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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: thames_sider who wrote (9777)	3/26/2001 6:35:38 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Science has no gods, no obeisance, Uh, that sort of depends on how you define gods and obeisance. There is certainly obeisance to the scientific method. And there is certainly dogma, to disagree with which casts one into perdition. Just ask Shockley!

To: thames_sider who wrote (9777)	3/26/2001 6:43:34 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Although, on two of your three mysteries, would you wager that by about 2050 (probably earlier) computer or nano-scientists will not have created self-aware machines; they'd preserve self, learn and able to react in circumstances not explicitly depicted by their programmers, as well as passing a Turing test? Would they have self-awareness? I doubt it. If they do, it would be fascinating to discuss theology with them! The Turing Test, btw, is designed to test intelligence, not self-awareness. And it's a very limited kind of intelligence, if that. How about bio-engineers creating some primitive but viable life - alga-level, perhaps - which has never evolved or been seen on Earth before; They don't create life, they modify existing life forms. Not really different from creating the first mule, or plant hybrids. I don't know of any scientists who took absolutely sterile materials and created a living creature out of them without any infusion of living material.

To: thames_sider who wrote (9777)	3/26/2001 6:51:15 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 82486

That's interesting. I hope science has no Gods. I suppose anyone can make a "God" of anything if you use the term loosely- but as far as I know, there are no scientists who expect other scientists to perform miracles. Well maybe they expect their lab assistants to perform miracles but more in the minion sense, than in the God sense. Science has it's hierarchies. I think everything has hierarchies. Go to Burger King and there is a hierarchy- after all there is the manager, and the assistant manager, the counter help, and the lowly grill cook. Obiesance is a bizarre word. I think it would depend upon how it was being used to know if obeisance crops up in scientific circles. There are certainly toadies in science who pay obeisance to their superiors in order to progress. The nice thing about science and math, is that even if you don't speak the same language, or even if you aren't the same religion, if you put V= dx/dt up on a blackboard the other fellow will know what you are talking about, and most likely agree with it. It may not be absolutely true under all sets of conditions- but here, on this earth it seems to be true. It doesn't take any being from outside our reality (or in the reality of someone else's head) to make it "true".