Oh no we cant progress?

[automatic existence]

A delightful answer, to what I feel was a little to hash post on my side. I tend to be carried away.

 

Meta-understanding of science is indeed impossible, and a fool's errand.

 

By this, do you mean that science is the axiom, the building block which doesn’t need a foundation? Or do you simply mean that it can’t be found?

 

Also, I did not mean to put science forward as an end, but rather as the chosen means of most who use this site.

 

Alright. But may I ask exactly what end the people of this site use this "chosen means" to reach? (I have a feeling I can guess the answer to this, and also that is it untrue, or just another mean.)

 

My own myopic view of the workings of the universe fall quite short of any real understanding, beyond the postulates of my own field (which are ever-changing). Given the sheer mass of knowledge in medicine alone, no real equivalent of the seventeenth century savants is ever likely to reappear with a likely attempt to unify knowledge (but wouldn't it be nice).

 

This is where I am the least competent to give an answer. But I have the naïve belief that we are seeing science as the one and only mighty god. The only solution in other words (the scientific paradigm again as opposed to the previous theological one.) As I said, I think science is only one of a few means to a goal which for me is knowledge. Alone science is no good. I do not believe there is any trouble knowing all that is important for understanding the human (mind/brain and body) and the universe in a consistent and complete way. I believe all important questions can be answered with our current knowledge! I have found many examples of questions which most people think of as impossible to answer and they’re waiting for the news, science or whatever to solve it for them. And they are really not hard to answer at all. Just look at the obvious fact we have gathered in for example science and draw simple conclusions. (I am supposing that a complete knowledge of anything is neither possible or desirable, just what you need for your goal. Which I don’t think it is impossible to achieve, but I will probably find out.)

 

I definately did not mean to place humanity on any pedestal, but until we decode the languages of dolphins and elephants, we're stuck protecting and thinking for all other forms of life (and yes, I realize how conceited that sounds). Without understanding them, we (and they) have little hope of avoiding the nearly-assured disasters we have brought into being. Search for your enlightenment with diligence.

 

I understand I might have sounded like an environmentalist, but I did not imply that man and other animals is equally IMPORTANT but rather quite the opposite, equally UNIMPORTANT. That is to say that ANY consideration any human being has for the health of our planet is a consideration for the HUMANS which inhabit that earth, not the earth itself. Everything else just is self-contradictory. Who thinks it’s a good thing that earth is preserved in and as of itself. I guess some do, but they are just mislead. I could refute any argument for why we should preserve earth as an end in itself, without consideration for humans. But since they are so numerous and nobody has brought them up, I choose not to. Also it’s really a no brainier why it isn’t wrong to eat animals or humans for that sake (!). It’s just a matter of looking at nature around us (which surle should be our guide) and apply the obvious.

 

I assume this is where normal people usually apply ethics, sympathy or compassion. But as I mentioned, you MUST know where these things come from. It’s your emotions, which again is just a product of evolution to avoid self-destruction or destruction from external sources (neuroscience). That is to say, you must put such simple "failsafes" behind if you want to reach conclusions which are not based on the relative world of the postmodernist. It´s the only way to reach somehting even close to an objective understanding of the world. (And mabye more importantly the ONLY way for humans to have free will.)

[Bio-Hazard]

Downside about knowledge is that it can be abused. But I'll go there anyways :naughty:

 

Manifestation of medical science, to help people

Latent function that is abused, abortion clinic

 

Stop having sex and wasting medical resources, freakin' close your legs for once. :xx:

 

People of lesser intelligence take advantage of what people better than them did. It seems that idiots will always have the better side of society while others are burning out bringing things into the next era.

 

What's even better is that people don't like being called stupid. Progress will happen, but if stupid people keep multiplying, then yeah we could be doomed.

 

An evil side tells me to support abortion to get rid of the idiots on this earth that keep multiplying.

 

My theory of why I see more idiots is because the population of them is exponential to 70 years ago.

There are usually fewer intelligent people than stupid people.

About 25% of people get their 4 year degree in America.

The rest are usually stupid, arrogant, socially controlled by money, or something close.

[Queso]

a good example of how this society of ours has lost knowledge is the fact that marijuana is ILLEGAL.

it's a medicinal herb that a lot of people KNOW makes them feel...better.

america seems to think it's a horrible malicious thing.

what idiots.

what scoundrals!

i shun YOU for shunning me

actually i take that back

no shuns

just funs.

anyways, i'm rambling. the point is, don't forget your roots.

and when i say roots, i'm probably talking about our roots that stretch to the beginning of the evolution of conciousness.

 

oh, and by the way:

all opinions. all subjective to this and that.

[arkain101]

There is alot of knowledge that has been lost that has set us back. Archamitees work was lost and was recently found. Had the wars not lost and destroyed so much intellectual information things would be much different.

Also theres a low percent of the population that is involved in the boundries of our high end intelligence. If something drastic was to occur we might be looking at another hundred years to get back on track since average people dont care about quantim physics and things of that sort.

[Drip Curl Magic]

hmmm... well, what is progress anyways? being able to alter our environment so that we are able to live more comfortably?

 

Lets look at the big picture here...

 

every being consumes. And most of us reproduce... then the new generation does the same... consumes and reproduces. This pattern continues until the species is wiped out by geographical changes and what not. Eventually, homo sapiens are gonna go extinct. And in the end, we will have accomplished about as much as any other being that ever existed... we will have lived... moved things around a little bit... and then settled back into the ground.

 

In the end, none of what we do matters. But there seems to be this central illusion among human beings that makes most of us believe that we are the most important species to have ever walked the earth. Most people try to justify this by pointing out how intelligent we are. But the only reason we developed intelligence was to keep ourselves from dieing... we are incredibly weak and frail beings compared to all the other animals on earth. if we were to survive, we were either gonna have to evolve intelligence or muscle. And for whatever reason, the geographical settings of earth at that time period were perfect for an intellectual evolution.

 

I think we are just beings... like any other being. We do an equal ammount of good and bad. And I think the desire to progress is definately an illusion that every concious being needs in order to wake up everyday.

[jkellmd]

I could refute any argument for why we should preserve earth as an end in itself, without consideration for humans.

 

I welcome the challenge of proposing an argument. If we have not found compelling evidence of life on other planets, then until we do, we have to consider this planet to be the cradle of all life (as mathematically improbable as that is). With or without humanity, for life as we know it to continue in any form whatsoever, it must continue here or spread from here. No thinking being can evolve again unless we preserve the protoplasm to do so, unless life is found to have flourished somewhere else. Although it is true that no matter what havoc we cause, life in some form will surely continue on earth - that is no guarantee that thinking beings will evolve again. If we can consider the universe to have a finite life, how many failures at reaching higher consciousness can we tolerate? Should we hedge our bets by preserving the earth, or not?

[automatic existence]

Well, let me just ask one simple question at first; Is there any inherent value in any form of life, or anything at all?

 

Does the universe care if we loose a species? Most people just have preconceived notions about many things having value. But this is something I have never seen any evidence for? What would be the "loss" if absolutely everything ceases to exist (if theoretically possible)? Humans are biased in general.

[inside the sun]

We value it

[inside the sun]

We value it. Well some of us, and some times. And maybe not show it, or do anything to prove so. But we are probably the only ones that value it, if that is what you mean. There is no other higher species out their valuing our lives, and if there is a god or creator im sure he just created us and is watching it go, why intervene, we can create/evolve ourselves and destroy ourselves, that power is in our hands

[Drip Curl Magic]

Well, let me just ask one simple question at first; Is there any inherent value in any form of life, or anything at all?

 

Does the universe care if we loose a species? Most people just have preconceived notions about many things having value. But this is something I have never seen any evidence for? What would be the "loss" if absolutely everything ceases to exist (if theoretically possible)? Humans are biased in general.

 

 

 

 

that's exactly the point I was trying to prove with my last post.

[Queso]

you seans are great.

[automatic existence]

that's exactly the point I was trying to prove with my last post.

 

I believe you talked about the "value" of humans and progress, while I, at least tried to, debate the value of nature it self and all that is included. But its pretty much the same thing.

 

We value it

Okey. But is it valuable in itself or do we just pretend for it to be. Or does everything we think is valuable magicly become valuable?

 

I think we project meaning and value into a nihilistic* world.

 

*Nature is not nihilistic since nihilism involves a choice. Nature just is(without values), but I lack a better word.

[inside the sun]

how can we not value nature. Without it, we wouldn't exist

[inside the sun]

wait lets define value, so we understand this better.

 

Value

# An amount, as of goods, services, or money, considered to be a fair and suitable equivalent for something else; a fair price or return.

# Monetary or material worth: the fluctuating value of gold and silver.

 

ok so right there, are first two definitions of value have to deal with money...and in that case, we dont value nature, however we do put prices on water, land, animals (food), vegetables (food), fruit (food), etc... But i don't think that your superficial or care about money, so this def. isn't what you meant, so next definition is.

 

value

Worth in usefulness or importance to the possessor; utility or merit: the value of an education.

 

That seams a little better of a definition, although with our trained minds, and our first two definitions even seeing the word worth throws the whole thing off, at least for me.

 

p.s. i now hate the word value, and would never use it when describing how much i care about someone or something. I'll now only use it on hookers, and anything else that involves money.:confused:

[Tarantism]

p.s. i now hate the word value, and would never use it when describing how much i care about someone or something. I'll now only use it on hookers, and anything else that involves money.B)

 

how does someone hate a word? that seems strange to me, seeing as how the only real definition for "value" is "something of worth". the reason that the first definition even exists is becuase money is "something of worth" in a capitolist society. infact, it is of the most worth, which is why someone decided to put monetary things and possesions in the same definition with value. you have to look at the roots, man, value is "something of worth".

 

dont hate the word, hate the speaker.:confused:

[jkellmd]

Well, let me just ask one simple question at first; Is there any inherent value in any form of life, or anything at all?

 

Does the universe care if we loose a species? Most people just have preconceived notions about many things having value. But this is something I have never seen any evidence for? What would be the "loss" if absolutely everything ceases to exist (if theoretically possible)? Humans are biased in general.

 

Intriguing, to say the least. The brevity of your statement belies its propensity to confuse. Denial of "value" obfuscates the very discussion of values. Does the universe care...probably not. Does life itself has value, or indeed, what does? This question is unanswerable; at least no single answer is true for everyone. Unfortunately, we must find our own answer, which leads to errors in proportion to our individual ignorance. It is easy to whittle away our lives in debate over these questions, which, in the end, have no value either.

 

Should we wallow in the knowledge that only the very rare among us ever provides a satisfactory answer to the meaning of existence - and at best, an answer only for themselves or for a small segment of humanity? The debate over the nature of the universe - whether it exists in any tangible form at all, or whether it is purely a product of our mind, has been in circulation since at least the time of Pythagoras, Buddha, Isaiah, and Lao-tse - when such ideas were first written down (400-600 bce). This marks the birth of both philosophy and religion. Basically, every subsequent philosopher and theologian, from Socrates to Camus, dealt with it or assumed that someone else's idea was correct - with the exceptions proving the rule.

 

Humans have this crazy thing called consciousness, allowing them to be self-aware (at least partially). Is it a useless evolutionary adaptation, like male nipples? The problem is, it was our consciousness that allowed us to ask these questions in the first place. It was our consciousness that found value in writing these ideas down, and which continues to find value in revisiting the nature of our preconceptions. What can we do when confronted with an unanswerable question? Answer it once, for ourselves, and move on. Who cares what the neighbors think? We certainly need to listen to the discussion long enough to content ourselves with our ability to answer it competently - this may be our biggest responsibility. To not anwer the question of the existence of meaning, or to say that nobody can, is to paralyze the mind.

 

If our consciousness is the only tool we really have to dissect the universe, to separate the real from the unreal, the useless from the useful, then we had better sharpen that tool and strengthen the arm that uses it. Our mission, then, is to recognize those internal biases, to reduce them as much as possible, and not to be paralyzed with the knowledge that our answers may have no meaning beyond our own mind.

[inside the sun]

wow.