>[re] Parent Node(s):. . . God
>
>Monotheism, Polytheism, Agnosticism
>Might as well round out the theism theme.
>
>Monotheism - only one god - Christian (if you ignore that trinity
>stuff), Judaism and Islam are the big ones.
>
>Polytheism - many gods, all myth systems, Greek, Roman, Norse,
>Babylonian, Egyptian, North American Natives,...
>
>Agnostics believe that we cannot know anything about the nature
>of the gods or whether there really is anything of a higher
>power.
[and]
>Pantheism is the belief that god is inherent in all things.
F. Heylighen writes:
>Thanks for filling this in. We should have done it ourselves a long time
>ago, but there are so many things to be done... We hope to have more
>detailed explanations of these concepts soon.
Don Mikulecky MCV/VCU Mikulecky@gems.vcu.edu writes:
>Under which religous caregory do you place science?
What is the point of all this in relation to the objectives of the
Principia Cybernetica Project? I assume that Don Milulecky's question is
intended to be ironic (in suggesting that science may be a category of
religion), but I also think it may have a deeper import and importance.
Some may argue that for the PCP to include religion is to stray too far
from its own field. Yet PCP is clearly committed to a expanding technology
with consequences for society, and it may be quite useful for PCP to try to
take into account the place and role of religion in the larger context of
human thought and culture on which it expects to have an impact (cf. the
discussions of the WWW and a Super-Brain). And if it is really going to do
the latter it should do it properly.
If one takes religion seriously, which I do and I think any thoughtful
person must, one recognizes very soon that it is less concerned with
simplistic labels (identified with idols and idolatry from ancient times)
and very much concerned with the hierarchies of levels and meanings for
human beings and social existence that lie behind the obvious world of
appearances of daily life, including the problems life poses in relation to
suffering, death and meaning.
The core experience which makes society possible is the experience of
membership in a group or society, which provides meanings which transcend
the individual alone. In his work The Elementary Forms of Religious Life,
Durkheim pointed out that community life depends upon and requires loyalty
and sacrifice, and in effect is conditioned by the higher values which its
members prize and/or consider sacred.
This is relevant to PCP insofar as alternative descriptions in terms of
cybernetic models can help illuminate the organization and arrangements
through which controlling ideas and values are derived and may be
implemented.
For men have always felt the influences of ascending levels and of powers
and principles.
Traditional definitions in relation to particular belief systems in
particular societies have been misleading to those who would understand the
role of religion and the idea of God in relation to society, its
organizational dynamics and its problems. This is for the reason that the
terms of traditional teaching have been designed to foster belief and
faith, and to secure conformity in behavior, not to question assumptions or
understand more deeply. (The prophets who came along periodically to
supersede the priestly teachings of their times were exceptions in this
regard.)
Obviously this is a big subject, and I am doubtful that the PCP newsgroup
is a place where it can be discussed adequately. (A question arises
concerning where it might be dealt with. Annotations would not seem to
provide an adequate framework.Suggestions in this regard would be welcome!)
But the points at issue should be considered, at least briefly, in order to
help steer possible inclusion of these themes, which I think are relevant
to PCP aims, into useful directions where cybernetics has unique insights
and contributions to make. At the least, PCP should avoid getting into
blind alleys and areas for which most of its technologically oriented
members lack expertise, and which have traditionally led nowhere, not even
being relevant to deeper religious insights (as most of the greatest
prophets pointed out in their own ways).
Is science a religion? Clearly the answer to this depends upon the
definitions one has in mind. And obviously there are many kinds of
religions, of conceptions of the kinds of ties that bind men together and
make joint endeavours possible. For scientists who rely on a kind of faith
in presumed facts and principles of so-called scientific method, and for
whom the goal of the human enterprise is knowledge and power, science may
be a kind of religion.
But merely to raise these questions also indicates that there are still
higher levels of abstraction and more ultimate concern for us. The highest
levels and values are involved not with particular conceptions of the
nature of God, or particular versions of scientific methodology and the
nature of knowledge, but with processes of reevaluating all of these things
in their wider interrelationships, in the lights of the widest possible
understanding, in a word with possibilites for creativity.
At the highest level is the greatest value, the freedom of an open mind and
a capacity and readiness to perceive new relationships and larger syntheses
or objects of thought. While such conceptual objects may include scientific
theories they may also include constitutional arrangements to which a body
politic can make commitment (e.g. in South Africa).
In summary I am arguing against an overly simplistic approach to either
religion or to science, which is so very likely to be worse than useless.
PCP may have a constructive contribution to make. It should be steered
away, by corrective feedback, from wandering unnecessarily into areas of
thought and culture mined with destructive software bombs.
Cheers!
Bruce Buchanan buchanan@hookup.net
"We are all in this together!"