Eliezer: All the ways that you don’t think that religion is entirely wrong, I think that you simple label those as “not religion” and imagine them to be “human universals” possibly after some “extrapolation of volition”.
Also, isn’t the science fiction about human space colonization on which your sense of space shuttles as sacred truly and entirely wrong? When I see a space shuttle… well… it’s like seeing a pyramid, a Soviet factory, or some other weird monument of sincere but stupid strategic error that partially invalidates the ocean of tactical correctness that it consists of.
It is difficult for anything to be entirely wrong. Stupidity is not reversed intelligence. The question is whether you should drink from the old cup or start over. For this, a few examples of subtle poison really ought to be enough.
Re: Space shuttles: I know that, but they get to me anyway. Apparently the sacredness of space shuttles is not something that this particular truth about them can destroy. Sort of like a baby taking its very first steps and falling over. It’s not going anywhere for a while, but so what.
Excellent second point, Michael, this is essentially what I was getting at below.
Eliezer, are we to assume from your final comment that the “baby steps” you’re taking are a means to eliminate the feeling of the sacred from your life? Otherwise I don’t get the baby metaphor.
I remember an interesting Slate article about the vagus nerve and the feeling of the sacred. I can’t speak to the science behind it, but I think there’s an interesting relationship between the notion of the sacred and AnnaSalamon’s excellent “Cached Selves” post. Don’t we then have a responsibility to actively avoid the feeling of the sacred?
I find the analogies of poison and soup to be flawed. There is neither contamination nor possible sterilization in the history of thought.
What would be the difference between starting from “scratch”, creating a new ‘rational’ type of spirituality and responding to past spirituality? It’s not as if the entire human race believes the same thing and is working on the same problem.
Science and Spirituality are not food to be consumed, but separate tools in the shed of experience. Just because you have scissors, you shouldn’t throw away your glue.
This “War on Spirituality” is just as harmful as the “War on Science.”
Once science explains what everything is, down the the smallest particle, that still doesn’t explain what it IS. What if the smallest particle in the universe is irony? What if the universe is objectively non-objective? What if the laws of physics emerge in complexity only because somebody is trying to explain them? What if electricity did not exist before Ben Franklin thought of it? What if solipsistically you have always been here, and you will always be here, reading this message board. The “faith” that you hold that everything will eventually be “proved” might lead to an infinity. This is not an argument against science but FOR staring into the void (spirituality)
What would be the difference between starting from “scratch”, creating a new ‘rational’ type of spirituality and responding to past spirituality?
Here’s my crack at this: I take both sides in this to be arguing that we should pursue something like spirituality. Call it elevation#Elevation). Adam Frank and timtyler seem to be saying that the most well-developed, existing understanding of elevation comes from religion; the quickest way to secular elevation is by appropriating the good parts of spirituality. Eliezer, perhaps taking a more long-term view, wants to build a much more solid foundation. I think both projects would come up with the same result if they succeed. The big question is which is more likely to be successful and how quickly.
Consider designing a word processor. There is probably code already out there that you can use to achieve your goal, but maybe it’s buggy or written in an outdated language. Depending on the exact state of the code, it might be quicker to refactor or it might be quicker to begin from the bottom up. Either way, the end result is going to share some features with the original application.
I don’t think it is fair to call a proposal for secular elevation a “war on spirituality” any more than building new software is a war on old applications or general relativity was a war on classical mechanics. This is merely a striving for something better.
I’m afraid you completely lost me in your last paragraph. There is always some probability we are radically wrong about the universe, but what would it even mean for the things you speculate about to be true?
Spirituality is a word processor? This is just as ridiculous an analogy as Spirituality is a soup. You’re talking about specific proponents of a word processor and using it to describe spirituality. Just like a word processor doesn’t get flies if you leave it out, and a soup does not have a source code or programming language. Rationality and spirituality are both things that EMERGED, they were not constructed by a programmer or a cook, and you can’t “start over from scratch”
As I understood this article, it was less a proposal for secular elevation, and more of a anti-religious kneejerk reaction to a Adam Frank’s book before the reading was even finished. It was a call for spirituality to admit that it is wrong, a attempt for stigmatization of anything remotely spiritual. (This is just as likely as science admitting it is wrong. Not only is it ‘not-applicable’ it does not have a spokesman. Who speaks for existence?) This review is motivated by the crimes of religious faith-advocating anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-rationality, knuckleheads, which are absolutely crimes. But I would argue that religion/faith doctrines are just harmful to spirituality, as they are to science.
(BTW The last post’ paragraph was examples of physical states in which the scientific method would be asking the wrong question). The question “what do things mean” and “why” is embarking on a rational spiritual journey. The question of “how things work” is embarking on a rational scientific journey. From science, we obtain the results in the form of “proof.” From spirituality, we obtain results in the form of “purpose.” Both are private journeys, even though they might incorporate appreciating the value of sharing discoveries with a group. They are separate tools for understanding experience. (HOW and WHY) Again I will say, do not throw away your glue just because your scissors cut things apart so flawlessly. Glue is not even meant to cut things, but still serves a purpose. I support this form of secularity, but not the banishment of glue from the tool shed (because it cannot cut.)
Adam Frank’s point was that this need for understanding, this purpose that drives our passion for science, has a common ancestor with spirituality. Makes perfect sense to me, and it needs to be said.
Japan is a good example of what happens if you start again. They rebuilt their culture, discarding much traditional Chinese knowledge. They have new martial arts, new forms of healing, new types of religion, even new rules of the game of go. IMO, in almost every case, they should have stuck with the Chinese original. Traditional knowledge often contains much wisdom—ignore it at your peril—and if you think you know better, then you probably don’t.
To what degree does people’s reverence towards space shuttles consist of admiration for complex human endeavors, and to what degree is it simple awe at something large, fast, noisy, and bright?
I rarely hear of people talking about their spiritual experiences upon considering major human accomplishments that are modest and unassertive in their sensory effects, but often come across people gushing about meaningless or even wrongheaded things that are sensational or assertive.
I would recognize those as valid. In my experience, it’s the realization of just how wide-reaching and powerful the implications of certain findings are that triggers the experience.
If it’s just a reaction to ‘large’, at least it’s conceptual large rather than physical.
Higher mathematics? Many-Worlds Interpretation? GEB? Evolutionary psychology? These things don’t have massive direct sensory stimuli, but have all sent chills of awe down my spine at some point.
I’d like to hear about these modest unassertive major human accomplishments.
Counterexample: SpaceShipOne that won the X-Prize was not nearly as big and flamey as a space shuttle, but watching it was a more powerful experience because of what it meant.
SpaceShipOne that won the X-Prize was not nearly as big and flamey as a space shuttle, but watching it was a more powerful experience because of what it meant.
Totally. The communications network is the biggest machine ever built, it’s parts are all replaceable without damaging the whole. Maybe you’re too young to remember a time before it, but I found it at university nearly two decades ago and I was certainly awestruck.
Toilets?
Not so much. But then I did see a documentry about the building of the London sewerage system, the way the rivers were all paved over and turned into underground tunnels, connected by miles upon miles of underground canals. Which has lasted for a couple of hundred years!
A toilet might not be a massive engineering feat, but the sewer system in a whole city sure is.
And if I recall correctly, they built the system to beat a cholera epidemic which had been localized to the septically tainted water supply by one of the first medical statisticians. The Day the Universe Changed does a great job of making you feel that moment of awe. Dun… dun dun dun… dun DUN dun...
Oh, then microchips? Writing “IBM” in individual atoms with a scanning electron microscope? Nano-motors for nano-machines? Richard Hammond was on the TV the other week with a probing scanning electron microscope writing his name on a strand of hair. Awesome.
Eliezer: All the ways that you don’t think that religion is entirely wrong, I think that you simple label those as “not religion” and imagine them to be “human universals” possibly after some “extrapolation of volition”.
Also, isn’t the science fiction about human space colonization on which your sense of space shuttles as sacred truly and entirely wrong? When I see a space shuttle… well… it’s like seeing a pyramid, a Soviet factory, or some other weird monument of sincere but stupid strategic error that partially invalidates the ocean of tactical correctness that it consists of.
It is difficult for anything to be entirely wrong. Stupidity is not reversed intelligence. The question is whether you should drink from the old cup or start over. For this, a few examples of subtle poison really ought to be enough.
Re: Space shuttles: I know that, but they get to me anyway. Apparently the sacredness of space shuttles is not something that this particular truth about them can destroy. Sort of like a baby taking its very first steps and falling over. It’s not going anywhere for a while, but so what.
Excellent second point, Michael, this is essentially what I was getting at below.
Eliezer, are we to assume from your final comment that the “baby steps” you’re taking are a means to eliminate the feeling of the sacred from your life? Otherwise I don’t get the baby metaphor.
I remember an interesting Slate article about the vagus nerve and the feeling of the sacred. I can’t speak to the science behind it, but I think there’s an interesting relationship between the notion of the sacred and AnnaSalamon’s excellent “Cached Selves” post. Don’t we then have a responsibility to actively avoid the feeling of the sacred?
I think he meant that a baby’s first steps are sacred even though they’re not impressive qua steps.
“It is difficult for anything to be entirely wrong.”
No, it really isn’t. If you also consider those things which don’t rise to the level of coherence necessary to be wrong, it’s even easier.
What is the difference between ‘sacred’ and ‘spiritual’?
More like: religion is a thick soup. Picking out the good bits has its attractions—compared to trying to make your own soup.
I find the analogies of poison and soup to be flawed. There is neither contamination nor possible sterilization in the history of thought.
What would be the difference between starting from “scratch”, creating a new ‘rational’ type of spirituality and responding to past spirituality? It’s not as if the entire human race believes the same thing and is working on the same problem.
Science and Spirituality are not food to be consumed, but separate tools in the shed of experience. Just because you have scissors, you shouldn’t throw away your glue.
This “War on Spirituality” is just as harmful as the “War on Science.”
Once science explains what everything is, down the the smallest particle, that still doesn’t explain what it IS. What if the smallest particle in the universe is irony? What if the universe is objectively non-objective? What if the laws of physics emerge in complexity only because somebody is trying to explain them? What if electricity did not exist before Ben Franklin thought of it? What if solipsistically you have always been here, and you will always be here, reading this message board. The “faith” that you hold that everything will eventually be “proved” might lead to an infinity. This is not an argument against science but FOR staring into the void (spirituality)
-TB
Here’s my crack at this: I take both sides in this to be arguing that we should pursue something like spirituality. Call it elevation#Elevation). Adam Frank and timtyler seem to be saying that the most well-developed, existing understanding of elevation comes from religion; the quickest way to secular elevation is by appropriating the good parts of spirituality. Eliezer, perhaps taking a more long-term view, wants to build a much more solid foundation. I think both projects would come up with the same result if they succeed. The big question is which is more likely to be successful and how quickly.
Consider designing a word processor. There is probably code already out there that you can use to achieve your goal, but maybe it’s buggy or written in an outdated language. Depending on the exact state of the code, it might be quicker to refactor or it might be quicker to begin from the bottom up. Either way, the end result is going to share some features with the original application.
I don’t think it is fair to call a proposal for secular elevation a “war on spirituality” any more than building new software is a war on old applications or general relativity was a war on classical mechanics. This is merely a striving for something better.
I’m afraid you completely lost me in your last paragraph. There is always some probability we are radically wrong about the universe, but what would it even mean for the things you speculate about to be true?
Spirituality is a word processor? This is just as ridiculous an analogy as Spirituality is a soup. You’re talking about specific proponents of a word processor and using it to describe spirituality. Just like a word processor doesn’t get flies if you leave it out, and a soup does not have a source code or programming language. Rationality and spirituality are both things that EMERGED, they were not constructed by a programmer or a cook, and you can’t “start over from scratch”
As I understood this article, it was less a proposal for secular elevation, and more of a anti-religious kneejerk reaction to a Adam Frank’s book before the reading was even finished. It was a call for spirituality to admit that it is wrong, a attempt for stigmatization of anything remotely spiritual. (This is just as likely as science admitting it is wrong. Not only is it ‘not-applicable’ it does not have a spokesman. Who speaks for existence?) This review is motivated by the crimes of religious faith-advocating anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-rationality, knuckleheads, which are absolutely crimes. But I would argue that religion/faith doctrines are just harmful to spirituality, as they are to science.
(BTW The last post’ paragraph was examples of physical states in which the scientific method would be asking the wrong question). The question “what do things mean” and “why” is embarking on a rational spiritual journey. The question of “how things work” is embarking on a rational scientific journey. From science, we obtain the results in the form of “proof.” From spirituality, we obtain results in the form of “purpose.” Both are private journeys, even though they might incorporate appreciating the value of sharing discoveries with a group. They are separate tools for understanding experience. (HOW and WHY) Again I will say, do not throw away your glue just because your scissors cut things apart so flawlessly. Glue is not even meant to cut things, but still serves a purpose. I support this form of secularity, but not the banishment of glue from the tool shed (because it cannot cut.)
Adam Frank’s point was that this need for understanding, this purpose that drives our passion for science, has a common ancestor with spirituality. Makes perfect sense to me, and it needs to be said.
Japan is a good example of what happens if you start again. They rebuilt their culture, discarding much traditional Chinese knowledge. They have new martial arts, new forms of healing, new types of religion, even new rules of the game of go. IMO, in almost every case, they should have stuck with the Chinese original. Traditional knowledge often contains much wisdom—ignore it at your peril—and if you think you know better, then you probably don’t.
To what degree does people’s reverence towards space shuttles consist of admiration for complex human endeavors, and to what degree is it simple awe at something large, fast, noisy, and bright?
I rarely hear of people talking about their spiritual experiences upon considering major human accomplishments that are modest and unassertive in their sensory effects, but often come across people gushing about meaningless or even wrongheaded things that are sensational or assertive.
space shuttles = monster trucks for intellectuals
Does physics count? Or certain mathematical discoveries? Those are highly abstract and non-sensory but seem to be major spiritual triggers.
I would recognize those as valid. In my experience, it’s the realization of just how wide-reaching and powerful the implications of certain findings are that triggers the experience.
If it’s just a reaction to ‘large’, at least it’s conceptual large rather than physical.
As another piece of evidence, people are awed by space, not because it’s particularly interesting, but because “billions and billions”.
Higher mathematics? Many-Worlds Interpretation? GEB? Evolutionary psychology? These things don’t have massive direct sensory stimuli, but have all sent chills of awe down my spine at some point.
I’d like to hear about these modest unassertive major human accomplishments.
Counterexample: SpaceShipOne that won the X-Prize was not nearly as big and flamey as a space shuttle, but watching it was a more powerful experience because of what it meant.
Do people feel awe at the Internet? Toilets?
To you, or to people in general?
Totally. The communications network is the biggest machine ever built, it’s parts are all replaceable without damaging the whole. Maybe you’re too young to remember a time before it, but I found it at university nearly two decades ago and I was certainly awestruck.
Not so much. But then I did see a documentry about the building of the London sewerage system, the way the rivers were all paved over and turned into underground tunnels, connected by miles upon miles of underground canals. Which has lasted for a couple of hundred years!
A toilet might not be a massive engineering feat, but the sewer system in a whole city sure is.
And if I recall correctly, they built the system to beat a cholera epidemic which had been localized to the septically tainted water supply by one of the first medical statisticians. The Day the Universe Changed does a great job of making you feel that moment of awe. Dun… dun dun dun… dun DUN dun...
For anyone with fond memories the TV series, someone put it online. That theme tune gives me goose bumps.
But people still feel awe at new space shuttle launches, but they don’t feel awe at new toilets, not even huge numbers of them.
Joseph Bazalgette, engineer of the London sewers, is a real hero! Curiously, his great-great-grandson Peter Bazalgette produces sewage for a living.
Now you’re saying they’re awesome because they’re big. The point was to find examples of things that are awesome even though they aren’t big.
Oh, then microchips? Writing “IBM” in individual atoms with a scanning electron microscope? Nano-motors for nano-machines? Richard Hammond was on the TV the other week with a probing scanning electron microscope writing his name on a strand of hair. Awesome.
Extrapolation of volition? How does that apply?