Wonders of the Universe – Perspective

know many scientists do you?

Yes.

Be quiet now please, footie’s on. Thanks.

I’m not going to slavishly follow Science, as much as I’m not going to slavishly follow Religion

Me neither. But the thing is these two things are, as you quite rightly say, different. I don’t see what the issue is here.

But I happen to think there are lots of good valid points and answers to be made by both schools of thought

So do I.

But don’t go round thinking you’ve got it figured out better than me, cos that’s just arrogant, narrow-minded and limiting. Don’t tell me I’m not allowed to consider Why, just cos you can’t get yer head round it, or refuse to believe in such a concept. Are your views more valid than mine? Are they bollocks. They’re just your views, nothing more

I hope that’s not aimed at me, because I certainly wasn’t attempting to claim I’ve got it (whatever the hell ‘it’ is in this situation) figured out better than you.

Now, personally I don’t think I could ever hope to figure out what our purpose is in life, because there simply isn’t anything like enough data. So I will come up with ideas and do my own thinking about that, WHILST studying the mechanics and perhaps origins of the physical universe.

No conflict there, in my view.

Science does not seek to explain why on an abstract level we are here or what our purpose is. It only seeks to explain the processes of the natural world and its contents. Surely we can do this without being accused of being ignorant of anything more spiritual, can’t we?

The issues regarding evolution and the creation of the world etc are wholly different. We have a boat load of evidence to support the gradual emergence of species and creation of the world we see today, and creationists are seeking to overturn that with DOCTRINE, which is not the same thing at all. There, the two ideas ARE at loggerheads, and one has much better evidence than the other.

My head hurts … 🙄

There’s the limit of your thinking; trying to apply scientific methods to a philosophical question

Thus illustrating the futility of “why” – the reality of any attempted definition cannot be evidenced and tested – Magic Unicorns, for instance.

You think you have, Woppit, you think you have. That’s all it is. Nothing more. If it makes you happy to think you have everything sussed better than others, then that’s up to you.

As do you. This is known as being “hoist by your own petard”.

I don’t think I have “everything sussed” better than others. I just understand the primacy of objective measurement better than you.

Then you obviously haven’t readed stuff propply, have you? Bless.

No , but I have read it properly (if that’s what you’re trying to say), and that is exactly what it sounds like. You even backed it up with an entirely irrelevant religious image that suggests the universe consists of a 14th-century abbot’s bad acid trip.

No “blessings” required, thankyou. You are in no position to attempt patronisation.

Good program 🙂

Yeah.

I just understand the primacy of objective measurement better than you

Not quite. The primacy or otherwise of objective measurement is itself a subjective thing, when it comes to matters like these.

In other words, each to his own. Ultimately there’s no moral or philosophical basis to claim your beliefs are ‘better’ than someone else’s since we all also have different evaluation criteria.

If you are happy with your understanding of the universe then by definition you have it figured out. End of. Competitive comparitive personal philosophy is thoroughly pointless 🙂

This is open minded:

Now, personally I don’t think I could ever hope to figure out what our purpose is in life, because there simply isn’t anything like enough data. So I will come up with ideas and do my own thinking about that, WHILST studying the mechanics and perhaps origins of the physical universe.

This isn’t:

Thus illustrating the futility of “why” – the reality of any attempted definition cannot be evidenced and tested – Magic Unicorns, for instance.

You’ve already decided that the “why” is futile. Why?
Do you know it will always be unanswerable?

No, I don’t know it will always be unanswerable. To demonstrate that it is answerable, all the proposer has to do, is present evidence.

So far, there is nothing but many different versions of “why”, most of them religious. They all seem to contradict each other and are incapable of being proved, let alone disproved, and therein lies the weakness of the proposition.

As has been said elsewhere, without evidence, it’s just noise.

I’m all for open-mindedness, but not so open that your brains fall out…

Something which, so far, clearly hasn’t afflicted smiley Dr Brian Smiley Cox

Half Time.

🙄

I just understand the primacy of objective measurement better than you.

Yeah, course you do, Woppit, course you do. You know far, far better than anyone else, don’t you? 🙄

Science does not seek to explain why on an abstract level we are here or what our purpose is.

Hence, therefore, the importance, in Human Society, for Philosophy. Maybe some of Religious ‘belief’ is somewhat naive, ill-informed and can be proven to be at odds with scientific proof. That doesn’t necessarily mean all aspects of Religion should be discounted. Personally, I feel that Religion and Philosophy play as important a part in Society and the very development of Humanity as Science does. Indeed, it is Religion we have to thank for a great number of educational institutions, which has undoubtedly benefitted Science immensely. Would we be at this stage of Scientific Understanding if it weren’t for Religion? I doubt it.

Science, as a means to understand our World, our Universe, has taken over as the main method of exploring how stuff works. and most of it is good. religion, in the traditional sense of most faiths, is flawed and out of date. It’s overly rigid framework means much of it is not open to adjustment and change, which is where Science obviously has the advantage. But in terms of Social Organisation, Religion and Philosophy are massively important.

It’s in our ‘nature’ to seek meaning. So, we should use the investigative tools we are gifted with. Science and Philosophy are equally important, in my opinion.

I’ll choose to continue using a subtle blend of the two, to try and help me gain understanding. Keeps me happy, and doesn’t make me less of a person for choosing to do so.

Woppit, if you had the courage to actually meet me in person, discuss things over a pint or two, then you might actually learn a bit about me, rather than judging something you have little understanding, experience and evidence of. 😉

Religious folk and the scientists of this field definitely have one thing in common. They can both devote their own lives to their beliefs knowing there have been ‘better’ people who have lived and died without having their beliefs confirmed.

I’m not ‘skilled’ enough to add to either camp so I’ll have to be happy with observing, understanding how lucky I am to have this much information to hand and to live in a time and place where life is good enough to be able to ponder such issues rather than having to scour a dump for food.

One thing I will add – Imagination can sometimes be a bit of a hinderance to those seeking a concrete answer especially from the science field. Methods follow theory. Imagine going back to talk to your great grandad about dna.

I’m all for open-mindedness, but not so open that your brains fall out…

I’m not sure you can be too open-minded. It is just the state of being open to new ideas, not the state of believing everything and anything.

I am open to the idea that even though evidence hasn’t been presented yet, it may well be presented in the future.

Go on, let a bit of uncertainty into your life.

As has been said elsewhere, without evidence, it’s just noise.

In the same way that Mozart or Led Zepplin are noise.

Would we be at this stage of Scientific Understanding if it weren’t for Religion?

I think we’d be a lot further down the line to be honest. For a lot of its history religion has been about suppressing independent thought and enforcing, through torture and violence if necessary, their view.

There have been a few notable exceptions though, like mediaeval Islam, but that got shut down too after a while.

Interesting, Mol, but many of the World’s foremost academic institutions were founded by religious organisations who valued learning as something that could bring you closer to God, and had the economic power to invest in schools, colleges and universities. Indeed, the UK’s first university, St Andrews, was founded by a Papal charter. In fact, I’d challenge you to find a leading uni, certainly here in the UK, that wasn’t founded with any religious links.

Without the foundation of such institutions, Science would surely have not had anywhere near such good support. So I’d argue the opposite, actually.

many of the World’s foremost academic institutions were founded by religious organisations

Yeah? Like what?

I’m thinking of Gallileo, the Spanish Inquisition, that kind of thing.

I’m gonna need more than that I’m afraid.

Like, an actual academic establishment founded by a religious organisation. That is, a church or similar, not by an organisation run by religious people since everyone had to be religious in them days.

Well go and look for it then. Go on, you might learn something, through your own investigations.

“Would we be at this stage of Scientific Understanding if it weren’t for Religion?“

No.

Oh, look, a completely Eurocentric graph that completely ignores most of the Rest Of The World, created by an atheist organisation, cos, like, that’s objective… 🙄

Well go and look for it then.

I might do. It just sounded like you actually knew some yourself 🙂

Go on, you might learn something, through your own investigations

Lol – you’re talking to someone who often spends half his day, literally, learning things from Wikipedia 🙂 That’s why I know so much 🙂

MTQ that is a stupid graph. And the title alone suggests that Christianity was the ONLY force suppressing Western society, which it clearly wasn’t. Plus the Roman Empire was Christian for quite a while before the Dark Ages. Plus again, British Saxon society was actually pretty enlightened by the standards of the time and later. Etc.

Ironic really that you are posting a graph about understanding, without really understanding the issues 🙂

Mol; I’m not denying that Religion has at times proved a hindrance to Scientific Progress, but the role Religion played in the development of Science, Worldwide, is hugely significant and cannot be ignored.

Islam seems to have proven to be quite productive.

to the OP –

Now, whenever I see or think about this stuff it gives me a brief, fleeting sense of perspective on any minor work or other of life’s worries.

The trick, it seems to me, is to find a way of always being aware of that sense of perspective all the time.

Without wishing to start a whole new argument about religion etc 🙂 the trick of always being aware rather than getting carried away with life’s worries etc. can be partially met by meditation, specifically mindfulness meditation. Very much tied in with Buddhism but no need to be Buddhist to do it. Might be worth a look.

Elf.. hmm yes.. but it could have cancelled itself out. It’s impossible to separate the contribution of the Church from other factors though because the Church was such a huge part of everyday life and was often controlled by various rulers or at least coerced.

On the one hand you’ve got monks beavering away in their studies discovering stuff, and on the other you’ve got the establishment hunting down heretics and burning them.

As I said, mediaeval Islam was on fine scientific form, and seems to me to be the only really successful period of religiously sponsored scientific achievement.

Brief hijack – Mancjon, I’ve been curious about mindfulness for a while. But most of the stuff I’ve seen about it has been either too new agey or religious in tone to resonate with me. Could you recommend a book or a website to learn more about it? Thanks. Hijack ends.

When your brain starts to feel like it’s turning itself inside out, take a break…

I do, regularly. It’s my coping mechanism.

Are we doing pictures? Cool.

Could you recommend a book or a website to learn more about it? Thanks.

Read a few books and to be honest, although i’m not normally a fan, the “Meditation for Dummies” is probably the one that concentrates more on meditation and a lot less on the religious side. The others i have do go into a lot of the Buddhist theory as well which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but can understandably put some people off.

To be honest, at it’s most simple –

1) sit down, preferably on the floor but if you can’t do that, a chair is fine.

2) simply follow your breath in and out and concentrate on the area within your body where it is most noticeable eg. your abdomen, chest, nostrils etc.

3) every time your mind wanders, and believe me it will !, simply go back to following your breath.

4) When your mind does wander you can make a mental note of where it has wandered to but simply note it, don’t get involved in thinking about it and then go back to the breath.

Key thing is you are not thinking about your breath, or visualising it, you are simply aware of the feeling of the breath as it goes in and out.

If you have difficulty concentrating on the breath then you can use counting to count the inbreath and then the outbreath up to 10 and then start again.

A lot of the rest of the books etc. are about how to sit, how to deal with difficulties that may arise such as boredom, restlessness, emotions etc. but the above is the basic practice.

Sit for a specified time (use an alarm) and then gradually you will find you can increase it.

Hardest parts –

1) keeping your mind on the breath (obviously !!)
2) sitting still for 15/20/30 minutes as it takes a bit of getting used to.

Once you are comfortable with the above and if you decide you like it you can then start expanding practice by becoming more aware of sensations and your thoughts without simply returning to the breath immediately. It may then be time to get a good book !!

Hope the above helped and it wasn’t too new agey for you 🙂

When I played with my bucket and spade on the sands at Bridlington I can honestly say I didn’t give entropy a single thought. I was more interested in donkey rides. Still am.

I sort of did think about entropy, although I didn’t know it at the time.

I used to build sandcastles and watch them weather away to look like the ruined real ones.

Then I’d dig a huge trench and watch as the walls dried out in the sun and they eroded to look like the Grand Canyon. You got different results depending on the beach – variations in sand type and stratigraphy.

Perhaps Fred could pass on some of the new knowledge that he has gained by his skillful blending of the rational and the irrational?

Hey Mol, you were some kid! Respect dude. Whilst you were meditating on your sand constructions morphing and disintegrating along the time arrow I was bouncing along it enjoying a sixpenny donkey ride. Whooo! giddyup Neddy.

Anyway, if all the lights finally go out in 30 trillion, trillion, billion, million, years and we spend such an insignificant tick-tock of time on this grain of sand we call earth, then what’s the rush? Ride more slowly along that time arrow and glory in the Natural World around us. It won’t be there forever. Perhaps we should think about that next time we spend an extra £50 shaving 25gms off a pair of pedals.

Hey Mol, you were some kid! Respect dude.

Lol it had its drawbacks 🙂

Ride more slowly along that time arrow and glory in the Natural World around us

That’s true. You can make time run more slowly by doing lots of different stuff with your life. Pack as many new things as you can in, and you’ll live ‘longer’.

@ mancjon – many thanks for that. Am also not a great fan, but actually have the “Dummies” book on order – but only because it looked the most straightforward for a noob. (Ideally, I’d like a Haynes manual for the mind 😉 ) Feel better about my purchase now. Cheers, much appreciated 😀