Has anyone read my article on religious rationalism that just appeared on vibes? It's at www3.naseeb.com pg=1& PHPSESSID=35e7e3325b795c183b516e3ee bcb2830

Fairytale:

I said *a*rational, to refer to the fact that much of what makes life worth living falls outside the realm of reason, that is logical reason.

Hope that clarifies things a bit.

Celestine i like your dissection of the word 'rationality'. Before we could discuss what you have posted Haquima, i would like to know what do you mean by rationality? How are the things that 'make life worth living' irrational?

Here are two books you might consider checking out,

Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
(a classic in philosophy of science).

Personal Objectivity by Michael Polyani (lesser known, but a great read; much more accessible if you're not used to reading philosophy).

If anyone does go out and read either of these, I'd love to hear your thoughts on them.

people who have no friends outside their profession tend to die sooner....

damn you gallup.

qlal: cant read what you are saying mate .. have you lost membership?
plat: know what you mean .. interesting what you said abotu science studying friendhsip. on a slightly similar not. i work as a management soncultant for Gallups consultancy division. we work with the human resources organisations of the worls largest companies rying to scientificaly/statistically understand what makes people/employees "engaged" and fully operational. one of our most intersting of the 12 simple questions we ask is: "do you have a best friend at work?" - people and companies who average the highest number of yes's to that question are the most successfull ones in our database.

science may not be able to study such things in the strict detail with which it usually studies it's subjects. but does that disqualify it from trying?

i think not.
there was a time when we couldn't see bacterium, and when illnesses where thought to be mediated by spirits and no question that the whitch doctors and priests told the "scientists" of their time that this was not something fit to be studied by science, but by priests.

you think this is all that different?
just cause we ain't good now, doesn't mean not to try.

there will be a time when friendship and love will be understood, the neural mechanisms and pathways down to the last neuron
this doesn't diminish their value, but helps us understand whats going on.


would you suggest science not study dispair?
despair, is depression, and it is studied to no end. if we figure it out, we treat it.

joy is the other side of that coin.



it seems a bit strange to me to hear people say science has no role in studing X,Y or Z phenomenon.

there is never a good reason not to. and much can be gained from the knowledge.


so, i can see you dont like the idea of science being used to study frienship.
any specific reason, other than, we aren't good enough to do it in exacting detail yet?

and remember the medicine analogy.
it is the same

"friendship" "altruism" "love" "empathy" along with a host of other characteristics that make what we call quintessentially human -- i think no matta what variables you control for science just aint fit to study human affairs ... yeah still beating that ol drum of mine

whats a-rational?

how can something that is 'rational' study with any level of seriousness something that is 'a-rational'?

peace out!

have been involved in several studies.
all insanely boring.
unbelievably so.
Worked with a psychologist on perceptions of death and dying among refugees from the Bosnian genocide (that was actually interesting, but social science is not nearly as formulaic as natural science)
did work on oncogenes in rat livers (rational formulaic work, boring boring boring boring boring)
worked on hypertention in Blacks as well, that was epidemiological. just math, no interaction with subjects. so just used medical histories.
in all cases i was a grunt. either shifting through piles of info, crunching data, doing interviews or pluging and chugging.

right now emergency department crowding and quality of care (measured by outcomes) again, i'm playing the role of datamonkey.


i am just the beneficiary of other people in the trenches (god bless them)
the guys running projects varied.
but science is a rational beast.
there are no dogma's that are accepted as unquestionably true.
anything and everything is game. (although admitedly, there is often huge resistance to accepting evidence against the prevailing theories, but if enough studies are done that gather enough convincing evidence, shifts do occur)

science is a constant state of re-assesing, re-evaluating and revamping itself.

it is rational because it knows full well it is imperfect.
it is rational because it does not accept what cannot be explained.

"friendship" "altruism" "love" "empathy" are not scientific, nor are they rational.

this doesn't invalidate them, it doesn't even devalue them.

but calling them rational would be a lie. and that, would devalue them. They are more than rational. they fit in a higher place of personal experience.

science, is the study of the laws of the universe.

Like the laws in a civilization, they can give you an idea of what is going on in the civilization, and how things work, or are supposed to work. But the nuances are infinently more complex than "murder is punishable by 10 to 25 years in a 2nd degree penitentiary"
or whatever the law may be.




but science itself is a rational endeavor

With regards to your first question, simply put, no. The merit of a scientist's work determines whether they are a good scientist, not their views on how science is practiced. I know some great scientists who agree with me, and others, just as great, who disagree with me. The latter tend to include atheists, averse to the mere word "faith," but not always.

Care to say anything more substantive than simply that science is rational? Reasons for why you think science is rational would be more helpful than a proclamation on the nature of science. Have you read Kuhn?

Just curious, have you ever seriously participated in scientific research? It's one thing to study it and quite another to actually be in the trenches. In the trenches, you learn that faith plays a larger role than the textbooks would ever let on.

scientists are not rational.
science is.

are you suggesting that scientists who would disagree with you in the role of faith in science are bad scientists?


I doubt that faith is hardly as large a part of science as you seem to think.

Celestine: nicely put. I agree the origins of words are very interesting, made me consider pursuing linguistics at one point, but then I learned that linguistics is mired in syntax, with little pursuit of semantics.

haq: i see what you mean. even the word "rationality" if you think about where its derived from .... "to ration" as though we living sparsely or in troubled times and need to function and live our lives accordingly by using "rations" - makes it sound horrible.
origins of words are very interesting- "embarazado" (not sure about spelling) in catalan (spanish) means embarassed and pregnant.
the word for tomorow and yesterday in urdu is the same - the majority of the days of our lives are the same.

Q: I too am beginning to think rationality is the bane of my existence, or at least in my interactions with others. The more I think about those who claim to be acting rationally, I think they are people who do not possess enough of the "stuff of life" and fall back on rationality as a crutch to avoid the "stuff of life."

Nice quote Celestine.

Platoshadow:

Any good scientist would tell you that faith (not religious faith, of course), hope, and insight are vital to good science, and all those things are arational. In my experience, "rationality" plays a limited role in science.

Also, is science truly rational...I find it hard to believe that it is as rational and objective as we were taught to believe, especially after reading Kuhn.

rationality is one tool among many for dealing with the world.

The Natural and Physical Sciences are a tool for understanding the laws the govern the natural world.

Not the only thigns, but quite valueble, and absolutely necessary.

Rational thought is fundemental to these sciences.