Citta said:
Visty said:
So, what about science? It is the same thing as with media. There is a matter of responsibility. Science cannot neutrally, distantly define and create the precursors of technology or even just notions about reality without being part of reality. With precursors I mean, the theories and models on which technology can be based. Natural laws about energy find their way into cars. Studies about light find their way into the screen you are watching now.
What matter of responsibility? How can science, which is simply a collection of methods to acquire knowledge about the universe, be held accountable for how this knowledge is used by others?
I explained that. There is no science without humans. Science, as a practice, is per definition a human practice. It is why I quoted someone saying that guns don't need minds, they use ours. I cannot make it clearer then this...
Science can't even readily predict what knowledge might come out of it, even less how this knowledge can be applied! I have mentioned this before, and even given you examples of how great scientists believed no applications could come from their research. The history of science is stuffed with examples like this.
That does not mean it is the right way to go about science. If scientists cannot predict the harm that may come of it, which is a real good cover that allows them to basically just do whatever they want, then perhaps science is flawed. Insofar as the future cannot be predicted, perhaps so. But there are ways to minimize the harm. One such thing is the practice of technorealism.
And no one here have underestimated the impact science has on technology, quite the opposite. Without our scientific knowledge today we would have nothing of the modern technology we surround us with daily. This is undeniable, and no one have disputed this very trivial fact.
I do not think it is trivial when technology, coming out of fundamental understanding of nature, at least understanding in a scientific framework, impacts our world so profoundly.
To make my position clear on this, I stand by the quote from Edward Teller that "the science of today is the technology of tomorrow". This is very much true. The question is however, if science should be blamed for how the knowledge it acquires is applied. I think not, because the blame should be on facets of human nature and in some cases a faulty moral judgement, not on the knowledge itself.
This is where most of you and I fundamentally disagree on. At this point we are simply restating our view. What is the root cause of our views being so different? Am I just completely weird? Or are the rest not seeing things quite right? Who can say.
But let me restate this, that in a court room you WILL get convicted for handing someone in rage the gun that kills someone. That as a gang leader you will be put in jail for leading people to commit crime. That failing to follow safety protocols on the work floor resulting in injury, WILL get you fired and prosecuted. That as a minister, guru, person of import and with that the responsibility as such, you will be prosecuted for people suiciding because you tell them the end of the world is nigh.
We apply responsibility all around. In your view, the person handing a gun goes free on the reasoning that he didn't pull the trigger, he merely gave someone access to a tool. In your view, the gang leader is innocent because despite him telling people where to go to commit a crime, he did was not present at the crime scene. In your view the person causing injury to self or others on the work floor will have an insurance company pay his medical costs fully and won't be held accountable in court because not following safety protocols say nothing about the machines he used that caused injury. In your view the spiritual leader goes free because even though he believes the end of the world is nigh, he did not command or suggest people to commit suicide.
But yet when it comes to science, all ties are severed. And science is carried by people, just like all those situations I meant involve people. Science therefore is not severed from the person doing the research.
And I have not seen any argument opposing this at all.
There is essentially nothing in science that encourages destruction and aggressive actions. Tell me where I can find that the discovery and knowledge of atomic energy directly encourages us to build atomic bombs and use them on eachother? Where in the models and equations and observations does it say this? Let me answer for you; nowhere does it say this.
It is inherent within it. It is an innate characteristic. As you said yourself, technology comes out of science and it always does. IF you understand that so well, isn't it time to man up and face the music? And what is the music? The music is the understanding of our nature, that we are fallible beings who compromise themselves on a daily basis by doing one thing and talking the other. That we all know climate is going down the drain because of our conduct in this world, we talk about energy saving, alternative energy, saving the forests and so on and so forth. Apart from a few hero's from Sea Shepard I don't see people consuming significantly less. We should man up and accept we are bastards. And when you do that, you can start to think about how to work with our flawed being in doing the right thing.
Similarly, we tend to portray Hitler, Stalin and Mao as monsters, inhuman bastards and in doing sow e cast them far from us. But those people were NOT monsters. They ere you and me. Humans of Earth, with a mean streak.
If you know so well that technology comes out of scientific understanding, then it seem logical that we should not stop at blaming technology or how we use technology. That is externalizing our own dysfunction into technology and then casting it away as examples of bad human behavior. Nice psychological trick, but I ain't falling for it boy.
It is exactly that way of thinking that causes technology to be used for bad reasons. Because we dare not look in the mirror and recognize and acknowledge our mean streak.
If people did that, I do not think a scientist would be so careless, nor would an engineer be willing to build a car that uses gasoline.
If science is the root cause of a miserable world through the application of technology, then we blame not technology, we go to the root. That is why one uses DMT. To get to the root of all things. You want a breakthough. McKenna said this too. Youc an feel ecstasy on 2 mg psilocybin but you want the 5 mg to get where you get the visions and the understanding.
With every progress follows responsibility, of course. With insight into medicine we can cure small pox, fight polio epidemics, cure cancer, stop the development of HIV and a great many other good things.
But here you show your lack of understanding. Don't mean to be harsh.
Technorealism isn't about putting labels like positive or negative on things. It means rather to overview the results of the use of technology. The conclusions that come from such scrutiny are then what we would base our position on.
All these things you name, like curing cancer, should be examined. There is a really bad side effect of curing cancer. I challenge you to name it and come back to me with the answer.
But we can also use this knowledge to produce biological weapons. How we use this knowledge is dependent on the one side of primitive and irrational, human aggressive drifts, and rational, critical and knowledge-seeking thought on the other. We must focuse on the last part, the rational, critical and knowledge-seeking thought, and this is to focus on science.
The same applies here. It would be hard to find a good use of biological weapons. But there are other things that can be detrimental to one thing yet good in another. Maybe a CAF chemo treatment in cancer. That 'F' in CAF is a highly toxic derivate of mustard gas, you remember it well...used against Kurds by the Iraqi government and before that approved of and used by the British...against the same Kurds. Which shows that society or culture has a say in what is 'bad' or not.
But if science promoted logical reasoning, then where is it? With all your love of reason science just ups the ante in the chance game of survival of nature. It does come up with perfectly logical science to create mustard gas and bio-weaponry equally as logical as they come up with a medication against small pox. So tell me how reason and logical thinking connects to conscience moral attitude?
There is just undoubtedly more benefits than disadvantages with the knowledge science produces, and to give science the blame for that someone uses this knowledge destructively is like giving the mineral quartz the blame for that stone-age humans attacked eachother with spears. It doesn't make any sense.
:lol: Well, maybe the world isn't ready yet for my point of view. I don't see the benefits myself. But to not see it, requires a utterly ruthless mind. And most people do not wish to stare into the abyss like I do. When I stare into the abyss, something flees. You want logic? I'll give you logic, superior logic.
People think that a benefit of science is that there is a cure for some disease. And tell me they are happy they live in the modern western world rather than a jungle tribe where surely they would have died.
But I don't regard dying as bad. Mortality and disease are natural to us. Therefore it cannot be regarded as good or bad. It just is part of nature, the cycle where there is growth and entropy.
To live and die of some disease - and then they tell me that 45 is such a young age to die, well, not if 60 is about as high as you can go in a tribe - in a jungle tribe is something I refuse to think of as being worse off, when your whole tribe empathize with you and lets you go in love and compassion. Whereas in a western hospital people cling to the hope and grasp their doctors sleeve begging them to do whatever they can to extend life, at all cost!
Remember the scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when Indy wants to grab the Cup as he hangs from his father's grip? He says 'Let it go, son'.
I think we should learn to let go. Immortality seems tantalizingly close. And science is trying hard to deny death. Science is a transference symbol. We cling to it like a religion in the hope we can overcome disease and death but we aren't ready for immortality when we feel the need to deny death as the natural outcome of life on earth. And so from science comes technology, junk, that destroys our climate, but it makes us feel good in our materialist cocoon.
Science is part of the human equation. We carry it and abuse it and dare not think about it, as people show in this thread. It is because most of us refuse to accept our own mortality and as a result, no one understands my point of view. It could be utterly incomprehensible. And this is because science is a transference symbol and that is why you guys keep it out of the wind in some abstract unlinked fashion and then blame the messenger, technology, which just means consumerism.
There is your double think. In not accepting mortality as a given you defend science because it gives you the hope of immortality through its understanding of nature, resulting in technology that distracts you from the fact of your upcoming own demise, which results in the destruction of the natural world, which in turn bites you in the butt because of the toxicity present causing the very diseases we try to cure with that same science, in the form of medicines.
Well it took me 25 years to get to this level of understanding, this superior logic.
