What are some examples of scientism?

[Samael_Khan]

This isn't really off topic but I intend to try to limit my posts as much as possible.

The Pyramid Texts repeatedly says the pyramid is not a tomb and is the dead king. By this they meant that the pyramid served to remind people of the dead king. The pyramid was a mnemonic in our language. It had sundry other functions as well but were generally much less important. People need to remember these were very easy to build with linear funiculars so they didn't need infrastructural or religious reason to construct them. There was no religion. There were minor infrastructural reasons but even in aggregate they might not have sufficed to do the little work of construction.

The Pyramid Texts Index (sacred-texts.com)

Use this string site:sacred-texts.com utterance companions voyage - Google Search (site:sacred-texts.com utterance) with words like grave, tomb, etc to see what they really said.

This site that you linked me to is a gold mine! I am gonna check them out.

This can be seen all over the world but what can't be seen is that all of these sites are associated with water.

Never heard this before.

Just like people raise their voice speaking English to a Frenchmen, we think that if we strive hard enough to put a foreign culture into our own perspective it will be clear. But we must change our position and assumptions to see a different perspective and most people have no clue how to do this. They receive the Laws of Nature from on High and can't think of a good reason to understand ancient Egyptians anyway. Who cares what a bunch of tomb dragging, ramp using, ignorant savages thought anyway?

We have been done a great disservice by scientismists who have even resorted to suppressing data that don't agree with their assumptions.

I think that even in this age, we cannot understand people from foreign cultures regarding their world view and this is especially true when trying to understand what they mean in their language by translating it. We have to change our assumptions. We have to be able to temporarily relinquish our worldview when engaging with others so that we can get closer to understanding what they mean. Otherwise our minds will be closed.

Reading different religious texts and studying other religions has taught me this. They open my mind and help me understand others.

An example is when people become anti religion in the western world. Their arguments and antagonisms are towards the monotheistic religions. Some of them then apply their critique of the western religions to the eastern and southern. But on closer inspection that critique falls flat because they are judging by a strawman metric.

 

[cladking]

This site that you linked me to is a gold mine! I am gonna check them out.

Yes. They have all sorts of old literature. Don't forget to searech "hermetic texts" and read some of these later as well.

I would start off in the Pyramid Text around utterance #400.

Never heard this before.

This is because we don't think this way and the evidence is badly degraded after so many centuries. for instance the Pyramid of Acapana has water storage and weirs on top and water is KNOWN to have flowed down from the Great Pyramid. All the Mexican pyramids are near cenotes. We simply dismiss all such evidence as irrelevancies. We don't think about it so it is not recorded. Obviously a source of clean fresh water was of utmost importance to every ancient person. For all practical purposes we can think of all these ancient sites as a "X marks the spot" for water sources and in each case they figured out a way to use this water to build.

I think that even in this age, we cannot understand people from foreign cultures regarding their world view and this is especially true when trying to understand what they mean in their language by translating it. We have to change our assumptions. We have to be able to temporarily relinquish our worldview when engaging with others so that we can get closer to understanding what they mean. Otherwise our minds will be closed.

Yes. Exactly. But most people can't do this at all and when this applies to people in science they are usually scientismists.

Reading different religious texts and studying other religions has taught me this. They open my mind and help me understand others.

An example is when people become anti religion in the western world. Their arguments and antagonisms are towards the monotheistic religions. Some of them then apply their critique of the western religions to the eastern and southern. But on closer inspection that critique falls flat because they are judging by a strawman metric.

Again, exactly. There are many ways to skin a cat and even though I often say only logic and science can learn about reality it is still true that opening one's mind, one's thinking, in any way can lead to insights about reality. This especially applies to religions because all or most are off shoots of ancient science. They contain the wisdom gleaned from 40,000 years of natural human science. This applies to the hermetic texts as well. The Book of Enoch might be the most important work from after the "Tower of Babel" (the change in language) and is as true as anything in the Bible. By dismissing myth and ancient knowledge we believe we are raising ourselves to the pinnacle of creation but it just makes us that much more ignorant.

Thanks for the posts. I don't suppose it will open any eyes but it is relief.

Odd how I find so much more in common with the faithful than with those who fancy themselves "scientists" but are not. Odd how I find so much more of reality and clearly stated in ancient texts than in math books that prove the trigonometric functions rather than taking them as definitional.

Odd how so few people now days understand how science works and how we got to where we re technologically and theoretically. Odd how so many people have a knee jerk reaction to dismiss anything that sounds like religion, philosophy, or is spiritual. It doesn't need to have any of these characteristics, merely to sound like scientific heresy.

It's sad really how much things have deteriorated just in my lifetime. Schools have failed except in indoctrination and Bill Gates has turned the last two generations into automatons who each thinks he is a genius as long as Siri is around. There is little critical thinking or understanding. People take science as gospel and Peers as being infallible.

 

[cladking]

...water is KNOWN to have flowed down from the Great Pyramid. ...We simply dismiss all such evidence as irrelevancies. We don't think about it so it is not recorded.

Here is another example of scientism from one of the finest scientists of the 19th century and the ONLY Egyptologist who is a scientist.

"Hence it runs on, till, close to the edge of the basalt pavement, it branches in two, and narrows yet more; one line runs W., and another turning nearly due S., emerges on the pavement edge at 629.8 to 633.4 from the N.E. corner of the pavement, being there only 3.6 wide. From this remarkable forking, it [p. 50] is evident that the trench cannot have been made with any ideas of sighting along it, or of its marking out a direction or azimuth; and, starting as it does, from the basalt pavement (or from any building which stood there), and running with a steady fall to the nearest point of the cliff edge, it seems exactly as if intended for a drain; the more so as there is plainly a good deal of water-weanng at a point where it falls sharply, at its enlargement. The forking of the inner end is not cut in the rock, but in a large block of limestone."

He hid his most important discovery of all in a 91 word sentence because he couldn't believe it himself.

We're all just human and make mistakes. This was one of Petrie's few. Even Sir Isaac Newton couldn't comprehend the meaning of the Emerald Tablets. This latter though was no error, merely completely justifiable ignorance. How was he to realize that "taking back the power of the above and below" was a restatement of a corollary to his laws of motion? He had no framework to understand it and it was expressed in formatting that was wholly alien to the way he thought.

"Scientism" is natural but real scientists either try to suppress it or are naturally able to suppress it. We all do it but some don't know it.

 

[gnostic]

Science investigates physical phenomenon solely. Physical processes don't reveal how or why a person thinks as they do. Physical processes can alter behaviours, but getting at the root causes of behaviour isn't going to be solved by science IMO. People have unique inner lives.

Certainly not with PHYSICAL SCIENCES or with NATURAL SCIENCES.

The studies of human behaviour do exist in SOCIAL SCIENCES, like in behavioral science, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, etc.

Most fields in Social Sciences are deemed as “soft science” where Falsifiability and Scientific Method are not strictly followed as they do in fields of Natural Sciences or Physical Sciences.

In case, you don’t know the differences Natural Sciences & Physical Sciences, physics and chemistry played important roles in both, but Natural Sciences would include all branches and fields of Life Sciences, eg biology, biophysics, biochemistry, molecular biology, etc. Physical Sciences also include anything that are man-made physical objects, like engineering and technology.

Anyway, something like psychology is attempt to understand human behaviour, human emotion and what people think about, etc, including trying to treat those who are having problems.

So while you say sciences cannot solve people who have mental, emotional or behavioral problems or issues, that’s only partial true.

You wouldn’t use physics or astronomy to help people. But you can if if you have knowledge and experiences with treating people with psychology and therapy.

Plus. Some people that have behavioral issues that have physical sources, like the imbalance of one’s brain chemistry.

So, certain prescribed medications do help people with some of their disorders, if not all. Some people have chemical imbalances in their brains, so one of the way of treating patients is by correcting these imbalances with medicine and that require knowledge of both biology (eg neurology) and chemistry.

So in regards to some sciences, there are overlap between the physical and mental/emotional.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Certainly not with PHYSICAL SCIENCES or with NATURAL SCIENCES.

The studies of human behaviour do exist in SOCIAL SCIENCES, like in behavioral science, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, etc.

Most fields in Social Sciences are deemed as “soft science” where Falsifiability and Scientific Method are not strictly followed as they do in fields of Natural Sciences or Physical Sciences.

In case, you don’t know the differences Natural Sciences & Physical Sciences, physics and chemistry played important roles in both, but Natural Sciences would include all branches and fields of Life Sciences, eg biology, biophysics, biochemistry, molecular biology, etc. Physical Sciences also include anything that are man-made physical objects, like engineering and technology.

Anyway, something like psychology is attempt to understand human behaviour, human emotion and what people think about, etc, including trying to treat those who are having problems.

So while you say sciences cannot solve people who have mental, emotional or behavioral problems or issues, that’s only partial true.

You wouldn’t use physics or astronomy to help people. But you can if if you have knowledge and experiences with treating people with psychology and therapy.

Plus. Some people that have behavioral issues that have physical sources, like the imbalance of one’s brain chemistry.

So, certain prescribed medications do help people with some of their disorders, if not all. Some people have chemical imbalances in their brains, so one of the way of treating patients is by correcting these imbalances with medicine and that require knowledge of both biology (eg neurology) and chemistry.

So in regards to some sciences, there are overlap between the physical and mental/emotional.

Here is the first problem of your post. Some of those people you describe could be reading what you wrote and indeed know more about it, than you. And lo and behold, you are out luck, because I am one of those.

So it is not that your post is true or false, it is that it is too simple. In effect you have missed several cases of cause and effect in your model.

So here is the first core issue with your model. You are a part of it as more than an independent objective observer as per natural science, because the moment you claim we ought to use medication, you have left natural science.
It is here for the limit of natural science:
Science has limits: A few things that science does not do - Understanding Science

It is the morality of how to treat another human and that is a norm in you. Further it is that you can use medication, but natural science can't tell if you ought do that or not.

So before we continue, you have to decide if you can do morality and utility using only natural science or if for how you ought to treat another human, you can't use only natural science.
Since I have been doing this for over 25 years now, I know that I have to include you and I in this, because how you behave other than using natural science has an impact on how you answer for how we ought to treat people like me.

And that is how you understand that you can't just use natural science in social science and psychology, because it involve you as more than you just observing other humans.

 

[Joshua Pryce]

Articles like this one are one example that came to mind of scientism: You don't have a soul: The real science that debunks superstitious charlatans

It's actually a really interesting article, right up until the point where things get majorly cringe. Like this bit right here:

"Here lies the dilemma that one finds at the heart of the scientific enterprise. On the one hand, the advancement of knowledge and understanding is a mission of critical importance in any society, and consequently, it is an endeavor that should be undertaken with earnest conviction and zeal. On the other hand, science has the singular property of revealing to us nature’s ways without the kind of sugarcoating that might sometimes be helpful. Reality, for better or worse, happens to be the way it is and not the way we would like it to be. Inevitably, certain conclusions are bound to rub us the wrong way, which is the price we need to pay for looking behind nature’s curtain to take a peek at its true face."
Or you could just... you know... grasp that science doesn't have a monopoly on understanding reality and doesn't have the last word on everything. "True face" my eye... this guy sounds neigh indistinguishable from a Bible-thumping preacher except they've substituted the Holy Book of Science in place of the Bible.

I do not agree that a bible thumping preacher would agree or disagree with what the text says. Science has truths and so does spirituality and faith. They can become one. Faith needs human evidence in the form of science to verify it corresponds with men. Science needs faith to execute the existence of supernatural entities and objects and people and explain subjects like miracles and existence and purpose, etc.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I do not agree that a bible thumping preacher would agree or disagree with what the text says. Science has truths and so does spirituality and faith. They can become one. Faith needs human evidence in the form of science to verify it corresponds with men. Science needs faith to execute the existence of supernatural entities and objects and people and explain subjects like miracles and existence and purpose, etc.

That is not science at all.