The problem with science II

in reference to I'd read that as "(even) the nearest" dream of (even fleeting) happiness is elusive--thus what chance the hope for "steadfast" {lasting) happiness?Tonally, it's much richer than that, of course, the speaker's voice loaded with melancholy and loss, hinting that there may be some rare instances of realized happiness but leaving us to wonder at the particulars behind the melancholy. The child's disappointment mirrors the poet's disillusionment; this should resonate in anyone who has watched a child play and wondered what hard knocks the future held in store.Auntie Em could be dwelling on a lover or a god--seems that way often in good poems, and hers are exceptionally consistently good.

There was actually a small amount of controversy regarding this problem including many PHD'd professors getting it wrong. IIS 7.5 Detailed Error - 404.0 - Not Found

Yes, I think that's pretty much how I'd interpreted it, but thanks for the analysis. It's always good to read someone else's impressions.I love those two lines at the end of the middle section: They seem to contain that perfect combination of the emotional and the physical that excites me in poetry. I'm fairly new to Emily Dickinson, but she's already becoming a favourite. Reading her is like watching a high wire act.

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

The more I read that line to myself, the more it keeps rousing memories of unexpressed desire or love. Growing close to someone, but never getting to the point of expressing what you feel. And then the moment is gone, and you're just left with the unrealized desire.

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

This is a general post to correct a misunderstanding.I am not claiming that human perception is infallible, so examples of human fallibility such as the Monty Hall dilemma, although they are fascinating in themselves, are irrelevant to my point.What I'm trying to do is contrast scientific explanations of human nature with the actual experience of living. The former are abstractions or generalizations of reality, the latter is the reality itself.Maybe Dostoyevsky can explain it better:

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

What argument? That your personal experience of the world is fairly accurate? Do you really doubt that? The point I'm trying to make is that an interpretation or explanation of a thing is different from the thing itself. The accuracy of the interpretation is irrelevant to this point. Where human nature is the object of scientific investigation it is human experience that is the reality being explained. The reality is what you experience, scientific explanation is just a model of that reality. Knowing the mechanism of how one's sense of taste is caused is fascinating and can be very useful, but claiming that taste IS this mechanism is wrong. Taste is the subjective experience - that's the reality that's being explained. I'm talking about living human experience, not understanding it in a rational, scientific sense. I've addressed this in a general post, so I won't go into it here.

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

Is it? Really? I would have said exactly the oposite!! Scientific exploration is our only hope to ever get in touch to reality itself, while our daily experience of living is a totally abstract concept that exist only in our mind. Funy how that happens

Thanks for the link. That is a very interesting puzzle. I had heard of it before, but didn`t know it is called Monty Hall effect. What`s Monty Hall, anyways?

Who was Monty Hall. He was the host of a tv game show. see here for more info.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

no , sorry but i must support Javaman here .. reality is where we live and thats inside are own heads , minds if i may use the word .in my reality celery taste horrid ,i choke on its taste , my mother loves its taste .. "reality - tv" shows are utter rubbish and i always turn off or change channel , to my closest work colleagues they are a must see event ... like enjoy both classical and moden dance music .. to my father both are just noise ..any scientific analysis of each of the above will show that all "percever's" they get the same input , but our personal reality ..ie interaction with those input , differ .this is why Javamans post about poems is so relevent , they take a collection of comman words and produce something that is total beyond the realm of meer printed text .. i think that if you want a secular example of the immaterial world it is our responce to such poems , and music and art ...

Just want to say that what you are getting at is in the ballpark of what I had in mind about the "two cultures" but I got knocked out of my frame of reference by the recent discussions and have to regroup before I know what I think for sure. And the book still hasn't come -- I misread the notice from them about the timing.Anyway. Not sure what to do with that particular Dickenson poem in this regard but that's the idea. A "science" like Sociobiology is just a klutzy pretense that shouldn't be taken seriously for half a second. It used to make me angry that anyone would dare to pronounce on human experience from such a perspetive. Makes me want to strangle scientists. I'd always immediately think how good literature gets at the truth of human experience in a way that makes the social sciences an offensive travesty.My creationist views are in a different category I think.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Thanks for making my point. The reallity in our head is completely subjective, as you pointed out, and there is no way we can agree over its meaning. You hate celery, Your mother loves it. Which one is right? There is no answer. How can it be "real" then? It`s just a projection in your mind (or your mother`s) of the actual reality of a celery which we can get to by carefull analysis based on chemistry, human physiology, human psycology, etc... All these are branches of science. Granted, they are just an aproximation towards reality. That`s why I characterized it as a hope to understand reality.

Maybe I'm not explaining myself very clearly. I'm not saying that our experience of things is truer than a scientific explanation of things generally, when by 'things' we mean the world outside us. I don't hold that we have a special knowledge of the truth about a world that's hidden from science. (So I'd completely reject ikabod's argument in my defence, for example!).I'm specifically arguing about scientific explanation of human nature. In this case, and this case only, our experience IS the reality that science is trying to represent. That seems a very strange thing to say. Personally I would have said there was nothing more concrete than my day-to-day existence. Maybe you can clarify what you mean?

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

more precisely. she was in love with that preacher guy she hung out with all the time, but she was born to be a spinster and he was either already married or too dedicated to his cloth. i don't right remember which. i did a project on her. i haven't liked her poetry since.Edited by brennakimi, : No reason given.

That's interesting. I got the impression she was gay.

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible