PeterJ

YdoaPs - I can go along with your comments on metaphysics except for your final para. I think you are wrong about logic. You are making the mistake of which I accuse academic philosophy as a whole. Aristotle's logic is fine for QM just as long as we read the small print for the 'laws of thought'. Not many people do. This has been pointed out by bigger guns than me. I won't argue more since it's off-topic, but if you want to do so I'll post a link

Hi Phi for All I agree with everything you just said right up to the final sentence. "Science explains life to a much greater depth than religion ever could." This is a very bold claim and to me it seems to be demonstrably untrue. I think what you mean is 'religion as I know it'.

Yes, but most scientists and philosophers do not apply the laws rigorously. You won't believe this, I predict, but it is the case. In fact for metaphysics the law of excluded middle is no problem, nor the LNC. I wouldn't be surprised if the same is true for QM, once Aristotle is read properly. This may be one of those various occasions where philosophy has let physics down, in this case by muddling the logical issues.

I think it is often forgotten that those goals are limited by metaphysics, that there is a boundary that physics ends up bumping against, but okay, other than that maybe it's off-topic. It would immediately become on-topic if anyone were to suggest that a goal of physics is a fundamental or general theory. .

Wow. Kudos, overtone. The first time I've seen LoF recommended by anyone other than me. Yes, very relevant. For an accompanying text that would be consistent with the description of reality in LoF there would be Hermann Weil's 'Das Kontinuum'.

Well, it places a limit on those goals. No point in science hoping to solve a metaphysical problem. Frasch asks - "What is it that our scientific models aim to do? Do our scientific models tell us what reality is like, or are they tools to make predictions and to allow us to understand reality? Explain what you think and why." The answer to the second two questions would be no. This would be why we have metaphysics, so we can extrapolate from the scientific data to deep truths. Making predictions requires little or no understanding of reality. just a few facts about some phenomenon. . .

If something cannot come from nothing then this is not a proof of God. It is a proof that the world is stranger than we tend to think. It is an ancient and venerable metaphysical problem with significant implications. It leads physicist Paul Davies to wonder if there is some truth in mysticism - he is not led to wonder about theism because it doesn't help. . .

In discussions here this is usually true, but generally I would disagree. I would suggest that the truth lies in-between. This argument between the extreme views on both sides is not very interesting and history shows that it is not productive.

Hi Swansont You know that metaphysics has nothing to say about such specific things. It may, however, tell us something about the nature of mass and the 'nature of Nature', as it were. There's no need to argue. The dictionary is quite clear on where physics ends and metaphysics begins. I'm not suggesting any changes.

So many words!!! I'm with imatfaal. It would be possible to be an atheist and a naturalist and a Buddhist, which may confuse the issues in a useful way. Fortunately naturalism does not require taking a position on religion, or not until we know what is natural and what is not.

"Do you lose some of that spark of "human imagination/freedom of thought" once you state yourself an Atheist, only believing in what you can prove?" I suspect you lose this whenever you call yourself anything. It's like digging a hole and jumping in. There is no doubt in my mind that most avid atheists are not adventurous or even honest thinkers, but then this seems true for most avid theists as well.

Henry -"Science explain everything without a God. What do you think? What I think is that this is nonsense. With or without God science explains very little. Metaphysics is where the action is at for the big questions, and this explains the most when it does not appeal to God but merely to logic and the data. If metaphysics is not enough then experience must be consulted, and science is certainly not a bold exploration of experience. I believe that we make a terible mistake thinking we can justify or falsify God in the sciences. The two areas of knoweldge have to be connected up via metaphysics for any translation between them. What we can say, for definitional reasons, is that science has nothing to say about God or indeed any metaphysical question. Which is not to say that scientists don't have their opinions and conjectures.

Scott- "This is where we also need to find a bottom-up approach by trying to find (discover?) a logic that universally connects things from first logical principles." Right on, It is called metaphysics. No need to look too hard, the task has been completed. It;s just that scientists and professional philosophers take no notice of Nagarjuna. He uses Aristiotle's logic and an axiom of unity, and all else follows.

Scott - I see some sense in what you're saying but I have to work hard to do it. Perhaps you don't realise you have a slightly odd way of speaking. David - "The principia was written specifically to ensure that the the set of all sets was not included in itself." I get the impression that it was written without a thought for the set of all sets, and that this problem only came up later to bite the author.

Dave I assumed that anyone involved in this discussion would be interested enough to examine the facts. Just stating your views leaves me nothing to say. Okay. you don't believe science and religion can be reconciled. Enough said. Really what led to my remark was the fact that you have made all sorts of statements about Buddhism on the basis of no knowledge of it, and when people do this on any topic whatsoever I lose interest in talking to them. If we're not taking the matter seriously, as a real scientist, philosopher or truth-seeker would, then it's not worth pursuing. The truth is, if you care to look, that you have no idea whether science and religion can be reconciled. Your comment stating that Buddhism is only relevant to those who grow up in a Buddhist culture shows to me that you have no interest in religion let alone enough knowledge to have the right to an opinion on its relationship with science. Yet you fight for your opinions. I don't want to fight, so will leave it there.

So, you think it's a good idea to just make up your mind on this important topic with no attempt to understand the issues, and you expect me to waste my time arguing with you? Let us both save our breath.

I wonder if you have really given this much thought.

If an old text says that the world is like this or like that then what possible difference could its age make to it's truth or falsity? F=MA is knocking on now but I doubt that it will never need replacing. Would you rather the sages changed their doctrine in every century? Would this make it seem more plausible or less? To me it would look like a proclamation of ignorance and uncertainty. It would be inevitable that an ability to reconcile science and religion will depend on knowing a lot about both, while for most people their interest lies in just one or the other. How long would it take to learn enough physics, never mind biology, psychology and so forth, to talk competently about the relationship between science and religion? Why would it take any less time to learn enough about religion to talk competently about this relationship? Maybe part of the problem is that science often assumes that religion is easy to understand, so easy that without any proper study it can be understood. I would say it's a lot easier to understand than quantum physics but it's certainly no stroll in the park.

Religion is clearly concerned to some extent with emotions. It has an emotional appeal to many people and many others are averse to it for emotional reasons. It deals in love, compassion, consolation, forgiveness, sorrow, pain and happiness and so forth. . But this is of no interest to science. If we are trying to reconcile religion and science then we need to look at what it teaches that is relevant to science. Emotions would have nothing to do with this. We would need to look at how it explains existence, consciousness, time and space, life and death, mind and matter and so forth. In other words, we would have to venture into metaphysics. This is where science and religion meet head-on, and where they must be reconciled it if it ever to happen. Here we can forget about emotions and get down to the mathematics. Religious people of a monotheistic tendency and scientific people of a materialistic tendency usually avoid metaphysics because it threatens their dogma. But people who want the facts and not dogma, and who seek reconciliation by reference to facts rather than opinion, are better off doing metaphysics than science or religion because it is where they meet head-to-head. Elsewhere, for much of time they don't meet at all. For instance, physics cannot prove that a Creator God is unsound idea but metaphysics can. Science cannot show that freewill is a psychological trick, but metaphysics can. The only proviso would be that modern academic metaphysics is NOT what I mean by metaphysics here, I mean metaphysics done a lot better than that. I assume that we all can see the value of university metaphysics from its prodigious output of results. The question was what does religion teach. Obviously there's no quick answer. To give it a proper connection to science we would have to ignore the dogmatic religions and focus on those that do research free of assumptions and prejudices. Religions in this category teach the illusion of existence, the unreality of the ego, the inter-dependence of mind and matter, the unity of the universe, the unreality of death, the possibility of 'heaven' as an end of suffering, the non-reductive nature of time and space, and the errors in monotheism, in particular the idea that God is something other than ourselves and an object to our subject. . Emotions would earthly things of little consequence. The idea would be to control and transcend them, or to make them useful as opposed to being in thrall to them. They would have no -place in a discussion of truth. What we feel about the truth cannot change it. The main reason I post this is just to broaden the discussion away from a narrow focus on Christianity and Islam. Many people who grow up with one of these religions find that it is only when they have explored the kind of religion I'm talking about here that they can begin to make sense of the religion of their birth. I found this and it is a common experience. So for a reconciliation it may well be best to start by putting monotheism to one side and work with other religious ideas, and then come back to God at a later time, armed with a much more sophisticated doctrine within which to consider His plausibility and possible attributes. My own belief is that it would be a mistake to claim that He does or does not exist, but metaphysics comes down on the side of non-existence. A number of religions teach that nothing really exists, God along with everything else. If this seems to muddle the issues a bit then its job done. The issues are muddled, and they take some sorting out.

To paraphrase Tina Turner - what's emotion got to do with it? .

Yes. I think for a reconciliation one would have to become a student of comparative religion, and not focus on one book or one religion.

Maybe everybody should pat themselves on the back for not letting this thread descend into chaos. It is actually pretty impressive. In my view the problem of reconciling science and religion is not difficult to solve but it would require finding a particular interpretation of religion. Religions vary in their doctrines and we would have to find the one that actually fits the facts. If we want to reconcile science and religion then the only way to do it would be to identify a religious doctrine that perfectly accords with the scientific data. For Schrodinger this was the doctrine of the late Upanishads. In its pure form this would be atheism in my opinion but there is some debate. There could be no disagreement between this doctrine and science, There isn't even a disagreement with metaphysics, as I hope to show in a book one day. I believe that by attempting to reconcile science and religion we end up normalising our views about both of them and come closer to the truth. Left to their own devices they both wander off into fantasy-land.

Mondie - The story of Galileo is a little more complex than you suggest. It is actually quite convoluted, and certainly not as incomprehensible as it might appear if the difficulties facing the various participants is taken into account. It is a curious incident that reflects badly on the Church of Rome, but it was not quite the black and white affair that is usually presented. I don't think any religion anywhere would accept Neo-Darwinism as it is formulated at present since it entirely ignores consciousness, but then it does not seem to be correct yet. One does not have to be religionist to reject it. That said I would agree, of course, that a religious belief is not a good reason for rejecting a scientific theory.

I reckon Tielhard de Chardin shows that there is no necessary conflict between evolution and Catholicism. As for mysticism, evolution would be the basis for the unfolding of the world. I haven't followed the discussion but would say that it is not difficult to reconcile religion and science. What would be difficult is to reconcile the crazy ideas that some people have about religion and science. But of course here's the whole problem. In both areas of study it takes a lot of work and some dedication to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Nice post Jake. Two other things. Religion is not always theism, and while there were no Jews in ancient America there were natives whose religion was not unlike Jewish mysticism. I'm told they laughed when the Christians arrived with their Holy Book and argued over it like lawyers.