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The answers to the big questions you described seem like an excellent example of the limitations of the scientific method to answer big questions. The reductio

by amalag 14y ago

The answers to the big questions you described seem like an excellent example of the limitations of the scientific method to answer big questions. The reduction of the universe to cause and effect and smaller and smaller particles simply leads to nihilism. I am not going to get into your 'answers', because I think they are also leaps of faith. There are two kinds of knowledge, inductive and deductive, ascending and descending. The vedic literatures explain that knowledge from someone who knows is superior to speculative endeavour. A simple example is death. We can see that billions of bodies are born and die. Yet can we prove by experiment someone born will die? No, in fact there are people trying to make their material bodies eternal through various means. The vedic literatures explain the material body is by nature temporary (in contrast to the eternal living force). So is this knowledge equal to doing a scientific experiment?

macspoofing 14y ago
>The reduction of the universe to cause and effect and smaller and smaller particles simply leads to nihilism. HOW!?!?! It may lead YOU to nihilism. It doesn't lead me to nihilism. >I am not going to get into your 'answers', because I think they are also leaps of faith. I'm not quite sure which of the points you think are leaps of faith, but I've cited mainly uncontroversial and fundamental facts. For example, we know that the universe has a quantum nature as defined by quantum mechanics. This isn't a leap of faith, it's based on the fact that the standard model makes predictions, that when verified in the real world, are accurate to an insane degree. The theory of Evolution by natural selection, is also backed by massive amount of evidence. For you to claim that this is a leap of faith is akin to, for example, believing that Jesus risen from the dead, is ridiculous. >The vedic literatures explain the material body is by nature temporary (in contrast to the eternal living force) What is the evidence for this "eternal living force". You seemed to be using ancient scriptures as an authority, though you must realize that these books were written by men, just like you and me, just as fallible, with all the faults and weakness of a typical modern human except without the massive body knowledge we have available to us today. I'm not sure how much an ancient Indian man can tell me about the nature of reality given he had less awareness of the real world, than an 8 child of today would. Furthermore, how did this body of knowledge come to be compiled? Thinking on it really really hard? So given all these facts, why should you trust them to tell you anything?

by amalag 14y ago

macspoofing 14y ago

>The reduction of the universe to cause and effect and smaller and smaller particles simply leads to nihilism. HOW!?!?! It may lead YOU to nihilism. It doesn't lead me to nihilism. >I am not going to get into your 'answers', because I think they are also leaps of faith. I'm not quite sure which of the points you think are leaps of faith, but I've cited mainly uncontroversial and fundamental facts. For example, we know that the universe has a quantum nature as defined by quantum mechanics. This isn't a leap of faith, it's based on the fact that the standard model makes predictions, that when verified in the real world, are accurate to an insane degree. The theory of Evolution by natural selection, is also backed by massive amount of evidence. For you to claim that this is a leap of faith is akin to, for example, believing that Jesus risen from the dead, is ridiculous. >The vedic literatures explain the material body is by nature temporary (in contrast to the eternal living force) What is the evidence for this "eternal living force". You seemed to be using ancient scriptures as an authority, though you must realize that these books were written by men, just like you and me, just as fallible, with all the faults and weakness of a typical modern human except without the massive body knowledge we have available to us today. I'm not sure how much an ancient Indian man can tell me about the nature of reality given he had less awareness of the real world, than an 8 child of today would. Furthermore, how did this body of knowledge come to be compiled? Thinking on it really really hard? So given all these facts, why should you trust them to tell you anything?