Pretty spectacular analysis there, Cymm. Much needed here.
-Mitch
In a message dated 8/30/00 4:04:50 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
cymm@trinidad.net writes:
<< Hi extropians,
A lot of "scientific" sorts base their outlook on a nineteenth century
conceptual Universe.
By the late '20s, of this century, Quantum Theory had introduced serious
grounds for the legitimization of mysticism in physics - and by the time Von
Neumann & Wigner finished with it, even frank spirituality.
Parallel with that, Church; Godel; Post & Turing certainly formulated
rigorous ideas on computability that allowed (...even encouraged, some
say...) mysticism in our logic & epistemology.
It is perhaps unscientific (...in a 21st century sense...) to dismiss all
mystics as Know Nothings.
I've known of mystical rabbis with Ph. Ds in theoretical physics and I've
met vedantic philosophers whose grasp of modern physics was breathtaking.
There's a lot of "feel-good" non-reasoning behind some New Age stuff - but
you can't dismiss the lot unless you've read them or engaged them in
meaningful dialogue.
I have. Not enough, I'm sure.
But there's a hell of a lot of orthodox scientific bigotry going on here.
Natural, to be sure, in a Kuhnian sense... but to be kept in rein - if we
want to be good extropians.
cymm >>
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