Papal Visit to the UK

[MikeH]

There are incalculables, so it stands to reason there are questions that can't be answered with anything but "does not compute".

We will at least eventually be able to explain why we can't compute something.

[MikeH]

The Pope may not be a perfect human being, and he and his predecessors may have in the past said things, that will offend the liberal sensibilities of some, but in the end, compared to most Muslims, the Pope is a moderate and considerate human being.

He's not compared to most Muslims I've met. *shrug*

Or indeed to most Catholics I've met.

[MikeH]

Okay, can we please not get into the old argument over whose belief system/ideology/general outlook has been responsible for more carnage over the centuries? I mean, hell, whoever wins, both sides lose: "Oh yeah? Yours were marginally larger atrocities!"

Exactly. Humanity is prone to atrocities, and they are prone to blame them on all kinds of belief systems, no matter whether those belief systems support them or not. Throughout history leaders have raised themselves to be "gods representitive" or even "Living gods" and promoted atrocities. The fact that some modern leaders didn't feel the need to pretend to represent some god to commit their abuses is just a reflection of how the mood of modern society has changed. Previously you had to be backed by God to commit atrocities, now you don't. No difference for the people being Killed.

What the pope did was suggest that British secularists, which tend to be more in line with Humanists than anything else, are genocidal maniacs like Nazis or Stalinist Communists. Which is massively inaccurate. It's an unpleasant, unworthy and deliberately divisive scare tactic. It also doesn't do anything to help address the fears of any moderate British Catholics about the way the church is going.

Despite our vehement opposition to some of the things he stands for, we're not suggesting that modern Catholics are starting crusades or torturing heretics. It's incredibly ill judged and absurd.

[MikeH]

seriously? you can't think of one...

how about "what is the soul?" or "how do you define the soul?" or something like "what is love?"

how do you arrive at an answer to that using the scientific method, mike?

I think this has already been answered, but let's say in scientific terms "the soul" is a theory. What is the theory? That the thing that gives humans self conciousness is "the soul"? Generally people define "the soul" in terms of something that science can't explain, but the things it is made up of, self conciousness, language, memory etc. are all fairly well explained.

But we are making great strides in animal intelligence studies, around self awareness, and finding out that there's a broad spectrum of intelligence below ours, from very close to our own to incredibly dumb. We have animals that recognise themselves, even ones considered relatively stupid like crows. We have primitive languages moving from trees emitting different chemicals to warn of danger, to sea mammals and primates who can communicate quite complex ideas. We have memory and advanced tool use and problem solving in well publicised experiments in things like squirrels and octopuses. We have studies of "emotions" in all kinds of animal life. We have increasingly good understanding of the brain, how it thinks, how it is affected by chemistry, including the hormones we produce ourselves.

Do we have a pretty good model for how it is that humans can think, feel emotion? Yes. Do we have a good model for what triggers the switch to self conciousness? Well not really, but mostly what we are finding out is that actually a lot of animals show a lot more of the signs of self conciousness than we are really comfortable admitting, considering how we treat them. Although no worse than we've historically treated other humans.

So historically there was something people called "the soul" which we couldn't explain, but now we really can explain most of it and we're on our way with the rest. The same with love. We know a lot of the brain chemistry, and the way the brain changes. We understand the evolutionary advantage it brought.

"how do you define the soul" is a just one of those religious tricks, if you define it as something that can't be explained, it can't be explained, but I think you can explain everything that people generally consider to be a soul. The concept that it might 'live on' after death seems a bit ridiculous once you know how the brain works.

[Barnabas]

Exactly.

And actually we can answer where did you come from, from a infinitesimal fraction of a second after the big bang, to the present in incredible detail. And have an excellent model for what was "before" the big bang, although "before the big bang" it turns out is not a meaningful concept.

And we know that "why" we are here is a human invention. It's anthropomorphising the universe. Why does there need to be a why, other than because humans are generally so arrogant they can't accept that their being here is just a consequence of some simple natural laws, a bit of probability within an unimaginable volume of space.

Why do you want to know why? Why do you think there is a why? "there must be" isn't an acceptable answer.

The guy who first proposed the Big Bang Theory didn't seem to find that Theory troublesome for catholics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre

Catholics would have trouble with a model in which the Universe is Eternal, not a model in which the Universe had a beginning and probably will have an end (heat death)

[MikeH]

I think the problem is that space and time are the same thing, without space there is no time so "before space" is a meaningless question. Without space there is no concept of before. Which actually matches really rather well with the theories of Augustine in some ways.

But I only have a very rudimentary understanding. You'd need KH to explain in more detail and he's much more likely to patronisingly shout about how stupid the questioner is for not researching it themselves.

Humans find it very hard to truly understand the concept of nothing. We can understand the concept of empty space, which is certainly not the same thing. We also find it hard to get our head round quantum physics which tells us (and we can observe and verify) that a lot of stuff happens randomly, things pop in and out of existence essentially at random. This also applies to the universe. It's perfectly plausible that the universe, with the concepts of space and time, can spontaneously appear out of nothing, and bring with it time.

Quantum Cosmology is a head ****.

[ZEE]

.

[BeBMan]

You guys are missing the point I am afraid. Yes, you can explain love as chemical. But that explanation is rather irrelevant when individuals are in love and have to deal with the issues arising from it. Usually people don't make chemical tests before they date girls, asking somebody to marry or maybe later consider divorce at some point or deciding whether to have babies or whatnot.

In some of those things science can be used to examine certain aspects and so to help maybe in making a certain decision ("let's find out about possible health risks before we decide to have a baby" etc etc), but for the individual these questions aren't primarily questions of hard science, and hard science isn't meant to ultimately answer them for the individual, just as it cannot answer the coke/pepsi question in the general way it was asked.

Science can maybe explain at some point *why* certain humans would prefer coke over pepsi or vice versa ("tests revealed this guy has some 455xfv3-t receptorgeneticwhateverthingies in his bio system making him more prone to fall prey to the coke empire") but that is something else than answering the question of taste.

That doesn't make such issues automatically irrelevant, and also people dealing with it are not neccessarily going into religion to find answers. And in the case of religion science can't provide answers to certain things because they are not "scientific" concepts. God as a metaphysical idea is not in the realm of (hard) science. That is why you either believe or don't. I do not, others do. We can certainly make arguments why there would be reasons to believe or not, but that is not an ultimate answer to questions like "Is there a god?" etc etc.

[MikeH]

You guys are missing the point I am afraid. Yes, you can explain love as chemical. But that explanation is rather irrelevant when individuals are in love and have to deal with the issues arising from it.

That wasn't the question. The question was "can science explain love", answer "Yes".

Your question is:

"Can science help people get through emotional trauma?" answer "Yes, but we need to learn a lot more, we aren't very good at it yet."
"Can religion help people get through emotional trauma?" answer "Yes, whether it's any better than a scientific approach is up for debate. And religion can also cause a lot of emotional trauma."

[MikeH]

Science can maybe explain at some point *why* certain humans would prefer coke over pepsi or vice versa ("tests revealed this guy has some 455xfv3-t receptorgeneticwhateverthingies in his bio system making him more prone to fall prey to the coke empire") but that is something else than answering the question of taste.

Taste is probably the most minor component in that, peer approval and targeted marketing are much bigger factors. Again, a very well funded and effective area of science.

[MOBIUS]

All over. Hitler has been introduced to the thread.

I think you'll find that it was the Pope that started by claiming that the reason why the Nazis were a bunch of genocidal maniacs was because they were evil atheists - just before he proceeded to insult me and my country.

[BeBMan]

That wasn't the question. The question was "can science explain love", answer "Yes".

Your question is:

"Can science help people get through emotional trauma?" answer "Yes, but we need to learn a lot more, we aren't very good at it yet."
"Can religion help people get through emotional trauma?" answer "Yes, whether it's any better than a scientific approach is up for debate. And religion can also cause a lot of emotional trauma."

I don't ask anything about trauma. My post was about the overarching question here -- can science esp. hard science answer *all* questions. Science can explain love in the field of chemistry, which I certainly don't deny. But that is not the only way to ask the question "what is love". An individual may know lots about it, but simply not care about the chemical expl because it doesn't help him in any way in a certain issue with love. Similarly, understanding the biological process of making babies doesn't answer you the question if you want to have them. There are lotsa other examples. You can "explain" a renaissance picture by chemical analysis of the components/colors/materials used, but it doesn't tell about its aesthetical qualities. Science isn't some kind of magic meant to answer everything.

Taste is probably the most minor component in that, peer approval and targeted marketing are much bigger factors. Again, a very well funded and effective area of science.

Irrelevant for the main prob: science can not tell you if you should prefer coke or pepsi *only* because of the taste, because it can't establish what's "better" here purely taste-wise. It can find out other things which may help you in the decision if you want to drink cola (unhealty, too much sugar etc), but that is something else. We can leave out coke/pepsi and the whole marketing and ask if tea or coffee tastes better if you wish. Or pizza style X vs. Y. Any individual can answer that for himself, but hardly for everyone else, and science isn't there to tell people what they should prefer of he two.

[Cort Haus]

I don't see what is so mysterious about tastes - in food, music or art. Certain configurations of signals stimulate a certain response, which we enjoy. The fact that these systems are complex and multi-layered doesn't make them in any way metaphysical.

[Asher]

Note that there are even biological reasons why some people prefer the taste of some food and others find it terrible. Certain genes help determine that.

There's a specific gene, for example, that directly impacts how much bitterness people can taste in things such as black coffee.

Taste in art, etc is usually a function of personal experiences.

[MikeH]

Spot on CH.

BeBro, I really don't know what you are saying. Can you pose a question that science can't answer? Well, one can phrase a question in such a way that it's meaningless scientifically, but that probably means any answer you would come up with would be equally meaningless.

Can science tell whether you'd decide you want children or not? Well we can understand how people make decisions and how their history shapes their decisions. There are so many variables in a person's life that makes it almost impossible to predict what anyone will choose at any one time, although people are much, much more predictable than we think we are. And it's much easier to manipulate our decisions and personalities than we'd like to think too.

We, as humans, have a long history of trying to apply mystical explanations to things, but again and again we find out we can understand and explain them.