covid dystopia

[garyboy]

The science about how effective masks are against the virus is yet to be proven but until science produces evidence that masks are detrimental then I shall continue to wear one where appropriate. The idiot who coughed at the adjacent petrol pump and another idiot who reached across in the supermarket are obviously as thick as sh1t ......... which is probably why those 2 locations are now within the local lockdown area.

it is bad attitudes like This ^^^^

.. that are the saviour of mankind lol
.. as this is called ... `common sense`

[daveuprite]

Yes, I am cynical Dave .. but you are too trusting and accepting of so-called 'science ' .
Scientists are a special breed .. they investigate certain aspects of a subject, work tirelessly at it, with great commitment etc, but usually seem to lack the intuition and overall view. .. This ( intuitive comprehension) of course, is the very opposite of 'science ' as it is instructed to be understood in these times. Future understandings will see the value of the oversight, overall view, of the nformed research. It is a step up from the drudge partisan investigation modes. It is collation of evidence and acceptance/ inclusion of various methods of understanding.

Don't forget that our brain works in mysterious ways .. especially the female brain lol (just kiddin, .. actually they are very good at intuition and jumping to the correct conclusion) .

The subconscious is very powerful, but only if you let it .. sleep overnight and you often wake up with 'the answer'.

When I go down with a serious covid infection, I don't want a healer using instinct, or a shaman dangling crystals, or a druid pronouncing new age mantras.

I want a ventilator developed by a team of qualified engineers, I want my blood sat levels monitored by machines invented by medical researchers, and I want the results analysed by experienced trained biochemists.

When it comes to this virus, modern science is our best and only worthwhile hope. And if/when a vaccine is available I will trust in the fact that it has been developed by experts working collaboratively around the world, reviewing each others work, extensively tested and rigorously licensed.

If you want to put your faith in your subconscious, your intuition, your gut instinct and your mysteriously working brain, then you go ahead and fill your boots Gary....

[POD]

Yes, I am cynical Dave .. but you are too trusting and accepting of so-called 'science ' .
Scientists are a special breed .. they investigate certain aspects of a subject, work tirelessly at it, with great commitment etc, but usually seem to lack the intuition and overall view. .. This ( intuitive comprehension) of course, is the very opposite of 'science ' as it is instructed to be understood in these times. Future understandings will see the value of the oversight, overall view, of the nformed research. It is a step up from the drudge partisan investigation modes. It is collation of evidence and acceptance/ inclusion of various methods of understanding.

Don't forget that our brain works in mysterious ways .. especially the female brain lol (just kiddin, .. actually they are very good at intuition and jumping to the correct conclusion) .

The subconscious is very powerful, but only if you let it .. sleep overnight and you often wake up with 'the answer'.

When I go down with a serious covid infection, I don't want a healer using instinct, or a shaman dangling crystals, or a druid pronouncing new age mantras.

I want a ventilator developed by a team of qualified engineers, I want my blood sat levels monitored by machines invented by medical researchers, and I want the results analysed by experienced trained biochemists.

When it comes to this virus, modern science is our best and only worthwhile hope. And if/when a vaccine is available I will trust in the fact that it has been developed by experts working collaboratively around the world, reviewing each others work, extensively tested and rigorously licensed.

If you want to put your faith in your subconscious, your intuition, your gut instinct and your mysteriously working brain, then you go ahead and fill your boots Gary....

Trust me, its working around the clock almost 24/7.

I'd also prefer to have a more modern treatment.



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[garyboy]

As usual, my comments are misinterpreted for personal reasons/gratification, and twisted beyond recognition so that they can be ridiculed, so that the twister can feel a bit better about his own situation .. a bit like my neighbours take out their arthritis on me and other completely innocent people.

By ridiculing the incredible workings of the human brain .. surely, people like daveuprite, are ridiculing themselves and their own abilities??

Bert the bookkeeper was so clever that his brain was stolen (after death) so that scientists could evaluate his incredible braininess .. They could not find anything different to other average brains .. but like wot he said himself .. the great power of the human brain is it capacity for ``Imagination``.

There are different levels of human thought, as we all know ..... some people are excellent at collating information, some at interpreting that information, and others at putting that information to good (or bad) use. But that is not the end of the story .. other people can use their imagination to see other potential for the information, whether good or bad, world wide or personal.

Can anyone think of anything more powerful or more incredible than the thoughts of the average human brain?

Computers? .. they are great for speed in a particular setting ... but Algorithms??// .... hmmmmm !!


Science is a unitary discipline, often disconnected from its own different parts, and from other disciplines .. for example, an algorithm can be set up, using the best recent science, but fail due to not including the final political motive/decision, privacy issues, educational issues, employment, economic, psychological, population control/acceptance etc etc etc ..... (I think we have some experience of this )

.... when all it takes, in reality .... is a bit of good old fashioned common sense, from an average (working) brain

[daveuprite]

Gary, you keep devising false dichotomies and building straw men. Modern science and the creative imagination are not opposites, mutually exclusive or at war with one another. There is a vital place for both, sometimes/often at the same time. Art, music and philosophy etc absolutely have a place and human life would be enormously poorer without them. But pressing existential crises like climate change, virus pandemics and the anthropocene extinction are primarily fought and solved by scientific research and applied policy solutions.

All you have to do is divide up a bit which disciplines are best suited to tackle which issues. When I want to reflect on ontology and the nature of being I reach for Sartre or Heidegger ; when I want the latest in genetics advances I read Kornberg or McClintock.

Of course the rigorous sciences and the liberal arts can complement each other, and should IMO. But if you mix everything up together too much the discussion is untargeted, has no structure and becomes far too relativistic. Nothing is really gained. You just get a kind of new-age soup of ideas where nothing is any longer right or wrong, facts are all relative, all opinions are valid, and nothing can be definitively proved.

[garyboy]

Dave .. you have hit upon the very point i am trying to make ... Things really Are all-mixed-up.
To make sense of it all, to benefit from it all, people have become specialists, Had to become specialists, for their brain power to focus on a small area of consideration.

Hard slog and intense focus are indispensable human tools .. but are limited by their interpretation and application and understanding. Taken as separate parts in the jigsaw of understanding will not result in understanding.

The brain is both a blessing and a curse, and has many parts to its construction, originating from our evolution.

Without the `Eureka` moments in human history there would be no advancement .... and guess wot?? .... those moments of clarity are usually received after `sleeping on it` ........ worked out by the subconscious mind. .. that extremely powerful inner computer that can discern, reject, evaluate, make sense of .....

[sledgegreen]

This ( intuitive comprehension) of course, is the very opposite of 'science ' as it is instructed to be understood in these times.

I have to strongly disagree with this. I think that "intuitive comprehension" is one of the foundations of science rather than "the very opposite". Scientists are always trying to expand the boundaries of human knowledge. That means that they are constantly trying to extrapolate beyond the available data to predict what might be.

However, scientists don't attach much value to these inspirational thoughts until they have been tested, and so flashes of inspiration are called "theorems", and scientists will publish and discuss them so that other scientists can try to prove or disprove them.

A couple of examples ...

First, the Higg's Bosun. Discovered in 2012 after a fifty-year search. In the early 1960's, 3 groups of scientists independently published papers describing similar theories. These theories predicted the existence of a particle which came to be called the Higg's boson, and fifty years later the existence of the particle was proven.

Please don't ask me to explain this - this is complicated physics, and I am a mere biologist.

Second, and much more intelligible to me, a couple of Australian scientists who won a Nobel prize for demonstrating that a bacterium could cause stomach ulcers. They found distinctive bacteria in ulcers, and hypothesised that the bugs might be causing the ulcers. That suggestion was pretty much ridiculed - the accepted explanation was that ulcerated parts of the stomach were vulnerable to colonisation by bacteria, and that Marshall and Warren were seeing bacteria exploiting weakened stomach tissue. Eventually, one of them experimented on himself. He swallowed a culture of the bacteria, and duly developed ulcers a few days later. Then he took antibiotics, and the ulcers healed up.

The reality is that science often advances through inspired guesswork - a scientist's will think carefully about the available data, and make an informed guess as to why it happens. Often, that guess will then be proved by subsequent experimentation. Equally often, the bright idea will be shot down in flames.

[daveuprite]

The reality is that science often advances through inspired guesswork - a scientist's will think carefully about the available data, and make an informed guess as to why it happens. Often, that guess will then be proved by subsequent experimentation. Equally often, the bright idea will be shot down in flames.

Yes exactly, and it's that experimental part that's essential, and makes all the difference. Crystal healing doesn't pass that test. Nor does reading runes, tea-leaf staring, homeopathy, 'laying on of hands', astrology, divination, clairvoyancy, religious faith or a hundred other claptrap industries. There's no harm at all in coming up with wacky ideas or off-the wall theories - it's creative imagination and can be fun - but as soon as they have been disproved via experimentation and peer review they should be dismissed so we can move on.

Sadly we are living in a world where people cling on tenaciously to absurd superstitious theories when their energies could be directed towards problem-solving based on well-established scientific research. Perhaps we should use our imagination to imagine a world where all the time, money, suffering and lives expended on religion, for instance, was spent instead on preserving the environment. Wow. We'd be SO far ahead of the mess we are in now.

[PHILinFRANCE]

A dying Indian told me to "Suck a Pebble"

Anyway , get off that computer its not good for your neck

[daveuprite]

A dying Indian told me to "Suck a Pebble"

Anyway , get off that computer its not good for your neck

How did sunday go ? Matt told me it was 'interesting' !