The Black Vault

at1with0 wrote:Science has helped us commit acts of evil more efficiently, like genocide (if that's really evil, per se).

All the mechanisms of war were brought to us by science, not by religion. Religion brought us rules of engagement and fair treatment of prisoners and some weapons were once outlawed by religion, like the crossbow. It goes without saying that science is more evil than religion, despite what the religion bashers would have you believe.

humphreys wrote:Exactly. Science is like a tool, you can use it in good ways or bad. Like a knife which can be used for life saving operations, or you can cut your parents up and eat them instead, etc

So after all the previous pages of arguing... what? It's finally settled that science is an amoral tool? Gee.

I'm going to suggest that science is in fact moral, because science is the pursuit of truth. Gaining knowledge about how our world works is better than not gaining knowledge about our world.

Regardless of the ways knowledge can be misused, knowledge is better than ignorance. Understanding truths about how the world actually functions is preferable to believing falsehoods. Is it not better to know bacteria exist and understand them?

I'd rather live in a world we truly understand even if the truth of it isn't always pretty, rather than in a world of ignorance and pleasant delusions. We should seek truth. It's the moral thing to do.

CodeBlackv2 wrote:Oh, oh, this is good. Let me get your head spinning with a quote from a religious scripture.

After the natural structure of the immortal beings had developed out of the infinite, a likeness then emanated from Pistis (Faith), it is called Sophia (Wisdom).

Immortal beings? Wow, that sounds dangerously close to universes. And Immortal Beings is capitalized elsewhere in the scripture, implying that it is a proper name. Pistis could be thought of as God. Crazy, blow your hair back kind of stuff, this scripture. Describes our universe quite nicely, says that we're missing a few particles, like the Higgs Boson. How much you want to bet that physicists have read this scripture?

It's interesting, for sure. Sounds like Theosophy.

I commend you for taking the time to look over the links!

CodeBlackv2 wrote:I found the fly in the ointment with this. The existence of other universes is irrelevant. The reason is that the other universes have no effect on our universe, and have never had any effect. The initial conditions in this universe are not determined or even related to the initial conditions of another universe, since the theory claims they are random. They cannot effect us and we cannot effect them, so their existence is irrelevant.

I understand what you are getting at and you have a valid point but, to me, this is like saying it's irrelevant that the sun doesn't rotate around the earth. I mean, regardless of which celestial object is rotating around which, there will still be four seasons in a year, day and night, etc. Sometimes the truth is irrelevant but as DIsson8er was sort of suggesting in his post, the pursuit of truth should be paramount.

You also seem to have some good questions regarding the level I multiverses but I specialize more in the level IV line of thought and am not a physicist.

I'm not saying that I know for a fact that there is no multiverse but we must have a sound basis for theorizing such a thing. At the very least this is a not fully formed theory. And if there is a multiverse, so what? How does it relate to I.D.?

If Max is right about the level IV multiverse, then reality itself is isomorphic to some asofyet undiscovered mathematical structure. Then the question becomes what are the origins of this mathematical structure. Many mathematical philosophers debate whether or not structures pre-exist or are created by mathematicians. I personally feel that mathematical objects are discovered and not created. Not created means not designed. That's the punchline.

There is the issue of whether or not reality literally is that mathematical structure or if isomorphism is the best we can say. Tegmark uses a possibly circular argument in deriving the mathematical universe hypothesis from the external reality hypothesis. But this can of worms is probably the purview of a different thread maybe...

DIss0n80r wrote:

humphreys wrote:Exactly. Science is like a tool, you can use it in good ways or bad. Like a knife which can be used for life saving operations, or you can cut your parents up and eat them instead, etc

So after all the previous pages of arguing... what? It's finally settled that science is an amoral tool? Gee.

I'm going to suggest that science is in fact moral, because science is the pursuit of truth. Gaining knowledge about how our world works is better than not gaining knowledge about our world.

Regardless of the ways knowledge can be misused, knowledge is better than ignorance. Understanding truths about how the world actually functions is preferable to believing falsehoods. Is it not better to know bacteria exist and understand them?

I'd rather live in a world we truly understand even if the truth of it isn't always pretty, rather than in a world of ignorance and pleasant delusions. We should seek truth. It's the moral thing to do.

Only sentient beings can be subject to standards of morality, in my opinion.

Science can be used in an immoral, or a moral fashion, by sentient beings. We can use science to pursue truth, a good thing most would agree, but science can also be used to create massive bombs to drop onto less powerful nations causing mass harm, which is largely a bad thing.

So I don't buy that science is either moral or amoral.

The complaint that science "has not made us better people" then becomes an obviously invalid and irrelevant one. It's not the job of science to do that, so it is not a failing of science any more than it is a failing of a hammer to not be able to cut down trees.

Math may be the language of God...

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_beauty

No Doubt all things from science, have both good and bad uses, and make it more convienient to do evil things. Question is why are so many, as we evolve, so willing to do this evil, with these things. Could it be the further decline in family values, traditional family, decline in religious beliefs and envolvment, lack of parenting, a society of not taking responsibilty for ones actions.

Maybe those should not be so convienient to use or get.

at1with0 wrote:I personally feel that mathematical objects are discovered and not created.

Could you elaborate on your reasoning/intuition for that? Is it because of their elegant internal consistency? Is there an innate tautological truth to their existence/structure?

Does Tegmark's multiverse also include fundamentally differing rules of mathematics? What makes a mathematical truth coherent and elegant to the human mind? Is it entirely subjective? Or could there be a blurring of object & subject somewhere in there? If the nature of reality is mathematical, why? Why might reality be innately understandable as a language?

greeney2 wrote:No Doubt all things from science, have both good and bad uses, and make it more convienient to do evil things. Question is why are so many, as we evolve, so willing to do this evil, with these things. Could it be the further decline in family values, traditional family, decline in religious beliefs and envolvment, lack of parenting, a society of not taking responsibilty for ones actions.

Maybe those should not be so convienient to use or get.

Maybe we should live in caves, worship the sun, and throw rocks at our enemies.

humphreys wrote:Only sentient beings can be subject to standards of morality, in my opinion.

Science can be used in an immoral, or a moral fashion, by sentient beings. We can use science to pursue truth, a good thing most would agree, but science can also be used to create massive bombs to drop onto less powerful nations causing mass harm, which is largely a bad thing.

So I don't buy that science is either moral or amoral.

The complaint that science "has not made us better people" then becomes an obviously invalid and irrelevant one. It's not the job of science to do that, so it is not a failing of science any more than it is a failing of a hammer to not be able to cut down trees.

Pretty much anything can be used immorally, including morality itself. Objectively, of course it probably doesn't ultimately matter if human beings are smarter and have more tools to improve quality of life. We could all be slinging our feces at each other and squawking for all the objective universe cares.