Trump doesn't bow, he curtsies like a proper school girl.

The issue of scale. Focus on that. — Jake

Your focus appears to be skewed to fit your belief that knowledge needs to be regulated and this is an expression of intellectual dishonesty. For instance:

If your neighbor can do something that impressive, what could a team of well-funded terrorists do with the same technology? If they wipe out the human race or collapse civilization, either with intent or by mistake, do you still care about what's happening with plastic? — Jake

If my neighbor could do something that impressive it would mean that biotechnology had advanced to a degree that more things are possible than we could imagine. For example, with that advanced biotech, we might have modified our immune systems to withstand any biohazard that a terrorist could unleash, or that we modified our neurology so that we had less fear and aggression and more cooperativeness so that terrorists would no longer exist, or we might have wiped ourselves out with the tech long before my neighbor could get his grubby little hands on it.

Now do you see why your question is silly?

Okay, Jake, do I want my neighbor to create a life form in his garage that will rapidly decompose plastic into environmentaly beneficial material? Yes.

I trust you’ll have an interesting response to this.

Is that a yes or a no? — Jake

It’s a your question is idiotic. So many other potential developments would need to proceed bioengineering becoming child’s play that it’s silly to consider.

If we reached a point where bioengineering was child's play, with that tech we might have already made ourselves invulnerable to biological threats, or destroyed ourselves with it.

Your theory is that eventually science will lead to such an abundance of dangerous technologies that practically anyone could easily ruin the world?

No, you haven't presented an argument for why it's necessary [to change our "outdated 'more is better' relationship with knowledge"].
— praxis

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/3728/the-knowledge-explosion — Jake

Skimming that topic I noticed that ChatteringMonkey put a good deal of effort into helping you out and made the following point that you seemed to have agreed with.

The point being here, that it's not their attitude towards knowledge that is driving their research policies.
— ChatteringMonkey

Another good point. Yes, it's their relationship with power, which is what drives our relationship with knowledge. We usually don't pursue knowledge just for itself, but for the power it contains. I like this way of looking at it, as you're helping us dig deeper in to the phenomena. It might be useful to rephrase the question as our "more is better" relationship with power. — Jake

People do not have a 'more is better' attitude towards knowledge. If this were true then education would be highly valued and we would all be lifelong learners. People have a limited amount of time and energy and the fact that we tend to spend a relatively small amount of our time and energy acquiring knowledge itself disproves your claim.

Our baseline motivator, to put it as simply as possible, is to pass on our genes. 'More is better' when it helps us accomplish this base goal. More resources (of various kinds, including knowledge) is generally better in helping us pass on our genes. Resources fulfill our various desires which are all ultimately about gene promotion, and more is usually better.

'More is better' isn't always the best strategy for passing on genes or fulfilling out desires, however, and that's why cooperating for mutual benefit (sharing resources sustainably) with others tends to feel meaningful.

Western culture is too materialistic, valuing resources of all kinds, including knowledge, over aesthetics and meaning. Limiting scientific research isn't going to change our materialistic values.

Please note that I'm not arguing that shifting away from the outdated "more is better" relationship with knowledge will be easy. I'm just arguing it's necessary, like it or not. — Jake

No, you haven't presented an argument for why it's necessary. You need to outline what kinds of information would be regulated and the method of regulation, then explain why this would achieve the intended goal.

Are you suggesting restricting scientific research? policing particular kinds of ideas? or constraining information flow (such as the internet)?

It could be that your idea is counterproductive to the goal of making the world safer and more sustainable.

Praxis, surely you see that there are more choices here than between nothing and Nazi book burning? — Bitter Crank

Of course. It's just the idea of regulating power and information sounds so, well, absurd. For one thing, the regulator would be the super elite, possessing all the power and information. Power tends to corrupt, you may have heard.

But I'm interested in @Jake's plan. I assume he's thought this all out.

My belief is that we need to change our cultural values, specifically less towards the materialistic and more towards the aesthetic and meaningful.

Let's make some carefully reasoned decisions about what knowledge and power is appropriate for our children at this stage of their development. This will inevitably involve saying no to some knowledge and power, while saying yes to others. — Jake

So what sort of method could be used to regulate power & knowledge?

Nazis love a good book burning but they tend to be unpopular in general.

God is a not a being among beings, but the very Being of beings. To deny God, then, is not like denying an orbiting teapot; it is more like denying Being itself. Or it is more like denying truth itself as opposed to denying that a particular proposition is true.

And the widely-bruited 'death of God?' It is an 'event' of rather more significance than the discovery that there is no celestial teapot (or Santa Claus, or . . . ) after all. — Bill Vallicella [from Wayfarer's link]

Imagine the above as a timeless, uniform, unchanging, undivided, ungenerated, indestructible whole and the only thing that exists: The Parmenidean One. Attributing any qualities to it can only be considered fiction. It cannot be considered God because God exists in relation to something else (most relevantly us). If God exists in relation to us then there must be a larger whole that we share.

The impetus to fill this conceptual space with God is understandable, it being the ultimate, and therefore the last refuge for ultimate authority. Can we deny "truth itself"? Yeah, we can.

God didn't die in the Enlightenment, he's alive and well. Ultimate authority died.

Consider the noun. — Jake

Duality?

It's purpose is to conceptually divide one part of reality from another. — Jake

This was occurring long before the concept of duality came into existence, sorry, being.

The point is that you’re apparently confusing thought or information processing with dualism or something that ‘operates by a process of division’. We’re not continuously self-conscious, nor is self-consciousness necessary for information processing.

Dualism is only an issue because of our self concept, or rather, our attachment to the concept.

You believe the role which has traditionally been played by God should be played by Reason — Ram

I believe the role of God as ultimate authority and the role of religion as a source of shared meaning can't be replaced by reason, and that the result of attempting to do so is what's known as rationalization. A treatment for this disease might be found in aesthetics of some kind.

... humans are made of thought, a highly dualistic electro-chemical information medium which operates by a process of conceptual division. — Jake

What is it that makes an electro-chemical information medium dualistic? Is, for example, a mechanical recycling device that separates bottles from cans dualistic? If not, is that because the machine doesn’t have ‘thoughts’? What if the machine were computerized, utilizing an information medium. Would it then be dualistic?

What do you say to the misanthrope, that I am? — Posty McPostface

Volunteer work. It’ll create a cognitive dissonance in your mind and force you to like people.

Heat shock effects are suppose to be great for mood to, so thinking hot yoga is next. — Nils Loc

I tried cryotherapy a while back. Stimulating and calming at the same time.

Weed high in CBD is good for insomnia, btw.

The universe (taken as the Parmenidean Being) can be one and whole, and still there can be types of existences within it. — Mariner

It seemed as though you were suggesting that God is it rather than within it, but then any separation or duality is necessarily within.

I didn't point to non-dual being. I pointed to non-duality. Being is relative to not being and a duality.

If one thing exists then nothing can be said about that thing. You can't even say 'one' or 'thing', right? Attributing any qualities to it is pure fiction.

To put it as succinctly as I can, the problem I'm having is that being is based in duality and Parmenides's One is supposed to represent the non-dual. We can't say anything about this 'one'. We can't say it's being or non-being. Anything we could say about it is "opinion," or relative.

I'm wary of this "Being" malarky. Can't say I've ever had any need of this obscure concept. — S

I’m wary as well, particularly after pondering the notion and coming to the conclusion that 1 requires 2 (duality) in order to Be. Contrary to what Three Dog Night might believe, one is not the loneliest number because there is always other numbers.

God and other supernatural experiences are a special case, by definition, since the word "supernatural" means precisely something beyond the objects of empirical cognition. — Mariner

The Parmenidean poem that you mentioned talked about two realities, which to me sounded similar if not identical to the ‘two truth’ in Eastern philosophy. Maybe @Wayfarer can offer his opinion on that.

I’m curious if it makes sense to you to distinguish something supernatural or beyond objects of empirical cognition as being in one or the other of these realities. It doesn’t appear reasonable to believe that “something” exists in the Parmenidean One.

since The Enlightenment there has been a strong (but often tacit) element of 'Anything But God' underwriting philosophy; the 'conflict thesis' (conflict between science and religion) comes out of that. — Wayfarer

“Sapere aude! (Dare to know.) ‘Have the courage to use your own understanding,’ is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.”

So yeah, the fall of ultimate authority is key.

To give an old Platonic (well, Pythagorean) example [of the difference in meaning between existence and being], numbers do not exist (as ordinary objects do), but that does not stop us from using them. — Mariner

An atheist can believe in numbers so 'being' in itself isn't a problem. Although, you claimed that God could not be called "a being" among other beings. How do we know that what you're calling God is not a being among other beings of the same kind? One is not the loneliest number because there are other numbers.

We are trying to talk about something of which we don't have any experience. It is necessary to use symbolic language for that. — Mariner

It’s necessary to use language to talk about things regardless if we’ve experienced them ourselves. We can have knowledge of things beyond our experience with language but unless there’s some other realm that we may somehow have access to, everything, including numbers, which you say do not exist as ordinary objects do, is derived from worldly experience.

I’ve run across many moray eels while diving but I’ve never seen one crewing on its own tail like some samsaric uroborus.

Perhaps what creates the supposedly huge gap between theism and atheism is that most of us only follow our chosen path a short way down the trail, and then we stop, and build a fort. — Jake

Fort Agnostic, featuring high walls, a lovely moat, and a tall tower upon which to look down on the ignorant masses.

I don’t know if you really responded to S in that, as far as I can tell so far, there’s no meaningful difference between a “transcendent Deity” and, say, the Eastern concept of emptiness. An atheist can believe in emptiness.

I’m familiar with the concepts but not the terms, and they are important concepts to me, so thanks for that. In fact, I used these concepts just yesterday in your “What are Gods” topic when I wrote:

... there are gods in Buddhist doctrine but they're regarded as merely other sentient beings and ignorant of their true nature ("not-manifest, not-born, not-made," etc), if I'm not mistaken.

True nature is Cataphatic and not-manifest, not-born, not-made, etc. is apophatic, yes?

Are you familiar with the distinction between cataphatic and apophatic theology? — Mariner

No. I suppose that I'll need to study these in order to continue.

Just trying to understand your concept of God, which I find fascinating.

Morally, we are absolutely separated from Him. Cognitively, we are absolutely separated from Him. Etc. — Mariner

Earlier you wrote that you didn't think God could be called "a being" among other beings, and yet here you say that God has 'a morality', 'a cognition', 'a Etc.' that is separate. Incidentally, 'He' also appears to have 'a gender'. A distinct morality, cognition, etc., appears to constitute a being, and a being which exists among other beings.

Existence is a subset of being — Mariner

Everything is not a subset of being. You've suggested non-dualism in reference to God but haven't followed through on what that may imply. What about mind-body dualism, for instance? Is our separation from God only an illusion?

Religion is socialized art and socialized expression. — Blue Lux

This is as redundant as saying ‘socialized language’. Also, aesthetic experience and expression do not require religion. Not that you were saying it does.

Should we give up on happiness and seek truth? — TheMadFool

Maybe if we could fully accept the truth, no matter what it turned out to be, we’d be happy.

I realize this is a thought experiment but can't get over the contradiction that if the android were truly free it would be free to have the switch removed. If it's a machine designed and produced by humans it should be a simple matter. So the answer seems to be that the android is not free by design.

I don't believe in a God at all — Wayfarer

No matter how you paint the picture it's 'one God fewer'. Besides, there are gods in Buddhist doctrine but they're regarded as merely other sentient beings and ignorant of their true nature ("not-manifest, not-born, not-made," etc), if I'm not mistaken.

It seems just as sensible to say that ‘everything’ is ‘being’, or with reverence, Being. It’s what allows being. A pencil shares in everything and has something from everything. What am I missing?

So you don’t believe in theistic or cosmological dualism. In relation to what S wrote this could mean that you believe that God is the world (everything). If that’s the case then atheism is validated with occam's razor. God is an unnecessary label for everything and the concept is meaningless.

Why is the default position that religious ought to be taken seriously?
— StreetlightX

There's an asymmetry underlying this question though. From the atheist point of view, all that is at stake is a fallacious belief; because it has no real content, losing it is losing nothing - other than an impediment. Indeed that is all that can be at stake. But from the believer's point of view, what is at stake is literally everything. Not understanding it correctly, or performing it correctly, or whatever is required by the particular faith tradition the believer belongs to, is literally a matter of life and death - even more than that. It's crucial, it's the most important thing about life. So the assertion that it's not important could only be from atheism, from those who have no sense that there's anything at stake. — Wayfarer

It may be “literally everything” for some but not the vast majority. That it can be so important, combined with its tendency to devalue reason and promote faith, is exactly why atheists should take it seriously.

Should the move from polytheism to monotheism be explored further or do you intend to move on, Mariner?

But we don't really know what "Gods could add meaning" means :D. — Mariner

An overarching narrative that expresses shared values, common goals, and the like. The elements of meaning. I’d think that would be unifying and that the unification of a group would have clear survival advantages.

By being the foundation of a cause-and-effect worldview. "A because B" is a worldview that works. And the gods helped with that by unifying observations. To give an imaginary but plausible example: A lion is a dangerous predator. We should be wary of lions. If we see a lion, we should retreat. Etc. There is a cluster of observations around the notion of a lion. And the continuity of this observation between today and tomorrow is guaranteed by the idea that there is a god of lions; or, as we should say it nowadays, there are reasons why lions have traits X, Y, Z, etc., which entail our caution or fear or retreat. — Mariner

Clusters of observations are auto-associated in a neural network, I understand, so that would make a god concept superfluous to the task of unification on an individual level. Gods could add meaning and in so doing unify on a social level.

You feel that theists are ignorant because they haven't proven anything, and I agree. — Jake

Failure to prove something doesn’t necessarily indicate ignorance. You can’t prove to me, for instance, that you’ve visited the Eiffel Tower, at least not with language or reason.

I call myself a "Fundamentalist Agnostic", a silly ironic label which points to a position outside of the theist vs. atheist paradigm. — Jake

Outside and gratifyingly above, sounds like.