virus: prev. Demon Thread

Ken Pantheists (kenpan@cortex.axionet.com)
Wed, 24 Apr 1996 21:05:26 +0000


boneill@voyager.net wrote:

>
> Tangent 2:
> To dig into that knot of causality even more, to what degree has
> christianity, in it's role as cultural backbone, allowed us to profit as
> scientific and/or non-religious thinkers? Even to the point of denying the
> tenets of christianity completely... interesting how that works out.

I'm sure James Burke would be a great source for that one.

I'm remembering this off the top of my head, but I remember a show he
did on the evolution of the scientific method. The central tenet was
that the European/Christian view of the universe as a hierarchical order
gave birth to the scientific method. (I know I made a big jump there-
Burke handles it much better.) For example- the whole idea of
understanding a large part of the universe by experimenting with a small
part of it would have been inconcievably stupid to members of other
religions. He looked at the far eastern religions. (I can't remeber
which specific religion it was) The ****ians would not have believed
that a small part of the universe could behave like a larger part
because it lacked the chi, or life force, of the larger part.

> Christianity is a damn successful complex of ideas. But maybe Islam has a
> better gig going for the long haul...of course, too much order can strangle
> any organism. That whole phase-space analogy... the "magic region" where
> negentropy is maximized. What religion comes closest? Which ones have too
> much order and which ones are too chaotic? I'd be interested to hear
> conjectures.

What is negentropy, the phase-space analogy and the "magic region"?
Sounds fascinating- want to know more.

Ken Pantheists