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Author | Topic: Does science ask and answer "why" questions? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
It is irrelevant what the cause is and ephemeral as well. In fact knowing the cause quite often destroys the very thing studied.
I fail to see how this response is relevant to anything I have been saying or how it answers any of the questions I have asked of your position.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
jar writes: It is always neat to know more as long as you remember that some knowledge is irrelevant to the reality. Can you give an example of some knowledge that is "irrelevant to the (or a) reality", because it's hard to see exactly what you mean here, unless it's another version of your rather obvious point that an investigation is not the thing being investigated.
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Yes, it is clear that so far you fail to see my point. I'm sorry.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I think that you are close.
The firing neurons are not love, or beauty, or joy, or sorrow and knowing that the process, the mechanics of love or beauty or joy or sorrow is irrelevant to actually feeling love or beauty or joy or sorrow.Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.6 |
quote: What it means is a subjective interpretation that can once again be defined by a set of neural pathways in a specific chemical state.
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.6 |
The firing neurons are not love, or beauty, or joy, or sorrow . . . Yes, they are. All of those are human emotions defined by the firing of neurons.
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Which says nothing about why I think the sky is blue today or what I am feeling when I look at De La Tour's St. Joseph.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
jar writes: The firing neurons are not love, or beauty, or joy, or sorrow and knowing that the process, the mechanics of love or beauty or joy or sorrow is irrelevant to actually feeling love or beauty or joy or sorrow. If you mean that we can feel those emotions without knowing anything about the process, I would have thought that that's stating the obvious. I'm wondering how we arrived at this point. The causes, mechanics and functions of emotions are certainly things that science asks why and how questions about, which is all that's really relevant to this thread. And it's not even that important to it as science asks plenty of why questions that have nothing to do with humans at all. I suppose that the rarest kind of question that science finds itself asking are the "who" questions. Forensic science in a "whodunit" situation is one example.
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.6 |
Which says nothing about why I think the sky is blue today or what I am feeling when I look at De La Tour's St. Joseph.
Sure it does. Those emotions are the product of the very physical neurons in your brain. It is no different than asking why iron is hard, or water is wet, just more complex.
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I'm saying that we feel those emotions and hold those beliefs and experience love and joy and sorrow and happiness regardless of the cause and dealing with neuron firings misses the whole point of the experience.
Why does not have but one meaning. Science deals with the mechanical why, philosophy and theology deal with ideal why.Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
And about as relevant.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Perdition Member (Idle past 3268 days) Posts: 1593 From: Wisconsin Joined: |
Sure, you can say that evolution is just a series of allele changes over time, but does it have the same meaning as the process itself?
What's being said is that the meaning is in your mind. Your mind is an emergent property in your brain. Your brain can be studied as to what neurons are firing and when. We've already got rudimentary "mind-reading" programs using fMRI. Feelings and preferences, while strong, are still just chemical and electrical impulses in your brain. They can be induced externally by people with the necessary neurological training...and by con artists. Knowing that the emotions are just that, doesn't take away the effects they have on us...or at least they don't to me.
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
And ST Joseph can be reduced to pigment and brush stroke, but then it loses its impact and value.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Perdition Member (Idle past 3268 days) Posts: 1593 From: Wisconsin Joined: |
To be extremely reductivist...but if I studied the placement of every drop of pigment that makes up the picture...or every brush stroke that went into it, I could determine the process by which the painting was made. That would make me appreciate it more, and would do nothing to reduce my ability to simply sit back, ignore the technical and enjoy it viscerally.
Likewise, I can know that my emotions are neurological and physiological responses to certain stimuli without reducing the impact they have on me or stopping them from sweeping me away in euphoria or melancholy.
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.6 |
I'm saying that we feel those emotions and hold those beliefs and experience love and joy and sorrow and happiness regardless of the cause and dealing with neuron firings misses the whole point of the experience. Yes, we feel them because they are real, physical things.
Science deals with the mechanical why, philosophy and theology deal with ideal why.
Philosophy and theology invent the why's. Why are paintings and sunsets pleasing to you? Because that is how your physical brain reacts to the stimuli. That is it. Edited by Taq, : No reason given.
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