“Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”–Albert Einstein
hm. that’s a philosophical question, which means it’s a very strange and elusive question. let me ask you something before i attempt an answer; what would a wrong answer to that question look like, and would you know one if you saw it?
(we must proceed very cautiously here lest we suffer a bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language. i just stole that from wittgenstein, btw.)
Can a piece of my burrito know all of the burrito, even if it is made of burrito? I don’t know, dude, sometimes they plop all of the sour cream in one spot. Isn’t that annoying? I kind of want every bite of my burrito to have a proportional amount of every ingredient. Is that too much to ask?
But let me save you some trouble here, homie. Burritos don’t know anything. They don’t gots brains.
I think therefore I am. Burritos don’t think therefore they ain’t am.
But you get my point, right phoneutria? We can only know a small part of the universe, therefore an even smaller part of Dowd’s Greatest Story ever told, i.e. the 13.8 billion year evolution of this universe, evolving all the way up to the consciousness writing and reading this post ; howbeit a very limited consciousness at that.
. . . The eyeballs of this grand universe, according to Dowd (and prolly Primack and Adams) ; the universe looking back at itself.
A few decades ago philosopher Colin McGinn opined that consciousness is too complicated for the mind to explain.
True. I think Dowd sees “Ultimate Reality” as God because of his evangelical background. The word God to him is a symbol of what he assumes to have to exist, which is ultimately, well, reality. In fact, in his book he calls reality God.
It’s his thing ; something that we all can agree upon ; that doesn’t depend on believing ; reality is, well, a actual real thing ; we might say as real as the consciousness writing and reading this post.
Hey, I haven’t finished reading his book. But maybe the evolution of the universe from 13.8 billion years ago, all the way up to this living consciousness, is why Dowd asks and says :
In earnest …
HD
That’s pork brain, man. That’s not 100% authentic burrito brain. I ain’t eating that.
yeah, but, so what? Is there a point you’re making? I missed it. Sorry, I’m stupid.
Surely one can’t look back at itself with one’s own eyes. That’s gotta be someone else’s eyes then.
For your consideration: “Reality reconciles science and religion”: Michael Dowd at TEDxGrandRapids
youtube.com/watch?v=1QeTWVw9Fm4
An inspiring talk for those of us who believe in a possible marriage of science and religion as providing evidence of Reality.
duplicate
I don’t want to diminish “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” I think deep time and deep space, and the evolution of it is a great way of looking at our development, and that of the universe, both present and future (evolution is not done) ; a great ‘world view,’ if you will. But I’m not sure about personifying it.
I’m not sure about imbuing it with personhood like that of the evangelical belief in a personal God. And, unlike Michael Dowd, I don’t think I can worship it … again, like evangelicals and others worship Yahweh.
However, Dowd does consider that his gospel of evolution reveals “Ultimate Reality.” Reality is God, to hear Dowd tell it. And worship of that God is to honor it to such an extent that we align ourselves to Reality.
It does sound like that would produce the best mental health possible ; if our brain chemistry doesn’t work against it, producing delusion, or misalignment to Reality.
So maybe I can have a type of worship toward Realty, if that means aligning with it. And maybe it helps to personify it.
I don’t know. I’m new to all of this. I don’t even know what Ultimate Reality is.
From my point of view ultimate reality is inferable intuitively but unknowable as it is in itself. It is the object of philosophical faith although some like Rorty reject the intuition as illusory.
I too just got a thesaurus. Dunno how to use it yet tho.
Yeah right. Dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years, dumbass.
Let me guess, it’s like a stegosaurus or a brontosaurus, right? Fuck outta here.
I think she meant dick-tionary.
She got it, but doesn’t know how to use it.
Omg… Aegean…
It’s a good thing we named most of the dinosaurs like a hundred years ago when all we were into was mythology and speaking Latin, if they just learned about dinosaurs now and had to name 100s there’d be a Heckin Chonkosaurus and a Northern Thicc Scaleyboy
Yeah I stole that, eat me.
Worse.
They would be called frook and quinor. That’s even too flattering.
Clooc. Swarn. Bitor.