The Hard Question

[serp777]

But...evolution doesn't reduce my religious beliefs to nothing. It doesn't reduce them in any way. In fact, it doesn't reduce the religious beliefs of nearly anyone I know-- no one who isn't a fundamentalist literalist, and fundamentalist literalists are a minority of religious people. Actually, I would say that evolution enhances my religious beliefs.

So, in any event, why should the existence or valuation of qualia reduce the value of science to nothing? It seems to me that, at best, it says that there are still things that science has yet to fully explain (an idea with which I would imagine most scientists would concur), or at worst, it says that there are some phenomena best dealt with outside the scientific paradigm.

But even that latter case should only appear threatening to science if you feel that each and every phenomenon of experience, both internal and external, physical and metaphysical, intellectual and emotional, concrete and abstract, should be approached and understood exclusively using scientific methodology. If one does not take such a position, but instead is willing to grant that there may be things which science is not the best tool for, just as there are also things for which it is the best tool, then there should not be anything about the existence or valuation of qualia at all to be deemed threatening to science.

I kind of have to agree with the fundamentalist who accept the entirety of their text. You seem to pick and choose from your religion which concepts you like and don't like, or you seem to be able to say one thing is as metaphor when another is not. It seems like you construct your own belief around what you find reasonable so that you can construct your religion to be compatible with yourself, when fundamentalists on the other hand take strict adherence to everything their text says. I mean my basic question is how you know your interpretations and somehow more correct than the fundamentalists, and since you pick and choose from your religion, how is it that you're able to determine if something is just a metaphor or should be taken literally?

Evolution also begs the question--if you didn't need God to create the diversity and apparent fine tuning of life for its environment, then why do you need God to create and fine tune the universe. I completely understand why fundamentalists have a problem with it.

 

[Riverwolf]

and that is exactly why it is so profound for all to understand that in the case of qualia- if it is to be define- even in the most finite of ways it opens a pandora box on the "hard' determinations of science driven by materialism

I'm sorry, but none of that makes any sense. Could you try rewording it?

 

[Yerda]

Has nothing to do with the reality of science. It is another unknown aspect of the conscious mind, a descriptive term for what we don't know.

Qualia isn't a word for what we don't know. It's all we can know.

Edit

I'm reading John Searle's The Mystery of Consciousness: Amazon.co.uk: John R. Searle: 9781862071223: Books It's a review of different theories of consciousness (about 20 years old) and so far I recommend it.

 

[1137]

I don't see how subjective interpretation / experience destroys science, nor do I see how evolution destroys religion.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Is Qualia to science what Evolution is to Religion?
Does it reduce all of our theories and believes to nothing?

If the answers were givin to you immediately, will you still have it 200 years from now?

 

[deeoracle]

I'm sorry, but none of that makes any sense. Could you try rewording it?

I meant in the science behind Mas, Space, Gravity, etc.

 

[Riverwolf]

I meant in the science behind Mas, Space, Gravity, etc.

What do you mean by "the science" behind those things?