The World Beyond BetterMost > Anything Goes
A Conversation With Daniel
moremojo:
I was just wanted to make sure that everyone checking in on this thread feels welcome to join in the discussion. I'm sure that's what Daniel has in mind...that the conversation shouldn't be limited to only him and the person to whose question he's responding.
injest:
you don't put a Shetland in the Kentucky Derby...I think I will just watch...
moremojo:
--- Quote from: injest on August 03, 2007, 09:04:19 pm ---you don't put a Shetland in the Kentucky Derby...I think I will just watch...
--- End quote ---
:laugh:
Jess, I love ya!
Aussie Chris:
My question for you Daniel builds on Scott's question about the meaning of life and your response in reference to science.
The context for the question is the experimental scenario of a sheep in isolation within a room. The sheep has been "trained" to press a lever with a light blue circle over it to obtain sustenance. Later the sheep is introduced to a second lever, this one a deep red square over it but this one sets of a loud noise that scares the sheep. The location of the levers changes every few days and in time the sheep learns to accurately associate the symbols above the levers with either sustenance or danger until it no longer mistakenly presses the lever with the red square. In fact, eventually it avoids all areas of the room where red squares are located whether a lever is there or not.
My ruminations at this point of the conversation is from the perspective of the sheep. The gender of the sheep is not relevant for this discussion, but for the simplicity of writing I will say "him". So the sheep thinks to himself that he has finally figured out the nature of the universe. He has experimented for a long time and has figured out that light and round edges means food while dark and pointy edges means monsters. He has learnt that he must remember this because nature is not fixed and so what was light and smooth today can become dark and sharp tomorrow. He wonders, is it because of his actions that these changes occur?
Here are some rhetorical questions about the passage for consideration:
1) What is the meaning of life from the sheep's perspective? Is he mistaken?
2) The sheep has learnt to experiment through trial and error the nature of sticks, light and dark, and edges. How does this relate to the sheep's "purpose in life"?
3) The sheep sees the science in nature but doesn't get it exactly right (from the perspective of the human observer) because he excludes colour and geometry. Is this significant?
Here is my question then Daniel:
What has science got to do with the meaning or purpose in life?
injest:
--- Quote from: Aussie Chris on August 04, 2007, 02:18:38 am ---My question for you Daniel builds on Scott's question about the meaning of life and your response in reference to science.
The context for the question is the experimental scenario of a sheep in isolation within a room. The sheep has been "trained" to press a lever with a light blue circle over it to obtain sustenance. Later the sheep is introduced to a second lever, this one a deep red square over it but this one sets of a loud noise that scares the sheep. The location of the levers changes every few days and in time the sheep learns to accurately associate the symbols above the levers with either sustenance or danger until it no longer mistakenly presses the lever with the red square. In fact, eventually it avoids all areas of the room where red squares are located whether a lever is there or not.
My ruminations at this point of the conversation is from the perspective of the sheep. The gender of the sheep is not relevant for this discussion, but for the simplicity of writing I will say "him". So the sheep thinks to himself that he has finally figured out the nature of the universe. He has experimented for a long time and has figured out that light and round edges means food while dark and pointy edges means monsters. He has learnt that he must remember this because nature is not fixed and so what was light and smooth today can become dark and sharp tomorrow. He wonders, is it because of his actions that these changes occur?
Here are some rhetorical questions about the passage for consideration:
1) What is the meaning of life from the sheep's perspective? Is he mistaken?
2) The sheep has learnt to experiment through trial and error the nature of sticks, light and dark, and edges. How does this relate to the sheep's "purpose in life"?
3) The sheep sees the science in nature but doesn't get it exactly right (from the perspective of the human observer) because he excludes colour and geometry. Is this significant?
Here is my question then Daniel:
What has science got to do with the meaning or purpose in life?
--- End quote ---
when I got to here what I thought you were going to talk about was religion. Because to me this is the beginning of a religion.
Yesterday I did X and Y happened. the day before I did X and Y happened...today I did X and Y did NOT happen. Did I do X wrong?
One thing that I think about the instinctive reaction most children have is to blame someone else...."It wasn't me!" so the next logical step is to say "Well, I did X the exact some way so .....some other force is making the Y not happen. I will change how I do X and maybe this force will let Y happen..."
from there it is a small step to telling others about this nameless faceless force....and give it a name..
*Jess limps off the course to keep from getting run right over!*
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