The Yarn Spinners

[_Doctor Steuss]

If only there had ever been a Mormon who was able to not believe in "stories" long enough to be worthy of winning something like the Priestley Medal... or maybe the Wolf Prize (or Peter Debye Award, Cresson Award, AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize, Berzelius medal, T. W. Richards medal, Linus Pauling medal, or the Langmuir prize).

Stupid Mormons.

[_Tal Bachman]

I don't understand the Penrose reference. There are loads of people besides Roger Penrose who think there is something to consciousness besides mere computation. Consciousness might not originate through some quantum process in the microtubules, but...what do you mean?

[_Doctor Steuss]

[...]Oh yeah, another crackpot: Nicola Tesla. A mad scientist if there ever was one although in his case I don't think it was because he believed stories handed down from others.

Slight derailment... maybe (as the topic seems to be scientists and the like that believe[d] kooky stuff)...

I've been looking for a good biography on Tesla. Any suggestions?

[_Tal Bachman]

Yo doctor

This was what my post was supposed to be about:

1.) The power of story, or myth, to envelope and capture us, to shape our consciousnesses, and therefore shape how we feel, what we perceive, how we decide, how we live, how and who we love, etc. It seems sometimes that we give ourselves over more to stories we like, than to stories which there are good reasons to believe true. That doesn't always seem like a good thing. We sometimes wind up totally blind to reality, or ignoring the very best information available for the sake of believing in something which has no more reason to be thought likely than the existence of fire-breathing dragons. Like my old home teacher said to me last week when I bumped into him, "you think two plus two don't equal seven; but what if there is an extra 'three' floating around somewhere, that we just don't know about yet?".

[Reflexzero]

Yo doctor

This was what my post was supposed to be about:

1.) The power of story, or myth, to envelope and capture us, to shape our consciousnesses, and therefore shape how we feel, what we perceive, how we decide, how we live, how and who we love, etc. It seems sometimes that we give ourselves over more to stories we like, than to stories which there are good reasons to believe true. That doesn't always seem like a good thing. We sometimes wind up totally blind to reality, or ignoring the very best information available for the sake of believing in something which has no more reason to be thought likely than the existence of fire-breathing dragons. Like my old home teacher said to me last week when I bumped into him, "you think two plus two don't equal seven; but what if there is an extra 'three' floating around somewhere, that we just don't know about yet?".

Sounds like your home teacher might be a fan of Euclid’s somewhat flawed equation…

I agree that we do tend to accept those things which tend to make us comfortable, and the things which we have accepted for extended periods of time seem to be the things that bring us comfort. For how long was 12 thousand years a sort of Maginot line for how long man had been on the American continent? How many scientists are still wanting a corpus delicti before they accept any later date than that previously established by Clovis?

Despite Brigham Young’s statement that he doesn’t believe in Fairy Tales (in referring to the Biblical account of the creation of man), how many LDS still think that G-d actually took a bone from Adam?

We all cling to our stories. I’d venture that the majority of Americans think Franklin discovered electricity via the kite, key, and string method (despite the fact that such a thing would have killed him).

I guess the real question is “What harm does believing in “this” or “that” cause?” If the pros outweigh the cons, then is there harm in believing a little story? If I believe (notice use of “believe,” not “know”) that there is a G-d, and this keeps the voices within my noodle at bay and prevents me from stabbing someone in the eyeball when they cross me, is it really all that bad that I have blinded myself to the “reality” that there probably isn’t a G-d?


On a side note, last night I was reading some of J. Krishnamuri’s stuff, and stumbled across this (which might fit in this discussion… somewhat):

"When you say you love God what does it mean? It means that you love a projection of your own imagination, a projection of yourself clothed in certain forms of respectability according to what you think is noble and holy; so to say, `I love God', is absolute nonsense. When you worship God you are worshipping yourself - and that is not love."

PS.
Sorry for the "blow up"/"weak-mindedness" crack earlier. I tend to become quite a buthead by the time the weekend rolls around.

[_Blixa]

I've been looking for a good biography on Tesla. Any suggestions?

Tesla: Man Out of Time by Margaret Cheney

I have not read it, but I'd like to. Tesla wrote six or so autobiographical articles that have been published as The Autobiography of N. Tesla," but I think you can find the whole text of them online...you could likely Google it.

Edited:


Here it is! http://www.rastko.org.yu/istorija/tesla/ntesla-autobiography.html

[_asbestosman]

I don't understand the Penrose reference. There are loads of people besides Roger Penrose who think there is something to consciousness besides mere computation. Consciousness might not originate through some quantum process in the microtubules, but...what do you mean?

I also believe that human intelligence may be more than a Turing process. Howver, I just think that Penrose's proof that consciousness cannot possibly be a Turing process is severly lacking and utterly unconvincing.

In any case I suppose none of that was your main point. You appear to agree that great things can come from people who believe strange stories. You're point seems to be that we should always reexamine our beliefs. Also implicit is that there are no good reasons for believing Mormonism. I agree with the former even while many members do not. I actually get a kick out of challenging their beliefs from time to time. I just happen to disagree with the latter implicit claim.

Certainly our beliefs effect our experience in life. I suppose the rational thing to do is to ask ourselves what the cost of those beliefs are as well as what the potential cost of not beliving is (weighted by liklihood) and of course subject to other logic so we don't fool ourselves with Pascal's Wager.

Oh, and in case you wonder, I'm not so sure I really like the Mormon "story", let alone Christianity in general more than some alternatives (Nehor's all will be saved philosophy). Nevertheless, I think the alternatives are much less likely to be true.


Dang, Steuss has me beat for the explanation again. The guy's got the looks, brains, humor and basically everything.

[_Tal Bachman]

Doc

Ben Franklin flew his kite in a storm in June of 1752. The key attached to the line helped charge a Leyden jar. In fact, it was this (real) experiment which helped get him elected to The Royal Society.

You might like Walter Isaacson's bio of Franklin. Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/custom ... .start=151

[_Blixa]

Tesla is way sexier than Ben Franklin.

[Guest]

What about Betty Friedan and other founding mothers of modern feminism? Crucial to most modern feminism "thought" has been that "sex" does not exist; only "gender" does. ("Gender", the word, itself is a claim that all differences observed between males and females are a result of environment, rather than biology.)

What is your basis for this claim? Because my knowledge of feminist writing suggests this is laughably false. Trivally, you aren't going to find to many feminists who explain the fact that men have penises and women have vaginas in terms of environment rather than heritablity. I'm afraid I'm going to have to call for evidence. (By the way, the comparison is not between biology and environment, but environment and genetics. Those two factors work together to produce biology.)

Yet, there are still millions of people running around claiming that any observed differences between men and women are the result of social conditioning, and that "gender is a social construct"

(No, dear - sex is real, and "gender" is largely a figment of your imagination.)

Got to love the sexist condescension in this post. Gender is a social construct in the same sense race is. It refers to a series of social expectations for what behaviors and roles fulfill a given gender type. Like race, there is a biological component to these expectations, but the notion itself is a construct of social boundaries. That's why one's physical sex is a different concept than one's gender. I know of almost no one who argues all of the variance between men and women is a result of social conditioning. Rather, it is argued that a very significant portion of it when explaining this or that (e.g. differences in amount of Ph.D's in math or literature) is best explained by differences in social factors. This is backed up by, you know, mountains of evidence. Notice this says nothing of the moral properness of those roles. It doesn't talk about why men and women ought or ought not prefer certain gender roles.

Thank God the Bacons, Galileos, Newtons, Humes, Voltaires, Einsteins of the world have cared less about stories, even wonderful stories, and focused more on the business of trying to gain real knowledge about the world.

Given that Newton spent more time trying to unlock Biblical prophecy than he did working out physics, this is an interesting claim. Oh well. Bacon has a lovely quote that is all too apt for you Tal:

"It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion."