T
tonyrey
Guest
Please provide evidence that “the teleological foundation was like building on sand” and that there are no ends in nature…
Is there no purpose in scientific activity?
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Is there no purpose in scientific activity?
C
Charlemagne_III
Guest
Indeed, Newtonian physics is universally considered a vast improvement on Aristotle, but Newton, ranked as the greatest scientist who ever lived, advances the teleological principle.
“This most beautiful system [the solar system] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” Isaac Newton
And others:
Thomas Edison - Inventor of Electric Light, Motion Pictures, etc.
“I believe in the existence of a Supreme Intelligence pervading the Universe.”
Nicola Tesla - Inventor of Alternating Current, Pioneer of Wireless Communications
“So we find that the three possible solutions of the great problem of increasing human energy are answered by the three words: food, peace, work. **Many a year I have thought and pondered, lost myself in speculations and theories, considering man as a mass moved by a force, viewing his inexplicable movement in the light of a mechanical one, and applying the simple principles of mechanics to the analysis of the same until I arrived at these solutions, only to realize that they were taught to me in my early childhood. These three words sound the key-notes of the Christian religion. Their scientific meaning and purpose now clear to me: food to increase the mass, peace to diminish the retarding force, and work to increase the force accelerating human movement. These are the only three solutions which are possible of that great problem, and all of them have one object, one end, namely, to increase human energy. **When we recognize this, we cannot help wondering how profoundly wise and scientific and how immensely practical the Christian religion is, and in what a marked contrast it stands in this respect to other religions. It is unmistakably the result of practical experiment and scientific observation which have extended through the ages, while other religions seem to be the outcome of merely abstract reasoning."
Albert Einstein - Theories of Relativity
“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.”
T
tonyrey
Guest
The reference to the saying of Jesus that “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock" presupposes “some telos (i.e. end), and practical deliberation involves specifying the concrete steps needed to attain that telos.”,
I
inocente
Guest
The evidence is that teleology isn’t used in science.
It’s now been said several times that the purpose of doing science, like cooking paella and putting on trousers, isn’t teleology, since teleology is a doctrine of final causes. Modern science doesn’t concern itself with final causes, that’s something for metaphysics.
It’s been that way for 400 years. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger observed “Evidently it must have been taught differently at one time or else Galileo would never have been put on trial.” - catholicbridge.com/catholic/ratzinger_creationism.php
In 1620 Francis Bacon wrote: “Those who have taken upon them to lay down the law of nature as a thing already searched out and understood, whether they have spoken in simple assurance or professional affectation, have therein done philosophy and the sciences great injury. For as they have been successful in inducing belief, so they have been effective in quenching and stopping inquiry; …] Those on the other hand who have taken a contrary course, and asserted that absolutely nothing can be known …] have neither started from true principles nor rested in the just conclusion, zeal and affectation having carried them much too far.” - The New Organon, author’s preface
And to overcome what we now see as a fixation on Aristotle and unwarranted literalism (see JPII’s apology for the Galileo Affair), Bacon then proposes the division between science and metaphysics which defines modern science to this day: “From the two kinds of axioms which have been spoken of arises a just division of philosophy and the sciences, taking the received terms (which come nearest to express the thing) in a sense agreeable to my own views. Thus, let the investigation of forms, which are (in the eye of reason at least, and in their essential law) eternal and immutable, constitute Metaphysics; and let the investigation of the efficient cause, and of matter, and of the latent process, and the latent configuration (all of which have reference to the common and ordinary course of nature, not to her eternal and fundamental laws) constitute Physics.” - The New Organon, Aphorisms book II, IX
Now this is time consuming, how about you read up and try not to keep forgetting.
T
tonyrey
Guest
Teleology isn’t used in science but science presupposes teleology - unless science is a purposeless activity…
A
Aloysium
Guest
A propos recent posts, science is done by persons whose lives have a purpose that includes the struggle to find it. Here’s a picture of Einstein’s desk at the time of his death. I note the philosophical journal lying among his other papers on the right. Empirical science provides us with an instruction manual for the manipulation of matter. It tells us how it works, not what it is and why it is. It cannot tell us what we should do with it. Applied to ourselves, it reveals only the simplest most superficial aspects of what it means to be human, those that connect us in time and space, where this drama of life is played out.
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I
inocente
Guest
I give up, this is a purposeless activity.
T
tonyrey
Guest
That statement is undoubtedly the truest reflection of your interpretation of reality as purposeless
I
inocente
Guest
Yes, in reality. But not, apparently, in Neverland.
A
Aloysium
Guest
I
inocente
Guest
T
tonyrey
Guest
As far as science is concerned persons don’t even exist! It tells us nothing about human rights, the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity, truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love - or even the metaphysical facts on which science is based, i.e. the power of reason and the intelligibility of the universe. In short it does not and cannot explain itself. That is the fatal flaw of materialism which is self-destructive and self-contradictory.
C
Charlemagne_III
Guest
Excellent burial tribute to this thread!
T
tonyrey
Guest
Thank you for your tribute to a tribute.
The materialists won’t give up so easily because they think they have too much to lose (even though in realty they have so much to gain - notably an immortal soul and an independent mind).
V
Vera_Ljuba
Guest
Excellent burial tribute to this thread!
How satisfying it must be for you two praising each other… after all no one else is praising you.Thank you for your tribute to a tribute.
I
inocente
Guest
Roses are red 
Violets are blue
A poster’s in luv :flowers:
Another is too.
Violets are blue
A poster’s in luv :flowers:
Another is too.
I
inocente
Guest
Roses are red violets are blue, a poster’s in luv :flowers: another is too.
violets are blue, a poster’s in luv :flowers: another is too.
T
tonyrey
Guest
It remains **a fact **that as far as science is concerned persons don’t even exist! It tells us nothing about human rights, the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity, truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love - or even the metaphysical facts on which science is based, i.e. the power of reason and the intelligibility of the universe. In short it does not and cannot explain itself. That is the fatal flaw of materialism which is self-destructive and self-contradictory…How satisfying it must be for you two praising each other… after all no one else is praising you.
T
tonyrey
Guest
It remains a fact that as far as science is concerned persons don’t even exist! It tells us nothing about human rights, the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity, truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love - or even the metaphysical facts on which science is based, i.e. the power of reason and the intelligibility of the universe. In short it does not and cannot explain itself. That is the fatal flaw of materialism which is self-destructive and self-contradictory…Roses are red
V
Vera_Ljuba
Guest
It does not matter how many times you PASTE this text, it will not graduate from OPINION to FACT. It is rather amusing that you wish to talk for ALL SCIENCE, as if you would be the final arbiter to declare what science is about. Take a huge pill of humility. (Ah, and this advice is NOT an “ad hominem”.)
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