> Thank you to Steve from Auz.
>
> What a stimulating post
>
> "For if religions such as
> Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and others at least understood the
> important role of desire and choice in personality formation (what I
> perceive as an early interpretation of what we now call memetics), what
> does
> this say about the so-called superiority of an 'objective' science that
> has
> been so blissfully ignorant of this basic dimension of all living
> consciousness? "
>
> You tie it up nicely with a very virian stand--
>
> "We need to unify science and religion, not divide them."
>
> (To my mind, anyway. I'm sure there are others who would disagree.)
>
> Someone who is very uncomfortable with religion (the word) might say
> that science needs to engineer memes that slide into the belief space
> that is currently held by religion.(a process of supplanting rather than
> synthesis)
>
> But I would buy this.
Unification is a two-way street. Not only does science need to be
applied to religion-type phenomena, the religion-type phenomena need to
be viewed in terms of augmenting science proper. [Once you have the
technology, you can use it to further explore.] If we want to obviate
the EndMemes, we want this BADLY.
[The Raving Christian Right EndMeme is flaring up: one monitor of its
'speed' has outright stated that he only sees one barrier between the
current situation and the Eze 38/39 Gog War. Note that as science starts
explaining spiritual phenomena (whatever is out there), the domain for
this EndMeme's applicability shrinks. One persona of this EndMeme
requires 'miracles'. As science reduces what can be used for miracles,
it works to disable this EndMeme.]
While there is a proper use of the word 'supernatural', it usually [in
form-without-power religions] connotes "we want to know as little about
it as possible. Frankly, knowing it exists is knowing too much."
Please keep in mind: there is usually a bias to consider repeatable
phenomena as 'natural'. This strikes me as an ineffective criterion. If
'supernatural' is a real domain [I haven't decided yet], I will outright
assume it is susceptible to science as well.
> Also:
>
> re: the tarot project.
>
> I would buy that too.
>
> What is the next step?
>
> Should members of the list who are interested in working on such a
> project start a seperate list? We can talk about the nuts and bolts--
> the division of labour etc.
>
> Not to be exclusive-- just efficient. We can post updates on the project
> to the Virus list as things get done (??)
>
> Every idea so far sounds great.
Include me on that list.
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/ Kenneth Boyd
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