rationalskepticism.org

sanja wrote:

IanS wrote:

IanS wrote:

OK good. So when you said the above, although you were quoting famous scientists and talking about science and also about intuition, what un-scientific things were you proposing to be better understood simply through "intuition"?

Do you mean claims about supernatural Gods?

Let me quote Bergson:

Bergson rejected what he saw as the overly mechanistic predominant view of causality (as expressed in, say, finalism). He argued that we must allow space for free will to unfold in an autonomous and unpredictable fashion. While Kant saw free will as something beyond time and space and therefore ultimately a matter of faith, Bergson attempted to redefine the modern conceptions of time, space, and causality in his concept of Duration, making room for a tangible marriage of free will with causality. Seeing Duration as a mobile and fluid concept, Bergson argued that one cannot understand Duration through "immobile" analysis, but only through experiential, first-person intuition.

So, "duration" would be one of things that science cannot examine/explain.

I do not quite understand how things can be "scientific" or "un-scientific".
Some things are in domain of science, some are not. I believe that is more proper way to say it.

But none of those things are basicly religious issues.
All of them are, primarly, philosofical.
(free will, elan vital, schopenhauer's transcedent will,, etc. Even god, if you like it so much Btw, I think "supernatural god" is a pleonasm Although I'm not quite sure what "supernatural" means )

Who is "Bergson"?

What exactly are you claiming as the value of what you call "intuition"?

If you are saying it's a good idea & more efficient to use intuition & to make an educated guess for solving many common everyday problems, then I don't think anyone would disagree with you.

But that's just a statement of the obvious.

On the other hand, if you are saying it's better to use intuition rather than science when trying to answer questions about such things as the formation of our universe, then I completely disagree with you.

And every scientist in the world would also disagree with you. That's why they go to the immense trouble of conducting scientific research, rather making the utterly worthless sort of claims that religious people make about their "intuition".

However, I do not see why you would even try to argue about the value of "intuition" on an atheist forum if in fact you are not actually trying to make some sort of religious point.

You may not wish to openly say what religious ideas lay behind your posts. But in that case all that happens is your posts look obviously suspicious, and people will naturally assume that you are in fact making religious claims even if you choose not to say that directly.

When people come on to forums like this arguing that science is not capable of explaining things such as love, morals and "faith" etc., and saying that instead of science what is required is the use of "intuition" &/or "personal experience" etc., then they are almost always making a purely religious argument even if they do not wish to state that openly (the same thing happened countless times on RDF).

However, as I say - if you are not making any religious argument at all, but just saying that in common everyday situations intuition is often a more efficient way of guessing the best solution, rather than making a detailed scientific analysis, then everyone would agree with you and the statement is so trivially and blindingly obvious that there's actually nothing at all to talk about.

The real question here is therefore - are you religious, and are you trying to make a religious argument about intuition?