[extropy-chat] Re: The Force of Human Freedom

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

Thanks for expaining your position Greg, I tried to explain mine in
the reply to Mike (same subject line). Please refer to  that message
for practical war-related considerations, here I will focus on the
theoretical bit.
I think your key message is in the statement "But just as the
systematic doubt that is the crucial foundation of the scientific
method doesn't bar one from finally reaching conclusions in science,
so cultural skepticism need not reduce one to moral bankruptcy"
I agree with this statement but with some imo very important caveats.
Science is all about building models of reality sufficiently simple to
be understandable and mathematically workable, yet sufficiently
complex to permit taking all relevant factors into account. An
engineer who uses Newtonian billiard ball physics to design a bridge
of concrete is doing the right thing, but the same engineer knows that
the same model of reality does not permit designing a new
semiconductor device. He needs quantum physics to do that. As you well
know quantum physics followed to its conclusions makes one question
the very meaning of "reality" and "truth", but here the pragmatic
engineer would say, I don't need to know what is true, I just need to
know how to design a semiconductor device, and quantum physics permits
doing that. While I don't fully agree with this position, it is
accepted by most scientists and all engineers, and it means that
science is not about truth, but about usefulness. Newtonian billiard
ball physics is not "true" but it is "useful" in given circumstances
and this is what is really important.
So I don't feel the need to know what is "true" or "good", but only
what is "useful" and "applicable". This is not moral bankrupcy as I
will still make moral choices, not based on any "objective truth and
morality" but on practical utility and relevance to my goals.
I wanted to write more but have to go, look fwd to continue the discussion.
G.


On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 07:26:48 -0600, Greg Burch <gregburch at gregburch.net> wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Giu1i0Pri5c0
> > Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2005 3:48 AM
> > To: ExI chat list
> > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: The Force of Human Freedom
> >
> >
> > The "misogynistic warrior-cult" of islam is clearly the opposite of
> > the "crippling relativism" that you dislike in modern western culture:
> > they believe in their holy war against the west with a fervor
> > untainted by doubt, complex ideas, and crippling relativism.
> > So it seems to me that if you disapprove relativism in our culture,
> > you should approve its absence in theirs.
> > Or are just stating that we are good and they are bad without
> > accepting the burden of proof?
> > Or have I misunderstood something?
> > G.
> 
> There does seem to be a misunderstanding.  Doubt and skepticism are crucial elements of the modern Enlightenment world-view.  And of course it is just the lack of this that marks the premodern mind-set as so perfectly exemplified in salafist Islam, as you rightly observe.  However, it is the slide from skepticism to cultural relativism that marks the self-destructive "post-modern turn" as Best and Kellner so aptly called it in the title of their book on the subject.  But just as the systematic doubt that is the crucial foundation of the scientific method doesn't bar one from finally reaching conclusions in science, so cultural skepticism need not -- as the most radical postmodernists who have seized power in academia and elsewhere in our cultural apparatus in the west conclude -- reduce one to moral bankruptcy.  Bertrand Russell once described the result of the scientific method as "successive approximations of the truth."  The same can be said of Enlightenment modern morality and cultural values.  It is the post-modern rejection of the concept of moral truth that is, in my opinion the chief weapon in the salafist Muslim warrior's arsenal against the concept of progress.
> 
> This has led to the nearly universal alliance between the left and Islamic radicals in the West.  We have the absurd result of so-called 'progressives" being unwilling to lift a finger to oppose the most horrific oppression of women in the Muslim world when 70 years ago they lined up in droves to go to Spain to fight the fascists -- where is the 21st century equivalent of the "Abraham Lincoln Brigade" in which communists and socialists from the U.S. fought and died in Spain? where is the "Susan B. Anthony Brigade?"  Now we are told "it's their culture -- if you condemn them you are being a cultural imperialist!"  Long-time leftists like Christopher Hitchens who have pointed out this fundamental hypocrisy have been vilified and summarily excommunicated from the fold.  To even pronounce his name in the midst of the Chomskyite faithful is to risk launching an avalanche of opprobrium.  How often do we hear the left condemn what has happened to Salman Rushdie?  Where is Hollywood when a fellow filmmaker like Theo van Gogh is murdered by a religious fanatic?  The silence from the Western mainstream cultural left about these topics is deafening. If they hadn't been enfeebled by post-modernism, we'd see feminist commando groups parachuting into Iran, guerrilla filmmakers infiltrating Egypt, insurgent poets making hit-and-run attacks on madrassas in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
> 
> At the risk of constantly citing myself, I urge you to read the text of my talk at Extro 5 on this subject:
> 
> http://www.gregburch.net/progress.html
> 
> This talk was given just three months before 911.
> 
> As to accepting "the burden of proof," I do.  After 911, I realized that I had a huge gap in my knowledge of human culture and worked for two years to remedy it, reading literally tens of thousands of pages about Islamic history, theology and culture.  I am more than willing to shoulder the burden of proof; I just ask that we be willing upon considering the evidence to actually make some judgments.
> 
> GB