Why is the Universe Comprehensible?

[rug]

January 31, 2014
By Bob Seidensticker

Stone Age man 10,000 years ago had no use for calculus.

We have pretty much the same Stone Age brain and, with effort, we can understand calculus. And physics. And chemistry. And economics, math, literature, and other complicated topics for which primitive man had no use. These particular skills couldn’t have been selected by evolution.

As Einstein observed, “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.”

The Christian has a ready answer: God did it. Our brains are able to understand the universe because we’re made in God’s image, and he wants us to understand.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2014/01/why-is-the-universe-comprehensible/

[edhopper]

1. The writer

does not comprehend evolution.

And no I won't explain that, anyone with the slightest understanding of evolution can see the logical and scientific fallacies throughout.

[rug]

4. He is an MIT grad trained in computers.

About

This blog explores intellectual arguments in favor of Christianity (Christian apologetics) from an atheist perspective and critiques Christianity’s actions in society. I began writing it in August, 2011.

About the Author

After graduating from MIT in 1980, I designed digital hardware, about which I wrote my first book, The Well-Tempered Digital Design (Addison-Wesley, 1986). I have programmed in a dozen computer languages and in environments ranging from punch cards, to one of the first windowing environments, to MS-DOS, to Windows (starting with version 1.0). I am a co-contributor to 14 software patents and have worked at a number of technology companies from a 10-person startup to Microsoft and IBM.

Since leaving Microsoft, I have focused on writing. Future Hype: The Myths of Technology Change (Berrett-Koehler, 2006) explored technology change—how we see it and how it really works. My novel, Cross Examined: An Unconventional Spiritual Journey, is available as paperback or ebook. I wrote a bit about my own journey from faith in my “Post #1.”

I live in the Seattle area. Please contact me with feedback about this blog or the book and suggestions for new posts at crossexaminedblog AT gmail DOT com. Would you like to write a guest post? Contact me about that, too.

Bob Seidensticker

[edhopper]

6. I reread it

he does explain why general inherited traits can be used for purposes other than in the environment they evolved in.

I don't know what that has to do with his final observation.

Or his God of the Gaps argument about our brains. In fact it's not even a God of the gaps. Evolution explains why we comprehend things quite well without the need for God to be brought in. So the essay is rather useless.

[rug]

7. His blog is focused on rebutting Christian apologetics.

Here, he's taken one, human consciousness and understanding as echoes of "the image of God", and examines it.

It's an interesting topic but, as far as rebuttals go, it falls flat.

[edhopper]

10. Thanks

I probably read it to quickly at first.

[Jim__]

2. He doesn't really address why the universe is comprehensible.

His article seems to be more about why do we have general purpose brains - which he does address fairly well. I do agree with his conclusion that there may be many aspects of the universe that our brains are incapable of understanding.

[rug]

3. No he doesn't.

He concludes that, in the end, it isn't.

But is the universe comprehensible?

Before we congratulate ourselves too much on how much we can understand, keep in mind that we understand only what we’re capable of understanding. There could be enormous reservoirs of scientific fact that we’re inherently unable to perceive, let alone understand, because of our limited brains—like a red-green color distinction to a color blind person or a joke to a lizard.

The part of the universe that we comprehend isn’t that surprising, and much of what we don’t comprehend may be forever beyond our grasp.

[AtheistCrusader]

12. Colorblind people are capable of discovering light frequencies.

This is silly limiting drivel you have quoted.

[WovenGems]

16. Got it in one

You use one science to understand another. The writer fails to understand that we humans learn from one another. The students of today will use what is learned today to further understanding when they grow up. And the ball keeps rolling.

[rug]

20. So, do you believe all will be comprehended by humans?

[WovenGems]

24. Yep

So long as it isn't magic based.

[rug]

32. That's a very hopeful belief.

[Jim__]

52. Touché!

[AtheistCrusader]

40. Potentially.

On the scope and scale of something as vast and old as the universe itself, I think the potential for determinism is there, BUT, in order to model the universe, to a degree that might make determinism possible, pretty quickly you are going to run head first into a problem;

The more factors you include in your index/model, the closer your model becomes to the complexities of the real thing. Meaning the index becomes useless. You would have to create a universe on some level, to accurately model the universe.

But I see no reason to doubt everything is comprehensible, even if we never achieve the full extent of discovery that would allow for a state like determinism to become a real thing. On a long enough timeline, I flat out assume it will be, but one never knows the endurance of our species.

[rug]

19. Can they see color?

I think your dissatisfaction with this article may be blinding you.

[Humanist_Activist]

31. That's not the issue, we can't see the entire electromagnetic spectrum, only a small part of it...

yet we can build tools that can detect those sections of the spectrum, whether that spectrum is Gamma Rays or the color Green.

[rug]

33. So, do you also believe all will be comprehended by humans?

[Humanist_Activist]

34. Depends on what you mean by "comprehended"...

First off, everything that we interact with directly, and is part of our day to day lives isn't beyond comprehension, examples of which would be chemistry, classical physics, biology, geology, etc.

Where we have difficulty in comprehension is in things that are completely counterintuitive to our experience, and we cannot, due to physical or sensory limitations, directly experience. The most obvious example of this at the subatomic to Planck level, quantum physics, etc.

We are, ultimately tool users, so where we come up short, in body or brain, we build tools to expand from those, and this is as true of the brain as of the body. From written language up to computers, all have been used to find ways to expand our knowledge and our comprehension and understanding of the world. We can transfer knowledge, already distilled, so to speak, to the next generation, so they can further build upon and distill it further for accuracy, so each generation doesn't start from scratch.

We develop mental shortcuts for things that are counterintuitive, such as the uncertainty principle, and we use computers to model everything from the behavior of quarks to the structure of the entire universe, because our brains simply aren't capable of doing so. But being able to visualize it, to draw analogies and comparisons, is what our brains do best, so we learn, and yes, even begin the understand what would have been called the incomprehensible.

The question is, how flexible can our brains be? Also how much further can we use technology to complement and expand our capabilities? To be honest, I'm not sure, but there is one thing I am sure of, we should never use any perceived limitations as an excuse to stop trying to comprehend what is currently unknown.

[eomer]

35. Gravity? n/t

[Humanist_Activist]

36. Is a well understood phenomenon, we have been able to measure its strength...

at least Earth's gravitational strength since the 1700s, and have refined and supplemented Newton since then over a hundred years ago. There may be more we have yet to discover about gravity, but it certainly isn't incomprehensible, and we can even directly observe its effects.

[eomer]

37. That's a pretty low bar.

I don't think that measuring an effect is enough to say we comprehend it. Especially when you throw in the fact we can measure effect that has no apparent mass that is causing what we measure.

[Humanist_Activist]

38. If you are talking about dark matter, I did say there are unknowns, that doesn't mean its..

incomprehensible, and that "low bar" you talk about is actually the highest means for us to know anything, we measure it, observe it, construct a hypothesis around it, test the hypothesis, if its accurate and matches the data we have gathered so far, and is useful in constructing models and making predictions, then it becomes a theory.

[eomer]

42. I don't think we've figured out what causes gravity, have we?

A particle has been suggested, a graviton, but no such particle has yet been detected. I don't really know much about this subject but was under the impression that we don't know what causes gravity, how it works.

I take your point about the highest means for us to know anything, but would say that that actually is an argument for our not comprehending things rather than for comprehending them. I don't think I agree that we know gravity as well as we know many other things but I would say that all the other things we might know better, we still don't know them well enough to say we comprehend them; that would be hubris. At one time we thought we knew that space was Euclidean, independent of time. We thought we comprehended it. We didn't, not really. In my opinion we should assume that all the things we sort of comprehend, we don't, not really.

I'm not sure this is in disagreement with you, maybe you see this more or less the same. And hopefully we won't confuse a difference of semantics for a difference of more substance. Let's be clear whether we're talking about the definition of "comprehend" or something else.

[edhopper]

44. But if a mechanism for gravity was discovered

we could comprehend it, right?
This is the crux of things IMO. I say we are capable of comprehending the way the Universe works, we might never get all the information and theoretical basis to do so, no one can predict how science will advance. But I don't think it is incomprehensible. Physicist had no problem understanding relativity after Einstein, it just took the right mind with enough knowledge from those before him to work it out. It's about what we don't know yet.

[eomer]

45. I think we agree, except that I would emphasize that we comprehend "up to a point".

Physicists had no problem understanding relativity but they also know that it's not yet completely correct. A foundation of science is that whatever we think we know is always understood to be provisional, that there's always the strong possibility, practically the certainty, that our understanding is incomplete and flawed in some way. I assume you agree with the above and we're, as I feared, just using different definitions for the word. So we do comprehend these things the way you'd like to use the word, we don't comprehend these things the way I'm using the word. But leaving the word aside, you do agree, don't you, that what we know about many things in the physical world is incomplete and flawed?

[edhopper]

46. I am referring to the OP where it says

"The part of the universe that we comprehend isn’t that surprising, and much of what we don’t comprehend may be forever beyond our grasp."

And an ensueing discussion here that some things may be incomprehensible to us.

So I am not saying we comprehend everything or ever will, but that we are capable of it. It's a future tense thing.

In fact the understanding that the Universe is a place that works from physical laws rather than some supernatural entity or mythical agent could be said to be the major paradigm to our understanding.

[eomer]

47. Fair enough, but I think we're inherently incapable of comprehending.

I think we can construct theoretical models that serve some useful purpose but that to call this "comprehending" is misleading. We will never know, will never have any way of knowing, whether any particular useful model is a gross simplification of a more complicated reality or even a grossly mistaken understanding that just happens to seem to work because it turns out (if we could know it) that the aspects we can observe are a severely limited view of a much greater and more complicated reality. I still think that thinking we comprehend things is hubris.

[edhopper]

49. As you said

depends on your meaning of comprehension.

[Humanist_Activist]

55. Gravity is a curvature of spacetime caused by the presence of mass in the Universe...

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/gravity.html

I already explained how we understand it today, it could be wrong, but so far, the theory matches our observations, may need tweaking in the future.

[eomer]

57. If you ask me that explanation doesn't go very far, but what do I know.

So it's a curvature of space that causes an object to fall toward another object. But what the heck does that mean? How does a curvature of space cause anything to fall, by what mechanism?

This seems more a way to predict the effect of gravity than it is a revealing of the mechanism by which it works.

[edhopper]

58. because you are thinking 3 dimensionally

and not relativistically.

[eomer]

59. I see, thanks. But I don't think top relativity scientists think they've explained gravity.

Not from what I read when I do searches on it. But I could be mistaken, certainly don't understand it (all of it not just about gravity) myself.

[Humanist_Activist]

60. So because you don't understand it, no one does?

I believe that is a very basic logical fallacy. And the other poster is right, you aren't thinking relativistically, or as Doc Brown would say, 4th dimensionally.

[eomer]

65. No, that's the opposite of what I said.

What I said was that apparently the top experts in relativity do no believe they have fully explained gravity.

Here's some recent stuff from Stephen Hawking:

Hawking told the journal Nature: 'There is no escape from a black hole in classical theory. [But quantum theory] enables energy and information to escape from a black hole'.

A full explanation of the process, Hawking admits, would require a theory that successfully merges gravity with the other fundamental forces of nature.

However, that is a goal that has eluded physicists for nearly a century.

'The correct treatment,' Hawking told Nature, 'remains a mystery.'

The professor’s grey hole theory would allow matter and energy to be held for a period of time before being released back into space.
Hawking’s latest work was prompted by a talk he gave via Skype to a meeting at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, California, in August 2013.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2545552/Stephen-Hawking-admits-no-black-holes-GREY-holes.html#ixzz2sOJ11AHa

[AtheistCrusader]

70. Remains a mystery.

However, note he didn't say it will be impossible for us to discover, or even test a solution.

We don't know yet. Now. He would never tell you that we *can't* discover it.

[edhopper]

62. Not completely

and i was being a little tongue in cheek. but as i said it's not something we won't be able to understand.

[eomer]

66. We disagree, that's cool.

You think we will eventually be able to fully explain everything; I remain unconvinced.

Time will tell (well, actually it won't, in my opinion).

[edhopper]

69. I don't know if we will be able to explain everything

but I do think everything is explainable. If you catch my drift.

[eomer]

73. Yes, I do catch your drift. That's a great distinction.

I think I agree that everything is explainable.

[AtheistCrusader]

39. I can't see xrays.

I can use them, test them, understand them.

Different people can see further than others into the infrared, but we are all capable of using them, learning about them, etc.

[eomer]

43. Like visible light, you understand them only up to a point.

There are aspects of light that we don't understand, things it does that we have no explanation for.

In my opinion we don't comprehend light. We only get so far as to comprehend some model that resembles light in some useful ways.

[AtheistCrusader]

53. I disagree with your use of 'comprehend'.

But this is just going to lead us in a big circle.

I maintain, I do not need the ability to see something or view it directly to comprehend it.

Quantum electrodynamics cannot be seen by humans. Doesn't matter. We are building a body of understanding that will lead to full comprehension at some point. We don't 'comprehend' it yet, but we can already make certain repeatable working predictions based on things we have learned. At some point that body of knowledge will become 'comprehension', and direct sight is not required.


Edit: Moreover there are things that we CAN see that we completely mis-understand. Sight does not directly lend itself to, require, or automatically provide 'comprehension'.

[eomer]

54. That's cool, not meaning to insist on that particular definition.

I agree, of course, with your points about the relationship between seeing and comprehending.

Where we differ is that I don't agree we can ever reach a point where we fully understand or especially that we can ever reach a point where we know we fully understand. That's clearly impossible, I would say.

There are examples of the best minds of the day thinking they knew something and being seriously mistaken. Prior to some experiments measuring the speed of light, the best scientists of the day thought that space was strictly euclidean and that time marched evenly throughout the universe. A new way of observing revealed that to be impossible. There will be more things that our scientists think they know but will turn out to be impossible. And that possibility will always exist - there will never be a way to ensure that we're not misunderstanding things seriously.

So my point isn't mainly about the definition of "comprehend". It's that our understanding of things will always be, so far as we can tell, most likely partial and potentially mistaken.

[Humanist_Activist]

61. Can you give an example of what we don't understand about the...

Electro-Magnetic spectrum?

[eomer]

64. Was thinking, from memory, that the double-slit experiment wasn't fully explained.

From a quick search I believe that is correct. For example, check the multiple possible explanations at the bottom of this Wikipedia article in the "Interpretations of the experiment" section:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment

But again, I by no means have expertise in this stuff so maybe someone who does could give a better explanation.

[Humanist_Activist]

75. But is that something we can never understand? You are placing limits, artificial ones at that...

on our abilities. We don't know everything now, if we did, science would stop. But that doesn't mean that these are things that are impossible for us to know, its seems rather presumptuous to assume that we aren't capable of figuring things out, given enough time and discovery.

[eomer]

79. I think the distinction that edhopper made is really helpful.

I would probably agree (hedging only slightly) that everything is explainable. But I'm skeptical that humans can ever figure out the correct and full explanation of everything. It's possible, as far as I can figure, that there are phenomena that exist that we will never, ever have any possibility of observing, out in the vast immensity of the universe.

[Jim__]

67. He wasn't making a point about differentiating light frequencies.

He was making a point about perception:

There could be enormous reservoirs of scientific fact that we’re inherently unable to perceive, let alone understand, because of our limited brains—like a red-green color distinction to a color blind person or a joke to a lizard.

Although our perception of color is based on differential sensory reception of frequencies of electromagnetic radiation, perception of color is not identical to differentiating frequencies of electromagnetic radiation.

[AtheistCrusader]

68. It isn't, true, but that is not required to

comprehend, or understand a thing. We can perceive an xray by detecting it's passage in various ways, without ever directly perceiving it with our eyes, which of course cannot hope to 'see' such a frequency.

It was a self-limiting rhetorical argument, and it is invalid.

[Jim__]

71. You can give a person a meter that tells him a particular object is reflecting light ...

... at about 550μm.

You can tell him that this light is called "green." However, you can't get him to fully comprehend a conversation of the contrast between a red carpet and a green wall. If he can't perceive green, then the color green is beyond his comprehension.

[AtheistCrusader]

72. Butterflies can see more colors than we can, by the nature of their eyes.

I don't need to be a butterfly to understand that. No moreso than I need to be a radio to comprehend the function of a radio wave. They can 'see' ultraviolet. Ok. I can test for, observe the effects of, and even protect myself from the same.

We 'understand' or 'comprehend' it fine, even though the only way we can perceive it is via 'sunburn'.

[Jim__]

74. My example was of a conversation contrasting 2 colors. You didn't address the conversation at all.

If you can't perceive one of those colors, you can't fully comprehend the conversation. That's part of comprehending the universe. Note that his other analogy was of a lizard not understanding a joke. In that case, the lizard may well be able to hear the sound; but it is unable to perceive the words, never mind the get the joke. His point was about perception. Proclaiming that to be invalid does not constitute an argument.

Talking about what you can know about what a butterfly can see, does not address its perception of the world.

[AtheistCrusader]

80. But we CAN comprehend the conversation.

And I just took your example one step further to contrasting with a color that NO human can see.

For fuck's sake, the scientist that discovered the nature of the swallow-tail butterfly's remarkable ability to perceive colors we cannot, is himself mostly red-colorblind.

He devised tests to empirically show what they can and cannot see, from within the eye structure and without on animal behavior.

We CAN comprehend the 'conversation' in this context. Where we cannot with our own sensory powers, we often devise tests and even machines to gather the data for us, since our perceptive powers are in some cases more limited than the subject phenomena at hand.

We don't need to be able to see ultraviolet with our own eyes, to comprehend how and what a swallow-tail butterfly can see. We can even devise machines that will see it for us, and interpolate that information into spectra we CAN see.

We can see HOW they see with their multi-faceted eyes, we can see how their facets have pigment filtering that works much like colored sunglasses work for us. Yes, at some point we CAN say we understand the 'conversation' when we can see what the butterfly sees, even if we cannot 'see' the light itself with our own eyes.

Also, we discover amazing things about the cognitive powers of animals all the time, so I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss that lizard, just because you don't know how to communicate with it.


Edit: Flip the problem. If we can't communicate holes in perception, how can colorblind people express to us to this level of detail, various forms of colorblindness, if they don't even know what they are missing? Therein lies your answer.

[Jim__]

81. You're confusing the reaction of sensory receptors with perception.

Yes, we can know what wavelengths of light a butterfly's cones react to. We don't know what they perceive. The reaction of sensory receptors is only the first step in perception. We perceive color. Is electromagnetic radiation colorful? Or is color an attribute of our perception?

As far as comprehending the conversation, a person who cannot perceive green, can be taught to properly use green in a conversation and under certain conditions understand another person's use of the term. My example was of how green contrasts with red. That is a perceptual issue, and if you can't perceive green, you can't give an honest opinon about it.

As to how color blind people can tell us what colors they can't perceive; it's a simple test. You can test their ability to distinguish various background colors against various foreground colors. For single colors, just use flash cards and ask them to label the colors; they will confuse some of the colors. An example of testing a foreground against a background:

Also, we discover amazing things about the cognitive powers of animals all the time, so I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss that lizard, just because you don't know how to communicate with it.

Seriously? You're going to contest his assertion that a lizard can't understand a joke?

[AtheistCrusader]

82. Not at all, I'm familiar with the tests.

I've taken them all in the course of figuring out why the fuck I have trouble reading white letters on green backgrounds, on important stuff like... street signs.

Look, we are on the verge of a VAST array of different optical implant technologies taking hold. There is no reason to think the human brain is incapable of interpreting this data. All colorblindness conditions I am aware of take place in the sensory unit of the eye. We're going to bypass that. Deliver signals directly to the brain. Do you think that a person, colorblind from birth, won't be able to perceive those signals, and 'see' the colors they've always been missing?

I hope you don't think that, because that would seem as bizarre to me as thinking that a person who was deaf from birth couldn't possibly 'hear' with a cochlear implant.

There are certainly limitations to our sensory equipment. But our ability to perceive can be augmented, considerably.




As to the lizard, perhaps you just aren't very funny?

[Jim__]

84. You say, "Not at all," but do you understand that knowing the information that goes into a ...

... butterfly's visual system does not tell us how a butterfly visually perceives the world? Seidensticker is talking about perception. Your whole sidetrack about a butterfly's visual receptors is beside the point.

Look, we are on the verge of a VAST array of different optical implant technologies taking hold. There is no reason to think the human brain is incapable of interpreting this data. All colorblindness conditions I am aware of take place in the sensory unit of the eye. We're going to bypass that. Deliver signals directly to the brain. ...

Yes, our technology is making great strides. However, that was not you original claim (from post #12):

Colorblind people are capable of discovering light frequencies.

This is silly limiting drivel you have quoted.

As I stated in post #67, discovering light frequencies and perceiving color are different things. And, as you just stated, we are on the verge of discoveries. However, on the verge implies in the future, not at present. Seidensticker's point about perception remains valid. And, of course, he's suggesting a progression by beginning with an example of a sense receptor within a species and the perceptual issues introduced by an imperfection in that receptor and continuing the point by giving an example of a species with a primitive version of a sensory receptor and the complete inability of this primitive version of that receptor to map to later enhanced perception based on it.

His larger point is on the environmental selection pressures that led to our current brain and how this evolutionary process helps to explain both the things we can grasp fully and the things we find more difficult:

... We’re comfortable with the everyday physics we see around us—gravity, buoyancy, air pressure, centrifugal force, and so on. But we live in a medium world, and the world of the tiny (cells, atoms, quantum physics) and the enormous (galaxies, black holes, the universe) are described by science that is well validated but often violates our common sense. ...

So, our brains have evolved to comprehend those parts of the universe that map readily to our historical experience, less able to comprehend those things that have been outside of our experience. Our brains also perceive the world with perceptual mechanisms that do not, or at least may not, map directly to aspects of the external world, for instance, color. It is reasonable to project that if there is other intelligent life in the universe, possibly on a planet with an environment very different from earth, that intelligent life may have both sensory receptors and perceptual mechanisms that are beyond our experience and our comprehension. Seidensticker states that this could be the case, a reasonable conclusion.

[AtheistCrusader]

86. No, no no.

"And, as you just stated, we are on the verge of discoveries. However, on the verge implies in the future, not at present."

Not discoveries. Widespread FDA approval/installation in humans. The discoveries are already made. One device is already approved, actually. Off the shelf.

"As I stated in post #67, discovering light frequencies and perceiving color are different things."

The initial claims upthread were about comprehension. 'perceiving' color is just one component of that. My statement stands, but I can revise it, especially since it directly supports my point, even in the context that you are objecting: Colorblind people are capable of discovering the mechanical function of phenomena in the universe that they themselves cannot directly perceive.

The red-colorblind guy that discovered the staggering capabilities of the butterfly eye that I mentioned earlier, case point. He can't see red, or mostly cannot see red, he doesn't expound on it. Yet, he was able to tease out the workings of an eye that not only sees mostly in pigments he can't see, but sees colors/frequencies his SPECIES isn't capable of seeing.

I don't think Seidensticker's conclusion is reasonable at all. We've already exceeded the bounds he suggests, for instance, with that one conundrum on butterflies.

"But we live in a medium world, and the world of the tiny (cells, atoms, quantum physics) and the enormous (galaxies, black holes, the universe) are described by science that is well validated but often violates our common sense. ..."

And yet we comprehend it anyway. There are certainly things as-yet undiscovered, but that doesn't mean we CAN'T discover it. Hell, just in the last 12 years we mapped the CMB, so we could start real work on figuring out of the universe is open, closed, or flat. Something we can't even see. Something that in a couple billion years we wouldn't even have the opportunity to detect.

[Jim__]

87. Yes, yes, yes.

Not discoveries. Widespread FDA approval/installation in humans. The discoveries are already made. One device is already approved, actually. Off the shelf.

Do you have a link for this?

First of all, yes we are on the verge of discoveries, even if that is not what you stated; we are making discoveries all the time. And, yes, if the devices have not yet been implanted in people, then color blind people, at least the general population of color blind people are not yet capable of perceiving certain colors. And, if they haven't been implanted yet, we can't be sure that they work.

Let's assume they have been implanted and they do work - they are giving people the ability to distinguish colors they couldn't previously distinguish. Do we know if the color they are perceiving is close to other people's perception of this color? If we can comprehend perception, validating this should be easy. Can you tell me if this has been validated, and if so, how? Note that the proper label doesn't indicate that they are actually perceiving the same thing as other people.

The initial claims upthread were about comprehension. 'perceiving' color is just one component of that. My statement stands, but I can revise it, especially since it directly supports my point, even in the context that you are objecting: Colorblind people are capable of discovering the mechanical function of phenomena in the universe that they themselves cannot directly perceive.

Yes, you can correct your statement, but the new statement is no longer pertinent to Seidensticker's argument. Seidensticker specifically uses perception as his example. Your statement is no longer relevant.

The red-colorblind guy that discovered the staggering capabilities of the butterfly eye that I mentioned earlier, case point. He can't see red, or mostly cannot see red, he doesn't expound on it. Yet, he was able to tease out the workings of an eye that not only sees mostly in pigments he can't see, but sees colors/frequencies his SPECIES isn't capable of seeing.

Do you have a link for this? I realize that we know butterflies can see into the ultraviolet - so can some other insects, e.g. bees, but, I would like to read up on specifically what you're referencing.

Without a link, your text demonstrates confusion. Yes, we can understand how a receptor works. For instance, we can know what wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation a cone responds to. That is not the same as knowing what the organism that contains that receptor perceives. A butterfly's cones responds to electromagnetic radiation. Does a butterfly perceive color? Color is how the human visual system perceives electromagnetic radiation. Does a butterfly perceive it the same way? Simplistically, when a cone responds to electromagnetic radiation, it potentially triggers responses through specific neural networks. Where does color enter into the picture? We know that it's there for humans. We know that butterfly receptors respond to electromagnetic radiation. We do not know whether or not a butterfly perceives color.

But we live in a medium world, and the world of the tiny (cells, atoms, quantum physics) and the enormous (galaxies, black holes, the universe) are described by science that is well validated but often violates our common sense. ...

And yet we comprehend it anyway.

No. If you comprehend what a butterfly perceives, what its visual world looks like, then describe it. And describe how that visual world arises via communication through a neural network.

Yes, we comprehend a lot. Seidensticker's examples had to do with perception. You've only tried to deal with the simplest example. The second example about a lizard comprehending a joke, could be analogous to our trying to grasp the percptual world of an extraterrestrial intelligence. You still seem to be completely missing Seidensticker's point; or by amending your statement, you are no longer even attempting to address his point.

[AtheistCrusader]

88. And that is why I called the claim *silly limiting drivel*.

"Yes, you can correct your statement, but the new statement is no longer pertinent to Seidensticker's argument. Seidensticker specifically uses perception as his example. Your statement is no longer relevant. "

Try and keep up.

Substitute 'arbitrary' for 'silly' if you want.

Limiting the argument to our organic perception excludes any mechanical augmentation we can devise that could enhance our ability to observe/perceive anything. Something we do all the time. We can't 'see' ionizing radiation. Not beyond a secondary effect when the source material is immersed in water. (Cherenkov radiation, the 'blue' glow in water for reactors) YET we can devise all sorts of things that helped us discover the nature of, and comprehend, to a staggering degree, those particles we cannot directly perceive.

*direct* perception is not required to perceive something accurately. It's an arbitrary limit Seidensticker tried to use.

When we display it so we can see it, we convert the light into a different wavelength, that we can see, but we have machines that can 'read' what the UV light a butterfly can perceive to reveal to us the signals/patterns it can see. We don't have to perceive it as the butterfly does, to comprehend it. It's a false argument to construct that as a requirement to comprehend the nature of the universe.

Currently approved prosthesis:
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm339824.htm

There are dozens more awaiting approval, most with higher levels of perception. It is reasonable to assume that at some point, these implants will outstrip our organic, perfectly healthy eye in capability. We can get signals into the retina. We can extract live video FROM the optic nerve, the opposite will be true soon enough that it will probably disturb people.

As for the lizard, I found the comparison amusing. Your own comment on the leaps and bounds beyond our evolutionary next of kin we are able to process actually shows what a pointless comparison it is. The concept that something in the universe may be literally beyond our capability to comprehend is a philosophical foil only, a useful one, and something worth keeping in mind, but not a problem we are encountering as yet.

[Jim__]

89. You can call it anything you want, what you're doing is demonstrating your ignorance.

Try and keep up.

You're not going anywhere, there's nothing to keep up with.

Substitute 'arbitrary' for 'silly' if you want.

Limiting the argument to our organic perception excludes any mechanical augmentation we can devise that could enhance our ability to observe/perceive anything. ...

The limitation to the argument is established by what Seidensticker said or implied in the paper. That does not put any
limitation on the value of any discoveries by humans. However, arguing points outside the scope of Seidensticker's statements
cannot rebut what he said. These disccoveries are valuable, they are just not pertinent to the discussion.

*direct* perception is not required to perceive something accurately. It's an arbitrary limit Seidensticker
tried to use.

It's not a limit he put on anything. The examples he used concerned perception. Perception is a valid area of inquiry; and if we
hope to comprehend everything in the universe, that has to include perception. People perceive things. For instance, visually we perceive color. If we can't understand how that happens, if we don't know how people perceive color, then we don't comprehend everything in the universe.

When we display it so we can see it, we convert the light into a different wavelength, that we can see, but
we have machines that can 'read' what the UV light a butterfly can perceive to reveal to us the signals/patterns it can see. We
don't have to perceive it as the butterfly does, to comprehend it. It's a false argument to construct that as a requirement to
comprehend the nature of the universe.

Not knowing what a butterfly's world looks like to the butterfly means that we don't know how the butterfly's visual perception works. Thsat would be a part of the universe that we can't comprehend - Seidensticker's point.

Currently approved prosthesis:
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm339824.htm

Yes, and from the link:

... System will not restore vision to patients, it may allow them to detect light and dark in the environment, aiding them in identifying the location or movement of objects or people.

...

We were discussing a device that allowed people to perceive colors they could not formerly perceive. This device does nothing of the kind. Please don't try arguing that the ability to distinguish between white, grey, and black socks is color perception. It's the perception of light and dark, not color. We were talking about color blind people being able to distinguish color, as in:

Colorblind people are capable of discovering light frequencies.

So, based on the link you presented, you were just bullshitting.

As for the lizard, I found the comparison amusing. Your own comment on the leaps and bounds beyond our evolutionary next of kin we are able to process actually shows what a pointless comparison it is. The concept that something in the universe may be literally beyond our capability to comprehend is a philosophical foil only, a useful one, and something worth keeping in mind, but not a problem we are encountering as yet.

Once again, all you're demonstrating is that you didn't follow Seidensticker's article.

[AtheistCrusader]

90. He didn't just say 'perceive' he also said 'let alone understand'.

He also threw out the colorblind example.

I've given you the name of the red-colorblind professor that is perfectly capable of discovering and understanding how a swallow-tail butterfly can see red, that it DOES see red, and colors NO human can see as well, and PROVE That he understands it by devising empirical tests by which we can VERIFY that the butterfly can indeed see what he surmised. You see, the optical capabilities of the butterfly in question actually allow for 6 color differentiation, but the butterfly actually only responds to 4 (One more than our 3).

"There could be enormous reservoirs of scientific fact that we’re inherently unable to perceive, let alone understand, because of our limited brains—like a red-green color distinction to a color blind person or a joke to a lizard."

Arikawa understands how the butterfly sees not just mostly in red pigment, but sees UV colors that NO HUMAN CAN SEE without augmentation and interpretation.

Seidensticker's example is flawed from the get-go.


I AGREE it may be possible that something out there might be utterly incomprehensible to us. We haven't found any such thing yet, and I see no reason to ASSUME that is true, just that it might be a possibility. The examples he gave were horseshit.

"We were discussing a device that allowed people to perceive colors they could not formerly perceive. This device does nothing of the kind. Please don't try arguing that the ability to distinguish between white, grey, and black socks is color perception."

Are you fucking kidding me. THE POINT is that we are developing the tech to hook directly into the nervous system and deliver signals that the eye in question COULD NOT PREVIOUSLY perceive. The difference between light and no light is more fundamental, and a much starker contrast, than the color frequency difference between red and green. Yet, we have a device that can overcome that. Right now FDA approved. More are on the way. I cited that one because it's FDA approved, and available. There are more that DO distinguish between colors/color perception, and a implant for rats that can see near-infrared, if you could be bothered to fucking LOOK at the field at all, maybe just maybe you could be bothered to do a simple search like 'color retina implant'.

http://www.photonics.com/Article.aspx?AID=51259

"“Second Sight uses RF telemetry to power and transmit data to an array of 60 electrodes over several square millimeters in their Argus II device,” Loudin said. “We have proven the functionality of single pixels as small as 70 µm, with pixel densities of up to 178 pixels per square millimeter. The Retinal Implant AG device has similarly high resolution but requires additional implanted hardware to power it.”

The advantages of Stanford’s approach, Loudin said, are “its high pixel density, easy scalability and lack of separate, bulky power-receiving hardware, which makes surgical implantation easier and thus reduces the risk of complications.”

The researchers tested the effectiveness of the implants in the retinas of both blind and normal rats. The retinal ganglion cells of treated normal rats were responsive to stimulation by plain visible light as well as to the near-infrared, which showed that the implants were responsive to nonvisible light. In the blind rats, the scientists observed that visible wavelengths generated very little ganglion response, whereas the near-infrared caused spikes in the rats’ neural activity similar to those in normal rats. The blind rats, however, needed significantly more infrared light to achieve the same activity levels as in normal rats.

Although these technologies induce color perception in patients, this perception is difficult to predict and control, Loudin said. These electrically stimulated percepts enable patients to see a variety of colors, including yellow, blue, red and white."



"So, based on the link you presented, you were just bullshitting. "
No, I wasn't bullshitting, I was trying to simplify the argument to the United States FDA approved example so you could grasp it, as light/no light is a bigger deal and much more fundamental than color frequency. Because you are quite obviously not getting it, and clearly not interested in putting a three word fucking query into the nearest search engine. I spoon feed you specifics, and you bitch about minutiae. I give you simpler, broader generalizations and you bitch about that too. I can see exactly what you are up to.

"Once again, all you're demonstrating is that you didn't follow Seidensticker's article."

Someone didn't, that's for sure.

[Jim__]

91. Once again, either you don't understand or you're pretending not to understand.

Last edited Fri Feb 7, 2014, 08:08 AM - Edit history (2)

I've given you the name of the red-colorblind professor that is perfectly capable of discovering and understanding how a swallow-tail butterfly can see red, that it DOES see red, and colors NO human can see as well, and PROVE That he understands it by devising empirical tests by which we can VERIFY that the butterfly can indeed see what he surmised.

You gave me the name Arikawa in post #90, the same post where you just claimed: I've given you the name of the red-colorblind professor that is perfectly capable of discovering and understanding how a swallow-tail butterfly can see red, that it DOES see red, and colors NO human can see as well, and PROVE That he understands it by devising empirical tests by which we can VERIFY that the butterfly can indeed see what he surmised.

In what post prior to #90. I don't see you giving that name in any previous post in this subthread.

Please tell me how the professor can demonstrate that the butterfly can perceive the color red, the color, not that its receptor is stimulated by, say 630nm electromagnetic radiation, but that the butterfly perceives color. Test like:

This paper demonstrates that foraging summer-form females of the Japanese yellow swallowtail butterfly Papilio xuthus have colour vision. The butterflies were trained to feed on sucrose solution placed on a disk of a particular colour in a cage set in the laboratory. After a few such training runs, a butterfly was presented with the training colour randomly positioned within an array of disks of other colours, but with no sucrose solution. The results indicate that the butterflies learn rapidly to select the training colour reliably among different colours. The training colour was also correctly selected when it was covered with neutral density filters to reduce its brightness, or even when the colour was presented together with disks of a variety of shades of grey. These results demonstrate convincingly, for the first time, that a butterfly has true colour vision.

demonstrate a differential response to electromagnetic (EM) radiation. This is a form of a stimulus response experiment where the subject responds to the EM. I know the butterfly's receptors react differentially to different wavelengths of EM. Human cones respond differentially to different wavelengths of EM, but we have an experience of color, we live in a world of color. Where in our perceptual process, where in our neural networks, does the response to EM become color? Is there such a place in the butterfly's visual system? Are the butterfly's neural networks involved in this response purely computational, or is there a part of the network that accesses qualitative colors? Do butterfly's experience the same red that humans do? How do you know? If you don't know that, then there is part of the butterfly's visual system that you don't understand - I used that rather than comprehend since you seem so concerned about it.

He didn't just say 'perceive' he also said 'let alone understand'. He also threw out the colorblind example. [/div ]

Yes indeed he did. One reason could be that while humans can perceive color (not just differentiate EM but see color) and no one understands how that happens.

We were discussing a device that allowed people to perceive colors they could not formerly perceive. This device does nothing of the kind. Please don't try arguing that the ability to distinguish between white, grey, and black socks is color perception.

Are you fucking kidding me. THE POINT is that we are developing the tech to hook directly into the nervous system and deliver signals that the eye in question COULD NOT PREVIOUSLY perceive. The difference between light and no light is more fundamental, and a much starker contrast, than the color frequency difference between red and green. Yet, we have a device that can overcome that. Right now FDA approved. More are on the way. I cited that one because it's FDA approved, and available. There are more that DO distinguish between colors/color perception, and a implant for rats that can see near-infrared, if you could be bothered to fucking LOOK at the field at all, maybe just maybe you could be bothered to do a simple search like 'color retina implant'.

No, I'm not fucking kidding you. You claimed such a device existed. I said it's in the future, not now. You claimed I was wrong. According to the article you just cited, I wasn't:

From your post #82: Look, we are on the verge of a VAST array of different optical implant technologies taking hold. There is no reason to think the human brain is incapable of interpreting this data. All colorblindness conditions I am aware of take place in the sensory unit of the eye. We're going to bypass that.

And from my post #84: As I stated in post #67, discovering light frequencies and perceiving color are different things. And, as you just stated, we are on the verge of discoveries. However, on the verge implies in the future, not at present. Seidensticker's point about perception remains valid.

Then your post #86: Not discoveries. Widespread FDA approval/installation in humans. The discoveries are already made. One device is already approved, actually. Off the shelf.

And, from the article on color detection that you cited:

Although these technologies induce color perception in patients, this perception is difficult to predict and control, Loudin said. These electrically stimulated percepts enable patients to see a variety of colors, including yellow, blue, red and white.

“A device with precise, predictable spatial control of the color of these percepts across many patients is many years off. ”

So, by the article you cited, these devices are years off. Also note that they don't mention green which is part of the precise type of color blindness that Seidensticker mentioned: There could be enormous reservoirs of scientific fact that we’re inherently unable to perceive, let alone understand, because of our limited brains—like a red-green color distinction to a color blind person or a joke to a lizard. So, Seidensticker may have had good reason for what he said.

... Because you are quite obviously not getting it, and clearly not interested in putting a three word fucking query into the nearest search engine. I spoon feed you specifics, and you bitch about minutiae. I give you simpler, broader generalizations and you bitch about that too. I can see exactly what you are up to.

I didn't start bitching about miniutiae. You're the one that took issue with me saying this is in the future. You claimed it's here, now. But, the article you cited explicitly state that it's years in the future.

What these devices do, of course, is mimic sensory receptors and then tap into the existing visual networks. An awesome accomplishment. But, it doesn't begin to approach the complexity of the existing visual networks. As I said back in post #81: The reaction of sensory receptors is only the first step in perception. Yes, it's awesome that we can tap into that first step. But, again, we get to the lizard. It has an existing perceptual mechanism to hear sound; but it does not have any mechanism for understanding words or grammar. We have nothing to tap into there. We don't yet have any way to approach that problem .

I AGREE it may be possible that something out there might be utterly incomprehensible to us. We haven't found any such thing yet, and I see no reason to ASSUME that is true, just that it might be a possibility. The examples he gave were horseshit.

That we haven't found any such thing yet is an assumption. While we know how cones in the retina respond to EM, we don't know how our perceptual system converts that to an experience of color. So, for right now, we may or may not have encountered something that we can't understand. Yes, we should keep trying to understand; but to unqualifiedly declare that we haven't encountered anything we can't understand is an assumption.

Seidensticker was talking about parts of the universe that we may not be able to understand, a simpe point. A valid point. His examples were of aspects of our experience, things were can immediately relate to. The fact that you may not understand the article doesn't mean that it's drivel. It just means that you don't understand

[AtheistCrusader]

92. There are humans with these implants in, right now.

Clinical trials means it's here. You've also selected an artificially US centric view as an absolute. I offered FDA approval of one device as evidence that it's real, that it works, that it has reached a significant milestone. The color-perceptive implant I mentioned in the last post is actually German, and therefore, not currently being reviewed by the FDA, because the FDA doesn't regulate medical devices in Germany.

There are such implants, experimentally installed in humans and a variety of test animal species right now.

"No, I'm not fucking kidding you. You claimed such a device existed. I said it's in the future, not now. You claimed I was wrong. According to the article you just cited, I wasn't:"

Your claim is simply wrong. General consumer availability is in the future, but the devices exist now. Many different devices with different approaches to solving different problems. A '64 1/4 Mustang was available in the past, but not now. That doesn't mean they don't exist. Same for 'future' tech that hasn't yet been widespread adopted, like the MetalStorm gun platform. It exists. It works. It is not yet in production. (Hasn't "taken hold", as I specified earlier) You are trying to score points on philosophical minutiae. The implants exist, now. If you are a candidate for a clinical trial, you might well be able to have one installed, today. We only have 2 full-face transplants that have been performed in the US since the first in 2011. One could still fairly say the technology/procedural know-how to do it is here, now, even though it is not widely available, and countries that are NOT the USA account for more of them.

The ability to perceive color is NOT DEPENDENT UPON PRECISE SPATIAL CONTROL of the signal/data interpretation. If you look very carefully at my posts, you'll find I made no claims regarding that at all, and your point is meaningless, because since I made no such claim beyond PERCEPTION OF COLOR, it doesn't falsify anything I said at all. Bravo.

"Yes indeed he did. One reason could be that while humans can perceive color (not just differentiate EM but see color) and no one understands how that happens."

I hope you at least bothered to look up "Color in the Human Brain" and "Subjectivity of color perception" from, I don't know, at least Wikipedia before you suggested that.

[Jim__]

93. The device only exists *NOW* if people are willing to trade color blindness for legal blindness.

Last edited Fri Feb 7, 2014, 02:35 PM - Edit history (1)

The ability to perceive color is NOT DEPENDENT UPON PRECISE SPATIAL CONTROL of the signal/data interpretation. If you look very carefully at my posts, you'll find I made no claims regarding that at all, and your point is meaningless, because since I made no such claim beyond PERCEPTION OF COLOR, it doesn't falsify anything I said at all. Bravo.

OK. If you want to pick nits, here is your original claim:

Colorblind people are capable of discovering light frequencies.

The device you're citing is for blind people, people who remain legally blind after the device is implanted.

From wikipedia:

In North America and most of Europe, legal blindness is defined as visual acuity (vision) of 20/200 (6/60) or less in the better eye with best correction possible.

And, from the cited article:

"While high-fidelity color vision is a long way off, some patients with retinal prostheses have so far been able to read large fonts (with visual acuities on the order of 20/1000) and complete daily tasks in ways that they could not before treatment,” postdoctoral scholar Dr. James Loudin told Photonics Spectra. The research team hopes to achieve visual acuity better than 20/200 and is focusing its efforts on assessing the visual acuity and contrast sensitivity in vivo, said Dr. Daniel Palanker, an associate professor of ophthalmology at Stanford.

Seidensticker's examples remain untouched.

This is becoming tedious. If you can raise an actual issue in the future, I'll respond. Going round and round in circles arguing that a device that would legally blind a currently legally sighted color blind person is some resolution to color blindness is ridiculous.

[AtheistCrusader]

94. Good grief.

"The device only exists *NOW* if people are willing to trade color blindness for legal blindness."

I didn't suggest colorblind people would install these today, if they could. Feel free to point out where you think I did. The point, I thought was obvious, is that we understand enough about how our entire visual system works from end to end, that we can introduce entirely artificial signals directly into the brain, that do carry not only light/dark, but (with the german implant I pointed you to) actual color perception. Just that we CAN DO IT, nothing more. A lot of the challenges around this technology lie in powering the devices, making them small enough to reduce rejection, out of materials that reduce rejection, etc. Acuity is just one element of the technology. But we CAN DO IT, that is all I claimed. Which implies a functional understanding/comprehension of how the system works. That was my only point in that entire fucking tangent. I think it reasonable to assume that someday such implants will prove superior to our organic bits, sure. But that's not relevant to the core point; we understand enough to artificially simulate it. I also raised the point we understand enough to extract live visual data from the optic nerve. These are only points as to our developing body of knowledge around how human sight works.

Interpreting my point about that implant as suggesting a colorblind person might trade their current colorblindness for legal blindness just to gain a couple colors, makes about as much sense as interpreting my point about extracting video from the optic nerve as to suggest someone might get those implants to replace their fucking cell phone camera. (A theoretical long-term possibility, I suppose) Not what I was suggesting at all, and seems a willful misconstrual.



"The device you're citing is for blind people , people who remain legally blind after the device is implanted."

And this objection has what to do with: "Colorblind people are capable of discovering light frequencies."? Nothing at all. I made no claim as to visual acuity. In fact I was not even talking about the implants there. I referred to the butterfly researcher. In this case, the problem is Boolean: can you see 'red' Y/N. That implant (the german one, and probably others) enables the ability to see red. Ta-da, scope of my claim supported. Your objection has nothing to do with what I actually claimed.


"Going round and round in circles arguing that a device that would legally blind a currently legally sighted color blind person is some resolution to color blindness is ridiculous."

That's a strawman. You just built one. I did not suggest these current generation of implants would be suitable for normal vision people, or that they RESOLVE colorblindness. The only claim I made was that we understand enough to make these things happen, to enable a person who cannot see a particular color, like red, to see it. I made no claim that it was currently superior to normal sight, or that an other-wise normally sighted person would trade their high visual acuity for a few colors with no spatial resolution, just to be able to see the colors. You just made that up. I did speculate in this thread or the other fork, that someday these implants will enable us to see things we can't currently see, or to see better than we can with perfect 'normal' organic bits. But that is not relevant to the point that we understand human sight well enough that we can induce color perception directly in the brain, even for blind people.

It's an important point, because to the best of my knowledge, and feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but of all the types of colorblindness I am aware of, none are caused by the brain itself. They are all issues within the physical hardware of the eye/optic nerve. That we can bypass that biological hardware and induce a color signal directly into the brain, says a hell of a lot to me about our understanding of how our sight systems work.

[edhopper]

5. I disagree

I don't see anything we can't comprehend. there is a lot, due to problems attaining evidence such as technological barriers, that we don't yet comprehend. And there are many scientific breakthroughs to come. But I don't see anything we will be unable to comprehend at some point. That is not to say we will eventually comprehend everything, just that we are capable of it. A stone age child, transported to today could be taught calculus.

[Jim__]

8. The fact that you don't "see" it, is sort of the point he's making.

There could be enormous reservoirs of scientific fact that we’re inherently unable to perceive, let alone understand, because of our limited brains ...

Why would anyone expect a brain that evolved to help us survive and reproduce on the face of the earth be able to, not only perceive, but also comprehend everything in the universe?

Non-human apes are incapable of processing human grammar. They lack the requisite brain structures. It's incredible to me that anyone could believe that our brains, only incrementally more complex than the brains of other apes, can comprehend everything.

[edhopper]

9. That is an interesting point

I think about Clarke's law, where any science advanced enough seems like magic. I believe this is no longer valid due to writers like Clarke himself. SF writers have imagined incredibly advanced science and it does not seem like magic to the reader. The science itself might be hard to understand, but the principles would not be beyond us and the knowledge that it is science and not magic.

And while we can discuss the issue of whether humans can comprehend the Universe, I still don't see where a God fits into it. We have either evolved with this potential or not.

[Brettongarcia]

14. No doubt our small brains cannot entirely comprehend the full, complex universe

But? Our Science seem to work pretty darned well; much better than praying and waiting for a miracle.

Beyond that? Maybe super-intelligent computers will do better.

Given the success of science and technology, there is every indication that whatever else there is out there, it is most likely, consistent with science. No need to get spooky here, and embrace vague magical thinking. It seems not CERTAIN, but mostly likely, that we live in a "natural" universe; not a supernatural one. According to science, and the philosophy of "naturalism."

By the way? Even the Bible said that even "invisible" things are known indirectly; by the things we see. We know about the invisible wind ... from the visible leaves it blows around. We can see effects, if not origins.

[Jim__]

18. The article is fairly straight forward, yet you seem confused.

Getting spooky? Embracing vague magical thinking? Do you actually believe that's his point when he talks about part of the universe that may be beyond our grasp?

[Brettongarcia]

21. The classic high-theological style, equivocates between belief and unbelief

There is a secret to understanding high theology: high theology likes to speak out of both sides of its mouth; to believers, it seems faithful. To unbelievers however, there is a message for them there too. Those who understand poetry, ambiguity, can hear both messages.

In the present case? I do see some signs of equivocation in our author at times. Though to be sure, I think/hope you might be partially right, overall. While our MIT grad speaks of things as yet unknown, he also suggests that whatever they are, they are not however super-natural. But will become known as "scientific facts," one day.

[Jim__]

26. There may well be a secret to understanding high theology, however ...

... there's not much of a secret to understanding plain English.

The article is written in plain English.

[Brettongarcia]

27. But one Christian DID apparently read it as SUPPORTING classic religion.

"As Bob Seidensticker put it so well, 'Our brains are able to understand the universe because we’re made in God’s image, and he wants us to understand.'"

The problem is that the language is not quite unequivocal enough.

And/or that a willful misreader can misconstrue it.

We have to speak very, VERY simply and directly, to the Right.

[Jim__]

29. Yes, and that claim was answered in plain English.

He didn't say that, he says in context, this is a Christian's ready answer. Apparently, he knows what Christians think like and not because he is guessing or making things up, but because Christians communicate, often, about making the long leap from wishful thinking to a random assumption about reasons of its character. It's based on literally nothing. A premise that god exists is not enough to start filling in his character notes.

Like I said, he does not appeal to magical thinking. His article is written in plain English. An out of context quote is an indication of someone bull shitting, not of "high theology."

[Brettongarcia]

30. Happy to hear that any initial, possible ambiguity, was subsequently disambiguated.

[AtheistCrusader]

83. Yet there are indications that we very well can.

Our only incrementally more complex brains can conceive of, plan for, and correct for the relativistic time distortion experienced by orbital GPS satellites, versus sea-level GPS receivers.

Not only can we perceive things that our great ape cousins apparently can't, but we can test our perception against the actual real life conditions in the universe, and see if our perception was accurate.

It's pretty staggering what we can do now, just on that incremental improvement, isn't it? Is there reason to suspect that we might have some biological limiting factor? It's worth considering, I suppose, but I wouldn't worry about it until there's some evidence for it.

[Jim__]

85. See post #84.

[AtheistCrusader]

11. "These particular skills couldn’t have been selected by evolution."

The specific Skill no, capacity to learn said skills, or discover them, yes.

[Brettongarcia]

13. "Seidensticker" is a techie, moonlighting in religion; his stuff seems pretty amateurish and quirky

Mostly to be sure, as far as the public is concerned, the interface between Science and Religion is a vast no-man's land, inhabited only by strange stragglers and mavericks who have strayed away from civilization and its normal boundaries.

To understand religion, we need people who know a lot, not just about 1) science, but 2) religion and culture too, on their own terms. Not too many people qualify here. Though anthropologists are often very good at this; they know some real science, and culture/religion as well.

Or if you want a more professional view of Science and Religion, find a good science- or reason-based theologian, or history-of-religion scholar. There are lots of those. (Finally I'd recommend a presently-unrecognized online scholar, Woodbridge Goodman, Ph.D.. The online rough draft book(s) on the Science of God.)

Goodman's work has not yet been published though. To find stuff on science and religion, you probably have to look in the obscure scholarly journals (cf. the journal "Zygon&quot ; the public has yet to see or accept a good major book on this. Sensitive or controversial as Religion is, those who have long worked in this area use rather veiled language, and do not call attention to themselves or their mindset.

So it's a bit of a Google search to find anything good on science and religion. Here's one easy rubric to explore though: naturalistic explanations of "miracles" and magic. When Moses "parted the seas" say, was he really parting the seas? Or did the "wind" blow the sea back just enough (as it does in Venice, say), for he and his people to find a temporary fording place?

When Moses called attention to a magic-seeming "pillar of fire" by night, smoke by day, to guide his people through the wilderness, are we really talking here about signal fires, set by scouts? There are many authors that propose natural and technological explanations to "miracles."

The world to be sure, still needs a good definitive book on the Science of Religion.

I nominate the as-yet unpublished "Woodbridge Goodman" books. They need some editing. They're presently rough. But hey, we're on the frontier, the cutting edge here.

In the meantime, anyone can do it on their own: when you look at religion, think rationally and scientifically. What conclusions do you reach yourself? That first simple approach should tell you an awful lot.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

15. The quote from Bill O'Reilly at the end is what is truly incomprehensible

Tide goes in, tide goes out.
Never a miscommunication.
You can’t explain that.
You can’t explain why the tide goes in. — Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, 1/4/2011

Actually, we can. It has to do with what we humans call "the moon's gravitational pull". Perhaps Mr. O'Reilly was absent from school the day it was explained. O'Reilly did a lot of hemming and hawing since then, and all it has done is reinforce the clear fact that he is an idiot.

[Goblinmonger]

17. That wasn't his point with that question.

The best part is that the gentleman interviewing him realized the end game and didn't play so O'Reilly looked like a fool.

O'Reilly wanted him to say gravitational pull of the planets. So then O'Reilly could have said "Why do we have planets?" eventually leading to "You can't explain the Big Bang" or wherever they ended up without a clear explanation at this point. Then O'Reilly could have pulled the "God did it" card and been smug. But in that chess match, O'Reilly got outplayed and looked like an ass.

[Brettongarcia]

22. Mostly the moon is responsible for the tides; it's closer.

Don't over-estimate O'Reilly. There's a good chance he just doesn't know lots of stuff.

[Goblinmonger]

23. He's not that stupid.

He knows the moon is responsible. He's a smart debater. He wanted to have that guy jump on him like he was stupid and then get him to the bigger point that is "unknowable" at this point. I think most people make the mistake of under-estimating O'Reilly. That "it's the moon" was the immediate answer, shows that David Silverman knew where this would end up and decided to just leave O'Reilly hanging and look stupid.

I mean, come on, O'Reilly did his undergrad at Marist and has Master's degrees from Boston University and Harvard and you really thing he doesn't know the moon causes tides?

[Brettongarcia]

48. G: possibly you are partially right

Sounds like O is quoting a poem. And therefore does not mean to be taken literally? Anybody know the poem or any literary source?

Google search, even advanced, is getting clumsy about searching for anything older than the last year. But probably the source would be c. 1700-1980 AD.

Still, O makes mistakes. Don't overestimate him, or underestimate him either.

Does look like he was holding to the literal meaning in the video, where he is debating an atheist.

[Goblinmonger]

50. I don't know a poem that is that literally

but it seems to be a riff on "The tide rises, the tide falls" by Longfellow. Classic American Lit poem that most high school students read (I teach it). Though the poem does not go into the "you can't explain that" by any stretch and is much more about how nature continues long after the influence of humans.

[Jim__]

25. We report, you decide.

Here's the video where O'Reilly made the claim:

&feature=player_embedded

Here's a link to a video (I can't embed it) where O'Reilly later defends his claim.

[Brettongarcia]

28. He defends it later; after having had time to second guess himself...?

[tridim]

51. Our brains can comprehend the Universe because our brains are part of the Universe.

[WovenGems]

56. So true. n/t

[Jim__]

63. My dog is part of the universe.

He may comprehend a small part of it, but only a very small part.

[Humanist_Activist]

76. True, but dogs also can't design or build computers and other mental tools...

like we can, tools that expand our mental capabilities. Not to mention that we aren't talking about individuals in isolation, but the knowledge and capability of an entire species.

[Jim__]

78. My response was to post #51. It had to do with what is entailed by being part of the universe.

Your post #76 has no relevance to what I said.

[Humanist_Activist]

95. I would say that a universe conducive to life evolving within it would have to be comprehensible...

due to the fact that such a universe cannot be completely random, but have non-random elements within it, that it is, on some level, deterministic, and hence predictable.

A universe with certain constants, such as those of the strength of gravity, or electromagnetism, etc. It doesn't have to be "finely tuned" but rather "good enough" for complex chemistry to occur. Such a universe would, eventually, be comprehensible to the inhabitants of it once they are capable of complex and abstract thought, and that's because they did evolve in that universe.

It seems like a circular argument, but then again, this question is just like asking why that water you poured into a glass was perfectly shaped to the glass. The truth is that it isn't, but it changes to the glasses shape, due to the inherent properties of liquids such as itself to fit the container they are in. I don't see how life would be any different to their environments, as shaped by evolution.