Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Wangja]

Bloody 'ell, 12 voters actually believe that dino's and humans co-existed.

I bet they believed in Iraqi WMD's too.

[mindmetoo]

[nateium]

[Rteacher]

I don't think that it necessarily should be mixed with material science at all, but its conclusions with regard to the existence of spirit-souls, which are atomic particles of the infinitely conscious source of all spirit and matter should be deferred to as more perfect knowledge of origins of life than anything that can be arrived at by empirical or speculative processes...

[nateium]

[mindmetoo]

[tomato]

I like classical music.
I would like for more people to give classical music a try.

On this forum, there is a thread about popular song titles.
Perhaps I should invade that thread and tell the participants that they are listening to the wrong kind of music.

There are also a few threads about current TV shows.
I shall also invade those threads and tell them that they are looking the wrong way for entertainment.

While I'm at it, I shall also invade the threads about sports.

That would make at least as much sense as invading a thread about science and preaching Hinduism.

[Rteacher]

The thread title invites alternative views of evolution - not necessarily limited to modern scientific theories.

I don't preach Hindu philosophy (and I don't identify myself as a Hindu...) but ancient Vedic culture in India had advanced scientific understanding of even atomic theory in the material sense. The sage Kanada had a sophisticated understanding of atoms and molecules over 2600 years ago, and Sanskrit texts like the Bhagavat Purana and Mahabharata compiled over 5000 years ago also discuss the atomic compostition of matter and even describe a type of nuclear weapon...

Some great modern scientists have acknowledged being influenced by Vedic thought. To really understand evolution in its fullest sense, I think that one needs a philosophical understanding of the self that transcends material logic.

I'll quote some from this one essay I just came across that elaborates on some of these points:

Bohr, Einstein, and Heisenberg all realized that physics' secession from philosophy in the seventeenth century could not last. Since the limits of purely descriptive and predictive science had been reached, these modern physicists were forced back into philosophic reflection. Einstein maintained that quantum physics was an incomplete theory and thus attempted to re-establish the project of classical physics by joining the theory of relativity with it to form a Grand Unified Theory. Heisenberg developed a subtly skeptical philosophy of representation which maintained the project of quantum physics but admitted its provisional nature. And Bohr began to supplement the Aristotelian logic of noncontradiction with the Taoist-influenced concept of "complementarity," the idea that a single physical phenomenon can be represented accurately in utterly opposing ways that form a tacit unity. The fact that light could be understood both as a wave and a particle was not a contradiction which indicated that one or both of these models had to be wrong: it pointed to a deeper principle within nature, the interpenetration and reciprocity of opposites.

But it was Erwin Schr�dinger who saw in the paradoxical findings of quantum physics a parallel with the teachings of the Upanishads and the Bhagavad-Gita . Before doing the work that earned him the Nobel Prize in 1933, Schr�dinger had written a short philosophical treatise entitled Seek for the Road (1925) which contests the Western demand that all metaphysical thinking be dismissed. Such a mission is itself a tran-
scendental gesture, since it presumes that scientific knowledge is not itself produced and represented in generalizing, which is to say metaphysical, ways. "All that is apt to happen is that we replace the grand old metaphysical errors with infinitely more naive and petty ones."[15] In the same vein Whitehead demonstrated that scientific thought was dominated by what he called the "fallacy of misplaced concreteness,"[16] the naive faith in a correspondence between intellectual forms and "brute matter." Schr�dinger believed "that to grasp the basis of phenomena through logical thought may in all probability be impossible, since logical thought is itself a part of phenomena, and wholly involved in them. . . . Logical thinking brings us up to a certain point and then leaves us in the lurch."[17]

And this is precisely what he and other physicists realized in subsequent years: the nature of a physical phenomenon depended on what instruments or what logic one applied to it. Schr�dinger explained in his Nobel Address (1933) that quantum physics left one with this conclusion:

Either this or that (Particle mechanics)
and
This as well as that (Wave Mechanics).[18]

Such a conclusion, in logical terms, was nonsense: the entire weight of Western rationality was opposed to it.

For Schr�dinger this dilemma confirmed his own deep skepticism about logic's ability to represent the deep structure of the world. He assumed that above all else, the world of mind and objects, words and referents, was essentially and necessarily a single manifestation of Brahman. Logical contradictions do not reveal the limits of the possible; they reveal the limited uses of logic...

... "The Self is not so much linked with what happened to its ancestors, it is not so much the product, and merely the product, of all that, but rather, in the strictest sense of the word, the SAME THING as all that: the strict, direct continuation of it, just as the Self aged fifty is the continuation of the Self aged forty."[19] And Schr�dinger insists that this view is not just metaphorically, but literally true: the particulate self is, in actuality, also a wave...
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=ft3v19n97j&chunk.id=d0e859

[nateium]

[mindmetoo]

[Rteacher]

"Nateium" (whoever he may be - "mindmetoo's Siamese twin?) while attempting to exhibit his "critical thinking" by regurgitating the usual boilerplate scientific spiel...) made the following convoluted statement:

"This doesn't mean ultimately that science isn't the best way to answer questions..."

I don't dispute that material science may be the best way to answer many questions, but (to me) it obviously isn't the best way to answer ALL questions (eg: relating to the purpose of life, the existence of the soul, the personal feature of God...)

Answers to basic spiritual questions needn't be sought haphazardly. There can be a systematic, scientific approach, but it entails rigorously following a tried and proven devotional process after hearing from the right sources.

Appealing to a mundane authority may be fallacious, but transcendental knowledge from the completely perfect personal source of everything can be transmitted via disciplic successions of pure devotees - authorized by their predecessors in the chain...

Basically, one has to at least theoretically accept Krishna as the supreme authority when reading His presentation of Bhagavat-gita (as it is...) in order to learn the ABC's of spiritual science...

It's apparent to many sincere souls that application of advanced material science without proper spiritual guidance results in unnecessary violence to many - if not all - forms of life...

Evolution explained from an absolute perspective focuses on different levels of consciousness for each species. The various material forms are created (by highly intelligent, "superhuman" beings) according to the different desires of living entities to enjoy matter in different ways.

Only the various human forms of life have the potential for full consciousness, ultimately meant for reaching the perfectional stage of our existence, obviating the need for any more material births and suffering...

Public conflicts between how-profile evolutionists, sometimes openly espousing atheism, and sectarian religionists, often lacking philosophical depth to back up sentimental beliefs, have politically charged the issue...

While I'm not much of a scientist in any sense, I think that the Vedic version of evolution should be presented for consideration by thoughtful men (and women...) in order to broaden perspectives on this contentious issue...

[tomato]

I was watching the Miss USA pageant with a guy who operated a church which he thought was going to take over the whole world.
He also considered himself an amazing prophet.
When Miss California came on the screen, he said, "Oh, she's beautiful!"
He had other obligations, so I watched the rest of the pageant by myself.
After the pageant, I told him that Miss California won.
He said, "See? I told you she was going to win!"

[nateium]

[tomato]

I don't know who did a better job,
the Hare Krishnas who love-bombed Rteacher
or the Amway distributors who snookered my roommate in Gumi.