09 Feb 2008, 7:36 am
jonk wrote:
Thought I'd expand a little for you.
Thank you. ( The unzipped version jonk wrote:
Relax.
had me seriously unhappy).
Digesting.
The big difference i see straight away of course is that you felt alone. I did when i gave birth, despite the father and a midwife, ( and the baby, but it was leaving my body), i felt utterly alone. I was sure that i had seen "the truth", of my fundamental aloneness, in that moment.
Whereas when i choose to believe in god i "discover" that i am not alone. And THAT discovery makes me cry with gratitude and relief.
As i said i am not fixed about what this means. I am open to considering belief in god as "just" another route, but i think it is important not to rush into conflating them, as i have done in the past. I have already noticed that calling god "the unconscious"/"my higher self" seriously spoils the effect, and that it isn't that easy to recover from.
This is also unlike those occasional moments in the past, of disappearing into a moment of connection with leaves and sunlight, or sea and sky and breath when walking a coast path. All glorious. All beautiful and perfect.
This is a considered decision to choose a belief and follow it to see where it goes. (i keep losing the trail.
) This is more like work too.
And seems to explain or contain or fit so many of the ways i live/have lived in a way that isolated moments of transcendance do not. I do not know how to bring about those moments, they just happen. Whereas i have already discovered that i can "earn"/enable/produce moments of connection with god by being honest with myself, with humility, openness.
This may have an effect, if slowly, ( because i'm riddled with habits) on my life outside of prayer. I don't know much about this, because i have only just begun. I really am just fumbling around with first techniques. Other people with older faiths might have very different accounts of in what way it differs. Or is the same.
PS: ClosetAspy, is this still on topic enough, about how deal with ( expressing) belief in an "officially" unbelieving world?
Last edited by ouinon on 09 Feb 2008, 8:55 am, edited 4 times in total.
09 Feb 2008, 8:25 am
09 Feb 2008, 8:31 am
10 Feb 2008, 9:45 am
jonk wrote:
ouinon wrote:
The big difference i see is that you felt alone.
The sense of aloneness isn't the definition and you are off on a tangent if you are looking that way at it. Second, and best of all, I am NOT ALONE!! ! There are others! It's just that they weren't there at the park. I had to wait ... and instead find that some of these were just friends waiting for me to find my way and tossing new things to consider to help me along my own way. We are all equally capable of, have an equal capacity for, and are able to find in different ways those profoundest revelations if we are sincere searchers for truth.jonk wrote:
Unity. It's probably the single most important facet of science knowledge and the thing that distinguishes it most profoundly.
About "searchers for truth" i was going to agree whole heartedly, then to agree in part, ( "what is truth?" sort of cavilling!
), and then, to say that actually what i rather inconveniently tend to search for is complexity ( and that is genuinely the word i used to describe what i see myself as longing for, not simplicities, but bigger and bigger mysteries! ) and not just truth, after which i decided not to post anyway in case seemed to be hijacking the thread. 
So it's rather a coincidence that this morning i caught two minutes of a documentary about Edgar Morin, who has been arguing since the 60's for "a complexity paradigm" to replace the simplicity one which predominates at the moment, despite the inroads that chaos theory, the uncertainty principle, information technology/networks, etc have made on it.
The simplicity paradigm is responsible for our expecting that behind complex appearances we will find simple ( non complex) laws/truths.
Whereas a complexity paradigm would mean that complexity/"the woven togetherness of things"( which is what the word originally meant) would be the acknowledged ground of all things, rather than the simple laws our society still generally expects to find to explain everything.
Is that the sort of thing you meant about "science knowledge" and "unity", and "searchers for truth"?
After reading the chapter linked below my initial idea is that maybe god is an emergent,( and self-organising and autonomous! ?
), "product"/aspect of the self-organising and autonomous complexity of the non-trivial machine/system which is the human mind, which is itself already an emergent aspect of the machine "brain/body". Self-organising being creative and autonomous activity directed to dealing with difficulties faced by the system. But that's just a fun thought. To run with.
A link to a slightly stiff translation of a chapter from his massive work "La Methode", vol:"Ideas"is :
http://www.worldscibooks.com/chaos/etex ... chap01.pdf
PS: a slightly clearer, but less meditative/intuitive, read for anyone wanting a modern overview of complexity theory is at: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/ELIS-Complexity.pdf ( NB: especially pages 8-9 on Emergence) .
And Wikipedia has a page on Emergence which is very interesting, with lots of fascinating links.
10 Feb 2008, 5:09 pm
ouinon wrote:
jonk wrote:
ouinon wrote:
The big difference i see is that you felt alone.
The sense of aloneness isn't the definition and you are off on a tangent if you are looking that way at it. Second, and best of all, I am NOT ALONE!! ! There are others! It's just that they weren't there at the park. I had to wait ... and instead find that some of these were just friends waiting for me to find my way and tossing new things to consider to help me along my own way. We are all equally capable of, have an equal capacity for, and are able to find in different ways those profoundest revelations if we are sincere searchers for truth.jonk wrote:
Unity. It's probably the single most important facet of science knowledge and the thing that distinguishes it most profoundly.
About "searchers for truth" i was going to agree whole heartedly, then to agree in part, ( "what is truth?" sort of cavilling!
),I specifically and carefully chose my word, truth, in this case for a particular intent -- worrying that perhaps you'd take some facet of it too eagerly/aggressively and not notice the nuances I wanted you to face and be present in mind. But it looks as though my worries are somewhat lessened, now. Out of what I wrote, that is what you are struggling with and that's exactly what I wanted. I find myself enjoying your mind. Not many in general are like you -- but in science, there are more.
ouinon wrote:
and then, to say that actually what i rather inconveniently tend to search for is complexity ( and that is genuinely the word i used to describe what i see myself as longing for, not simplicities, but bigger and bigger mysteries! ) and not just truth, after which i decided not to post anyway in case seemed to be hijacking the thread.
I think you are of a scientific mind, but probably do not quite realize just how much so. Let me tell you a parable from Galileo. Maybe, by telling it, I can express my thoughts more completely. Galileo's writing is a joyous study of mine:
Galileo, in The Assayer wrote:
Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them, while on the other hand to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgment upon anything new.
Once upon a time, in a very lonely place, there lived a man endowed by nature with extraordinary curiosity and a very penetrating mind. For a pastime be raised birds, whose songs he much enjoyed; and he observed with great admiration the happy contrivance by which they could transform at will the very air they breathed into a variety of sweet songs.
One night this man chanced to hear a delicate song close to his house, and being unable to connect it with anything but some small bird he set out to capture it. When he arrived at a road he found a shepherd boy who was blowing into a kind of hollow stick while moving his fingers about on the wood, thus drawing from it a variety of notes similar to those of a bird, though by quite a different method. Puzzled, but impelled by his natural curiosity, he gave the boy a calf in exchange for this flute and returned to solitude. But realizing that if he had not chanced to meet the boy he would never have learned of the existence of a new method of forming musical notes and the sweetest songs, he decided to travel to distant places in the hope of meeting with some new adventure.
The very next day he happened to pass by a small hut within which he heard similar tones; and in order to see whether this was a flute or a bird he went inside. There he found a small boy who was holding a bow in his right hand and sawing upon some fibers stretched over a hollowed piece of wood. The left hand supported the instrument, and the fingers of the boy were moving so that he drew from this a variety of notes, and most melodious ones too, without any blowing. Now you who participate in this man's thoughts and share his curiosity may judge of his astonishment. Yet finding himself now to have two unanticipated ways of producing notes and melodies, he began to perceive that still others might exist.
His amazement was increased when upon entering a temple he heard a sound, and upon looking behind the gates discovered that this had come from the hinges and fastenings as he opened it. Another time, led by curiosity, be entered an inn expecting to see someone lightly bowing the strings of a violin, and instead he saw a man rubbing his fingertip around the rim of a goblet and drawing forth a pleasant tone from that. Then he observed that wasps, mosquitoes, and flies do not form single notes by breathing, as did the birds, but produce their steady sounds by swift beating of their wings. And as his wonder grew, his conviction proportionately diminished that he knew how sounds were produced; nor would all his previous experiences have sufficed to teach him or even allow him to believe that crickets derive their sweet and sonorous shrilling by scraping their wings together, particularly as they cannot fly at all.
Well, after this man had come to believe that no more ways of forming tones could possibly exist- after having observed, in addition to all the things already mentioned, a variety of organs, trumpets, fifes, stringed instruments, and even that little tongue of iron which is placed between the teeth and which makes strange use of the oral cavity for sounding box and of the breath for vehicle of soundwhen, I say, this man believed he had seen everything, he suddenly found himself once more plunged deeper into ignorance and bafflement than ever. For having captured in his hands a cicada, he failed to diminish its strident noise either by closing its mouth or stopping its wings, yet he could not see it move the scales that covered its body, Or any other thing. At last be lifted up the armor of its chest and there he saw some thin hard ligaments beneath; thinking the sound might come from their vibration, he decided to break them in order to silence it. But nothing happened until his needle drove too deep, and transfixing the creature be took away its life with its voice, so that he was still unable to determine whether the song had originated in those ligaments. And by this experience his knowledge was reduced to diffidence, so that when asked how sounds were created be used to answer tolerantly that although he knew a few ways, he was sure that many more existed which were not only unknown but unimaginable.
Once upon a time, in a very lonely place, there lived a man endowed by nature with extraordinary curiosity and a very penetrating mind. For a pastime be raised birds, whose songs he much enjoyed; and he observed with great admiration the happy contrivance by which they could transform at will the very air they breathed into a variety of sweet songs.
One night this man chanced to hear a delicate song close to his house, and being unable to connect it with anything but some small bird he set out to capture it. When he arrived at a road he found a shepherd boy who was blowing into a kind of hollow stick while moving his fingers about on the wood, thus drawing from it a variety of notes similar to those of a bird, though by quite a different method. Puzzled, but impelled by his natural curiosity, he gave the boy a calf in exchange for this flute and returned to solitude. But realizing that if he had not chanced to meet the boy he would never have learned of the existence of a new method of forming musical notes and the sweetest songs, he decided to travel to distant places in the hope of meeting with some new adventure.
The very next day he happened to pass by a small hut within which he heard similar tones; and in order to see whether this was a flute or a bird he went inside. There he found a small boy who was holding a bow in his right hand and sawing upon some fibers stretched over a hollowed piece of wood. The left hand supported the instrument, and the fingers of the boy were moving so that he drew from this a variety of notes, and most melodious ones too, without any blowing. Now you who participate in this man's thoughts and share his curiosity may judge of his astonishment. Yet finding himself now to have two unanticipated ways of producing notes and melodies, he began to perceive that still others might exist.
His amazement was increased when upon entering a temple he heard a sound, and upon looking behind the gates discovered that this had come from the hinges and fastenings as he opened it. Another time, led by curiosity, be entered an inn expecting to see someone lightly bowing the strings of a violin, and instead he saw a man rubbing his fingertip around the rim of a goblet and drawing forth a pleasant tone from that. Then he observed that wasps, mosquitoes, and flies do not form single notes by breathing, as did the birds, but produce their steady sounds by swift beating of their wings. And as his wonder grew, his conviction proportionately diminished that he knew how sounds were produced; nor would all his previous experiences have sufficed to teach him or even allow him to believe that crickets derive their sweet and sonorous shrilling by scraping their wings together, particularly as they cannot fly at all.
Well, after this man had come to believe that no more ways of forming tones could possibly exist- after having observed, in addition to all the things already mentioned, a variety of organs, trumpets, fifes, stringed instruments, and even that little tongue of iron which is placed between the teeth and which makes strange use of the oral cavity for sounding box and of the breath for vehicle of soundwhen, I say, this man believed he had seen everything, he suddenly found himself once more plunged deeper into ignorance and bafflement than ever. For having captured in his hands a cicada, he failed to diminish its strident noise either by closing its mouth or stopping its wings, yet he could not see it move the scales that covered its body, Or any other thing. At last be lifted up the armor of its chest and there he saw some thin hard ligaments beneath; thinking the sound might come from their vibration, he decided to break them in order to silence it. But nothing happened until his needle drove too deep, and transfixing the creature be took away its life with its voice, so that he was still unable to determine whether the song had originated in those ligaments. And by this experience his knowledge was reduced to diffidence, so that when asked how sounds were created be used to answer tolerantly that although he knew a few ways, he was sure that many more existed which were not only unknown but unimaginable.
Now what I want you to do is put yourself in mind of Galileo's time and that they knew nothing about how sound words, certainly nothing of the modern conception of it (time-dependent, tiny changes in the density of matter) and what a complex mystery it is. Yet, he thought about it a lot. He was drawn by complexity. Scientists are, as well.
Why do some of the cells of a leaf form 'edge' cells, so that we might recognize the species despite the fact that no two leaves are ever the same? And other cells nearby not form as edge cells? How is it that our immune system recognizes virally infested cells, when the virus is still inside an otherwise entirely human cell? Why is the sun so stable, when it is literally a nuclear bomb going off? Bacteria communicate with each other... but how?
There are so many mysteries. And scientists don't run _from_ complexity, but towards it. These questions drive them to try and see. When you gain a scientists' eye, the whole world is so wonderful -- you are like pollyanna looking at the colors of light twinkling from the glass pendants with wonder and a love of mystery and complexity.
There is a movie said something right at the end of it, that spoke deeply to my heart. In fact, it brought me to tears at the time (the rest of the movie did not, but that scene did.) The movie is, "7 Faces of Dr. Lao." A boy in the movie was fascinated with Dr. Lao's circus, the only son of a single mother in an old-west town. Dr. Lao is supposed to be 7,000 years old and the short description of the plot is, "An old Chinese gentleman rides into the town of Abalone, Arizona and changes it forever, as the citizens see themselves reflected in the mirror of Lao's mysterious circus of mythical beasts." But at the end of the movie, the townspeople, who know in their hearts that somehow this old Chinese fakir had caused them to come together and set aside their greed and secrets and to find a new and better way but not having any idea how it all happened to them, stood quitely together as they watched Dr. Lao leave their town on his donkey. The little boy breaks away from hisou mother and starts running down the dirt path, crying out to Dr. Lao to please wait for him and that he wants to join his circus. Dr. Lao is too far away, in the distance, and the boy (Mike) stumbles and falls to the ground, criying tears and just wishing... And out of the distance you hear Dr. Lao's voice (Tony Randall) say (Dr. Lao speaking without a fake Chinese accent for emphasis), "Mike, the whole world is a circus if you look at it the right way. Every time you pick up a handful of dust, and see not the dust, but a mystery, a marvel, there in your hand - every time you stop and think, 'I'm alive, and being alive is fantastic!' - every time such a thing happens, Mike, you are part of the Circus of Dr. Lao."
This is it! You can sit in one spot in your yard, never move from it your entire life, reaching out only to touch and think about what you can within your grasp without getting up, and spend your entire lifetime without fully understanding even that much of the whole universe!! It's a wonderland of beauty and complexity, awesome and beuatiful at every level, and as you learn and study about it a love deepens within that few can achieve in any other way than in science because the beauty is NOT skin deep, but reaches to the deepest levels beyond the atom itself and to the highest reaches far beyond the Earth. Oh, if I could only express that in words to you... But I cannot.
Dr. Lao in the movie is telling the boy such an important thing to know. Most folks rake leaves. But as a scientist, everytime you pick up a leaf you look closely at it and think and wonder about it. When you see a flock of finches in several trees, chittering to each other incessantly, you wonder about the chatter itself and what survival purpose that provides them (there is a wonderful answer to that, by the way.) Every single thing, every single moment, every day, you find yourself stopping and asking yourself another question. I can barely get myself out the door of my home to buy stuff at the store because I am distracted constantly by new questions pressing at me that I just have to learn about. One time there were seagulls in the parking lot nearby, looking for food. So I went in with my son and we bought bread and went back out and spent hours just watching the seagulls and trying out different ways to attracting their attention and watching their behaviors between each other. I didn't get home until late.
One of the truly wonderful things about science is that it approaches a bewildering world of complexity and a sense of awe and a wonder of the mysteries there. A love for it, a visceral attraction to complexity and mystery. We have no right to expect that any of it will remain anything but a mystery. But we are fortunate enough that in some way we cannot justify and must merely accept as our fortune and luck, nature's complexity and bewildering variety has proven amenable to simplifying ideas that are highly unified. But the even better part of science is that as some puzzles are finally explained in a satisfying way, that we then find 10 times more mysteries to replace them. It's like an expanding balloon in that sense. The bigger it gets, the more mysteries remain visible near its surface to just begin now to see. When when you include that area into your understanding, the balloon is a little bigger and the surface area just that much larger with new questions. So the mysteries increase and do not diminish. You get not only complexity and wonder and awe for the next boundary, but also the satisfaction too of understanding in some depth some parts of nature, too.
Back to Galileo's parable. At their time, sound remained a complete mystery. But today, it is quite simple to understand in all of its ways we experience and also in ways we have yet to experience. The theories explain and predict how sound works not only with things we can experience here on earth, but also how it works in the most rarefied vacuum of space in vast and near vacuum galactic level dust clouds or collecting regions of rarefied hydrogen millions of light years away. And it is so simple to understand, one of the principles being probably the very simplest of ideas called "superposition," and yet in application can explain all of the complexities we see. That's part of the beauty here. That simple ideas can combine with simple rules to create such bewildering complexity and variety. It's stunning to behold, in person.
Perhaps a game of 'go' would make this clearer to you. The rules aren't that hard to learn. Less than a dozen, let's say. Yet the game of go can lead to a wide variety of actual and very interesting games. Out of simplicity, complexity. This is the song of science, too.
I'll hold off commenting on the rest, for now. I've probably written too much as it is.
Jon
P.S. Perhaps it should not be a surprise to find religion and scence clashing for another reason somewhat less obvious than what most imagine. It's possible that those seriously drawn to mysteries could be drawn to one or the other and that there is an inescapable competition on that front. A thought that hadn't crossed my mind until today.
Last edited by jonk on 10 Feb 2008, 5:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
10 Feb 2008, 5:34 pm
10 Feb 2008, 5:46 pm
12 Feb 2008, 7:33 pm
[PS: ClosetAspy, is this still on topic enough, about how deal with ( expressing) belief in an "officially" unbelieving world?
Yes, this is the sort of discussion I was hoping to spark, it's utterly stimulating and provocative. I am not used to in depth discussions like this, especially among believers. It's great to be a part of this even just to sit back and listen. (If I don't seem to be responding as much as I did at the beginning, it's because I have had to work a lot of overtime lately.)
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