Well, what is intelligence — skyblack

That's a good question! I'm stumped for the moment. What do I mean by "reality is intelligent"??

Israel is already here; you can't question the existence or demand the non-existence of something that's already here. — BitconnectCarlos

It does seem reasonable to question the rationality of a long oppressed people seeking a safe home in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods on Earth. This seems equivalent to me, a relatively well off old white man, choosing to move to a ghetto on the south side of Chicago because my ancestors lived there thousands of years ago. It just doesn't make a lot of sense.

During one of the previous shootouts with Hamas I spent about a month in the comment section of the Jerusalem post, where I claimed that Israelis were choosing a particular piece of land over the safety of their children. That's the reality I see.

When I become President of the United States I will extend US citizenship to every Israeli and invite them to come live with us, where nobody is firing rockets at Jews. They would be such a great asset to the United States. This won't work of course, but the invitation should be made anyway.

In reality there is much less intelligence than one would hope for. — Bitter Crank

Your point is taken. But to agree with it wouldn't we have to presume that we who judge levels of intelligence are more intelligent than the reality which created "our" intelligence?

You know, evolution weeds out things that don't work. If humans are on average stupid, then evolution would be acting intelligently by weeding us out. So if one stands back far enough, perhaps there is plenty of intelligence? I dunno, thinking on the run here...

Continuing with my current obsession...

What if some religious people (not those simply repeating memorized slogans) are intelligent and sensitive enough to have some experience of the global intelligence being proposed here.

But they weren't able to conceive of the intelligence not having a source. And so they filled that hole with a human like character which made sense to them.

If true, then perhaps what these religious people perceive is real, but their attempt to explain what they perceive is not expressed in the language of our modern science based era.

So for example, a person might claim that reality is governed by an all powerful entity called "Physics". That's basically right, except for the entity part. As far as we know at least.

Ah, I see now. You are brilliant and everyone else is stupid. I must admit, that's probably the most original idea I've ever read on any philosophy forum. :-)

I do have some sympathy for your frustrations. The following theory might help?

The more insightful an idea, the smaller the audience.

But it is fine as it is. — Bartricks

It's fine as it is if you don't mind that few to none seem to be getting it. I'm fine with that too, so we aren't arguing.

Ok, what I hear you saying here is that you don't consider your idea to merit any further work. So you are in essence expressing a degree of agreement with some of your critics. This is all fine with me, I don't really have a dog in this fight.

I just thought the idea was potentially interesting and just might merit a series of rewrites, a procedure routinely deployed by most serious writers.

So okay - you don't understand the argument. What do you want me to do about it? I guess some people just can't get some points. — Bartricks

Could I suggest starting over in a new thread? Consider your OP here a first draft, and see how you can improve on it. Shorter, clearer, more direct.

I've been listening to NPR daily for years, and they've gone way off the deep end in the "woke" direction. I've taken to calling them the "Fox News Of Political Correctness". :-)

Here's an example of how the challenges presented by science arise not from science itself, but from our relationship with science.

Knowledge development feeds back on itself, leading to an accelerating rate of knowledge development. As example, once we learned how to build computers we could then use the computers to enhance research in to many other topics. AI will presumably further accelerate the knowledge development process.

It seems important to reflect on what acceleration entails. It seems to mean that we will be developing ever more knowledge at an ever faster pace. And, ever more knowledge at an ever faster pace will often translate in to ever more power delivered at an ever faster pace.

Such a process promises to bring ever more benefits at an ever faster pace, further adding to the many proven benefits we've already received, so naturally this is an appealing prospect.

So what's the problem?

An embrace of such an accelerating knowledge development process would seem to be built upon a typically unexamined assumption that human beings are capable of successfully managing ever more power delivered at an ever faster pace, seemingly without limit.

Is it true that human beings can successfully manage any amount of power delivered at any rate? Any amount of power? Any rate? If not, then doesn't an ever accelerating knowledge explosion present a significant challenge to our future?

============

Here's a concrete example to illustrate. As you likely know, Jennifer Doudna recently won the Nobel Prize for her work on developing CRISPR, technology which makes gene editing considerably easier, and thus more accessible to more people. One of her often stated goals is to "democratize" CRISPR, that is, make it widely available.

While CRISPR is probably still too complex to be universally accessible, the stated purpose of the project is to make it ever more accessible to ever more people.

Doudna's team allowed me to play the role of philosopher on their Facebook page, and politely challenge this game plan, almost daily for about a month. And then without warning all my posts vanished.

https://www.facebook.com/igisci/?ref=page_internal

Point being, here's a leading scientist with a game plan that seems ripe for challenge, and yet challenge is not really allowed. I politely asked them to engage the challenges, and they politely declined, in spite of their repeated statements regarding the importance of dialog with the public.

Doudna has good intentions. She's definitely not evil, and need not be demonized. And the Nobel Committee concluded she is an excellent scientist, which I see no reason to question.

But in spite of good intentions and great scientific skill, is she in reality a lousy philosopher? Is her relationship with science in need of serious repair?

QUESTION: Do you want millions of Trump voters cooking up new life forms in their garage workshops? That's not possible today, but that's what's coming, as led by science experts. Sound like a good plan to you?

Yes, it's science.

But is it reason?

A fantastic solution to this problem was the style adopted by Jesus, who talked in parables, that is, short stories very easy to understand and, at the same time, very concentrated in meaning. — Angelo

Yea, I'm not Christian or religious, but I agree with this. The parable method has proven it's value in connecting over thousands of years. You know, the Bible is the best selling book of all time. We don't have to agree with everything in the Bible to appreciate this accomplishment.

Were I religious I might argue that the Bible was deliberately written to address the largest questions in a somewhat vague imprecise inconclusive manner so that we would argue over it's meaning for thousands of years, thus keeping a focus on the largest questions. This might be compared to the skillful philosophy professor who answers every question with another question.

A problem we seem to be having today is that many of us wish to interpret the parables within the scientific paradigm. We often wish for the parables to state clear unambiguous provable fact. But maybe books like the Bible are better compared to art, where one can share deep truths about the human condition within fictional stories.

There is value in the view from the mountain top, and value in a view not from the mountain top. Society would collapse if everyone was inspecting and challenging everything all the time. Society needs those within the group consensus, and those without.

This is a daily experience for me. I've been happily married for 40 years to someone who is just as intelligent and educated as I am, but thoroughly non-philosophical. Our conversations swing wildly back and forth from the big picture to the detailed view. :-) Two of me in the same house would be one and a half too many. :-)

But some is good. Ideally, someone is attempting to stand back and see the larger picture some of the time. But the practical among us will ask, what do you philosopher people intend to do about the big picture? Um, well, er, you see, I mean, we'll get back to you on that....

Science is the source of technology — Janus

Our use of science is the source of technology. We typically seek power to edit our environment, which usually requires knowledge. Science is good at developing new knowledge. The source of technology is our desire to edit our environment.

Increasingly we are hearing that science is the source (not solution) of all our problems, — Tom Storm

If we were to edit that claim to read our relationship with science, then the claim has some merit.

Blaming science would be like blaming a hammer for someone's bashed in head. Science is a tool for developing new knowledge. It works. It's us that doesn't work so well.

Or can the font size be increased? — Gladiator of Truth

You should be able to do that in your browser. I do that myself. Sometimes a site's layout will get destroyed by larger fonts, but it seems to work here pretty much.

Thus, an objective comparison was made and within that context the orange was superior. — Gladiator of Truth

Yes, agreed, if we define the context, the goal, then we can measure something against that goal.

That said, science is the poster boy of the rational, no-nonsense mindset that prevails in the West and now also in the East. In that sense, science must be considered good, right? — TheMadFool

To me, the simplistic nature of the question is a problem. Debating whether science is good or bad is like debating whether religion is good or bad, or whether human beings are good or bad.

I do think our relationship with science can be labeled good or bad, just as a relationship with religion or human beings can be. I would say our relationship with science is not in a very healthy state. It's too much like the relationship 12th century Catholics had with the Church.

We imagine a great divide between religion and science, a topic of incessant fascination on philosophy forums. What I see is that much the same mindset we used to aim at religion has just been redirected at science. Science is the highest ranking authority, science will provide the answers, science will lead us to the promised land, science is the one true way, scientists are the new holy clergy etc.

We're like children who want to believe their parents are kind and all powerful etc, so that we the children will be safe. When our first set of parents gets divorced and discredited, we aim the same needs and desires at the new parents. A better plan would be to grow up, and realize that all parents have their pros and cons.

We, um, lasted 15 minutes... :-)

Knowing stuff is good. Science is about knowing stuff. — Banno

The premise "knowing stuff is good" would seem to be based on the assumption that we are mature enough to successfully manage any amount of knowledge, and thus power.

A premise "knowing some stuff is good" seems very reasonable. To expand on that without limit seems reasonably questioned.

The anti-science responses so far have been trivial — Banno

Part of the problem may be in the question. As others have commented, science is just a tool, it is neither good or bad in itself.

Hammers are a common carpentry tool. Are we pro-hammer or anti-hammer? This is not a very useful way to consider hammers.

Does this help? What is our relationship with science? What is the quality of that relationship? Is it simplistic, or sophisticated, etc?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainstorm_(1983_film)

Decided to rent the movie, looks interesting. Thanks. $3 rental on Amazon Prime.

Let's take an inflammatory/racist claim such as "Chinese people are inferior to Europeans" — Andrew4Handel

What is the standard which is being used to evaluate inferiority vs. superiority? Inferior in regards to what?

As example, the evidence suggests that on average, generally speaking, black men are superior to other races when it comes to playing professional basketball. This is a claim about some specific activity.

The premise "science is a good thing" could use some refinement. Good for what?

If the goal is the development of new knowledge, then science is clearly a good thing. If the goal is enhancement of the human experience, or the survival of humanity, then the question becomes more complicated.