Richard Dawkins vs. Issac Newton

The take-away for me is that Newton was foolish, even by the standards of his contemporaries, to spend so much time on pointless forays into eschatology and theology.

Dawkins is succumbing to hubris in believing science can explain everything.
 
Cypress said:
Those are studies on the human mind, they are not experiments on art.

Humans have known for 50,000 years that we have an emotional response to art. No scientific experiment is needed to tell me that.

That is not a scientific explanation of the nature of art, which is not quantifiable and no subject to rigorous scientific tests.

There is no science that can quantify and explain the music of Mozart or the art of Michelangelo.
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I don’t think you get it


It’s a creation of the human mind


Why do you need it “quantified”

Art is expression out of brain of mankind attempting to sooth the mind and communicate


That is all the science needed to realize no hand of god is required to explain its existence


Yes it’s beautiful and emotional


And the fact that there is no god needed for it to be beautiful and meaningful is wonderful


You are romancing the gods


That is a habit society taught you


It’s not an explanation
 
Music actually can be quantified


It’s the sound of a mathematic pattern expressed




And many of the great artists works can be seen as the original under sketch with geometrical underpinnings by the artist


The process is a function of the human brain in a creative phase and which centers of the brain are activating


So m not suite what type of quantifying you seem to require
 
Cypress said:
That altruism. Charity is something you have no expectation of ever directly benefitting from

I feed ground squirrels every day, and I do not see them practice charity, though they undoubtedly practice some kind of altruism with their offspring, possibly their mates.
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Dogs do it all the time


Like us they live for their pack


Other animals have displayed such acts also


Sharing food


Providing cover for others



Where there is love their is sacrifice
 
Cypress said:
Michelangelo's Pieta gives me a knowledge of beauty and truth without the aid of analytical reason or scientific experimentation.
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Because it was intended by the artist to communicate that



Art of all kinds is communication
 
evince said:
I don’t think you get it


It’s a creation of the human mind


Why do you need it “quantified”

Art is expression out of brain of mankind attempting to sooth the mind and communicate


That is all the science needed to realize no hand of god is required to explain its existence


Yes it’s beautiful and emotional


And the fact that there is no god needed for it to be beautiful and meaningful is wonderful


You are romancing the gods


That is a habit society taught you


It’s not an explanation
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Quantification is the essence of science. If you can't quantify it, it ain't science.

I said nothing about Gods. I simply maintain that it is hubris to think all human experience and all reality is knowable by scientific experiment.


Harmonics are mathematical.

But there is no mathmatical formula, no scientific experiment, no test tube or mass spectrometer which will reveal to us the nature and meaning of Mozart's symphony 41.

No science or calculation can explain the nature and meaning of Donatello's David.

There is no scientific experiment or mathmatical model which will reveal to us the nature and source of the moral courage shown by Nelson Mandela and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in the face of overwhelming tyranny and oppression.

There is no scientific experiment which can reveal to us the nature and source of the compassion that compelled a few Medieval people to work with the lepers rather than shun them.
 
Cypress said:
I think you're right about Newton.


I do not agree that everything can and should be proven by scientific experiment.

Here are some things that can never be proven or quantified by reason or scientific experimentation.

Mercy
Charity
Art
Consciousness
Love
Justice
Compassion
Virtue
Courage
Humility
Temperance
Imagination
Creativity
Conscience
Music.
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They are proven to exist


God can’t be
 
evince said:
In Newton’s time it was not clear those practices were not based in proof


He was seeking proof of their validity


You have to remember the state of known facts at the time




If there is a god or a monster that actually exists it will have a scientific reality that it exists in



Existence has perimeters


If a god exists it will exist in some perimeters


Belief is fine


It’s faith


That means you merely have to have FAITH it exists and it will show you the perimeters later


AFTER DEATH


Then you will see the perimeters in which it exists



That effectively means you can never in your life find the perimeters


That’s a con mans answer
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I was talking about god
 
evince said:
They are proven to exist


God can’t be
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So we agree that not all of human experience and not all of reality is knowable by scientific experiment, even though they still exist.

There are people who don't believe humility, nor understand it. Donald Trump for one.

There are also people who only believe in self-interest, and do not believe in or understand courage and sacrifice. For example, Donald Trumpf said American WW2 soldiers were suckers.
 
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Cypress said:
In today's matchup, I pit a premminent biologist against a premminent physicist.


Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator, God, almost certainly does not exist, and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. He is sympathetic to Robert Pirsig's statement in Lila (1991) that "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. He explains that one does not need religion to be moral and that the roots of religion and of morality can be explained in non-religious terms.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion


Isaac Newton’s life was one long search for God. From physics and alchemy to theology and eschatology, Isaac Newton’s research was rooted in a personal pursuit of the Divine. His appetite for learning far transcended what we would nowadays call science. He devoted a larger amount of time to studies in alchemy and theology than physics. Newton saw the Universe as a manifestation of the infinite power of God, and science was a portal into God's mind.
https://bigthink.com/13-8/isaac-newton-search-god/
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I lean with Newton for two reasons; In line with Pascal's Wager, it's best to keep an open mind but keep looking for evidence for or against. Regardless if there is or isn't a God, science is a portal to understanding our Universe, regardless of how it came to be.

Dawkins is a fucking moron; the Atheist equivalent of a Televangelist fleecing his fans. Richard Dawkins is worth $10M. He didn't make that teaching Biology. He did it by selling books to his fan base. Anyone who declares there isn't anything beyond physical existence is equal to an atheist Bible-thumper - he's stating opinion as fact.
 
Cypress said:
So we agree that not all of human experience and not all of reality is knowable by scientific experiment, even though they still exist.

There are people who don't believe humility, nor understand it. Donald Trump for one.

There are also people who only believe in self-interest, and do not believe in or understand courage and sacrifice. For example, Donald Trumpf said American WW2 soldiers were suckers.
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Plato's entire project in The Republic was that while we think we know what justice and virtue are, on closer examination, we really don't. It is a matter of opinion, not truth.

Moral of the story: there is no scientific experiment, no mathmatical formula, no test tube or mass spectrometer that will give us knowledge of justice or virtue.
 
Dutch Uncle said:
I lean with Newton for two reasons; In line with Pascal's Wager, it's best to keep an open mind but keep looking for evidence for or against. Regardless if there is or isn't a God, science is a portal to understanding our Universe, regardless of how it came to be.

Dawkins is a fucking moron; the Atheist equivalent of a Televangelist fleecing his fans. Richard Dawkins is worth $10M. He didn't make that teaching Biology. He did it by selling books to his fan base. Anyone who declares there isn't anything beyond physical existence is equal to an atheist Bible-thumper - he's stating opinion as fact.
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I don't know if I agree with you one hundred percent, but I don't agree with the hubris of Dawkins that all human experience and all reality can be boiled down to scientific laws and theories.

Socrates and Tolstoy made admission of ignorance a virtue.
 
Cypress said:
I don't know if I agree with you one hundred percent, but I don't agree with the hubris of Dawkins that all human experience and all reality can be boiled down to scientific laws and theories.

Socrates and Tolstoy made admission of ignorance regarding all reality to be a virtue.
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I agree with Socrates and Tolstoy in that regard. Dawkins is just hawking books and merchandise. Neil deGrasse Tyson is a much better representative of "Skepticism".

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Neil+deGrasse+Tyson'
 
Cypress said:
Plato's entire project in The Republic was that while we think we know what justice and virtue are, on closer examination, we really don't. It is a matter of opinion, not truth.

Moral of the story: there is no scientific experiment, no mathmatical formula, no test tube or mass spectrometer that will give us knowledge of justice or virtue.
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Agreed. It's arbitrary and situationally changeable which is why societies create laws to nail down the rules.

Consider lifeboat ethics; all the options are valid choices, none are correct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeboat_ethics#Lifeboat_articles

To make the metaphor more concrete, Hardin adds the lifeboat's capacity (60), current status (50 on board, and 100 swimmers), and proposes three potential solutions:

  1. All 100 swimmers are brought on board, swamping the boat and leading to all dying, which Hardin calls "complete justice, complete catastrophe".[3]
  2. 10 of the 100 swimmers are selected to be brought on board. Hardin asserts the reduction in safety factor to zero will be paid for dearly "sooner or later", and asks "which ten do we let in?"[3]
  3. Admit none of the swimmers, ensuring the survival of those already on board, "though we shall have to be on our guard against boarding parties."[3]
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Cypress said:
In today's matchup, I pit a premminent biologist against a premminent physicist.


Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator, God, almost certainly does not exist, and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. He is sympathetic to Robert Pirsig's statement in Lila (1991) that "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. He explains that one does not need religion to be moral and that the roots of religion and of morality can be explained in non-religious terms.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion
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Dawkins is agnostic. I guess Newton wins by forfeit.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/richard-dawkins-reveals-he-is-agnostic.html
 
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