Merlin Donald's A Mind So Rare. It was the best book on conciousness i've seen in quite a while. Donald weaves together a lot of threads from different sources to make a very plausible scenario. And his author photo is pretty amusing. You know he knows what he's talking about by his amazing eye brows... :)
check it out!
I got a little emotional reading it because it gave me inspiration. I'm a secular person, too. I don't think he's saying we have to bridge the gap, but just that it would be nice to have this way of thinking for people like us that want to have a way to articulate the sacred in nature and to know how our lives are connected to that and have meaning. It really inspired me to try to learn as much science as I can. Bios 101 and Chem 110 were more difficult for me than I'd like to admit, but I enjoyed the challenge and did well. I have a bunch of much scarier science classes left, but reading uplifting ideas like these motivates me even more.
In this context, doesn't epistemology mean just "arguing about the meaning of words"? How is this interesting? The part about consciousness was especially insipid. Let's see... even though reductionism has worked so far, and new tools are allowing us to understand more and more about brain function, we must accept that consciousness cannot be explained in this way, because it hasn't been done yet. And, also, quantum mechanics does not do away with causality, it includes probability with it. Now, the conjecture about quantum effects in the brain may or may not be valid, but that does not escape reductionism. See the ongoing research into quantum computing. (http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~westside/quantum-intro.html)
Let's see...what hot-button have we not pressed recently...Tomorrow, an article exploring the angst of a woman who chose to abort the un-born puppies her pit bull was carrying due to the risk caused by hip displasia. She uses this to reconnect to her daughter after falling out over remarks criticizing Sarah Palin's imperfect, flat, white butt.
The Wasilla soap opera just gets weirder as Palin complains critics are "picking apart a good point guard"
The media outlet's use of Bush euphemisms sparks a much-needed debate on journalistic standards.
And so are his Fox News pals, who lambasted Sen. Al Franken's "stolen election"
An inflexible right wing is allowing the Golden State to drown in debt. But it's not alone
Thanks for sharing, Governor. Now please take a cue from Norm Coleman, and go away
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