Scientism, put more succinctly…

Skepticism and atheism 1 Minute

So, you say we can’t use science or rational thinking to appreciate music, love, poetry, etc?

So, when you look at, hear, feel, small,  taste, or apprehend those things, you are not using your empirically-based sensory apparati to perceive something real, and then to subsequently use your physical brain to process the information into a meaningful image with related concepts? Is not that beauty, and the appreciation of it, the result of that physical process?  Is that appreciation itself not another physical process in your brain, perceives subjectively?

Is the experience of appreciation of beauty nothing but what it is like to be that process, born of experience with a real world perceived empirically?

And what is science but the use of empirical tools to gather information then to use rational methods to organize that  data into meaningful ideas, which may include images, concepts, etc?  And when we can predict the behavior of reality based upon the principles learned from this, we have knowledge and understanding.

What is scientism, then, but accepting that the world, all of it, can be understood in terms of empirical methodologies and rational analysis?

Published by ShaunPhilly

Human, gamer, philosopher, godlike being, atheist, nonmonogamous, pariah, contrarian by nature, probably occasionally right human who writes nonsense to very few people. Some people come here only to downvote my posts. That seems sort of ridiculous, right?

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3 thoughts on “Scientism, put more succinctly…”

  1. Very very interesting! My sister is an atheist. She’d get this more than me. We were raised in a Catholic school too – if only I could go tell the nuns – ha ha!
    I don’t exactly agree with your opener though – you can use your rational mind to appreciate poetry, but I think art is best served by feeling it rather than analysing it. I’m not a lover of poetry because it’s often too obscure (I have to think too hard what the hell are they trying to convey). I like clear writing, that I can feel.

    Anyway, I just chanced by. Happy New Year – seeya!

  2. Thank you for the comment. However, you realize that when you feel something it is also processed by the brain, right? In a sense, thinking is a very specific kind of feeling, or even a specal kind of emotion.

    Emotions are perceptions of body states, and thinking is the perception of brain states, and brains are part of the body.

    Thanks for stopping by!

    Shaun

  3. Wow. You’ve really set me straight shaunphilly. No, I didn’t realise that. I had never thought in those perspectives before. You’ve got me thinking – hard. It’s very very interesting what you’ve just said. But I really need to think about it. Thank you! I really want to think about that …

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