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Is science an answer to eve-ry-thing?
Ok, I will try to maintain a sort of equanimity here while posting this thread. To begin with... a lot of members here on the form seem to try to reduce spirituality to a scientific experiment... This is how I felt while reading many posts regarding science and Buddhism. My point here is this: After trying to rationalize many metaphysical concepts, then trying to analyze them, seeing if their valid in a logical manner, I came to understand 'Science cannot explain everything'. I liked a post where a member suggested that we should take a look at to the philosophy of science and how it came to be in the form that it has currently taken. If things and human history had been different, maybe science would have taken a different turn.
So to conclude my dear fellow members, do you feel that science can explain every paranormal, metaphysical, spiritual thing and reduce it in a big scientific experiment, or is there more to that...? If you need clarification on my thread please lead me to it cause the OP was created under an umbrella of a mild emotional agitation which I tried to control as best as possible.
With Metta,
budding_flower
So to conclude my dear fellow members, do you feel that science can explain every paranormal, metaphysical, spiritual thing and reduce it in a big scientific experiment, or is there more to that...? If you need clarification on my thread please lead me to it cause the OP was created under an umbrella of a mild emotional agitation which I tried to control as best as possible.
With Metta,
budding_flower
0
Comments
But - it can explain much more than some people like to believe.
I also like the quote "Science will one day prove what faith has always known."
Just because there isn't sufficient evidence of something (such as supernatural forces, aliens) does not mean they don't exist. It just means there isn't evidence.
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/may/drake-equation
Dont expect too much. There are people in this forum who mixes Buddhism & Christianity. Some who think they know better than the most famous monks and meditation teachers.
Dont get agitated, its not good for you.
Science is just a study of the physical world, if something is metaphysical by definition science cant explain it.
But things like "mind reading" can be easily tested through science because of their claim on the physical world which can be tested.
science looks outwards. when science looks inwards you realize it all starts with consciousness.
consciousness being empty and truly a mystery that no one will solve. there is nothing to solve, nor is there anything to be gained. just this. this appreciating of everything and this meeting point of all things manifest in this one elegant moment that is constantly changing.
when science meets consciousness then we have a buddha.
Scientists who cannot be conveniently bought by the sources funding their research grants are as mythical as unicorns.
a lot of science is to develope a technology. If I falsify my work that I have a good polymer for a computer screen. And then they develope a screen and sell it and it sucks. That company will go out of business. Its not in the interest to falsify.
Also somebody studying E2 thermal transmissions in ferrocene chemistry funded by the NSF is not going to falsify anything because they have no motive. Thats basic research on basic laws of science.
I can see what your saying as far as research to see if chocolate is healthy, but still thats an assumption. Can you substantiate that ALL of those scientists are unethical? Or did you make that up?
I said there is a problem with data recording when that data conflicts with the vested interests of research funding sources. Serious "conflict of interest" problems do indeed support the contention that 100 years from now much of the "science" of today may indeed look more like false "safe and effective" marketing ploys than science, and mankind and the environment may well be paying the price.
I am glad that the company you work for has no vested interest in undermining your research findings, but there are many vested interests that have a very great deal of interest indeed in undermining honest research findings.
Is coffee good for you or not?
Scientists are human beings, they are just as deluded as everyone else.
Questions like "is coffee good for you" is hardly a great scientific question. The reason there is no simple questions is because it depends on so many things. If you truly did want to see if coffee was good for you (and how much) you could be studied and tested and there would be an answer.
There is no stock answer yes or no, every human being can react very different to substances.
Science rules all...no doubt about it.
Science doesn't rule the majority of this world, money does, and most everybody on the block will sell out when the stakes are high enough.
Just how many scientists have you seen stand by the truth after they were notified that standing by the truth would cost them their hard-earned careers?
I have seen exactly one in my life. He was an honest man and it cost him his career; it cost him everything.
I was a water testing chemist and we were regulated by the governemtn we had to pass certification that we could determine unknowns. I am not aware of us EVER falsifying any water tests. And I ran half the tests so they would have to doctor my spreadsheet reports to the client as they didn't have me on board if they wanted to falsify any EPA studies, closures on houses, city water tests, etc..
It's been my experience that when someone is vehemently distrustful of science or scientists, there is a personal agenda involved. Usually, it involves some cherished personal belief that is either contradicted by current scientific understanding (e.g. Evolution vs. "Creationism") or is given little or no credence by scientists (e.g. psychic phenomena or the existence of supernatural entities). For the sake of equanimity (one of the four Heavenly Abodes), I find it's best to avoid serious disputation with anyone strongly attached to a personal belief. We always have the option of putting aside opinion and maintaining a disinterested neutrality.
Alan
So where does the scale fall these days? More to the former rather the later my dear @Still_Waters. So I wasn't talking about science dealing with the natural cosmos but rather to metaphysics. If the world history was different, the scale might fall to the later so scientists would make a good effort to study this phenomenon without being ridiculed by the general scientific community.
With metta,
budding_flower
"Is science the answer," compared to what? Guessing? Wishful thinking? Begging the Gods for a reply? Using our non-existant psychic powers to effect the world?
I'm sitting here surrounded by and enjoying the fruits of science. From the electrons flowing through my wall outlet to the software written that lets my computer communicate with your computer, it's all do to science.
Because of science, we can see to the edge of our universe and know that there are worlds orbiting around other stars. What else can answer these questions? Do we use remote viewing and astral projection to visit other worlds and psychic photographs to record what we see?
But when it comes to questions about morality and what it all means, science does not apply. Science tells us what reality is and what it does, not what we should do with it. Life has one goal, and that is survival. Science tells us that. Somewhere along the line, the human race didn't get the message. You wouldn't think even such a basic instinct as surviving exists, to look at people's behavior and the state of the world right now. So our evolved intelligence, what science says allowed us to be the apex predator on this planet, might be our own doom. Go figure.
Alan
And they want...
Not yet.;-)
Spiny
"Falsifying" results occurs when "X results" are deliberately rewritten to yield the "Y results" desired by vested interests. By contrast, "filtering out data before it is recorded" is a matter of strategically funding, designing, and limiting "scientific studies" to yield those "Y results" desired by vested interests.
My point is that a huge amount of science this filtering does not exist. Nobody is trying to filter out studies of sulphur because they like fluorine better.
On the other hand, any new empirical data and observations that do tend to threaten the continuity, status quo, and legitimacy of the reigning military/industrial/social complex and the scientific orthodoxy it maintains to support it and grant it continuity and legitimacy in the modern world are often silenced, de-funded, vilified, and dealt with in a most unscientific manner.
BuddingFlower's point: is a sound and legitimate one.
Can science explain everything? Maybe. But can it explain everything right now? Definitely not. Only time will tell how far our scientific endeavors take us.
As far as people have tried to study the Sixth Sense as you would call it, or metaphysics. It is likely that we are using the wrong tools to do such a thing. We're applying tools meant for other purposes and applying it to something unrelated. For example, using an EKG to measure brainwaves as someone tries to do something metaphysical. We do not know the origins of the metaphysical, and we do not know how they operate. Thus, we are confined by current knowledge and tools. It takes a visionary to explode our boundaries.
Stop treating science like its this independent thing. There are only people, and people make mistakes. Its the same with Buddhism. People get all caught up in the abstract idea of Buddhism, giving it more external authority than their own minds and hearts, which contains living wisdom, and from which Buddhism arose and is maintained. Its like a Majestic King worshiping his box of tools. The tools are useful, but only as useful as the Creative Intelligence which makes good use of them.
The Buddha used the same kind of logical approach to provide us with the 4 NT and 8 FP.
I would agree that there are things that can not be explained. It has to do with the interdependence and interrelatedness of all things.
IMO - To try an explain the unknown with beliefs in the occult, or paranormal, or superstition, or space aliens, etc., would seem to be just more wild speculation that does not bring us any closer to liberation.
Best Wishes
Alan
Public opinion not so much so.
Which leaves us once again laughing over the parodies put forth by the Journal of Irreproducible Results....
http://www.jir.com/favorites.html
:scratch: Funny how you can say one thing is another.
And these, like science, are processes. However, science does shares similarities with Buddhism in that it involves knowledge attained through study and practice.
Also, you guys should check out the book The Quantum and the Lotus. It's a discussion between a scientist-turned-Buddhist monk named Matthieu Ricard and a Vietnamese scientist named Trinh Xuan Thuan
really its just a pretty useful way to think about things. i wish more "scientists" would treat it with this respect rather than the faith of scientism.
and so on...
By declaring something a fact you become less open to other possibilities.
'Fact' is usually something someone says to silence dissenting opinion. For example "its a fact that obama is driving the country into the ground". Or "its a fact that the greenhouse gas emissions will cause global warming".
But, without these words, the forces of this universe are just so: the forces of the universe. Whether the world is "spiritual" or "scientific", truth is truth. They way the world works is the way the world works.
Whether lofty and romantic or cold and factual, the processes that make up this universe can not be so easily wrapped up in labels.
I personally find your criticism of science to be valid up to a point, but then it becomes rather over-reaching and over-generalised.
Have you considered, for example, that selfish motivation (ie, profit) can nevertheless lead to the production of goods that are highly beneficial to society?
Despite competing interest groups at play (a constant factor in history, not just specific to science in particular) I can't help but think that, without science - from Archimedes to Hawking - we would be poorer in so many ways.
Namaste
Ric gave his opinion that there was no basis whatsoever on which to propose that the science of today might look foolish in 100 years.
My contention is that there is indeed a basis on which to propose that the science of today might well look foolish in 100 years, as a lot of data that might disrupt our current orthodoxy in science is filtered out (before it is ever recorded) by our biases and military/industrial/social/corporate business interests and investments of the day.
If your contention is that this factor is irrelevant to the practice of what we refer to as science in the modern day, please provide a scientifically valid reason for the military classification and sequestration of data on UFO's for the last 60 years.
I think you are mixing certain concepts. What I was referring to, its not like 100 years from now we are going to look back and say "wow gravity was way off, what were we thinking" or that one day evolution will become completely foolish and out of whack.
Thats why I referred to Newton, and although he missed a lot of things his ideas still hold weight. Its not that he got it all wrong, he just missed important aspects. So its not like Newton's ideas became foolish, they just evolved into a better understanding.
Now, where I agree with you is that in 100 years we might look back at something like cellphones and be like "wtf were we thinking, those things were killing us" or something along those lines.
There are certain aspects of scientific pursuit that has truly been ridden by corruption and deceit. But my point was more to the overall scientific understanding we have of things like atoms, magnetism, molecules...and so on. Those are not going to suddenly become foolish.