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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 4331739" data-attributes="member: 7240">Sounds good to me. I dig your posts too.Successful engineers can be highly superstitious in general as long as their worldview has strong predictive power in the specific area in which they are doing work. A great example of this is a science like accupuncture that is welded to a "superstitious" and clearly false theory of physics and medicine. Nevertheless, through empirical testing, accupuncturists developed an excellent predictive model that allowed them to treat various nervous system conditions with considerable efficacy.Whereas the West discovered electricity first and discovered its involvement in the nervous system first, the Chinese had built a system for productively manipulating electrical impulses within the system that are only now being scientifically validated. (Present-day Chinese hospitals have large contingents of doctors who practice accupuncture and use MRI and X-Ray machines to assist them in making their work on the nervous system more precise.)I do see what you mean, though, that a worldview that sees physical events as primarily contingent on the choices of non-existent beings is going to have a rough relationship with empiricism. Interestingly, one of the things that powered Roman engagement with empiricism, in the view of some scholars, was increasingly contractual ideas in relating to the gods. Some great work examining verb tense and mood in Roman prayers has transformed "O Saturn, please care for us. We will sacrifice this bull to you and hope that you don't destroy our crops. Next year, because you love us, we will sacrifice two bulls. But if our crops are destroyed, we won't be able to sacrifice" into "O Saturn, you had better care for us. We will sacrifice this bull to you on the proviso that you won't destroy our crops. Next year, if you love us (ie. haven't destroyed our crops), we will sacrifice two bulls. But if you destroy our crops, you're not getting any more bulls from us. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />."I'm not talking about indoctrination at all. I'm arguing more along the lines of a Max Weber or Frances Yates who suggest that major parts of the emergence of modernity resulted from people adopting new irrational theological beliefs first and these beliefs causing new empirical and work discipline routines to emerge. Weber argued that Calvinist ideas about material wealth constituting signs of divine election and Calvinist ethics of hard work, continence and condemnaton of public display triggered capital accumulation and built the middle class. Yates argued that widespread belief in magic and Gnostic ideas about sun worship (ie. Hermeticism) produced Copernicus and his successors. The idea of becoming a magus who manipulated the natural world was what early scientific revolutionaries aspired to.I don't know what you mean here. I can no longer extract meaning from your sentence.Ummm... that's just dead wrong. Artisanal production is associated with a highly formalized learning process of long duration, hence terms like "apprentice" and "journeyman." One of the reasons that assembly line work kicked the <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> out of artisanal systems was the fact that the capital cost of creating employees was a tiny fraction -- an artisan took a decade or more to train, during which time his trainers gave him food, lodging, drink, etc. as well as hours of training. Assembly line workers didn't even need to speak the local language, you could just pull them off boats in New York harbour and send them into the factory.</blockquote>

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