Haven't waxed philosophical in a while
What's the deal with everyone thinking that Science should explain everything?
I've been defending subjective/phenomenal experience ever since I can remember, but recently things have been chapping my hide quite a bit about people complaining that those who believe in things outside of the realm of science are cracked.
Let me preface all of this with the following caveat: I am not a Palin supporter. I think she's daft. I'm also not a hardcore republican, nor am I a right wing freakazoid. What I am is a socially concious Christian. Please, please, please, lets not interject any political meaning to this. I'm super not into politics as of late. The climate of the political race has just made me ill. SO- lets get back to philosophy...
Okay. The impetus for this blab-a-thon is a recent appearance of Bill Maher on the daily show. He was promoting his most recent flick, Religilous. After much mockery of some Scientology beliefs (which I happen to agree are pretty ridiculous), he laid into Christianity. In a way, I can see his point. It seems pretty out there, but I'm not going to get into the "out-there" ness of religion in this little diatribe.
What I want to comment on is his comment regarding the nature of science and the purpose of religion.
Maher, in talking to John Stewart, stated that the bible was obsolete in that it had nothing relevant to tell us about the world. In other words, we have science and scientific thought, so what the heck is the bible doing telling us that things about the world we live in? How dare it.
Reconciling the gap between science and religion is something a lot of people are obsessed with. I'm not one of those people. I frankly have no problem with the Theory of Evolution. Nor do I have a problem with creationism. My beliefs have been reconciled. I think you can be scientific and religious at the same time. but you have to categorize these two factors of your life in their respective places.
To illustrate my point, lets look at a phenomenal subject- being in love.
Science can tell you nothing about your subjective life. Fact. Science can explain what neurons are firing in your brain when you're in love. It can tell you precisely what pheremones are making you feel head over heels, it can wax informative about all sorts of interesting empirical tidbits. But the question is this- is there subjective, phenomenal value in being told which neurons are firing when you're in love?
I say no.
Just because I know what neurons fire when I'm in love doesn't mean that science is saying anything worthwhile about the experience of being in love. To be frank, I can't feel the neurons firing, so the empirical worth is not meaningful for me in a subjective way. I can describe love to you in my subjective experience, but I can't tell you a thing about the empirical evidence of the state of being in love without science.
So what's the point? Science is a tool of measurement. Like a ruler. It can measure and calculate. That's about it.
Think about all of the problems we've come across when we've used scientific thought to describe those subjective, phenomenal experiences that are decidedly not scientific. Another example will further illuminate my point.
Kinsey revolutionized how we think about sexuality. He assigned all of this scientific effort at categorizing, measuring, and calculating people's sex lives. But he was baffled when his theories did not give people satisfying sex lives. Evolutionarily speaking, success in procreating is measured by how many offspring you have, by how much of your genetic matter is propogated across generations. Therefore, procreatiing with many partners is successful, in a scientific sense. Why the heck did this behavior destroy Kinsey's group, then? Why did they fight, grow jealous, and hurt each other by this beahavior. After all, science said they should be satisfied with the results of their experiement.
See what I mean? Unfortunately for the scientists, we don't play by those rules. We are so unpredictable, that its a fault (according to science).
What gives us this unpredictability? Usually people throw up their hands and say, "That's just human nautre!". I disagree. But I do find the source almost as frustrating.
Science solves, and it strives to solve EVERYTHING. But it can't. It can tell us a lot about things, but it can't give us purpose in our lives. Think about it. Money is a tool like science. It can open a lot of doors. But it doesn't instill happiness in us (although a lot of it would be nice right now).
One more illustration. What is a hammer? A hammer is an artifact used to drive nails. It serves a singular purpose. It allows us to get work done. Heck, it even lets us have a roof over our heads. Can a hammer tell you anything about the reason why you use it? No, stupid, its a hammer. Hammer is only valuable within the context of its implementation. Now just replace science with hammer and you get my point.
Final caveat: I think we can seperate religion into a category similar to science. Religion is a tool. A very specific instrument created to help us commune with the divine. I happen to believe in a specific religion, because I believe it to be truth. But I can seperate God from religion. Why can't other people?
I've been defending subjective/phenomenal experience ever since I can remember, but recently things have been chapping my hide quite a bit about people complaining that those who believe in things outside of the realm of science are cracked.
Let me preface all of this with the following caveat: I am not a Palin supporter. I think she's daft. I'm also not a hardcore republican, nor am I a right wing freakazoid. What I am is a socially concious Christian. Please, please, please, lets not interject any political meaning to this. I'm super not into politics as of late. The climate of the political race has just made me ill. SO- lets get back to philosophy...
Okay. The impetus for this blab-a-thon is a recent appearance of Bill Maher on the daily show. He was promoting his most recent flick, Religilous. After much mockery of some Scientology beliefs (which I happen to agree are pretty ridiculous), he laid into Christianity. In a way, I can see his point. It seems pretty out there, but I'm not going to get into the "out-there" ness of religion in this little diatribe.
What I want to comment on is his comment regarding the nature of science and the purpose of religion.
Maher, in talking to John Stewart, stated that the bible was obsolete in that it had nothing relevant to tell us about the world. In other words, we have science and scientific thought, so what the heck is the bible doing telling us that things about the world we live in? How dare it.
Reconciling the gap between science and religion is something a lot of people are obsessed with. I'm not one of those people. I frankly have no problem with the Theory of Evolution. Nor do I have a problem with creationism. My beliefs have been reconciled. I think you can be scientific and religious at the same time. but you have to categorize these two factors of your life in their respective places.
To illustrate my point, lets look at a phenomenal subject- being in love.
Science can tell you nothing about your subjective life. Fact. Science can explain what neurons are firing in your brain when you're in love. It can tell you precisely what pheremones are making you feel head over heels, it can wax informative about all sorts of interesting empirical tidbits. But the question is this- is there subjective, phenomenal value in being told which neurons are firing when you're in love?
I say no.
Just because I know what neurons fire when I'm in love doesn't mean that science is saying anything worthwhile about the experience of being in love. To be frank, I can't feel the neurons firing, so the empirical worth is not meaningful for me in a subjective way. I can describe love to you in my subjective experience, but I can't tell you a thing about the empirical evidence of the state of being in love without science.
So what's the point? Science is a tool of measurement. Like a ruler. It can measure and calculate. That's about it.
Think about all of the problems we've come across when we've used scientific thought to describe those subjective, phenomenal experiences that are decidedly not scientific. Another example will further illuminate my point.
Kinsey revolutionized how we think about sexuality. He assigned all of this scientific effort at categorizing, measuring, and calculating people's sex lives. But he was baffled when his theories did not give people satisfying sex lives. Evolutionarily speaking, success in procreating is measured by how many offspring you have, by how much of your genetic matter is propogated across generations. Therefore, procreatiing with many partners is successful, in a scientific sense. Why the heck did this behavior destroy Kinsey's group, then? Why did they fight, grow jealous, and hurt each other by this beahavior. After all, science said they should be satisfied with the results of their experiement.
See what I mean? Unfortunately for the scientists, we don't play by those rules. We are so unpredictable, that its a fault (according to science).
What gives us this unpredictability? Usually people throw up their hands and say, "That's just human nautre!". I disagree. But I do find the source almost as frustrating.
Science solves, and it strives to solve EVERYTHING. But it can't. It can tell us a lot about things, but it can't give us purpose in our lives. Think about it. Money is a tool like science. It can open a lot of doors. But it doesn't instill happiness in us (although a lot of it would be nice right now).
One more illustration. What is a hammer? A hammer is an artifact used to drive nails. It serves a singular purpose. It allows us to get work done. Heck, it even lets us have a roof over our heads. Can a hammer tell you anything about the reason why you use it? No, stupid, its a hammer. Hammer is only valuable within the context of its implementation. Now just replace science with hammer and you get my point.
Final caveat: I think we can seperate religion into a category similar to science. Religion is a tool. A very specific instrument created to help us commune with the divine. I happen to believe in a specific religion, because I believe it to be truth. But I can seperate God from religion. Why can't other people?