Phi for All

Not a great analogy, since by taking the valley you avoid both mountains. Better to think of these varying methods of explanation as tools. When you're looking for a natural explanation, science is the biggest help. If you need something spiritual/supernatural, religion will definitely be a better choice. Now the question is how much science you'll learn so natural explanations increase your knowledge of the real world.

Free advice. Stop learning just the top layer of science and trying to blend it with your faith. Science is all about the natural world, and religion is about the supernatural. Learning bits of both and blending them leads to complete confusion (for example, you claim the universe is in an ideal state, then later claim a superior intelligence could fix it so it works properly). If you want to learn about science, you need to peel the whole onion. It's all connected. You can keep the religion if you wish, just keep it separate.

Hold on there. Appeal to Majority is about opinion. In science, professional assessment of evidence by experts is hardly opinion. You might call it Appeal to Authority, but again you'd be wrong, because there are so many authorities saying the exact same thing. This isn't like joining a bandwagon. Using proper methodology to reach inevitable conclusions based on available evidence is the exact opposite of fallacious reasoning. You are waaaay off base here.

I don't understand how you can say "religion has nothing to do with me", and then go on to talk about your "relationship with Christ". I don't think you understand things as clearly as you think, and certainly not how religion is defined. You've been asked to provide some evidence repeatedly, yet you just keep saying things like "there is also reason why I believe" without actually providing that reason. So far it's just been all faith, the weakest form of belief masquerading as the strongest. Nobody wants to hear you preach.

! Moderator Note Starting a thread to advertise your blog is against the rules you agreed to when you joined. Since you included the excerpt and the wiki reference, I'll leave the thread open, but no more linking to promote your site. You can put a link in your signature to a non-commercial site, but don't start threads about it.

I find your incredulity misplaced. Isn't this like asking why we bothered with vinyl and tape recording media when we should have spent that money on compact disk technology?

I think religion has negatively influenced your ability to think critically.

I think it's intellectually dishonest to bring up scientific studies and then assign your own definitions with regard to what they were measuring. Those studies weren't analyzing your slanted views of "high quality" at all. You would seem to have an agenda you're cherry-picking data for. Bad science.

You keep asking the question I answered in post #12. When you first inhale to sneeze, sometimes you dislodge the irritant and the signal goes away. Aborted sneeze.

"Wait for evidence" isn't the same thing as "write off". What about the "current state of cosmology" gives you the impression we have a gap in our knowledge that needs to be filled by a supernatural explanation? It sounds more like the problem lies with your misunderstanding of "the current state of cosmology".

"Best explanation" implies there are others that aren't as good, that aren't as well supported by evidence. There's nothing hidebound about this. How can someone well educated in science NOT use intuition when it comes to advancing what we know? I think what's being argued is uneducated intuition is valuable as well, and that I don't agree with. Someone who has been shown what science is about through popular journalism has NOT learned science. The intuition of someone who hasn't learned science is as valuable as any guess.

Why would science be interested in a conversation about an unnecessary creator?

Intuition can only be trusted from knowledgeable people. In general, would you trust the intuition of a six year old? Would you trust the intuition of someone who has only read pop-sci (instead of learning science) over someone who'd been educated heavily? The method doesn't allow scientists to think in terms of "truth". Truth is subjective, so the method stresses the reasoned following of evidence to its conclusions. Your "truth" means nothing to anyone but you, whereas the method at least assures more trustworthiness by working with the best current explanations.

It's an assumption, isn't it? Whatever your POV, the people "on the other side" of the argument (from your POV) are going to be dead set against it. I think it's partly semantics. The way an issue is spun plays a big part. When the word "welfare" pops up, one side thinks about the widowed mothers it will help and the other side thinks of the lazy loafers it will enable. Both assume their POVs are opposite, but in reality, both want to help the widowed mothers and neither want to enable the lazy loafers. But they won't learn this about each other because, with issues like these, too many people have stopped learning.

And now you've stopped learning anything else about him because you can sum him up in a six word description. This isn't a good way to look at anybody. He may not be any of those things. It may be as simple as him having worked for the fossil fuel industry all his life, or maybe he was persecuted for his religion/lack thereof, or had to work for a college kid half his age. He may have voted for Jerry Brown, and hopes bellbottom jeans come back, you just don't know.

! Moderator Note Your title promised a question.

Perhaps a fear of being lumped together with the undesirable parts of a similar ideology? I have a lot of Republican friends who are happy I don't assume they share all the fake president's traits and sentiments.

Without limit? How vividly misleading, and patently untrue. Do you understand what "without limit" means with regard to money? Are you lying or just exaggerating? If the tax structure for the rich was similar to what is was during the Eisenhower administration, is that "without limit"? Do you think we could afford more science research with the added revenue?

I think one of the most willfully ignorance stances we see today are people who want to lump whole groups of people they don't like into categories, like "the Left", so they can dismiss them wholesale. Most of it is stupid assumptions about what "conservative" and "liberal" really mean. When I can easily argue that listening to experts about climate change is a good, conservative tactic, does that make me conservative? I can also point to massive studies that show our approach to crime creates more criminals, so why is my stance considered liberal? These labels are emotionally charged. If you're interested in a more dispassionate, reasoned point of view that can be trusted, I would suggest you give them up.

Huff Post put together some tweets and speeches from last year about the time Don Jr set his meeting with the Russians, and it sure looks like senior knew.

It's not really a symptom so much as a measurement that gives us data on blood flow, status of the arterial walls, and the rate of heartbeat, for instance. Iirc, different medications are prescribed if blood pressure is affected by thickened artery walls than if affected by irregular heartbeats.

! Moderator Note This is a science discussion forum. Please provide some evidence for your non-mainstream claims next time you post a thread like this. There's no science to discuss here. Also, we have a section for non-mainstream speculations which we call Speculations. It's not a place for wild guesses, but again, if you have some actual evidence to discuss, you can make a case for it there. You might want to tone down the rant as well. You aren't going to get good science if you're just here to flame on folks. This thread is no good. Please do better on your next try. And thanks for understanding and playing by our rules.

What seems like condescension is simply years of trying to help people with their scientific methodology misconceptions. Your mistake about "opinion" is a good example. When a jury makes a decision based on provided evidence in a court case, do you think they're expressing their "opinion", or are they being asked for conclusions based solely where the evidence and arguments lead? Do they tell the judge they "think" the plaintiff is guilty, or do they say they "find" him guilty? Climate scientists "found" their explanations, they didn't make them up so they could believe in them. If there are 3% who deny climate change, hopefully it's because the evidence led them to different conclusions. I'm not sure why they matter. For non-experts like you and me, doesn't it make sense to stick with the 97% mainstream? Your arguments sound canned and worn out, like you've repeated them, had them refuted, ignored the refutation, and then continued to repeat them to a different audience, because you're emotionally tied to the arguments. You really don't want to change or be thought responsible for messing up your grandchildren's world, so you grab weird, emotional appeals instead of simply following the evidence to reasoned conclusions. You drag all this extraneous sharia/denier garbage into a conversation where we just want to discuss the evidence, and the science, and the methodology involved. It's not necessary.

To answer the title question, it's possible of course, but no, not the way simulated universes are usually presented. You've set the scenario up so there's no way to tell the difference between real and simulated. That's no different than proposing there's a god(s), but you can't observe them because they're all powerful. There's no meaning to arguments like these because you've rigged it from the start.

Otoconia breaking off could be responsible, and would account for extreme vertigo.