“Revolution in Thought: A new look at determinism and free will"

[Jarhyn]

How in the hell is this still going on? I need to check ignored threads more often...

@southernhybrid, I imagine threads like these happen because people want to argue, somehow, over whether people have an obligation to "reprogram themselves".

I might imagine it survives as a worldview because as perverse as the view that we cannot reprogram ourselves may be, it benefits those who sell the viewpoint. For those who some person who convinces of such a thing, gratitude of them taking on the weight of living and "driving" becomes a thing, attachment and even leadership status granted from those who they convince to believe that they lack freedom of will.

I think The Never Ending Story had it right: those who have no dreams of their own are easy to control.

People sell the abdication of this grand weight of living as a great service and joyful thing, forgetting the reason they ever carried the weight.

Big dreams are surprisingly heavy, and carrying these despite the costs is done because to see a dream birthed into reality is a wondrous thing, often the product of much work and sacrifice... And it is harder to accomplish a dream when others do not work together with you to make it all happen.

We fight for the power to accomplish our dreams, and to do that effectively, we have to plan our actions ahead of time, or at least know how to combine present moments in ways that take us towards what we want. To form immediate pathfinding tasks, we have to at least have an idea of where we want to be or go, even if that is just "not here", but it's certainly something quite attainable that we can expect humans to learn how to do, and when they do not, I think we are well within our rights to keep such chaotic and thoughtless people away from anything important that they could spasm their way into fucking up.

Hard determinism to me has the appearance of an argument that people cannot somehow come to program themselves. So does Libertarianism, or some other such idea that people are not mechanical and thus are not reprogrammable and thus only for for punishment and scaring with threats.

Both of those camps seem to have an issue with the idea that humans' responsibility to police ourselves, and that those who do not have failed in their responsibility to each other, but that they can still change.

Like, hard determinists seem to think that people can't change themselves when they can, and libertarians seem to pretend that people can change themselves and that it's so fucking easy when it's not.

There's a compromise between these, that people can change themselves but that the ways to do it are hard and require work over time, and sometimes they require help, and that they can be shown to be responsible, being what they are, for both their successes and failures.

In many ways, I myself am resentful over this, mostly that it feels like every time I see this shit, I feel compelled to spend an hour of my day talking about it.

And then I ask... "What else would I be doing but smoking fat blunts, waiting for sales emails, and planning a finance pitch for a painfully small business loan?"

Anyway, back to smoking the fat blunts.

 

[peacegirl]

Srsly bilby, why can't you pause for just a second to rethink your dislike for this book because you don't believe it's possible to eliminate war and crime.

I am finding this difficult to parse; Are you claiming to know my reasons for disliking the promulgation of nonsense,

... the fact that you start off calling it nonsense is a clue that you have already made up your mind.

and further claiming (bizarrely) that my motive is that I think a panacea is a fundamentally nonsensical claim for anyone to make?

Well, isn't it? Isn't it that you believe such claims are impossible, therefore unsound?

Is this a rhetorical question?

Is it even a question at all? - it starts with "why can't you...", suggesting that it is; But there is no question mark to tell me where the question ends, if it ever does.

It was not rhetorical. I just forgot the question mark. I'm curious what it is causing you to be so resistant to giving him the benefit of the doubt.

If the question is "Srsly bilby, why can't you pause for just a second to rethink your dislike for this book?", then the answer is "what makes you imgine that I haven't?" - It is possible to disagree with your arguments, not because they have been hastily dismissed, but because they have been considered, found badly wanting, and dismissed.

If, instead the question is "[Are you unable to pause just a second] because you don't believe it's possible to eliminate war and crime?", then the answer is "No", because a) I do not believe anything so simplistic, and b) even if I did, it would be an utterly illogical non-sequitur to jump from that belief to an inability to pause and think.

I get it, but it behooves you to give the author the benefit of the doubt just for a moment (you don't have to agree but you do have to give him a chance)

That boat sailed long ago. I don't have to give him an infinite supply of chances; Life is too short, and nonsense won't suddenly stop being counterfactual on the 423rd attempt.

in order to make an objective decision as to the soundness or unsoundness of his findings. Isn't that fair, or am I missing something?

You are missing the fact that his "findings", which are actually "assertions", are not only not grounded in observed reality, but are contradicting that observed reality.

If I ask you to be "fair", and give the benefit of the doubt to my "discovery" that small rocks fall upwards, then you are perfectly justified in deciding that I am a crank, and not worth any more of your valuable time.

Your appeal to fairness is not reasonable, it's emotionally manipulative - a bare-faced attempt to make any third party feel that you are being somehow mistreated by those who refuse to waste further time on your nonsense.

It's the kind of thing a sideshow scam-artist does to try to remove doubt from the minds of his marks, when challenged by someone who is wise to the scam.

Srsly bilby, why can't you pause for just a second to rethink your dislike for this book because you don't believe it's possible to eliminate war and crime.

I am finding this difficult to parse; Are you claiming to know my reasons for disliking the promulgation of nonsense, and further claiming (bizarrely) that my motive is that I think a panacea is a fundamentally nonsensical claim for anyone to make?

You have done what he urged everyone not to do; jump to premature conclusions. If your dislike is because of his claims of a better world as a result of certain environmental changes, then, yes, I am asking you to rethink your dislike and give him the benefit of the doubt.

Is this a rhetorical question?

Is it even a question at all? - it starts with "why can't you...", suggesting that it is; But there is no question mark to tell me where the question ends, if it ever does.

It was not a rhetorical question, I just left out the question mark.

If the question is "Srsly bilby, why can't you pause for just a second to rethink your dislike for this book?", then the answer is "what makes you imgine that I haven't?" - It is possible to disagree with your arguments, not because they have been hastily dismissed, but because they have been considered, found badly wanting, and dismissed.

What argument do you disagree with and dismiss other than saying it's nonsense?

If, instead the question is "[Are you unable to pause just a second] because you don't believe it's possible to eliminate war and crime?", then the answer is "No", because a) I do not believe anything so simplistic, and b) even if I did, it would be an utterly illogical non-sequitur to jump from that belief to an inability to pause and think.

There is nothing simplistic about it. It would be difficult to pause and think unless you considered the remote possibility that he could be right, but you won't consider it. That's why pausing to rethink why you dislike the book and possibly changing your tune, even for a minute, is thought to be a non sequitur because you can't imagine the two going together. In that case, pausing and thinking with the belief you hold would be a non sequitur and there's nothing I can say to convince you otherwise.

I get it, but it behooves you to give the author the benefit of the doubt just for a moment (you don't have to agree but you do have to give him a chance)

That boat sailed long ago. I don't have to give him an infinite supply of chances; Life is too short, and nonsense won't suddenly stop being counterfactual on the 423rd attempt.

in order to make an objective decision as to the soundness or unsoundness of his findings. Isn't that fair, or am I missing something?

You are missing the fact that his "findings", which are actually "assertions", are not only not grounded in observed reality, but are contradicting that observed reality.

If I ask you to be "fair", and give the benefit of the doubt to my "discovery" that small rocks fall upwards, then you are perfectly justified in deciding that I am a crank, and not worth any more of your valuable time.

True. There are some facts that are indisputable and are easily observed. This finding is not so easily observed but doesn't make it automatically untrue. It just makes it harder to see.

Your appeal to fairness is not reasonable, it's emotionally manipulative - a bare-faced attempt to make any third party feel that you are being somehow mistreated by those who refuse to waste further time on your nonsense.

Let's assume he is right for argument's sake. What am I supposed to do? This is about fairness and it's not manipulative at all. I'm not asking you to agree. I'm asking you to understand his position. You haven't done that.

It's the kind of thing a sideshow scam-artist does to try to remove doubt from the minds of his marks, when challenged by someone who is wise to the scam.

I'm not trying to remove doubt unless you yourself remove that doubt. I'm only trying to get you to understand what he's talking about, and you have failed spectacularly.

 

[peacegirl]

I'm shocked to see you back here Peacegirl. If you want to be a part of this community, why don't you join in on some other discussions and give us your options on those things, instead of pimping a book that obviously nobody here is interested in reading? It seems like you are obsessed with this book. Don't you have other things in your life to do or enjoy? It doesn't seem healthy for you to spend so much time trying to convince others to read a book that you believe will save the world or something like that.

I came back because I'm taking a break from going through the book with a fine-tooth comb. It was exhausting but quillbot helped to a degree although it's not perfect. It can't distinguish between certain type sentences, so you have to be careful not to go on automatic. It does pick up small grammatical errors and typos which I'm grateful for. I also came back because I wanted people to know I reduced the price temporarily in case people are concerned about being taken for a ride. If $1.95 is too much for a 600 page book, what can I say?

I've already read two very interesting books on free will, and from what I recall the author was a bit of a hard determinist. I'm not exactly a hard determinist. I just don't think we have total free will as we are all products of our genetic and environmental influences, but we can change due to new influences, unless of course one believes that those changes were already determined. Having said that, it's not that important to me one way or the other, and I've wondered why discussions on free will go on and on and on, while accomplishing next to nothing.

You can't say something was already determined in advance, which would imply that our choices were already made for us without our consent, or against our will. That's what people don't like, but that's not what determinism means IN REALITY.

Of course we do that on other topics as well, but this one usually wins the prize for mindless debates that never change anyone's mind. That of course is just my opinion.

I think you would thoroughly enjoy this book because he explains where the standard definition of determinism has caused a rift between the free will that we have (i.e., the ability to make choices and that determinism cannot cause us to do anything we choose not to) and the fact that our will is not free because we are always moving toward greater (not less) satisfaction at any given moment in time. I even offered people to read the first three chapters. They won't even do that.

 

[peacegirl]

I absolutely reject hard determinism, but that's only because I could not have done otherwise...

That's correct. Once you do something, whatever that something is, you could not have done otherwise. That doesn't mean you are being forced by determinism to do what you don't want to do, or do something against your will. There is so much confusion, it's mind-boggling.

 

[peacegirl]

How in the hell is this still going on? I need to check ignored threads more often...

@southernhybrid, I imagine threads like these happen because people want to argue, somehow, over whether people have an obligation to "reprogram themselves".

I might imagine it survives as a worldview because as perverse as the view that we cannot reprogram ourselves may be, it benefits those who sell the viewpoint. For those who some person who convinces of such a thing, gratitude of them taking on the weight of living and "driving" becomes a thing, attachment and even leadership status granted from those who they convince to believe that they lack freedom of will.

I think The Never Ending Story had it right: those who have no dreams of their own are easy to control.

People sell the abdication of this grand weight of living as a great service and joyful thing, forgetting the reason they ever carried the weight.

Big dreams are surprisingly heavy, and carrying these despite the costs is done because to see a dream birthed into reality is a wondrous thing, often the product of much work and sacrifice... And it is harder to accomplish a dream when others do not work together with you to make it all happen.

We fight for the power to accomplish our dreams, and to do that effectively, we have to plan our actions ahead of time, or at least know how to combine present moments in ways that take us towards what we want. To form immediate pathfinding tasks, we have to at least have an idea of where we want to be or go, even if that is just "not here", but it's certainly something quite attainable that we can expect humans to learn how to do, and when they do not, I think we are well within our rights to keep such chaotic and thoughtless people away from anything important that they could spasm their way into fucking up.

Hard determinism to me has the appearance of an argument that people cannot somehow come to program themselves. So does Libertarianism, or some other such idea that people are not mechanical and thus are not reprogrammable and thus only for for punishment and scaring with threats.

Both of those camps seem to have an issue with the idea that humans' responsibility to police ourselves, and that those who do not have failed in their responsibility to each other, but that they can still change.

Like, hard determinists seem to think that people can't change themselves when they can, and libertarians seem to pretend that people can change themselves and that it's so fucking easy when it's not.

There's a compromise between these, that people can change themselves but that the ways to do it are hard and require work over time, and sometimes they require help, and that they can be shown to be responsible, being what they are, for both their successes and failures.

In many ways, I myself am resentful over this, mostly that it feels like every time I see this shit, I feel compelled to spend an hour of my day talking about it.

And then I ask... "What else would I be doing but smoking fat blunts, waiting for sales emails, and planning a finance pitch for a painfully small business loan?"

Anyway, back to smoking the fat blunts.

You are not understanding what he means by determinism, which is fucking things up. This knowledge does not in any way remove responsibility. IT INCREASES IT!

 

[steve_bank]

I used to walk through large book stores and used book stores picking out titles that looked interesting. In the 70ss Korzybski's Science And Sanity sounded interesting, General Semantics. Part pseudoscience and part useful, it is where I pecked up 'the map is not the countryside'. There is a General Semantics community today. Odd duck authors do get a following.

Peacegirl

Decline and Fall of All Evil: The Most Important Discovery of Our Times

If the goal is to increase sales the title of the book falls flat. It sounds like a Christian rant. In modern terms you need to repackage the product. Determinism only interests a small number of people to begin.

From what you posted of the book it is not well written and developed. Delayed sight is just plain goofy to anyone who knows some science.

Who is your target audience? The common man, professional scientists or philosophers?

From the title alone it is not likely to get reviewed by science and philosophy.

For the general pubic it is just not interesting.

Popular science has a lot of attention. Mars, space travel, cosmology. Quantum mechanics is in the public consciousness.

 

[bilby]

... the fact that you start off calling it nonsense is a clue that you have already made up your mind.

The fact that there are nearly 3,000 posts in this thread is a clue that everyone here has had more than enough time to make up their mind.

It's not closed minded to reject as nonsense that which has been thoroughly debunked as nonsense.

This is not my first day. Nor is it yours.

 

[pood]

Peacegirl

You are promoting pseudoscience with a religious theme on a forum that is mostly atheist with people who understand science.

A modern saying,'insanity is trying the same failed approach over and over expecting a different result'.

Do you have friends or family you can unburden yourself with?

Are you just lonely?

She has 14 grandkids.

 

[pood]

I absolutely reject hard determinism, but that's only because I could not have done otherwise...

That's correct. Once you do something, whatever that something is, you could not have done otherwise. That doesn't mean you are being forced by determinism to do what you don't want to do, or do something against your will. There is so much confusion, it's mind-boggling.

He was being ironical.

And you could have done, other than what you did. All contingent acts are timelessly contingent. as has been explained ten trillion times.

 

[peacegirl]

I used to walk through large book stores and used book stores picking out titles that looked interesting. In the 70ss Korzybski's Science And Sanity sounded interesting, General Semantics. Part pseudoscience and part useful, it is where I pecked up 'the map is not the countryside'. There is a General Semantics community today. Odd duck authors do get a following.

Peacegirl

Decline and Fall of All Evil: The Most Important Discovery of Our Times

If the goal is to increase sales the title of the book falls flat. It sounds like a Christian rant. In modern terms you need to repackage the product. Determinism only interests a small number of people to begin.

But it isn't a religious work. I just can't win if people make all kinds of conjectures.

Some people may be offended that the word God is used throughout the book and conclude that this is a religious work. Perhaps the ‘G’ word even makes them want to shut down and disconnect from what is being said. This would be unfortunate. As you carefully read the text you will see that the word God (often referred to as ‘He’) is simply a symbol pointing to the laws that govern our universe.

I can't please everyone. “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.”​

― John Lydgate

From what you posted of the book it is not well written and developed.

From what I've posted, I'm surprised anyone got anything out of it. These posts are all broken up. There is no way you could understand anything from a thread. That's why I asked people to actually read the book. Philosophers read before they discuss. This is ass backwards.

Delayed sight is just plain goofy to anyone who knows some science.

No it isn't. Do you know why he came to that conclusion? Do you know anything about why he made this claim? Please be honest.

Who is your target audience? The common man, professional scientists or philosophers?

It would be beneficial to get people who are well-known to endorse the book, but actually I'm looking for anyone who is interested in this topic, to see the value of this book and to pass it on to other interested readers (a grassroots effort) until is picked up by science and confirmed to be valid and sound. This is a tall order (I realize that) because this knowledge is so far removed from contemporary thought.

From the title alone it is not likely to get reviewed by science and philosophy.

I have 5 credentialed people reading the book as we speak.

For the general pubic it is just not interesting.

Anyone who isn't familiar with this topic may not find it interesting, but you never know. They may be curious and decide to read it. There's a lot of interesting stuff in the later chapters as he extends the knowledge of "no free will into parenting, dating, marriage, the medical profession. and education.".

Popular science has a lot of attention. Mars, space travel, cosmology. Quantum mechanics is in the public consciousness.

Cool. What's your point?

 

[pood]

I would retitle the book as follows: Donald Trump Is My Orange Jesus Manbaby Antivax Fucktoy

 

[peacegirl]

I absolutely reject hard determinism, but that's only because I could not have done otherwise...

That's correct. Once you do something, whatever that something is, you could not have done otherwise. That doesn't mean you are being forced by determinism to do what you don't want to do, or do something against your will. There is so much confusion, it's mind-boggling.

He was being ironical.

It must have gone over my head. Does that mean bilby is a hard determinist? I thought he was a compatibilist.

And you could have done, other than what you did. All contingent acts are timelessly contingent. as has been explained ten trillion times.

Pood, with all due respect, I don't want to get into your "could have done otherwise" bullshit, okay?

 

[peacegirl]

I would retitle the book as follows: Donald Trump Is My Orange Jesus Manbaby Antivax Fucktoy

Please go back to freethought forum and do your lulz there.

 

[pood]

I absolutely reject hard determinism, but that's only because I could not have done otherwise...

That's correct. Once you do something, whatever that something is, you could not have done otherwise. That doesn't mean you are being forced by determinism to do what you don't want to do, or do something against your will. There is so much confusion, it's mind-boggling.

He was being ironical.

It must have gone over my head.

And you could have done, other than what you did. All contingent acts are timelessly contingent. as has been explained ten trillion times.

Pood, with all due respect, I don't want to get into your "could have done otherwise" bullshit, okay?

 

[steve_bank]

Peacegirl

Those are my views on your book. You may take it it or leave it as you see fit. Neither here nor there for me I am not invested in any of it.

 

[peacegirl]

I'm paraphrasing what someone said because it makes sense and it's relevant:

We are taught to think that the people higher up in status or rank are infallible and what they say is the only thing that can be said. What has been exposed over the years is when there isn't somebody that's questioning the narrative, that the narrative actually in itself could be completely wrong and the outcomes can be completely awful. This applies to medicine as well as any other field of inquiry. Unfortunately, funding for particular studies have usually gone along with that particular narrative, however misguided it may be. That's one of the reasons that independent research is needed, not just following the same old story. If independent observation and research is looked down upon because it happens to fall outside of the mainstream, then this is not science. They say follow the science. Science is not a leader. It is an informer. It gives you data. Leaders lead. They utilize science to make effective decisions. And if you ever hear a leader say follow the science, they're actually abdicating their responsibility to somebody else instead of actually leading as a leader.

 

[peacegirl]

Peacegirl

Those are my views on your book. You may take it it or leave it as you see fit. Neither here nor there for me I am not invested in any of it.

I'm really not interested in your particular views. I didn't come hear to try to persuade you. You don't even have to be here if you don't want to be. I won't be offended if you leave.

 

[peacegirl]

 

[bilby]

We are taught to think that the people higher up in status or rank are infallible and what they say is the only thing that can be said.

Speak for yourself.

I was taught to be cynical and skeptical, particularly of those in positions of authority.

 

[bilby]

They say follow the science. Science is not a leader. It is an informer. It gives you data.

Not really. Science is both a method for determining what is true; And the body of work that has resulted from that method.

It's been explained to you before, in this very thread:

The problem, as I see it, is the way that science is taught in schools, particularly at the primary school level, which for many (likely most) people in any given community is the only science education they ever get.

See, people have this impression, based on that educational experience, that science is much the same as all the other subjects we study. But it is not. Science is fundamentally different, and most people are never exposed to that fact.

Worse, we use the word "science" in two distinct ways, and this only adds to the confusion. "Science" can mean "The methodology by which we find out about reality"; But it can also mean "The body of information generated by the scientific method"

Education (in the west, at least) started off as a religious activity, and in primary education, this history has an enduring footprint. When teaching children about Christianity, there is a primary reference, the Bible, which is supposedly unquestionable, and which contains the right answers. Even in non-Christian religions, there are fundamentals that are to be accepted without question; And behind it all is the pre-literacy understanding that writing is magic.

If something is written, then it is true. The answer is in the book.

If a teacher and his student are in dispute, they resolve the dispute by refering to the textbook. The book has the right answer. If the book agrees with you, you win the argument.

Science (the methodology) fundamentally rejects this. In science (the methodology), books are just the words of people who are not even present; No dispute can be resolved by direct reference to mere writings. The writings themselves must be tested against reality.

Science (the body of information) is just an attempt to save time and effort. When the methodology has been applied repeatedly to a given question, and has so far always given the same answer, we write the answer in a book and get kids to memorise it, not because it is The Truth^TM, but because it would be impossible to get things done if every time we wanted to examine anything, we had to start by demonstrating (yet again) that matter comprises particles of such-and-such a mass, with such-and-such an electric charge, etc., etc.

When I want to know the speed of light in a vacuum, I look it up in a book. Not because the books are never wrong, but because I have decided to provisionally trust the existing science (the body of information), as a time saving shortcut. If I had any inkling of a doubt, I could, should, and would reject what is written, and go test for myself using science (the methodology) to find the speed of light in a vacuum.

Disputes in science (the methodology), regarding what is a part of science (the body of information) are resolved by reference to reality - we devise and conduct experiments to test hypotheses, and these experiments belong, not to a priestly class, nor to a teacher who has control of the textbook, nor to a Board of Education who decide which books are textbooks and which are not, but to anyone who wants to conduct them.

Science (the methodology), unlike any other educational discipline, is ruthlessly egalitarian. Anyone can overturn science (the body of work) by coming up with a test that anyone else can repeat, and which reliably demonstrates (a part of) that body of work to be false.

But (at primary school) we teach science (the body of work) the way we teach religion; And we don't teach the methodology part at all, or if we do, we treat it as though it were just another rule to be memorised and regurgitated without question.

Kids are left with the impression that science (the body of information) is just another set of beliefs. And as we see from the massive diversity of sects just within one major branch of one religion, this implies that anyone can just make up any old rubbish they like, and then set about collecting disciples, adherents, and evangelists to believe it and spread the word. The criteria for success are having as many adherents as possible; Having evangelical zeal, to accrue still more adherents to your position; And most importantly of all, having a book.

Science (the body of information) is taught this way in schools. So it's hardly surprising that so much pseudoscience arises amongst those with limited exposure to science as a methodology, rather than as a body of information.

This fundamental failure to grasp what science (the methodology) is, or how science (the body of information) came to be, and how it can be (and constantly is) changed as new observations are made and new experiments carried out, is at the root of the problem here.

We can talk about free will, eyes as sense organs, how light works, etc., etc., until the cows freeze over, and it won't change a thing - because peacegirl is not on the same page as the rest of us. Peacegirl doesn't understand that science differs in any important way from theology, and so is determined to win her argument on the basis of theological rhetoric. She has a new book, and wants it to replace, or supplement, the old book. Because she thinks that's how knowledge works.

She does not, and perhaps cannot, grasp that the science books we use are not books of power, but are mere aide-mémoires that tally the current state of the game.

Replacing Newton's Optiks, or Einstein's General Relativity, or Maxwell's Electromagnetic Equations, with a new book of wondrous claims is not only difficult; It is futile. No part of science (the methodology) is beholden to books of science (the body of information); Unlike in literally every other educational discipline*, in science the relationship is reversed.

The body of work derives from, and is entirely subservient to, the methodology. You can subvert a church by replacing its Bible with a new work (a Koran, or a Book of Mormon, or the scribblings of L. Ron Hubbard, or of Lessans, or of anyone). But you can only subvert science (the body of information) by following the scientific method - and if a change is shown by that method to be required, the science books are all rendered obsolete at a stroke. There are no sects or splinter groups - only people who have abandoned the scientific methodology, and thereby rendered themselves irrelevant.

The methodology is simple. Hypotheses, rigorously tested against repeatable and universally testable observations, and those shown to be false, discarded.

If you want to change science (the body of information) it is simple (but not easy): Just detail an observation that anyone else can make for themselves, which demonstrates that a part of that body of information is false.

Be aware that trust is not a part of science (the methodology). No scientist trusts anyone, particularly not himself.

The question is not "should we trust Newton, or should we trust Lessans?". The question is "Which of these two has given us the details needed to repeat his work, and surprise ourselves into agreeing with his answers, starting from a provisional assumption that his answers are bullshit?"

Newton has done that. You don't need to take his word for anything, and he doesn't ask you to; He has provided a detailed set of procedures for proving him wrong, and invites you to give it your best shot, either using his procedure, or coming up with your own. That, right there, is science.







* The very word 'discipline', meaning 'a field of study', carries the historical baggage of the idea that one learns by rote, from infallible books, whereby error arises only from incorrect reading or interpretation of the sacred text. Science ain't like that, but primary education usually acts as though it were.