Science and love, music, art, etc. (The limitations of science)

by dhw, Thursday, February 26, 2009, 12:25 (5546 days ago) @ George Jelliss

I wrote that millions of Jews etc. say it is true that God exists. I thought that since George was an atheist, he would say it was not true, but George writes: "I do not say 'it is not true'. I say it depends on what you mean by 'God'. And the fact is that science does back the non-existence of many versions of 'God'." - I can go along with this if it means what I think it means, and it may be an important breakthrough in our understanding of each other. I used the word 'God' here as it is used by Jews, Muslims and Christians, but it could equally be David's God of panentheism ... a conscious, creative force whose attributes are simply unknown to us. We may have a problem, though, with 'conscious', because I don't know of any concept of God that does not involve consciousness. We must bear in mind, of course, that 'not saying something is not true' is totally neutral, i.e. agnostic. For instance, I would not say that the theory of abiogenesis is not true. And I would not say that the panentheistic God is not true. Would it be too much to ask you what sort of "God" you might NOT dismiss as "not true"? - As regards those religious people who dispute the findings of science, I would count young-earth creationists as among the fundamentalists. You had argued that science was an accurate guide, and I said this was true in many fields, but not in those of religion, personal experiences, thought, love etc. You have responded that "science has important things to say in these areas." I agree. We disagree only when you say it is a fact that someone is too willing to accept subjective experiences as evidence. Your judgment of what constitutes "too willing" is not a fact but an opinion. - This was the actual focus of our discussion on "Gestalten". I'm sorry that you have declined to answer the question I posed with my fictional dialogue, but perhaps you did so because you realized that any answer you gave would confirm the subjectivity that underlies interpretation. - In your final paragraph you have tried to turn the tables: "It is important to understand that science is a collaborative enterprise of humankind over time. Dismissing it as being all a matter of personal opinion is like saying 'stop the world I want to get off.'" No, George, I have never dismissed science as a matter of personal opinion. I would happily accept a definition of it as the objective study of the physical world and its manifestations. It is scientists, not science, that are subjective when they draw non-scientific conclusions from their findings (e.g. that life originated by design/by chance), or ... and this is the complicated bit ... when they argue that science must take precedence over other means of acquiring evidence, e.g. in matters concerning religion, personal experiences etc. "Subjective", however, does not mean wrong. The point of applying Gestalt theory to interpretation is to show how the process functions, not what is right or wrong.