Towards a new enlightenment: Kauffman

[3113]

the view of science as opposed to or set apart from theology [your view], or facts as opposed to mystical experiences [as asserted by other posters] is rather counter to what Kauffman is trying to do, which might be described as reaching a rapprochement in *understanding* between science and spiritual (not necessarily God-related) approaches.

Actually, I'm with Doc on this one. A rose by any other name and all that. Atheists acknowledge that there is some chemical reaction in the human brain which gives us what is sometimes called numinous experiences, that feeling that there is something mysterious or greater than ourselves. Something "Beyond the natural law." Whether it is beyond or not, as Liar rightly pointed out, can't be known. Because we don't know all natural laws. Once we know 'em, then they're natural laws, right?

And I mean, talk about Hubris. It's always ironic to me that people say, "Thinking you can know god is hubris!" But thinking you can know and say that god can't be known is also hubris. Insisting that there are things beyond "natural law" is hubris.

What really mystifies me, however, is...what's the big deal? Kauff insists in the video that what he's come up with is "huge." Is it? Why? I'm still going to the grocery store, doing my laundry and arguing with you on-line. My life hasn't radically changed on hearing what he has to say. Nor do I imagine that this new sacred is going to make Catholics stop going to church and seeing god as some loving father, or make those who believe the dinosaurs were put there to test our faith believe differently. And it really isn't going to stop greedy bastards from exploiting what they can, stealing what they can, and fuck anything and anyone they mow down in the process--including rainforests and the people living there, no matter how much damage it does to the planet. So what huge difference is this going to make? In the end, all he's discovered is that part of us that tends toward "theology" (or whatever name you wish to call it) and by that I mean our need to have some sort of "faith" in the existence of something beyond natural law be it in Santa Claus, god or this. It's a part of us that sees patterns instead of random lines and decides that those aren't just random lines on our toast, they're a picture of Jesus, and this couldn't be coincidence, and therefore the toast must be supernatural.

Ironically, the person I'd quote on this is Terry Prachett's "Death" character: "...take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged."

It's very nice of Kauff there to want to have a new and universal "sacred" that can cover everything, and if he's your guru and saying something that gives you that sacred in a way that feels right to you, then that's fine. But Doc had the right of it. It really is just another form of theology.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Oh well done, that woman! And you are dead right to quote Pratchett's Death. He's the most philosophical character in the series and I suspect is the mouthpiece for the author, a truly underrated intellect.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I'm defining it backwards. I say that when you're looking for meaning, you're engaging in theology, whether you're involving the idea of a corporeal "god" or not. You're dealing in something like a taoist concept of god -- the tao, the way.

All Kauffman is doing is creating a theology of science by poking around in the dark corners. There's nothing new in that.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

And I like The Tao. Today's Taoists can be nothing more than silly pagans but the original Lao Tsu overlays Christian mysticism very, very well as the Eastern Christians in the first eight centuries of the current era found out. The result was Zen.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I'm defining it backwards. I say that when you're looking for meaning, you're engaging in theology, whether you're involving the idea of a corporeal "god" or not. You're dealing in something like a taoist concept of god -- the tao, the way.

All Kauffman is doing is creating a theology of science by poking around in the dark corners. There's nothing new in that.

No, Zoot, theology is about gods. That's the theo of the ology.

There's a perfectly good word for a non-gods-oriented philosophy; "Philosophy."

The reason I insist on careful definitions, as always, is because sloppy definitions can be so easily hijacked, and turned into arguments for exactly what the speaker does not mean. Like conflating "Acknowledging a sense of wonder" with "Acknowledging a belief in God."

 

[Pure]

doc //I say that when you're looking for meaning, you're engaging in theology,//

well, it's just not true. at best you're speaking poetry. like 'looking for meaning is grasping at one's shadow.'

again, i'm not sure 'meaning' is SK's core concept, so much as 'understanding' of life and the universe.

i think doc has got the 'meaning' issue conflated with the emergence issue.

 

[3113]

No, Zoot, theology is about gods. That's the theo of the ology.

Granted, but do we narrow this down to gods that have actual personality and interaction with humanity (like Zeus, say), or do we include a belief in some greater "spirit" within the natural world? That's where things get sticky. I'm not sure I'd agree that saying that there is some supernatural--or beyond natural--power involved in the world is philosophy rather than theology even if that power hasn't got a human face.

And if what Kauff there is saying is merely that there may be more cool science than the cool science we know, how can that be asserted as something "beyond natural law." So far as I'm concerned, if we can discover it, and find out how it works (what it's laws are) then it becomes natural law. And if we can't find it or know how it works, if we can only imagine it, then it's not beyond natural law...it's either a theory that will proven/disproven, or a belief in something that can never be proven, and, therefore, might just as well be imaginary.

 

[3113]

Oh, and I'm still wondering what kind of "new enlightenment" I'm to get out of this. Nothing about the world seems different or special at all. When's this new enlightenment supposed to start working?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

No, Zoot, theology is about gods. That's the theo of the ology.

There's a perfectly good word for a non-gods-oriented philosophy; "Philosophy."

The reason I insist on careful definitions, as always, is because sloppy definitions can be so easily hijacked, and turned into arguments for exactly what the speaker does not mean. Like conflating "Acknowledging a sense of wonder" with "Acknowledging a belief in God."

Well, I don't like "Philosophy" because that's usually considered the rational examination of existence, and what i have in mind is something beyond the rational.

Something that takes a worshipful approach to the unknown rather than a rational which is why I guess I consider it theological. Since it's not rational, you can't really think about it, all you can do is experience it.

I suppose religious is a better term than theological. I apologize. But when you give that religious feeling form, it tends to take on the amorphous form of a deity. You find yourself worshipping Atman or Brahma or the Tao

Anyhow, that's what it seems to me Kauffman is doing. Taking this formless tendencyness in nature and deifying it.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Does he ever define what he means by "order" and "randomness"?

Because as far as I know, there are no algorithms that generate true randomness from order.

And LaPlace's contention that, given the position and velocity of every particle in the universe, it's theoretically possible to know the entire future and history of the universe? Aside from quantum uncertainty, why does he say that's false? Because you wouldn't appreciate the importance of swim bladders?

 

[3113]

I suppose religious is a better term than theological. .

Maybe back to Numinous as that's used by both religious and non-religious?

Great word.

The numinous is the mysterium tremendum et fascinans that leads in different cases to belief in deities, the supernatural, the sacred, the holy, and the transcendent....It may be viewed as "the intense feeling of unknowingly knowing that there is something which cannot be seen." This "knowing" can "befall" or overcome a person at any time and in any place — in a cathedral; next to a silent stream; on a lonely road; early in the morning or in the face of a beautiful sunset.

Coined by German theologian Rudolf Otto in his book Das Heilige (1917).

 

[voluptuary_manque]

No, Zoot, theology is about gods. That's the theo of the ology.

There's a perfectly good word for a non-gods-oriented philosophy; "Philosophy."

The reason I insist on careful definitions, as always, is because sloppy definitions can be so easily hijacked, and turned into arguments for exactly what the speaker does not mean. Like conflating "Acknowledging a sense of wonder" with "Acknowledging a belief in God."

Philosophy does not correlate with mysticism. Philiosophy in the Western tradition is logical and linear. In the last hundred years, unfortunately, it has gotten offbase and irrevelant but that seems to be turning around at last. It was in reaction to the dry, listlessness of Wittgenstein, et al, that (IMO) the interest in 'ways' like Tao and Zen grew so much in Europe and America. Neither of them qualifies as philosophy 'on careful definition'. What they do, however, is bring a connectedness with the universe that, if you don't like the word 'theology' might approach 'sacred' even if, in the case of Zen, there is no personified diety involved.

And, at its most rarefied, the modern concept Christian God is pretty abstract and not the least what Bronze Age Hebrews believed, at all.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I can go with "numinism" maybe-- a word that hasn't been corrupted of all meaning by constant misuse.

But aside from the quibble over semantics...

 

[rgraham666]

Actually I blame Kant for getting philosophy in the West off track. After the philosophers of The Enlightenment had tried very hard to make philosophy part of everyday life, trying to get people to think about what they were doing, Kant dragged it back into the universities and reduced it to a hothouse flower. Something very pretty and utterly impractical.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Actually I blame Kant for getting philosophy in the West off track. After the philosophers of The Enlightenment had tried very hard to make philosophy part of everyday life, trying to get people to think about what they were doing, Kant dragged it back into the universities and reduced it to a hothouse flower. Something very pretty and utterly impractical.

And then the Germans like Hegel wrapped it in complete obscurity. I like a current development that I've heard about. A chap with a Ph.D in philosophy has gone into practice as a Consulting Philosopher. Do you have moral/ethical dilemmas? He will assist you for an hourly fee. The Psychological/Psychiatric community frothed! They sued him but, I believe, fruitlessly because he was clear from the beginning that he wasn't dealing in pathology, just decision making. Brilliant!

 

[Pure]

i think it should be mentioned that taoism, like buddhism, are religions that have not been, and are not, at war with science.

kauffman, aside from his research in self organization and complexity theory is looking for a rapprochement of science and religion; of course that means a certain kind of science --along the lines of kauffman, eigen, etc-- and a certain kind of religion (non-fundamentalist, non-supernaturally oriented). even among xians these positions can be found, e.g. in altizer, atheist xian theologian.

one might say that the old idea of 'everything reduces to physics' is supplanted with a scientific stance giving equal weight to biology and theoretical biology. there are a number of advances in these 'systems' areas; complexity theory; chaos theory; catastrophe theory; computing theory, non linear dynamics. all of these have histories, of course; kaufmann is among a few dozen figures. the area of 'artificial life' (computer simulations) should also be mentioned, and the work of Christopher Langton
http://dannyreviews.com/h/Artificial_Life.html

in simple terms, there may be a neutral ground on which a type of science and a type of religion can meet. this is going a little further than a scientist's saying 'i have a sense of wonder in the starry night sky.'

regarding the science side: holistic sciences, such as complex systems theory seem to hold promise in overcoming some dichotomies that have haunted wester civ for some time and caused the rift with equally rigid xianity. e.g. the problem of 'the ghost in the machine,' the role if any, of consciouness. if anyone has read descartes, himself a scientist and mathematician of some note, you can see that his dualism is both rigid and crippling. there is no place in his [philosophy's] mechanistic brain, for mind processes.

likewise the xian's postulated opposition of faith and reason causes their side of the problem. the dual worlds of God and man cannot easily be joined, leading thoughtful xians, many of them (jefferson) to become deists.

so some may say, 'ho hum' and 'i've heard it all' but the rapprochement project goes forward. this may as kauffman suggests have benefits in the ethics area; a common ethics endorsable by scientists and persons of religion *which is well tied into their respective foundations.* this avoids the common dichotomy of the scientific types like doc saying, [my words, pure] 'well, my ethics is a whole other issue, with a basis outside my science." (i'm inferring a bit here).

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I don't know. I'm a scientist, an atheist, and deeply religious. I don't fins any inconsistency in that. The fact is, the religious impulse doesn't require rational justification, and it seems to me that Kauffman's just giving in to the old temptation of trying to scientifically prove the existence of God, which is not only futile but unnecessary.

You don't need to prove the existence of god to feel the numinous, as 3113 points out. You don't have to believe in a conscious creator to feel the holiness of the physical universe. It seems to me that Kauffman is coming dangerously close to enshrining "complexity" as the new deity. Complexity is what steers evolution. Complexity is what makes consciousness possible from mere matter. Complexity is what makes humans special. What is complexity? We don't know. It's unknowable. It's complex.

This disaffection with the mechanistic answers physics gives is just a reflection of our reaching the limits of the kind of questions science can answer. Science can't answer questions about meaning, and it's kind of strange to see Kauffman with his lantern of science pouring over the ashes of the Humanities looking for scraps of a theology science once so gleefully destroyed.

And worrying about ethical consistency is only important if you're still making rationality the basis of your ethics. I certainly follow Kauffman in saying that reason and rationality aren't enough. Ethics are based on emotion. Religion is based on emotion. You don't need god to be ethical. You only need empathy.

 

[Pure]

note,

doc you're a scientist with heart and a human being of wide sympathies. what i'd doubt is not any of those characteristics. but i doubt if you're, really, as split as your words and conceptual framework seems to dictate.
----

doc: Science can't answer questions about meaning, and it's kind of strange to see Kauffman with his lantern of science pouring over the ashes of the Humanities looking for scraps of a theology science once so gleefully destroyed.

pure: i think SK's point is that the newer sciences and worldview provide for a holistic approach. i don't think this necessarily equates to 'meaning', which is a subjective reaction, but it may be a precondition for it.
---

docAnd worrying about ethical consistency is only important if you're still making rationality the basis of your ethics. I certainly follow Kauffman in saying that reason and rationality aren't enough. Ethics are based on emotion. Religion is based on emotion. You don't need god to be ethical. You only need empathy.

pure: i didn't speak of a 'rational' ethic, i spoke of one tied to your foundation (foundational beliefs), meaning a single, unitary one . your scientific beliefs have their foundation. your ethics seem to be a thing apart; they are 'based on emotion.' this is an old and honorable approach in ethics, dating back at least to Hume and Dugald Stewart. reason, said H, cannot give a basis to choose a scratch on the finger over the destruction of the world; only the passions and sympathies can.

but as my earlier post suggests, the 'reason/emotion' dichotomy is not sustainable. brain research itself shows the interconnection of 'emotional' (ultra fast) assessments and reactions (actions) and later, more fully fledged cognitions. our cognitions are not merely, as hume said, the servants of our feelings, they are implicated in them; the congruence is built in, as between, 'the world is a cesspool of corruption' and 'i'm feeling depressed, today.'

i won't belabor this, but there are a number of reasons for saying that ethics, however much they are nourished by streams of 'sympathy' and 'passion', are equally a cognitive elaboration. although Kant went too far with this is suggesting the 'sense of duty' is the only moral motive, he had the seed of an insight. the starving african kid on tv does *not* simply reach to your heart --though he does-- he reaches to your mind, as in, "why do i eat so well, while this kid and a thousand like him, starve. what if he were my kid."

IOW, ethics is an extension and elaboration of some fine feelings which are *common* in the 'better sort' (us), but it has a basis in rationality. where the feelings slack [the day you don't love your friend so much] rationality stands in and says, 'you owe it to your friend to go see his first public performance.' reason and rational considerations remind us of the 'big picture.' when you see a wounded person lying on the sidewalk, you don't just say 'how do i feel?': even if unmoved, you think, 'that could be me." and "if i walk by, what happens if everyone is like me?" and of course knowing the 'big picture' and resonating to it [i'm a part of the community and world] is part of what fulfills us emotionally; it's not just a pie in the sky, 'rational conclusion' that we follow, from obligation.

blah blah. point: a holistic and 'moral' approach to living will rest on the full complement of human characteristics from sympathy to rationality.

thanks for participating, doc!

 

[xssve]

I don't know. I'm a scientist, an atheist, and deeply religious. I don't fins any inconsistency in that. The fact is, the religious impulse doesn't require rational justification, and it seems to me that Kauffman's just giving in to the old temptation of trying to scientifically prove the existence of God, which is not only futile but unnecessary.

God is an excuse for not looking harder - creativity is how life works, life expands to fill all available niches, creativity is our abstract description of what is essentially, process - the process of life - the analog in physics is the process of molecular diffusion.

It is predictable, in macrocosm, it's less predictable in microcosm, and it's these little details that serve as randomness.

For example, it's predictable that making any sort of emphatic statement in an internet forum will invite discourse and potential disagreement, but from whom, and in what form?

You don't need to prove the existence of god to feel the numinous, as 3113 points out. You don't have to believe in a conscious creator to feel the holiness of the physical universe. It seems to me that Kauffman is coming dangerously close to enshrining "complexity" as the new deity. Complexity is what steers evolution. Complexity is what makes consciousness possible from mere matter. Complexity is what makes humans special. What is complexity? We don't know. It's unknowable. It's complex.

We can qualify it, but we can't quantify it, not all at once, we can only quantify it in bits and pieces, and try to guess at the overall pattern - metalogically, this is fuzzy logic, like those facial recognition programs that extrapolate unseen features from visible ones, according to statistical probabilities.

This disaffection with the mechanistic answers physics gives is just a reflection of our reaching the limits of the kind of questions science can answer. Science can't answer questions about meaning, and it's kind of strange to see Kauffman with his lantern of science pouring over the ashes of the Humanities looking for scraps of a theology science once so gleefully destroyed.

It just depends on which science you're talking about, physics isn't the only science.

Rule one: when physicists or mathematicians start talking about psychology, put your tall boots on - they are accustomed to reductionist philosophies, so it's very little wonder that when they encounter complexities they aren't accustomed to dealing with, they start theologizing - they just don't have the right tools, they're trying to build a house with a spoon.

And worrying about ethical consistency is only important if you're still making rationality the basis of your ethics. I certainly follow Kauffman in saying that reason and rationality aren't enough. Ethics are based on emotion. Religion is based on emotion. You don't need god to be ethical. You only need empathy.

Uh, ethics is a science, based on rational analysis of behavior - I think you mean "morality", which is not based on rationality per se, but is itself a mixture of reason and emotion, fuzzy logic, randomness (translation errors, for example), superstition, tradition, etc.

Please try not to confuse the two, they are not interchangeable - ethics can always be argued and empirically analyzed - morality is not subject to rational argument or empirical analysis - except via an ethical system of thought, it contains no organized internal system for self correction.

 

[xssve]

True randomness doesn't exist of course, but it's very difficult to predict order without a complete understanding of quantum effects, and this sort of knowledge is simply beyond the capacity of the human mind to fully grasp, thus impractical - thus chaos theory which is about probabilities.

In fact, a very bright, autistic physicist might well be able to predict the order of molecular diffusion in a glass of water, but it would likely be his life's work, and he (or she) might still get it wrong, and the uncertainty principle itself would have to be calculated as well.

For many good reasons, we are forced to be content with probabilities.

 

[3113]

blah blah. point: a holistic and 'moral' approach to living will rest on the full complement of human characteristics from sympathy to rationality.

You missed the point, Pure. Dr. M. isn't saying that emotion and rationality are separate beings. He's saying that science and religion are separate beings. And they are. Oh, and by the way, they didn't used to be, so it's Kauff and YOU are in error if you think that Western civilization has always separated science from religion or that scientists have always been atheists. Tell it to Issac Newton and all those monks who discovered so many scientific principles.

We're back to Prachett: sift through every atom and you won't find a single particle of justice or mercy. Dr. M. is absolutely right. You can't use science to prove the existence of god and there's no point in trying. Nor can you use science to decide on your ethics--though it might be a factor in your decision.

I'd like you to find and read the following story: "Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin. It's an old sci-fi story, and more than a bit clunky, but still excellent. It doesn't seem to be available on line (do NOT watch the made-for-tv movie of it). It's a perfect example of ethics running into, in this case, mathematics and science. The science presents only the facts of the situation, what is certain. It does not help the hero in the story to decide how to handle this situation--with mercy or not, nor does it tell the heroine how to handle her situation, with courage or not. It just states what the situation is.

Nothing, in science, can tell the two how to deal with the situation. Religion can, personality can, emotion can, cultural upbringing can, and yes, reason can. But science cannot. And it doesn't matter if we're into Eastern religions or Western, that remains the same. Science, random or ordered, complex or simple, doesn't give us those kinds of answers. And that, I think, is what Doc is talking about....and rightly so.

 

[Pure]

url

'cold equations' seems to be online at

http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/...e World Turned Upside Down/0743498747__19.htm

will have a look.

 

[Pure]

reply to 3113

Originally Posted by Pure
//blah blah. point: a holistic and 'moral' approach to living will rest on the full complement of human characteristics from sympathy to rationality. //

3113You missed the point, Pure. Dr. M. isn't saying that emotion and rationality are separate beings. He's saying that science and religion are separate beings. And they are. Oh, and by the way, they didn't used to be, so it's Kauff and YOU are in error if you think that Western civilization has always separated science from religion or that scientists have always been atheists. Tell it to Issac Newton and all those monks who discovered so many scientific principles.

every once in a while i tell myself *never* to summarize a post in one sentence, since it guarantees that everything else in the post will be ignored!

you agree that emotion and rationality are entwined, mutually infusing. right? but you say 'science and religion are separate beings.'
i will return to that claim. newton and persons like him tended to be deists, which i've argued is not a satisfactory position, philosophically.

3113We're back to Prachett: sift through every atom and you won't find a single particle of justice or mercy. Dr. M. is absolutely right. You can't use science to prove the existence of god and there's no point in trying. Nor can you use science to decide on your ethics--though it might be a factor in your decision.

you underestimate the problem; you won't find the rigidity of an iron bar, nor its gray color. nor its in a pleasing shape for a frying pan.

i haven't, nor has sk, said that 'science can prove the existence of god'. god is part of a dualist view which I and SK argue against.

science and ethics are separate you say, the former can't 'decide' questions in the latter. will return to this point.


3113I'd like you to find and read the following story: "Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin. It's an old sci-fi story, and more than a bit clunky, but still excellent. It doesn't seem to be available on line (do NOT watch the made-for-tv movie of it). It's a perfect example of ethics running into, in this case, mathematics and science. The science presents only the facts of the situation, what is certain. It does not help the hero in the story to decide how to handle this situation--with mercy or not, nor does it tell the heroine how to handle her situation, with courage or not. It just states what the situation is.

i've looked at the story and it's a fine read, powerful. again you assert 'science' can't 'help the hero decide... with mercy or not....'


3113Nothing, in science, can tell the two how to deal with the situation. Religion can, personality can, emotion can, cultural upbringing can, and yes, reason can. But science cannot. And it doesn't matter if we're into Eastern religions or Western, that remains the same. Science, random or ordered, complex or simple, doesn't give us those kinds of answers. And that, I think, is what Doc is talking about....and rightly so.

you are willing to say 'reason' can tell the two what to do, it appears.
you assert that 'science doesn't give those kind of answers.'

====
well, what is your argument, exactly. it's not really stated, but kind of said to be self evident.

science, i suppose, is held to be sets of equations, like F=ma, and Kepler's laws, and so on.

these are purely descriptive.

since science only *describes*, it does not prescribe. that appears to be your claim.

this is much like the following argument. if i say, "My friend, there is an XX plant growing in your front lawn." even if "XX" is a weed, that statement is NOT a suggestion or piece of advice. from 'there is a weed' you can't deduce, 'My friend should pull up the weed.' or even 'someone should destroy the weed.'

the story describes one of a number of situations that arise in utilitarian ethics. typically they are called 'lifeboat problems'; the boat is full and 20 extra people are hanging on the sides. unless they are cast off, all will die. so they, in the versions i've seen/read, are cast off. and the inuit are said to encourage the old and sick to wander off in the snow; conserves food for the babies. etc.

it might be noted that the answer is not always clearcut, and that utilitarianism is not written in stone, decreed by God or Reason or Human Emotion. any given ethical system is going to have its difficult cases; you seem to be suggesting that i can choose an ethic, and the answer to the story's problem will be cranked out, with ease.

the assertions about science depend on the famous 'fact/value' distinction of hume. facts are said not to dictate what to do. in the story, it's "equations" [rather than facts], making the knowledge more abstract.

the fact/value distinction is long an item of controversy and many philosophers agree with you and doc. i'm less certain. without reviewing lots of arguments, where humans are concerned the line are quite blurred. for instance in an ethics centered on virtues, are the statements of virtue, facts? (X is a brave man.) if one's ethics was centered on preserving virtues, mightn't 'facts' determine some decisions?

lastly, the core: is "science" just a set of factual statements, or equations like F=ma. so physics is the body of factual statements on certain [physical] topics, such as atoms, forces, etc, and the attendant equations.

of course the answer is that, just as Kauffman suggests is that 'science' is not tied to this physics prototype. more broadly a science is a systematic inquiry [by us humans] and its results [knowledge, be it theoretical or practical]; the inquiry has a purpose connected with what humans want and need*; it's carried out in an organized fashion; its claims are subject to tests of evidence. for some sciences, at least, its claims are understood to directly impinge on human wants and needs, and the application of skillful ways to deal with them. that understanding is foundational to, part and parcel of, the inquiry.

[*ADDED: of course, sometimes the need is simply to know; e.g that which impels a theoretical mathematician; for other cases, the needs may be basic human ones, e.g. medical science is based on addressing the 'physical' and 'physiological' needs of humans.]

consider such sciences as biology, veterinary science, ecology [analysis of ecosystems], environmental studies, sociology, systems theory (applied).
some of these can state the conditions for human thriving, the preservation of human society; the conditions for the preservation of life, or life on earth in particular.

now you will state, well those are just 'facts' e.g. that an ecosystem with humans requires a level of CO2, which may be exceeded if XX amount of coal is burned for YY years.

i think i'd make the argument that these scientists, at least some of them have practical reasons for their investigations. the science findings, IOW, are NOT going to be value neutral. i suppose you will say, who says humans should care about human life, but the fact is that they do.

so i'm saying that living humans undertake systematic investigations (scientific inquiry) in part to find the conditions under which humans can happily live, and to understand events/entitities [like anthrax spores] that may seriously interfere (excess CO2, in the atmosphere). i suppose you will claim that humans MIGHT choose to look at some derived piece of knowledge, and just say, "i have no plans to do anything; let the CO2 level rise however it's going to." well, 3113, i guess i'd have to say, that doesn't sound like a human i've seen. it's rather like a human who, when you say, "you're standing on train tracks and the train is 100 yards away and going 70 miles per hour." says, "is that supposed to mean something to me?"

in any case, your points are interesting and these topics do not have final answers. mine above are suggested for others' consideration, not writ in stone.

best,

j.

PS, some of the argument above is derived from the interesting situation at present where apparently a majority of climate scientists, at least those on UN panels, says humans contribute a lot to global warming, and global warming is occuring, and its effects will be disastrous. i put it to you that the right wing, the evangelists, etc. are *quite* alive to the NON neutrality of these findings as far as actions to be taken. hence you do NOT find them saying "the scientists are right; those are the facts, we'll all perish, but who gives a shit.". rather they attack the findings, e.g. 'junk science' 'not good evidential base.'

 

[ishtat]

And, at its most rarefied, the modern concept Christian God is pretty abstract and not the least what Bronze Age Hebrews believed, at all.

Certainly not, the bronze age Hebrews were still polytheistic. The extra biblical evidence supports the bible and makes it quite clear that a monotheistic god was not fully accepted by the Jewish people until the return from Exodus (438 BCE).

My main beef with Kaufmann is that he is such a sloppy thinker. For example he takes a couple of broad generalisations about the ancient Greeks and Israelites (as scientiststs and historians) then proceeds from the general position to construct a detailed set of contentions. The problem is that his initial assumptions don't stand up to examination. In particular he assumes that the religious and intellectual viewpoint of Western post renaissance society is no different from that of the ancients.

An, at best third rate thinker.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

the return from Exodus (438 BCE).

??? Where'd this number come from?