No, it's not, by definition. Instead of finding out how stuff works, this particular philosophy prescribes just deciding how it should work and then believing this arbitrary decision to accurately reflect the nature of the universe.
> What about when you ask yourself why the universe exists?
Yes, I do, but I suspect that it's a different "why". Mine is causal, where I suspect yours is centered on some definition of cosmic meaning. The problem I have with this view is that it seems inappropriate to me. It's inappropriate to tag cosmic processes with a concept that should be reserved for intelligent life forms.
> However I believe you are a critical thinker and that I may at least get you to appreciate why I would see things that way.
I do, I'm sorry if I seemed overly aggressive. I'm just so used to religious people demanding scientific recognition of their views that I sometimes overshoot my target. However I have to admit that I sometimes feel deeply sad and disappointed.
> Making stuff up is also part and parcel of science. In fact it is the essence of sentience.
It's this fallacy which brought us a movement that explores "alternate theories" in biology class. Religion is not science. "Making stuff up" that is unsupportable by evidence is not science. I agree that making mental models is the essence of sentience, however it's not required that these models are unprovable and in contradiction of the laws of nature.
> But are testable hypotheses the only important things in life?
I believe when it comes to very important things, like the nature of reality for example, making testable hypotheses the basis of a person's mental models is the only important thing. Rejecting the whole stack of evidence and the hypotheses that came out of those observations in favor of something untestable and arbitrary does not seem like a viable strategy to understand the nature of the universe. In this context I need also to point out that there are important things in life that pertain to your personal life itself, not the universe. I'm just against mixing them up.
> Don't use religious nuts as a strawman to justify an atheistic hubris that nothing exists beyond what our physical instruments are capable of revealing.
It's not just about religious nuts, it's about a fundamental difference in perceiving the world. You call it atheistic hubris, I call it the growing impatience of rational people in the face of a world governed by fairy tales. When a fairy tale crosses the boundary from personal phantasy into a widespread public substitution for the provable truth, it becomes a lie designed to manipulate people. And I don't mean to imply that you hold this position, I merely want to explain why I feel so passionately about the issue.
> I just take the nature of my own consciousness as evidence that there is something bigger going on here than we can be aware of from within our meatsacks.
I know, this is where our fundamental disagreement comes from. I studied the sciences, I studied the human body, and I like to think that I thoroughly enjoy the very fact of our existence. I don't think our meatsacks are profane puppets in the service of an unseen force that floods the universe with artificial meaning. Instead I believe our "meatsacks" are marvelous, awesome machines and they gave rise to a form of consciousness that is unparalleled on this planet. Those meatsacks are the substrate, the hardware our consciousness runs on, and they're doing a pretty good job of it.
> "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."
For me, the supernatural is not a valid idea to begin with. I don't have to believe in any and every idea out there, I don't have to give them all equal weight. Nobody does that, even spiritual people don't do that.
> No, it's not, by definition. Instead of finding out how stuff works, this particular philosophy prescribes just deciding how it should work and then believing this arbitrary decision to accurately reflect the nature of the universe.
Okay, this is actually just you projecting your beliefs onto what spirituality means. It is not by definition in any sense of the word.
> It's inappropriate to tag cosmic processes with a concept that should be reserved for intelligent life forms.
How do you know the universe is not an intelligent life form?
> It's this fallacy which brought us a movement that explores "alternate theories" in biology class. Religion is not science. "Making stuff up" that is unsupportable by evidence is not science.
Sigh When did I say it was? I explained clearly the difference between science and other forms of making stuff up, and you talked right past it. It is as if you believe human beings are incapable of thinking in both scientific and unscientific ways.
> Rejecting the whole stack of evidence and the hypotheses that came out of those observations in favor of something untestable and arbitrary does not seem like a viable strategy to understand the nature of the universe.
Who's rejecting anything? Science does not tell us whether there is a god or not.
> You call it atheistic hubris, I call it the growing impatience of rational people in the face of a world governed by fairy tales.
That's not what I call atheistic hubris. What I call atheistic hubris is that the lack of recognizable evidence of higher consciousness is evidence that there is no higher consciousness. The reason it is so hubristic is because we no idea what said evidence would look like. Declaring this one way or the other is not scientific, it is instead I believe, a psychological need to have a firm order in one's knowledge of the universe. I stand as evidence that this is not a pre-requisite for a true and healthy relationship with science.
> I don't think our meatsacks are profane puppets in the service of an unseen force that floods the universe with artificial meaning. Instead I believe our "meatsacks" are marvelous, awesome machines and they gave rise to a form of consciousness that is unparalleled on this planet.
Why do you say puppet? Trying to pigeonhole spiritual belief into some kind of biblical metaphor is exactly the attitude I'm fighting against. I'm not saying that your mind is not governed by chemical processes playing themselves out; I'm saying that even if that's 100% true (which is a very difficult truth to verify when you get down to the nuances), it doesn't mean there isn't something else going on on another level. Perhaps the universe is conscious and you are just one small part of that, or perhaps there are parallel dimensions that get the information from our universe in some read-only fashion. My point is not to arrive at the objective truth (how often do you arrive an objective unchanging truth in your interpersonal life?), but rather to leave myself open to bigger questions even if they remain unanswerable in any scientific capacity for the rest of time.
No, it's not, by definition. Instead of finding out how stuff works, this particular philosophy prescribes just deciding how it should work and then believing this arbitrary decision to accurately reflect the nature of the universe.
> What about when you ask yourself why the universe exists?
Yes, I do, but I suspect that it's a different "why". Mine is causal, where I suspect yours is centered on some definition of cosmic meaning. The problem I have with this view is that it seems inappropriate to me. It's inappropriate to tag cosmic processes with a concept that should be reserved for intelligent life forms.
> However I believe you are a critical thinker and that I may at least get you to appreciate why I would see things that way.
I do, I'm sorry if I seemed overly aggressive. I'm just so used to religious people demanding scientific recognition of their views that I sometimes overshoot my target. However I have to admit that I sometimes feel deeply sad and disappointed.
> Making stuff up is also part and parcel of science. In fact it is the essence of sentience.
It's this fallacy which brought us a movement that explores "alternate theories" in biology class. Religion is not science. "Making stuff up" that is unsupportable by evidence is not science. I agree that making mental models is the essence of sentience, however it's not required that these models are unprovable and in contradiction of the laws of nature.
> But are testable hypotheses the only important things in life?
I believe when it comes to very important things, like the nature of reality for example, making testable hypotheses the basis of a person's mental models is the only important thing. Rejecting the whole stack of evidence and the hypotheses that came out of those observations in favor of something untestable and arbitrary does not seem like a viable strategy to understand the nature of the universe. In this context I need also to point out that there are important things in life that pertain to your personal life itself, not the universe. I'm just against mixing them up.
> Don't use religious nuts as a strawman to justify an atheistic hubris that nothing exists beyond what our physical instruments are capable of revealing.
It's not just about religious nuts, it's about a fundamental difference in perceiving the world. You call it atheistic hubris, I call it the growing impatience of rational people in the face of a world governed by fairy tales. When a fairy tale crosses the boundary from personal phantasy into a widespread public substitution for the provable truth, it becomes a lie designed to manipulate people. And I don't mean to imply that you hold this position, I merely want to explain why I feel so passionately about the issue.
> I just take the nature of my own consciousness as evidence that there is something bigger going on here than we can be aware of from within our meatsacks.
I know, this is where our fundamental disagreement comes from. I studied the sciences, I studied the human body, and I like to think that I thoroughly enjoy the very fact of our existence. I don't think our meatsacks are profane puppets in the service of an unseen force that floods the universe with artificial meaning. Instead I believe our "meatsacks" are marvelous, awesome machines and they gave rise to a form of consciousness that is unparalleled on this planet. Those meatsacks are the substrate, the hardware our consciousness runs on, and they're doing a pretty good job of it.
> "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."
For me, the supernatural is not a valid idea to begin with. I don't have to believe in any and every idea out there, I don't have to give them all equal weight. Nobody does that, even spiritual people don't do that.