His cosmology books are excellent. "The First Three Minutes" is the most famous (layman level), but "Cosmology" is superb, a terrific update to the text I used as a student back in the Bronze Age ("Gravitation and Cosmology: Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity"), though much of it is sadly over my head these days.
Proof would, of course, render faith pointless because faith is believing something for which you have no proof (although there may be significant evidence which falls short of proof). People differ in what they accept as evidence, which is partly why different people put their faith in different things. This doesn't just apply to religion/philosophy but everyday life too: politics, products, investments etc.
I have just checked my 'physics' bookcase, and found that I have Weinberg's 'Gravitation and Cosmology' but nothing by him on particles. It was 35 years ago when I was buying this sort of book so my memory has proved as reliable as usual! There was a time when I (almost) understood this stuff.
I know the feeling. My first published paper, written by my supervisor but presenting my work on quantum gravity, is now completely opaque to me. By now it might even be opaque to him too, because some years later he moved from physics into computer science. Strangely, it still occasionally gets referenced.
In the last couple of days I've been looking at a piece of code I wrote earlier this year for decoding IR remote commands and wishing I had documented it a bit better. Right off I can't understand how it works.
When you're focussed on a subject you can work yourself into a place that you can't necessarily get back to immediately.
People speak to me and sometimes they have to wait for me to come back before I can give a reply.
I'm lucky that I feel safe enough to enter that state, when I was homeless and living on the street you couldn't get close enough to put a hand on me even when I was asleep.
Variety, they say, is the spice of life.
w
Oh, it's got nothing to do with OLD.
...also
When you're focussed on a subject you can work yourself into a place that you can't necessarily get back to immediately.
People speak to me and sometimes they have to wait for me to come back before I can give a reply.
I'm lucky that I feel safe enough to enter that state, when I was homeless and living on the street you couldn't get close enough to put a hand on me even when I was asleep.
Variety, they say, is the spice of life.
w
Oh, it's got nothing to do with OLD.
Leadbelly said:
...also
Leadbelly said:
Re: 'a common designer', 'an ordered universe created by a wise God' - this anthropomorphism is part of the problem; atheists quite rightly reject it but fail to understand the underlying metaphors, which needs to be understood in terms of developmental psychology if you want to move beyond faith & belief to knowledge. Saying this stuff is mystical is simply admitting you don't know (which is OK, but puts you in the hands of the 'experts' )
There'll be times when I think I'm interacting perfectly normally, but the missus will say "You've been programming, haven't you?", and she's always right.
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Yes, been there too. I eventually learnt to write enough comments so that even I could understand it six months later. I didn't realise it at the time, but some of my code was still in use 20 years later.wakibaki said:
Some believe that God made us in his image. Others believe that we made God in our image. Both involve believing something you can't prove. People pick whichever one seems reasonable to them, given the evidence they are willing to consider.PeteMcK said:
Thin ice. Let's not go there.http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/site-announcements/167561-diyaudio-rules.html
The title of the thread was Logic vs Emotion. it might be easier to get a handle on the topic if the landscape were broadened.
The bilateral symmetry of vertebrate brains in terms of function and structure are actually unsymmetrical.
The left side of a bird's brain and it's right eye tend to focus narrowly on stuff like things to eat, whereas the right brain and left eye keep an eye on the big picture looking for predators, possible mates and social stuff.
Humans are different and more complicated than birds, but nonetheless aren't entirely different. The left brain still is that which focuses narrowly and right brain looks for big picture.
The emotional range of the two sides of human brain are different. Left side seems to deal more in anger (which is a sort of focusing thing), whereas right brain deals more in socializing emotions, (empathy and so forth which are big picturish). The left brain seems to have a sort of almost monopoly on language.
However, the two sides of the brain communicate and also operate by sort of mutually inhibiting each other. Studies have shown that damage to one side of brain will have negative effects on the primary function of the other side.
We can see a problem for a human being if either side of brain manages to gain ascendancy of function for too long a time.
There is a saying that "reason is the handmaiden of the emotions." This is likely true, but the questions it generates if we think about it, can be interesting. For example, are the emotions we feel at any time primarily of the left brain or the right brain? And, what are the implications for our behaviour?
Long ago I got a degree in Philosophy the hard way: I read all the books assigned and most of the references. It took about ten years. One of the insights I got from it is that we can not understand ourselves unless we dig down into the dirty wetware that hides our minds.
I'm very busy these days and that's unfortunate because I'd like to write some more about this. The best book I've seen on the subject is by Iain McGilchrist, The Master and his Emissary: the divided brain and the making of the Western world, published by Yale UP. I don't agree with every thing he says, especially in the second half, but the first half is a masterpiece of scholarship and writing and is worth buying for the notes and bibliography.
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World [book=]%[/book][book=]%[/book]
The bilateral symmetry of vertebrate brains in terms of function and structure are actually unsymmetrical.
The left side of a bird's brain and it's right eye tend to focus narrowly on stuff like things to eat, whereas the right brain and left eye keep an eye on the big picture looking for predators, possible mates and social stuff.
Humans are different and more complicated than birds, but nonetheless aren't entirely different. The left brain still is that which focuses narrowly and right brain looks for big picture.
The emotional range of the two sides of human brain are different. Left side seems to deal more in anger (which is a sort of focusing thing), whereas right brain deals more in socializing emotions, (empathy and so forth which are big picturish). The left brain seems to have a sort of almost monopoly on language.
However, the two sides of the brain communicate and also operate by sort of mutually inhibiting each other. Studies have shown that damage to one side of brain will have negative effects on the primary function of the other side.
We can see a problem for a human being if either side of brain manages to gain ascendancy of function for too long a time.
There is a saying that "reason is the handmaiden of the emotions." This is likely true, but the questions it generates if we think about it, can be interesting. For example, are the emotions we feel at any time primarily of the left brain or the right brain? And, what are the implications for our behaviour?
Long ago I got a degree in Philosophy the hard way: I read all the books assigned and most of the references. It took about ten years. One of the insights I got from it is that we can not understand ourselves unless we dig down into the dirty wetware that hides our minds.
I'm very busy these days and that's unfortunate because I'd like to write some more about this. The best book I've seen on the subject is by Iain McGilchrist, The Master and his Emissary: the divided brain and the making of the Western world, published by Yale UP. I don't agree with every thing he says, especially in the second half, but the first half is a masterpiece of scholarship and writing and is worth buying for the notes and bibliography.
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World [book=]%[/book][book=]%[/book]
Re: 'Both involve believing something you can't prove' - yes, it's not appropriate to haggle over the details here. However, on a more general note, the point of Science is that one can move beyond belief to knowlege (granted, nowadays nobody can know everything, except my Mrs...). The shortcoming of hard science is that it has limits to the kinds of logic it will entertain. Google 'teleolgy' - in my interpretation humans are goal driven, & this takes us into the realm of psychology (but don't be distracted by the dumbed down version that Dawkins uses). Hence my interest in the article linked in the first post - scientific logic won't necessarily persuade, so if one is in the business of changing people's minds, other aspects need to be considered.
You mean, like... brainwashing?
Not everyone simply gives in to the temptation to believe...
The incredible String Band said:
Shortcoming? Science discards what it is necessary to discard in order to...
I can know things and still enjoy the ISB. I can be lifted to another level (transcendence) without the necessity to incorporate the incompatible. If other people can't manage their logic and emotions then that's their loss.
w
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