Breakthrough via "Drugs"

[Ham-milton]

^ agreed.

 

[Adrenochrome]

If yall have a problem with scientific perspective then why are you in an advanced drug forum?

 

[Xorkoth]

I think they just think that the scientific perspective is just one facet of understanding something. How is that having a problem with science?

 

[MattPsy]

Eventually science will understand everything, IMO .
It's just that we haven't got there yet.

And no, I don't think a scientific perspective lacks in richness at all! If anything I believe it makes things more beautiful. Understanding is beautiful.

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

 

[fastandbulbous]

There was a study that showed that regular (religious) mescaline users scored better on emotional well-being tests than control. Cant find the actual study but heres a link to a summary:http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiatry/Addictions/tb/2070

Yeah, the incidence of alcohol abuse/alcoholism among members of the Native American Church is almost non-existant, which contrasts greatly with the rates of alcoholism among Native Americans (who do not use mescaline/peyote) in general.

In fact it's through using mescaline (& to a lesser extent AMT) that I lost my taste for alcohol and ended up seeing being drunk as being a highly undesirable thing. That was 12 years ago and I haven't been drunk since (although I occasionally enjoy a small glass of wine with a meal)

 

[fastandbulbous]

Eventually science will understand everything, IMO .
It's just that we haven't got there yet.

And no, I don't think a scientific perspective lacks in richness at all! If anything I believe it makes things more beautiful. Understanding is beautiful.

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

Yeah, that's how I see science as well - understanding the mechanisms behind nature actually leaves me in awe of it's incredible complexity rather than take away any 'magic' that I feel.

I think a lot of people get the idea that science requires a dull reductionist view of everything, which if you talk to a lot of people involved in science simply isn't true

 

[EntheoDjinn]

Yeah, that's how I see science as well - understanding the mechanisms behind nature actually leaves me in awe of it's incredible complexity rather than take away any 'magic' that I feel.

I think a lot of people get the idea that science requires a dull reductionist view of everything, which if you talk to a lot of people involved in science simply isn't true

I'm not one of those people though. Many scientific explanations create a sense of awe in me as well.

I just feel that for people to think that science will ultimately have the monopoly on explanations of reality is a bit too much of a grand hypothesis

 

[LuxEtVeritas]

science has unraveled things that were beyond anyone's imagination

the human condition certainly has a strong component of wanting to best understand his being, surroundings, and such

it may never be able to touch on the "why" of certain things in the more abstact sense, but it certainly is the only tool for logical and rational thought

we have a lot further to go to scientifically unravel the mysteries that abound, though i believe some things can never be known with absolutely certainty and even in hard science things of this nature exist such as Schrodinger's Cat, the Planck length, and so on

the beauty of science is endless for the inquisitive, searching mind

 

[Adrenochrome]

Yall have some good points, but the point i'd like to make is that we should still hold science far above all of these pseudosciences and philosphies.
Granted that a scientific position can be changed with evidence that it is false, and that it science is a true academic process and as such spends time on trivial aspect etc etc
In summary: The other ways of thinking about things are fine but they do not compare to science by definition.

 

[fastandbulbous]

though i believe some things can never be known with absolutely certainty

Yes, but in cases where that is the case, such as Heisenburgs uncertainty principal, where the act of observation changes the state of what is being observed, the role of science is to explain why things cannot be known with absolute certainty, thus still giving a complete understanding of the physical world

 

[EntheoDjinn]

.................the role of science is to explain why things cannot be known with absolute certainty, thus still giving a complete understanding of the physical world

Is this not Oxymoronic?

I think the point that is to be made can be highlighted with recourse to an example Einstein's (always a favourite with the scientific community ) inconsistency. Although he believed in the possibility of expressing everything scientifically, he acknowledged that such an expression would be meaningless – ‘as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a deviation of wave pressure’.

But to say that it would be meaningless is exactly to admit that you cannot, in fact, express everything – the meaning would be missing (quoted from Brian Appleyard's, 'Understanding the Present')

E

 

[EntheoDjinn]

.................the role of science is to explain why things cannot be known with absolute certainty, thus still giving a complete understanding of the physical world

Is this not Oxymoronic?

I think the point that is to be made can be highlighted with recourse to an example of Einstein's (always a favourite with the scientific community ) inconsistency. Although he believed in the possibility of expressing everything scientifically, he acknowledged that such an expression would be meaningless – ‘as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a deviation of wave pressure’.

But to say that it would be meaningless is exactly to admit that you cannot, in fact, express everything – the meaning would be missing (quoted from Brian Appleyard's, 'Understanding the Present')

E

 

[fastandbulbous]

Although he (Einstein) believed in the possibility of expressing everything scientifically, he acknowledged that such an expression would be meaningless

He also believed that quantum mechanics was bollocks and would be disproved as a viable model of the workings of the subatomic world. I imagine he's in heaven with egg all over his favce considering the last 50 years of subatomic physics...

 

[LuxEtVeritas]

certainly it is not meaningless but the analogy is a good one
can we ever intimately "know" a quark or a black hole or even our own true and full nature of consciousness...

 

[Adrenochrome]

Enough with the philosophical questions