You misunderstood my point.The Church was the final authority on all matters philosophical and scientific. To challenge this authority was to risk the fate of Galileo. Descartes begins by doubting everything, which means doubting the teachings of the Church. He replaces the authority of the Church with the authority of the thinking self and reason — Fooloso4

True, although he seemed to be trying to hand the authority of reason to the church. He was obviously addressing his philosophical ideas to them.

At the time, the authority the church was being undermined by the existence of the Protestants and their rich middle-class backers. The Church was changing into something more conservative than it had been previously. The Church had protected knowledge through chaotic medieval times, but now they were being tossed aside, and they were fighting back

It's unfortunate that this ugly picture of them has eclipsed their former place of honor.

he seemed to be trying to hand the authority of reason to the church. — frank

I posted something right before yours that addresses this. He is trying to appease the Church. The authority is the self that thinks.

He was obviously addressing his philosophical ideas to them. — frank

Right. They had the authority to ban his writings and lock him up.

True.

No argument needed. — Fooloso4

Typically subjectivist. Believe whatever you like. No evidence required.

From Meditation IV:

2. For, in the first place, I discover that it is impossible for him ever to deceive me, for in all fraud and deceit there is a certain imperfection: and although it may seem that the ability to deceive is a mark of subtlety or power, yet the will testifies without doubt of malice and weakness; and such, accordingly, cannot be found in God.

This is Descartes rescuing his "certain truth" that he exist, from the oblivion of solipsism with reference to God. This goes on and on, unceasingly, page after page, right through to the end of Meditations V:

16. And thus I very clearly see that the certitude and truth of all science depends on the knowledge alone of the true God...

Your assertion is quite simply false.

http://www.classicallibrary.org/descartes/meditations/8.htm

Your assertion is quite simply false. — counterpunch

He's basically right. Descartes was a mathematician. The Church could dictate what math problems could be examined and which ones not.

He was offering them a more enlightened view.

He's basically right. Descartes was a mathematician. The Church could dictate what math problems could be examined and which ones not. He was offering them a more enlightened view. — frank

More enlightened in what sense? More enlightened than what? Your opinion means nothing without supporting evidence. It's just assertion, based in 400 years of anti-science propaganda - extensive evidence for which I've provided above.

I mean, you can read his biography. He was an amazing guy besides being a genius.

First of all, I think that clinging to a thwarted 400 year old ideal is unproductive. Let it go. You won’t achieve peace by citing past injuries. Or perhaps it is that you’re not looking for peace, but for capitulation. Or will an official apology suffice?

I disagree that science continues to be ‘the injured party’(‘but they started it!’), and I also disagree that science has the answer - it simply has a plausible theory, a way forward. Science has claimed ‘limitless clean energy’ before and been wrong, and has claimed ‘the solution’ before and caused irreparable damage, so anything that sounds too good to be true and relies on claims of singularity or infinity needs to be recognised as an ideology: an affected (positive/negative) spin from a limited perspective on available data. The ‘answer’ will not come until science takes moral responsibility for conclusions drawn from research data, and agrees to work with the ideologue through ethics, arts, humanities, metaphysics and communications - not pander to prevalent ideology, but help to critically examine and restructure our ideological motives so that we are more self-aware and sceptical consumers of information.

When science claims to be ‘neutral’ information, then it’s indistinguishable from fake news, and all science can do is add to the noise. Instead, science is responsible for presenting ‘needed’ information - rendered as a system-wide distribution of attention and effort in relation to time. A way forward. Not the only way forward, nor the ‘best’ by any and all standards, let alone the objective truth. And the more narrowly defined its system, the more ignorant its claim.

We can do this precisely because the implications of science can legitimately be limited to that which is necessary to survival, staring with magma energy - which is the only source of energy large, constant and concentrated enough to meet our needs. If we don't harness magma energy, we cannot survive; and so it is the existential necessity to which we can agree, not science as an ideology per se. — counterpunch

This is a case in point. You’re talking about survival of humanity in our current state of energy consumption. It’s a tantalisingly simple solution for a very limited problem, but is it the right one? For you, yes, it probably seems ideal, and will allow you to continue consuming energy with impunity or this horrible sense that we’re hastening our extinction, or at least our discomfort. But what about the next generation, or the one after that? How much do we really know about the relationship between magma energy and gravity or solar orbital structures? Or even between magma energy and meteorological patterns? The urgency with which we ‘need’ a solution, its perceived significance or the potential it appears to offer has too often come back to bite us in the ass. How do we allocate sufficient attention and effort to understand beyond the immediate need for survival to the bigger ecological picture?

But apparently the eventual ‘bite’ won’t be science’s fault - it will be humanity’s fault for choosing the easy fix without considering the broader implications that scientists currently dismiss as ‘not science’ because they can’t yet be empirically tested. And you’ll be long dead by then and won’t give a rat’s.

In a dynamic system built on a limited relation to both energy and time (and it IS limited), simply unlocking additional sources only hastens self-destruction - but it just depends on how narrowly you choose to perceive the system. But what do I know? I’m not a scientist.

I mean, you can read his biography. He was an amazing guy besides being a genius. — frank

Yeah, especially when he cut up live animals.
/s

I disagree that science continues to be ‘the injured party’(‘but they started it!’), and I also disagree that science has the answer - it simply has a plausible theory, a way forward. Science has claimed ‘limitless clean energy’ before and been wrong, and has claimed ‘the solution’ before and caused irreparable damage, so anything that sounds too good to be true and relies on claims of singularity or infinity needs to be recognised as an ideology: an affected (positive/negative) spin from a limited perspective on available data. — Possibility

This is well put.

I agree that faith is not the absence of doubt or reason, but it is held in the absence of what we would count as evidence (i.e. empirical evidence). That said, empirical evidence does not amount (always at least) to certainty, so it could be said that all substantive (as opposed to tautological) belief is held in the absence of certainty.

One response to uncertainty (lack of definitive evidence or proof) is to suspend judgement entirely. Another response is to adopt provisional hypotheses. And another is to believe despite the absence of evidence; and this last is to have faith. — Janus

Only the last of these three options can be acted upon. You cannot act on entirely suspended judgement. Provisional hypotheses enable you to run controlled experiments, but you still need to make a prediction - this requires faith, and is the only way to achieve empirical evidence, let alone certainty.

Typically subjectivist. — counterpunch

It is not subjectivist. It reasonably follows from the claim that he is going to doubt everything that he will doubt the Church's authority.

From Meditation IV — counterpunch

These are assumptions and certainly are not indubitable.

This is Descartes rescuing his "certain truth" that he exist, from the oblivion of solipsism with reference to God. — counterpunch

He cannot rescue his certain truth by appeal to something that is not a certain truth. He has already rejected this route:

But how can I know there is not something different from those things that I have just considered, of which one cannot have the slightest doubt? Is there not some God, or some other being by name we call it, who puts these reflections into my mind? That is not necessary, for is it not possible that I am capable of producing them myself?

Descartes took his motto from Ovid:

He who lived well hid himself well.

You are not able to see through his rhetoric. You are not alone. But even in his own time not everyone was fooled.

.

@frank

I mean, you can read his biography. He was an amazing guy besides being a genius.
— frank

Yeah, especially when he cut up live animals. — baker

Sad but true but as Voltaire said, "Le meglio è l'inimico del bene"

Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without — Confucius

I agree. Nobody's perfect.

Ah, citing that most venerable of sources, the Times of India. — Banno

I don't question the objectivity of morals, but it doesn't follow that introspection, meaning reliance upon my own internal processes, cannot be a means of its detection. If morality requires empathy, particularly my treating others as I'd want myself treated, some amount of reflection upon what would suit me needs to occur. I'd also say that regardless of the empirical evidence I use to determine morality, at some point I have to process that internally.

Subjectivity would suggest my morality is not your morality, yet both moralities are of equal standing. That's not been asserted.

....

Get what? Put it together.

The level of intellectual rigour in the last few pages is appalling, from all sides.

Only the last of these three options can be acted upon. You cannot act on entirely suspended judgement. Provisional hypotheses enable you to run controlled experiments, but you still need to make a prediction - this requires faith, and is the only way to achieve empirical evidence, let alone certainty. — Possibility

I don't agree; lack of action is a kind of action, and in any case suspension of judgement does not entail that one would have no ideas that could be followed; followed without judging them true or false or even likely to be true or false, but just to see where they lead. Action can be based merely on desire to do something, and of course there will always be expectation. But I would draw a distinction between expectation, which is found also in animals and judgement or belief self-consciously held.

Provisional hypotheses yield predictions based on drawing analogies (abductive reasoning) with what has been observed in the past. You might argue that one would be relying upon what others have recorded, which is true, and that one would be relying upon faith in the truth of what they have recorded, but that would be false. Anything and everything can be provisionally accepted without committing to any judgement as to its truth.

Having said that, I am not arguing that people always or even very often suspend judgement like that, but I am just pointing to what is possible not what is common. To anticipate another possible objection, it's also true that in everything we must have faith in our memories; we have to act on the basis of what they give us, but this is not any kind of consciously adopted faith, which is what I have been concerned with; it is entirely instinctive; even animals do it.

The level of intellectual rigour in the last few pages is appalling, from all sides. — Banno

Pontification as substitute for critique is also appalling; makes you look like a pompous ass.

...

The level of intellectual rigour in the last few pages is appalling, from all sides. — Banno

Didn't you ask for responses from people who disagree with the proposition that science is good? Did you expect them to be intellectually rigorous?

He's a misanthrope. He'll complain in any event.

Ah, I have achieved the unity of the braying masses.

First of all, I think that clinging to a thwarted 400 year old ideal is unproductive. Let it go. You won’t achieve peace by citing past injuries. Or perhaps it is that you’re not looking for peace, but for capitulation. Or will an official apology suffice? — Possibility

History is instructive. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed. I would say doomed to repeat it, but time is short. We are facing threats to our very existence; and in my view, that's a consequence of a mistake the Church made 400 years ago, that we have carried forth unconsciously - until "Trump digs coal." To expect an apology of the Church is about as realistic as expecting an apology from Trump. I don't imagine either of them care in the least what I say. But that doesn't mean I cannot learn from their errors.

I disagree that science continues to be ‘the injured party’(‘but they started it!’), and I also disagree that science has the answer — Possibility

Oh? So what? See how that works!

Science has claimed ‘limitless clean energy’ before and been wrong, and has claimed ‘the solution’ before and caused irreparable damage, so anything that sounds too good to be true and relies on claims of singularity or infinity needs to be recognised as an ideology: an affected (positive/negative) spin from a limited perspective on available data. — Possibility

I don't recall anyone claiming limitless clean energy before - except perhaps nuclear fusion, which has always been, and remains about 30 years away. Other than eating up funding for an idea that cannot possibly work in earth gravity - see the Pauli Exclusion Principle, I don't know what irreparable damage they have done. With regard to magma energy - 'limitless' is ever so slightly poetic. There is in fact a finite amount of energy in a big ball of molten rock - 4000 miles deep and 26,000 miles around. Does "effectively limitless" work better for you?

The ‘answer’ will not come until science takes moral responsibility for conclusions drawn from research data, and agrees to work with the ideologue through ethics, arts, humanities, metaphysics and communications - not pander to prevalent ideology, but help to critically examine and restructure our ideological motives so that we are more self-aware and sceptical consumers of information. — Possibility

My proposal is designed to solve the problem in the least disruptive way possible; and it's important to understand that this occurs at the most scientifically fundamental level; as the first step in a systematic approach to sustainability - because, if we are to secure a prosperous sustainable future, it needs to be objective with regard to all legitimate vested interests. Comprehension of science as an understanding of reality - (not just a tool, but a worldview) is integral to the political agreement necessary to develop and apply this technology. I do not expect people to abandon their ideological identities and purposes; indeed, these proposals are designed that they don't have to.

This is the problem with the left wing approach to sustainability. You require changes right across the board to achieve environmental benefits; at huge cost, for little gain. You require the consumer to know how everything they consume is produced. That cognitive burden is impossible to bear. I say attack the problem from the supply side - and starting with limitless.... effectively limitless clean energy, produce more and better. The man on the street need hardly notice.

When science claims to be ‘neutral’ information, then it’s indistinguishable from fake news, and all science can do is add to the noise. Instead, science is responsible for presenting ‘needed’ information - rendered as a system-wide distribution of attention and effort in relation to time. A way forward. Not the only way forward, nor the ‘best’ by any and all standards, let alone the objective truth. And the more narrowly defined its system, the more ignorant its claim. — Possibility

Science is fake news everybody. Oh no - that's terrible. Everything's gonna stop working!

... ... ... no, still working. You must be wrong! Phew!

I imagined planes dropping from the skies - because aerofoils stopped providing lift. But nope, still up there, so - the science of aerodynamics must be true, right? If that's true, then physics must be true - and the earth is still a big ball of molten rock.

This is a case in point. You’re talking about survival of humanity in our current state of energy consumption. It’s a tantalisingly simple solution for a very limited problem, but is it the right one? — Possibility

A left wing, pay more - have less, carbon tax this - stop that, green approach to sustainability implies dictatorial government imposing poverty. People won't vote for poverty. "It's the economy, stupid." So democracy will have to go, and capitalism. Totalitarian communist government will have to hold back the starving masses from resources forever after to eek out our existence. If that's what you prefer, over a prosperous sustainable future - powered by limit ...effectively limitless clean energy, then wind and solar are for you!

(I should probably mention that because wind and solar are intermittent, you'll need to maintain a full fossil fuel generating capacity alongside your windmills, that last 25 years tops, and then need replacing at a cost of £200 million each. The UK needs about 15,000 windmills to meet current energy demand, so as to reach net zero by 2050.)

But apparently the eventual ‘bite’ won’t be science’s fault - it will be humanity’s fault for choosing the easy fix without considering the broader implications that scientists currently dismiss as ‘not science’ because they can’t yet be empirically tested. And you’ll be long dead by then and won’t give a rat’s. — Possibility

I have absolutely no idea what this means. Science is wide open to relevant information. That's how it works. If someone developed a scientific theory based on partial information they'd be wasting their time. It would be killed at the peer review stage. I'm gonna go ahead and guess you're not particularly familiar with science.

In a dynamic system built on a limited relation to both energy and time (and it IS limited), simply unlocking additional sources only hastens self-destruction - but it just depends on how narrowly you choose to perceive the system. But what do I know? I’m not a scientist. — Possibility

No, this is incorrect. As a matter of physical fact, resources are a function of the energy available to create them. With effectively limitless clean energy we can extract carbon from the atmosphere, desalinate sea water to irrigate land, produce hydrogen fuel, recycle all our waste - and so on, allowing for much greater prosperity while simultaneously protecting the climate, sensitive natural habitat and natural water sources. Given the energy we can make the deserts bloom and leave the forests alone. Drilling close to magma pockets in the earth's crust, can give us that energy in near limitless quantities.

There is some slim possibility that COVID-19 escaped from a lab. It's an interesting point of contention, worthy of some research.

But here's something else about the present virus outbreak that is quite astonishing. Within months of the outbreak we have access to not just one, but several, vaccinations sufficiently efficacious and safe for mass distribution, greatly reducing the potential toll in death and disability.

These include vaccines that use entirely new technologies.

This is not an issue of mere possibility. It is something to celebrate.

@Banno Here's a fellow with zero scepticism of the motives of the corporate medical money making industry,or the motives of governments.
And no understanding of the lack of scientific research protocols that have gone into the current "vaccines".
A useful idiot and gatekeeper.
A true believer in the god of science.
Probably has no idea of the validity of covid tests or the numerous medical academics who disagree totally with lockdowns and the medical response.
To say nothing of the real reason for this pandemic.
Cherry picking just like the fundie Christians.
In praise of DNA!

Ah, I have achieved the unity of the braying masses. — Banno

No, you're confused; the unity you've achieved is that of the braying ass.

But regardless of how it happened, the advent of science has had an extraordinarily, overwhelmingly positive impact on how we live. — Banno

The above assertion or conclusion doesn't come with an explanation of what do you mean by "positive". Upon deeper exploration you may find what you consider positive isn't all that positive.

If your comparison is based on previous civilizations and societies then also your comparison is moot, since there seems to be a gap or an amnesia of facts/knowledge. There are tons of archaeological and other kinds of evidence (pointing to a quality of science) that cannot be replicated even today.

I am surprised you have ignored the following comment:

What you fishing for?

I tend to lean on pragmatism, is that an interesting fish? — Shawn

Oh, I think I had it right.

See your company above.

Get what? Put it together. — Banno

This :point:

science has an inbuilt course-correction mechanism i.e. it detects its own flaws and autocorrects them
— TheMadFool
On time? — baker

On time?
— baker

It's too early to comment. — TheMadFool

It's too early to comment.
— TheMadFool

Then it's too early for praise. — baker

Speaking for myself, I'd say we need to look at science's 1) course correction mechanism and 2) timing of the course correction mechanism's activation. To be fair, baker's right, the timing seems off as a lot of damage has already been done and many of the branches of science directly or indirectly involved in mitigating science's impact on health and environment are in their infancy or adolescence. However, we must give the devil his due - science at least has a course correction or self-righting mechanism (srimech).

Curious. What do you think this course correction mechanism is?