Correct- but unless understanding the world *also* brings happiness, it's destined to fall into the dustbin with other outmoded concepts, like canabalism.
It will succeed because, in the long term, we can't survive without it.
Actually, no science would not- and that's the very problem. People who question the existance of objective evidence or the scientific method are considered heretics and not allowed to publish their thoughts in the peer reviewed journals, so there's no way for science to adopt a new idea in that arena.
The peer review process depends entirely on the existence of objective evidence so it would be nonsensical to publish results challenging it in a peer-reviewed journal. If an alternative method was successful the journals would adopt it - reluctantly perhaps, with a lot of inertia, but they would adopt it.
So does science- just try getting a theory that doesn't match the orthodoxy into a scientific journal.
There are hundreds of examples of new theories overturning the orthodoxy - plate tectonics is the obvious one. They might meet resistance and have a harder time getting published than theories that fit in, but ultimately there's no arguing with results - if the theory is right, experimental evidence will force its acceptance.
Bad example- Zen Augustines are an approved Roman Catholic Order, and have been for 120 years now; and the balance between Good and Evil, the idea that God and Satan are equally matched, goes back at least to the 1300s and was the central theme in Dante's La Divinia Comedia. Certain American Catholic sects and orders do not agree with that concept, but by no means is it a churchwide ban.
The belief was declared anathema hundreds of years ago and this has never been rescinded. The ban might not be enforced - to try and do so would probably weaken the church too much - but it's there.
If you had actually read more than the title, you'd know that's exactly what I'm talking about when I refer to the Counciliar Method. The doctrine of infalibility does NOT say that everything the Pope says goes, rather it says that the Pope is fallible except in cases of faith and morals where his teaching is in keeping with Holy Tradition and the Councils and he is exercising the power of the Seat of Peter, which has traditionally been the office of "First among Equals", kind of like the chief editor of a peer reviewed journal, he gets the final say- for his time in office. I personally think they named it wrong...it has caused much confusion.
You can say all you want but ultimately the teaching is that certain pronouncements are infallible - absolutely correct.
Also no- for we have the Eastern Rites under the Roman Pope as well, who do not use the Nicene Creed. You'd be correct for Latin Rite Roman Catholics- but that's just one culture among many.
They're not generally considered part of the Roman Catholic church. Of course there are many varieties of Christians, but there is a belief that defines them as Christians - that Jesus was divine - which must not be questioned, and each variety usually puts its own particular beliefs beyond question.
Actually, you only think you do- so far we haven't found two human brains that process input the exact same way. That's the reason we don't have brain interfaced computers yet.
It doesn't matter how we process it, just that we achieve the same result.
Science fails in it's explainations when it refers to theological concepts and tries to call them facts- tries to assume absolute accuracy where there is none possible. This whole discussion started with just such a premature assumption of fact- in the theory of evolution- when the quantum mechanics simply wasn't there to call it an absolute fact.
The evidence for both evolution and quantum mechanics is solid. No, neither is absolutely certain, but they're more than certain enough to teach to students, more than most other "facts" they will be taught, an
Microbes manage it for years on space probes. I said in some form for a reason - we'd have to do some fundamental re-engineering of ourselves, or become entirely software. But it's doable.
Thats no different from any group, anyone wanting control/power is dangerous, religion is just a group of people like anything else.
Yes, but with religion it's especially potent. People care about their religion on a fundamental level, and will fight and die for it like for nothing else.
On a seperate note I disagree with Dawkins as there is no definition of good or evil without religion,
That's entirely false. Morality and religion are basically independent - many religions have teachings about morality, but they have teachings about a lot of things.
No security is fine. The typical home user isn't running any services so they're at no risk of a system compromise, and someone leaching your 'net connection for a bit isn't a real problem - and if it is becoming one, you can quite easily find them and tell them to stop, given it's your home.
Did you get lost and think you were on K5? The US counts for more than the rest of the world put together around here. If it's not US, slashdot doesn't care.
When you preface a figure of speech with "literally", what you're saying is "(figure of speech) occurred, and I don't mean that as a figure of speech".
That's what it *used to* mean. These days it's just emphasis.
Just like any other religious belief. Religious beliefs that don't bring some measure of success eventually do fall. It can take centuries though, to tell the difference- sometimes millenia.
OK, but that isn't necessarily success in understanding the world. Believing in the truth of the results of the scientific method is the best in that respect.
Kind of like the two above?
They can be questioned - if another method lead to more accurate predictions, science would adopt it.
Actually, all religious beliefs can be questioned- but it takes time to find the answers. Often centuries or millenia. To insist that something is accurate or factual before the religion has been through that trial, is premature and rather impatient.
Religions insist that core beliefs are true and must not be questioned. As an example, catholics are forbidden to associate with those who believe God and Satan have equal power.
The one substantial core belief for Catholicism is the Councilar Process- the idea that the magisterium develops doctrine adequately. It's very much like the peer review system- and has just about as much foundation behind it, as a belief in a working assumption that has worked for just about 1950 years, give or take a few decades.
Then why the doctrine of infallibility? And there is a lot more that is held as core beliefs - everything in the Nicene Creed, for example, is a statement of belief that one must agree with to be catholic.
Depends on what you mean by the world; your world maybe but that isn't the only world that exists. You can't actually extrapolate your experiences to others except by belief.
I can't be certain, but there's enough evidence - I see the same things as people I talk to about what we're seeing, hear the same noises, and so on.
However, it is quickly appearing that science is failing in it's ability to explain what's happening "behind the scenes" as you put it.
How so?
No, I define USEFUL ACCURACY as that which makes people happy- a philosophy that is not useful does not make people happy, and will be discarded in the long run regardless of how accurate or inaccurate it is.
I think science will survive because people need to know the truth or something close to it to base their lives on, even if they don't believe it. Ultimately science will be more useful than the alternatives not because it makes people happy but because it allows people to survive.
Which may, or may not be, one of it's failings in the long term. What good is having technology if it only makes you miserable? Look at the Amish- completely satisfied with their little utopias, stuck as you would put it in 1600. Are you more satisfied with your technology than they are?
I'm not sure if I'm more satisfied as I am now, but I certainly wouldn't be satisfied standing still", which keeping to such a lifestyle would require people to do.
What does it matter to a man how the world was created if he cannot achieve happiness in this life?
We still can't make a working fusion reactor, yes? But we make H-bombs work by using a fission explosion to heat up stuff for fusion. So in that case, why not use the superheated water from a fission reactor to heat a fusion reactor?
It becomes dangerous because of the prospect of improving our bombs by making them do higher level fusions - fuse the helium into lithium and so on.
Almost. Religion on its own, in private, is pretty harmless. It's combining religion and politics - religions trying to take power, groups trying to enforce their religions, and so on - that's really dangerous.
The refractive index is the sine of the angle of refraction over the sine of the angle of incidence. A negative index of refraction means the light is being refracted on the same side of the normal as it came in on, giving a negative angle of refraction.
That's exactly it. The work with microwaves shows the effect is real (by resolving features smaller than the wavelength of the microwaves) but isn't really useful since we can get that kind of resolution by just using light. This could actually allow us to see things better.
In other words, you admit that science is full of error- you just would rather lie than admit that in science class.
No. Science has a small amount of error. Less than, say, the reasonable doubt that would save a murder suspect from conviction.
So have the basic assumptions in science- the scientific method is a theology. Objective evidence is a theology. The existance of these go unquestioned for huge amounts of time.
They're not something that can be objectively shown, but they're worth believing as working assumptions based on the success we can have by believing in them.
Not for all of religion. Religions are merely systems of beliefs- there is no *single* core belief for all religions. Individual religious sects have core beliefs, yes, but no one core belief covers every religion mankind has ever believed in. That's why I call science a religion- it has core beliefs, and those core beliefs are markedly different enough to create sects and meta-sects.
The point is that a religion is different because it has an unquestionable core belief.
Roman Catholicism is one of those meta-sects; katholicos in Greek means universal. There is more to Roman Catholicism than any one person could ever experience personally; in theological terms the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls it a meta-culture, under which several local cultures with varying belief systems survive and thrive. A good example is the official church position taken on the ID debate- you have Jesuits claiming theistic evolution where God is but a witness to random indeterministic nature; to Dominicans claiming that Genesis is true, but just an allegory and the six days took "mille mille eons", to traditionalists in the United States who are splitting off over Young Earth Creationism.
The fact that they're having to split off shows that there is a cohesiveness to catholicism, one does have to agree on a substantial amount.
No, I'm not- which is why I said the belief of objectivism rather than science. Objectivism can be philosophically derived from the scientific method; but doing so starts one down the slipery slope to solipsism and nilhism, systems under which morality has no meaning whatsoever (and neither does anything else because it's ALL false).
So you're saying the scientific method implies morality is meaningless?
Which is your same problem with philosophy- you discount it because you just don't know about it.
I learn as much as I can. I have yet to see anything else as good as science in terms of making useful predictions about the world.
Above you admited that those results are not absolutely accurate ever- I think the only reason you think it's supperior to other philosophies is because you are unfamiliar with other philosophies. Here's a hint- the test of time affects ALL philosophy equally. If there's anything objective in philosophy it's this- philosophies that do not produce accurate results die. Ones that do produce accurate results survive. It's evolution applied to human societies and ideas; survival of the fittest.
Religions could have just as well achieved success through conquest, promises of afterlife, and tradition as through accurate results. And I have yet to see a religion produce an accurate prediction without using science "behind the scenes".
From that point of view, science is simply too new to have it's results compared to religion as a whole; it's likely more accurate than very young sects (like say the Jevhovah's Witnesses, the Young Earth Creationists, or the Dispensationalists), but it's likely less accurate than say, Hinduism. Regardless of the technological marvels, what really counts in human truth is the applicability to human life, and the creation of happiness in that life.
You define truth as that which makes people happy? That's just patently false. The technological marvels you dismiss are a demonstration of understanding and using that for control - because we kno
That's backwards from how it normally works. Grub makes some attempt to support usb itself. Lilo just relies on the bios supporting it. Try *disabling* bios support for "usb device emulation" or similar.
I was thinking of the guy from/Interesting Times/ who Cohen the barbarian says can have some ministerial post, to which his response is something like "The hat with the red button on it?". But the one I have is an "easy button" (I would have included the link but there wasn't space)
Slashdot Mirror
It will succeed because, in the long term, we can't survive without it.
Actually, no science would not- and that's the very problem. People who question the existance of objective evidence or the scientific method are considered heretics and not allowed to publish their thoughts in the peer reviewed journals, so there's no way for science to adopt a new idea in that arena.
The peer review process depends entirely on the existence of objective evidence so it would be nonsensical to publish results challenging it in a peer-reviewed journal. If an alternative method was successful the journals would adopt it - reluctantly perhaps, with a lot of inertia, but they would adopt it.
So does science- just try getting a theory that doesn't match the orthodoxy into a scientific journal.
There are hundreds of examples of new theories overturning the orthodoxy - plate tectonics is the obvious one. They might meet resistance and have a harder time getting published than theories that fit in, but ultimately there's no arguing with results - if the theory is right, experimental evidence will force its acceptance.
Bad example- Zen Augustines are an approved Roman Catholic Order, and have been for 120 years now; and the balance between Good and Evil, the idea that God and Satan are equally matched, goes back at least to the 1300s and was the central theme in Dante's La Divinia Comedia. Certain American Catholic sects and orders do not agree with that concept, but by no means is it a churchwide ban.
The belief was declared anathema hundreds of years ago and this has never been rescinded. The ban might not be enforced - to try and do so would probably weaken the church too much - but it's there.
If you had actually read more than the title, you'd know that's exactly what I'm talking about when I refer to the Counciliar Method. The doctrine of infalibility does NOT say that everything the Pope says goes, rather it says that the Pope is fallible except in cases of faith and morals where his teaching is in keeping with Holy Tradition and the Councils and he is exercising the power of the Seat of Peter, which has traditionally been the office of "First among Equals", kind of like the chief editor of a peer reviewed journal, he gets the final say- for his time in office. I personally think they named it wrong...it has caused much confusion.
You can say all you want but ultimately the teaching is that certain pronouncements are infallible - absolutely correct.
Also no- for we have the Eastern Rites under the Roman Pope as well, who do not use the Nicene Creed. You'd be correct for Latin Rite Roman Catholics- but that's just one culture among many.
They're not generally considered part of the Roman Catholic church. Of course there are many varieties of Christians, but there is a belief that defines them as Christians - that Jesus was divine - which must not be questioned, and each variety usually puts its own particular beliefs beyond question.
Actually, you only think you do- so far we haven't found two human brains that process input the exact same way. That's the reason we don't have brain interfaced computers yet.
It doesn't matter how we process it, just that we achieve the same result.
Science fails in it's explainations when it refers to theological concepts and tries to call them facts- tries to assume absolute accuracy where there is none possible. This whole discussion started with just such a premature assumption of fact- in the theory of evolution- when the quantum mechanics simply wasn't there to call it an absolute fact.
The evidence for both evolution and quantum mechanics is solid. No, neither is absolutely certain, but they're more than certain enough to teach to students, more than most other "facts" they will be taught, an
Microbes manage it for years on space probes. I said in some form for a reason - we'd have to do some fundamental re-engineering of ourselves, or become entirely software. But it's doable.
Yes, but with religion it's especially potent. People care about their religion on a fundamental level, and will fight and die for it like for nothing else.
On a seperate note I disagree with Dawkins as there is no definition of good or evil without religion,
That's entirely false. Morality and religion are basically independent - many religions have teachings about morality, but they have teachings about a lot of things.
No security is fine. The typical home user isn't running any services so they're at no risk of a system compromise, and someone leaching your 'net connection for a bit isn't a real problem - and if it is becoming one, you can quite easily find them and tell them to stop, given it's your home.
Did you get lost and think you were on K5? The US counts for more than the rest of the world put together around here. If it's not US, slashdot doesn't care.
That's what it *used to* mean. These days it's just emphasis.
BeOS did/does video better than anything else around, and is more modern than windows or linux. Maybe he thinks there'll be a beos revival?
OK, but that isn't necessarily success in understanding the world. Believing in the truth of the results of the scientific method is the best in that respect.
Kind of like the two above?
They can be questioned - if another method lead to more accurate predictions, science would adopt it.
Actually, all religious beliefs can be questioned- but it takes time to find the answers. Often centuries or millenia. To insist that something is accurate or factual before the religion has been through that trial, is premature and rather impatient.
Religions insist that core beliefs are true and must not be questioned. As an example, catholics are forbidden to associate with those who believe God and Satan have equal power.
The one substantial core belief for Catholicism is the Councilar Process- the idea that the magisterium develops doctrine adequately. It's very much like the peer review system- and has just about as much foundation behind it, as a belief in a working assumption that has worked for just about 1950 years, give or take a few decades.
Then why the doctrine of infallibility? And there is a lot more that is held as core beliefs - everything in the Nicene Creed, for example, is a statement of belief that one must agree with to be catholic.
Depends on what you mean by the world; your world maybe but that isn't the only world that exists. You can't actually extrapolate your experiences to others except by belief.
I can't be certain, but there's enough evidence - I see the same things as people I talk to about what we're seeing, hear the same noises, and so on.
However, it is quickly appearing that science is failing in it's ability to explain what's happening "behind the scenes" as you put it.
How so?
No, I define USEFUL ACCURACY as that which makes people happy- a philosophy that is not useful does not make people happy, and will be discarded in the long run regardless of how accurate or inaccurate it is.
I think science will survive because people need to know the truth or something close to it to base their lives on, even if they don't believe it. Ultimately science will be more useful than the alternatives not because it makes people happy but because it allows people to survive.
Which may, or may not be, one of it's failings in the long term. What good is having technology if it only makes you miserable? Look at the Amish- completely satisfied with their little utopias, stuck as you would put it in 1600. Are you more satisfied with your technology than they are?
I'm not sure if I'm more satisfied as I am now, but I certainly wouldn't be satisfied standing still", which keeping to such a lifestyle would require people to do.
What does it matter to a man how the world was created if he cannot achieve happiness in this life?
Because it's better to know.
It's a redefining of intelligence, and the first step towards saying that everyone is equally intelligent, which is a very dangerous idea.
That's bollocks. Remove government and you just get warlords taking power. Look at Afghanistan. That's not a paradise of equality.
It becomes dangerous because of the prospect of improving our bombs by making them do higher level fusions - fuse the helium into lithium and so on.
Not necessarily. The Dyson computation allows us to survive in some form forever.
Almost. Religion on its own, in private, is pretty harmless. It's combining religion and politics - religions trying to take power, groups trying to enforce their religions, and so on - that's really dangerous.
Yep. But this is the first time anyone's managed to do it with something with as short wavelengths as light.
That's why these lenses are so exciting, they let us resolve below the wavelength of the waves used. 1/400th seems further than before though.
The refractive index is the sine of the angle of refraction over the sine of the angle of incidence. A negative index of refraction means the light is being refracted on the same side of the normal as it came in on, giving a negative angle of refraction.
That's exactly it. The work with microwaves shows the effect is real (by resolving features smaller than the wavelength of the microwaves) but isn't really useful since we can get that kind of resolution by just using light. This could actually allow us to see things better.
No. Science has a small amount of error. Less than, say, the reasonable doubt that would save a murder suspect from conviction.
So have the basic assumptions in science- the scientific method is a theology. Objective evidence is a theology. The existance of these go unquestioned for huge amounts of time.
They're not something that can be objectively shown, but they're worth believing as working assumptions based on the success we can have by believing in them.
Not for all of religion. Religions are merely systems of beliefs- there is no *single* core belief for all religions. Individual religious sects have core beliefs, yes, but no one core belief covers every religion mankind has ever believed in. That's why I call science a religion- it has core beliefs, and those core beliefs are markedly different enough to create sects and meta-sects.
The point is that a religion is different because it has an unquestionable core belief.
Roman Catholicism is one of those meta-sects; katholicos in Greek means universal. There is more to Roman Catholicism than any one person could ever experience personally; in theological terms the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls it a meta-culture, under which several local cultures with varying belief systems survive and thrive. A good example is the official church position taken on the ID debate- you have Jesuits claiming theistic evolution where God is but a witness to random indeterministic nature; to Dominicans claiming that Genesis is true, but just an allegory and the six days took "mille mille eons", to traditionalists in the United States who are splitting off over Young Earth Creationism.
The fact that they're having to split off shows that there is a cohesiveness to catholicism, one does have to agree on a substantial amount.
No, I'm not- which is why I said the belief of objectivism rather than science. Objectivism can be philosophically derived from the scientific method; but doing so starts one down the slipery slope to solipsism and nilhism, systems under which morality has no meaning whatsoever (and neither does anything else because it's ALL false).
So you're saying the scientific method implies morality is meaningless?
Which is your same problem with philosophy- you discount it because you just don't know about it.
I learn as much as I can. I have yet to see anything else as good as science in terms of making useful predictions about the world.
Above you admited that those results are not absolutely accurate ever- I think the only reason you think it's supperior to other philosophies is because you are unfamiliar with other philosophies. Here's a hint- the test of time affects ALL philosophy equally. If there's anything objective in philosophy it's this- philosophies that do not produce accurate results die. Ones that do produce accurate results survive. It's evolution applied to human societies and ideas; survival of the fittest.
Religions could have just as well achieved success through conquest, promises of afterlife, and tradition as through accurate results. And I have yet to see a religion produce an accurate prediction without using science "behind the scenes".
From that point of view, science is simply too new to have it's results compared to religion as a whole; it's likely more accurate than very young sects (like say the Jevhovah's Witnesses, the Young Earth Creationists, or the Dispensationalists), but it's likely less accurate than say, Hinduism. Regardless of the technological marvels, what really counts in human truth is the applicability to human life, and the creation of happiness in that life.
You define truth as that which makes people happy? That's just patently false. The technological marvels you dismiss are a demonstration of understanding and using that for control - because we kno
Old, you whippersnapper? I remember wondering what I'd put on these newfangled 720k floppies.
That's backwards from how it normally works. Grub makes some attempt to support usb itself. Lilo just relies on the bios supporting it. Try *disabling* bios support for "usb device emulation" or similar.
What do you use that to do? Grub booted my raid1 flawlessly, just map (hd0) and (hd0,0) to the /dev nodes and install normally.
I was thinking of the guy from /Interesting Times/ who Cohen the barbarian says can have some ministerial post, to which his response is something like "The hat with the red button on it?". But the one I have is an "easy button" (I would have included the link but there wasn't space)
That's a duff browser. My 2600+ desktop runs konqueror at 2% and displays it fine, even the great big cover-up-the-page ad.
Until someone else is appointed to their positions, they're hoping.
What was radical military tech in Einstein's time is now commonplace.