Saturday, May 22, 2010

Know . . . Understand . . .Believe . . .

Thanks for the good, probing discussion this morning!  I really value the broad range of ages and experiences represented in the group.  A little heavy on the science end of professions :)= but we could do worse. . . it could be a clergy group!

We'll finish the book next time, for the discussion June 5.  In the meantime do feel free to post comments on the blog - let's see if the exchange can continue online.

I passed out a poem today - for those who weren't there, here is a link to it, with a lovely photo besides.   I like this poem because it raises some of the same issues we are talking about:  note how many times she uses the words "know," "understand," and "believe.".  She contrasts scientific "knowing" and intuitive "knowing" - not criticizing the former so much as affirming the latter as a legitimate way of being in the world.



Some words to watch for in all our discussions:  Believe . . . Know . . . True . . .Evidence . . .Reason . . .  We use these words on lots of ways, and it's helpful to be aware of just how we are using each at any given time.  

6 comments:

  1. Once while fishing in the Menominee River I came across a small round, black stone in the shallows near the Pemene Dam. I got out of the boat and waded back to examine it. I'd never seen this type of stone before, worn smooth by years of rushing water, and I wondered how many humans had floated over it through the years. I know I will never know, but I believe that the number could run in the thousands. I also believe it to be a special stone as it now sits on our Hearthstone fireplace where it often, after being warmed by an oak fire, caresses the backs of either my wife or me. I feel a kinship with this stone. I've often looked for more in the waters between Niagara and Bear Point, but I've yet to find another one. It's unique, and some day it may find its way back into the Menominee for someone else to discover.

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  2. Ron - a "mystical" encounter with an inanimate object that communicated very deeply to you about the world, your place in it, and your relationship to past and future generations. Inexplicable by empirical means, but not therefore less "real," or "true" for you. Thanks!

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  3. I don't doubt that Ron had a real and very true moving experience here but is it really inexplicable by empirical means? Maybe we just need a better understanding of neuroscience and the biochemistry of the brain. Indeed some work is already being done on the topic:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7815095.stm

    Does acknowledging that feelings of love or beauty may just be chemical reactions in the brain do anything to diminish their importance? I don't think it has to.

    Either way, this is a separate question. Whether or not human consciousness and thought is entirely based in the physical world is a question that has an answer, one independent of its implications.

    From Carl Sagan:

    "...the general view of many, not all, neurobiologists is that consciousness is a function of the number and complexity of neuronal linkages of the architecture of the brain.

    "Human consciousness is what happens when you get to something like 10 to the 11 neurons and 10 to the 14 synapses. This raises all sorts of other questions: What is consciousness like when you have 1020 synapses or 1030? What would such a being have to say to us any more than we would have to say to the ants?

    "So at least it does not seem to me that the argument from consciousness, a continuum of consciousness running through the animal and plant kingdoms, proves the existence of God. We have an alternative explanation that seems to work pretty well. We don’t know the details, although work on artificial intelligence may help to clarify that. But we don’t know the details of the alternative hypothesis either. So it could hardly be said that this is compelling."

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  4. I've also felt a "kinship" with a stone (in my case about four feet high and 10 feet long, passed each day on a hunting trip in Colorado) that I referred to as grandfather, but the why and how of the feeling wasn't, and isn't, a matter of interest.

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  5. Sorry I won't be able to be at our next meeting. I would like to know what each of you thinks about: A)How does Barrett's theory account for the persistent, world-wide belief in Buddhism? and B)does anything in Ch 9 suggest a "natural" difference in the believe in Allah and in Christ?

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  6. I found part of this story in today's Times a thought provoker regarding nature's effects on an event. We could provide the thoughts, beliefs, understanding, meaning afterward...

    Obama Improvises After Speech Rainout
    By JACKIE CALMES

    CHICAGO — Improvising after a fierce storm stopped him from speaking at a national cemetery near here, President Obama observed Memorial Day by visiting a house for families of wounded veterans getting treatment and, after flying back toward Washington, finally gave his address to service members at Andrews Air Force Base.

    At the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery about 50 miles southwest of his hometown, Mr. Obama had just laid a wreath at a marker for a soldier whose remains were not recovered when the skies, sunny for hours, grew black and blustery. As he waited under a tent to take the stage, lightning cracked at the end of the Pledge of Allegiance and a downpour began.

    After conferring with a Secret Service agent, Mr. Obama approached the microphone holding an umbrella that the winds seemed about to snatch. He told the crowd filling 5,000 folding chairs, including disabled veterans, the elderly and infants, to seek shelter in their cars and waiting buses.

    “We don’t want anybody struck by lightning,” Mr. Obama said, promising to return and resume the program if the storm passed. He waited in a building, but when the rains continued to rage, officials canceled the event, and he left after walking through some of the buses to talk to veterans and survivors of the fallen.

    The weather upended a solemn ritual that already had provoked controversy as some conservative groups and veterans objected that Mr. Obama should have been at Arlington National Cemetery — though a wreath-laying there is not the unbroken presidential tradition that Mr. Obama’s critics suggest. (Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. performed the honors at Arlington on Monday.)

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