Are most scientists emotionally mature adults?

[psychoslice]

Who really cares if their mature or not, everyone is in all walks of life, and again especially religion.

 

[MD]

Scientists think about God and subjectivity more than most people, save maybe theologians. I think you need to meet more scientists, the last pew poll I read showed that the majority of scientists believe in some sort of higher power or God. Deism, pantheism, panentheism and other diverse beliefs exist amongst several scientists, even prominent ones.

Subjective experience and the Hard Problem are such big issues that the theories on consciousness are abandoning material monism and are accept some form of neutral monism or idealism. IIT by Koch and Tononi is an attenuated form of idealism. The epistemic and more importantly the ontological gap are so large that I feel it will be a problem that will be around for a very very long time. It might very well become the impossible problem.

 

[Desert Snake]

Who cares.

 

[psychoslice]

'Who cares'.

Apparently the OP lol.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Umm, the Sheldon character from Big Bang Theory isn't emotionally immature because he's a scientist, he's emotionally immature because he's clearly got either Asperger's Syndrome or a form of high functioning autism.
Like you cant be for real mate, this is just........ughh

He was originally supposed to be a comical nerd, but because the character traits match those of Asperger's, they "gave" it to him.
The TV Dr. Temperance Brennan--Bones--is supposed to have it (the character is based on an Aspie), but it's better for ratings to just let her have some quirky and *****y characteristics.

 

[Sapiens]

There are so many misguided comments about scientists in that post that I'm not sure I want to take the time to correct them. Not a one of my colleagues has ever met this strange characterization you're describing here.

Anyone who confuses Big Bang Theory characters with real scientists is more than a bit confused. We're all more like Dirk Pitt and Indiana Jones..

 

[SomeRandom]

He was originally supposed to be a comical nerd, but because the character traits match those of Asperger's, they "gave" it to him.
The TV Dr. Temperance Brennan--Bones--is supposed to have it (the character is based on an Aspie), but it's better for ratings to just let her have some quirky and *****y characteristics.

To be honest I always just assumed Bones was an aspie. But I haven't seen the more recent seasons, so I can't comment on whether or not her character has "changed."

 

[Sapiens]

Modern atheism really is nothing more than the head winning the head vs heart struggle, helped by science. Like the Sheldon character in the sitcom Big Bang theory. Materialism, naturalism, etc. they all provide no accommodation for subjectivity. So having no recourse to subjectivity, then what Sheldon does is he makes good and evil into a matter of fact issue, and casually denotes the "facts" of which women are better looking than others, straight to their face.

All the accommodation subjectivity deserves and requires is provided ... I know you can't see that.

I am sure most scientists regard themselves as being sophisticated mature adults who have learned how to deal with the head vs heart struggle, and overcome it. But when you look into the details of it, it is more shown that they have become very sophisticated at fooling themselves that they accept subjectivity is valid, while they do not accept it.

Doubt it, but could be, but it doesn't matter, it is, in any case, just another in your endless list of unsupported claims.

In the details of it, subjectivity operates by choosing. It is equally valid to say the painting is beautiful, as it is to say the painting is ugly. The logical validity of an opinion just depends on that it is chosen. Expression of emotion with free will, thus choosing. The second detail is that all subjectivity is about agency of a decision. Saying the painting is beautiful, means to have a love for the way the painting looks. The love is agency of a decision. The existence of this love is then a matter of opinion as well. That means just as it is equally valid to say the the painting is ugly, as it is to say it is beautiful, it is also equally valid to say the love for the way the painting looks is real, as it is to say it is not real (or true love, or not true love).

Seems you could use a course in aesthetics. Might I recommend Benedetto Croce as a start?

Scientists have basically outlawed any theory about how anything is chosen in the universe. Because of science intelligent design theory is forbidden to be taught in public schools in the USA. What more is intelligent design than a sophisticated way of choosing something?

Scientists have outlawed nothing ... judges have done all the outlawing, none of the judges were scientists. How quickly they forget.

Intelligent Design is forbidden to be taught in public schools in the USA because the morons from the ICR left the old drafts of Of Pandas and People lying about and they clearly demonstrated that ID is just just a dusty sham covering up the rot of Creationism. Remember: "Evolutionists think the former is correct, cdesign proponentsists accept the latter view." from the 1987 draft version? Now enshrined as the missing link between creationsim and ID.

So did scientists do away with intelligent design theory because it is unscientific, or did they do away with it because choosing is integral to subjectivity and the head fights the heart?

The judge did away with ID because it was proven to be resurrected, warmed over, Creationism of the Christian persuasion and you can't teach that is a public science classroom.

The answer to this question lays in how scientists view people's choices. If it is shown that they are also against knowledge about how people choose, then it would be more reasonable to say that scientists did away with intelligent design theory in order to do away with subjectivity.

No, read the judge's opinion, it's on the web and it's very, very, clear.

When you look at the work of professional scientists such as neurologists, biologists, artificial intelligence professors, sociologists, then they generally all use the same definition for human choices. The definition of choosing that scientists use goes something like: choosing is to sort out the best option from the available alternatives.

Makes for clearer communication. I notice that you try to not really define any terms.

They use a sorting algorithm to denote choosing. The thing about sorting algorithms is, that the result of it depends on the data to sort, and the sorting criteria. That is to say, the result is forced given the initial variables, it cannot turn out any other way. It is basically the logic of a chesscomputer calculating a move, and the computer cannot do any other than what move it calculates as having the highest chance for the highest score. That use of the word choosing, while certainly very useful, is really just a metaphore of it. It is not real choosing which can turn out different ways in the event, which is the sort of choosing required for subjectivity.

Too bad Irwin Corey is dead, he'd have loved that paragraph. Never in the course of human communication have so many words carried so few actual ideas.

That should settle it that the scientific community really has not matured to overcome the simple head vs heart struggle. But if you still do not buy it that grown learned men and women could be so immature, and a great majority of the scientific community at that, then try to watch for it, if it is true or not.

Not true, not true, yah yah yah.

You will surely notice the overriding devotion to fact as "truth" which they will go on and on and on about. Certainly that somebody is beautiful is not a fact, yet it is truth. Ask yourself if the scientist whose words you are reading, or whom you hear speaking, if they really also provide room for opinion as truth in their ideas about things.

There we go slipping, slipping into strange definitions.

They may very well say they do lots of times. But then you must get into the details of it, and see if they really mean the same subjectivity that operates based on freedom. For they not just have redefined the word "choosing", they have also redefined the words "subjectivity", "love", "freedom", and any other term you can think of associated to what I consider real subjectivity.

I think you've got that backwards.

When a scientist says the word "love", it may very well be that he or she means an electrochemical process in the brain, and not love as agency of a decision. For a scientist to say "the painting is beautiful", he or she may very well conceive of that as a statement of fact about the electrochemistry in their brain, and not as opinion.

Actually, the electrochemistry of the brain reaches that conclusion long before you are able to utter the observation ... what does that say to you?

 

[YmirGF]

There are so many misguided comments about scientists in that post that I'm not sure I want to take the time to correct them. Not a one of my colleagues has ever met this strange characterization you're describing here.

I really could not agree more.

 

[YmirGF]

um...
What happened to the OP?

Its karma ran over its dogma.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Scientists have basically outlawed any theory about how anything is chosen in the universe.

Yet, somehow, creationists and ID proponents butcher, steal, and use scientific developments, theories, and ideas such as fine-tuning, the anthropic principle, complexity, etc., in order to defend their beliefs

Because of science intelligent design theory is forbidden to be taught in public schools in the USA.

Intelligent design couldn't exist without the sciences. It presupposed aspects of the nature of living systems, evolutionary theory, and complexity that were developed by scientists.

What more is intelligent design than a sophisticated way of choosing something?

Nothing more, but significantly less.

When you look at the work of professional scientists such as neurologists

...you mistake neuroscientists for clinical practitioners.

biologists, artificial intelligence professors, sociologists, then they generally all use the same definition for human choices.

Wrong.

They use a sorting algorithm to denote choosing.

Interesting. I didn't know I used a sorting algorithm or that my colleagues did. Care to specify this algorithm (and not by description; if you can't actually give it in a programming language use pseudo-code).

Scientists think about God and subjectivity more than most people

Scientists in general don't think about God and unfortunately tend to be impoverished when it comes to issues of philosophy, epistemology, or other vital aspects that are not strictly speaking scientific practices or methods but which underlie the scientific endeavor.

 

[picnic]

When I went to college, I remember an old guy that I would frequently see at the library. He always wore tights and a beret - like renaissance Italy. Apparently that was how he always dressed, so everybody accepted his wardrobe without comment.

Robert Oppenheimer apparently was immature and unstable. He attempted to poison an instructor, strangle a friend, seduce a colleague's wife, etc.

I think talent of any kind can allow a person to get through life without being forced to mature in the same way that normal people mature. Maturity is probably a result of facing harsh realities and so forth. So there are probably a higher percentage of emotionally immature people in science than there are in the general population.

I don't know about how the immaturity of individual scientists affects criticisms of the intelligent design theory.

 

[Revoltingest]

Anyone who confuses Big Bang Theory characters with real scientists is more than a bit confused. We're all more like Dirk Pitt and Indiana Jones..

Most scientists look & behave like @LegionOnomaMoi.
Here he is in a movie I took in class.....

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

Scientists think about God and subjectivity more than most people, save maybe theologians. I think you need to meet more scientists, the last pew poll I read showed that the majority of scientists believe in some sort of higher power or God. Deism, pantheism, panentheism and other diverse beliefs exist amongst several scientists, even prominent ones.

Subjective experience and the Hard Problem are such big issues that the theories on consciousness are abandoning material monism and are accept some form of neutral monism or idealism. IIT by Koch and Tononi is an attenuated form of idealism. The epistemic and more importantly the ontological gap are so large that I feel it will be a problem that will be around for a very very long time. It might very well become the impossible problem.

If it's such a hard problem to figure out the technical side of it, then how come people can talk in terms of what is beautiful with ease? That is to say, the issue is solved in the structure of the language we use. It can be regarded as a scientific hypothesis which is practically applied. It is then only to find this structure represented at the physical level. Maybe we will then find that it works somewhat differently, and that in some cases people were wrong to say "I love you" and such, although I highly doubt it.

More likely what is really hard is not the technical issues but the head vs heart struggle. The temptation to regard good and evil as fact. And this problem is generating confusion in the scientific community, in seeking the technical details of how things are chosen in the universe.

My many impressions from the internet and TV of scientists, is that the acceptance of the validity of subjectivity is very low. It is much regarded as that it goes without saying that subjectivity is valid, is about the best I can say of the scientific community. But there is no care provided at all, that the ideas they propose do not encroach on the proper domain of subjectivity.

 

[picnic]

To clarify, @Mohammad Nur Syamsu , how should scientists treat the belief in intelligent design? (Intelligent design was the example you gave in the OP.) I think scientists have rightly classified intelligent design as non-scientific and therefore inappropriate for science classes. How would you change it?

 

[viole]

Modern atheism really is nothing more than the head winning the head vs heart struggle, helped by science. Like the Sheldon character in the sitcom Big Bang theory. Materialism, naturalism, etc. they all provide no accommodation for subjectivity. So having no recourse to subjectivity, then what Sheldon does is he makes good and evil into a matter of fact issue, and casually denotes the "facts" of which women are better looking than others, straight to their face.

I am sure most scientists regard themselves as being sophisticated mature adults who have learned how to deal with the head vs heart struggle, and overcome it. But when you look into the details of it, it is more shown that they have become very sophisticated at fooling themselves that they accept subjectivity is valid, while they do not accept it.

In the details of it, subjectivity operates by choosing. It is equally valid to say the painting is beautiful, as it is to say the painting is ugly. The logical validity of an opinion just depends on that it is chosen. Expression of emotion with free will, thus choosing. The second detail is that all subjectivity is about agency of a decision. Saying the painting is beautiful, means to have a love for the way the painting looks. The love is agency of a decision. The existence of this love is then a matter of opinion as well. That means just as it is equally valid to say the the painting is ugly, as it is to say it is beautiful, it is also equally valid to say the love for the way the painting looks is real, as it is to say it is not real (or true love, or not true love).

Scientists have basically outlawed any theory about how anything is chosen in the universe. Because of science intelligent design theory is forbidden to be taught in public schools in the USA. What more is intelligent design than a sophisticated way of choosing something?

So did scientists do away with intelligent design theory because it is unscientific, or did they do away with it because choosing is integral to subjectivity and the head fights the heart?

The answer to this question lays in how scientists view people's choices. If it is shown that they are also against knowledge about how people choose, then it would be more reasonable to say that scientists did away with intelligent design theory in order to do away with subjectivity.

When you look at the work of professional scientists such as neurologists, biologists, artificial intelligence professors, sociologists, then they generally all use the same definition for human choices. The definition of choosing that scientists use goes something like: choosing is to sort out the best option from the available alternatives.

They use a sorting algorithm to denote choosing. The thing about sorting algorithms is, that the result of it depends on the data to sort, and the sorting criteria. That is to say, the result is forced given the initial variables, it cannot turn out any other way. It is basically the logic of a chesscomputer calculating a move, and the computer cannot do any other than what move it calculates as having the highest chance for the highest score. That use of the word choosing, while certainly very useful, is really just a metaphore of it. It is not real choosing which can turn out different ways in the event, which is the sort of choosing required for subjectivity.

That should settle it that the scientific community really has not matured to overcome the simple head vs heart struggle. But if you still do not buy it that grown learned men and women could be so immature, and a great majority of the scientific community at that, then try to watch for it, if it is true or not.

You will surely notice the overriding devotion to fact as "truth" which they will go on and on and on about. Certainly that somebody is beautiful is not a fact, yet it is truth. Ask yourself if the scientist whose words you are reading, or whom you hear speaking, if they really also provide room for opinion as truth in their ideas about things.

They may very well say they do lots of times. But then you must get into the details of it, and see if they really mean the same subjectivity that operates based on freedom. For they not just have redefined the word "choosing", they have also redefined the words "subjectivity", "love", "freedom", and any other term you can think of associated to what I consider real subjectivity.

When a scientist says the word "love", it may very well be that he or she means an electrochemical process in the brain, and not love as agency of a decision. For a scientist to say "the painting is beautiful", he or she may very well conceive of that as a statement of fact about the electrochemistry in their brain, and not as opinion.

Did you use subjective experiences to post this? Or did you use a computer that would not exist if we did not know anything about quantum mechanics and semiconductors?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Did you use subjective experiences to post this? Or did you use a computer that would not exist if we did not know anything about quantum mechanics and semiconductors?

Or the very logical and objective process that is electricity and electronics.

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

To clarify, @Mohammad Nur Syamsu , how should scientists treat the belief in intelligent design? (Intelligent design was the example you gave in the OP.) I think scientists have rightly classified intelligent design as non-scientific and therefore inappropriate for science classes. How would you change it?

The scientists should just take the concept of choosing as it is in common discourse, then make theory with it that fits the facts. Like in sociology, you can make theory that either presidential candidate can be elected. That the election can turn out several different ways. And in biology, you can make theory that organisms are chosen as a whole in a reasoned and informed decision, or that organisms are chosen by many independent decisions coming together, and the sorted by natural selection, and then forming a whole. That also biology can turn out several different ways. etc. etc.

 

[Jumi]

How about you try to present the theory through repeatable experiments? If it's useful it will catch on as others verify it in experiments.

 

[picnic]

The scientists should just take the concept of choosing as it is in common discourse, then make theory with it that fits the facts. Like in sociology, you can make theory that either presidential candidate can be elected. That the election can turn out several different ways. And in biology, you can make theory that organisms are chosen as a whole in a reasoned and informed decision, or that organisms are chosen by many independent decisions coming together, and the sorted by natural selection, and then forming a whole. That also biology can turn out several different ways. etc. etc.

I haven't read what the proponents of intelligent design have to say, but it isn't easy to define what "intelligence" and "design" mean. We say Einstein was intelligent or the P-51 Mustang was a good design, but an atheist might see them both as products of evolution like the human appendix. If Einstein had been born in 10,000 BCE, would he have seemed intelligent? If there had been no need for a long range fighter in WW2, would the P-51 have seemed so outstanding? They each found a niche where their attributes allowed propagation. Einstein propagated through his ideas and his fame. The P-51 propagated through manufacturing and fame.

It reminds me of the question of free will. Intelligent design seems to claim that outcomes are chosen in pursuit of a design goal. There must be free will for intelligent design to happen IMO.