immortal Posted January 26, 2012 Posted January 26, 2012 Now people's minds are so closed, it seems impossible to have the discussions that are vital to democracy and liberty. I am rather disappointed with how some of the threads in the religious section are attacked and opposed and the evidence for God or a higher authority is requested first applying strict positivist rules even before willing to have an abstract meaningful metaphysical speculation on it. What is evidence for the existence of God has anything to do with discussing concepts of God and its effects on our social and political reforms. In his collection Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (Harper & Row, 1963), Popper writes, "Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths; neither with the collection of observations, nor with the invention of experiments, but with the critical discussion of myths, and of magical techniques and practices. The scientific tradition is distinguished from the pre-scientific tradition in having two layers. Like the latter, it passes on its theories; but it also passes on a critical attitude towards them. The theories are passed on, not as dogmas, but rather with the challenge to discuss them and improve upon them." The Logic of Scientific knowledge was given by Karl Popper and it is his philosophy of science which is the most accepted one in the scientific community and therefore it is important to understand his philosophical stands, Karl Popper was a falsificationist and a post-positivist. He opposed Logical Positivism, a view which rejected metaphysics and ontology statements as meaningless. He was not a positivist either because he opposed the distinction of phenomena and the actual thing in itself in science. According to Karl Popper, falsification doesn't mean that metaphysical and ontological questions are meaningless, it just means they are unscientific but those statements might very well become scientific probably in the next century or in the future through paradigm shifts as described by Thomas Kuhn and therefore its not wrong to have a meaningful metaphysical speculation. Stephen Hawking is a recent high profile advocate of positivism, at least in the physical sciences. In The Universe in a Nutshell (p. 31) he writes: Any sound scientific theory, whether of time or of any other concept, should in my opinion be based on the most workable philosophy of science: the positivist approach put forward by Karl Popper and others. According to this way of thinking, a scientific theory is a mathematical model that describes and codifies the observations we make. A good theory will describe a large range of phenomena on the basis of a few simple postulates and will make definite predictions that can be tested… If one takes the positivist position, as I do, one cannot say what time actually is. All one can do is describe what has been found to be a very good mathematical model for time and say what predictions it makes. I appreciate it when many hold this kind of Positivism because it clearly shows that philosophy and ontology are irrelevant to science and there are some questions which science cannot address and give an authoritative answer to them. cience can stand on its own feet and does not need any help from rationalists, secular humanists, Marxists and similar religious movements; and ... non-scientific cultures, procedures and assumptions can also stand on their own feet and should be allowed to do so ... Science must be protected from ideologies; and societies, especially democratic societies, must be protected from science... In a democracy scientific institutions, research programmes, and suggestions must therefore be subjected to public control, there must be a separation of state and science just as there is a separation between state and religious institutions, and science should be taught as one view among many and not as the one and only road to truth and reality. — Feyerabend, Against Method, p.viii I oppose the views of Scientism, the positivist approach of science doesn't give us a complete understanding of the world around us and hence other roads to reality should be open for speculation and for criticism. The argument against Gods or against religion are very weak saying they probably don't exist or its very unlikely that they exist are not enough absolute evidence for ruling out the possibility for the existence of God. My stance on this- I am a realist and to me this universe exist independent of an observer and the reality described by scientific models are very much real but they don't give answers for the questions asked about the actual physical system which we are describing, we cannot know what time and space actually is and we cannot either know what particles actually are but the paradigm shift here is that religion can provide answers to those questions. I mean that just how we cannot show australia or antarctica if we only have half of the map of earth, (i.e the northern hemisphere) in the same way we need to have a different map in order to answer those ontological questions. It means we need to observe the universe using a fourth state of consciousness apart from the three awake, sleep and dream states. The observable world of science appears when we are completely awake and the world of religion appears when we are neither in awake and dream states and nor in deep sleep state. This would mean that the actual physical system might be only made up of five elements ( i.e Water, Fire, Space, Earth and Air) and it resolves the contradictions between scientific and religious worlds. Science will be irrelevant to religion and vise versa. The method to have control over the four states of consciousness is called as Avastatreya (Avaste means states) and one can see one's own mind and intelligence in that fourth state and in this way it will be a self evidence that what we are observing is real and the one who has achieved such a state is a true philosopher because he doesn't speculate on the nature of things as it is like this or it is like that, he knows what exactly it "is" and that's the beauty of it. The method to self-realize the five elements is called as Panchbootha Sakshatkar ( Panch- means five, bootha- means elements and Sakshatkar - means self-evidence) and you can realize that those five elements including time and space actually exists as it "is" and this is the real understanding of the ontology of matter, time and space. If we do some research and search for genuine people who know that knowledge then we might learn them and observe them and it would resolve our conflicts between science and religion without in any way changing any of their claims and their model of world. I also oppose that religion is beyond the scope of science and it is wrong for science to model religion. Evolutionary psychology of Religion and Breaking the spell: Religion as a natural phenomena by Daniel Dennett. The following argument shows why the origin of religion based upon evolutionary psychology cannot account for behaviours displayed by religious people. 1. No matter how strong economically and politically a religious organisation is it will try to spread its message and their beliefs and the chances that their ideas are transmitted and accepted by other people around a wide population icreases. For example :- the church will always spread the message of the Gospel. 2. These bad religious ideas or practices don't cost much if the members of the religion as long as they don't take their religious ideas seriously but once if they start taking those religious beliefs and practices seriously then that is where the problem starts for those selfish genes who control our psychological behaviours. 3. We will have a small population of people who take those unreal beliefs and practices and their only purpose in the society will be to spread their message and make others to believe in those religious practices and make them that they too take them very seiously. 4. This will lead to more and more people following such beliefs and such people don't serve any purpose to society in any way because they don't have any interest in propagating their genes in the gene pool nor they have any interest to do something good for the society because their only goal is to have self-realization. 5. This is what we observe in the history of the world and such behavious are being displayed by people even today and more and more people are leaving their families destroying the social framework and its stability making up their mind to spend rest of their energy and life to attain salvation and deliverance and that is there only aim and don't have any interest in the affairs of the world. 6. If this is the case then religion seems to be a very bad idea and a hindarance for those selfish genes and hence evolutionary psychology cannot account for such behaviours because such behaviours doesn't in any way help in the reproductive fitness of those individuals who display those behaviours. 7. If we give an alternate explanation and say they are all suffering from a psychological problem then cultural evolution should have come in to keep a check on such ideas and prevent people to not to learn such behavious but I don't see that happening and we also have to accept the fact that it was these men with psychological problems who wrote those scriptures which later turned out to be the belief systems of many of the major religions of the world and the ultimate message that is given in those scriptures is that human beings should follow and learn to become like those men who took unreal human imaginary ideas developed by selfish genes controlling our psychological behaviours so seriously so much that they lost their reproductive fitness itself. 8. Therefore the two natural forces natural selection and cultural evolution cannot account for the origin of religion and an origin from a higher authority like God is one of a plausible explanation which we cannot rule out very easily.
Arete Posted January 26, 2012 Posted January 26, 2012 (edited) I am rather disappointed with how some of the threads in the religious section are attacked and opposed and the evidence for God or a higher authority is requested first applying strict positivist rules even before willing to have an abstract meaningful metaphysical speculation on it. In the thread in question, you took an observed phenomenon (altruism) , rejected all posed naturalistic explanations of it and asserted that the God explanation was the only plausible one. Regardless of whether or not you subscribe to the scientific method, the assertion that the phenomenon could not be plausibly explained by anything other than a benevolent God is logically fallacious. If you had of said "God is a possible explanation for altruism, and the one I personally accept" as opposed to "God is the ONLY possible explanation" there'd be no logical disconnect. In the same way I stated "Kin selection and inclusive fitness are plausible explanations for altruistic behavior - it doesn't necessarily have to be God" and not "Kin selection and inclusive fitness are the ONLY explanations for ALL altruistic behavior - God does not exist" [to paraphrase]. It's about being honest with claims of supernatural causation, not necessarily forcing them to ascribe the rules of science. Edited January 26, 2012 by Arete 1
John Cuthber Posted January 26, 2012 Posted January 26, 2012 "I oppose the views of Scientism, the positivist approach of science doesn't give us a complete understanding of the world around us and hence other roads to reality should be open for speculation and for criticism. " OK, So what does science not explain? Perhaps more interestingly, what is there that science will never explain? Unless you can answer those the assertion "the positivist approach of science doesn't give us a complete understanding of the world around us" is, at best, questionable.
Vent Posted January 26, 2012 Posted January 26, 2012 (edited) I think the question or argument of the method of science against the method of religion for understanding reality is a poor one, not because of anything inherently implausible about such a question of alternate methods for understanding reality but rather because religion doesn't have a methodology. Further, the knowledge that religion does give to our species is, in the most part, contradictory to the knowledge that another method, a method that, to date, "has" given very workable knowledge to our species. That method happens to have the name of science. We gave it this name so the connotations that the name has for certain people are mostly irrelevant. You may like to read the following book for some relatively recent knowledge on the "why religion" question. http://www.amazon.co...27604627&sr=8-1 Or even this youtube video for a quick take on it. Edit: wrong video Edited January 26, 2012 by Vent
immortal Posted January 28, 2012 Author Posted January 28, 2012 (edited) "I oppose the views of Scientism, the positivist approach of science doesn't give us a complete understanding of the world around us and hence other roads to reality should be open for speculation and for criticism. " OK, So what does science not explain? Perhaps more interestingly, what is there that science will never explain? Unless you can answer those the assertion "the positivist approach of science doesn't give us a complete understanding of the world around us" is, at best, questionable. Good question. Yes there is something that science will never be able to explain it is called as Qualia(Universals). Qualia are aspects of our perception that don't exist in the external world, for example:- Colours, tastes, pain etc. In this following link Mapping pain in Brain the neurologists often use the word processing of pain but such an understanding of pain is incomplete, if they have such an authority over the complete understanding of the processing of pain then they should be able to understand the quantitative as well as the qualitative aspects of pain. What do I mean by qualitative aspects of pain is that neurologists should be able to compeletely understand and simulate the mechanisms that causes the subjective experience of pain, if they have such a complete understanding of the experience of pain then we can use the same mechanisms that are used in the cognitive processing of the Brain to be simulated in neural networks and enabling even machines to have subjective emotional experiences rather than just creating philosophical zombies which mimic human behaviours but will not have an inner life of their own. The point is our current understanding of Brain biochemistry doesn't provide any mechanisms what so ever to simulate the qualitative aspects of pain and other similar subjective experiences. This forms the hard-problem of consciousness as formulated by David Chalmers. James Trefil notes that "it is the only major question in the sciences that we don't even know how to ask." Therefore the cognitive processing of the Brain is not enough to account for the subjective experiences such as pain, redness, sweetness etc and these are the things which exist seperately and independently from the physical objects and individuals who suffer from Lexical --> Gustatory Synesthesia are a perfect evidence that they arise from some form of cognitive processing and the point is that we need to understand the processing of these qualia which are non-physical in nature and only such a complete understanding of the cognitive processing in the Brain as well as the processing of qualia will give us a better understanding to solve the easy as well as the hard problems of cognitive processes of consciousness. It seems to me that the different pathways of neurons that exist for different forms of pain indicates that the non-physical qualia have a casual effect on the physical world and it seems as though these neuronal pathways are just amplifiers to experience different forms and varieties of qualia. The Knowledge argumentof qualia use a thought experiment called as Mary's room which indicates qualia represent some real knowledge and we need to have this knowledge in order to understand the complete cognitive processing of how the brain generates specific replies to specific sensory inputs. If qualia are to be non-physical properties (which they must be in order to constitute an argument against physicalism), some argue that it is almost impossible to imagine how they could have a causal effect on the physical world. By redefining qualia as epiphenomenal, Jackson attempts to protect them from the demand of playing a causal role. Later, however, he rejected epiphenomenalism. This, he argues, is due to the fact that when Mary first sees red, she says "wow," so it must be Mary's qualia that causes her to say "wow." This contradicts epiphenomenalism. Since the Mary's room thought experiment seems to create this contradiction, there must be something wrong with it. This is often referred to as the "there must be a reply" reply. The positivist approach of Copenhagen Interpretation developed by Neils Bohr which is followed by majority of the orthodox physicists and the violation of the Bell's inequality theorem forces us to develop a different intuitive way of looking at reality. We are forced to believe that particles will not always have pre-determined values to physical quantities or attributes and the consequence of such a thinking leads us not to believe that particles will have attributes such a position, momentum, polarisation(in the case of a photon) untill the particle is measured or observed through a detector extracting or accessing the precise information or the value of a physical attribute and more importantly this act of knowing or measuring will change the possible values that can be assigned to a quantum system destroying the delicate pattern of interference and Bohr was of the intention that we are not changing the physical nature of the quantum system, what we change is only the possible values that can be assigned to a quantum system. This leads us to be skeptical as to what a scientific theory models. Does it really model the external physical world or Does it model only our perceptions or observations which are processed in our minds i.e Does our mathematical models describe an apple or a tossed coin falling in the external physical world or Does the mathematical models describe the relationships of cause and effect of mental entities which process sensory inputs through photons and makes us to percieve an apple appearing to fall down on the ground of the earth? Does it map the external physical world or does it map our perceptions and observations processed in our minds? I mean to say if positivism forces us to believe that a particle can be seperated from its actual physical nature from its measurable physical quantities such as position, momentum and polarisation, what understanding we really have about a particle, what it "is" physically? Does it mean that position, momentum, polarisation, mass, charge, spin etc are quantitative qualia which exist seperately and independently from physical objects and exist only in our minds? If we can all experience the qualia of sweetness when we taste sugar and consider that the qualia sweetness is an universal what would prevent us to assert that even the mass and position of sugar molecules are an experience of a qualia which is universal to all of us. The consequences of this way of thinking are even more radical than may appear so far. Consider a photon polarized in a 45° state and we ask the question 'Is this photon horizontally or vertically polarized? But this is surely a meaningless question: the polarization is neither pointing upwards nor from side to side; it is pointing at an angle. It might make some sense to say that it is pointing partly up and down and partly from side to side (i.e. it is in a superposition of an H and a V state), but it is certainly not doing either one of these or the other. To ask this question is as meaningless as asking if a banana is either an apple or an orange. Thus, when we say that we 'measure' the HV polarization of a 45° photon, we are using the word in a rather different sense from the normal one. When we measure, say, the length of a piece of string, we have no problem in assuming that the string has some value of length before we put it on the ruler, but a quantum measurement is in general quite different. As we saw above, it alters the state of the system in such a way as to give reality to a quantity that was indefinable in its previous context. Now consider the implications of this way of thinking for measurements of particle position. Most of us tend to assume that a particle always has to be 'somewhere' even when it is not being observed, but this is not true in the quantum context: if a particle is in a state where its position is unknown, then to think about it even having a position is just as meaningless as ascribing H or V polarization to a particle in a 45° state. It is meaningless to say that the particle has passed through one slit or the other when an interference pattern is formed. Similarly, it is wrong to think that an electron in an atom is at any single point within it. However, just as the 45° state can be thought of as a superposition of H and V, we can think of the wave function as representing a superposition of possible positions, the contributions to the superposition from any point being weighted according to the size of the wave function at that point............... .................Consider the set-up shown in Figure 8.5. As before, a 45o photon passes through an HV polarizer, but instead of being detected, the two paths possible are brought together so that they can interfere in a manner similar to that in the two-slit experiment. Just as in that experiment, we do not know which path the photon passes along, so we cannot attribute reality to either. The consequence is that the 45o polarization is reconstructed by the addition of the H and V components – as we can demonstrate by passing the photon through another ±45o polarizer and observing that all the photons emerge in the +45o channel as in Figure 8.5. If, however, we had placed a detector in one of the paths and between the two polarizers, we would either have detected the particle or we would not, so we would know that its polarization was either H or V; it turns out that in such a case, it is impossible in practice to reconstruct the original state and the emerging photons are either H or V. We are led to the conclusion that the act of detection is an essential part of the measuring process and is responsible for placing the photon into an H or V state. This is consistent with the positivist approach outlined earlier, because in the absence of detection we do not know that the photon possesses polarization so we should not assume that it does. Figure 8.5 Light split into two components by an HV polarizer can be reunited by a second polarizer facing in the opposite direction (marked as VH). If the crystals are set up carefully so that the two paths through the apparatus are identical, the light emerging on the right has the same polarization as that incident on the left. This is also true for individual photons, a fact that is difficult to reconcile with the idea of measurement changing the photon's state of polarization. ...............However, the Copenhagen approach goes further and denies the reality of anything other than the changes that occur in the classical apparatus: only the life or death of the cat or the 'permanent marks on a photographic plate' are real. The polarization state of the photon is an idealistic concept extrapolated from the results of our observations and no greater reality should be attributed to it. From this point of view, the function of quantum physics is to make statistical predictions about the outcome of experiments and we should not attribute any truth-value to any conclusions we may draw about the nature of the quantum system itself......... ...........An experiment illustrating the same principle, though not involving polarization measurements, was suggested by Einstein and co-workers in 1935. They concluded, If, without in any way disturbing the system, we can predict with certainty (i.e. with probability equal to unity) the value of a physical quantity, then there exists an element of physical reality corresponding to this physical quantity. How then does conventional quantum theory treat a situation such as the measurement of the polarization of photon pairs? Shortly after Einstein's paper came out, Bohr published a response, the key phrase of which was 'There is essentially the question of an influence on the very conditions that define the possible types of prediction regarding the future behaviour of the system' (Bohr's italics). Applying this to the two-photon case, Bohr is saying that if we alter the orientation of one of the polarizers, we are not affecting the photons physically, but are only changing the attributes (i.e. the allowed values of the polarization) that we can assign to the system..... ....Whether or not we find this satisfactory depends strongly on our own ideas and prejudices. It certainly did not satisfy Einstein, whose reaction was that Bohr's position was logically possible, but 'so very contrary to my scientific instinct that I cannot forego my search for a more complete conception'. No such 'complete conception' has yet emerged to command a consensus in the scientific community. - Quantum Physics A Beginner's Guide by Alastair I. M. Rae If this is the case then the question of why the act of measurement changes the quantum system in such a way that it is impossible to simultaneously detect the precise information of position of a wavicle and also to observe the delicate interference being formed on the screen is not a problem of nature it is more of a problem of processes of perception in the mind. A limitation on the mathematical relationships of position and momentum quale processing during the processing of perception in the mind of a subjective observer. Below experiment shows that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the Bohr's argument that the detector induces random kicks to the electrons which causes the interference pattern to be destroyed cannot account for such a phenomena we need a new perspective to it. http://www.daviddarl...tanglement.html The revisionist picture of the Bohr-Einstein debates stems partly from a suggestion made in 1991 by Marlan Scully, Berthold-Georg Englert, and Herbert Walther of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany. These researchers proposed using atoms as quantum objects in a version of Young's two-slit experiment. Atoms have an important advantage over simpler particles, such as photons or electrons: they have a variety of internal states, including a ground state (lowest energy state) and a series of excited states. These different states, the German team reckoned, could be used to track the atom's path. Seven years later, Gerhard Rempe and his colleagues at the University of Konstanz, also in Germany, brought the experiment to life – and made a surprising discovery. Their technique involved cooling atoms of rubidium down to within a hair's breadth of absolute zero. (Cold atoms have long wavelengths, which make their interference patterns easier to observe.) Then they split a beam of the atoms using thin barriers of pure laser light. When the two beams were combined, they created the familiar double-slit interference pattern. Next, Rempe and his colleagues looked to see which path the atoms followed. The atoms going down one path were left alone, but those on the other path were nudged into a higher energy state by a pulse of microwaves (short wavelength radio waves). Following this treatment, the atoms, in their internal states, carried a record of which way they'd gone. The crucial factor in this version of the double-slit experiment is that the microwaves have hardly any momentum of their own, so they can cause virtually no change to the atom's momentum – nowhere near enough to smear out the interference pattern. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle can't possibly play a significant hand in the outcome. Yet with the microwaves turned on so that we can tell which way the atoms went, the interference pattern suddenly vanishes. Bohr had argued that when such a pattern is lost, it happens because a measuring device gives random kicks to the particles. But there aren't any random kicks to speak of in the rubidium atom experiment; at most, the microwaves deliver momentum taps ten thousand times too small to destroy the interference bands. Yet, destroyed the bands are. It isn't that the uncertainty principle is proved wrong, but there's no way it can account for the results. The only reason momentum kicks seemed to explain the classic double slit experiment discussed by Bohr and Einstein turns out to be a fortunate conspiracy of numbers. There's a mechanism at work far deeper than random jolts and uncertainty. What destroys the interference pattern is the very act of trying to get information about which paths is followed. In the end, we are right back where we started. The explanatory gap argument doesn't demonstrate a gap in nature, but a gap in our understanding of nature. Of course a plausible explanation for there being a gap in our understanding of nature is that there is a genuine gap in nature. But so long as we have countervailing reasons for doubting the latter, we have to look elsewhere for an explanation of the former. - Joseph Levine's paper Conceivability, Identity, and the Explanatory Gap. Erwin Schrödinger - The sensation of colour cannot be accounted for by the physicist's objective picture of light-waves. Could the physiologist account for it, if he had fuller knowledge than he has of the processes in the retina and the nervous processes set up by them in the optical nerve bundles and in the brain? I do not think so. He continues on to remark that subjective experiences do not form a one-to-one correspondence with stimuli. For example, light of wavelength in the neighborhood of 590 nm produces the sensation of yellow, whereas exactly the same sensation is produced by mixing red light, with wavelength 760 nm, with green light, at 535 nm. From this he concludes that there is no "numerical connection with these physical, objective characteristics of the waves" and the sensations they produce. This shows that there is a clear gap in the understanding of our nature and that gap is due to our lack of knowledge about the qualia, since it is non-physical, science and its current positivist approach will never be able to understand the qualia and hence an appeal to scientific authority can be rised when scientists hold on to scientism preventing free thinking and a different possible road to reality which might give us a complete understanding of nature and the world around us. And there are methods given by some Religion which guide us to experience new qualia, one can not measure qualia, one has to experience them. We all are in a kind of Mary's room and we don't have that knowledge of God and the exact nature of time, space and matter. Religion provides us a means through which we can come out of that room and guides us to have experiential knowledge. No true religious mystic will ever say that God(s) can be seen in the observable world.We call them the enlightened ones because they have access to the quale of God and that is the kind of knowledge they claim to have. Define God God(s) is/are a quale and it is universal. This means that everything which exists and real is a quale. God, time, space and matter are all qualia and the methods provided in my OP guide us to have experiential knowledge and through it one can know the exact nature of things as it "is", the kind of knowledge which science will never be to provide us. The thought experiment of Mary's room has two purposes. First, it is intended to show that qualia exist. If we agree with the thought experiment, we believe that Mary gains something after she leaves the room—that she acquires knowledge of a particular thing that she did not possess before. That knowledge, Jackson argues, is knowledge of the quale that corresponds to the experience of seeing red, and it must thus be conceded that qualia are real properties, since there is a difference between a person who has access to a particular quale and one who does not. Edited January 28, 2012 by immortal
John Cuthber Posted January 28, 2012 Posted January 28, 2012 "Good question. Yes there is something that science will never be able to explain it is called as Qualia(Universals). Qualia are aspects of our perception that don't exist in the external world, for example:- Colours, tastes, pain etc." Taste exists because there are sensors on our tongues that respond to materials such as salt or sugar. A more detailed explanation would include the nature of the receptor proteins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAS1R3 It would also cover how that information is sent to the brain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_nervous_system#G1_.28gustatory_-_taste.29 The brains reaction to those signals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reward_system And our emotional response to that. As yet, science does not fully explain taste, but it seems to me to be most of the way there. This excerpt shows that you have not fully understood my point. "The point is our current understanding of Brain biochemistry doesn't provide any mechanisms what so ever to simulate the qualitative aspects of pain and other similar subjective experiences." Neuroscientists are working on the details of synasthesia. The current working hypothesis is that it is due to crosstalk between areas of the brain. I have checked some of the references you have given and none of them seems to me to indicate that there are things that science won't explain. So, once again I ask, what is there that science will never explain?
immortal Posted January 28, 2012 Author Posted January 28, 2012 I think the question or argument of the method of science against the method of religion for understanding reality is a poor one, not because of anything inherently implausible about such a question of alternate methods for understanding reality but rather because religion doesn't have a methodology. Further, the knowledge that religion does give to our species is, in the most part, contradictory to the knowledge that another method, a method that, to date, "has" given very workable knowledge to our species. That method happens to have the name of science. We gave it this name so the connotations that the name has for certain people are mostly irrelevant. You may like to read the following book for some relatively recent knowledge on the "why religion" question. http://www.amazon.co...27604627&sr=8-1 Or even this youtube video for a quick take on it. Edit: wrong video I think we are at the precipice where the conflicts between science and religion has reached a tipping point with two clear distinct contradictory worldviews and there is scope for only one worldview, either science reduces the phenomena of consciousness and every other phenomena using its reductionist approach or consciousness will turn out be the main constituent part of the universe requiring non-physical entities which means that science and scientific models will be a sub-case just like how Newtons Laws of Motion emerges as a sub-case of Einstein's General theory of Relativity. I don't want to have any bias towards only one worldview and completely rejecting the other., I am quite happy which ever worldview wins out in the end but its very important to educate people about the worldviews and arguments held by people who are on the other side against your worldview. Professor reveals why we believe in God(s) I would be very delighted if professor Andy Thomsan could model the experiences and psychology of mystics rather than attacking religion which is not the main cause of the problem or the main reason for why people believe in a God. True theists don't believe in God just because other people believe in God, they don't believe in God just for the sake that they want to believe in God, they believe in God because they have experiential knowledge of God, that's where the main problem is, that's what evolutionary psychology has to model and not give a set of mechanisms which shows why we are vulnerable to believe in God(s), the problem and the issue is quite at large. The question is very clear is it From science to God or from God to science. From Science to God - Peter Russell The anamoly of Consciousness, pg 29 Yet whatever idea is put forward, one thorny question remains unanswered: How can something as immaterial as consciousness ever arise from something as unconscious as matter? The continued failure of these approaches to make any appreciable headway into solving this problem suggests they may all be on the wrong track. They are all based on the assumption that consciousness emerges from, or is dependent upon, the physical world of space, time, and matter. In one way or another, they are attempting to accommodate the anomaly of consciousness within a worldview that is intrinsically materialist. As happened with the medieval astronomers who kept adding more and more epicycles to explain the anamalous motions of the planets, the underlying assumptions are seldom, if ever, questioned. I now believe that rather than trying to explain consciousness in terms of the material world, we should be developing a new worldview in which consciousness is a fundamental component of reality. The key ingredients for this new metaparadigm are already in place. We need not wait for any new discoveries. All we need to do is put various pieces of our existing knowledge together and explore the new picture of reality that emerges. Prayer, pg 97 ..... Once I've been caught by a fearful perception, I'm seldom aware there could even be another way of seeing things. I think my reality is the only reality. Sometimes, however, I recognize there could be another way of seeing things, but I don't know what it is. I can't make shift on my own; I need help. But where do I go for help? Other people are likely to be caught in this thought system as I am. The place to go for help is deep within, to that level of consciousness that lies beyond the materialistic mindset -- to the God within. I have to ask God for help. I have to pray. When I pray in this way, I am not asking for divine intervention by an external God. I am praying to the divine presence within, to my true self. Moreover, I am not praying for the world to be different than it is. I am asking divine intervention where it really counts -- in the mindsets that govern my thinking. -- Peter Russell From Science to God. A Physicist's Journey into the Mystery of Consciousness. Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff tried desperately to reduce the concept of qualia using microtubules, Objective Reduction of wavefunction and the twistor theory but it doesn't solve the hard-problem of consciousness. As yet, science does not fully explain taste, but it seems to me to be most of the way there. Neuroscientists are working on the details of synasthesia. The current working hypothesis is that it is due to crosstalk between areas of the brain. To know in which way Brain research is heading this seems to be very good link - Beyond the Brain - National Geographic As for synasthesia, all that neurologists can do is put those individuals in a MRI scan and detect which parts of the Brain are under activity but they cannot give the biochemistry mechanism to produce such experiences of tastes. For example blind people understand and process language by touching the words through their fingers amazingly even the visual-cortex area of the brain is found to show some activity even though it doesn't recieve any sensory information through one's eyes but this is not enough to show colours to blind people and hence they lack such knowledge and their understanding is incomplete. Taste exists because there are sensors on our tongues that respond to materials such as salt or sugar. A more detailed explanation would include the nature of the receptor proteins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAS1R3 It would also cover how that information is sent to the brain http://en.wikipedia....tory_-_taste.29 The brains reaction to those signals http://en.wikipedia....i/Reward_system And our emotional response to that. This excerpt shows that you have not fully understood my point. "The point is our current understanding of Brain biochemistry doesn't provide any mechanisms what so ever to simulate the qualitative aspects of pain and other similar subjective experiences." Can science simulate the subjective experience of tastes, pain and other qualia using a neural network as neural network is designed based on the model of Brain or does it end up in creating philosophical zombies who don't feel anything internally.? I have checked some of the references you have given and none of them seems to me to indicate that there are things that science won't explain. So, once again I ask, what is there that science will never explain? Can science explain the ontological nature of time, space and matter which seems to have much relevance as we penetrate more into the depths of nature? With out such an explanation the knowledge given by science is incomplete. It is better for science not to make claims for which it cannot give credible answers. Scientists can hold on to scientism once they've answered all questions but not before that and there should be room for new ways of thinking about this world. A new scientific truth does not truimph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die. -- Max Planck Only time will decide which worldviews will eventually die and which will succeed, the light will illuminate their minds.
John Cuthber Posted January 28, 2012 Posted January 28, 2012 (edited) "Can science simulate the subjective experience of tastes, pain and other qualia using a neural network as neural network is designed based on the model of Brain or does it end up in creating philosophical zombies who don't feel anything internally.?" Who cares, and why do they care? I could, for example, set up some theoretical model and run a computer program that simulates that model. It could tell me if a given molecule is sweet or not. There's already a simplistic model http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetness#Historical_theories_of_sweetness and it works quite well. If you want to call that model a zombie, that's fine by me but it doesn't answer my question. "Can science explain the ontological nature of time, space and matter which seems to have much relevance as we penetrate more into the depths of nature? With out such an explanation the knowledge given by science is incomplete." Not yet, but they are working on it. Unless you can show that they will not and can not succeed you have not answered my question. "It is better for science not to make claims for which it cannot give credible answers. " The commonest claim from scientists is "We think it's so and so, but more study is needed" "Scientists can hold on to scientism once they've answered all questions but not before that and there should be room for new ways of thinking about this world." That seems to be self defeating. If you don't hold that all things are amenable to investigation then you don't investigate them. If you don't investigate then you don't find the explanations. So, once again, what things are there that need a new way of thinking? Edited January 28, 2012 by John Cuthber
Vent Posted January 28, 2012 Posted January 28, 2012 I think we are at the precipice where the conflicts between science and religion has reached a tipping point with two clear distinct contradictory worldviews and there is scope for only one worldview, either science reduces the phenomena of consciousness and every other phenomena using its reductionist approach or consciousness will turn out be the main constituent part of the universe requiring non-physical entities which means that science and scientific models will be a sub-case just like how Newtons Laws of Motion emerges as a sub-case of Einstein's General theory of Relativity. Snip... To address what i think was the central idea of your post you're arguing for and assuming the primacy of consciousness, yes? Since the opposite of this idea is the primacy of existence this idea states that a consciousness can not only be conscious of nothing (in the literal, platonic sense, if you will), but actually have existence without existence. On a different note, let's assume that these non-physical entities (souls?), exist for the moment. How is it that a non-physical entity can interact with a physical entity? Consciousness must have a physical explanation because its manifestation and product is physical.
Essay Posted January 29, 2012 Posted January 29, 2012 To address what i think was the central idea of your post you're arguing for and assuming the primacy of consciousness, yes? Since the opposite of this idea is the primacy of existence this idea states that a consciousness can not only be conscious of nothing (in the literal, platonic sense, if you will), but actually have existence without existence. On a different note, let's assume that these non-physical entities (souls?), exist for the moment. How is it that a non-physical entity can interact with a physical entity? Consciousness must have a physical explanation because its manifestation and product is physical. Maybe a non-physical entity couldn't interact with the physical; but if it generated the physical, then it could enjoy the perception of what it beholds. === At the risk of confusing consciousness with self-consciousness.... Our 4 dimensional reality (matter/energy in spacetime) seems to be derived from a higher dimensional "immaterial" reality. So perhaps consciousness could exist there, "elsewhere," before material existence. Our 4 dimensions may just be the expression of the consciousness within those "higher" dimensions. Or perhaps consciousness is one of those higher dimensions, or an emergent property of those 8 (or 11?) fundamental (those "higher") dimensions ...of string theories. === So consciousness could generate matter/energy, so that then self-consciousness could emerge as a phenomenon to behold the beholder. [...or "if/then" words to that effect] ~
John Cuthber Posted January 29, 2012 Posted January 29, 2012 (edited) Incidenatlly,this quote Erwin Schrödinger - The sensation of colour cannot be accounted for by the physicist's objective picture of light-waves. Could the physiologist account for it, if he had fuller knowledge than he has of the processes in the retina and the nervous processes set up by them in the optical nerve bundles and in the brain? I do not think so. He continues on to remark that subjective experiences do not form a one-to-one correspondence with stimuli. For example, light of wavelength in the neighborhood of 590 nm produces the sensation of yellow, whereas exactly the same sensation is produced by mixing red light, with wavelength 760 nm, with green light, at 535 nm. From this he concludes that there is no "numerical connection with these physical, objective characteristics of the waves" and the sensations they produce. rather illustrates my point. At that time (about 1920) even a great scientist like Schrödinger couldn't figure out the relation between the properties of light and the perceived colour. Now we can: if you give me the spectrum and circumstances, I can tell you what colour it will be seen as. Because we didn't choose to say "we don't know, it must be un knowable, we will give up; but rather we said "we don't know so we will keep looking because we assume that we can know- if we take the time to study it", we now understand it. Edited January 29, 2012 by John Cuthber
Vent Posted January 29, 2012 Posted January 29, 2012 Maybe a non-physical entity couldn't interact with the physical; but if it generated the physical, then it could enjoy the perception of what it beholds. That's an interesting take. It could be as though consciousness gave rise to our universe in order that it may have the opportunity to experience perception on a more, how shall i say, delicate scale. Although our detached knowledge of this purpose would seem to be counterproductive
immortal Posted January 29, 2012 Author Posted January 29, 2012 (edited) To address what i think was the central idea of your post you're arguing for and assuming the primacy of consciousness, yes? Since the opposite of this idea is the primacy of existence this idea states that a consciousness can not only be conscious of nothing (in the literal, platonic sense, if you will), but actually have existence without existence. On a different note, let's assume that these non-physical entities (souls?), exist for the moment. How is it that a non-physical entity can interact with a physical entity? Consciousness must have a physical explanation because its manifestation and product is physical. If Consciousness is found to be a fundamental property or a main constituent of the universe then there is no such thing as physical, everything that exists will be a qualia and only they are real and the world is brought about by the interaction of these non-physical qualia and not by interaction between a non-physical entity and a physical quantity. What I mean to say is that the world of science and its models only exist and models our perceptions in our minds and mass, charge, position, space, time and other categories are ideological concepts that exist in our minds and not in the external physical world. A better way to comprehend this is the distinction of phenomenon and noumenon as formulated by Immanuel Kant. Kantian Philosophy Grolier encyclopedia Kant calls the contribution of the mind a "category." He distinguishes four groups of categories by which the contents of experience are ordered: quantity, quality, relation, and modality. Examples of specific categories within these groups are space, time, causality, and substance. These categories are contentless and only prescribe the structure for objects of possible experience. Space, for example, is not something external to us but a structure in the mind that relates objects to one another. The active contribution of the mind gives meaning to the external material of experience. Whether things really are the way they appear to us is something we can never know, for all our knowledge comes prestructured through the filter of the mind. This is the basis for Kant's famous distinction between the unknowable noumenon, or thing-in-itself, and the phenomenon, or thing-as-it-appears. Kant held that synthetic a priori judgments were possible in mathematics and physics but not in metaphysics. Thus he thought it a mistake for metaphysicians to attempt to go beyond sense experience in order to define concepts like God, freedom, or the immortal soul. All theoretical knowledge consists in applying the categories to perceptual material located in space and time, and these concepts lie outside the spatiotemporal categories. Such ideas have, for Kant, an indispensable function. Whereas most concepts have a "constitutive" function (they classify experience), concepts like God, freedom, or soul have a "regulative" function: they guide us toward certain goals useful for science and ethics. They are held "as if" they were true. However Kant was not aware that we can access new qualia and gain new knowledge about the metaphysical entities and hence he rejected metaphysics completely saying that such a metaphysical knowledge was impossible because he believed all knowledge had to come only through the sense organs and what I am arguing is that there are speicifc methods through which we can access new qualia and gain experiential knowledge such a God, exact nature of time, space and matter and even soul. Therefore only qualia are real. Edited January 29, 2012 by immortal
Essay Posted January 29, 2012 Posted January 29, 2012 That's an interesting take. It could be as though consciousness gave rise to our universe in order that it may have the opportunity to experience perception on a more, how shall i say, delicate scale. Thanks; it was a hard idea to put into words, but your description captures what I was shooting for.... Although our detached knowledge of this purpose would seem to be counterproductive I'm not sure whether to read "detached knowledge" as lacking, or objective, or subjective, or other sort of knowledge; but whichever it is, I also don't see how this would be, or to what it would be, counterproductive. But re: the OP, I think science is a good tool for understanding the material world, but science is not a good ideology (or -ism) on which to base critiques of philosophy or religion/spirituality. I'd also think that confusing science with scientism, as well as confusing spirituality with religion, leads to more misunderstandings than the perceived dichotomy in worldviews actually warrants. ~imho )
immortal Posted January 29, 2012 Author Posted January 29, 2012 I'm glad you explained that you are not speaking of an anthropomorphized source of extraordinary altruism. It seems there may even be room for a "natural" source, contingent upon how natural is defined, I suppose.... Yes I do accept the fact that Kin selection or inclusive fitness and reciprocal altruism can account for the altruistic behaviours displayed by social animals and humans are indeed social animals no matter how high their level of intelligence and advanced their cultures are. It seems to me that humans are something special and inherently different when it comes to evading the logical choice of the pre-programmed behaviours in the Brain and to choose a different set of altruistic behaviours which are performed only to please a higher authority which doesn't provide any help in the increase of reproductive fitness of its individuals who display such behaviours and I believe this mainly due to our higher level of intelligence which helps us to question our very own existence and to come out of a simulation simulated by the selfish genes in the Brain. This interesting article Touching plants in the field shows that even plants and animals might have feelings and have an inner anthropomorphic subjective life which can be questionable but they don't have enough intelligence to question their very own existence. To immortal: I'm not sure about --or if it matters now-- how evolution has shaped us psychologically; but however we got here, I don't see why "evolutionary psychology" can't motivate all the humane qualities of "godliness" that you so nicely listed above. It is because the two major forces natural selection and cultural evolution can only account for behaviours which can evolve and passed on to future generations because they provided or aided in the increase of our reproductive fitness and it is for that reason those memes and genes are respectively accumulated and thrives in the meme and the gene pools but the problem is there are specific memes in the meme pool which have existed for thousands of years which doesn't offer reproductive value in any way and yet cultural evolution has failed to keep a check on it. With just a little education.... From a scientific perspective, looking at the long evolutionary path to get here --and all the biochemical luck and skill and struggle and strain, and the endurance and dreams of our ancestors-- motivates me to make a connection of some sort which validates that long effort. The grandeur of the 3 Big Bangs (Existence, Life, Self-Awareness) and how those now bring us to this peak of knowledge and humanity --which allows us to see from the beginning to the end of time, as well as the infinitely small and large-- is enough to motivate me to be more humane... so that future generations may also enjoy this heaven on earth --our domain-- His biogeochemosphere. ...or however you might define the biogeochemosphere. Unfortunately we don't have complete answers as to how the three Big Bangs(Existence, Life, Self-Awareness) happened and the answers to those questions will drastically change our worldviews and the way we define "humane" behaviours. That's the point I was making. === I wrote the above notes several nights ago (re: thru post #87), and having read through the subsequent postings it still seemed valid. I'd like to add.... With religions (trying to maintain cohesiveness/continuity), sometimes weird rules arise, which conflict with "common-sense" humane relationships or natural laws. Similarly, governments (trying to maintain cohesiveness/continuity) also develop unique laws to address special circumstances, and so weird rules evolve--which can easily conflict with "common-sense" humane relationships or natural laws. Life is a balancing act; and maybe it is time to act. It's has only been a few hundred years since governments began replacing the cohesiveness and continuity functions of religions; maybe there is still room for improvement and action to seek better balance. === To know which morals are better for our society we need a complete understanding of the world around us and there will always be room for improvement, this was the important point which should have been discussed in the relevant thread but I was disappointed with the direction that thread took starting from its first few replies. immortal... Aren't you just defining a sort of "super" alturism, which logically would emerge as a result of belonging to some "super-organism" such as a society? Look at the longer term (or psychologically contrived) ideological motivations to explain such seeming disconnects with reciprocity. ...or words to that effect.... === Here is an interesting article Are Humans still evolving? which shows how environmental and genetic factors affect reproductive fitness in women. Interestingly it is found out that Roman Catholic women have 20% higher reproductive fitness compared to women of other religions and it was found out that university women had lesser reproductive fitness. Therefore I do acknowledge the role of religions in increasing the reproductive fitness of humans but once those ideological religious motivations are taken very seriously that's where the problem begins, for example:- some women might be determined that they're going to remain as virgin through out their life just because they feel that the proposal of their mate didn't come from a divine God. It is these kind of ideological motivations or memes which are learnt by members in a society which hinder their reproductive fitness and they are many examples similar to the above one. As Arete mentioned (iirc): What does it matter from whence the source of humane, "Real," altruistic or good (natural laws) behviour emerges? ...& This is where the problem lies, it does matter from where the source of humane, "Real," altruistic or good behaviours emerge from because the choice or the decision that I will take in a particular situation will depend on whether our morals were pre-programmed by selfish genes so that I will choose to act in a way which will increase my inclusive fitness or I will completely behave with a conscious non-selfish intent to perform an act which pleases God or a higher authority and not an act to please anyone else or to please other people who make judgements upon me. Atheists and theists choose to behave differently on specific circumstances. This seems like the sort of opportunity to re-examine how "good" is derived from and defined by those natural laws, since this new information relates to many socio-economic and resource problems/goals currently on humanity's "good/bad" radar. Athena's nicely quotable, "...it does not become a moral, until we define it." ...got me thinking about that old phrase, "for the good of society." Just like there are no absolute universal bad genes there is no such thing as good universal morals or bad universal morals, for example:- It is wrong for Jews to perform Idol worship and they have to worship only one God where as Hindus can worship thousands of God. Therefore morals are not defined by humans. Morals are set up and given by God which should be followed in a particular place or country, on specific circumstances and in a particluar point in time. Whether you place your actions based on a moral system given by a higher authority or you go by your own moral system or a moral system given by the government is left to you.
Vent Posted January 29, 2012 Posted January 29, 2012 I'm not sure whether to read "detached knowledge" as lacking, or objective, or subjective, or other sort of knowledge; but whichever it is, I also don't see how this would be, or to what it would be, counterproductive. I assumed that the consciousness that started our universe done so for the purpose of experiencing the universe on our scale (or that of other perceivers), so being detached from this initial consciousness, and/or not knowing about its existence or intent, would seem counterproductive to the initial intent, because having knowledge of this initial intent would allow us to follow paths and find experiences conducive to this initial intent, as opposed to not knowing and therefore maybe not following our purpose in being here in the first place. That sounds convoluted but it portrays what i wanted to say. This discussion is beyond my knowledge so count me out anyway. I'll just read it.
PeterJ Posted January 30, 2012 Posted January 30, 2012 (edited) I am amazed that anyone would think that the natural sciences are able to explain the world completely. Most of the scientists I read believe otherwise. I'm with Paul Davies and Heisenberg on this one. The parts that cannot be explained within the natural sciences fall into metaphysics/ontology/psychology/consciousness studies etc. Yes, of course meuroscientists claim they will one day solve the consciousness problem within their science, but this is only those who don't (or won't) understand philosophy, where it can be shown that they are wrong. As Chalmers has argued, in respect of consciousness (qualia etc) the natural sciences must settle for a nonreductive theory (he suggests 'naturalistic dualism'). If more can be known it must be known by other methods. Immortal makes some excellent points here, imho. As it happens we disagree about God's existence, and also about the existence of anything else, but at least we agree that it is no better to dismiss God on a whim than it is to belive in Him on a whim. As noted previously, many people believe in God due to their experiences, and not because of peer pressure or words in books. But Buddhists and their like would say that this is misinterpreted meditative experience, and that with further progress comes the realisation that there is no God, only the Absolute, and this is all that would be truly real. This may or may not be true, but it does at least confuse the issues. We must remember that many Christians and Muslims have been executed horribly for suggesting that the Buddhist view is correct. Religion can explain altruism perfectly well without God, (Schopenhauer etc) and it is only when God is introduced that it becomes difficult. This is because it is very difficult to find a definition for God that survives logical analysis, and any theory which takes Him as an axiom will therefore run into logical problems. Take Him out of the picture and replace Him with Tao or Nibbana and suddenly there are no logical problems. From this we see that to argue against religion means taking on a number of different worldviews, and not just our own idea of what religion is. At any rate, I strongly agree with immortal that we should be able to discuss these things while leaving God's existence as an open question. Edited January 30, 2012 by PeterJ -1
ydoaPs Posted January 31, 2012 Posted January 31, 2012 (edited) It shouldn't seem odd that Empirical Science would be based on empiricism. Since all of the data we have from which we can understand the universe comes from our senses and extensions of our senses, we are obviously limited to senses and their extensions as our foundation of knowledge. All of our senses and their extensions are based on interactions. This means all we can possibly know about things is how they interact and how what we can deduce and/or infer from said interactions. If you've read any real philosophy you'd know this and you'd know that any "essence" of things beyond how they appear to us via interaction are forever beyond the reach of human reason. All we can possibly know about something is from how it behaves with other things, so for our purposes, that IS what it is. It IS what interacts in certain manners. This is what physics does; physics tells us how things interact. It does so in a language mindbogglingly with more precision than English, Russian, Arabic, or any other natural language could ever hope to have. Physics, and the mathematics in which it is written, provides us with the best ontology possible. As I've said above, all of our knowledge of the universe is via the senses. We map the universe from how the universe appears to us via our senses. We use these observations to build our models. In philosophy, your arguments are based on premises that are derived from other arguments, observed, induced from observations, or assumed. Bad philosophy uses assumed premises. In good philosophy, you can trace it all back to that which comes to us from our senses. When an area of philosophy gets sufficiently good, we call it "science". Science is the perfection of philosophy. If we can have knowledge of it (remember that all knowledge traces back to observation), then it is within the scope of science. If science can't answer a question, why on God's green Earth do you think making stuff up could do any better? Some people say that questions of "why" or of "purpose" or of "morality" are outside the bounds of science. I say that they are wrong. As why is a question of intent of a causal agent, "why" is a silly question to ask if there's no causal agent. Purpose is similar, though it is not quite the same. With purpose, you can divide into the intended purpose (which is roughly synonymous with the "why") and actualized purpose (which is how it is used). There are two main ways of answering these questions and both are scientific. One way phenomenologically and the other is behaviourally; We either ask the intentional agent and/or we observe it and it's interactions with the byproducts of the causal event. If there is no overall intended purpose due to a lack of a causal agent, that does not mean there is no actualized purpose. If there is no purpose from gods, then there is still purpose from humanity; your purpose is up to you. So too with questions of morality, science gives us the answer for a given value set. As every ethical system is merely what one ought to do in order to achieve a desired outcome (be that being in accordance with what one believes to be revealed divine statutes, minimizing harm, complying with a categorical imperative, etc), I'd say science is the best tool we have for the job! The scope of science may be limited, but it is limited in the same way that all of human reason is. "Scientism" is the pejorative those who believe in magic give to Empiricism so they can pretend making stuff up is on equal footing with Science. Edited January 31, 2012 by ydoaPs
immortal Posted January 31, 2012 Author Posted January 31, 2012 "Can science simulate the subjective experience of tastes, pain and other qualia using a neural network as neural network is designed based on the model of Brain or does it end up in creating philosophical zombies who don't feel anything internally.?" Who cares, and why do they care? I could, for example, set up some theoretical model and run a computer program that simulates that model. It could tell me if a given molecule is sweet or not. There's already a simplistic model http://en.wikipedia....es_of_sweetness and it works quite well. If you want to call that model a zombie, that's fine by me but it doesn't answer my question. Sweet molecules? Molecules are not sweet. What molecules do is that they attach themselves with receptor proteins present in cells of the sense organs or at specific binding sites and there by inducing a conformational change in the specific receptor protein which will aid in the opening of ion gates and there by igniting an action potential which will take the input signal through the neurological pathways for higher processing at synaptic junctions. The input signals are weighted and a new output signal is fired from a neuron and it will pass through the motor neurons which will contract and relax the actin and myosin filaments in the muscles helping us to talk, walk and type the keys of our keyboard. Can you tell me where the processing of sweetness is being done here? When someone asks me, "How was the cookie, immortal?" I will reply as "Yes, it was sweet and delicious". From where I am getting this extra bit of knowledge of sweetness?, I care and why the hell I am experiencing sweetness, why doesn't it all go in the dark as Chalmers argues. Therefore if science cannot explain it then the knowledge given by science is incomplete. It's not fine at all. Me :"Can science explain the ontological nature of time, space and matter which seems to have much relevance as we penetrate more into the depths of nature? With out such an explanation the knowledge given by science is incomplete." Not yet, but they are working on it. Unless you can show that they will not and can not succeed you have not answered my question. According to the positivist approach of science what scientific models map is the phenomena of things, what this means is that science is not mapping the actual physical world or the main objective world what science is mapping is the Kantian categories and their mathematical relationships that exist only in our minds and all our observations agree because those categories are universals. What knowledge is complete if it doesn't give us a way to know the nature of the physical system which we are investigating in. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is not a basic rule of the objective world, it is an another limitation on the relationships of categories in our minds, it is not a problem of nature and hence if we really have to know the nature of existence of physical time, physical space and physical matter then we need to map the actual physical world. This is the reason why I insisted that our positivist approach cannot give us a complete understanding of the world around us. We can only map the actual physical or the objective world if and only if we come out of the mary's room which we all are subjected to and access new quale of knowledge. i.e the quale of physical time, space and matter. Science's best use is to answer questions like "what time it is now" but it fails miserably to answer questions like What time IS? or What space IS? what is their basic stuff? Is there a one to one correspondance between the world of phenomena as it appears and the world of noumena the things in themselves? As ydoaps clearly mentioned all scientific knowledge is based on the sense organs and if you don't come out of the mary's room then science will never ever know the ontological nature of time, space and matter. Me: "It is better for science not to make claims for which it cannot give credible answers. " The commonest claim from scientists is "We think it's so and so, but more study is needed" "Scientists can hold on to scientism once they've answered all questions but not before that and there should be room for new ways of thinking about this world." That seems to be self defeating. If you don't hold that all things are amenable to investigation then you don't investigate them. If you don't investigate then you don't find the explanations. I am not saying that science should give up investigation, what I am saying is that science should look into the world of qualia rather than smashing atoms in huge particle accelerators, it should shift its scope of investigation. So, once again, what things are there that need a new way of thinking? There are a lot of things which require a new way of thinking and I have already given you some fair points, also why is that humans have the ability to solve problems for which no algorithm exists, if Brain is an analog computer then there is no way it could solve such problems. We need new way of thinking, we need new science.
PeterJ Posted January 31, 2012 Posted January 31, 2012 (edited) It shouldn't seem odd that Empirical Science would be based on empiricism. Since all of the data we have from which we can understand the universe comes from our senses and extensions of our senses, we are obviously limited to senses and their extensions as our foundation of knowledge. I don't think it's so obvious. First it it is obvious that we have knowledge that does not come from our senses, e.g cogito, and second, our senses do not give us knowledge, they give us electro-chemical signals. Edited January 31, 2012 by PeterJ
ydoaPs Posted January 31, 2012 Posted January 31, 2012 we have knowledge that does not come from our senses We do? Care to give examples? 1
PeterJ Posted February 1, 2012 Posted February 1, 2012 (edited) The example I gave was cogito. It is not the evidence of our senses that causes the problem of consciousness. If we call the mind a sense, as Buddhists do, then I'd have to find a different example. Edited February 1, 2012 by PeterJ
ydoaPs Posted February 1, 2012 Posted February 1, 2012 The example I gave was cogito. The traditional view of cognition would disagree with you as thought is the combination of representations within the consciousness. It always traces back to sensory data.
PeterJ Posted February 5, 2012 Posted February 5, 2012 (edited) You would be unable prove that. If you could you would have solved the problem of consiousness and falsified solipsism at the same time, the latter being demonstrably unfalsifiable. It may be your opinion, but it doesn't stack up logically. Descartes chose cogito precisely because an evil demon could not be confusing his physical senses, since it would be true even if his senses were confused. Edited February 5, 2012 by PeterJ
John Cuthber Posted February 5, 2012 Posted February 5, 2012 "Can you tell me where the processing of sweetness is being done here? " Certainly, it's roughly here " igniting an action potential which will take the input signal through the neurological pathways for higher processing at synaptic junctions. The input signals are weighted and a new output signal is fired from a neuron " The particular bunch of neurons that fire as a response to "sweetness" could, in principle be mapped out by fMRI or some such. "I am not saying that science should give up investigation, what I am saying is that science should look into the world of qualia rather than smashing atoms in huge particle accelerators, it should shift its scope of investigation. " Why do you think it isn't doing that? They are doing. That's one of the areas of research that fMRI and PET imaging are opening up for us. "There are a lot of things which require a new way of thinking and I have already given you some fair points," Not as far as I can see.
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