It's a pretty straightforward question. Either you do, in fact, subjectively feel that the world would be "so boring" if you learned God doesn't exist, or you don't.

It's also a very silly dichotomy: Either you do like ice with strawberrys better or you don't like ice cream.And I'll just overlook the patronizing tone of "I'm feel sorry for you but hope you heal soon".

I don't think it would be a silly dichotomy if I'd said "ice cream without strawberries is so boring".

I appreciate that it's not in your nature to admit even small errors in phrasing, so I won't bother pressing the point - your responses so far make your actual position pretty clear, imo i.e you think the world without god is more interesting than a world without. That is a very different stance from your original quote. So you should either recognise that you have corrected your original statement or expect people to ask how you hold that the world is simultaneously really interesting (without god but with mitoisis etc) and so boring (without god).

You're asking me to retract a quote I gave in an entirely unrelated context where I didn't even attempt to give a comprehensive view on the matter discussed here?

Three time's the charm: And the rhetorics around "I know you can't admit being wrong" are duly noted. They would be a waste of rolleyes, though.

An artist has a different mindset to a scientist and not many can do both. Feynmann played the bongos (and drew sketches of strippers ?) but did nothing else that could be considered artistic. This was not due to a lack of brain power. In many ways the outlooks required are opposite. Scientists are analytical and artists are more instinctive.

You could just answer the question. Would a world without god be 'boring' (to you)?

So, your contention is that if Feynman had not been a scientist - he would have been more artistic? Or are you saying that artists are born, not made?

A clarification of this would be nice.

Provided that we understand boring - as it was used in the original context - as an aesthetic description, something, by the way, that I've again emphasized in my very first sentence in this thread, which makes it all the more peculiar that zumby jumps to a dichotomy of boring - interesting, ya. It would be boring-er. But not uninteresting.

"Boring" is the antonym of "interesting"!

This is basic stuff. Something can be boring/interesting from an aesthetic perspective, or from a scientific perspective, or w/e. To make out that I'm inventing some peculiar dichotomy between boring and interesting is... I mean... who do you think is going to agree with you? It's standard English.

Nothing I have said changes in the slightest if you say "if I found out god didn't exist I'd think the world is aesthetically boring".

Imo you cannot produce art by thinking like a scientist which is what Feynmann is doing in the clip. Your other questions are impossible to answer categorically.

Then, apparently, we have differing language intuitions. To me, it wasn't clear at all that you were indeed using "boring" in the sense "aesthetically boring".

One more reason why it's silly to accuse me of being unwilling/unable to admit errors in phrasing - being a non-native speaker, it's the best get out of jail free card there is.

Interesting exclusion. If Feynmann saw women the same way he describes the flower he saw a skeletal frame and muscles connected by ligaments and tendons and dancing as forces acting upon the frame causing positional changes.

It sounds a bit oppressive to categorically determine what art is in this manner. Also when you in an earlier thread have also claimed that there exists a correct way to interpret particular pieces - it seems you want "art" to exist within very narrow confines.

Question: Can an artist fractally generate art?

It is tiresome how so many people in this thread posit these perspectives as dichotomic.

There is no conflict between seeing something as a reduction into its constituent parts and model how it works, and seeing it as a whole and focusing mainly on aesthetics, sensation and emotion towards the object.

Simple example: As a car enthusiast and hobby mechanic, shifting between those perspectives is completely trivial. It's not even always a shift, but sometimes (but not always) a symbiosis of the two views.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

The scientific mindset militates against the artistic one. The one wants to admire a butterfly the other wants to pull its wings off. It's not impossible to be very creative artistically and very scientific but few possess the flexibility of mind to achieve this. The creative process is about instinct and letting go. The scientific one is about thinking rigorously in a logical manner.

Kiss of death.

I'm pretty sure fretelöo was just being hyperbolic. That's how I treated it in the OP tbh. I didn't start the thread because I thought if he became an atheist, he'd spend the rest of his life despairing at the dullness of it all.

Falls under a) if you ask me.

I'm sure he's being hyperbolic too. But given that he kicks MightyBoosh up and down these forums for being hyperbolic (and not unjustly imo) it seems fair to call him out on it. Obviously the back-and-forth between us would have been unnecessary if fretelöo had said something like "I was being hyperbolic" but he hasn't.

Tbh, I'm still not really sure wherein my hyperbole lies, exactly.

It seems that zumby is harping on my usage of the word "boring" in the initial quote. Curious, then why not also harp on "big effin deal" and accuse me of downplaying my excitement or w/e. I'd say the reason for that is very obvious: The general message of the quote was something like: "Whatever the 'truth' ends up being - to me it matters more as a statement regarding the aesthetic status of the world." What sorts of statements I used to make that general point is largly relevant onyl insofar as the overall point comes through or not. I'd argue it was perfectly understandable, in particular since I specified the context in which I wanted "boring" to be understood both in the original context and in this thread.

How me incorporating an ambiguous word in a self-quote that's part of a more general statement is comparable to MB making specific claims that because of his carelessness become factually wrong, remains to be shown, imo.

Edit: Or is it that I said "so boring" instead of "more boring" or something?

Urk. Actually this is something I've been making an effort not to do, and not just here but IRL too. Lack of specificity/clarity/logic maybe, but hyperbole? Not guilty your honour.

This I'll accept:

But I don't deliberately exaggerate. Now, can we talk about me as if I'm here? Good manners and all that....

Yes, "more boring" (which is roughly equivalent to "less interesting") is very different from "so boring" which is roughly equivalent to "very very boring".

I did point out that you probably meant this other phrasing upthread "you think the world without god is more interesting than a world without", but you didn't acknowledge it.

I'm not suggesting you do it on purpose, just that your lack of specificity causes you to make hyperbolic claims "religion holds back science" etc .

Ok, I assumed you were making a jump from aesthetically boring to epistemically interesting. My bad.

a and b are virtually equivalent.

Hem, hem