> Humans are a pattern-making, story-telling species. We call some of
>those patterns and stories science, and they must match certain rules. We call
>other patterns and stories religion and those too must meet certain rules.
>
I think it's not just humans, it's a nature of any intelligent system.
We build patterns and stories (or static and dynamic models) for a reason;
the reason is to do something useful with them. When it is changing the
outside world, we want our models to be instrumental, verifiable, etc.
That's science. When the goal is to feel good, to justify our actions,
play with our motivations, etc., the criteria for instrumental stories
are different. I do not see any problem with that; I used to imagine
- and "feel" breathing energy through my body; it's an instrumental
metaphor for body awareness and attention games. The popular fallacy
here, IMO, is mistaking "what makes me tick" for "what is true", and
taking our little personal fantasies far beyond their intended range.
Except that it feels so good to think that those things are real and
a part of something big and awfully important...
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Alexander Chislenko <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html>
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