What Is History?

[desiresjab]

One more point, and I'll be done with this infernal argument. Returning to the op, history is "that branch of knowledge concerned with past events, especially those involving human affairs; a record or account, usually written, of past events."

This being the case, science is dependent on history, while history can be independent from science. Experimental scientists record the methods and results of their experiments -- that is, they write a "history" of their experiment. Astronomers record the sky, then look at it again weeks later a compare what they see to the record. Were it not for the history they had recorded, they would not discover planets. Medical researchers give some people drugs and other placebos, then they take the "medical history" of all the participants to determine if the drug takers got better results than the placebo takers. Without "history" scientific research would be impossible.

In addition, Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants..." In other words, he knew the history of scientific research in the fields in which he was interested (alchemy, for example). Our personal histories, supplied to us by our memories, include everything we learned in Physics 101, which, in my case, is not very much. Nonetheless. it is clear that history is essential for the furtherance of human knowledge; without it science could not exist.

I don't disagree with anything in this post. An interesting footnote on that Newton quote is that some reserachers have speculated it may have contained a veiled slight to Robert Hooke, Newton's great rival in the Royal society, who was a very short hunchback. Who knows? But research has shown Newton experienced intense vitriol toward all rivals, going so far as to excoriate Leibnitz's reputation even after his death in an official Royal society review which he authored psuedonymically under the guise of an independent panel.

The present thread came out swinging with an overview of the average condition of mankind throughout history and how the curve suddenly exploded upward when science became the dominant methodology of uncovering physical consistencies we basically call truth. Those events have more connection than do the Yankees were dominant during prohibition.

It was more an artist's rendition of history, not so analytical. Ask Picasso what history is, he will paint you a strange picture with much misery and conflict and ignorance. Let us call it standard of living. Indeed it is a lower standard to use an outhouse instead of an indoor commode, to steer a horse-drawn buggy instead of a car, to be put to servitude as a child instead of receivng a mandatory education, to use leeches, animal horns and chants instead of pharmaceutical medicines.

The institutionalizing of science as the leader "forward" was only possible once the philosophy of science had duked it out socially with religion and come to a Mexican standoff with a compromise of dualism.

Everything from satellites to computers to mandatory mass education, came about (not coincidentally) only when we refused to let religion dictate physical truth to us anymore. The dualism many abhor was necessary to confine the truths of religion to an abstract region of the soul and out of the way of advancement.

For thousands of years brilliant individuals made life easier for many, tiny isolated step by step. The screw of Archimedes certainly improved things. Uncle Ben's bifocals and lightning rods did too. They were experimentalists, abstact thinkers and tinkers.

The unleashing of the techologies made possible through catalogued science and the growth of math exploded our comforts and awareness upward. We know so much more than the man of 1860 about the bigger picture, not to mention the man of 1060. To William the conquerer or Charlamagne a decent modern eleven year old would be a mathematical genius and treated as such, perhaps considered a wizard, able to divide troops or grain shipments at his whim and multiply from either memory or technique without an abacus.

Math is not a fictional story, never gets its facts wrong, never has to correct itself. The propositions of mathematics seem true whether anyone is there to form them or not. I do not think something else was true before they were formed. The forest had as many trees after someone counted them as it did before, so to speak.This gives numbers an eternal quality. Our simple number line marking off the whole numbers with all their infinite properties cannot and never could be different from what it is now. The relations of numbers do not change and shift around within an axiomatic system. To say that mathematics is foundational to the universe seems like it could be an understatement. In the system of integers aⁿ+bⁿ never equals cⁿ, end of story. It can be proven beyond any dispute from reasonable men. Hardcore proof.

Science is different. How do you prove that the boiling point of water averages 212° at sea level? You do experiments and keep a record, a history, a story of your results. Only repeatability and predictability prove such scientific facts. To work backwards starting with air composition, atmospheric pressure, water density et al is unbelievably difficult. The same thing that makes math true is what science leans on, for math is always repeatable within a system and always predictable. That's what a theorem is.

No amount of experiment would suffice to prove to a mathematician that the prime numbers are infinite in number. That there are no additional Brownian pairs up to two billion factorial has been numerically shown, but no one considers it a proof. *Factorials grow faster than powers. It would take more universes than there are stars in this universe to contain two billion factorial atomic particles. By 10²², 22! (twenty-two factorial) has already outpaced the powers and will accelerate its lead. It will eventually outpace any base.

It was scientific truth in overwhelming abundance that finally overhthrew the grip of superstition enough to proceed. Religion originated out of superstition the way language originated in grunts and squeals. Religion is completely superstition supported in so-called phenomena that cannot be numerically defined and are therefore not scientifically approachable so far as we know. Good riddance. That is its stubborn domain. But should that domain in the future prove to be scientifally approachable through the ingenuity of some domain-busting abstract thinker, science will have to annex more of religion's mysterious territory by force. Only that which can be numerically defined can exist. That is just the universe we live in and the only kind possible. Because we have not yet learned to numerically define spirits and souls and the like does not mean those things do not exist, and if they do exist, that they only started to exist once we defined them. Before a proper law can be formulated I believe all its principles are operant. This seems only reasonable to me. Newton only caged the operant dynamics of falling objects in an inverse square law because that is the law that was operant. Otherwise he couldn't do it. Numerically defined.

It sounds like a big tautology, and it is. The universe is all tautology, all its operant principles a snap to spot and connect if you only know the correct theory. We are embedded in a tautology so complex that we can only unfold its obvious nature slowly and a step at a time. Sometimes we take a big step. That is how I see the structure of the universe and very existence.

But since there are infinitely many emergent properties to unfold, we can never know them all or get to the end of it, so there will always be mystery and the unknown, which could turn out to be anything except numerically unapproachable. There will always be fictional literature and poetry of some type, there will always be music and visual arts of some type. Ingenius writers will find a way to composee believable mysteries even in a future when it seems like Big Brother would know everything. I own up to these Platonic beliefs. I did not always hold them. I had to come to them the old fashioned way—in an armchair.

Since art is not lost but continually unfolds even more interestingly in a universe which is nonetheless fated to be a tautology of mathematics if it ever could fully reveal itself, I am only too happy to own up to my Platonic sympathies regarding the primacy of number in the structure of existence. Even for non existence we have a number—zero.

Human imagination does not lose any quality with these admissions, once they are understood correctly, but imagination gains.

[YesNo]

I recommend reading Alvin Plantinga's "Where the conflict really lies : science, religion, and naturalism". He doesn't see the conflict between religion and science that you do. If you would like, I could get that book from the library and we could go over it in this thread.

You are basically assuming there is a conflict between science and religion. There may not be as much conflict there as you suspect.

If I want to take this to a science arena, I need only point to quantum physics and the big bang to find a justification for a religious perspective on reality.

However, the bottom line for me is that, whatever you might say about religion, I just have to point to the Khmer Rouge, Maoism, Naziism, or Stalinism to justify a condemnation of atheism. The problem with atheism is that it is a form of dehumanisation.

[Ecurb]

DJ's outline of the benefits of science is reasonable; his outline of the foolishness of religion is simplistic.

Nobody doubts the benefits of scientific inventions. DJ says, "the average condition of mankind... suddenly exploded upward when science became the dominant methodology of uncovering physical consistencies we basically call truth." This is accurate, if the "condition of mankind" refers to his physical well-being -- longevity, health, and physical comfort. Since the realm of science is the physical world, it makes sense that scientific advances can help us improve our physical conditions.

However, it seems that the condition of mankind has NOT exploded upward in other ways. Poetry is little better than it was when Sappho, Homer, Shakespeare and Dante were practicing the art. Painting may not have "exploded upward" since the time of Rembrandt, El Greco, and Caravaggio. Many experts think Mozart and Beethoven still represent musical peaks from which the movement has not been "upward".

I use these examples because they may resonate with LitNet members. But human happiness, joy, and fulfillment are not precisely correlated with physical well being. "Man does not live by bread alone," as some religious seer once said. So while we should recognize the benefits of science and technology, it's also fair to recognize its limitations. Indeed (as YesNo pointed out) attempts to apply scientific methods to improve government and society (Marxism) have not been unqualified successes.

In addition, mathematical systems are "valid" (when properly worked out), but, as Godel proved, they cannot be both consistent and complete. Instead, they depend upon meta-statements (from outside the mathematical system). Math is a "story" -- Euclidean geometry is the story of what can be logically derived from a small set of theorems and definitions. This story may or may not be "fictional" (Lewis Carroll's logic puzzles provide an example of "fictional" logic -- logic based on absurd and fictional premises).

Finally, DJ says, "Religion originated out of superstition the way language originated in grunts and squeals. Religion is completely superstition.... " But "superstition" is not like grunts and squeals -- it is a complex system of human beliefs. In addition, DJ's dismissal of religion is like saying, "Shakespeare's plays originated out of meaningless grunts and squeals." That may be true, but how does it add to our understanding of Shakespeare?

Religion is multifaceted, consisting of myths, rituals, theology and moral instruction. Myths are not a form of inaccurate science so much as they are a form of (possibly inaccurate) history. They are generally stories about the past. When we are enjoined, "Do not commit adultery", or "Love your neighbor as yourself" we cannot look to science to discover whether these moral imperatives are reasonable. Science answers questions about the physical universe, it cannot answer the question of what we "should" do, only of what we "can" do.

It is true that some literal interpretations of religious texts conflict with modern scientific theory, and even most religious people have abandoned these interpretations. Ancient technologies could turn water into wine, by planting vineyards, watering the grapes, collecting and fermenting them. In the Wedding at Cana, Jesus (supposedly) sped up the process. Nonetheless, however well modern science understands the process of fermentation, and the affect of alcohol on the human brain, it cannot quite explain why "wine maketh glad the heart of man". For all our medical advances, a scientific approach to Joy escapes us, and we turn to art, or music, or poetry, or fiction, or (even) myth to seek what we cannot find in the material world that is science's realm. In Universities these things are called "Humanities" and scholars study them, just as other scholars study the "Sciences".

[desiresjab]

Very good. I agree with much of what you say, but have a few quailifications and notes. Math or science can probably do little for painters that it has not already done; for poetry it never could do much other than inspire awe; in music its greatest technical acheivements came from Pythagoras with the diatonic scale and Bach and his immediate predecessors with the equal tempered system. The golden ages for all three roughly coincide with the Age of Reason. Lots of development time for all three since that time. In film making, a more recent art, technical acheivments are far from through influencing the genre to greater heights, methinks.

Like you say, we will pit the greats of yesteryear against those of today in the former three fields confidently. It is also worth noting that the greatest of the ancients were apparently as good any man yet born at abstract thinking, that area considered most important on IQ tests. Without a helpful number system, the Greeks yet mangaged with geometry to uncover many properties of the natural numbers. That is awfully smart. Could Newton or Einstein have done any better with the old tools? I truly doubt it.

In morality we have perhaps improved.

Science is not supposed to make people joyful or moral and makes no such claims. Sometimes others might have tried to make such claims for science.

The import of Godel is quite large philosophically, but a minute impediment mathematically. We can generate propositions we cannot answer, and cannot show if they are answerable or not. Gauss intimated that Fermat's last theorem was such a proposition for him. He did not say that it absolutely was, for Gauss was never wrong with a conjecture. Are proofs possible for the Goldbach conjecture, The twin prime conjecture and Brocard's problem? There is no way to know until they are proven. Until that time they are undecidable.

The silly thing about religion is when modern people insist on literal interpretations of the old texts. No person in their right mind thinks Moses parted the red sea or any number of so called miracles.

So a lot of people have moved on, as you noted, and no longer claim literal belief in these matters. Let's face it, let's be honest, they are picking and choosing from among what their God tells them to believe. They as good as admit their God did not create the world as descibed in "His" holy text. There is no reason to suppose the rest of it is true, once his ominpotence has been relinquished by his followers. The Bible was wrong once, it is reasonable to assume it is full of a lot more malarkey than just its supposed miracles.

Religion comes from fear. Fearful, pre-language people grunted and squealed and hollered, they did not whistle and skip. Make any modern person scared enough and he or she will revert to squealing and squalling.

If the Bible were chopped to the size of a first book of poetry with the golden rule as its title, it would be more applicable. As it is, good advice is buried in mountains of bad counsel. The same is true of the Koran, except it is already the size of a first book of poetry, which means chopping its nonsense out will be easier. I do not think such nonsense as the Red sea opening, or killing both a woman and her beast friend for having sex, or a man riding a magic carpet to the moon, make anyone more moral.

Once people have weeded out everything that is nonsense, why call the rest a holy book. It is just a book, now edited and meaningful. That's OK, because God did not write it or inspire it in the first place, we did.

[YesNo]

The silly thing about religion is when modern people insist on literal interpretations of the old texts. No person in their right mind thinks Moses parted the red sea or any number of so called miracles.

What do you see good in religion?

[Ecurb]

Religion comes from fear. Fearful, pre-language people grunted and squealed and hollered, they did not whistle and skip. Make any modern person scared enough and he or she will revert to squealing and squalling.


.

Statements like this seem to me simplistic. First of all, many facets of religion have nothing to do with the afterlife, fear, or salvation. Second, many religions place little or no emphasis on the afterlife -- ancient Greek religion thought death was horrid for everyone. How does this ameliorate fear? Surely Christianity and other religions must SHARE something basic before we can say "religions are based on X."

Finally, how does Christianity alleviate fear? Isn't it often said of a Christian that he is a "God-fearing man"? Isn't the possibility of hell far scarier than any atheistic view of death? "What dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause," said Hamlet. Religion (or Christianity, at least) serves to make people more fearful, not less.

Religion is not "based on fear" or on any one human emotion, historical incident, or societal need. It developed over many millenia, influenced by political, cultural, linguistic, and artistic norms. It constitutes one of the great achievements of mankind. That's why departments of Comparative Religion and Theology are among the Humanities at Universities, along with History, languages, art, philosophy, and literature. Many of the great geniuses of history spent their lives studying religion, writing about it, and trying to achieve its ideals. Indeed, some became so consumed by it, that they almost did achieve religious ideals, rising to levels of mystic enlightenment that the rest of us can comprehend about as well as I comprehended Godel's proof, when I read it in its original mathematical form.

[desiresjab]

What do you see good in religion?

Belief itself is a powerful ally. God-fearing folk find it easier to accept the God who has already been formulated for them. Belief and the support of ministering folk is responsible for turning many lives around and saving many more.

Because many wars wore a religious cone, I do not condemn religion for these wars but man himself. We have a brutal nature, as told of Cain and Able and foretold of us. That was not a hard diagnosis, even for the time, I am sure.

Nor can I prove that religion was not the instrument which could touch some aspect of us with a civilizing hand, or we would be more brutal. Religion had to tap fear to tame us, is one view, but it is not all one thing and none of another. We built religion as we went.

[desiresjab]

Just as alchemy evolved into chemistry, the superstitious howls of our antecedents evolved into religion, as you say, over a long period of time. Defining religions is an arbitrary matter. One can throw in Confucianism to widen the parameters. Does one insist that Buddhists are athesists?

The principle character of religions has been to have Gods, to gain their favor through various deeds such as sacrifice and other forms of devotion. There is prescibed prayer and meditation, rituals. The word worship is pretty generally applied in these comparitive religion courses.

Their have been a lot of angry, tough Gods, who could run a gang on the Jersey shore. You have to appease the gang boss with his tribute, so you pay for your protection.

I will not go so far as Bertrand Russell who said (paraphrase) the only accomplishment of religion through the ages was a decent calander. I would give religion more than that, but am not prepared to say its overall influence has been positive. That is a whole lot of individual events to add up. I have to think of every witch burned at the cross, every head severed by a scimitar, every kid raped by a soldier of God, every kid molested by a priest.

The way I see it, we were doing these things before religion, and simply continued doing them, and I doubt if religion made them worse, so it is then reasonable to assume that religion might have ameliorated some blood lust here and there. Probably not a great deal though. That is not my argument. My argument is against those who cannot shape God for themselves, but rather wail to the cave echoes of paleolithics.

Instead of consulting a soothsayer or slaughtering a lamb, all that haggling and supplicating has been replaced by Game Theory. That tells you the best time to sell your grain, fatten your kine et al.

Nor do I even want religion divested of its mystical character. But I do dislike such platitudes as "it was God's will." It is a lot just to assume a God, but to assume it also has a Will whose perfect nature steals babies away in the night for its own grand purpose which we will soon understand, is enough to sicken.

An afterlife is what I hope for, sir, as all of us are wont to do, methinks. An eternal afterlife/lives without a God ever showing up is fine with me. If it has to have a God in it, so be it, I will take that one, too.

So you see I am really not against religion but the retention of paleolitic superstitions as guidance.