Kitman

37 pages in this thread and still nothing. Sometimes the Gods are cruel....

Nah i'll think i'll make a cup of soup and a sandwich. could of been eating a pizza if it wasn't for them fuck-faces. Life in the fast lane, eh?

Now would be a good time for a joint or two Kevin

* Shudder *

That's rough. Bad luck, mate.

Are you the one that did that cowboy animation for your course? wtf, that was genius. I haven't laughed like that since.

Thats what i wanted to hear. Thattttttttttts what I wanted to hear. Whoever he is

Nothing a good cup of tea won't fix

I think the standard's pretty high on here.

That Holden McGroin's my favourite poster

Surely that's; nah nahnah, nah n'nahnah, nah nahnah, nah n'nahnah? It's Bananarama, I'd recognise it anywhere

Ben Arfa split?

Aha, you've got full blown science I'm on a hiding to nothing here Regarding human limits, it seems likely that we'll design machines that will take the problems off our hands. Maybe they'll be better scientists than humans ever could be. I think you're right, being a ghost doesn't seem much of a laugh. Maybe that's why they're usually reported as sad or pissed off....

I like old graveyards. Modern ones lack atmosphere. When I was about 10 years old, I stayed in an old country house in Yorkshire. I was reading Dracula at the time and the moon was out every night. I didn't sleep a wink for 2 nights It's got a modern council cemetary as part of it but the old graveyard bit next to the church is great. It's quite overgrown and has a few family vault things plus some headstones going back to the mid-18th century which are quite cool. If you like that sort of thing. I sound like a goth ffs In the old days some people's grave plots were as good as houses. Some real works of art crumbling to bits in some of them. Have you been to Highgate Cemetery in London? I've always planned to go to Pere LaChaise in Paris and check out Jim Morrison's grave but I've never got round to it.

"Eh?!"

I like old graveyards. Modern ones lack atmosphere. When I was about 10 years old, I stayed in an old country house in Yorkshire. I was reading Dracula at the time and the moon was out every night. I didn't sleep a wink for 2 nights

Possibly

I was taught at school that science is the explanation of physical events through systematic study and experiment. That's a reasonable definition which makes your tirade all the more odd imo. Basically, you're agreeing that all science is is a process, or perhaps philosophy, of trying to understand the Universe in a systematic manner through observation and intellect. So when you say Science is arrogant, I assume you mean scientists, individually and/or collectively, are arrogant, rather than the field itself. Since science, unlike mysticism and religion, is constantly under revision, I reject this outright personally. Of course individuals sientists may be arrogant, but in general the don't come close to your average preacher in this regard. Another two questions then: What other way of thinking has provided us with so much through (the application of Science - technology)? How else do you propose we should understand the world? It's not a tirade I don't think your questions are relevant to what I was saying really. I'd much rather live in the modern world than the dark ages. Science isn't a philosophy imo but I think maybe it's become like one in the absence of anything else to believe in. I do think it breeds intellectual arrogance. However I'm not evangelising an alternative to science, there isn't one (currently). I'm just having a moan about the intellectual snobbery that goes with it, the accepted wisdom that it provides the answer to everything. I don't believe it is the only way to interpret the world. I think there's a place for intuition, imagination, irrationality, a bit of mystery and so on. Ghosts might exist, you never know. And lots of other interesting things that make life amusing. I prefer not to live like Spock, and rule them out simply because they're illogical.

I know the "half" is just an expression but my arbitrary guess would be less than 1% is unexplained to any great degree. How literal minded of you Yeah but your inference is that even though science is sort of good, it doesn't really measure up in the big picture - I think you're wrong on that. It was just meant to be a joke, hence the wink smiley. I'm not sure what you mean by 'measure up in the big picture'? I suppose what I'm inferring is that science is a form of modern religion which some people seem to believe in as providing all the answers. I think we should be more sceptical about things we can't explain, that's all.

Depends on your starting point I suppose. If you flatly rule out the possibility that anything could survive death in any form whatsoever, then of course it's a ridiculous idea.

I know the "half" is just an expression but my arbitrary guess would be less than 1% is unexplained to any great degree. How literal minded of you

I was taught at school that science is the explanation of physical events through systematic study and experiment.

At the end of the day, the bulk of science is explaining the what?, how?, why? of things. Everything that happens must have a reason for happening, something that causes it therefore its possible that science will find the answer. Given enough time and resources they will be answered, it could be however that those resources are billions and billions of pounds and the time limit is 10k years. Everything has an answer, even if that answer is "a big soopadoopa all seeing all knowning being that controls everything", if some scientists susses that out and proves it then science is still responsible for the discovery. Cause and effect, question and answer, everything has an answer. Did you read science at uni by any chance? No, I dont agree. There might be some things that human science can't explain, even given infinite time and resources. There's a limit to what human beings can observe, infer, conclude. Unless you're including alien science? It seems odd to me that you're claiming an open mind, but do not accept that the boundaries of human advancement may very well be limitless. How can we possibly deduce that in another billion or so years we have not evolved to the point that such big questions as "how did it all begin" are now within our grasp? Science isn't just the science of modern times, bound by our current limitations. Science is simply the quest for provable answers, even if those answers disprove previously held ideas. Just as we mock past sciences as ludicrous, there are "sciences" now that would seem entirely mystical to someone from a couple of centuries ago, and no doubt in a century or so into the future, there may very well be sciences that are truly mind-boggling. So I don't know how you can possibly dismiss science so quickly. Lets look at the progression of science vs faith, faith has clung on and has, itself, evolved to try and keep up with a discipline that, time and again, gains momentum as, time and again, it's theories are backed up with empirical data. Creationism is faith's way of trying to ride the wave of scientific discovery and pretending like the last thousand years of assertion to the contrary have gone away. You say science needs answers, cause and effect? Surely that's a criticism that can be levelled at Faith as well. Scientists say it was the Big Bang, Creationists say it was God. Scientists don't pretend to understand fully the causes or circumstances of the Big Bang but they're trying to, Creationists outwardly decry anybody who does try to understand the terrible glory of God, and insist we should accept that God was the cause and we are the effect. I guess I just don't understand anybody who is wilfully ignorant, and frankly don't care if this makes me sound arrogant. I think you've missed my point really. It's not about "faith" vs science for me. I'm not championing religious faith at all, I'm questioning whether science is all it's cracked up to be. I don't believe in God, so I don't have an anti-scientist agenda if that's what you think. In fact I don't think I mentioned faith at all. What I was questioning is where this belief in science as the font of all answers to everything comes from. I expect for some people, ghosts can't exist as there's no scientific consensus for it, so end of story. It's not logical, rational, scientific. But why form a view of the supernatural exclusively based on science? As you highlight above, scientific enquiry is changeable from age to age, put on and thrown off like an old coat, and yet if we're told it's scientifically proven/unproven, we tend to accept it as truth. We also tend to accept this as the correct way to think. Scientists can't explain half of what goes on in human experience and on planet Earth without starting on the rest of the universe. I'm dubious whether given unlimited time and resources that will ever change but you think differently, so fair enough. For all the talk of scientific method and empirical evidence, I bet a lot of the great theoretical discoveries of the modern era owe a huge amount to imagination, inspiration, instinct and guess work back-filled with scientific method to provide a proof. I have no way of backing this assertion up of course, I should read up on Einstein but I can't be bothered. However for me science is just another iteration of the development of human thought, in one or two hundred years time or so I reckon there'll be another and better methodology along. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the progress we've achieved through science. I'm not a mad Luddite plotting the end of civilisation in a log cabin in Kentucky. However I think unquestioning acceptance of the scientific approach breeds a kind of prosaic literal mindedness which diminishes us and makes life duller. I prefer to think there's maybe more to life than a series of chemical interactions on a rock hurtling through space. I don't think ghosts exist but I'd like to think they do. I prefer not to rule them out simply because the scientists haven't come up with an explanation for their existence. I'm not convinced by Kevin's mate though, That's what I meant by having an open mind.