I don't really know how a spiritual and/or religious person thinks about meaning and how much of an impact science has on the meaning they derive from their faith and the teachings/standards they choose to live by in relation to said faith, I've been an atheist since childhood, but I have a gut feeling that the development of science is rather irrelevant to those deeply held beliefs that inform their everyday actions and more broadly the way they conceptualize meaning in their lives.
I think in some respect the modern phenomenon of young western white males running off to join jihadists is a product of the meaning-hole left in the west by the death of Christianity.
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I don't think science has much impact on people of such conviction; but part of Bakker's point is that the universe doesn't care what you believe. And when it threatens us existentially--by one means or another--science will be the only protection we have. People can choose to keep believing whatever they want, but there comes a point when meaning (especially hermetically sealed meaning) simply can't stand against the horror of matter.
I think that people need to differentiate between "meaning" and "awe." You can be awed by something in a very experiential way and not need to conceptualize it in a meaningful way. My very religious family has told me that God creating humanity was a miracle. But I quite simply find it infinitely more miraculous that no one created humanity--that humanity just happened. That sounds like a miracle to me, and I'm awed by it. But I don't find any meaning in it. It's a meaningless accident.
In the wake of the "death of Christianity," people are scrambling to find new ways to conceptualize our place in the universe. I think this is a misguided practice, and I agree with you that it leads to extreme behaviors. These behaviors are people's attempts to devise meaning for an increasingly complex modern world.
In this case, the peers were robots. When children aged seven to nine were alone in the room, they scored an average of 87% on the test.
But when the robots joined them, their scores dropped to 75% on average. Of the wrong answers, 74% matched those of the robots.
Those algorithmic fucks...
For many there is a desire to be a "part of something bigger than themselves", and all sorts of organizations appeal to this explicitly.
They see God's hand in something and derive meaning from the idea that God does everything for a reason and we all have our purpose etc etc and you and I see a meaningless event that inspires a similar amount of awe. I'm not sure how we can ever bridge such a chasm.
Naturally, the paper’s got a fair bit of attention in the popular science press. There’s one thing that none of those articles have mentioned, though. This is not the first time hydrogen sulfide has proven useful in a medical— even in a life-extension— context. Way back in 2005, Blackstone et al exposed mice to 80ppm H2S and reduced their metabolic rate by 90%, with no ill effects. So now we have a simple compound, endogenously produced, which is instrumental both in extending life and in suspending animation.
Or, if you want to be lurid about it, in conferring “immortality” and inducing an undead state.
This is somewhat of a batshit theory I suppose, but I was having a small debate with a friend and this came up:
The concept of cultural appropriation is unintentionally nationalistic (or at the very least perpetuates basic nationalistic concepts) in its desire to maintain borders around cultures which are closed off from people based almost entirely on racial and ethnic criteria. It's the very opposite of the concept of free movement and internationalism.