The existence of god is a scientific question subject to evidence.

[Deep13]

Some on this website recently told me that anyone who claims to know for sure whether or not god exists is merely being dogmatic because it is impossible to know for sure. This person then noted that there are things science doesn't know (the classic, but discredited god-of-the-gaps argument).

This attitude is an example of the argument called NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria). The term was invented by Stephen Jay Gould and is an attempt to define science and religion as being mutually exclusive with neither having any effect on the other. While this may be the culturally expedient point of view, it is not supported by the facts. Apart from the fact that religion has constantly insinuated itself into scientific discussion, there is real reason to think that a universe with a god is fundamentally different than one without a god.

Just to be clear, I am defining god based on conventional understanding. That is god is an entity that created the universe, is free to intervene in it, but exists independently of it. I am not including vague notions about god just being another name for the physical universe as that defines god out of existence. I am also not including the deist god which started the ball rolling but has done nothing since then. I define religion as the belief of a supernatural god capable of doing the foregoing.

I will start with life on Earth. As we know, life changes slowly over time using a process called natural selection. Natural selection has two basic components. First is mutation of molecules and eventually of genetic material. Mutation is random. There is no direction behind it. Experimental evidence has confirmed this. The second process is natural selection. This basically means that out of all the random changes that happen in the living world, most are incompatible with the environment. Those changes die because they hinder survival. Those very few changes that give a small survival advantage reproduce at a greater rate than the previous genetic characterisitics and eventually take over. This process has, frankly, been conclusively proved to be true. We are as sure that natural selection exists as we are that gravity exists. The process is deterministic but not intelligent. There is no end-result in mind when changes occur. Close examination of living things, including us, make this clear.

The point here is that evolution not only occurs without any direction, divine or otherwise, but any divine intervention would stop evolution from working. The system we observe can ONLY exist in the absence of directing purpose. If life were planned ahead of time, it would look a lot different than it does. There would be more efficiency. For example, instead of a gigantic visual cortex to fill in the blanks of sight caused by nerves and blood vessels running in front of the eye, the eye would simply be wired the right way in the first place. Squid have eyes that are wired properly, why not us? Another thing would be examples of biological processes that really are irreducibly complex. Half a wing, eye, lung, whatever, are still useful and many critters have intermediate steps. None of them, however, have wheels or propellers. There things are only useful as complete machines. The lack of intermediate steps advancing by trial-and-error makes them biologically impossible. Yet no bird flies as well as airplanes and no cheetah can outrun even an ordinary passenger car. That is because these machines are the result of planning, not blind trial-and-error.

Of course, evolution does not explain how life was started in the first place. Part of the reason people have a hard time imagining nonliving molecules becoming alive is that we assume that non-life and life are completely distinct things. In true all life is just matter that acts in a way we describe as alive. In the early Earth, it was hot and nasty. All over the globe, carbon molecules were interacting with each other in the heat. An analogy is ten thousand people throwing dice all at the same time. The odds of a perfect Yahtzee (five of a kind) are remote for any one throw. But with 10,000 throwers, the unlikely becomes inevitable. Eventually molecules occurred that could make copies of themselves. That was all that natural selection needed to get the ball rolling.

Nothing we see in the universe has been explained by divine intervention. We don't know everything, of course, or even most things. We do know enough, however, to trace the evolution of the universe to the moment of the big bang. Everything that has been explained is the result of natural processes acting without purpose. If god were real, his fingerprints would be everywhere. They are not. When conditions are sufficiently known, absence of evidence really is evidence of absence. In fact, the only thing more unlikely than the universe is a god capable of making a universe. To do so god would need to be immensely complex and would infinitely compound the existence problem because we would then have to explain god. (It is clear from studying evolution that intelligence is the result of existence, not the cause of it.) A universe that acts the way it does because it is its nature to do so is far more likely than a god with his thumb on every electron.

Add to this the fact that we know what the psychological and historical basis for religion is. We know that people's perception often witnesses inexplicable things. The brain is good at fooling itself. That is a by product of inefficient evolution. Our visual cortex that can make stuff up to fill in blanks together with our pre-programmed propensity to recognize patterns (often when they are not there) and to impune purpose in everything are side effects of evolutionary directives. Seeing what is not there is inconvenient. Failing to see something that is there even once can be fatal. Hence the bias in our perception. Plus, we are authoritarian by nature. Learning false things without much survival consequences along with real things will allow a child to survive. Being skeptical as a child may result in tiger chow. We also know how religion has changed over the years and how it has been used to control people. We know why religion is hostile to out-groups and to nontypical behavior. In short, religion and the god it invented are entirely man-made. If it were any other kind of thought, we would say this is a fact. Because it is religion, however, we are reluctant to accept the obvious.

All together with the direct evidence, the absence of divine causes and the circumstantial evidence about the reasons why people believe present a compelling case for the nonexistence of god.

Science has not explained everything and maybe it cannot. This is true. Nevertheless, religion has failed to prove ANYTHING. Nothing we know about the world is because of religion. And as far as a claim that anything supernatural is necessarily unprovable, that is reason not to believe in it. If there is no evidence for the existance of supernature, then there is no reason to accept it or its claims as being real. Put another way, if god were real, we could not possibly know about it. Anyway, god's creation of the universe and reported interventions on Earth contradict the idea that supernature is somehow seperate from the universe. The point to all of this is that lack of proof by science does not mean that god is the right answer. God does not win by default. What caused the big bang? We don't know. That is the right answer at this time. "God did it" is not. There is no evidence of divine intervention in the beginning of the universe, so that creation cannot be assumed. This is the same as saying that a lack of WMDs in Iraq MUST mean they are in Syria. We cannot assume that from a lack of evidence.

In conclusion, NOMA is not a viable explanation and if real, god's existence is provable. This is not a full explanation of my argument since this is just a website post on my lunch break. Others have explained it more fully. One example is Dawkins in his books, notably in The God Delusion.

[acmavm]

1. Some of the world's leading scientists believe in God. They also

believe that science backs them up.

What makes them wrong and you right?

[Deep13]

3. I've already explained that.

1. most leading scientists are skeptics of religion. What makes them wrong and you right?

2. You know better than relying on the argument from authority.

[acmavm]

26. Yeah, you're the last word on the subject, aren't ya? Let's see

YOUR credentials. And you didn't answer shit.

[Deep13]

74. Credentials? Either the evidence supports me or it does not.

Again, argument from authority.

[SidneyCarton]

266. Authority is a bit of a loaded term

That which I might cite as authoritative you will argue as irrational. That which you cite as authoritative I will argue is irrelevant. Hence we remain at status quo ante-bellum, you have not convinced me, nor have I convinced you, for neither of us accept the authority of the "Authorities" by which we base our arguments.

[melody]

2. To whom and to what?

Is there only one perspective with which we determine acceptability now? Why do people feel the need to disprove or prove this issue? It will never be proven or disproved in fact, except in the minds of people who embrace the idea that only science gives them an answer.

I don't believe in god but I do want there to be more than one way to look at the universe. We don't need another fundamentalism coming in to replace the religious one.

[Deep13]

4. There's only one reality.

And believing the irrational has negative real-world consequences. If you want a list of them, read God Is Not Great by Hitchens.

On edit: The subject of the existence of god seems like a proper one for the theology forum.

[melody]

6. There's a different reality for every mind that observes it

You don't have the right or power to conclude one is "correct" and the others are all invalid. I've read Hitchens and Dawkins and a million polemicists just like them. They are merely describing the insides of their own minds. The fact you agree with them merely describes the inside of yours. Belief has real-world consequences ... BELIEF does, and that includes a belief that only one perspective has all the answers.

But I learned long ago not to argue with fundamentalists of any kind so have your last word and that will be the end of the thread.

[Deep13]

8. That is fundamentally untrue.

The fact that different people conducting the same experiments come up with the same results demonstrates this. Our perceptions may give us all different results, but that is subjective. The basic facts remain the smae.

And throwing the fundamentalist label at me is simply a lie. I take none of this on faith. It is possible to study evidence and obtain ones views from that instead of from faith.

[melody]

62. No, all it shows is that you're a fundamental thinker

"Fundamentally", you look for truth to back up your philosophy. Experiments give us the results of local experiments and the results ONLY apply in that specific instance ... if you posit beyond the results, you're guilty of scientific conceit. The scientific method alone keeps us honest. All the materialist does is jump beyond that and say "everything is an aggregate of local phenomena" but that's just as much a guess as believing in gas gods up in hyperspace. You can believe whatever you like but it's still unproven.

And yes, I know I don't argue with fundamentalists but I gave it one last shot. Have your last word and let's finish this.

[cosmik debris]

79. It is amazing how rapidly a discussion can go to hell

When one person tosses out an insult. Especially the "fundamentalist" insult.

Oh well.

[John Gauger]

149. Tell that to your surgeon the next time you are on the operating table.

If scientific experiments only applied to a single specific instance, there would be no medicine. So when your doctor tells you that you need your appendix out, good luck telling her that all her knowledge is based on meaningless experiments. If science did not yield accurate predictions, there would be no semiconductors, and thus no integrated circuits. I'm always amused by the irony of people sitting in front of their computers busting on science.

[RaleighNCDUer]

17. There is a different perception of reality for every mind that observes it.

Reality is. It is the perceptions that are mutable.

[melody]

48. Your prejudice about the perception is in your infusion of the quality of perception

Reality, at this stage, is only filtered through human experience. It is only describable by individual humans. The moment we start to determine which individual perception is "correct" (and that's what you do by saying "reality" is one thing), we are yet again imposing our biases on the system.

No one knows what the hell is going on -- no one. Anyone who says they do is making a guess. All the fundamentalist belief on "truth" assessment (whether we use the paradigm of science of religion) won't get around that simple fact. Until we have the perfect chair, we can make no definite assertions about its existence.

Dawkins (and others like him) is merely doing a rhetorical end-run (along with primate chest-pounding in the form of absolute statements that he cannot verify because no one can) around the only truth we know ... that there is no discernible truth.

[ZombieHorde]

53. "No one knows what the hell is going on -- no one."

How can you be so certain?

[RagAss]

59. I thought I did once....but it was only gas.

[melody]

61. Sometimes it's swamp gas. You can never be sure. lol n/t

[melody]

60. There's no way to assess the results

No way to determine what's behind the curtain, if anything. We're stuck with not knowing. That's all we have no matter
how the fundamentalists (be they religious or materialist) try to dress up their "final answers", they are nothing more than
rhetorical end-runs around that final fact. In fact, they are scientific conceits.

That, of course, does not give any group license to spin a bunch of imaginative fairy tales and make everyone live according
to them. I mean that in all realms, even the scientific.

[ZombieHorde]

70. No way to determine what's behind the curtain, if anything. We're stuck with not knowing.

How do you know that their is no way to determine what's behind the curtain? You seem to have a strong faith in this seemingly unprovable assertion.

[melody]

72. No way we know of. If you're omniscient, then go for it.

As I always say to the religious of every stripe (whether they believe in Big Machine Universe or Big God), show me some hard proof that lives up to the assertions. Show me the work. If everyone agrees that it meets the criteria for "truth", well, there you have it. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, as Sagan said (which he stole off my old mentor Marcello Truzzi who was kicked out of CSICOP for making this very demand that I have). That's the problem with skepticism ... it comes up to bite EVERY belief system in the ass.

[ZombieHorde]

76. If you're omniscient

I am not omniscient, perhaps I should put that on my 'to do' list.

As I always say to the religious of every stripe (whether they believe in Big Machine Universe or Big God), show me some hard proof that lives up to the assertions.

That must be very tiring. Always approaching those with religious beliefs and asking for evidence. That is a mighty big job. (joke comment, just smirk and move on)

That's the problem with skepticism ... it comes up to bite EVERY belief system in the ass.

Skepticism is a belief system. How does skepticism bite skepticism in the ass?

[melody]

77. You know, if you don't want to have an actual exchange of ideas, let's forget this

You seem to be playing rhetorical games out of some unknown objective of your own.

Have the last word and let's kill the thread.

[ZombieHorde]

96. My word games were clearly marked as jokes, but my real question still stands.

[arKansasJHawk]

78. I'd like a bit of actual discussion ...

If you don't mind, after the running around foolishness you've dealt with on this subject elsewhere.

Because I feel like this is a really important point. I get the idea, from what I've read in your postings here, that you're of the opinion that there's no such thing as subjective reality. While I suppose that may be literally true on some ultra-abstract, utterly metaphysical level, I honestly don't see how such a position does any of us any good here in the real world.

And by "real world," I mean the world that all of us experience every day, the one with planes flying overhead and microwave ovens popping bags of popcorn and more fuel-efficient cars and global positioning satellites and cell phones and a hundred thousand other concrete realizations of pure, subjective science that affect our lives.

I mean, if there's no such thing as "reality," why don't we just flap our arms and fly to Miami, or cook bags of popcorn with heat rays out of our eyeballs, or levitate down to the market, or transport ourselves astrally to the nearest hospital, or talk to our friends telepathically?

It seems to me that this notion that there's no such thing as reality is pure solipsism. If you don't believe there's any kind of subjective reality, why on earth are you bothering to post on an internet forum that, by such standards, can't even be said to exist? Who, exactly, do you believe is reading your post? And how do you expect "them," whoever they are, to even begin to be able to understand the language you're using, since the concept of a shared language is unsupportable in a world where "reality" is an illusion and EVERYTHING (language included) is subject to individual perception?

I'm not even really typing right now, am I? I'm not actually making an argument in favor of subjective reality. It all might as well be shouting into the wind, so far as a hypothetical, objectively-experienced but not actually "real" wind can be said to blow at all.

Look, it all makes for a wonderful, endlessly fascinating discussion, but the fact is that you, and every other person on this planet save the mentally-ill, behave and interact with the "world" exactly as if there was such a thing as subjective reality. So long as that reality continues to function in exactly the way all of us, you included, expect it to, I see no reason not to act and think as if that reality was, you know, actually real.

[arKansasJHawk]

86. Note to self ...

Don't post before coffee is done. Otherwise, you will mix up subjective and objective, and later you won't be able to edit the post and you'll look like a dummy.

/end note to self

[muriel_volestrangler]

146. Good points, that I wish had been answered by someone who says "there is no discernable truth"

I would say that 'truth' and 'reality', for any remotely useful discussion that one might have, do have an objective meaning, in the universe that the 2 or more participants think they find themselves having the discussion in. And so it is meaningful to say "red light has a longer wavelength than blue light" and so on - and say that is a 'true' fact.

If the other party/ies in the discussion don't have a 'real' existence, then I may as well pretend they do - because I have no idea what my 'real' existence would be in that case.

[RaleighNCDUer]

80. Bzzt. If a tree falls in the forest it DOES make a sound

and it matters not if no one is there to hear it.

That is proven by physics.

Metaphysics is fantasy. Physics is reality.

[acmavm]

27. There's only one reality? Yours?

[kwassa]

63. No, mine!

The rest of you are all delusional.

This has been a public service announcement.

[tama]

228. There are many realities

those realities claiming to be the only reality are lonely realities.

[SidneyCarton]

267. And yet, reality is based on perception...

What an ant percieves is reality to him, what a dog percieves is real to him and what you and I percieve is reality to each of us respectively. Certainly there are limits and commonalities to our realities (if I jump of a 20 story building, I will die, regardless of how much I believe I can fly) but that which you percieve as real may seem far from certain for me, and what seems self-evident to me will likely seem mere sophistry to you. If you doubt me, go talk to a RW'er, even a relatively rational one, you will find that the basic perceptions on which they base their reality are such that if you do not share them you will not convince them that their version of reality is incorrect.

[UnrepentantUnitarian]

7. I'm with you on that.

In order to have any decent argument or debate on a subject, there has to be agreement on the language to be used. In the case of "God" there are many different concepts, some quite narrow, supernatural and traditional, others very broad, naturalistic, evolving and science-friendly. To lump them all together is unfair--and more than a little presumptuous.

[Deep13]

10. I don't think so.

You can define god however you want, but the word as commonly used has a meaning. Suggesting that god can be something so vague as to mean anything at all defines it out of existence. I am using the conventional definition and my argument is limited to that definition.

[Lerkfish]

21. I will agree your argument is limited, but not in the way you suggest.

you're using a strawman argument here: you're saying only the narrow definition you use is acceptable, and then shoot down that narrow definition.

actually, pretty classic strawman when you think about it.


when you get a little better at debate and logical reasoning, come back to us.

Surely, atheists have better spokespersons than yourself?

[muriel_volestrangler]

147. But it's a 'narrow definition' that over half of humanity claim to believe

when they call themselves Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and several more adjectives. A discussion that could alter the basic worldview of over half our species (the only entities we can currently have the discussion with) hardly seems 'narrow'.

[Lerkfish]

5. got halfway through and stop at your evolution presumptions

you are defining what a god would do by your own estimation while simultaneously discounting a god exists.

You presume a god, if he existed, would halt evolution, and use this as your proof there is no god.

you completely sweep under the rug equally plausible alternative that god may have INTENDED evolution and may be a big supporter of LIFE in any form.

since your "proof" is largely based on your own philosophical constructs, it neither proves nor disproves anything.

[Deep13]

11. It's the evidence, not an assumption.

What you describe as sweeping under the rug is the central premise of the argument.

[Lerkfish]

13. evidence of what, exactly?

all I see are tautalogical constructs of supposition.

[Deep13]

16. Well, I did not have time for a book.

It is that evolution happens without planning or purpose. If there was planning or purpose involved, it would not happen the way we see it.

[Lerkfish]

18. That's an assumption, not a proof.

your presumption is a constructed corollary for which there is no, nor can there be, evidence = and you're using your own corrollary to prove itself.
If I say there can be no planning if evolution exists, and evolution exists, then it proves there is no planning.

that is circular logic. For people that oppose religion because it is not imperical or logical, and this is what you propose to replace it, then you are just flapping your lips in the wind.


I've already offered a completely plausible alternative explanation, which you've patently ignored. because it doesn't fit into your circular equation.

so.....

try again.

[Richard D]

9. Depends on the definition of God.

It's where spirituality and animistic practices differs from religion. One, religion, is based on belief and dogma; the other, spirituality and animism are based on direct experience. If science ever proves the existence of God, it won't be provin the dogmatic version.

[Deep13]

12. What other definition is there?

While I have the Abrahamic god in mind, it seems to me that all gods that are worshipped or have ever been worshipped have:
-created the world and life,
-set up rules of conduct,
-intervene in human affairs.

AGAIN, my argument is only directed at THAT definition.

[Lerkfish]

24. operative phrase: "it seems to me".

yes, it seems to YOU.

[patrice]

33. I'm not certain this is true at all. We need to check Sir J.G. Frazer's The Golden Bough.

Also, I'm pretty certain that the traits you list are not uniform in the Bhagavad Gita.

[cosmik debris]

14. The road to proof starts with evidence.

Until there is some testable evidence for the existence of god, there is no reason to believe in the existence of god.

The myth of god has the same evidence and the same credibility as the unicorn myth.

[jobycom]

32. Alright, then discount this evidence.

The evidence that there is a creator god is its creation. That would be you.

First, the fact that you don't recognize evidence of something doesn't prove there is no evidence. Second, things can exist without having been proven by humans. Take gravity. Gravity is only proven by its effect on objects. That effect has always been obvious, but what it proved was not. Yet even before the theorems were created and proven, gravity still existed, and would have existed even if there were no humans to observe it (well, you could go Hume on me and claim we can't know that, but you know what I mean).

So a believer (and I'm not one) would argue that the world is evidence of a creator god's existence. Even a non-believer has to admit that it could be, since the only proof I have that it is not is based on an assumption that there is no creator god. So, the world is the evidence. Now, prove that the world was not created by a being. And if you say Big Bang, you have to prove that the Big Bang wasn't created by a being, because something existed to Bang.

[arKansasJHawk]

36. The problem with that ...

Is that the "creation" many cite as "evidence" for a creator god would have equal weight as evidence for, among other things:

A mindless creation machine that spews out universes at random
A "virtual" creator, or a massive supercomputer that creates a virtual universe
Creator aliens, a superpowerful race of beings that collectively seeds the multiverse with life

I could go on, of course. None of these can be "disproven" any more than the basic creator god can. None of these is any more or less likely to be true than a creator god.

Finally, of course, all of "creation" can also be explained without invoking any sort of higher power. Scientists are building the framework for that explanation at this very moment. The explanation may never be completed because of the complexity involved and the simple fact that we're billions of years late getting started trying to explain it, but the framework IS being filled in, bit by bit. And every bit that's been filled in so far has led AWAY from the idea of some kind of creator, rather than TOWARD one.

[jobycom]

39. The poster said the road has to start with evidence.

I provided evidence to start from. I didn't say creation could only be explained by a creator god, I simply said that creation could be evidence of a creator god. Of course it could indicate other things as well, but the poster's claim that the road has to start with evidence has now been provided the starting evidence. It's up to him to prove that the evidence leads somewhere else. Now, unless he can explicitly disprove that the world was created by a god of some form, he has to admit that there could be.

[ZombieHorde]

55. "I simply said that creation could be evidence of a creator god."

I have created this post, therefor, I am a creator god.

[cosmik debris]

38. How would you test that evidence?

I asked for testable evidence and you give me a circular argument that assumes the existence of god as a major premise.

I have never seen any testable evidence.

Gravity is testable. It has been tested repeatedly.

Claims of god are not testable.

We have no objective way of evaluating them for accuracy.

[jobycom]

41. Don't have to, don't want to.

You said: Until there is some testable evidence for the existence of god, there is no reason to believe in the existence of god.

Okay, I provided you some testable evidence. It is now up to you to prove conclusively that the testable evidence does not at least create the possibility of a creator god. The only test I need is that the earth is here. Stomp your foot, you've tested as much as I care about testing. I've provided evidence that there could be a god. Now the burden is on you to prove that either a) my evidence conclusively proves something else, or b) the earth doesn't exist, or c) that there is some other absolute proof that god doesn't exist. Otherwise, you have evidence of the possibility of a creator god, so you can't begin by saying there is no evidence. You must begin by disproving the evidence, or the god.

This isn't a complicated point. It's been made by theologians and scientists for thousands of years for several gods, by people a lot smarter than you or I. There's no answer. Which is my only point.

[cosmik debris]

44. You did not provide testable evidence.

And your god theory assumes the existence of god as a major premise. It is a circular argument. there is no evidence there.

If you are going to claim that god exists, the burden is on you to provide some way to evaluate that claim.

It is senseless to claim: "god created this therefore god exists". That's not evidence, that's not even a good argument.

[arKansasJHawk]

57. "That's not evidence ..."

Perhaps not, but, as you clearly fail to understand, really, really smart people have been using it for thousands of years as a proof of God. The fact that:

a.) This argument has been utterly dismantled by other really, really smart people;
and
b.) Using the same argument over and over despite the fact that it's been dismantled isn't "evidence;"

don't seem to bother the poster in question, for some reason. I don't know why you're letting it bother you. :sarcasm:

[cosmik debris]

58. And I missed the point

That he has provided testable evidence -- that doesn't need to be tested.

Apparently the outcome of the test is predetermined by god.

:rofl:

[tama]

100. Deduction based on false axioms

namely the metaphysics of subject and object (dualism) - but a dynamic process of creation - as phenomenological happening does not logically need to involve dichotomic division into subject ("Creator") and object ("Creation"). There is big problem with English language trying to discuss and express things beyond the subject-object divide, because of English syntax requiring subject and object structure in all sentences.

[cosmik debris]

102. You never heard of the predicate nominative?

Your English teachers must be so proud.

[tama]

104. Not my native language

But I have studied general linguistics in university and have made a career as professional translator, so I have heard also about "predicate nominative". I'm also very familiar with the principle "When not comprehending, ridicule!" :)

[cosmik debris]

106. How about the principle

When you say something glaringly erroneous, blame the other person for not understanding. :)

[tama]

109. Persons personalize

and that gets tedious and boring after a while.

If pointed what is supposed to be glaringly errAneous, discussion and mutual learning can continue.

If you can form a well structured English sentence without (underlying) subject-object structure, ie. sentence without grammatical subject, show it.

If you care about science, you should know that one of the main "paradoxes" of quantum physics is that the metaphysics of subject and object don't apply - hence attempts to speak about "observation events", "observables" etc. instead of "observers" and "objects" when making interpetations of the theories into a natural language like English.

[cosmik debris]

111. You moved the goal posts.

I can't possibly keep up.

[tama]

113. You made assumption

about some goal post that was not intended. In other words, miscomprehended.

[cosmik debris]

115. No, you just moved the goal posts.

You said one thing. When I pointed out that it was incorrect, you pretended that you meant another thing. Then you challenged me to disprove the other thing.

That's moving the goal posts.

I can't possibly keep up.

[tama]

116. Sigh

"Predicative nominative" is just one syntactic way of expressing subject. What was your point and criticism as to what was said? Being argumentative for argument's sake - or for protecting personal borders - is just plain boring. Go away if you have nothing to contribute or wish not to be contributed.

[cosmik debris]

118. You don't get to give orders here.

You don't get to decide who responds to your posts or what those responses say.

[tama]

119. Sorry, forgot

please, pretty please. Go away.

[cosmik debris]

121. No.

I could ask you not to be such an arrogant pompous ass, but you'd probably say no too.

:)

[tama]

123. You could ask

to no avail. Since I'm not an arrogant pompous ass, but a very humble being. I know myself, you do not.

What you perceive as arrogance is not. There is no pride here, just stating what is obvious. I'm not interested in proving anything to anyone, nor in futile arguments. But should someone be interested in what I might have to offer, I would be very glad to help and serve. These are interesting times (as in the Chinese curse) and I've lived a very interesting life. But please, pretty please and sugar on top, stop wasting my time, if you really are absolutely convinced that I have nothing to give to you.

[cosmik debris]

125. And silly to boot!

You are wasting your own time amusing me.

It is certainly no fault of mine.

But I do get a grin out of it.

:)

[tama]

129. If I amuse you

then this is no waste. Happy to be of service! :)

[John Gauger]

170. Not to hijack your totally consructive argument with Cosmik,

but when you say, "Look how humble I am," you are not being humble.

[tama]

178. Yes indeed.

When I say "Look how humble I am", I'm being, what was it... (goes back to check) ah "arrogant pompous ass". As admitted... :)

[John Gauger]

192. I'm staying out of this one.

While Cosmik is consistently one of my favorite DUers, I have no idea what you guys are arguing about. I just love irony. When I want people to think I'm humble, I just say I'm not. It usually works pretty well. ;-)

[tama]

194. I have no idea either

that makes it even more fun. And no, I don't want to even guess. As long as I get the last word. :)

[cosmik debris]

208. You can have the last word but you can't have the last laugh

I'll be laughing at your posts for weeks to come!

[cosmik debris]

201. This is a good time to have a front row seat.

When he started with his sophomoric philosophy, I knew it would be funny.

When he started talking about "quantum" this or "quantum" that I was laughing out loud at every post.

When R_A showed up to school him on what quantum really meant, I was in hysterics.

But when he took off on near death experiences and past lives, I split a gut laughing.

This guy is a bundle of laughs. We don't have to argue, just give him a stage and let him dance for us.

[tama]

209. Thanks

"We don't have to argue, just give him a stage and let him dance for us."

Much appreciated :)

[Random_Australian]

122. Which paradox?

The main ideas that people found paradoxical about quantum physics were

1)the idea that only certain states are allowed

2)that something exists as (effectively) a probability distribution rather than an actual object

3)that something can show the properties of both a particle and a wave and

4)that certain measurements have a non-zero uncertainty between them that is fundamental.

The only paradox that seems involve subject-object crap is the whole collapse of the wavefunction thing.

Grrr, which paradox are you talking about?

[tama]

124. That one :)

e.g. that notion of "existance" in QM is not an actual object but potentiality of a probability distribution. Or whatever, depending on the theory (=math) and its interpretation (=in some natural language)

And what "observation event" in QM (or at least in some interpretations) means that there is no way to draw line between the "observable/what happens to observable" and measuring device (including physicist and human intent). As said, it is the dualistic framing of the question that is the problem, not Nature as such.

[Random_Australian]

127. Or, to one who doesn't think about this stuff in human languages,

it is the dualistic wierd funny language framing of the question that is the problem, not Nnature as such. Me thog! :) (Never been good at english)

Right, so we have a wavefunction, containing all of the information of the system and no more, and it's square can be taken to represent probability density, and hermitian operators correspond to physical observables.

That's how I think of it, so I guess I never saw how it would look in the english language. :shrug:

[tama]

128. I would never claim

to understand anything of this stuff in math. But I know mathematicians whose interpretations in natural language can be discussed meaningfully, to some extent. Mathematicians on par with Einstein and above. I'm blessed - or cursed - in that regard, that very smart people bother to talk to me. It's the unwise that can only ridicule.... :)

(And no, I'm not trying to put you into any category, just blathering)

[Random_Australian]

135. Oh yeah, it is important to at least try to interpret what you are doing in english,

especially because you want to try and explain whay you are doing in as many ways as possible to whoever you are talking to (ie. when trying to explain QM, you need all the explanations you can get).

But in the end, with english it always comes down to the same thing - you don't have the exact words, so you have to make an approximation. This usually makes the problem simple enough to get across to other people, but it also loses a lot of information in making the approximation.

So english is a good first step in explaining something, and as far as you tend to get with people who haven't studied your field, so it is important, but nevertheless it is never the way you want to *think* about something in your field, even if you *talk* about it that way. :)

[Random_Australian]

120. Hah, too easy. That's a null hypothesis problem.

Properties from the null hypothesis - contains all the information we know, and no more. (A lot like a wavefunction in that respect). Variables in the null can be combined and so on, yadda yadda yadda.

Actually, taking this away from formal language, I can say that looking at the universe I can describe stars, galaxies, and so on, create and test ideas about how the universe evolved and where it came from.

Say I sit there for an arbitrarily long time and tell you everything we know about the universe. This does not include where it came from.

Then the amount of information we have about "where it came from" is zero. (As soon as you are referring to something we don't know about, of course)

So then any description of "where it came from" contains zero information. (As soon as you take things further than we know)

So any description of a creator contains no attributes or information. The total change in how we see the universe with or without that creator is zero.

So we are just left with the last place the amount of information was non-zero - the Big Bang.

[tama]

126. Hume

is probably one of the most famous and clear thinking philosophers stuffing causality (metaphysical belief that there is linear deterministic cause for every and each observation event) where it really belongs. Such metaphysical causality is, according to Hume, just as unprovable as standard notions about Allmighty Creator God. And he is right, coincidence by any logic does not prove causality. It just proves coincidence. Which in fact is much tougher nut to digest... :)

[Random_Australian]

134. Pffffft! That just goes to show you - when it comes down to a match between

philosophers and scientists, scientists win. :)

Technically, it went like this: (because its physics people, of course the problem is framed in terms of particles)

I measured a particle. It was at position C. Did I measure it to be at C because it really was at C (determinism), or because the act of measurement found it at C/caused it to be at C (Copenhagen interpretation of QM, nondeterministic).

It was actually possible to create an experiment to test what the particle was like when no-one was looking, and it showed that the Copenhagen interpretation was correct.

So nyah nyah ny-ah nah, philosophers!

[tama]

139. A scientist who thinks in terms

of "match between philosophers and scientists" is destitute for sophia. :)

There are also other kind of scientists, e.g. philosopher-scientist David Bohm.

[Random_Australian]

141. And someone who reads a long argument about words being an approximation

to what one really thinks, then takes them literally, is (words even more obtuse than 'destitute for sophia')

hmmmm, "then takes them literally, then they have a non-zero commutation relation between the measurements of information, and their hilbert space representation probably doesn't even have a finite norm, and they must be nickel-intercalated zinc oxide to use such words, so they should get hermitian!" has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Yes, it was an allegory or something. I don't know the word.

But really, you need to start using a more common vocabulary - I'm using laymen's terms only (ok, and more when I feel it is really necessary), and it would be conducive to conversation if you did the same.

[tama]

151. Hey,

I'm not responsible for what you take literally - or don't. ;-)

[Random_Australian]

165. HAH! See, confusing language is bad for conversation!

I was talking about YOU taking me literally, not vice-versa. (See the posts in this replychain)

[tama]

168. I believe I understood as much

and attempted to continute the joke in self-ironeous way or likeness of. See, confusing language is bad for conversation... :D

[Random_Australian]

171. Ah, right.

Unfortunately, trying to send the subtle clues that usually tell us someone is not serious via plain text can be a lot like trying to send chocolate cake through a telephone wire at times. :)

[tama]

179. As I said

English is not my native language, and being serious in my language which of course comes through in this pidgin that is being written is something I've tried to characterize as being "neo-pathetic".

[Random_Australian]

206. As a sign of solidarity, I will now type a less comprehensible post, composed entirely of the letter

e.


eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[tama]

210. OOOOOOO!!! n/t

[aquart]

15. Piffle.

As if God couldn't fudge data as well as a Republican.

[Orrex]

22. Then such a god would be as unworthy of worship as a Republican

[Lerkfish]

23. that would be your call, employing free will

but whether you felt a god was worth worshipping or not does nothing towards proving nor disproving its existence.
Its only a reflection of your personal view.

[Orrex]

29. I said nothing about its existence

However, a god who "fudges the data" is by definition a deceptive god; if you dispute this, please present your argument. Anyone who wants to worship a deceptive god is welcome to do so.

No kidding that my choice to worship/not-worship is a matter of free will.


Hey, while we're at it, Biblegod could demonstrate His superduper existence beyond any shadow of a doubt without compromising free will. That would sure settle a lot of arguments and spare a lot of bloodshed. You'd think that a merciful god would want to spare its beloved children all of that suffering, but apparently not.

[Lerkfish]

30. I stand corrected.

I was reading someone else's post and combining it with yours.

You weren't saying anything about existence, and I stand corrected.

[Orrex]

31. No way--I'm itchin' for a fight. Let's fight!

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

[Lerkfish]

34. "that's not an argument, that's merely the gainsaying of everything I say"

"no, its not!"

:)

(assuming you're a monty python fan.

[Orrex]

49. Can't quote verse and chapter, but I hear you!

Sometimes I laugh at myself when I come into a discussion with guns blazing, only to find that the other person in the discussion has had the crazy idea to get all reasonable about things.

[jobycom]

19. You set some pretty narrow definitions of your "conventional god" there, didn't you?

Basically, you said "I will now prove the god that I can prove doesn't exist doesn't exist."

Learned theologians and religious scientists would argue that the god you disprove is not one they believe existed in the first place. A creator god who created all of existence as you can experience it, as well as creating everything by which you can observe or analyze, would necessarily be outside that existence--you can't create yourself--so no evidence you could produce under the scientific method could prove or disprove god. I guess you've disproven Jerry Falwell's god, but I doubt even Jerry Falwell believed in that good. It's a rather primitive interpretations that theologians and preachers use for the dumbed-down sermons.

The god you have to work on created the world, exists outside of the world, and can only interfere by using the world itself to create miracles or anomalies. One line of thought for this god would be that miracles were built into the original program, since god knew in advance what all would happen. Another line of thought is that god can still act on the world from the outside by basically injecting something into the mix that triggers natural events. Say God needs to wipe out a village for some godly reason--he can't stick his thumb in and squash it, but he can trigger a volcano, tornado, hurricane, or whatever that area would already naturally expect.

I'm an atheist, so I don't believe in any of that, but I can't disprove any of it, either. I used to spend endless hours arguing with my college roommate over this, so I've heard most of the permutations you can come up with. I am quite sure there is no god out there, but I'm also quite sure that's a complete matter of faith. I believe there is no god, so everything I see reaffirms that belief. Those who do believe are constantly reaffirmed, too, often by the same events.

[patrice]

25. My thoughts exactly: The OP is defining what is supposed to be un-definable in such a way as to

"proove" that it doesn't "exist".

It also appears to me that the real objection in the OP is semantic: "What do you call It?" "Natural Law?" or "God?"

An experiment:

That is god is an entity that created the universe, is free to intervene in it, but exists independently of it.

= Natural law is a set of phenomena that created the universe, inevitably intervenes in it, but is independently true without the universe . . . ?

[arKansasJHawk]

37. I have to say ...

That all the objections (not just yours, I'm just using your post as a jumping off point) to the definition posited in the OP are just missing the point.

The OP is NOT defining some god out of thin air. He's defining, concisely and accurately, the God of the Bible, the one that at LEAST 48 percent of the American public believes in (48 percent of respondents to the Baylor religion survey identified themselves as "Bible-believing").

That is NOT some strawman set up by the OP to be knocked down. For another reflection of the fact that THIS god is the God of most Americans, here's another result from the Baylor survey: 54 percent of Americans believe in either an "authoritarian" or "benevolent" god, definied as a god that is highly involved in their daily lives and in world affairs. (The difference between the two is the question, essentially, of whether God's pissed off all the time or not. That breaks down to 31 percent pissed off, 23 percent not so much.)

And so, I say again, the OP did NOT invent some concept of god just so he could disprove it. The OP held up the God believed in by a majority of Americans to scrutiny. Whether he made his point with that scrutiny or not isn't my concern at this point. My concern is merely refuting the idea that the traditional, well-defined meaning of God is somehow a fiction created by people who just want something to argue against.

[jobycom]

43. Read the OP's subject line.

Your argument might agree with what the OP wound up saying, but it doesn't agree with what he started out saying. And you'd have to ask your Baylor survey folk each assumption the OP made and each one he rejected to prove that a majority of people believed that God was what he said. Not to mention that God as a concept or symbol or myth or whatever has far more depth than the straw man the OP called God. If his thread title was "I shall scientifically prove that the Fundamentalists are wrong about Evolution," he'd have an interesting argument. But even a Fundamentalist would argue that God is more complex than their understanding or their basic assumptions. The OP, however, would not, which is why his god is a straw man.

[arKansasJHawk]

56. Subject line mistakes ...

I don't know. I'm not sure what your point is here. The subject line was slightly unclear? Okay. Doesn't make anything in the post a "straw man" in any way. Especially when, right there in the post, you see this:

"Just to be clear, I am defining god based on conventional understanding."

Which, again, is actually not as complex and mysterious as some would have it. The fact that some minority of believers define "god" in an increasingly abstract and, ultimately, meaningless way, doesn't change the "conventional understanding" of God. I suppose it is possible that, at some future point, the "a la carte" method of defining god will become so prevalent that there won't even BE a conventional understanding of God, but I don't believe we're anywhere near that point yet.

It was, after all, a VERY conventional understanding of God and God's will that led to the passage of anti-gay marriage measures in three states last Tuesday. I doubt very seriously that any of the voters who supported those measures have a particularly complex understanding of God.

[Sophree]

244. The narrow definition of God

Whether or not the OP referred only to the "narrow" definition of God, I would like to pick up on your point. One can believe in the God of the Bible (the God of Abraham) and still not subscribe to the narrow view, as defined by believers and unbelievers alike. This does not make these views abstract or meaningless. From the OP:

In fact, the only thing more unlikely than the universe is a god capable of making a universe. To do so god would need to be immensely complex and would infinitely compound the existence problem because we would then have to explain god. (It is clear from studying evolution that intelligence is the result of existence, not the cause of it.) A universe that acts the way it does because it is its nature to do so is far more likely than a god with his thumb on every electron.

I would argue that the universe, created by an infinitely intelligent and complex God, would naturally follow the laws and nature of the Creator Himself, not because He has "his thumb on every electron," but because the creation would, by nature, follow the laws of the Creator. In other words, the fact that the universe acts the way it does, by nature, does not rule out or disprove the existence of the Creator.

To me, it is actually evidence of a Creator.

edit- typo

[knitter4democracy]

46. I like that last part of your post best.

Everything you see reaffirms your stance, and everything I see reaffirms mine. And that's why we debate here so much. :)

[patrice]

20. The lack of proof (whatever that is) is nothing more, nor less, than the lack of proof (whatever tha

t is).

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

28. Stephen Jay Gould: 1 Deep 13 : 0

[knitter4democracy]

35. No fingerprints? Huh. Interesting viewpoint.

I see fingerprints all over the place, actually.

You know where I get stuck on evolution? Cellular membranes. I can get RNA and DNA forming in the soup, but cellular membranes, as lovely as they are and as well as they work, get me. Don't get me started on how the heck they evolved everything else in the cell (endoplasmic reticuli are so freakin' cool, but how the heck did they happen?), but I really break down at cellular membranes.

Honestly, my faith just isn't that strong. My faith that science will someday figure out exactly how cells formed and then joined together to make multi-cellular organisms and then went from there to worm and then fish and then trilobites--honestly, it's just easier for me to believe that God made it happen. Sure, that makes me no scientist (never claimed to be one) and probably stupid in someone's eyes here, but I just don't have that much faith in man to think that we can figure out the answers to absolutely everything.

And then the Big Bang. How did that happen? What set it off? How could that much matter fit into one space? The mind boggles. Why is it bad to say that maybe that's one of God's fingerprints? What if God really is Loki, the God of Chaos? Why is it so bad for some of us to look at that same evidence and see God's fingerprints?

[beam me up scottie]

42. "honestly, it's just easier for me to believe that God made it happen"

You are one of the most honest believers I know, k4d. You ask yourself the difficult questions and you're willing to admit that you don't have all the answers.

You've always had my respect, thank you for raising the bar.

[knitter4democracy]

45. And here I thought I'd get raked over the coals on this.

:hug: You are so awesome, and I always look forward to your posts. You made my day!

So, how did those cellular membranes evolve? I have yet to find a decent explanation (I'm sorry, lightning striking at the right spot in the ooze doesn't make sense to me for this, and neither does the DNA just knowing somehow that that muck over there would protect it). And amoebas. I like them. How did they happen?

[beam me up scottie]

50. "Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." ~Carl Sagan

No scientist here, either, but I come as close as an atheist can get to worshiping one:

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.

The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.


~Carl Sagan.

I hope you always keep us on our toes in this forum. :hug:

[knitter4democracy]

51. That is a beautiful quote.

I can't really disagree with it, either. There's so much to live for here that working only for an afterlife seems, I don't know, silly. That's why I focus on the works part of the faith, the jobs that Christ set out for us, and by far the vast majority of those are to help those around us, regardless of faith or anything else.

Nah, I don't keep anyone on anyone's toes here, unless you're referring to mean Christians. Yeah, I'll take them on. ;)

[Sophree]

245. I see God's fingerprints, too.

In a lot of things. I don't claim to have all the answers, either. Not even close. But I do see God's fingerprints in so many things.

[The Traveler]

40. The scientific method

is predicated on the idea of making a hypothesis (an educated guess) as to how nature willl produce phenomena under certain conditions. So in order to apply the scientific method to the question of the existance of a Divinity, one would first have to identify a phenomenon that the Divinity is presumed to have been involved in (e.g. creation), a specification of the initial conditions (e.g. pre-creation ... whatever that means) and a model of that involvement that specifies physically observable effects. Such a model requires a concrete definition of said Divinity ...

Wow. Tall orders. Several. It is for this reason that many scientists of the more philosophical sort are reluctant to suggest the applicability of the scientific method to this question.

Science, we must recall, is a branch of philosophy. Specifically, science is that body of knowledge attained and used by application of the scientific method. It is an intentionally narrow way of looking at experience ... and that focus provides its power as well as its limitation. Your thesis contends that all human experience is approachable through application of that method.

I think that is quite debatable. Ranier Rilke once observed that the big questions appear to have no concrete answers, and so suggested that one must be content to love the questions.

Trav

[knitter4democracy]

47. To take that idea further, how do you use the scientific method on love?

Or any of the strong emotions that often lead to massive actions or reactions? I know that social scientists study relationships and that love is often a huge part of that, but the papers that I read in college used whatever definition of love the participants used. I've never seen a massive scientific study to define love into or out of existence (though, I'm sure something like it exists, given how publish-or-perish runs academia), and I'm not sure it could.

I've seen it posited here that faith is just a bunch of neurons firing in the brain and therefore not real. You could say the same of love. Why not have a forum where everyone sits around and argues about whether love exists or not? ;)

[Evoman]

64. FAITH AND LOVE are both just a bunch of neurons firing in the brain.

I've never heard the argument that faith isn't real. I would think it's real, because people have the feeling. Same with love...it's really not that special a concept.

Of course, the reality of FAITH has nothing to do with the reality of GOD. In the same way, the reality of LOVE has nothing to do with the reality of CUPID.

[knitter4democracy]

65. Not quite the right comparison.

The reality of faith might have nothing to do with the reality of God, but the reality of love has quite a bit to do with the reality of the loved one. Faith is about God, but love isn't about Cupid but instead the person we love. Last I checked, that person's real and meets most definitions of real.

[Evoman]

68. Missing the point.

The point is simply that love and faith are something based entirely in your brain. The same person can inspire love and hate, or even indifference, in different people because that person is not the source of love. Love is entirely in your brain...love is real, because you feel it. Faith is realy because you have it.

Besides, many people love people that are not real. Or people they have never met. Some people love ideas. Some people love experiences. It's irrelevant.

Love is not some sort of external force or power. It's neurons. It's internal chemistry. Doesn't make it any less fun or desirable.

[knitter4democracy]

71. Ah. Okay then.

I get it. Makes sense on some level.

[tama]

98. Reductionism

Belief that human (and all other) experience reduces to the classical mechanics (electro-chemical processes) is not science, it's scientism based on poor and cherry-picking understanding of (layman's) physics. As a metaphysical belief system ("eliminative materialism", proponents e.g. Churchlands) such reductionism is totally deterministic, hence the mockery of critics calling proponents of eliminative materialism "self-confessed zombies".

[cosmik debris]

101. What a load of crap!

Calling science "scientism" is just name calling. Just like calling your metaphysics "superstition".

You can make up all the names you want, but without some indication that your "metaphysics" is something more than superstition, I gotta believe that you are full-o-shit.

[tama]

103. Next time

why don't you try developing some reading skills. And understanding of science and physics beyond naive materialism.

[cosmik debris]

105. I was right

All you've got is name calling.

Very impressive.

[tama]

107. All you've got

is wish to insult. What makes you so angry?

[cosmik debris]

108. Every one of your posts in this thread

uses derogatory terms to describe people with whom you disagree.

And you complain about me being insulting?

I was just following your lead.

[tama]

110. How big of you

But please show "derogatory terms to describe people with whom you disagree" in these posts:

"Deduction based on false axioms namely the metaphysics of subject and object (dualism) - but a dynamic process of creation - as phenomenological happening does not logically need to involve dichotomic division into subject ("Creator") and object ("Creation"). There is big problem with English language trying to discuss and express things beyond the subject-object divide, because of English syntax requiring subject and object structure in all sentences."

"Reductionism - Belief that human (and all other) experience reduces to the classical mechanics (electro-chemical processes) is not science, it's scientism based on poor and cherry-picking understanding of (layman's) physics. As a metaphysical belief system ("eliminative materialism", proponents e.g. Churchlands) such reductionism is totally deterministic, hence the mockery of critics calling proponents of eliminative materialism "self-confessed zombies"."

What was and is being insulted in these posts? You personally? A belief system? What???

[cosmik debris]

112. You seem to be living in a world where

Every thing you say is correct and anyone who disagrees with you doesn't understand you.

[tama]

114. Not anyone

just most. And not everything I say is correct. But to begin to pointing at what could be said and comprehended better, first there should be comprehension or at least open mind.

[cosmik debris]

117. Your admission that you are incomprehensible to most people

Is a breath of fresh air. I expected you to claim that your creative vocabulary was both comprehensible and meaningful.

[tama]

130. And no denying

there are also sentiments of loneliness and frustration involved. Nothing for cause of pride. :)

I can only hope that I could express these thoughts (not mine, just gathered along the path from wiser and smarter) better, but I suck. :)

[cosmik debris]

131. It's a shame those wiser, smarter, better ones

Didn't teach you that being insulting from the start negates any value your thoughts may have.

We seem to have a lot of people who come to this forum to insult others and then expect to be respected for their self proclaimed wisdom and "second semester philosophy" vocabulary.

You're not the first.

[tama]

140. When, where and how

were you insulted?

[cosmik debris]

152. Seriously?

Do you really think that calling someone naive is not an insult?

Do you really believe that you can add -ism to a word, tag it with derisive descriptions and use it to label an adversary, and not be insulting?

Do you really feel that the accusation of inability to comprehend is not a direct attack?

Are you being a jerk on purpose? Is it an accident? Is it lack of social skills?

I'm sticking with my original opinion that you are just an arrogant pompous ass.

[tama]

153. Answers

>>>Do you really think that calling someone naive is not an insult?<<<

Well, you ARE behaving quite childishly. So hardly an insult, if not childishly taken as such.

>>>Do you really believe that you can add -ism to a word, tag it with derisive descriptions and use it to label an adversary, and not be insulting?<<<

What adversary???

"The term is often used as a pejorative<1><2> to indicate the improper usage of science or scientific claims.<3> In this sense, the charge of scientism often is used as a counter-argument to appeals to scientific authority in contexts where science might not apply,<4> such as when the topic is perceived to be beyond the scope of scientific inquiry."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism

The reductionistic claim as scientific truth that mind reduces to classical mechanics is improper usage of science, hence scientism.

>>>Do you really feel that the accusation of inability to comprehend is not a direct attack?<<<

Of course it is not. It's just an observation. You've never said to anyone: "No, that's not what was meant, you didn't understand" and then proceed to attempt to correct the misunderstanding?

And of course I am arrogant pompouss ass and that goes without saying. :)

[cosmik debris]

154. I'm still going with my first impression

You are just an arrogant pompous ass who doesn't know when he is being insulting.

[tama]

155. You are being repetitive

Is that an observation or an insult?

[cosmik debris]

156. I'm just following your lead. n/t

[tama]

157. So I got me a follower!

Supercool! Now, where do you want to be lead? Where ever I lead?

What is it that you really want from this exchange?

[cosmik debris]

216. By the way

You never did take me up on the challenge to show the difference between superstition and metaphysics.

If there is no discernible interaction between metaphysics and real physics, your metaphysics quickly becomes irrelevant.

You may as well be counting the coins in a Leprechaun's pot of gold.

[tama]

220. My metaphysics?

If I have been talking about metaphysics, IIRC I have meant the metaphysical presuppositions behind current paradigm in physics.

[cosmik debris]

221. You still can't answer the challenge

What is the difference between metaphysics (you brought that word into the conversation) and superstition?

What is the relevance of metaphysics if it does not manifest in some way?

How can metaphysics be more important than the troll under a bridge?

[tama]

223. Many differences

They are spelled and pronounced differently etc:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition

For example, belief in linear one-directional time and causality is a metaphysical belief. That metaphysical manifests in the way most of science is done, for example.

[Random_Australian]

136. Whut?

Oh, and the (quantum, not GR) correspondance principles eats the brains of people who don't like classical mechanics.

Quantum correspondance principle - as the mass and energy and length scales of a system increase, the quantum mechanical description of the system must have the classical system as its limit.

In other words, it is fine to talk about something as large as a neuron in terms of classical mechanics.
(It may not be fine to talk about the components that way but who cares?)

[tama]

142. Thut

There are problems with all collapse-interpretations that don't go away - but eat the brains. :)

I find holistic interpretations such as Bohmian mechanics more coherent and easier to talk about in any language. They do not eat brains or exclude mind. In other words, observable (particle) at C is determined to be observable at C by the holistic whole of the Universe (that does not reduce to sum of it's parts), by the holistic whole including also the intentionality of a measuring device (aka scientist).

There is also extremely promising idea that Planck's constant has not only single value but is scalable. Values other than what we are used to experience (classical limit) being the so called "dark" matter and energy.

[Random_Australian]

144. Non-sequitur.

This is a discussion. You posted about, well, random stuff. About materialism and such.

In any case, one of the points was about classical mechanics, which I addressed.

And now my questions are:

1) What the hell? No defense of your previous stuff about classical mechanics?
2) Words like "intentionality" and such mean precisely zip without context and definition.
3) What is with your last paragraph? The classical limit is part of QM, not funky dark-energy creating stuff. Also, dark matter is very, very unrelated to dark energy (as far as anyone can determine)
4) Wait, holistic whole of the universe that does not reduce to the sum of its parts? Sounds a lot like "some words I made up for christmas" to me.


Actually, wait a second....

Bohmian mech is a hidden variable theory.

It died. They all did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments

[tama]

148. Discussion would be nice

but it seems you would prefere argument.

Let's start with basic clarifications.

"Reductionism can either mean (a) an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or (b) a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents.<1> This can be said of objects, phenomena, explanations, theories, and meanings."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism

"Holism (from ὅλος holos, a Greek word meaning all, entire, total) is the idea that all the properties of a given system (biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic, etc.) cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone. Instead, the system as a whole determines in an important way how the parts behave."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holistic

"Materialists" tend to take reductionistic view and "idealists" holistic view, but there is no need to take either-or stand but reductionistic (/analytical) and holistic modes of thinking can also be seen as complementary. But pure reductionism is not "scientific truth", it is a paradigm/metaphysic/dogma/...

Your questions:
1) What specifically is in need of defence?
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentionality
3) Not speaking about QM but central idea of a ToE. Of which I don't understand much. :)
4) See above.

Bell's theorem refutes local hidden variable theories. Bohmian mech is non-local. Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_paradox and "spooky action at distance".

A quick google brought up also this:
http://www.qedcorp.com/pcr/pcr/mulhaus.html

Trying to tie this back to the original topic, my impression is that holism is kin to "philosopher's god" of Spinoza etc.

[Random_Australian]

166. ARgh. Ok, you're definitely a not a scientist then.

(Not that there is anything wrong with that)

1) The thing that was specifically in need of defense was you saying we needed to think about brains in quantum mech. I noted that neurons are well above the classical limit, so it's completely fine to talk about them classically if we are discussing whether or not the brain is made of component parts.

2) Right, that kind of intentionality. The "no reason to believe it is not an emergent property of simple physical phenomena, but let's believe it anyway" type. ;)

3) Ok, the theory of evolution I can run by you pretty quick. It goes like this:
- The characteristics of an organism change the probability that it will survive in a given environment.
- Many of the characteristics of an organism are probabilistically affected by its genes
- Genes are passed from parents to offspring.

Well, that's a little approximate but basically the ToE in a nutshell.

Even if we are using such a simple model, we can now make some predictions about what would happen if I took a population in which some attribute was favourable for survival, eg. being tall.

If there was about the same number of animals in each generation, then the ones with genes that were more likely to make them tall would be more prevalent than those without.

It's so far above the classical limit that you could wrap it up in a box and send it to Newton, and he'd be fine with it.

About Bohmian mech: Ok, it is indeed nonlocal and thus not axed by Bell. It still has no experimental confirmation. I hereby put it on par with string theory. :)

Your quick google really should have been a quick google scholar. The link isn't exactly impressive. (The day I listen to continental philosophy is the day I abandon all testing for meaning)

Seriously, what reason have they to believe the pilot wave A) exists B) has the properties of consciousness.

[tama]

177. I'd like to think

that I'm a diletante philosopher of science, at least of sorts. :)

>>>1) The thing that was specifically in need of defense was you saying we needed to think about brains in quantum mech. I noted that neurons are well above the classical limit, so it's completely fine to talk about them classically if we are discussing whether or not the brain is made of component parts.<<<

I just wrote a post about litany of anomalies falsifying the reductionistic hypothesis (which is not even a theory :)). That does not by necessity say that we need to think about brains - or rather mind - in QM. It just happens that best or most interesting recent discussions about the mind-body problem in the area of science have been related to the quantum mind hypothesis. Which is not a single hypothesis but a family of many various hypothesis and perhaps even few theories.

As for intentionality, eliminative materialism is by definition not explanation of empirical data (introspective included, including "theory of mind" meaning projective empathy skill also experimentally verified in chimps etc.) but denial of. Instead of accepting everyday empirical experience it denies it by calling it "layman's psychology" because a reductionistic scientist knows better than the one experiencing. :)

As for classical (4D/Minkowski space?) limit, doesn't even the standard EPR experiment proving "spooky action at distance" kind of falsify it? This is a genuine wondering, since I don't really know what all classical limit limits and what would be anomaly to it.

As for ToE, IIRC what is expected from a respectable ToE is that it unifies QM and Relativity and IMHO also solves the Mind-Body problem theoretically (ie mathematically). The best candidate for a valid ToE that I know of has slightly different approach to evolution. Stating that a quantum jump (which can happen at any length/energy scale, since h is number theoretically scalable) rewrites also history on the linear time, arrows of time going to both directions. The details escape my poor understanding, but I cannot but deduce that this results in dynamic participatory universe (not unlike sentient quantum computer), with Big questions about responsibility for each and every participant... :)

And as obligatory back at ya, the day I take limits of analytical Anglo-Saxon philosophy seriously, take me to mental asylum, since I've lost all real sense of proportion and reason. :)

Slightly more seriously, my understanding of continental philosopy is that it is mearly European self-criticism with nothing really positive to offer. I prefere local (in my case non-Indo-European) thinking to the dead-end of European metaphysics.

And has to be added, Jack Sarfatti has nothing to do with continental philosophy, he's American "New Age" physicist. And no, Jack's not the ToE I mentioned. That was more like local thinking... ;)

[Random_Australian]

203. Ahahahahaha! ToE "Theory of Everything", not "Theory of Evolution"

Right, now we are much more on the same page. Ha. That was funny.

"Which is not a single hypothesis but a family of many various hypothesis and perhaps even few theories."

Wheeee! I can tell you aleady, no knew theories yet. (Making something a theory is a big deal in science)

I'll go look for your problems with 'reductionist' stuff.


"Instead of accepting everyday empirical experience"

You are using contradictory terms now. And the idea that scientists are conspiring/in ivory towers/can't handle the truth/crap like that, again. Urgh. Why do I think that? Because of this strawman:

"because a reductionistic scientist knows better than the one experiencing"

when a more accurate way of putting it would be

"because time and again, subjective experience has been shown to lead us precisely nowhere, and be a terrible way to attempt to find the truth of a matter"

The classical limit is just where things become as we usually experience them again. For instance, when you are looking at an atom, you have to think about it in quantum mechanics. If you are looking at a baseball, you can just use Newton's laws.

In other words, the classical limit is the border between quantum mechanics and what we are used to.

"and IMHO also solves the Mind-Body problem"

As far as I'm aware, the mind-body problem was made up at random, and not really a problem at all. :shrug:

"The best candidate for a valid ToE that I know of"

What criteria are you using to judge? Because I for one would be very careful about calling something the best candidate for the ToE.

[tama]

215. What is a strawman

is "subjective experience". That was not the subject of discussion but just (asubjective) experiencing. The presupposition that all experience is subjective is what is questioned here, and the question does not go away by merely sticking to the presumption. "Telepathy", for example, is shared "asubjective" experience, which in then interpreted as "telepathic" experience or whatever by "subjects" or what ever we want to call interpretative linguistic processes.

Mind-Body problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind-body_dichotomy) has deep historical roots and tons and tons of discussions about at least in Western culture - perhaps it's not really a problem in other cultures. I agree that dualism is distastefull presupposition, but it has to be also pointed out that materialistic monism is very exceptional world view among human cultures - and believed in only by minority even in Western culture - though powerfull minority. The way the question is framed in Western culture, perhaps a satisfactory solution would by that the difference between mind and body is not ontological but aspectual.

The standard criterion is that the best ToE among a group of theories that are empirically equivalent (aka non-falsified) is the one with widest explanatory power. I would like to add the criterion that a valid ToE should be consistently incomplete so that the ToE allows nature to change and evolve the way it want's to instead of demanding that it works allways according to same rules like clockwork machine.

In other words, ToE should not try to tell God (/all) what to do ad infinitum but but ask God: "How are you today?" :)

[Random_Australian]

230. The presupposition that all experience is subjective?

Hmmmmm, actually, I was more using the tested thing that people's experience and their interpretation of that is a crap way of going about finding the truth that had time and again been shown to be completely wrong.

"Telepathy" for example, is completely made up.

Mind-body problem: As long as there is no evidence that there is something not material there, then I'm not going to go around tacking things onto what I know at random.

And yes, in some places in generates lots of discussions. However, in science, it really doesn't (anymore). That's the point with all this testing stuff - you can eventually show that dualism can have all the non-material stuff taken away without affecting its predictions, so you do exactly that, and are left with materialism. You haven't got there by assuming it, or because it was somehow dogma.

"the best ToE among a group of theories that are empirically equivalent (aka non-falsified) is the one with widest explanatory power"

That much is obvious. What is far less obvious is the exact meaning of explanatory power. For instance, you can 'explain' anything by 'God did it' - and a lot of the more bullshit ToE's do approximately the same thing.

"I would like to add the criterion that a valid ToE"

Nature does not, and never will, bow to the wishes of a human. You don't get to make the rules about how everything works, no matter how much you'd like a particular answer.

[tama]

233. No matter how much you deny

e.g. Sheldrake's empirical results don't go away by merely denying and ignoring them. "Telepathy" as a concept construct may be "made up" (namely of two Greek words), but the phenomena Sheldrake tests under the term "telepathy" are by scientific standards real and not explainable inside the reductionistic paradigm.

"Matter" is today very fuzzy concept, since also QM and non-local entanglements are considered "matter", together with all the wierd math that starts as "pure math" but is soon found uses in QM.

Which brings to mind, you may be familiar with with Wigner's classic paper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of_Mathematics_in_the_Natural_Sciences. So your position is that atoms bouncing against each other create the emergent epiphenom of mind, which then creates math that miraculously accurately describes not only the classical bouncing that it is mere product of, to wich mind and math reduces to, but also quantum waving and pointing - which below classical limit has nothing to do with brains and mind? Sorry, but I don't find that hypothesis logically consistent. To me it sounds plain bullshit.

***

Wishes of a human are part of nature and they have causative power in nature (not above nature). I wish to smoke a cigarette -> lot's of consequences.

[Random_Australian]

252. Hah! Yes, denial. When people disagree, it is because they cannot handle the truth.

A single person's results mean nothing, and never have. When these are replicated, THEN they are to be believed. Maybe.

And math is weird to you, not me. Matter is only a very faintly fuzzy concept, and only in so far as we use it in a general sense to explain things to non-scientists. If we actually use it somewhere, context will give it a rather precise definition.

Wigner's stuff is interesting, but not really relevant to the discussion at hand - there is some fun stuff going on with information coding.

"So your position is that atoms bouncing against each other create the emergent epiphenom of mind"

Well, the interaction of matter, which is overall goverened by QM, but still, close enough. But yes, time and again simple rules in a system have produced complex behaviour. A whole field of chemistry is self-assembly simply because if you want a complex system, you don't need to design it top-down. With a large number of possible configurations and rules governing how the system changes in time, you get complex behaviour.

"which then creates math"

Which then investigates the world, formulates logic, and so on, by the process of learning. Yay!

"miraculously accurately describes not only the classical bouncing"

Uh, yes, so miraculous. Or, from how I use maths:
1) I write down information about a system in terms of mathematics - these are called constitutive relations. In other words, I have mathematical objects that describe what I know about the system.

2) I can do mathematical operations to mathematical objects! A miracle! A miracle!

And for what it is worth, it is not like the entire of maths has a use in physics. In fact, we specially have to take specific operators and such which are consistent with physical reality.

"describes not only the classical bouncing that it is mere product of"

Remember, the classical limit is only that you can accurately describe things in terms of classical mechanics - the fundamental operations are still quantum mechanical.

"which below classical limit has nothing to do with brains and mind?"

What the hell are you talking about? The ideas about how brains work also don't include gravity - just how the neurons fire and order and such. Does that mean that we can never learn about gravity? Does that mean we are suddenly unable to measure it?

"Sorry, but I don't find that hypothesis logically consistent"

And I don't find the assumptions you've made to call it inconsistent (ie. that something has to be governed by something to learn about it) to be even remotely similar to reality, so I'm not too bothered by what those assumptions tell you.

"Wishes of a human are part of nature and they have causative power in nature (not above nature). I wish to smoke a cigarette -> lot's of consequences."

Yes, yes they do. They alter how humans behave.

However, it is something entirely different to say "I would like to add the criterion that a valid ToE should be consistently incomplete so that the ToE allows nature to change and e"

Wishes do not alter the laws of nature. Wanting a cigarette can cause you to light up, but it won't cause you to suddenly fly at the sun at twice the speed of light. You can never add a criteria for whether something is correct or incorrect based what you want to be true.

[tama]

257. Sorry

but the logical inconsistency you are stil subscribing is the emergentims. How can a mere sum of parts (=reductionism) describe the whole of the system that it is supposed to be product or sum of? That is simply not logical, but defying logic.

[Random_Australian]

268. Whut?

Ok, allow me to show you what I mean by example.

I look at the world. Yay.

I see that almost all the order and complexity comes from things following simple rules, and just spontaneously self-assembling like most things do. (eg, if you freeze water, the rules about how electrons and atoms work mean that they will form an orientated and ordered lattice. Oooooh, spoooooooooky!)

In fact, I can kinda make a distinction - wherever something occurs naturally, it uses self assembly. There are some other ways order can come about, most noticeably when a human takes the top-down approach and carves something to be the way they want, like a car or a painting.

So, I look at the brain being built in the womb. And I notice this was a natural process that occurs just like all the other natural processes.

Therefore I conclude it's the same thing happening. (Or at least I don't conclude something amazingly different than the simple ordering from molecules is happening)

So thus far I've no reason to believe the brain is anything other than a purely material entity.

Then I notice all the other stuff about 'things happening to the brain affect how people think', and golly gosh doesn't it look like all this personality stuff is in the brain.


Putting it all together, I have established three things:
1) Simple systems with simple rules can exhibit extremely complex behaviour.
2) The brain is made of molecules.
3) Everything we have ever been able to establish the existence of, including consciousness, can be affected by the state of the brain.

And you're telling me this doesn't look at all like the mind is represented by a physical system? More importantly, doesn't it show that a physical system can have all the properties of what we know about the mind?

Wait, actually, I think I'll do one better than that and invalidate your post. You said -

"How can a mere sum of parts (=reductionism) describe the whole of the system that it is supposed to be product or sum of? That is simply not logical, but defying logic"

Two things:

1) If I say "I don't know how this can do that", that is not a proof that it is impossible for "this to do that". It means I don't know.

2) This annoys the shit out of me - the "mere sum of parts"? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? You do realise these parts interact, right? And those interactions have extremely complex patterns built from a few simple rules? "mere sum of parts" is basically bullshit. "Sum" is a made up human idea that has very little relevance to real systems.

[tama]

270. Supervenience

We're getting somewhere. A whole being "mere sum of it's parts" is what reductionism literally means. If you say mind is not just mere sum of brain molecules, then you are not signing the reductionistic position.

Supervenience means that mind is represented by (classical) physical system. Every thought has representation on the level of brain molecules. But representation does not mean causative reduction, that all mental phenomena are caused by brain molecules and nothing else.

Non-reductionistic complexity from "simple system with simple rules" is what "emergentism" says. That position is very problematic for the intuitive logic because of the ex nihilo nihil thingy.

Complexity from simple rules arises from participatory interaction of that simple system with a larger whole (e.g. world). That is what holism means, at least kind of. Lacking accepted ToE and with two basic but contradictory theories (GR and QM), theoretical physics has not yet developed holistic view, or good understanding of physical reality of holistic phenomena. It is fair assumption that the difficulties in finding unitary theory or ToE lie in some of the basic presuppositions that need to be re-examined.

PS: If "sum" is a made up human idea that has very little relevance to real systems, what mathematical or other idea is not made up human idea? That has very little relevance to real systems?

[Random_Australian]

274. No, we're not getting anywhere, unless you were using a truly mind-bogglingly stupid version of

"reductionism", in that systems had to reduce to non-interacting components rather than just to components.

But you can't have been saying that, because you accused others of holding this 'reductionist' stance (specifically science people), and that is completely contradictory to the normal thing that we argue for - that systems with simple rules (yes, simple rules for interaction) often show self-ordering and rather complex behaviour.

"A whole being 'mere sum of it's parts' is what reductionism literally means"

Nope, reductionism = "an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts" in science and some bullshit version of that in philosophy. (But still keeping the idea that if you know how the components all work, then you can predict the behaviour of the whole)

"But representation does not mean causative reduction, that all mental phenomena are caused by brain molecules and nothing else."

Logically, no, it does not have to be the only explanation.

The complete lack of evidence for anything beyond the material brain does however mean that it is rational to believe that the brain is a purely physical system, and not rational to believe anything else.

"Non-reductionistic complexity from 'simple system with simple rules' is what 'emergentism' says. That position is very problematic for the intuitive logic because of the ex nihilo nihil thingy."

Intuition sucks as much as personal experience for actually testing stuff. I do *not* care.

The real problem with emergentism is the utter lack of evidence for it. We have found stuff that explains what is going on just fine. Why invent new reasons at random?


"Complexity from simple rules arises from participatory interaction of that simple system with a larger whole"

No, no it really doesn't.

If you took one tenth of an avodadro's number (about 2 grams) of water molecules and locked them in a cube a centimeter on each side, and then insulated that against all outside influences, and then threw it so far from everything that gravity didn't change the system much at all, it would still spontenseously self-order. In microseconds.

This is, of course, completely obvious. What makes it interesting is the fact that you missed it. You couldn't see it because the answer you gave had to be consistent with the ideas you already had, as far as I can make out. (Or maybe it was just an honest mistake ;))

"theoretical physics has not yet developed holistic view, or good understanding of physical reality of holistic phenomena. It is fair assumption that the difficulties in finding unitary theory or ToE lie in some of the basic presuppositions that need to be re-examined."

No, no it isn't. Theoretical physics has also not developed a gnome-view, in which everything happens because of magic gnomes. Theoretical physics hasn't developed a super-life-energy-universe view, in which everything happens because of love (Awwwwwwww......). Theoretical physics hasn't developed a geocentric model of the earth. Theoretical physics hasn't developed a view of nearly every human idea about how the world works since the dawn of time.

And it shouldn't, and it's pretty silly to claim it needs to subscribe to the world-view that some randoms made up at random, rather than evidence, to make it's way forward.

I present a counter-hypothesis to the idea that they need to embrace your worldview - I call it the 'ToE is a really frickin difficult problem hypothesis'. The sheer brainpower that was assembled to deal with QM means that the next step (and the next step is almost always more difficult) isn't something that will be worked out overnight.

"PS: If 'sum' is a made up human idea that has very little relevance to real systems, what mathematical or other idea is not made up human idea? That has very little relevance to real systems?"

Hmmm, this may not directly counter, but it will get my point across nontheless.

A) I can make constitive relations - a mathematical representation of an object. By applying hermitian operators to this, I can get information about the system. (And if it has certain properties you don't even need the hermitian bit)

Then I get out information about the system! Yay!

Then I check to see if I have included everything, ie. as much information as is needed.

Or, B) maybe I could take a mathematical concept, like a sum, and apply it where it is wildly inappropriate and simple make up an answer.

What is one plus pineapple? I say it's two pineapples. Why? Because!
***************************************************************************
Now, I onto this mere-sum-of-parts business.

I have one particle with hamiltonian (x,y,z,px,py,pz).

Now I have n of them, and they don't really interact... or maybe I'll give them some statistical interactions that are basically completely random. Hmmmmm. That is what a sum is, as far as I'm concerned. If you could make something from the sum of it's parts, then you can form the information about the system by just describing a number of individual particles, right?

So, obviously this system can't make a brain. (That's correct, that system really won't make a brain)

So, real particles can't make a brain!

Finally, I check my sum-of-parts description against A and B. Which one does it resemble to you?

[Evoman]

160. Your post means nothing to me.

I'm trying to understand how it relates to what I said, and I am failing.

[tama]

161. You said

"Faith and Love are just neurons firing". I'm saying that is not even a scientific truth. It may be underlying (metaphysical) assumption or hypothesis behind some scientific theories, but not all theories, even close.

The mind-body problem still stays officially unsolved, but best discussions about that problem in the field of science have recently been in the area of the quantum mind hypothesis.

[Evoman]

162. Huh? Since when?

The mind-body problem is no problem at all. The mind IS the body....the physical brain. You cut the brain, you change the person. You can literally cut out the portions of the brain that let you feel love. With a little more refinement and better technologies, we could eventually even cut out memories and experience.

Seriously, I thought that quantum mind junk had already been debunked. At the level of neurons, and brain chemistry, everything is big enough that it works in terms of classical mechanics.

I don't believe in the "mind and matter" divide. It's artifical, and always couched in religious and other superstious terms.

[tama]

163. No one is denying

that mental phenomena are affected by or related to processes of classical mechanics. But from such empirical coincidences there is a huge leap of belief into reductionism (and eliminative materialism) stating that all mental phenomena reduce to nothing but classical mechanics.

Not to mention that the reductionistic hypothesis is falsified by enough empirical anomalies to sink it and it can only survive by denial of empiricism - the foundation of scientific method.

[cyborg_jim]

164. Huh?

But from such empirical coincidences there is a huge leap of belief into reductionism (and eliminative materialism) stating that all mental phenomena reduce to nothing but classical mechanics.

Er no. It's recognizing that the "empirical coincidences" (or as I like to call them, "set of repeatable correlates that indicate causation") indicate very strongly that talking about "mental phenomena" as something more than "classical mechanics" doesn't mean a whole lot of anything.

Not to mention that the reductionistic hypothesis is falsified by enough empirical anomalies to sink it

Like what exactly?

[tama]

167. For example:

Sheldrake's recent experiments on "telepathy". Verified case studies related to phenomena of remembering so called "past lives". Verifiably sentient OBE's during NDE. Bierman and Radin empirical tests on "retrocausality". The qualia argument. Etc.

And I won't go into what I've experienced, alone and sharing together with others. Let's just say those experiences are not explainable inside the limits of classical mechanics.

[Evoman]

172. Oh man.....past lives.

Seriously?

[cyborg_jim]

175. Sure, why not?

People still get fooled into thinking men who palm objects can make them disappear. Why wouldn't they get fooled into thinking people have past lives by men who can babble on with historical inaccuracy about being some random dead person?

[Evoman]

176. Past lives and "telepathy" can be perfectly explained by "the classical view".

It's called delusion and fantasy. And it also resides in the brain, in the "making up bullshit" lobe.

[tama]

182. Nope

Claims to be able to do so are delusion and fantasy - or to be more exact, insanity. Of collective kind.

So rhetorics aside, if you really are interested in science and empiricism, you leave rhetorics aside and open your mind.

[cyborg_jim]

185. Is you mind open to the possibility that your conclusions are wrong?

If the best you are going to present is "actual true and real verified anecdotal evidence" then you're not going to persuade.

Because if YOU are really interested in science and empiricism you should really try to understand just how important it is getting the data right.

You cannot have sound conclusions on shaky premises.

[tama]

189. I've done

rigorous philosophical skepticism, ending with the conclusion that phenomena (aka "obsevation events) happens. So not even Cartesian "Cogito ergo sum", since phenomena happening does not prove nor require sum ("I am"). But phenomena of skeptical thoughts happen, no matter where and how, at least when doubting. That is as logical and empirical as I can doubt.

And I could not agree more that we cannot have sound conclusions on shaky premises. What I'm saying is that reductionism is a very shaky premis that any skeptic should very seriously doubt.

[cyborg_jim]

241. Shit happens?

That's not much of a conclusion.

What I'm saying is that reductionism is a very shaky premis that any skeptic should very seriously doubt.

You're saying it's shaky based on shaky evidence.

[tama]

246. It's not a conclusion

It's the most strongest premisse for consistent thinking.

Nothing I've said here has been refuted. Mockery is not refutation. It's just mockery.

[cyborg_jim]

250. The strongest premise for consistent thinking is "shit happens"?

I can't really refute someone who just makes up their own words for "anecdote", "consistent" and "strong".

[tama]

256. I'm not making up my own words

I'm hardly that creative. So please stop being delusional.

[cyborg_jim]

260. I'm not being delusional when you used "anecdotal" to descibre something it isn't

[tama]

262. Please

give it a rest. I'm not inventing English language. I'm just repeating it the way I've seen it used. Correctly or not in your opinion does not matter, just how it's been used in some practice.

My linguistic creativity lies elsewhere.

[cyborg_jim]

264. Anyway you cut it "anecdotal evidence" isn't worth a whole lot

"Lab" experiments are important because people are so frequently wrong about what they experience -or just plain lie.

[tama]

271. Sure

anecdotal evidence, by general rule, is less credible than "lab" experiments. That does not, however, justify outright rejecting of all anecdotal evidence.

[cyborg_jim]

278. It basically does if it cannot be translated into something that can be tested for

Or if it is something that has been tested for and shown not to occur in a properly controlled environment.

[Evoman]

197. "If you really are interested in science and empiricism"...

Lol...you better be a scientist to say that to me!

[tama]

198. Only lowest possible initiation

in the Holy Hierarchy of Academy. But an initiation anyways, so I've earned my right to speak my mind in this cult. :)

[Evoman]

204. Cult....lol.

Initiation-nothing. You have no idea what your talking about, but you keep talking anyways.

[tama]

212. "Cult"

is the correct technical term for Plato's Academy, from which modern Academic institutions have descended.

And what else to call BA, MA, Doctorate etc. than hierarchic initiations? :)

[tama]

180. Yes, seriously

"past lives". I'm not about to make claims about "past lives", what ever that means, just pointing to anecdotal verified evidence of people remembering things they could not and should not if classical limits were real. Such as an English guy remembering things about city of Petra that he had then opportunity to show archeologists who had no idea, but were then proven accurate. And loads of other similar evidence.

Real point is that the condescending hubris of Western materialists claiming to knowing better everything in their totalitarian universalism than any and all other cultures is franky unbelievable. Especially given that Western materialists are destroying the carrying capacity of Earth and with that the basis of also their own existance like no other people ever and are thus by any common norm suicidally insane. :)

[cyborg_jim]

181. Contradiction in terms

"just pointing to anecdotal verified evidence"

i.e. not worth the paper they're not written on.

Real point is that the condescending hubris of Western materialists claiming to knowing better everything in their totalitarian universalism than any and all other cultures is franky unbelievable. Especially given that Western materialists are destroying the carrying capacity of Earth and with that the basis of also their own existance like no other people ever and are thus by any common norm suicidally insane.

Poisoning the well I see.

And confusing philosophical and economic materialism.

[tama]

184. Not really

"anecdotal" means not done in laboratory and repeatable in laboratory conditions, but it can still be verified by others. Like archeologist who to their surprise found out that the guy with wierd memories who had never been to Petra knew more about their field of expertize than themselves.

[cyborg_jim]

186. Er, no

"anecdotal" means not done in laboratory and repeatable in laboratory conditions, but it can still be verified by others

No, it absolutely does not mean that at all.

The definition from dictionary.com for "anecdote" is: "a short account of a particular incident or event of an interesting or amusing nature, often biographical."

Anecdotal means it's just someone telling a story about an event.

Like archeologist who to their surprise found out that the guy with wierd memories who had never been to Petra knew more about their field of expertize than themselves.

And why do you believe this story to be true? Is this something you've just taken on face value? Are you aware of the concept that not everything that is reported and repeated is necessarily accurate or true?

[tama]

190. Yes

but when doubting, let's try to be consistent. And doubt everything that is possible to doubt. Including and especially one's own premisses. Ready to do that also for your own part?

Then establish criteria for what can be considered plausible, under some preferably ethical premisses (since no theory is free of ideology) - and then taking all that is relevant into attention. That is what I consider logical, ethical and consistent way to build a world view. My criteria for ethical world view is that it is not exclusive of other world views - at least of those that pay the same respect. Hence relativistic localism is more ethical than universal totalitarianism, IMHO.

We can skip anecdotal if that is too "local" and mundane for your taste. You might be more interested in discussing what is called "retrocausality" and studied in lab. Google brought up first this article:

http://www.sintropia.it/english/2006-eng-3-04.pdf

[cyborg_jim]

242. Wait what?

We can skip anecdotal if that is too "local" and mundane for your taste.

You are seriously refusing to accept you are wrong about what "anecdotal" means aren't you?

Ready to do that also for your own part?

Done so more times than you can imagine.

My criteria for ethical world view is that it is not exclusive of other world views - at least of those that pay the same respect. Hence relativistic localism is more ethical than universal totalitarianism, IMHO.

Ethics doesn't mean shit as to whether or not a rock will roll down a hill. I'm not even slightly interested in the perceived ethical problems you have with the "evils" of a "western philosophy" because it doesn't mean a damn thing as to whether or not people actually have past lives.

[tama]

247. I know

what anecdotal evidence means in this context. Evidence of real life events instead evidence under lab controls.

And you are missing the point. Think of a holder of Only Objective Universal Truth (which ever of all those) with Manifest Destiny to spread that Truth to make all the world believer.

Then take a stroll down the memory lane and think of the history of science and scientific revolutions. Before Einstein, QM and Gödel the world was ready, only few minor missing pieces here and there... and then... BANG! Think of what kinds of truths scientific truths are - epistemic, conventional truths. According to Popper that is the very criterion for a scientific theory, that it is falsifiable. Not saying that Popper could not nor should not be critiziced.

[cyborg_jim]

251. Grabbag

Evidence of real life events instead evidence under lab controls.

Hearing from some bloke in the pub (bar) some random story doesn't really make the strongest evidence.

I can't even really respond to the rest of your post because I don't really get what you are trying to say.

[tama]

258. Then I'm sorry.

Communication breakdown.

[cyborg_jim]

173. Ah, paranormal "science"

Sorry if I remain skeptical on those claims and don't consider them to be the nail in the coffin that falsifies a reductionist view of the computational mechanics of the brain.

Don't know the mentioned recent experiments on telepathy.

Don't know about any verified "past lives".

etc...

Do know the many ways in which these claims have been repeatedly shown to be experimentally weak. More than willing to see some statistically significant and experimentally tight evidence of telepathy - that should really be a doddle to show in a properly controlled experiment. Past life verification is just so prone to bad data that doing any sort of proper verification is going to be hard. I don't know how an OBE precludes a reductionist explanation - unless the claim is that one is actually out of the body in some way - which is experimentally verifiable and I know of experiments that are on-going to try and pin this down with some good controls.

The qualia argument is simply not persuasive to me. Feel free to start a new thread on that if you think you have a killer argument I have not heard before that simply appeals to incredulity.

Let's just say those experiences are not explainable inside the limits of classical mechanics.

Sure.

So you explanations are? And they cannot possible be explained inside the limits of classical mechanics because? Because you say so? Because you are simply incredulous that there could be an explanation? That you assume you are an expert on your own experience simply because you experienced it?

[tama]

188. Skeptical is good

and admitting not knowing is the beginning of having an open mind and being able to start a scientific scrutiny.

The recent experiment of telepathy, see:
http://sheldrake.org/homepage.html

For example test on something that many if not most people have experience of, "guessing" who is calling. Results are statistically significant and tight and even more than that, they show that correct "guesses" correlate with emotional closeness between tested people but that geographical distance plays no role. Suggesting that "telepathy" is quantum like in aspects of entanglement and non-locality.

The OBE-NDE case that is most often mentioned was someone medically brain-dead (brought to that conditions in order to be able to perform very difficult surgery). After the surgery and succesfull bringing back to life, the patient had visual memories of the operation room that the staff verified that she could not have seen or experienced in any way explainable under classical limits.


As for my experiences, I'm starting to find it healthier to postpone interpretation than to seek explanation. And of course, who is better expert on experience than the one experiencing? Who do you believe, your own lying eyes or...? :)

[cyborg_jim]

243. Heading

For example test on something that many if not most people have experience of, "guessing" who is calling.

GUESSING? OMFG hold the phone - guessing?!? No one could pull that off by simply guessing!

Results are statistically significant and tight and even more than that, they show that correct "guesses" correlate with emotional closeness between tested people but that geographical distance plays no role. Suggesting that "telepathy" is quantum like in aspects of entanglement and non-locality.

That is a complete and utter non-sequitur.

Poor quantum physics - so abused by those who just don't understand that it is not a panacea for whatever random idea one wants to hang off it but is in fact a ridiculously accurate description of how the world words at the microscopic level.

After the surgery and succesfull bringing back to life, the patient had visual memories of the operation room that the staff verified that she could not have seen or experienced in any way explainable under classical limits.

Means nothing. As soon as an OBE-NDE can read the random image atop the shelf in the medical theatre that the staff have no knowledge of then imagining one's self floating above the room is a illusion well within the capacity of the brain to produce.

And of course, who is better expert on experience than the one experiencing?

Someone who can explain why you experience something in a repeatable and testable fashion - and not just based on some gross interpretation one formulates at the time.

[tama]

248. Please

Take a look before you shoot. Shooting strawmen is boring and leads nowhere.

It's sound empirical science, but if you're too lazy to take a look at the actual research papers, here's a video for the video generation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdOi3s-tBzk

Results showing emotional closeness a strong positive factor are not "non-sequitur" but what the tests show. Neither are analogies with quantum properties "non-sequitur", they are analogies. When a good scientist sees an analogy, he starts thinking that maybe there's something there worthwhile to take a better look - and studies and thinks. A good scientist certainly does not shout "non-sequitur" and stop thinking.

In test laboratories not only particles but also fairly large molecules have been shown to act quantum mechanically. So quantum phenomena are certainly not restricted to only subatomic scales. Any theory claiming so is empirically falsified. And no, there is no absolute need to restrict them to at any length scale - also growing number of cosmological events seem te be getting interpreted as quantum mechanical events.

[cyborg_jim]

254. Jesus fuck - at this point I have to ask: show me the math

Because I've studied some quantum physics for computation and extrapolating it to cosmic events is completely unwarranted. When it gets down to electron spin all the pontificating has to go out the window.

I certainly looked at the papers but I could see anything from them frankly.

[tama]

259. Best math I've seen

in that respect is number theoretically scalable Planck's constant. But as far as I understand, any holistic interpretation will do, philosophically.

[cyborg_jim]

263. Again you just seem to be going off on one

A great fallacy humans like to engage in it relating things that should never be related. Maths cuts through the bullshit and forces you to say what you really mean.

[tama]

272. Huh?

You have problem with the math I referred to?

[cyborg_jim]

279. That was a reference to some mathematics?

It sounded like a random jumble of words.

How about a simple demonstration of what "holistic" maths is even supposed to look like.

[tama]

249. more

<<<Someone who can explain why you experience something in a repeatable and testable fashion - and not just based on some gross interpretation one formulates at the time.>>>

An anarchistic and a critical thinker does not take the word of some expert as word of God. He trusts his own thinking skills and experiences and seeks also second and third opinion from other experts. And he certainly does not take criterion of "repeatable and testable fashion" as Word of God, just word of some experts who like all experts are known to be also wrong. So when Heraclitus says that "one cannot step twice in the same river", why presume that Laws of Nature are immutable and eternal, rather than dynamic system that can and does change, more like habits than laws. Especially when cosmologists have found out that values of "constants" have indeed changed during the history of Universe.

And let me ask also you this question that seemingly made Random Australian go away, to clarify your own position:
"So is your position is that atoms bouncing against each other create the emergent epiphenom of mind, which then creates math that miraculously accurately describes not only the classical bouncing that it is mere product of and to wich mind and math are supposed to reduce to, but also quantum waving and pointing - which below classical limit is supposed to have nothing to do with brains and mind?"

Sorry, but I don't find such hypothesis logically consistent at all. To me it sounds utter bullshit.

[cyborg_jim]

255. All bets are off

why presume that Laws of Nature are immutable and eternal

Because if you don't trying to formulate an understanding of "Laws of Nature" is a waste of time and trying to understand anything with ANY explanation is pointless. Telepathy works one day and not the next. Gravity makes things fall one day, makes them rise the next. One day light moves at a fixed speed and the next it's relative to the index of the Nasdaq.

Sorry, but I don't find such hypothesis logically consistent at all. To me it sounds utter bullshit.

I don't really see how the non-mathematical approach of, "it's all just like, you know man?" answers a damn thing.

It's not a "miracle" that maths describes anything. Maths is powerful

There's nothing "mere" about the complexity of the things it can describe.

I find it an odd attitude to take that somehow if it is reducible to "mere numbers" that somehow it becomes simple and unremarkable.

[tama]

261. Strawman arguments

Of course there is delicate (but not immutable) balance that allows observers like us to observe. As long as the "anthropic principle" is satisfied constants etc. can change all they want within boundaries of anthropic principle. - the one stating that observers like us are here witnessing or at least talking about observation events and all the physics required for that.

As for mathematical approach, it seems you have severly misunderstood my position. I find the "platonistic" mathematical approach the only consistent one, in opposition to "physicalist" approaches. Where reductionism can be applied, is where physics reduces to math. (or "forms")

But mathematical reductionism is whole different story from reductionism into classical mechanics.

[cyborg_jim]

280. And what is that suppose to mean exactly?

"But mathematical reductionism is whole different story from reductionism into classical mechanics."

[cosmik debris]

174. ROFL

There are not enough smilies to cover that but I'll just settle for one :rofl:

I really need BUMS's Face Palm Graphic for that one.

[Silent3]

218. The only "huge leap of belief" here...

...is thinking every gap in our understanding is a doorway that leads to whatever you want to believe is true.

What exactly is this "mind-body problem" that you speak of? The "problem" that we don't absolutely, utterly and completely understand every single aspect of the human mind and its relationship to our bodies?

Lack of complete understanding constitutes a glaring deficiency that demonstrates the oh-so-terrible-and-oppressive limits of Western European intellectual oppression?

Lack of complete understanding constitutes a reason to evoke wild, unproven conjectures about quantum mechanical phenomena and the mind, and to make a further unfounded leap that if such a connection exists that the connection translates human thoughts into reality in a systematic way?

[tama]

222. Here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Mind

The materialistic hypothesis that mind reduces to classical mechanics is simple to test. Build a complex enough classical computer that becomes consciouss. If you can't, there is no empirical reason to believe it is possible.

If consciousness requires also quantum mechanics, then test that hypothesis by building a quantum computer complex enough to see if it becomes consciouss.

Meanwhile...

[Silent3]

229. Simple to test!?

This is like the creationist who says that the "proof" of evolution is to show him an experiment where a scientist turns a bag of rocks into a human being. Until that's done, "God did it!" is just as good an answer, in fact, even a better answer. This is the game of raising high, perhaps even insurmountable, standards of proof for those with whom one disagrees, while typically holding oneself to nothing more than wishful thinking as proof for one's own ideas.

Occam's razor: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatum. Entities should not be needlessly multiplied.

If you think that classical mechanics, or even classical mechanics plus quantum mechanics, are insufficent to explain the human mind, then it's your job, not mine, to define the new concept or concepts needed to solve the alleged problem, to show me where known physics outright fails to adequately account for the things human minds do, and show how your concepts better address the alleged problem.

Until you do that, you're just wrapping a lot of excess verbiage around the cop out of filling the void of ignorance with wishful thinking and vague mysticism.

Imagine a television washes up on the shore of an isolated, primitive island. One islander believes the television is the product of particularly smart people the islanders haven't met yet, the rest belief the television is magic from the gods. I know which position wins out emotionally, hands down -- the god explanation. Which position, however, is more sensible? To posit that known entities (humans) are capable of creating such a thing, even if you don't know the specifics of how they do it, or to invoke new entities (a god or gods), who are invisible and unseen and magically capable of doing whatever we don't have a better explanation for?

If the god-believing islanders demand that their local skeptic builds a television himself before they'll believe mere humans can create such a thing, are they being reasonable?

[tama]

232. OK

let's go with Occam. What cannot be denied? That experiencing happens. Where does experiencing happen? Let's call that entity "mind", as is usually done. Perhaps that is allready on entity too much, but let's not be too strict. So the simplest razor cut is that in mind, mind experiences mind. What other entities are needed? Really? Entities of "subject" and "object"? They are forced into this discussion only by English syntax, in my own language I could express mindfull experiencing more simply, without needlessly multiplied entities. :)

[Silent3]

235. Needful multiplication of entities, however, is useful.

And you're not going to get very far in life if you cut everything down to one entity, the mind, and say, "well, my work here is done".

If you are satisfied with stopping there then there's really no sense in bothering with talking to other people, going to work, deciding what you should and shouldn't eat, etc., unless you're satisfied with solipsism, with your entire life being being nothing more than an illusion, and with the rest of us deciding you don't have much of anything useful to add to any discussion because you're off in your own fantasy world.

[tama]

236. Not solipsism

as said, the subject-entity - which is sine non qua for solipsism - was cut away. Just mind. Not subjective mind.

In other words, when applying Occam's razor consistently, "panpsychism" is the result.

[Silent3]

237. No matter how much you play with hyphenated buzzwords...

...like "subject-entity" you're offering no way out beyond personal fantasy, even if you try to go the extra step of denying a distinction between the person and the fantasy. One entity instead of two -- greater economy, same useless mess.

Try to figure out what tires to buy for your car. "It's all mind" doesn't help.
Try to send a rocket to the moon. "It's all mind" doesn't help.
Try to explain to another person how you feel. "It's all mind" doesn't help.

[tama]

238. What ever

>>>Try to figure out what tires to buy for your car. "It's all mind" doesn't help.<<<

Don't have a car, not interested in having.

>>>Try to send a rocket to the moon. "It's all mind" doesn't help.<<<

Don't have a rocket, not interested in having.

>>>Try to explain to another person how you feel. "It's all mind" doesn't help.<<<

Well, if anything then feelings are all mind. They are felt, not so much in need of explanation. But how does eliminative materialist explain feelings? Showing charts of neural networks showing the pattern of the feeling the eliminative materialist is feeling?

[Silent3]

239. As soon as you start with the premise...

...that everything that is uninteresting to you (cars, rockets) doesn't matter, it's pretty clear that you're just floating in the clouds playing silly mind games.

[tama]

240. If you say so.

So what is mind to you and how do you feel?

[Orrex]

69. Science is not a body of knowledge

Science is a system of tools to be used in describing phenemona.

Also, I would assert that in attempting to ascertain the nature of the creator, it is not necessary to presuppose the Divinity of that creator. The only characteristic necessary to qualify as a creator is this: it can initiate the process by which the universe comes into being. It needn't even be singular or original; it is sufficient to be capable.

And the reason that the scientific method is not applicable to the question of God's existence is that theists have had millennia to define "God" in a way that intentionally defies description or observation. Any time you throw an infinite, omnipotent entity into the equation, all bets are off. That's why the ontological argument enjoyed such favor for so long, even though it's clearly absurd.

Outside of religion and "spiritual" matters, I wonder how many people are content to run their lives with the same paucity of information available for figuring out the so-called "big questions." Who would keep their money in a bank that offered as hazy and non-verifiable a return? Who would buy a car, cash up front with no refunds, when they aren't allowed to see the car or drive it and instead must base their choice on the testimony of people strongly motivated to make sure that the car is sold? Who would continue to love someone who couldn't be proven to exist in the first place?

Big questions. Funny answers.

[tama]

99. Consept of "Creator"

Is based on consept of reductionism, based on notion of causality based on unidirectionary linear time. Cf. metaphysics or cosmology of "Big Bang", Aristotle's "Unmoving mover" etc.

When taking closer look into religion and spiritualism etc., one finds that the underlying message in all traditions was and is seeking ways to liberty from the bounds of the paradigm of reductionism.

[ZombieHorde]

52. "In the early Earth, it was hot and nasty."

Oh yea!

[thraxis]

54. Your view is nothing more than the old positivistic view and

that is an extremely narrow view and narrow minded.

[Deep13]

85. Explain. EDIT: never mind.

I looked up positivism and it basically means we only know what we know from senses and experimentation. Would you mind telling me just how else we can know anything? Your insistence that your subjective, psychological (some would say spiritual) experiences are somehow valid evidence of anything is the narrow view because it precludes that idea from being challenged by actual evidence. Here's a fancy word for you: solipsism.

Besides, your statement does not refute my central premise that the existence of god is a scientific question. God either exists or else he does not. Even if we do not have the tools to prove it one way or the other right now, it remains a matter capable of being known in principle. I am agruing that the state of our scientific knowledge right now is sufficient to rule out his existence. And even if subjective experience somehow is evidence of anything, surely objective evidence which can be observed by anyone trumps it.

[Deep13]

66. Let me give one response to most of my critics.

I will be happy to respond to thoughtful comments (tomorrow). If you want to make an ad hominim attack against me, just remember, even if you are right, it does not discredit my argument. Also, if your comment says something like "I got as far as paragraph two before I stopped reading...." then save your keyboard the effort.


1. I am bringing this up to discuss it because the subject interests me. If you find it offensive, you are of course free not to participate in this discussion just as I never go into the liberal Christian group and discuss the particulars of Christian theology. I also think that skeptics have no special duty to shut up and that our failure to speak up in the past has had some tragic consequences for our country and the world. The deference we give to opinions and feelings about god as opposed to politics, economics, astronomy, ethics and morality, history or other areas of human knowledge is undeserved. We tiptoe around religion because we know its claims are indefensible.

2. Even if I am wrong in thinking god has been disproved, it is only for lack of information. It remains a scientific question that in principle may be proved or disproved. Before modern science, there was no way to know the exact cause of plague. It is not that the answer was unknowable. We just did not have the tools to answer it. It was still a scientific question capable of being answered in principle. Often proof of existence of some principle depends on the inability of science to disprove it after several attempts to falsify it have failed experimentally. In the case of disease, the god hypothesis was disproved by observation. (Recall that plagues were once thought to be divine wrath.) They struck at random indicating that good and bad, pious and blasphemous alike were subjected to it. Also, they were seasonal and were accompanied by a lot of dead rats. That suggested a physical cause even if they did not know what it was. That is where we are with god. The evidence strongly suggests blind, physical causes with no direction. As noted above, natural selection demonstrates conclusively that no divine intervention occurs with evolution. But even if I am wrong about that, it remains a scientific question that as of yet has been unanswered.

3. God does not win by default. Lack of knowledge in a certain area does not mean god must be the right answer. As I explained, god as an explanation only complicates the problem. Besides, no other cause is just assumed. And there is no evidence at all to prove god exists.

4. Religious or mystical experiences do not prove god exists. They only prove religious or mystical experiences exist. I explained that earlier. The brain has to be good at inventing perceived reality. Our memories are necessary for survival and for them to work we have to be able to visualize that which is not right in front of us. Now, we are not the only animals that can do this, but we do it to a much greater extent than any other animals are known to do. A small, but substantial fraction of what we see at any given time is hallucination based on what we expect to see. The brain must not only turn visual and auditory input into the simulation of reality, but must fill-in the missing bits caused by obstructions in our eyes. Also, processing removes chromatic aberrations inherent in refractive systems and spherical aberration inherent in curved surfaces. So it is very, very good at fooling us. The mere fact we dream is evidence of that. So the only mystical experience that would prove god is one where god's existence would be more likely than the possibility of a mistake. And that just has not happened.

And please do not bombard me with examples of prescience or group experiences. Do not assume you know the facts of those events before you really check them out. "I believe him," is not proof.

5. Perception is subjective, but reality is objective and singular. Skeptics and conservative theists have one thing in common. Both claim agree that there is only one reality. Fundamentalist Muslims, for example, "know" with every fiber of their being that Allah (as described in the Koran) is the one and only god and that anyone who disagrees is just plain wrong. Liberal theists are in a bit of a catch-22. The inclusiveness of liberalism precludes the idea that only one religion at most can be valid. We don't like to make ethnocentric judgments about people and many believers still see religion as being akin to ethnicity. So liberal theists assume that everyone's religion is right. This can only be true, of course, if reality is completely subjective. Jesus then can be the savior of all humanity for me while Hindu theology remains true for you. Obviously, a moment's reflection demonstrates that this cannot possibly be true.

Well, I'm not going to pretend skeptics know exactly what the one, true reality is--our senses have their limits as does our primate understanding--but we do know enough to know what it is not. For an obvious example, it is not a geocentric universe where the Earth was made in six days a few thousand years ago. We also know other, more sophisticated facts that have ruled out other scenarios once thought possible. We also know that there must be one reality because if there was not, science even in its most rudimentary forms would not work. If I seek to disprove gravity by chucking an apple in the air expecting it to fly into space, that experiment will not disprove gravity to me while you see the apple fall back to the ground. Natural selection could not work if environmental conditions were different for each individual. And there is NO REASON to expect the single most fundamental fact about the universe, what made it, to any different. Individual reality is a dodge, not an answer.

6. Religion is not like race, gender or orientation. It is an idea we adopt, not an intrinsic characteristic. The fact that some religions have converted entire cultures for generations only demonstrates its effectiveness in doing so. Frankly, some ideas are better than others. Frankly, the ones that put the most emphasis on hate, on we-vs.-them and on oppressing women, children and minorities are the worst ideas. Saying that Fundamentalists are not true Christians because they teach hate is an unsupportable statement. There is plenty in the New Testement and church doctrine to support what the Fundies are saying. Liberal theists have no better reason to accept their religious views than Fundies have for theirs. In fact, it is the conservatives who are the most internally consistent. Their problem, of course, is not that they are not the right kind of believers, but that their beliefs have very little to do with reality. To some extent, liberal theists ignore the parts of their religion that offend their human decency or what they know about the world. Eventually, the gaps in their physical knowledge will shrink enough to disallow god. In my view, this has already happened.

7. I have been clear that I am defining god the way most people do. God is the supernatural force that created the universe, is separate from that universe and intervenes in it at will. This includes responses to prayers and protection from evil. Modified notions of god that do not have these characteristics are not included in my argument. Whatever else these proposed beings might be, they are not god.

8. There are some smart people who believe in god including many of the people on this board. A person can be brilliant and still be wrong. And the reverse is also true. (So if you think I'm an idiot, that is your prerogative, but it does not make me wrong.) So my claim that you are wrong is not a personal attack. Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus etc. are all human beings who have different feelings and opinions about god. The fact that I do not respect your idea does NOT mean I do not respect you.

Scientists are qualified to have an opinion about religion. I dispute that theology is a legitimate human field of study in which one may be an expert. All human fields of study are based in reality except theology. Literary experts study literature. Chemists study chemicals. Psychologists study the human mind. Physicians study the human body. Historians study writings and other evidence. Theologians alone study only each other. One may be expert in the works of Aquinas, Luther, Calvin or even (I shudder to mention such a hack) Lewis. Still, all one really is studying are the opions of others. None of them have any basis in reality. I also dispute that ethics and morality are properly the domain of theologists. Plenty of non-religious philosophers have made much better ethical observations than any theologian.

So before asking who am I to challenge so-and-so, ask how does so-and-so know. Do not fall into the argument from authority fallacy.

[Meshuga]

67. While you can edit...

Move this to the begining of your post:

Also, if your comment says something like "I got as far as paragraph two before I stopped reading...." then save your keyboard the effort.

Because the people who can't read beyound paragraph two are going to miss this important piece of information since it is way down in paragraph 13. :-)

[Deep13]

73. Someone said I was being too nebulous.

It was about the whole "should-have-found-something-by-now" argument. The best I can do is give an example. If there is a big box where the interior is well illuminated, we can see just by looking inside that it is empty. Is there a cat in the box? No. We can see it is empty. Now what if part of the box is illuminated, but parts are completely dark. Can we rule out the possibility that the box contains a cat? Well, first of all, we need reason to belie e there might be a cat, but suppose we have such a reason. A cat is missing and someone saw a cat run into the box. This information may be inaccurate or the cat may have left the box already. So it really depends on how big the dark spots are. If those dark spots are bigger than a cat, it is possible that there is a cat in there. If the dark spots are too small for a cat, a visual inspection can quickly disprove the idea. Of course, even if the dark spots are too big to rule out a cat hiding in one, there is other evidence we might expect. We might be able to hear a cat purring. We might see scratch marks, dead mice, scat or cat dander. The absence of those things is not conclusive, but it weighs against a cat being present.

My argument is that we are at a position now where the dark spots are too small for any conventional god to hide. Further, there is no indirect evidence either.

[skepticscott]

75. I've been wondering

where all of the woo-wooers have been hiding...this forum was getting a little dull. Glad to see this post bringing them out of the woodwork.

:woohoo:

[Deep13]

81. Thanks. nt

[beam me up scottie]

83. Me too.

I knew it was too quiet.

[Boojatta]

82. "If god were real, his fingerprints would be everywhere."

How do you know that god doesn't wear surgical gloves?

[Deep13]

84. .

:banghead:

[More Than A Feeling]

87. I think you've got the wrong impression of NOMA

Gould thought that all empirical questions belonged to science (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-overlapping_magisteria#Nonoverlapping_Magisteria_.28NOMA.29). I doubt he would quarrel with your characterization of the objective existence of such an entity as the Christian god as an empirical question (assuming a non-contradictory definition could be found).

NOMA is not a tool to wrongfully exempt empirical questions from scientific scrutiny. Rather, it is a simple recognition of the so far undisputed fact that questions of subjective value are not empirical. Which ice cream tastes better: Rocky Road or Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough? Each has its fans, and the decision does not ultimately rest on objective factors. So it is with religion. Which, if any, of the legends will inspire you is a subjective question of taste.

It seems to me that this split dates at least as far back as David Hume's recognition of the split between "is" and "ought".

[Deep13]

88. Maybe I did not explain it well, but I did understand that.

I just think that religious assertions fall into the objective catagory and not into the realm of subjective opinion. Religion is not just a set of inspirational legends. They are claims of absolute truth that drive their belief systems. A legend like the Iliad does not depend on the its veracity to be valuable as a legend. If Shakespeare was not really the playwrite behind Shakespearing plays, they would still be just as good. Likewise, the inspirational writings of Jefferson, Lincoln or Plato do not depend on the divinity or even existence of the writers to be inspirational.

On the other hand, whether on not Jesus Christ died for our sins is a fundamental proposed fact on which the veracity of the entire Christian religion depends. The difference between that being true or not is the difference between JC being an arguably nice guy (if he even existed) versus being the savior of humanity. Likewise, the entire Muslim religion depends fundamentally on the factual veracity of the Koran being the unalterable pronouncement of god. Granted, these are specific theological points that have little to do with whether or not god generally is a scientific question, but you did mention inspiration by legend.

This goes back to the whole discussion about the nature of reality. There is only one reality even if we perceive it imperfectly. So whatever we might draw inspiration from has no bearing on what is objectively real. While the gods of specific religions can be disproved by the inaccuracy of their doctrines when compared to reality, the claim of the existence of god generally is also subject both to the need to substantiate the claim as well as to any contrary evidence that might exist. My argument is that the scientific evidence, taken as a whole, produces a compelling case that god does not exist. Any god that does exist would either be of the deist variety or would be so limited that it could not be reasonably called god.

[More Than A Feeling]

89. Treating religion as science is the clearest mistake of the fundamentalists.

However, treating fundamentalist religion as the only possible form which religion could take would likewise be a mistake. You rightly note that value as legend is not dependent on objective truth, but you offer no reason to disqualify Christian legends from "Iliad" status.

The truth is that there are prominent people out there who happily count themselves members of Christianity while acccepting pure subjectivity, some deceased and some still with us (Paul Tillich, Marcus Borg, Bishop John Shelby Spong, Bishop John A.T. Robinson). That doesn't even get into the non-Christian religions. Most Unitarian Universalists probably wouldn't have a problem with subjectivity. Same deal for a large portion of Pagans and Buddhists.

Certainly, the fundamentalists would like it if they were taken as the only authentic expressions of their religion. It would help them stifle internal disagreement by "otherizing" the dissenters.

[Deep13]

92. I'm not treating fundamentalism as the only possible form.

And no, Christianity is not excluded from all those legends. By the way, a religion does not need to be fundamentalist to be dogmatic and to insist on the veracity of the impossible. I remember when I was a liberal Christian in the Episcopal Church a long time ago. While the church purported to embrace reason as a virtue, the bishop still managed to tell us from the pulpit that the physical ressurection of JC was the central tenant of Christianity and nonbelief in that was essentially a rejection of the whole religion.

The difference between a legend and a religion is that the religion assumes the factual truth of its legends as a basis for its doctrine. Hamlet does not need to be real for it to be a good story. Neither do the four contradictory cannonical gospels. But they do need to be true to justify JC as an object of worship. No one is expected to worship Hamlet, Odysseus or George Washington and they have no priests telling people how to live.

Frankly, the liberal theologians you mention, Spong is the one with whom I am the most familiar, have watered-down their god and their salvation doctrine to the point of irrelevence. The god Spong describes is not a god in the conventional sense. It is not supernatural and is part of the universe having no freedom to intervene in it. He has essentially defined god out of existence.

[More Than A Feeling]

94. You say "watered-down." I say, "evolved."

I agree with you that even many non-fundamentalist forms of religion have a way to go before they've reconciled themselves to metaphysical naturalism. I also agree that Spong's god isn't conventional; in fact, it's better. The naturalism is a feature, not a bug.

Again, you assume that religion necessitates objective truth (as well as "expectation" of worship and "priests telling people how to live"), but that appears to be a definitional statement, rather than one justified by evidence that it has to be that way. I once again point you to the liberal theologians, the Buddhists, some of the Pagans, and the Unitarian Universalists.

[Meshuga]

93. I tend to agree with you

What a person chooses to follow doesn't have to subscribe to a personal God in order to be considered a religion.

Religion is too broad of a term since the way some people use religion is in the same way that UnrepentantUnitarian so eloquently described in another thread about UU that "it's about philosophies to live by--to invest your life in--rather than idle belief." And like you mentioned, there are many prominent Christians who have tried to make Christianity "evolve" toward that path.

There are religious people who use their religion to explain objective truths and the ones who use religion because they think it helps them become better human beings but at the same time knowing the religion is not an universal prescription for anyone who would like to achieve that goal.

So treating religion as science is indeed the clearest mistake that any religious person can make and treating fundamentalist religion as the only possible form which religion could take is also a mistake because of the different meanings the word can take.

[skepticscott]

90. I always thought that Gould

was a little disingenuous about NOMA. Statements like "Science tells you about the ages of rocks and religion tells you about the Rock of Ages" or "Science tells you how the heavens go and religion tells you how to go to heaven", are cute turns of phrase, but ultimately simplistic and unhelpful. Gould knew perfectly well that the "magisteria" of virtually all religions as they are practiced in real life involve truth claims about the physical world and, as such, do overlap into the territory of science. While it may be true that something that can qualify as a religion need not trespass on the domain of science, the fact is that they almost always do. And invariably fail miserably in explaining things when compared to science.

[More Than A Feeling]

95. I've found that if you listen to people responding to the questioning of skeptics,

they frequently say things that hint at the emotional, subjective nature of what they are saying. It's just that, as Deep13 helpfully pointed out, many of the communities where these things have meaning have not progressed to a point where they are ok with admitting openly that subjectivity and pure emotion. But there are some, and there can be more.

[joshcryer]

91. Untestable speculation is not scientific.

[frogmarch]

97. Outstanding!

Thanks! Your posts on this thread were music to my ears.

[ozone_man]

132. All signs point to random mutations and natural selection.

Darwin was right.

There is no evidence to support the intervention of a god. Many questions remain as to our origins, and the origins of our universe(s), but there is no indication that a god was involved.

Like Carl Sagan said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". You can't just make stuff up like religion does. Well, you can, but it's just fairy tales for grown ups. One day all religion will be considered mythology, similar to ancient Greek and Roman mythology. It was an important period in our civilization's development, but it's time to recognize it for what it is. Mythology.

[quaker bill]

133. I am a scientist

Dawkins does not know from where he speaks.

What if instead of non-overlapping, we go with entirely overlapping?

If the creation of all that is, everything we observe as "natural", specifically all the observable objects and laws that govern them, are the sole creation of God and the only tangible expression of God? On what basis would one discern that any aspect of God would ever be observed as un-natural or supernatural in any manner?

In short why would a God that theoretically created all of nature and the natural laws, and that is embodied fully within this creation ever be observed as anything un-natural or even unusual in even the slightest?

Why do scientists, who are often otherwise rational human beings, come to believe that they have the tools or senses to even approach this question? It is a fool's errand and it is no credit to the scientist to engage in such things.

A great many minds are lost in fixation on the flower and not the fruit. Thus it always is with the search for and debunking of silly supernatural myths. Faith requires nothing supernatural at all.

[Random_Australian]

137. Ooooh! Oooh! I know that one too! It's the test for meaning that gets that one.

First someone proposes a God that does everything just as we see it.

THEN someone says 'what would be the difference between such a God existing and not existing?'

Of course, nothing.

So there is no difference between their statements and the statement "it does not appear that God exists"

So then you are effectively saying that God does not appear to exist, and you have the God you proposed cornered.

So, either it must change the description of the world or it is not a meaningful description of the world.

[tama]

143. There is a difference

but the point of the difference is not any objective description of the world - descriptions that exclude describing subjects from the described world. The difference is first subjective change, then the border between subjective and objective starts disappearing...

[Random_Australian]

145. I see those words.

But I wasn't thinking of an objective description that "exclude describing subjects from the described world"

I was talking about an objective description containing all of the known information about the world. This amount is finite and comprises the null hypothesis.

But wait, what do you even mean by "exclude describing subjects from the described world"? You could be a lot clearer.

[tama]

150. What I mean

is related to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminative_materialism - which at least tries to take a consistent position.

"I was talking about an objective description containing all of the known information about the world. This amount is finite and comprises the null hypothesis."

I see those words. :) Information known by whom? If that "knower" is not included in the system described, then isn't something is missing from the description about the world?

[Random_Australian]

169. Information comprised of variable composition, using variables that have been tested and

accepted by the scientific community.

The "knower" is indeed included in the description, but they are not special.

[tama]

191. "accepted by the scientific community"

is a myth if there ever was one. Hardly any community is as non-accepting and quarrelsome that scientific community with all their competing theories. And something tells me you knows it! :)

I think the law of excluded middle that is accepted perhaps by most but certainly not all in that community has something to do with the situation. :)

[Random_Australian]

205. Really? Really really really?

:) I love this part. (I've been through this point before)

So, apparantly science has competing theories.

Let's take, say, chemistry.

Now you try and find me a lecturer, or a publication or something that contradicts the mainstream view accepted by the scientific community that molecules are made of atoms.

Then try and find something that contradicts the mainstream view about how those atoms interact (ie. the quantum mechanical description of matter).

And you'll find you have a description of what something is and how it works (all you really need to know to do chemistry), and no-one contradicting that.

So where are the competing theories?

I'll tell you. When people are trying to work out how something is happening in terms of what they know. Is it delocalisation? Is it dipole dipole interactions? Of course, they appear to 'squabble' over this but all they are really doing is exactly what science is supposed to do - try and knock out all the incorrect ideas, so that the right ones are now known. Which we've done, and that's why we're at the stage we are now with satellites and such. Think about the vast amounts of stuff which scientists believe. Do you think those claims were just made up out of the blue and were always correct? Hell no, we fight against claim as it is made, until we are reasonably sure that it is correct. And then we throw it out if it isn't!

Overall, however, the sheer amount of stuff we know, the textbooks full of how chemical interactions work is entirely believed and accepted by the community. In other words, the vast majority of scientific knowledge is not being squabbled about at all.

The "law of excluded middle" - it's usually not that hard to tell whether or not that actually applies, in practice. Just check your resolution. :shrug: I can't see how that would be some kind of obstacle.

[tama]

225. Theoretical physics

has not seen much progress since Einstein and Quantum theory - and GR and QM are still contradictory, strings have been declared "not even theory", non-orthodox views are suppresed. A dead-end is usually a revolutionary situation. :)

[Random_Australian]

231. Still a non-sequiter.

So, I say that the vast bulk of things in science are in fact accepted by the community, giving reasons.

You counter this by saying that there hasn't been much progress in an area.

Which doesn't actually counter what I have been saying at all.

And yes, a dead-end is usually a revolutionary situation. That was noticed just about straight away.

But yeah, scientists are not miracle workers who know the next step automatically. Learning about stuff takes time. Who'd have thunk it?

"strings have been declared 'not even theory', non-orthodox views are suppresed"

Strings have no testable predictions, so they can't be a hypothesis, so they can't be a theory, correct.

Non-orthodox views are suppressed? Ha! More like "(these particular) non-orthodox views are stupid, and have no place in science"

Because of the interest in the theory of everything, everyone with a pet view wants to claim their idea is right. However, in science you don't get any recognition until you have evidence. This happens with stuff like evolution as well. In other words, from science's point of view:

Step 1: Darwin comes up with evolution.
Step 2: Test, prove, establish.
Step 3: Someone wants their pet idea about how wonderful and special humans are to be true, so they propose some bullshit idea.
Step 4: Ask for evidence.
Step 5: Receive none. Don't accept bullshit idea.
Step 6: Science suppresses views that threaten it! The TRUTH is out there! Evil scientists are so arrogant and think they have never been wrong! Scientists panic in the face of the one true truth that someone came up with while smoking weed!

[tama]

234. I don't counter

I continue. Mark the difference.

[Random_Australian]

253. I realise you don't counter. I'm trying to get you to counter, because otherwise

the conversation goes like this:

You - I want to make a new claim - it goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?
You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?
You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?You - No, actually, I want to make new claim. It goes like this!
Me - What evidence or reasoning do you have to support that claim?

[tama]

273. Countering

"the conversation goes like this: ..."

No it doesn't.

[Random_Australian]

275. Anyway, I'm flying away on holidays so may not talk for a while.

(Maybe I will go on the net in the holidays, though. Who knows?)

But this is a shitty end to a good conversation.

I said that simply making claims and not backing them up was absolutely not convincing.

I made it *very* clear that I would ask for arguments to support what you've said.

And then this - your response (oh so clever) is to equate asking someone to support their argument (why do that?) with asking someone to not support their argument (logical, you are) and simply say something contradictory (as if I was so fucking stupid as to be asking for that)

But hell, don't just ignore me saying you should support your arguments once (ok, repeatedly and at length) when you can ignore all these requests as well!

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

When you make a claim, I expect you to provide reasoning as to why it is true. I'm not in the habit of believing random claims 'just because'.

But who knows? Maybe you heard me this time. And maybe the moon is made of cheese.

I like cheese.

[Silent3]

158. Are you saying that blurring the border between...

...subjective and objective, making the question of whether or not deities exist more like asking someone what their favorite color is, is a good thing?

[tama]

159. No

I'm not saying that. To begin with, concepts of subject and object form complementary opposition, there is no concept of object without concept of subject and vice versa. Common theme in most if not all religions is not to stay trapped in dualisms of complementary (or dialectic) oppositions, but to seek and find unity (or "god"), in one way or another. Various and unique paths of multitude (or "gods"). Unity and Multitude are of course also complementary codependent oppositions. ;)

And yes, perhaps I'm saying that, dunno. You say potahtoe, I say potaytoe, meaning both same and different. But it fills the belly, which is what is really important. :)

[Silent3]

196. It seems like you're using a lot of excessively obscure language...

...to make the idea "believe what makes you feel good" sound like a more defensible position, making the measure of truth not objective criteria but "whatever gets you through the night".

[tama]

199. That's not the idea

the idea is to stop escaping responsibility, even "godly" responsibility - preferably with a good sense of proportion attached. And let me tell you, facing responsibility not subjectively or objectively but as part of a hologrammic whole (in other words, "God is my image") tends to cause many a sleepless night. I hope this was not expressed in excessively obscure language.

[Silent3]

214. Expand the notion of "feeling good" to include...

...seeking refuge from fear (much "faith" is driven by fear) and developing a personal narrative of self importance (building yourself up as someone who has to take on awesome spiritual responsibilities), then try to get back to the question subjective vs. objective measures of truth and how that relates to faith.

[tama]

217. You are correct

about fear, at least to some extent. But the assumption that fear is only subjective/individual phenomenon can be misguiding. There are many levels and forms of collective fear. Fear of subconsciouss processess. The subjective barriers that sociolinguistically constructed subjects use to protect themselves from fear are also forms of fear, namely fear of death.

[Silent3]

219. Are you hoping that I won't notice...

...that you dodged the whole "back to the question subjective vs. objective measures of truth and how that relates to faith" part of my post?

[tama]

224. No

since dodging the question about subjective vs. objective is what I'm talking about. What I'm saying is it's a question and framing that does not need to arise. :)

[quaker bill]

187. The point is

that neither the question nor the answer to it is relevant to faith. Faith does not require a measurable or observable difference between the existence or non-existence of God.

Arguments as to whether there is such a measurable difference are not relevant to the question by definition.

Further, there can never be observable evidence of the supernatural, because once something is observed and its parameters understood, it becomes defined as natural. Stating that there is no evidence of the supernatural is consistently true by default (as in there can be no such thing). Accordingly, the statement means precisely nothing and should be accorded no greater value.

You are approximately correct, it is true that God is not measured or observed to exist. The difference is that this is simply not relevant. It is the notion of the supernatural that places limits on the divine, not the opposite.

[tama]

193. Supernatural

means literally "above the nature". A subject looking nature from above and saying "it is how it 'objectively' looks from this viewpoint - and nothing else" is taking a supernatural position. A subject that thinks that by taking position above nature and taming and controlling it by technocracy is taking a supernatural position. The position of a wannabe God.

[Random_Australian]

202. Hmmmmmm, I half agree, half disagree.

1) It is indeed irrelevant to faith. I agree with you there.

2) We use 'supernatural' as a catch-all phrase for things that humans tend to believe but science does not. Because of this, there can be supernatural things, and we do tend to show belief in them to be irrational. That said, it's really only an approximate term and has nothing to do with what I was talking about.

It's not a question about whether or not it was supernatural; I didn't need the term and didn't use it. What I was getting at was the question "is that claim meaningful?" and came to the conclusion that adding things onto what we know arbitrarily was not meaningful.

[Silent3]

138. That's a big "if".

If the creation of all that is, everything we observe as "natural", specifically all the observable objects and laws that govern them, are the sole creation of God and the only tangible expression of God? On what basis would one discern that any aspect of God would ever be observed as un-natural or supernatural in any manner?

What if the word "creation" isn't even applicable to the world we observe around us because it didn't need to be created? If you weaken the meaning of God to be nothing more than a synonym for the natural world as it exists, then why use a word like "God", with all of the extraneous baggage that word carries, except perhaps as a poetic device?

You may be a scientist, but you sure aren't sounding very scientific in this post of yours. It also sounds like you are confusing Gould and Dawkins (NOMA was Gould's idea, one Dawkins didn't care for) just to take a swipe at Dawkins.

[quaker bill]

183. The point is

that the scientific method is not applicable or even relevant to the question. Any rational scientist would understand that the method can never be used to prove a negative. The most one can state as a scientist is that there is no observable evidence of the supernatural.

Of course, this statement self-defines as consistently true, because once a phenomena is observed and its parameters are defined, it becomes part of the natural world. There can never be observed evidence of the "supernatural" by definition. This is a logical trap from which there is no escape.

When Dawkins and Gould walk off this intellectual cliff they have released themselves from all tethers to rationality. I have little time or patience for either of them in this regard.

Faith does not require belief in the supernatural, in fact, notions of the supernatural are a distraction from it.

I am an ecologist and evolutionary biologist. Nothing about faith actually requires the denial of anything observed in science. Many on both sides are confused enough to think it does, but they are incorrect.

[Silent3]

195. I see nothing of this trap that you speak.

"There can never be observed evidence of the "supernatural" by definition. This is a logical trap from which there is no escape."

That's not a trap, that's the point. I'm not sure what you're attacking and what you're defending. What, if anything, is so good or useful or important about "faith" that you don't think Dawkins or Gould "get"?

[tama]

200. Let me guess:

"attitude" not being that different from "faith". Something that youngsters preciate as best quality in fellow human being and what old pompous asses like Dawkins and Gould obviously lack. :)

And nature is not limited by what this or that scientific theory imagines it to be limited by. Claiming theoretical limits to nature is, if anything, is "supernatural".

[Silent3]

213. Your reply to my post seems tangential at best...

...if not a complete non sequitur. All you've managed to say is that you think faith is special in some undefined way, and described those who don't understand that specialness as pompous. And then you've thrown irrelevant ageism into the mix to boot.

And nature is not limited by what this or that scientific theory imagines it to be limited by. Claiming theoretical limits to nature is, if anything, is "supernatural".

That's any impressively huge tangle of overlapping misunderstandings for such a short passage.

Tell me, who do you think is claiming "theoretical limits to nature"? What limits are these people claiming?

Do you understand the difference between, say, declaring that someone's belief in ghosts is unsupported by evidence, and that ghosts very likely don't exist, and someone declaring that ghosts are beyond "theoretical limits to nature"?

[tama]

226. Tangential

For example, the authoritive editor of a prestige scientific publication who declared Sheldrake's book "best candidate for book burning".

Yes I do understand that difference. And I'm sure that you understand that even though only classical phenomena can be measured by classical measuring devices, that does not mean that other (non-classical) phenomena don't exist even though they cannot be measured. I'm also sure that you understand that there are many people around in all professions who will rather deny anomalous evidence than challenge and change their basic belief systems.

[tama]

227. Faith

What you said got me thinking. Maybe it's not special at all nor undefined in any way - just lack of strongly held belief systems. Maybe faith is just accepting the phenomenological truth - what happens, happens as it happens and is allways all true as it happens - thoughts, sensations, etc. :)

[quaker bill]

276. A good first step

That which happens is always true as it happens, even the lies. The Bush administration happened, much of it was untrue, but that it occurred is a fact.

Things that do not happen may also be true.

One of my favorites from the Tao te Ching:

Take a lump of clay and make a bowl of it.
That which is there (the clay) gives it substance.
That which is not there (the hole in the middle) makes it useful.


I was a convinced atheist well before I found that I was a Quaker. There are, curiously enough, atheist Quakers. (There are Budhist and Wiccan Quakers as well).

[quaker bill]

207. What they do not get

is that their arguments are simply not relevant. Faith is not based in an accumulation of proof and is not diminished by a lack of it. For all their efforts, they broadly miss the issue at hand. Accordingly, no change will arise from their work.

Whether one finds faith useful is a matter for each individual to discern for themselves, and so it will remain.

It is not that there is no meaningful dialog to be had on the subject, it is just that they are not part of this conversation.

[Silent3]

211. So you're here to tell us what the meaningful dialog...

...is about? Or just what it isn't about? What would we do without the wisdom of folks like you to declare who is and isn't "part of this conversation"? :eyes:

Faith is not based in an accumulation of proof and is not diminished by a lack of it.

So what? One can still talk about whether faith is good or bad, one can talk about it as a psychological phenomenon, and certainly, seeing that different cultures at different times in history have different kinds and degrees of religious faith (look at Europe vs. the US, for example) there must various social and cultural processes that change the relationship between people and faith.

What makes you so absolutely sure that the work of people like Dawkins and Gould can't possibly be a part of that kind of process?

Faith is not based in an accumulation of proof and is not diminished by a lack of it.

Given your above description of faith, can you tell me what the relevant difference is between faith and obstinate stupidity?

[quaker bill]

265. I could not tell

you a thing. You have the inherent ability to believe anything which you care to lend creedence to. The problem lies in the fact that everyone else possesses this inherent ability as well.

I have no objection to Dawkins and Gould offering opinions on any subject. My concern arises when they call it science, for it is surely not. As a scientist (ecologist / evolutionary biologist), I have concern over what is called science. There is a reason that the vast majority of scientists, like myself, do not delve into this realm of commentary and color it as science. Science, in fact, offers no useful tools to address the questions at hand.

Not to be mean spirited, but the dictionary definition of the term:

Faith: belief that is not based on proof (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/faith)

It is really just that simple, so simple that it is in the dictionary and requires no more than 7 words to define.

Science deals with evidence (proof), faith doesn't. Spitting into this wind is not science, and will not change a thing.


The relevant difference between faith and obstinate stupidity: People are born with stupidity and may strive and overcome it, religion and ritual can be quickly learned, but faith is only obtained through long study and contemplation.

[Sophree]

269. You got me thinking about faith, as well.

In terms of not requiring belief in the "supernatural."

And you expressed, much better than I could have, faith does not require the denial of observable science.

The idea that science could possibly prove or disprove the existence of God is a fool's errand.

[Xipe Totec]

277. Actually, it isn't - Kurt Gödel proved that

In mathematical logic, Gödel's incompleteness theorems, proved by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are two theorems stating inherent limitations of all but the most trivial formal systems for arithmetic of mathematical interest. The theorems are of considerable importance to the philosophy of mathematics. They are widely regarded as showing that Hilbert's program to find a complete and consistent set of axioms for all of mathematics is impossible, thus giving a negative answer to Hilbert's second problem.

Gödel proved that there are truths that are not subject to proof.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems#Examples_of_undecidable_statements

[muriel_volestrangler]

281. That's a total abuse of Gödel's theorems

which had nothing to do with 'God' at all. You admit that they are about 'formal systems'. Reality is not a formal system. Sciences such as physics or biology do not mechanically prove things using just logic and arithmetic. Trying to bring Gödel into this shows a complete misunderstanding of philosophy, religion, and science.

[TexasObserver]

282. All you've proved is that YOU believe in God.

I believe in God, but there's absolutely no way to prove God exists or has ever existed.

Your elaborate "logic" is but a convoluted way of rationalizing your position.

God's existence is not provable, and further more, it should be clear to even the most ordinary human minds that if God wanted to talk to us, to fill us in, to tell us what he or it is, God would have done it by now.

Oh, there have been plenty of people who TELL us they know what God is and wants. And it's always conveniently exactly what such persons think God is and wants.

God is a label for everything we have yet to understand.