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A Review
of
Chapter 4
of
Daniel C. Dennett's

Breaking the Spell
by Doug Renselle

Doug's Pre-review Commentary

Start of Review



Introduction

1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Notes Appendices

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Chapter 4...............The Roots of Religion


This chapter has three sections:

Section 1 - The births of religions [Note Dennett's use of plurals in both births and religions. Note his definite article 'the.']

Section 2 - The raw materials of religion [Definite article 'the.' Plural materials. Singular religion.]

Section 3 - How nature deals with the problem of other minds [Definite article 'the.' Singular problem. Plural minds.]


Is it just us, or does 'Birthings of religionings' just sound better and make more sense than 'The births of religions?'

There is n¤ 'the,' right? Er...now which 'the' is 'that' 'that' you had in your ('the?') mind?

And religions aren't actually state-ic, are they, even though they try to be, so does n¤t religioning make more sense? All religionings change, indeed all religionings evolve, right?

Aren't there other problems than religionings? In Quantonics sciencings are problems too, in some ways greater problems than religionings. Sciencings invented WMDs: religion as far as we know did n¤t...

How can there be 'other minds' attending 'the' 'problem' religion?

Which 'the roots' of religion are we talking about anyway? Should n¤t we be saying 'Rootings of Religionings?' Even 'Routings of Religionings?' Are there only one set of roots? For all religions? Who says?


Section 1 - The births of religions

Dennett starts this chapter with a list of obscure (to us) religious beliefs by three different faiths:

He fails to mention science's obscure (and religio-scientifically bogus) beliefs to which many classical 'scientists' still adhere:

As did Dennett re: religious beliefs, let's ask, "How did all those scientific beliefs arise?" Of course Dennett's query was intended as derogatory against religion, so we offer ours, too, as derogatory against classical, dialectical science. What's Dennettian good for religion must be Dennettian good for science...a lamb calling a pig pink.

He fails to mention that 'science' is genuinely schizophrenic! 'Science' can't seem to get its paradigm right. Science is paradigmatically undecidable! Science hates its own radical uncertainty, while claiming it only 'exists' at meso-, atomic, and subatomic levels of reality.

When one looks at science's beliefs vis-à-vis religions' beliefs one sees just how obscure both are...except for their faith-filled believers...

Doug Renselle and Quantonics agree with Clifford Geertz, "Scientism is mostly just bluff." With beau coup Dennettian arrogance enfolded... Here's our AL HotMeme™ from our review of Geertz' Available Light, PUP, 2000:

AL HotMeme: But then Geertz goes back to a wholly quantumesque perspective, "As for laws, I have already suggested that I can't think of any serious candidates in my field with which to contend. One of the most irritating things in my field is people who say you're not doing any 'real science' if you don't come up with laws, thereby suggesting that they themselves have done so, without actually telling you what these laws are. On the rare occasions they do tell you — two miles a year, cannibalism and protein shortage — the situation is worse. Scientism, and here I will talk of the human ['soft'] sciences overall, is mostly just bluff. It's one thing to call the spirits from the misty deep, quite another to make them come when you call them. But it is not just imposture that's involved: the utopianism induced by a misconceived view of the pre-twentieth-century physics (the world before Maxwell), that was imported into the human sciences has led not to the gates of paradigm-land, but to a great deal of wasted motion and high proclamation. " pp. 136-7.

Except for his Maxwell parenthetical, we say "Marvelous!" In place of his parenthetical we offer "the world before quantum science." We agree. In quantum reality both truth and laws [and belief and faith] are agencies of their own uncertainty and change. Semper flux! AL HotMemes

Most interesting of all, though, is that Geertz' remarks also apply to 'hard science,' as our work in Quantonics shows quite evidently. Really, ideal, hard scientific 'law' simply does not exist! Why? Quantum uncertainty reigns at all scales of reality. As we declared in our prior chapters' reviews, science can claim only a single merit above religion: provisionality.

Just as religion is 'a model' of reality, science too is 'a model' of reality. Period! Neither has canonic entitlement on invariant-truth n¤r -righteousness.

Need an antidote? May we suggest Scott M. Peck's Road Less Traveled?


Section 2 - The raw materials of religion

Dennett brings out his entourage of atheistic thought cops. Again, if we paraphrase much of Dennett's prose replacing religion with science, we see how narcissistic and selfish scientific thought-cop atheistic 'scientists' really are.

Dennett's work is just a huge 'scientific' dialectism attempting futilely to survive. But dialectic is dying! It is evolving itself out of existence simply by being a n¤n Dawkinsianly Evolutionarily Stable Strategy. Dialectic isn't a meme, rather it is an antimemetic ideal ideology: stux is crux.

Dennett and his 'experts' view bodily systems, including brain as objective, lisr. Quantum science shows us they are not lisr. Human brain-mind is wholly lisr-arbitrary, n¤t classically lisr-specific. Dennett, et al., appear to us to say that brain-mind is lisr-specific. But what can we expect? Classical 'laws' are lisr-specific, and 'scientists' arrogantly call that "genericity."

Simply, locus is specific. Now ask Dennett "Where is your brain, and where is your mind?" Try 'When' too. Quantum science shows us multi~temporal and multi~local quantum~genericity!

Dennett, et al., claim mind has 'features.' But mind has n¤ features. Mind is n¤t classical! Mind is quantum! Mind has n¤n lisr quantum~interrelationshipings!

Use of classical mechanical analysis to study mind guarantees classical 'scientific' Babelian conclusions.

N¤t bright: dark!

Pasquale, "Mom, please turn d' Endarkenment switch off..."


Section 3 - How nature deals with the problem of other minds

Dennett's 'other' here implies dialectical lisrability...obvious, right? Excluded-middle, right? Mind as object, right?

Dennett shows us in this section of chapter 4, that he faithfully believes and practices that any mind, regardless, may be measured point-wise.

Beware of classical 'scientists' bearing dialectical 'thought.'

Doug - 8Mar2006

Thank you for reading.


 

 

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