Scientism and how this worldview affects open discussions in the Philosophy and religious forums threads.

immortal · February 14, 2012

Immortal,

I can count the letters etc. in your post. I can do some maths along the lines of k ln(w).

I can calculate the entropy.

In short, I can make measurements on it.

I could also add entropy to it by randomly scrambling parts of it.

At some point it would become meaningless.

I can ascribe a measure of how much meaning it conveys by how much entropy I need to add etc.

A cheap joke here would be to say it was meaningless before I started, but I will resist that.

More importantly, I think you need to do more than simply state "meaning is not measurable", you need to show that it is actually true.

(otherwise the cheap joke is true)

OK, will do. It was Yockey's statement, he says meaning is non-measurable and I think that it is non-physical.

Normally in any engineering problem or even in a biological problem the main aim of a communication system is to simply reproduce the message from the encoder side to the decoder side. The meaning of the message is irrelevant and shanon's entropy doesn't address that.

For example:-

Suppose you have a set of building blocks, say the 24 alphabets of the english language and you choose a finite length of builiding blocks arranged in a linear fashion as your message, such a communication system will reproduce your message at the decoder side without giving any prevelance to the meaning of the message.

It will reproduce this --> "This is a science forum"

or this --> "Htad mi p iscnlce ufqor"

To a communication system both the messages are equivalent, the meaning of the message is irrelevant. One can measure the information content in both the messages by measuring the correlations with in the builiding blocks and if we can jumble up or choose the building blocks in some way to get a match we'll see that the information content in a meaningful message and the information content in a meaningless message are equal provided their message length are same.

--------------------------------| Met | Val | Arg | Trp | Thr | Leu | (E Frame)

G T T G A G G C T T G C G T T T A T G G T A C G C T G G A C T T T G. . . . . .

| val | Glu | Ala | Cys | val | Tyr | Gly | Thr | Leu | Asp | Phe | (D Frame)

The above nucleotide sequence is from the (phi)X174 virus which infects E. coli. A single gene encodes for two protein subunits since the same gene provides different binding sites for ribosomes. The frames are needed to fold the linear one dimensional array of amino acids into a three dimensional biospecific functional protein.

A G C T T T G A C A G G C T T A A C G G C T T T G C G T T G C A G G. . . . . . .

In the above sequence if we make sure that the RNA polymerase binding site and the ribosomal

binding site in the mRNA are at the right places then the bio-machinery will reproduce the message present in the nucleotide sequence but the protein produced is non-functional because it cannot be folded into a three dimensional structure and hence it doesn't have the specificity.

Hubert Yockey argues that such biomolecules with specificity or meaning have arrived or originated too soon in earth's history and hence the problem of origin of life is unsolvable to the scientific method since such specificity and meaning or complexity required to make life thrive cannot originate through a random walk in such a limited period of time as it is the case in the origin of life on earth.

I think that meaning is non-physical and it exists independently. The question is about the origin of "meaning" or origin of "specificity" in the natural world, as you said anyone can add noise to a channel and obscure the meaning of the message, you are not directly changing the meaning, what you're doing is that you're changing the material which represents the message.

This gives more support to the anthropomorphic view of the world.

"The origin of the forerunners is the main problem."

Not really. because they could have been truly bloody awful at their job so they could have been pretty much anything. That's the beauty of evolution- it just gets better.

The ribozymes of the RNA world are itself complex biomolecules which requires more time than the age of this universe to self organize itself through a random walk.

Hubert Yockey looks at living organisms from the mathematical aspect of it or from the information theory aspect of it which is purely based on mathematics and he gave an excellent insight as to what should be taught in schools. In every Evolution or Biology textbook I find that the author starts with the primordial soup and he gives a story as to how life might have originated on earth and it looks like a creation story with no evidence as to how it actually originated and therefore I think one has to accept that there is a problem and the real issue in hand has to be taught in schools. Most physicists think that evolution by natural selection is a type 2 science and hence creationists can easily babble about evolution and anyone can pile up a huge evidence and argue against evolution, General relativity doesn't face this problem, QM doesn't face this problem and I think a mathematical theory for living organisms is a necessity and it has to be given much credence.

Evolution and the origin of life are two separate problems. Darwin's theory of evolution is among the most well-established in science. However, information theory shows that the origin of life is unknowable by scientific methods and must be accepted as an axiom of biology.

As I showed in my book, Information Theory, Evolution and the Origin of Life (Cambridge University Press, 2005), there is no need for an ad hoc "Intelligent Designer" in the origin of life because the origin of life is unknowable through scientific methods and must therefore be accepted as an axiom of biology. (An axiom is an elementary fact that cannot be proved or derived from any other facts and therefore must be taken as a starting point.)

-- Hubert Yockey

". You're still finding it hard to distinguish redness from a photon, there is no such thing as a red photon, redness exist in the mind."

Utter bollocks. I don't have any difficulty with that distinction. It seem you just won't accept it.

I agree that, strictly speaking it is true- albeit not in the usual use of language- no photon is red. Not least, because, by the time the brain perceives it, the poton no longer exists.

"Redness" is a set of patterns in the neurons of the brain.

That pattern is a real physical thing in just the same way that a 700nm wavelength photon is a real thing.

As I pointed out, Mary could experience redness in a way which would let her recognise something as "red", even if no red photon had ever met her eye.

That's because "redness" is a thing that can be copied (in principle, but not in practice- yet!).

I have to ask you, is there any evidence that qualia are mere patterns in the brain? without that you cannot positively assert that "redness" is a physical thing or just a pattern in the Brain, if it was then we should have been able to copy that pattern and implement it in a neural network. It is better to say we don't know at this stage.

I'm quite happy with the idea of non overlapping magesteria. The problem is that, as far as I can tell, one of those realms is the empty set. (And religion is welcome to it, as long as it keeps out of the real world.)

Yes I agree with this one. It is better for science and religion to work in a non-overlapping environment and the professionals in either field can demand evidence when a conflict arises and deduce the nature and working of this universe.

Edited February 14, 2012 by immortal

Arete · February 14, 2012

Hubert Yockey argues that such biomolecules with specificity or meaning have arrived or originated too soon in earth's history and hence the problem of origin of life is unsolvable to the scientific method since such specificity and meaning or complexity required to make life thrive cannot originate through a random walk in such a limited period of time as it is the case in the origin of life on earth.

It's a misapplication of coalescent theory. http://en.wikipedia....alescent_theory . As anyone who's ever worked in pop gen or phylogenetics will tell you, the assumptions of Bayesian random walk analysis are violated if the locus/loci in question deviate from either Hardy Wienberg Equilibrium or a neutral model of selection. The claim that not enough generations have passed to achieve coalescence is made invalid as soon as a non-neutral model of selection is invoked. As has already been pointed out by others, selective models become applicable even at the inception of the machinery that would become life. In addition, I'd be very interested in how he made an estimation of the generation time of primordial proto-life forms, or replication thereof. To apply the argument in any more than a speculative sense, Yockey would have to support the assertion of neutral selection and give us an iea of how generation times were calculated.

As for DNA and genomes being abstract - we can decode DNA sequence by measuring the mass of each nucleotide with a mass spectrometer: http://www.sequenom....ray-analyzer-4/

Edited February 14, 2012 by Arete

immortal · February 14, 2012

It's a misapplication of coalescent theory. http://en.wikipedia....alescent_theory . As anyone who's ever worked in pop gen or phylogenetics will tell you, the assumptions of Bayesian random walk analysis are violated if the locus/loci in question deviate from either Hardy Wienberg Equilibrium or a neutral model of selection. The claim that not enough generations have passed to achieve coalescence is made invalid as soon as a non-neutral model of selection is invoked. As has already been pointed out by others, selective models become applicable even at the inception of the machinery that would become life. In addition, I'd be very interested in how he made an estimation of the generation time of primordial proto-life forms, or replication thereof. To apply the argument in any more than a speculative sense, Yockey would have to support the assertion of neutral selection and give us an iea of how generation times were calculated.

On one occassion he estimates the probability of the origin of the cytochrome c protein but I know that such an estimation is irrelevant to the origin of life scenario and since natural selection can easily account for the evolution of such a complex protein polymer.

The intruiging thing is, his estimates about the origin of the genetic code which he thinks is the main problem, he thinks natural selection is too slow to have assigned the codons to the amino acids. This is his estimations. Information theory, evolution and origin of life. Its in the content "Evolution of genetic code and its modern characteristics", I hope you can access it.

The main objection of Yockey is that there is no such thing as a code synthesis in any natural chemical process other than in living systems. The central dogma of molecular biology is that protein synthesis occurs based on a code which is self evident. This is his main objection.

Even if we get through all the problems that life faced in its beginning times.( For example:- The ribose sugar was itself not adequately found in the prebiotic earth before the origin of the ribozymes so how did ribozymes originated in the first place?) The problem of the origin of the genetic code is a major problem for modern science.

As for DNA and genomes being abstract - we can decode DNA sequence by measuring the mass of each nucleotide with a mass spectrometer: http://www.sequenom....ray-analyzer-4/

DNA is the material, Does position, mometum, mass, energy and other physical concepts actually exist in the external physical world is a different issue and its a philosophical problem which we don't know the answers yet and I doesn't want to say that DNA is abstract and make a positive assertion, it might sound silly but its still a possibility.

Genome is not DNA, its an abstract concept, infact one can scramble the whole genome, rearrange the correlations between the nucleotide bases and if you measure the information content in bits or bytes before the rearrangement and after the scramble of the genome, the information content will be the same in both occassions.

As I said earlied the decoder or the analyser will even decode the scrambled genome and give it to you because it is not concerned with the message that it is decoding. As you can you see such a decoded genome has no meaning or specificity but in terms of shanon, it is also a genuine possible message that can be communicated between the encoder and the decoder. The meaning of the message is irrelevant in the communication system.

Therefore one can accept that "meaning" or "specificity" has been accumulated in the Genome through the process of Natural selection but the problem is with the origin of the Genome, the problem is not even of the origin of the genetic code, the problem is with the origin of the genome, (i.e the origin of the meaningful functional specificity in biomolecules). The assignment or origin of the genetic code itself requires meaningful messages or specificity and therefore the problem of origin of life is more of a problem of origin of genome. It is this distinction or demaracation line which Yockey makes between non-living matter and living matter, living things have a Genome which cannot be seen in a physical machine or in any chemical system.

John Cuthber · February 14, 2012

"The ribozymes of the RNA world are itself complex biomolecules which requires more time than the age of this universe to self organize itself through a random walk."

So what?

Nobody knows what the original forerunners of DNA were.

I read some time ago that clay particles had been put forward as a suggestion.

Since RNA is more recent that whatever came before it, and is probably just one jump short of DNA, it's no shock that it's rather good at its job.

"I have to ask you, is there any evidence that qualia are mere patterns in the brain? "

Yes, and it's odd that you didn't notice it. The study of synaesthesia and the effect of the God helmet are supporting evidence, though not (yet) proof.

" if it was then we should have been able to copy that pattern and implement it in a neural network."

Thanks for reminding me. The way neural networks work is more evidence.

"It is better to say we don't know at this stage."

Yippee!

I knew we would agree on something.

Now, the original point was that you seemed to think that we should just shrug and accept that we didn't know. My point is that, while we can, we should try to find out.

You can call that "scientism" if you like, but I call it common sense.

"Genome is not DNA, its an abstract concept, infact one can scramble the whole genome, rearrange the correlations between the nucleotide bases and if you measure the information content in bits or bytes before the rearrangement and after the scramble of the genome, the information content will be the same in both occassions."

I don't think anyone said it was. In particular, when I said you could get it from the human genome project people, I didn't expect them to stick some DNA in an envelope. I expected them to send you the information (probably as a string of A's G's C's and T's).

PeterJ · February 15, 2012

"I have to ask you, is there any evidence that qualia are mere patterns in the brain? "
Yes, and it's odd that you didn't notice it. The study of synaesthesia and the effect of the God helmet are supporting evidence, though not (yet) proof.

" if it was then we should have been able to copy that pattern and implement it in a neural network."

Thanks for reminding me. The way neural networks work is more evidence.

Qualia are qualities. They are defined as not being patterns in the brain. Patterns in the brain would be neural correlates of qualia, not qualia. There is no evidence that qualia can be reduced to neural correlates and many researchers find it an incoherent idea. The whole point of the term' qualia' is to distinguish the phenomonon from patterns in the brain. We might believe that qualia are the outcome of patterns in the brain, and there is clearly a causal connection of some sort, but even if smoke is caused by fire they are not the same thing. It would be impossible in principle to show scientifically that we can create qualia in a neural network. It would be impossible to show that qualia even exist. To say that qualia are patterns in the brain is to make a category error.

Abiogenesis I know nothing about. But I always wonder why life only started once. This seems very strange to me.

Edited February 15, 2012 by PeterJ

immortal · February 15, 2012

Abiogenesis I know nothing about. But I always wonder why life only started once. This seems very strange to me.

Mitochondria have a slightly different code to synthesize its proteins and that shows that life might have started more than once but the problem is with the origin of the code.

"It is better to say we don't know at this stage."

Yippee!

I knew we would agree on something.

Now, the original point was that you seemed to think that we should just shrug and accept that we didn't know. My point is that, while we can, we should try to find out.

You can call that "scientism" if you like, but I call it common sense.

The main point of this thread was that many of them here are agnostic atheists, they niether say that God exists nor they say that God doesn't exist but they take a default position and say that there is no evidence or possibility for the existence of God.

In the same way there are agnostic theists here too who neither say that the existence of God is a scientific fact nor put their personal beliefs as absolute truths and they see the possibility for the existence of God and any metaphysical speculation whether it is of the existence of the anthropomorphic God(s) or of the existence of the unicorns both have equal merit and it should be allowed to openly discuss in the religious and philosophy forums and it should be tolerated as long as one doesn't put their beliefs as facts and I think this latter kind of discussions are not being allowed here. This was my main objection.

Ophiolite · February 15, 2012

Abiogenesis I know nothing about. But I always wonder why life only started once. This seems very strange to me.

Once it got started other potential 'sources' became foodstuff for the that first life.

John Cuthber · February 15, 2012

"but they take a default position and say that there is no evidence or possibility for the existence of God."

That's not a "default position" it's the sensible one.

Clearly there is no evidence for God (or at least, no convincing evidence) or we would believe it.

Also the bible rules out providing such evidence* so even the theists should agree with it.

* it's the "test not thy God thing.

Arete · February 17, 2012

On one occassion he estimates the probability of the origin of the cytochrome c protein but I know that such an estimation is irrelevant to the origin of life scenario and since natural selection can easily account for the evolution of such a complex protein polymer.

The intruiging thing is, his estimates about the origin of the genetic code which he thinks is the main problem, he thinks natural selection is too slow to have assigned the codons to the amino acids. This is his estimations. Information theory, evolution and origin of life. Its in the content "Evolution of genetic code and its modern characteristics", I hope you can access it.

This is kind of what I was trying to get at. Measuring the life history traits you'd need to make assumptions regarding to even come up with a model to test what he says he's tested is difficult enough that we simply don't have it for the vast majority of extant organisms, let alone extinct ones. Extrapolating back to the primordial soup and trying to pull numbers for selection, generation time, number of replicates, effective population size, mutation rates, clock rates, etc is pure science fiction. The error bars around his estimates are effectively infinite.

As far as the abstraction of the genome - I'm currently looking at both a photographed karyotype and a whole genome sequence from the same individual. The 11 chromosomes in front of me make up the nuclear genome of the organism in question. At the same time I have the WGS data displaying the sequences of nucleotides which comprise those chromosomes. A genome is word describing the collective genetic material of an organism/organelle and thus a description of a collection of physical objects...

immortal · February 18, 2012

This is kind of what I was trying to get at. Measuring the life history traits you'd need to make assumptions regarding to even come up with a model to test what he says he's tested is difficult enough that we simply don't have it for the vast majority of extant organisms, let alone extinct ones. Extrapolating back to the primordial soup and trying to pull numbers for selection, generation time, number of replicates, effective population size, mutation rates, clock rates, etc is pure science fiction. The error bars around his estimates are effectively infinite.

As far as the abstraction of the genome - I'm currently looking at both a photographed karyotype and a whole genome sequence from the same individual. The 11 chromosomes in front of me make up the nuclear genome of the organism in question. At the same time I have the WGS data displaying the sequences of nucleotides which comprise those chromosomes. A genome is word describing the collective genetic material of an organism/organelle and thus a description of a collection of physical objects...

The thing that bothers me is that is there a one-to-one correspondence or one-to-one mapping between the physical objects that we see and the objects that actually exists in the external physical world. This is the main problem.

The external physical world might very well be made up of just five elements as described in major religions i.e Fire, water, earth, air and space. This would mean that all the distinct elements that we see exist only in our minds and our scientific models might just describe the relationship of these elements which exist solely in our minds.

To make you grasp what I am saying. Let us suppose we supply oxygen to a patient who is suffering from a breathing problem and we will find that the patient is recovering from his severe condition and we believe that oxygen exist in the physical objective world because we have observed its effect on the human body and in the same way if we supply a poisonous gas to the same patient we observe that the patient is suffocating and soon it will lead to the death of the patient and we believe that the poisonous gas too exist in the physical world.

If the world is made up of a single "air" entity then oxygen or any other poisonous gas don't really exist in the actually physical world. If the human body too is made up of just five elements then this would mean that when a patient dies due to intoxication from a poisonous gas he just dies in our minds but he is still very much alive with a body made up of just five elements. Its just our minds make those physical things described by science appear as real. So obviously the scientific models will be consistent with our observations and predictions but it cannot give the actual nature of the external physical world. So we are not manipulating nature in any way, the nature is made up of just five elements, all that we are manipulating are just the way things appear to our minds, the only things we know of.

Everyone don't see the human body in the same way, some of them who practice traditional ayurveda and qigong use a different model of the body, they didn't knew about DNA, they didn't knew anything about most of what molecular biology had discovered about the human body. They just see the human body as made up of just five elements and therefore their model is different and they don't see the human body like the way a homeopathic does and yet their medicines still work and some do take a course on ayurveda and it is still being taught in universities.

So as Feyerabend says all cultures and all traditions stands on their own and the reality given by science is not the only reality, there are other roads too and scientism will not be successful until it can reduce the activities of the mind to mere physical descriptions and to believe that the physical objects actually exist in the physical world without understanding the human mind means that scientism(naturalism or physicalism) too is just a belief without credible evidence.

Arete · February 26, 2012

The thing that bothers me is that is there a one-to-one correspondence or one-to-one mapping between the physical objects that we see and the objects that actually exists in the external physical world. This is the main problem.

The external physical world might very well be made up of just five elements as described in major religions i.e Fire, water, earth, air and space. This would mean that all the distinct elements that we see exist only in our minds and our scientific models might just describe the relationship of these elements which exist solely in our minds.

To make you grasp what I am saying. Let us suppose we supply oxygen to a patient who is suffering from a breathing problem and we will find that the patient is recovering from his severe condition and we believe that oxygen exist in the physical objective world because we have observed its effect on the human body and in the same way if we supply a poisonous gas to the same patient we observe that the patient is suffocating and soon it will lead to the death of the patient and we believe that the poisonous gas too exist in the physical world.

If the world is made up of a single "air" entity then oxygen or any other poisonous gas don't really exist in the actually physical world. If the human body too is made up of just five elements then this would mean that when a patient dies due to intoxication from a poisonous gas he just dies in our minds but he is still very much alive with a body made up of just five elements. Its just our minds make those physical things described by science appear as real. So obviously the scientific models will be consistent with our observations and predictions but it cannot give the actual nature of the external physical world. So we are not manipulating nature in any way, the nature is made up of just five elements, all that we are manipulating are just the way things appear to our minds, the only things we know of.

Everyone don't see the human body in the same way, some of them who practice traditional ayurveda and qigong use a different model of the body, they didn't knew about DNA, they didn't knew anything about most of what molecular biology had discovered about the human body. They just see the human body as made up of just five elements and therefore their model is different and they don't see the human body like the way a homeopathic does and yet their medicines still work and some do take a course on ayurveda and it is still being taught in universities.

So as Feyerabend says all cultures and all traditions stands on their own and the reality given by science is not the only reality, there are other roads too and scientism will not be successful until it can reduce the activities of the mind to mere physical descriptions and to believe that the physical objects actually exist in the physical world without understanding the human mind means that scientism(naturalism or physicalism) too is just a belief without credible evidence.

Sure, we can start with an incomplete or incorrect understanding of how a human body works and through trial and error, develop treatments that still work. I still don't see how that is in any way an argument for accepting such models as somehow scientific. Also, the teaching of a course at university does not make it science - universities by and large decide on what courses to offer based on expected attendance rates - The university I did my undergraduate at had a chiropractic department. Even if they start teaching chiro at Harvard and Oxford, the fact that strictly speaking, chiropractic theory doesn't accept that microorganisms cause diseases (http://dimartinochir...ke_us_sick.html) means that it is neither evidence based medicine nor science. At the same time, chiropractic treatment has been shown to be effective at treating back pain. http://www.bmj.com/c...7/1431.abstract

The "reality could be wrong/not exist approach so everything is a belief" argument is a little droll isn't it? I mean I could be wrong and I'm not actually on the 5th floor of a building but at ground level - I'm still not leaving via the window

Don't get me wrong - there's room in the world for unscientific philosophies/thoughts/practices/etc. and could see your point regarding positive evidence and "scientism" if we were discussing philosophers rejecting anything not evidence based, but I don't see the value in accepting conclusions that are not drawn from observation as scientifically valid - in fact I strongly think science would be devalued by doing so.

Edited February 26, 2012 by Arete

immortal · February 28, 2012

Sure, we can start with an incomplete or incorrect understanding of how a human body works and through trial and error, develop treatments that still work. I still don't see how that is in any way an argument for accepting such models as somehow scientific. Also, the teaching of a course at university does not make it science - universities by and large decide on what courses to offer based on expected attendance rates - The university I did my undergraduate at had a chiropractic department. Even if they start teaching chiro at Harvard and Oxford, the fact that strictly speaking, chiropractic theory doesn't accept that microorganisms cause diseases (http://dimartinochir...ke_us_sick.html) means that it is neither evidence based medicine nor science. At the same time, chiropractic treatment has been shown to be effective at treating back pain. http://www.bmj.com/c...7/1431.abstract

You've made some valid points, Thank you.

I am not saying those models are scientific. What is Science? Science is all about making models of the physical world which can be testified. Of course those models cannot be testified based on the positivist approach of science because they are not observable so that we can put an instrument and measure them but that doesn't mean they cannot be known in any other way, they can be known through intuition or immediate access if we give up our reductionist approach and take top bottom approach.

Such a model should be investigated and we should speculate on whether we can turn such schools of philosophy into proper or exact sciences. As you said there are universities who give a course or help the students to study different philosophies but its not taken seriously so as to more people investigate them practically in the field and parallely with scientific education and if there is room for such philosophical models then it should be allowed to discuss its implications and investigate them and not reject them straight away.

So I was very disappointed with how that thread of "personal liberty and freedom" took its direction and no one was willing to waste their time to think about it hypothetically, perhaps the thread was not framed properly and all I tried was to give a direction to the thread. If such discussions are not allowed then it is better to keep a separate webpage for religion or philosophy forums(since these are related to personal beliefs) and just place a redirect link on the mainstream science forum or if one takes them seriously only when someone comes up with positive evidence then it is better to just place a sticky thread for religion and philosophy topics in the speculation forum making a rule that one should post there only if they have credible evidence rather than rejecting, dismissing and ridiculing personalities who have worked on other schools of philosophical thought for whom some have very high due respect. For example:- Marcus Aurelius and Saint Augustine.

The "reality could be wrong/not exist approach so everything is a belief" argument is a little droll isn't it? I mean I could be wrong and I'm not actually on the 5th floor of a building but at ground level - I'm still not leaving via the window

No, science cannot give an objective account of reality, if physical objects had those physical attributes then we should have been able to predict what's happening in a quantum system without having to disturb or observe the quantum system, the violation of Bell's inequality which indicates that physical objects don't always have pre-determined values for position and momentum but they appear to possess those attributes when a measurement is being made induces enough skepticism so as to if we remove the attributes of qualia, position, momentum, polarisation, spin and other properties from a physical object then what is left of it or what IS it. This question which science

refuses to answer because it cannot and also do not ensure that an element of physical reality exists for these physical quantities.

The equations says all possible values for a physical quantity exists simultaneously which is very meaningless to think of and therefore the quantum system is closed and we cannot describe an objective account for such a system and all that we can measure are the possible values of the quantum system, its very nature and how it behaves at the most fundamental level is not known of.

Physicists think that quantum approximations give rise to the classical world, a very good model indeed but the question is does it have an one-to-one correspondence with the objects or representations in the model with the real world objects in nature. This was the main objection of Einstein that quantum theory does not have an one-to-one correspondence with the elements in its theory and the real physical elements in the nature. That's how he came up with the EPR paradox.

The experiments have upheld quantum physics which means to say that the external physical objects don't have the attributes which are being attributed by mathematical models, those attributes don't exist in the external physical world and hence science cannot give an objective account of reality. There is no one-to-one correspondance.

This indicates that the objective world is very much different than how it is being described by physics and obviously the observable universe through the sense organs will be consistent with scientific models but that doesn't mean why someone who has access to manipulate the actual objective world cannot exit through the window from the 5th floor of a building.

Its not that nature prevents us from doing such a thing or its like the way it is as described by science, its just we does not have a complete understanding of nature, hence we are constrained to follow the rules set up for the human mind.

Don't get me wrong - there's room in the world for unscientific philosophies/thoughts/practices/etc. and could see your point regarding positive evidence and "scientism" if we were discussing philosophers rejecting anything not evidence based, but I don't see the value in accepting conclusions that are not drawn from observation as scientifically valid - in fact I strongly think science would be devalued by doing so.

Those conclusions were not drawn by observation or putting an instrument to measure those entities, those conclusions are drawn by accessing new qualia through intuition (i.e through immediate direct access to knowledge) and qualia do represent some real knowledge. Most mathematicians think that they don't invent new mathematics but they just discover them and some think that integers do exist in their own realm, an idea developed by Plato and his platonic values.

If anyone assert that such kind of intuitive knowledge is impossible then they have to reduce such qualia to the physical sciences but the problem is qualia are unmeasurable, we cannot measure sweetness and hence the positivist approach of science which asserts that only those things which are measurable are real cannot account for qualia but it is self evident that they exist and we experience it all the time and the positivist approach of science is not the best way to investigate them and fails miserably to understand what they are or to model them and hence we need new methods to investigate nature and "intuition" i.e knowledge gained through immediate access is one of the method through which we can gain new knowledge without using the sense organs.

If those things exist and if such a method do give us some real knowledge then sure we can use them to create discrepancies or cracks in our reality and that would make it very scientific.

So its not right to devalue other schools of philosophical thought either and you cannot reject those schools of philosophical thought easily without giving a valid reason, science doesn't say that such a thing is impossible and as for as evidence is concerned what efforts have been made to investigate qualia other than through the positivist approach. I mean one invest tons of pounds to build particle accelerators to smash atoms but what efforts have been made to access new direct knowledge, if you're locked up inside a room in which the events in the room are laid out by scientific models, you yourself have to come out of the room to know what's outside the room, the nature of the room is not going to create any cracks in its reality on its own because inside the room the events occur based on scientific models and it will be consistent with scientific theories. So we have to first investigate them by coming out of our positivist approach and not by asking evidence by staying within the room, if no one investigates them then obviously the world given by science is all the world that we know of and by doing so we are not investigating the nature with our full potential and this would undermine our course of actions on this cosmos without a true complete understanding of its workings.

Arete · March 5, 2012

I am not saying those models are scientific. What is Science? Science is all about making models of the physical world which can be testified. Of course those models cannot be testified based on the positivist approach of science because they are not observable so that we can put an instrument and measure them but that doesn't mean they cannot be known in any other way, they can be known through intuition or immediate access if we give up our reductionist approach and take top bottom approach.

Such a model should be investigated and we should speculate on whether we can turn such schools of philosophy into proper or exact sciences. As you said there are universities who give a course or help the students to study different philosophies but its not taken seriously so as to more people investigate them practically in the field and parallely with scientific education and if there is room for such philosophical models then it should be allowed to discuss its implications and investigate them and not reject them straight away.

I disagree entirely. Take homeopathy for example - its proponents pose a disease treatment method which has no sensible mode of efficacy and no proof of efficacy. Same as chakras, meridians of chi and unicorn tears. Demanding science somehow accepts these models as legitimate, or that unsubstantiated claims of unicorns, fairies and batman be evaluated and taken seriously in scientific context is unhelpful, and a total derailment of the effectiveness of science as a whole. If you can't provide evidence it works/exists and provide a framework as to how it works/exists it simply doesn't fall into the realm of science - I think that science as a field should quite rightfully be unapologetic about not redefining itself simply so that such ideas can be validated.

So I was very disappointed with how that thread of "personal liberty and freedom" took its direction and no one was willing to waste their time to think about it hypothetically, perhaps the thread was not framed properly and all I tried was to give a direction to the thread. If such discussions are not allowed then it is better to keep a separate webpage for religion or philosophy forums(since these are related to personal beliefs) and just place a redirect link on the mainstream science forum or if one takes them seriously only when someone comes up with positive evidence then it is better to just place a sticky thread for religion and philosophy topics in the speculation forum making a rule that one should post there only if they have credible evidence rather than rejecting, dismissing and ridiculing personalities who have worked on other schools of philosophical thought for whom some have very high due respect. For example:- Marcus Aurelius and Saint Augustine.

We go back to my first post in this thread.

"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."

You didn't pose God as a potential explanation - you posed it as the ONLY explanation. Without actually presenting any evidence disproving naturalistic explanation of the phenomenon in question, you rejected it, and then went on - again with no evidence proving the supernatural explanation, asserted it as the only one. That's not "positivism", it's outing an illogical proof.

Further, you now seem to be demanding that the scientific method be somehow fundamentally altered to legitimize such a proof. Again, I disagree entirely and think that such an alteration would render the scientific method effectively useless.

No, science cannot give an objective account of reality...This indicates that the objective world is very much different than how it is being described by physics and obviously the observable universe through the sense organs will be consistent with scientific models but that doesn't mean why someone who has access to manipulate the actual objective world cannot exit through the window from the 5th floor of a building.

So some observations invalidate the predictions of some theories (point in case, the discrepancy between quantum mechanics and classical physics). That's fine, I don't think any scientist is going to state that any theory is perfect, all encompassing and beyond further refinement. However - If you reject basic observation, I wonder why you're on a science forum at all.

Those conclusions were not drawn by observation or putting an instrument to measure those entities, those conclusions are drawn by accessing new qualia through intuition (i.e through immediate direct access to knowledge) and qualia do represent some real knowledge. Most mathematicians think that they don't invent new mathematics but they just discover them and some think that integers do exist in their own realm, an idea developed by Plato and his platonic values.

If anyone assert that such kind of intuitive knowledge is impossible then they have to reduce such qualia to the physical sciences but the problem is qualia are unmeasurable, we cannot measure sweetness and hence the positivist approach of science which asserts that only those things which are measurable are real cannot account for qualia but it is self evident that they exist and we experience it all the time and the positivist approach of science is not the best way to investigate them and fails miserably to understand what they are or to model them and hence we need new methods to investigate nature and "intuition" i.e knowledge gained through immediate access is one of the method through which we can gain new knowledge without using the sense organs.

I really don't see the need to hand wave and project a concept like "sweetness" into some sort of "unmeasurable" concept. A crystalline carbohydrate comes in contact with a receptor, triggering a cellular reaction which closes a potassium ion channel, causing an opening of a calcium ion channel, causing a neurotransmission relaying the detection of said carbohydrate the brain. The number of bound receptors indicates concentration to the brain, the sensation of this is described in the English language as "sweetness". I see no sense in suddenly projecting it as some "umeasurable" concept eternally beyond the reach of objective investigation.

So its not right to devalue other schools of philosophical thought either and you cannot reject those schools of philosophical thought easily without giving a valid reason, science doesn't say that such a thing is impossible and as for as evidence is concerned what efforts have been made to investigate qualia other than through the positivist approach.

Stating a philosophical approach is unscientific is not a devaluation of it.

Edited March 5, 2012 by Arete

John Cuthber · March 5, 2012

"So its not right to devalue other schools of philosophical thought either and you cannot reject those schools of philosophical thought easily without giving a valid reason,"

OK Immortal,

How about if I do give a valid reason for a couple of "old schools" of philosophy?

Assertion:

The power or prayer doesn't work.

Evidence.

Practically everyone in the way of a natural disaster prays- but they get hurt anyway.

Assertion:

Homoeopathy doesn't work.

Evidence

take your pick

http://www.ebm-first.com/homeopathy/research-papers.html

Now I could, in principle, try looking in depth at each and every case I hear of some new "cure" or whatever that the imaginative people put forward.

Or I could make the observation that, in every single case I have heard of, unscientific "fads" (and that's being polite about them) simply don't work.

Now, after a few decades of making that observation, I feel it's reasonable to, at least tentatively, generalise it as follows:

"If it doesn't agree with science then it's probably bollocks."

Is that unreasonable?

If not, can you give me a concrete example of why I'm wrong?

immortal · March 6, 2012

I disagree entirely. Take homeopathy for example - its proponents pose a disease treatment method which has no sensible mode of efficacy and no proof of efficacy. Same as chakras, meridians of chi and unicorn tears. Demanding science somehow accepts these models as legitimate, or that unsubstantiated claims of unicorns, fairies and batman be evaluated and taken seriously in scientific context is unhelpful, and a total derailment of the effectiveness of science as a whole. If you can't provide evidence it works/exists and provide a framework as to how it works/exists it simply doesn't fall into the realm of science - I think that science as a field should quite rightfully be unapologetic about not redefining itself simply so that such ideas can be validated.

I am not asking to give up the scientific method but why not try other methods and simultaneously investigate other methods along with the scientific method of the exact sciences since it is now found that the scientific method of positivism can not give an objective account of reality, it is the best time to try new methods to investigate nature and open up new ways of epistemology that is how we know and what we know. Why is that the scientific realm is the only realm that exist there is room for other realms too and we will be hindering the progress of humanity by strictly holding on to the scientific method. You neither investigate them nor you allow to even discuss about those concepts, I don't know how you are defending this kind of attitude.

We go back to my first post in this thread.

"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."

You didn't pose God as a potential explanation - you posed it as the ONLY explanation. Without actually presenting any evidence disproving naturalistic explanation of the phenomenon in question, you rejected it, and then went on - again with no evidence proving the supernatural explanation, asserted it as the only one. That's not "positivism", it's outing an illogical proof.

Sure, we will go back to that post. I didn't replied to your post as I was busy arguing with John and posting on other threads.

No, I never rejected naturalistic explanations of Kin selection/inclusive fitness, Reciprocal Altruism and other types of altruism, I accepted all that explanations, your accusation of me that I didn't accepted such explanations is not true.

The problem where I had was with Real Altruism which is still a debatable subject. Human beings are inherently different and display real altruistic behaviours more often than any species and such behaviours in no way increases the reproductive fitness of the individual or his kins and hence evolutionary psychology of the selfish genes cannot account for the complex cultural evolution seen in human beings and hence cannot give a successful theory of the Mind.

The origin of language is still a problem, infact it is one of the hardest problem for science. Noam Chomsky thinks that language had to originate in one go and there are no successful theories for the origin of language.

Of course there are alternative hypothesis for both the origin of language as well as real altruism and God can be one of the explanations and as I said I gave a direction to the thread and not asserted that God is the only explanation for such phenomena.

I really don't see the logic behind stating that there could be other naturalistic explanations which we yet to know of and completely rejecting a God hypothesis for the same phenomena, I see those things as indirect evidence for God and I want to investigate such a hypothesis so what's wrong with it.

So some observations invalidate the predictions of some theories (point in case, the discrepancy between quantum mechanics and classical physics). That's fine, I don't think any scientist is going to state that any theory is perfect, all encompassing and beyond further refinement.

No, things are not as fine as you make it appear.

The observations are in agreement with quantum predictions but there are some correlations in nature and we need to explain why and how such correlations arise in nature. More over these correlations have violated Bell's inequality and there by in violation of local realistic theories. So normally in Science if we find some unusual observed phenomena and confirm such a phenomena by repeated experiments we deduce that something might be wrong with our assumptions and we go back to the drawing room to discuss which assumptions are more likely to turned out to be false.

http://www.templeton.org/templeton_report/20090415/

Bernard d'Espagnat, a French theoretical physicist, a winner of Templeton prize for his works in Quantum Physics wrote an article called the "Quantum theory and Reality" where he addresses these issues and his arguments are very much in line or in tone with my arguments. I didn't knew about his article, I read it just few days back.

Here is his excellent article on Scientfic American. Please care to read and hear it from himself and in particular page 20 where he discusses about the positivism approach of science.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/media/pdf/197911_0158.pdf

Anyone with a few knowledge of the scientific method and quantum physics or a layman can easily see that there is something seriously wrong with the positivist approach of science.

As Bernard says that the violation of Bell's Inequality implies that one of the three basic assumptions of science must be wrong.

1. The Three premises of Scientific Realism.

2. The free use of Induction.

3. Einstein separability.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/

Scientific Realism is the belief that the objects described by physics exist independently of the mind of the Observer or exists in the external physical world. The accepted consenus by the scientific community is to reject realism and retreat towards positivism and hence physicists do not assert that the external physical world do not exist instead they say that any attempt to understand the physical nature of the quantum system must be rejected as meaningless since it is highly metaphysical.

According to this positivist approach science cannot give an objective account of reality and the aim of science is just to make predictions about the possible values of the quantum system and we shouldn't demand an explanation as to why and how such a correlation arises in nature. If science has to explain how entanglement works then it is inevitable that it has to penetrate into the objective account of the quantum system but the positivist approach of science cannot penetrate into such a system.

This is not a problem of nature this is more of a problem of the scientific method and its basic assumptions.

Therefore I am asserting that the assumption of Scientific realism and its epiestomology is false, physical objects don't exist in the outside world.

Does it ring some bells now? Does it?

However - If you reject basic observation, I wonder why you're on a science forum at all.

Its obvious that since I am asserting something which is not accepted by the scientific community I am not part of the scientific community and one might consider me as a crackpot, that's fine, but I am not quoting things from the scripture I am arguing about some real science here and not stating it as a fact and I am willing to accept that I was wrong but no one has demonstrated with evidence as to where and how I am wrong untill then I don't have to back off from my view.

Bernard d'Espagnat a French theoretical physicist best known for his work on the nature of reality wrote a paper titled The Quantum Theory and Reality according to the paper: "The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment."[61] In an article in the Guardian titled Quantum weirdness: What we call 'reality' is just a state of mind

I am not rejecting scientific observation. Scientific observation is one of the state of mind and it is a sub reality of an underlying ultimate reality. Therefore I am not rejecting scientific models, I do defend evolution by Natural selection, Special and General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Physics and I do want to learn about those models and I am interested in mainstream science too, that's why I am in a science forum, if I had mis-represented any of those well accepted theories and asserted that they are wrong then you could make an accusation on me but I have not done that.

d'Espagnat wrote that:

"What quantum mechanics tells us, I believe, is surprising to say the least. It tells us that the basic components of objects – the particles, electrons, quarks etc. – cannot be thought of as "self-existent". He further writes that his research in quantum physics has lead him to conclude that an "ultimate reality" exists, which is not embedded in space or time.

The Good news is that we already have methods in other eastern schools of philosophical thought which can investigate that ultimate reality which is not embedded in space and time and these methods help us to percieve nature in a different state of mind, this opens up new observation and new ways of epiestomology and this gives us an objective account of reality. We can know the noumenon, the things in itself and not as they appear to us.

So even those who are studying those schools of philosophical thought are working for an objective account of reality and working for the ontological nature of space and time. The way it works in this site here is that you request for evidence and if we don't come up with one you accuse us that we are Intellectually dishonest. There is evidence but you have to step up and practice the methods and achieve that new state of observation because as long as you are in the normal state of observation this world is consistent with scientific models and you won't find any evidence in this state of observation. So its not dishonest on my part if you don't come out of your scientific method and consider spending your time on a different method. If you don't want to waste your time then its just fine, we will go by that method and such a method requires some time to bring some evidence and without understanding it this is being equated to unicorns, batman and other fictitious character as though science can give an objective account of reality comprehending everything about nature without understanding how faith and revelation works. So any God hypothesis whether it is of St. Augustine or of St. Aquinas or of Marcus Aurelius is in equal footing to give an objective account of reality and it should be investigated, criticised, discussed and should not be ridiculed or mocked on such arguments.

Further, you now seem to be demanding that the scientific method be somehow fundamentally altered to legitimize such a proof. Again, I disagree entirely and think that such an alteration would render the scientific method effectively useless.

I have to ask you what use is a scientific method if it leaves most of the nature to be incomprehensible, what have you understood about nature anyway, if you stick with the scientific method you will never have an objective account of reality and hence such a knowledge would be incomplete, if you don't want to investigate then then its fine but don't ridicule about them, you can criticize them with all your intellectual rigor but you cannot mock them.

I really don't see the need to hand wave and project a concept like "sweetness" into some sort of "unmeasurable" concept. A crystalline carbohydrate comes in contact with a receptor, triggering a cellular reaction which closes a potassium ion channel, causing an opening of a calcium ion channel, causing a neurotransmission relaying the detection of said carbohydrate the brain. The number of bound receptors indicates concentration to the brain, the sensation of this is described in the English language as "sweetness". I see no sense in suddenly projecting it as some "umeasurable" concept eternally beyond the reach of objective investigation.

Now don't accuse me if I say that this molecular neurobiological explanation of information processing in the Brain doesn't in any way explain the processing of qualia. You think that it is just an emergent property, if there was no problem then one has to wonder why someone like Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff had to come up with a theory of consciousness which tries to solve the hard-problem of consciousness, if there is no problem then what's the point of solving the poblem, any conscious theory will explain qualia as an emergent property of a complex system, the problem is any complex system derived from physical objects cannot produce the experience of sweetness, redness and other qualia experience.

To know about such a system we need to know "what it is like to be" a complex system only then we can know whether we have reproduced the experience of qualia naturally or have we created a philosophical zombie. This is directly linked to the problem of consciousness itself. If the physical objects do not have the attribute of sweetness, redness and other qualia and my brain is made up of just those physical objects then how and why I am experiencing qualia. Why I need to be self aware of my body? what purpose does it serve? The body and brain can work on its own.

Stating a philosophical approach is unscientific is not a devaluation of it.

If a philosophical approach is falsifiable then it is scientific. It may be unscientific according to the scientific method of exact sciences but it is a science according to its own methodologies and on its own right. Therefore just because its not in harmony with what science says doesn't mean that it should be rejected or say its not real. Even such philosophical approaches can add some real value to the knowledge database of humanity.

OK Immortal,

How about if I do give a valid reason for a couple of "old schools" of philosophy?

Assertion:

The power or prayer doesn't work.

Evidence.

Practically everyone in the way of a natural disaster prays- but they get hurt anyway.

Assertion:

Homoeopathy doesn't work.

Evidence

take your pick

http://www.ebm-first...rch-papers.html

Now I could, in principle, try looking in depth at each and every case I hear of some new "cure" or whatever that the imaginative people put forward.

Or I could make the observation that, in every single case I have heard of, unscientific "fads" (and that's being polite about them) simply don't work.

Now, after a few decades of making that observation, I feel it's reasonable to, at least tentatively, generalise it as follows:

"If it doesn't agree with science then it's probably bollocks."

Is that unreasonable?

If not, can you give me a concrete example of why I'm wrong?

http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/94/hhr94_4.html

If I am arguing from the point of paradigm shifts of Thomas Kuhn then no, even if you make those observations for hundreds of centuries and say that the predictions of a theory are in agreement with the observations you cannot say that anything which doesn't go by scientific models is utter bollocks because according to Kuhn a theories predictive accuracy as nothing to do with the actual reality which is out there. Scientific models are just models no greater reality should be attributed to them, those were developed to model reality and not dictate how reality should exist.

OK Immortal,

How about if I do give a valid reason for a couple of "old schools" of philosophy?

Assertion:

The power or prayer doesn't work.

Evidence.

Practically everyone in the way of a natural disaster prays- but they get hurt anyway.

Assertion:

Homoeopathy doesn't work.

Evidence

take your pick

http://www.ebm-first...rch-papers.html

Now I could, in principle, try looking in depth at each and every case I hear of some new "cure" or whatever that the imaginative people put forward.

Or I could make the observation that, in every single case I have heard of, unscientific "fads" (and that's being polite about them) simply don't work.

Now, after a few decades of making that observation, I feel it's reasonable to, at least tentatively, generalise it as follows:

"If it doesn't agree with science then it's probably bollocks."

Is that unreasonable?

If not, can you give me a concrete example of why I'm wrong?

http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/94/hhr94_4.html

If I am arguing from the point of paradigm shifts of Thomas Kuhn then no, even if you make those observations for hundreds of centuries and say that the predictions of a theory are in agreement with the observations you cannot say that anything which doesn't go by scientific models is utter bollocks because according to Kuhn a theories predictive accuracy as nothing to do with the actual reality which is out there. Scientific models are just models no greater reality should be attributed to them, those were developed to model reality and not to dictate how reality should exist.

Arete · March 6, 2012

I am not asking to give up the scientific method but why not try other methods and simultaneously investigate other methods along with the scientific method of the exact sciences since it is now found that the scientific method of positivism can not give an objective account of reality, it is the best time to try new methods to investigate nature and open up new ways of epistemology that is how we know and what we know. Why is that the scientific realm is the only realm that exist there is room for other realms too and we will be hindering the progress of humanity by strictly holding on to the scientific method. You neither investigate them nor you allow to even discuss about those concepts, I don't know how you are defending this kind of attitude.

I'm going to channel Tim Minchin. "Every mystery, ever solved, has turned out to be, not magic." It is simply not compelling to search for supernatural answers to unexplained phenomena because supernatural explanations have NEVER provided an answer.

The fundamental complaint it seems you have is that you have an assertion, based on faith which you wish to be considered as valid in the field of science as empirically supported scientific explanations: I'm sorry but it's simply not as valid, it's not scientific and we should not and hopefully will never devalue the scientific method just to include supernatural explanations to appease the devout.

The application of the scientific method - which describes objectively measured reality despite your assertions, has - in the matter of two human generations doubled human life expectancy. This speaks rather strongly to its efficacy. Millennia of mysticism, witch doctors, prayer, goodwill and poultices did not have the same effect. I - and science will vehemently defend mainstream medical models of say, the respiratory/circulatory system and current treatments for pulmono-circulatory disorder against a suggestion that such complaints are caused by imbalances of chi and can be cured with reiki and crystals - an attitude which I am unapologetic for.

No, I never rejected naturalistic explanations of Kin selection/inclusive fitness, Reciprocal Altruism and other types of altruism, I accepted all that explanations, your accusation of me that I didn't accepted such explanations is not true....The problem where I had was with Real Altruism which is still a debatable subject. Human beings are inherently different and display real altruistic behaviours more often than any species and such behaviours in no way increases the reproductive fitness of the individual or his kins and hence evolutionary psychology of the selfish genes cannot account for the complex cultural evolution seen in human beings and hence cannot give a successful theory of the Mind.

Putting it in capitals and suggesting that anthropocentric altruism is in some way unique is simply not compelling and false - there is no basis for asserting that humans are capable of altruistic behavior that no other organism is, and in fact many examples where other organisms are capable of greater - cross kin line and species boundaries "altruistic" behavior than humans are. You defined a set of altruistic behavior as distinct, unexplainable by natural phenomena and only attributable to the Christian version of God. It is a logical fallacy.

Of course there are alternative hypothesis for both the origin of language as well as real altruism and God can be one of the explanations and as I said I gave a direction to the thread and not asserted that God is the only explanation for such phenomena.

Yeah you did.

the Abrahamic version of God is necessary to account for Real altruistic behaviours

I really don't see the logic behind stating that there could be other naturalistic explanations which we yet to know of and completely rejecting a God hypothesis for the same phenomena, I see those things as indirect evidence for God and I want to investigate such a hypothesis so what's wrong with it.

I could personally interpret the potholes in my road as evidence of a visit by Godzilla. Most people would have a different interpretation of the evidence and given the differential additional evidence and plausibility of alternative explanations, the likelihood of my theory being correct is lower than the alternatives generally accepted. If I wanted to validate my Godzilla speculation, I would need to contrive a prediction only explainable by the presence of Godzilla, measure evidence of that prediction, and test its statistical validity. I could then make a probabilistic valuation of how well the Godzilla hypothesis explained my data, and at that point, the Godzilla hypothesis would become scientific. Until then, the "Godzilla theory" remains unscientific. Bending the rules by which science is conducted simply to pander to my Godzilla speculation and allow me to equate it with validated theories when it's not would devalue science and shouldn't be tolerated.

No, things are not as fine as you make it appear... we go back to the drawing room to discuss which assumptions are more likely to turned out to be false.

The issue with "Observations support and contradict both theorems. Further study and experimentation is required to refine and reconcile theories and observations." is?

no one has demonstrated with evidence as to where and how I am wrong untill then I don't have to back off from my view...

This is why your position doesn't lend itself to science. You demand your viewpoint be accepted "unless proven wrong" - science demands it not be accepted unless proven right.

I have to ask you what use is a scientific method if it leaves most of the nature to be incomprehensible

It doesn't - and has done a more effective job of describing nature than any other method ever used.

Now don't accuse me if I say that this molecular neurobiological explanation of information processing in the Brain doesn't in any way explain the processing of qualia. You think that it is just an emergent property, if there was no problem then one has to wonder why someone like Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff had to come up with a theory of consciousness which tries to solve the hard-problem of consciousness, if there is no problem then what's the point of solving the poblem, any conscious theory will explain qualia as an emergent property of a complex system, the problem is any complex system derived from physical objects cannot produce the experience of sweetness, redness and other qualia experience.

The whole notion of taking a biochemical signal and extrapolating it to a mystical notion you call "qualia" is uncompelling and unnecessary. My brain registers the detection of a molecule. There's a word I use to describe the sensation. The end.

If a philosophical approach is falsifiable then it is scientific. It may be unscientific according to the scientific method of exact sciences but it is a science according to its own methodologies and on its own right. Therefore just because its not in harmony with what science says doesn't mean that it should be rejected or say its not real. Even such philosophical approaches can add some real value to the knowledge database of humanity.

No they aren't. "I am the walrus" is a falsifiable statement. You could conceivably come to where I am and verify whether or not I am indeed, a walrus. It's also rather uncontroversially, not a scientific statement. Philosophical approaches need to abide by the method of science if they wish to describe themselves as such. If they don't, they aren't science and there's no value in considering them as such or equatable to such methods.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Arete

John Cuthber · March 6, 2012

"If I am arguing from the point of paradigm shifts of Thomas Kuhn then no, even if you make those observations for hundreds of centuries and say that the predictions of a theory are in agreement with the observations you cannot say that anything which doesn't go by scientific models is utter bollocks because according to Kuhn a theories predictive accuracy as nothing to do with the actual reality which is out there. Scientific models are just models no greater reality should be attributed to them, those were developed to model reality and not to dictate how reality should exist."

Fair enough, but the same is true of the other models so we are stuck.

The only way to make progress is to assume that reality is, in fact, real and that science models that reality rather well.

That policy has done quite well- for example, without it you wouldn't have a computer.

immortal · March 7, 2012

Fair enough, but the same is true of the other models so we are stuck.

There are models which can model reality as it is and not how it appears to us or how it is been given to us. If the scientific community is not interested in those models then its fine but I want to investigate those models.

The only way to make progress is to assume that reality is, in fact, real and that science models that reality rather well.

That policy has done quite well- for example, without it you wouldn't have a computer.

Modern science has shown that the assumption that scientific reality exists in the external physical world is false. The fact that the scientific community is not willing to change or remove that assumption from science shows that it is working on a set of beliefs and bias systems and hence the scientific community deserves the Title "Scientism" and its intolerance towards other schools of philosophical thought and their methodologies is a display of dogmatism and has no authority to do so.

I agree with the positivism of Bohr and that's how the current scientific method should work and any statement made on the nature of the physical system is meaningless and metaphysical, I agree but that's not the end of the story and that's a serious restriction imposed by the scientific method to investigate nature and we shouldn't make any conclusions from the inherent randomness and correlations seen at the quantum realm and therefore anyone who asserts that nature is random is incorrect and its a wrong conclusion extrapolated from the correlations observed at the quantum realm. Science cannot give an objective account of reality.

This means that the next breakthrough is not going to come from the scientific community who abide by the scientific method, its going to come from individual philosophers because its purely a metaphysical and philosophical problem and not a problem of science and hence science and its scientific method is inefficient at addressing the workings of mother nature.

Of course GPS and computing systems works, it works because what we call scientific reality is only a state of mind and as long as your confined with in that state of mind the world appears to follow the rules as laid out or as discovered by science. Of course you talk about progress sure humanity wants to colonize and terraform other planets but what's the point of doing all this if we have not understood our very own physical nature.

This is what I am arguing from the past one year at this site that we can know the noumenon. Kant made a philosophical error when he said that the noumenon is unknowable but that's not true and it was obvious from Kant's point of view because he only had knowledge about rationalism and empiricism and therefore he rejected metaphysics completely saying that we cannot make statements about the world as it "IS". The eastern schools of philosophy says that there is a way to know the noumenon by completely rejecting the two giants of epiestomology which are rationalism and empiricism and opening a new way of observation or a new branch of epiestomology i.e we can observe the world with out the sense organs.

The scientific community dismisses such assertions saying that they are hallucinations but its more to it than just mere hallucinations and I want to investigate it.

The very foundations on which science and scientific realism stands are in question here.

The important thing is that if those eastern schools of philosophical thought is correct then scientific realism is false and only the eastern philosophy can give an objective account of reality and only that reality is the Ultimate reality and only that reality is actually out there.

This is a serious contradiction and hence both scientifc realsim as well as the God hypotheses cannot be right either one is right or the other is wrong.

Edited March 7, 2012 by immortal

Arete · March 7, 2012

Modern science has shown that the assumption that scientific reality exists in the external physical world is false.

I disagree rather vehemently that rejection of all measurements of reality, based on the apparent disagreement with current models of some measurements at the quantum level is valid and no compelling reason to start accepting supernatural explanations.

Science is driven forward just as much by rejection of the test hypotheses as the acceptance of them and some of the most exciting days I have are where what I previously thought about a system turns out to be completely wrong. The suggestion that upon finding a piece of evidence that refutes my previous findings means I should bin the whole lot and accept the boogeyman as a valid alternative explanation is uncompelling, unscientific and flies in the face of scientific advancement. Suggesting as such reveals a rather apparent lack of understanding of scientific methodology and how scientific concepts come to be.

I maintain the position that your suggestion should never be considered a part of scientific approach and reject the notion that we should abandon current research in favor of sitting round and philosophising about metaphysics, and strongly disagree with the notion that "the next breakthrough" has to come from meta-physicians.

Of course GPS and computing systems works, it works because what we call scientific reality is only a state of mind and as long as your confined with in that state of mind the world appears to follow the rules as laid out or as discovered by science.

This is descending towards incoherent rambling. GPS works because our state of mind makes appear so? Then how come I can quite literally hand one to an African tribesman in Uganda, teach him how to work it and he can effectively navigate using it? or a child... or any of the countless people who use GPS and don't understand how it functions?

The scientific community dismisses such assertions saying that they are hallucinations but its more to it than just mere hallucinations and I want to investigate it.

Fine: come up with some hypotheses and some predictions and test your ideas. Otherwise this has all the rigor of watching Deepak Chopra being interviewed by Oprah.

This is a serious contradiction and hence both scientifc realsim as well as the God hypotheses cannot be right either one is right or the other is wrong.

Again - It seems your fundamental premise is that science refuses to accept faith based assertions as equal to evidence based acceptance of theories, and neither should it.

Edited March 7, 2012 by Arete

PeterJ · March 7, 2012

I would agree that it is unreasonable and actually rather absurd to expect scientists to worry about beliefs held on faith. Nor would it be necessary for philosophy or metaphysics to be unscientific. As far as I can see metaphysics works exactly like a science and I would agree with Hegel that it is a science of logic. It should always be consistent with everything we know from the natural sciences. A metaphysics that does not allow for nonlocality, SR, the Standard model, CMBR etc would be useless. To be useful it should shed light on these phenomena and theories.

Nothing against faith at all, we could hardly get through the day without it, but too often it is used as an excuse for dogmaticism and temperamental choices of worldviews. The whole point of science, and the whole point of the spiritual journey imho, is that we do not want to have to rely on faith. We want to know.

At the same time, it is also ridiculous when physicists put down metaphysics, as if they can explain the world without venturing into it. Obviously this would not be possible. And faith is required even for physics. I suppose inductive reasoning could be called faith, for it requires a faith in the reasonableness of the universe.

immortal · March 7, 2012

I disagree rather vehemently that rejection of all measurements of reality, based on the apparent disagreement with current models of some measurements at the quantum level is valid and no compelling reason to start accepting supernatural explanations.

Science is driven forward just as much by rejection of the test hypotheses as the acceptance of them and some of the most exciting days I have are where what I previously thought about a system turns out to be completely wrong. The suggestion that upon finding a piece of evidence that refutes my previous findings means I should bin the whole lot and accept the boogeyman as a valid alternative explanation is uncompelling, unscientific and flies in the face of scientific advancement. Suggesting as such reveals a rather apparent lack of understanding of scientific methodology and how scientific concepts come to be.

I maintain the position that your suggestion should never be considered a part of scientific approach and reject the notion that we should abandon current research in favor of sitting round and philosophising about metaphysics, and strongly disagree with the notion that "the next breakthrough" has to come from meta-physicians.

You can disagree and defend the current paradigm.

This is descending towards incoherent rambling. GPS works because our state of mind makes appear so? Then how come I can quite literally hand one to an African tribesman in Uganda, teach him how to work it and he can effectively navigate using it? or a child... or any of the countless people who use GPS and don't understand how it functions?

According to eastern schools of philosophical thought mind is completely different from the Brain. They won't reduce human mind to Brain, they both are different entities and that's why you are having difficulty to grasp this insight. This is the reason why I assert that if you can reduce human mind to Brain phenomena then revelations wouldn't be possible and hence religion will be disproved.

Fine: come up with some hypotheses and some predictions and test your ideas. Otherwise this has all the rigor of watching Deepak Chopra being interviewed by Oprah.

What!!!

Would you please stop equating these ideas with the proponents of pseudoscience like Deepak Chopra and Oprah. Deepak Chopra merges modern science with religion and what ever he talks is bullshit!! and rubbish!!. You don't realize that I have argued in favor of you against the proponents of Intelligent design and pseudoscience. I am not here to fix broken relationships and give happiness to ordinary people, I am not a spiritual guru, if I wanted to just preach about these things to become famous or to make money I wouldn't have come here in a science forum to test my ideas first and argue with a scientific rigor and infact I haven't shared or asserted this idea anywhere else except here. Thanks for accusing me that I don't understand how science works and that I accept things based on faith and not on evidence and that I don't value the spirit of science and its scientific method. Where I have argued against evolution by natural selection or denied special relativity or quantum physics. In fact I have not attacked any of the scientific models. My posts speaks for itself and of course this doesn't mean that my ideas are right that the scientific community has to accept it, I am begging for investigation of different schools of philosophical thought and not for acceptation of those schools without any credible evidence.

Again - It seems your fundamental premise is that science refuses to accept faith based assertions as equal to evidence based acceptance of theories, and neither should it.

Its because I want to know whether revelations works or not and I want to investigate it. So without investigating on whether revelations works or not you hold a default position and assert that "God doesn't exist" or "God is Dead" and ridicule religion. I am sorry I am not going to hold that default position if everyone is going to hold this default position then who is going to step up to the new paradigm and see whether revelation works or not. I consider myself to be more intellectually honest than those who have opened up a religious forum at this site and shout for evidence of God and expect that somehow God should be subjected to the scrutiny of the scientific method. Yes if revelations works then it does have the potential to provide real useful religious knowledge just in the way empiricism provide useful scientific knowledge. If you are not going to look for evidence even if you wait for centuries you won't get any evidence. There is no instrument to show God, your own mind is the only available instrument and that instrument need to be tweaked a little to know God and that has to be done by practicing a method and if you won't invest your time in practicing that method you are not going to get any evidence, God won't fall from the sky and appear to your eyes. It needs to be investigated and I am not going to make any further posting on the religion forum. I am going to investigate it and not going to spread the message of New Atheism here without investigating it first. Yes, as you stated in your first post its about intellectual honesty but I hope it is first implemented by those who point fingers at others.

Arete · March 7, 2012

They won't reduce human mind to Brain, they both are different entities and that's why you are having difficulty to grasp this insight. This is the reason why I assert that if you can reduce human mind to Brain phenomena then revelations wouldn't be possible and hence religion will be disproved.

I don't have difficulty grasping the "insight". I reject it as not evidenced and thus not compelling. Why the arbitrary use of caps on the word "brain" and others? Is it meant to imply some sort of special meaning?

Would you please stop equating these ideas with the proponents of pseudoscience like Deepak Chopra and Oprah. Deepak Chopra merges modern science with religion and what ever he talks is bullshit!! and rubbish!!. You don't realize that I have argued in favor of you against the proponents of Intelligent design and pseudoscience. I am not here to fix broken relationships and give happiness to ordinary people, I am not a spiritual guru, if I wanted to just preach about these things to become famous or to make money I wouldn't have come here in a science forum to test my ideas first and argue with a scientific rigor and infact I haven't shared or asserted this idea anywhere else except here.

I didn't equate your ideas to those of Deepak Chopra, I equated your scientific rigor to his. In more plain language - if you want to test your claims and have them lauded as scientific and scientifically validated, apply the scientific method to them, rather than demanding the method be altered to suit you. Rather than spewing moral outrage, show us your hypotheses, predictions and experimental designs. Better yet, publish them and link us to the papers.

Thanks for accusing me that I don't understand how science works and that I accept things based on faith and not on evidence and that I don't value the spirit of science and its scientific method.

Your demands we bin all measurements of reality based on your interpretations of quantum evidence, along with the assertions of an Abrahamic God being the only explanation of certain phenomena indicate a distinct divergence of your ideas from the model proposed by science.

Where I have argued against evolution by natural selection or denied special relativity or quantum physics... I am begging for investigation of different schools of philosophical thought and not for acceptation of those schools without any credible evidence.

You do a rather thorough job of rejecting science, as a whole, outright: e.g.

"Modern science has shown that the assumption that scientific reality exists in the external physical world is false."

"scientific method is inefficient at addressing the workings of mother nature."

"scientific reality is only a state of mind"

etc.

and you do pose the acceptance of concepts without credible evidence:

"Those conclusions were not drawn by observation or putting an instrument to measure those entities, those conclusions are drawn by accessing new qualia through intuition."

[intuition=/=evidence]

"the Abrahamic version of God is necessary to account for Real altruistic behaviours"

etc.

Its because I want to know whether revelations works or not and I want to investigate it. So without investigating on whether revelations works or not you hold a default position and assert that "God doesn't exist" or "God is Dead" and ridicule religion. I am sorry I am not going to hold that default position if everyone is going to hold this default position then who is going to step up to the new paradigm and see whether revelation works or not. I consider myself to be more intellectually honest than those who have opened up a religious forum at this site and shout for evidence of God and expect that somehow God should be subjected to the scrutiny of the scientific method.

I never said anything like that. I do and will oppose the equation of scientific theories with faith based assertions, and the rejection of scientific theories using faith based agendas. If people want to equate science, [as you have with the whole "scientism" "positivist" thing] with belief in a deity, put your faith to the scientific test - or accept that the aren't equivalent. If you find the assertion that belief in a deity is not equivalent to acceptance of a scientific theory offensive - scientific endeavor will be a school of hard knocks for you.

Yes, as you stated in your first post its about intellectual honesty but I hope it is first implemented by those who point fingers at others.

Good luck with your research.

Edited March 7, 2012 by Arete

immortal · March 9, 2012

I don't have difficulty grasping the "insight". I reject it as not evidenced and thus not compelling. Why the arbitrary use of caps on the word "brain" and others? Is it meant to imply some sort of special meaning?

It means the brain don't exist in the external world, just as sweetness, redness and other qualia are universals and we experience it all the time based on a set of rules the same is for mass, position, momentum, spin and other physical quantities, they too are universals and they too are qualia and therefore only qualia exists and we don't have to worry about how a non-physical thing interacts with a physical thing, its because physical things don't exist in the external world. A presentation of a school of philosophy is not equivalent to forcing one to accept that philosophy and its not that the one who presents a school of philosophy he himself has to accept that philosophy and have belief in it. I didn't stated these things as a fact, I said these things need to be investigated and much of philosophy is understood through dialectic. Am I not allowed to talk about philosophy in the philosophy section or do I have to only talk about the scientific school of thought with out mentioning or presenting alternate schools of philosophical thought. If this is what the example that you are setting here then I wonder why you have a philosophy sub forum.

I didn't equate your ideas to those of Deepak Chopra, I equated your scientific rigor to his. In more plain language - if you want to test your claims and have them lauded as scientific and scientifically validated, apply the scientific method to them, rather than demanding the method be altered to suit you. Rather than spewing moral outrage, show us your hypotheses, predictions and experimental designs. Better yet, publish them and link us to the papers.

If science is not interested in metaphysics then its just fine. I won't demand the scientific community to change its method of investigating the nature. I am arguing for the non-overlapping magisteria of Stephen Jay Gould that science and religion are of a different magisteria and that even religion should be honored and not ridiculed like those New Atheists. In the absence of evidence even I don't want anyone to applaud this as science, this is definitely not science and its equally wrong to reject this and assert that God doesn't exist.

Your demands we bin all measurements of reality based on your interpretations of quantum evidence, along with the assertions of an Abrahamic God being the only explanation of certain phenomena indicate a distinct divergence of your ideas from the model proposed by science.

I didn't demanded that, I never said that we should put all our measurements of scientific reality into the trash bin. I am saying that irrespective of what refinements you make to the already existing accepted theories in physics one thing is certain that the positivist approach of science is never going to give an objective account of reality. As I said I am a realist I believe in the existence of an objective external world independent of the human mind. Modern science gives a hint that there is an underlying metaphysical reality and physicalism is no where near in being the external physical world as it is. That's called intellectual honesty, i,e accepting the fact that the scientific method cannot give answers to all questions and hence we need to look for alternative methods for investigating the nature and not hold on to our belief that scientific reality is the only reality allowing the possibility for other roads to reality. I said that both the scientific method as well as other philosophical methods have to be employed simultaneously in search for the truth. That's giving importance to alternate competing hypotheses to explain the workings of nature and not hold on to your hypothesis even after it is being shown that one of the fundamental assumption of that hypothesis is false.

You do a rather thorough job of rejecting science, as a whole, outright: e.g.

"Modern science has shown that the assumption that scientific reality exists in the external physical world is false."

"scientific method is inefficient at addressing the workings of mother nature."

"scientific reality is only a state of mind"

etc.

No, I accept evolution by natural selection, kin selection, reciprocal altruism, quantum physics, molecular biology, SR and GR and the whole of science. I am saying that this reality is only a state of mind and not the ultimate reality and I argue strongly that the scientific method should be adopted for investigating the nature when one is perceiving the world in this state of mind. This is how my approach is distinct from both science as well as from pseudoscience.

and you do pose the acceptance of concepts without credible evidence:

"Those conclusions were not drawn by observation or putting an instrument to measure those entities, those conclusions are drawn by accessing new qualia through intuition."

[intuition=/=evidence]

"the Abrahamic version of God is necessary to account for Real altruistic behaviours"

etc.

Why do you think that intuition is not possible, if not how do you think that humans can find solutions to answers for which no algorithm exists. This is the argument of Roger Penrose that strong AI is impossible since our conscious thought processes are non-computable and that mathematicians just access already hidden platonic values and discover new mathematics and hence this is not a new idea at all and its not that science is not aware of this.

I never said anything like that. I do and will oppose the equation of scientific theories with faith based assertions, and the rejection of scientific theories using faith based agendas. If people want to equate science, [as you have with the whole "scientism" "positivist" thing] with belief in a deity, put your faith to the scientific test - or accept that the aren't equivalent. If you find the assertion that belief in a deity is not equivalent to acceptance of a scientific theory offensive - scientific endeavor will be a school of hard knocks for you.

That's for the ones who suppress progress by just stating that "God did it" and run away, not for the ones who really want to know how he did it and why he did it.

I never said that I am not going put these ideas to the scientific test. To accept that science and God hypothesis aren't equivalent first we need to test the God hypotheses and that we haven't done it yet and hence God is still a metaphysical concept and hence I would put God in to the realm of metaphysics and I wouldn't state that even this is science but if we investigate it we have all the chance to make it a perfection of a new philosophy just same as the philosophy of naturalism and the natural sciences. Its inappropriate to subject God to the scrutiny of the scientific method, that's a real misunderstanding of how faith and revelation works and that's not the right way to test God and hence I oppose the views of New Atheism who conclude that God doesn't exist by applying the scientific method. If New Atheism was not being preached here then I wouldn't have started posting in the religious forum in the first place.

Good luck with your research.

That's the only sweet thing you have said in this thread. Thank you!

Arete · March 9, 2012

It means the brain don't exist in the external world, just as sweetness, redness and other qualia are universals and we experience it all the time based on a set of rules the same is for mass, position, momentum, spin and other physical quantities, they too are universals and they too are qualia and therefore only qualia exists and we don't have to worry about how a non-physical thing interacts with a physical thing, its because physical things don't exist in the external world.

Again - simply find the notion unevidenced and therefore not compelling. I refer back the sweetness example. I see no reason for "sweetness" to be anything other than an the triggering of biochemical pathways by the detection of crystalline carbohydrates in my mouth, redness a certain wavelength of light being detected by my retina, etc and so on.

If this is what the example that you are setting here then I wonder why you have a philosophy sub forum.

I am simply a poster the forum like yourself. I don't make the rules or the subforums.

If science is not interested in metaphysics then its just fine. I won't demand the scientific community to change its method of investigating the nature. I am arguing for the non-overlapping magisteria of Stephen Jay Gould that science and religion are of a different magisteria and that even religion should be honored and not ridiculed like those New Atheists. In the absence of evidence even I don't want anyone to applaud this as science, this is definitely not science and its equally wrong to reject this and assert that God doesn't exist.

You've repeatedly demanded that the scientific community abandon it's "positivist" approach in this thread. This is specifically what I have repeatedly disagreed with.

I also, again never stated that God didn't exist - simply that it's existence is not evidenced. Like the whole "qualia" thing I find the notion not compelling. I know you take personal offense to it, but it's exactly the same reason I do not find any other mystical supernatural beings or phenomena - like ghosts, mythical creatures, bigfoot etc. compelling.

That's called intellectual honesty, i,e accepting the fact that the scientific method cannot give answers to all questions and hence we need to look for alternative methods for investigating the nature and not hold on to our belief that scientific reality is the only reality allowing the possibility for other roads to reality.

No - in fact this notion is one of the fundamentals in your premise I am disagreeing with - the honest answer is "We don't know if the scientific method can answer all questions."

And then we come to the divergence in our viewpoints. There's simply no compelling reason to investigate what's beyond the physically observed world, because there's no compelling evidence that anything else exists. I'm more than happy to admit that the scientific method bears improvement, and that science might not explain everything, but I see absolutely no reason to leap beyond the bounds of rationality and logic and start assuming the supernatural exists because there are some things we don't know. Channeling the eloquence of Tim Minchin once more:

"Isn't this enough?

Just this world?

Just this beautiful, complex

Wonderfully unfathomable, natural world?

How does it so fail to hold our attention

That we have to diminish it with the invention

Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?

If you're so into Shakespeare

Lend me your ear:

"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,

To throw perfume on the violet… is just f***ing silly"

I am saying that this reality is only a state of mind and not the ultimate reality

And I disagree. There's no evidence for something beyond the current reality and no compelling reason to start chasing it with fanciful "non positivist" methods.

Why do you think that intuition is not possible, if not how do you think that humans can find solutions to answers for which no algorithm exists.

What part of "intuition=/=evidence" implies I don't believe in intuition? Intuition is required to develop the test hypothesis but evidence is required to validate it.

That's for the ones who suppress progress by just stating that "God did it" and run away, not for the ones who really want to know how he did it and why he did it.

No. I don't reserve questioning for subsets of unscientific assertions - all claims should be assessed with equal merit, regardless of how many references, big words and Nobel laureate quotes are included in the proof.

I never said that I am not going put these ideas to the scientific test. To accept that science and God hypothesis aren't equivalent first we need to test the God hypotheses and that we haven't done it yet and hence God is still a metaphysical concept and hence I would put God in to the realm of metaphysics and I wouldn't state that even this is science but if we investigate it we have all the chance to make it a perfection of a new philosophy just same as the philosophy of naturalism and the natural sciences.Its inappropriate to subject God to the scrutiny of the scientific method, that's a real misunderstanding of how faith and revelation works and that's not the right way to test God and hence I oppose the views of New Atheism who conclude that God doesn't exist by applying the scientific method. If New Atheism was not being preached here then I wouldn't have started posting in the religious forum in the first place.

It's hard to follow what you're saying here but it appears to be self contradictory - you never said you weren't going to put God to the scientific test - but it's inappropriate to do so? In previous posts you state you want to test and validate the God hypothesis - here you seem to be saying that's not how faith and revelation work... which is fundamental in why religious beliefs are incompatible and thus incomparable with scientific investigation, which is kind of my point.

And we come again to the crux - I never said God didn't exist - I've never seen it stated on the forum either. There's just no evidence for it.

Edited March 9, 2012 by Arete

John Cuthber · March 9, 2012

According to eastern schools of philosophical thought mind is completely different from the Brain. They won't reduce human mind to Brain, they both are different entities and that's why you are having difficulty to grasp this insight.

Which is deeply disappointing isn't it

I mean the link would have been very clear even to prehistoric society. A bang on the head disrupts your mind. A head wound can change your personality.

It's pretty clear that whatever the "mind" is, it's stuck firmly between your ears.

In modern times when we can look at the sites of actions of pshychotropic drugs in the brain down to the molecular level there's really no excuse for still believing that sort of nonsense.

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