I don’t know about you, but I’m becoming heartily sick of being told the obvious nonsense that “myths” are just as valid an approach to the truth as science, just different. No they aren’t. If there were a better way of getting to the truth, science would adopt it.
-
-
A lot of scientists (Dawkins eg, the Jordan Peterson of a different crowd) have a hugely lesser appreciation. It's evident in this reductive quote he's a sophist when it comes to grasping the significance of narrative in terms of what is known now and can be known scientifically.
-
No, I don't think so. Have a look at Unweaving the Rainbow. Don't know what the last sentence means.
-
Ok, I haven't read that, but this quote is terrible, and I see it everyday from pedantry, clearly expressed in that angle of Peterson criticism. It's shallow.
-
I think its very important. We absolutely do not need to disregard either the potential of art to move us or the importance of narratives to our species to separate them from truth. This is highly counterintuitive to us as a story-telling species but doing so is how we advanced.
-
For most of our history, we have relied on narratives to guide us. Life got better when we developed a system to overrule our story-telling nature and discover what was true. We don't have to lose stories or stop finding them meaningful and we never will but lets not go backwards
-
Might I suggest The Science of Discworld 2. A great story about the importance of great stories and how extelligence has influenced the story telling monkey.
-
Sounds good. However, I do not need convincing of the power of narratives. I am actually much more interested in cultural narratives & uses of them than in the methods or findings of natural science. I just see the need to see the difference between the two.pic.twitter.com/DNzwXkIZCJ
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
I love you all BUT- can I make a musical analogy? (I’m a composer). An analysis of say Beethoven 5 can only tell u so much. Music creates “meaning” in ways we can not decipher empirically. There really are more things in heaven and earth that can be dreamt of in your philosophy!
-
Nobody denies this tho. RD wrote a whole book about it. See Unweaving the Rainbow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unweaving_the_Rainbow …
-
I will. Thanks. And I hope I find out why RD is so happy to define any “truths” from myths (or any other kind of non scientific approach) as “nonsense”? Cos it kind of belittles what I, or any other creative person.
-
Because he's an empirical scientist. It doesn't belittle art to say it isn't true. We don't love Hamlet for its truth value but for the beauty of its language and the complexity of its characters. It wouldn't have that if it were a true rendition of events.
-
I love Hamlet for its truth value!
-
Hamlet is not true. It's a story. If it were to be a true account, it would be a report of some monarch who was mentally disabled and look like a police report. He'd be much less interesting and definitely not speak in beautifully crafted iambic pentameter.
-
You love Hamlet for its beauty and meaning. This is different to truth. It is so easy to say 'This is a beautifully moving play about something which didn't happen.' Don't have to claim it to be a true story.
-
Let’s jump off Hamlet (cos it’s a “narrative”) and move back to Beethoven/Coltrane/ insert favourite composer. What’s your argument here? Is music just melody, rhythm and harmony? Do I love it for its beauty and meaning? Does it therefore contain no “truths’?
- 5 more replies
New conversation -
-
-
I think you will have trouble consistently maintaining this distinction between meaningful and true. By "true", Dawkins means something narrow, defined by excluding other notions of what the word true means. But the relation between the true and the meaningful is complicated.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
-
I'm maybe not so much thinking about which model we use but the fact that atheist/humanist/materialist (I am one) seem willing to totally eschew behavioral models. I'm not certain most humans can handle the cognitive load of behaving w/o a referential model.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.