Why Scientific Realism might be false?

immortal · September 23, 2012

And theist are always quick to deny facts and evidence when it does not match their ideology.

-You have this theist tree. Its a big tree, it provides shelter from the sun (facts). Its a pretty tree, it has a lot of pretty flowers and it smells good. But there is a problem, it bares no fruit. It has not bared fruit in 10, 100, or even a thousand years. It is barren.

-Then there is another three, the one of sciences, that is shorter, uglier, has dull flowers and it stinks. But it bares fruit, and it bares lots of fruit. You may not like the way it tastes, but that is because it does not agree with your dogma palate.

I like to water both the trees. Let both grow.

Both science and religion fall under one roof, this is the reason why we have Philosophy of science and we have a Philosophy of religion.

The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods, and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth.

Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion, including the nature and existence of God, the examination of religious experience, analysis of religious language and texts, and the relationship of religion and science.^[1] It is an ancient discipline, being found in the earliest known manuscripts concerning philosophy, and relates to many other branches of philosophy and general thought, including metaphysics, logic, and history.^[2]

These are real fields of study, for example - Jonathon Duqette is a philosopher of Religion and Bernard D'Espagnat is a philosopher of Science. Philosophers can question the assumptions and foundations of science and scientific realism is one of the assumptions of science and the recent findings from science itself has raised concerns over the belief of scientific realism among the scientists. The relationship of Science and Religion is an important part of the study.

Just because one is a theist doesn't mean he makes no contribution to humanity, Occam's Razor was himself a theist and believed in God, Kenneth Miller, an evolutionary biologist is also a theist and criticizes Intelligent Design, so just because someone is a theist doesn't mean he scores low in IQ tests.

I suppose when you mean theists you mean Religion, go to the bottom of the philosophy of science wiki page and see who is on the top of the list of all the philosophers of Science, yes, its Plato, the same philosopher who spoke about the "Intelligible Father". One can not deny the pagan roots of Science and Religion.

So where is your fruit? I have yet to see any, and I have been asking for awhile now.

Religion offers a wide variety of fruits and the origin of ancient medicine was from Religion.

At least you could pick off a low hanging zombie. Remember the zombies you offered? Don't skirt what you offered as proof. Where is my zombie? You can deliver it to my doors step if you like. Once I see it, I can turn to juanrga and Ben and let them know how wrong we are.

Where is my zombie?!

I am after the pleroma of God and not seeking a zombie.

It was mentioned to note that Religion actually deals with the real noumenon world.

["At times Teresa's agonies and ecstasies were so violent that reports were that her room shook and the other nuns were frightened"].

To show that Religion is not something which only happens inside our heads or to ignore it as hallucinations.

Edited September 23, 2012 by immortal

juanrga · September 23, 2012

That's a big joke, people are getting hurt and falling unconscious while trying to test religious claims, you need to wake up to this fact. Science is not all there is.

I very well know that the epistemology of science is different from the epistemology of Religion, I doesn't want to mix science and religion based on the same epistemological ground but there is a common point at which they both are converging.

This God hypothesis lies outside of science, it is from Religion and you just cannot decide what's rubbish and what's not, don't think that you completely understand the nature around you and other ways of knowing things should be allowed.

Science Cannot Fully Describe Reality, Says Templeton Prize Winner

As said, there are other philosophical disciplines waiting to explain the nature of our cosmos based on a different epistemology, see above. Nature is fuzzy, its wrong to make concrete perspectives of the nature of reality which we are living in.

Once again you have ignored what I have said in my message. I notice how you have avoided the criticism.

Moreover your above reply consists of a repetition of the same stuff discussed and corrected before. My reply to your repetive arguments is the same now than before.

Both science and religion fall under one roof, this is the reason why we have Philosophy of science and we have a Philosophy of religion.

You used this incorrect argument before. The correction is the same. We also have history of philosophy... but evidently philosophy is not a branch of history.

Anilkumar · September 25, 2012

Hello Immortal,

What do the Religious-traditions endeavor to achieve/attain? [The goal/s]

Like for example if you ask me;

What does Science endeavor to achieve/attain?

I would say,

‘Science endeavors to Know the world around’ [do you agree?].

immortal · September 25, 2012

Hello Immortal,

What do the Religious-traditions endeavor to achieve/attain? [The goal/s]

Like for example if you ask me;

What does Science endeavor to achieve/attain?

I would say,

'Science endeavors to Know the world around' [do you agree?].

The epistemology of Science and Religion are inherently different.

The world of Religion appears when the metaphysical mind disentangles itself with the metaphysical sense organs and in this state one can access the noumenon of the world. Immanuel Kant was wrong when he said that it is impossible to know the noumenon as all our knowledge is arrived through the sense organs but religion says, no, there is an another way of knowing i.e. by disentangling the mind which is entangled to the metaphysical sense organs. Bernard D'Espagnat and I firmly believe that Religion can indeed know the noumenon, the ultimate reality which is not embedded in space time and exists independently of us.

The world of Science i.e. empirical world, the phenomenal world, the world of appearances appears when the mind is entangled with the metaphysical sense organs i.e. what we call empirical reality is only a state of mind.

LimbicLoser · September 26, 2012

The epistemology of Science and Religion are inherently different.

I probably should not, by any means, allow myself to fall into the midst of this wild-water stream, but yet have just now gotten my feet a bit wet. (With the emotional surge that prefrontal executive processing could not inhibit enough, leading to this very post.)

I do not, to save my life, see how the above claim to know can be soundly and validly demonstrated, so as to leave it with any truth value worth causing it to be held on to any longer. First of all, there are many religions in the world. We would be better off in precise discussion to label them as theist-involved religious belief systems. The 'world of religion' (and I have no idea how that requires capitalization) then means the 'world of emotional content,' is it? At best, I would like you to please more fully expound on the details of the referent for that term; and along with that the definition and a couple of examples. Please. I think that would very much help out.

The world of Religion appears when the metaphysical mind disentangles itself with the metaphysical sense organs and in this state one can access the noumenon of the world.

Leaving Kant, D'Espagnat, and a number of other, earlier on and yet-to-be-more-fully-informed thinkers aside, for the moment (due to lack of any actually relative and sound enough bearing on the matter, in what they had to say), this assertion here needs some reference work cited. Let me make quite clear, all the while, that simply quoting the philosophers who made such like statements, in no way whatsoever amounts to referencing any pragmatic, scientific method-based studies and trial-and-error learning about things related to mental processing.

Knowing, as we will, that Aristotle's 'metaphysical' works kind of got misnamed along the way, picking up a meaning which more evidently the great naturalist had not intended, we are in dire need to ascertain evidence for the ramification of how it's taken by far too many. If you were to wish to claim to know (and making an assertion as you have, immortal, so strongly insinuates a claim to know), then you will need to provide the evidence of that knowledge's source. How is it that you have come to know of something which I presume, based on common misuse, you can in no way at all sense through your sensory functions? In other words, how can you claim to know of something that cannot enter into the state of consciousness upon which only you can claim to know? (Pre-conscious activity can be acted on, can lead to observable acts, but cannot be accurately reported on by the first person subject.)

... what we call empirical reality is only a state of mind.

This can be tested to see what pragmatic results it might have, however. Imagine (a pure mental act alone) eating and drinking for 15 days without actually eating and drinking actual, real (and externally so--that is, not just in the neural structure of imagination) food and liquids for that same period. After the test is finished, please report on your findings. We can judge and decide on the pragmatic and sound conclusions as to what is an external factuality of nature, and what is a figment of the mind (internal formation which decays with the breakdown of the organic substrate upon which it convenes), from those results.

immortal · September 27, 2012

I do not, to save my life, see how the above claim to know can be soundly and validly demonstrated, so as to leave it with any truth value worth causing it to be held on to any longer. First of all, there are many religions in the world. We would be better off in precise discussion to label them as theist-involved religious belief systems. The 'world of religion' (and I have no idea how that requires capitalization) then means the 'world of emotional content,' is it? At best, I would like you to please more fully expound on the details of the referent for that term; and along with that the definition and a couple of examples. Please. I think that would very much help out.

Religion deals with real things like "Mind", "Intellect", "Gods" etc and they all are made of God's stuff.

Unfortunately the English language doesn't have precise words for that but in the east we have clear specific words for that.

1.Bahirmukh - observation through the (metaphysical) sense organs.

2. Antharmuk - observation without using the (metaphysical) sense organs.

I am not talking of biological sense organs.

Leaving Kant, D'Espagnat, and a number of other, earlier on and yet-to-be-more-fully-informed thinkers aside, for the moment (due to lack of any actually relative and sound enough bearing on the matter, in what they had to say), this assertion here needs some reference work cited. Let me make quite clear, all the while, that simply quoting the philosophers who made such like statements, in no way whatsoever amounts to referencing any pragmatic, scientific method-based studies and trial-and-error learning about things related to mental processing.

Its very clear as to what Bernard D'Espagnat is saying there is no ambiguity in his claims.

I doesn't want to talk about Molecular Neurobiology here because even neurons fall under empirical reality and they doesn't exist independent of the human mind and therefore neuron processing doesn't simulate conscious thought, in fact both awareness and the empirical reality is brought into existence by a different ontological entity i.e. a metaphysical mind which is the product of a divine God.

Knowing, as we will, that Aristotle's 'metaphysical' works kind of got misnamed along the way, picking up a meaning which more evidently the great naturalist had not intended, we are in dire need to ascertain evidence for the ramification of how it's taken by far too many. If you were to wish to claim to know (and making an assertion as you have, immortal, so strongly insinuates a claim to know), then you will need to provide the evidence of that knowledge's source. How is it that you have come to know of something which I presume, based on common misuse, you can in no way at all sense through your sensory functions? In other words, how can you claim to know of something that cannot enter into the state of consciousness upon which only you can claim to know? (Pre-conscious activity can be acted on, can lead to observable acts, but cannot be accurately reported on by the first person subject.)

I am not claiming anything on my own, this is what eastern philosophy and also the Greek philosophy is based on and that's how they view the world, for them there exists a metaphysical mind and an Intellect and intuition (which can be defined as "immediate insight or understanding without conscious reasoning") is possible because they take a top down approach very much like the Platonic realism and we can access the knowledge hidden in this realm by following a specific methodology. Its not based on the scientific method which is based on basic observation.

This can be tested to see what pragmatic results it might have, however. Imagine (a pure mental act alone) eating and drinking for 15 days without actually eating and drinking actual, real (and externally so--that is, not just in the neural structure of imagination) food and liquids for that same period. After the test is finished, please report on your findings. We can judge and decide on the pragmatic and sound conclusions as to what is an external factuality of nature, and what is a figment of the mind (internal formation which decays with the breakdown of the organic substrate upon which it convenes), from those results.

It has been tested, scientists think that the human body is kept alive because it reduces entropy but that's not true understanding, the human body is made to be kept alive because of the vital force 'Prana' which is responsible for the retrospective creation of the empirical reality along with the help of a metaphysical mind and metaphysical sense organs. There are various ways to test the claim that the empirical reality is only a state of mind and there is no excuse for still believing that the empirical reality exists independent of the human mind.

Scientists Baffled by Prahlad Jani, Man Who Doesn't Eat or Drink

Experts baffled as Mataji’s medical reports are normal

Western Science and Western philosophy is still too ignorant of what the true nature of the reality is and they never want to learn.

LimbicLoser · September 27, 2012

Thank you for getting back, immortal, and spending the time to put forth your arguments. I see a major problem at the root, nevertheless, and wish to look that over some--investigate it, attempt to falsify it, and see it there is actually anything pragmatic worth keeping and propagating. I would greatly appreciate your care and concern--and level-headed reasonableness and fairness--in doing so.

Religion deals with real things like "Mind", "Intellect", "Gods" etc and they all are made of God's stuff.

By what line of reasoning can the following assertions be demonstrated to be based on sound and valid knowledge, and what can you show that would allow the disinterested third party to acquiesce that you (and the original authors) have attained that knowledge through a means that any individual would equally have access to, and opportunity to learn:

1.

The word religion in the above is capitalized. On what grounds do you reason there is a linguistically pragmatic reason for doing so? Can you provided equivalent application of the '

special assignment identifier

function in English which would help draw out the need for such. (Capitalization function usually follows the patterns of a. new sentence identifier, b. proper noun identifier, c. standard title/heading/sub-heading identifier, d. abbreviation identifier, and e. special assignment identifier.) Hinduism is a religion in the sense of being a loosely grouped theist-involved religious belief system. There is no need at all to capitalize the word religion there. Shintoism is a religion, Christianity is a religion, Islam is a religion, Baha'i is a religion, Zoroastrianism is a religion--

and all of these are theist-involved religious belief systems.

(Buddhism, especially the Mahayana, amounts to a theist-involved religious belief system in that the Buddha has all but become a god in most sects and lines of the general, overall system.) Patriotism is a religion, as is Nationalism, but neither of these are

theist-involved

religious belief systems with information sources spelling out doctrine, or describing and prescribing any gods or goddesses.

2.

The words mind, and intellect are capitalized too. Please do the same as expressed in 1. above.

3.

In English when one uses the capitalized form of the common noun '

god

,' it is no longer a common noun, but becomes a proper noun. (see capitalization function rule of thumb above) When one writes "

God

," at the best (and allowing some room for the misguided confusion which can come from it for sake of political correctness [

spits on the ground

]) that one is either talking about Yahweh, the later late Christian biblical god, or the god of the Quran,

period !

The more accurate and original standard will only allow talking the referent for the word form '

God

' to be Yahweh, or the biblical god--

not even the Arabic Allah falls under that classification

.

It is a fact that not all theist-involved religious belief systems have Yahweh for their referent when their information sources give us descriptive and prescriptive information on the gods of those several systems. It is a fact that not all such systems have the biblical god for their referent either. That means that not all religions are talking about God. Talking about

a god

(or goddess), yes; and there are many different and distinct systems which had been, have been, or are, talking about a total of thousands of gods.

4.

In the above, when you use the phrase, "

God's stuff

,' it is far from clear just what you might have in mind. It can be gathered, from reading you, what you might wish to insinuate, or lead the reader for formulate with her, or his, mind, but that is not productive enough for any sound argumentation. First of all, even taking up the proper use of the common noun '

god

,' (which is countable noun by the way, and must take the indefinite article unless otherwise filled in by other words [

such as the, my, this, etc.

]), it makes no sense at all to say that my mind is a substance which is equivalent to being a god. That mind is brain is as close to fact as we can get, and we might as well go ahead and call it a fact. (And please do not confuse this more precise wording with that of '

the mind is the brain

.') Neither the mind which is of the processing of my neural tissue, nor that which is of yours, has anything to do with

a superhuman male being of a human-like nature which has some degree of power of nature and the minds and acts of human beings and animals

! (

compare goddess

)

To demonstrate the opposite is an external fact of nature, you will have to demonstrate in the third person perspective without executing any action on your own. In other words, to argue the a priori external (not a figment of anyone's mind to begin with) fact of nature, you will need to demonstrate the connection of known facts of external nature to a particular described god. You will have to cross out by elimination any contrasting claims among the several claims to that privy information by the sources which make the several theist-involved religious belief systems first, however.

Unfortunately the English language doesn't have precise words for that but in the east we have clear specific words for that.

One tell tale sign here is your usage of the pronoun 'we.' Interesting. While I have lost much of my Hindi skill, and only have the English-Hindi dictionary (and not the Hindi-English one; and feel no need to go on line, for here), I can sense the Sanskrit coming through in those compound words. However, be that as it may, it makes no point in argumentation towards the sound knowledge that we have on hand today, so as to refute it in any way at all. There is no such thing as a metaphysical sense organ at all! Every single sensation that enters the attention of consciousness (which is clearly dissociable to a degree) that you, immortal, and I, can report on at all, is due to neural (and glia) function within the bounds of certain connectivity, chemical, and protein processing, interaction, and attraction/repulsion events. This is as pragmatically close to fact as one can get, and so we might as well go ahead and call it a fact.

I doesn't want to talk about Molecular Neurobiology here because ...

Yes, that would be off subject, and thus not best for the thread, actually. For that reason, therefore, we should leave all talk about 'mind' aside. The reason for that is because you have made some very well demonstrated false assertions, and to demonstrate the fallacies here would take a whole bunch of off topic discussion. (If you were to wish to defend your view, take it to the sub-forum wherein we can deal with cognitive neuroscience, and consciousness science, and I'd be more than happy to see if I can help you understand the inquiry better. )

I am not claiming anything on my own, this is what eastern philosophy and also the Greek philosophy is based on and that's how they view the world, ...

Yes, I am aware of that, and (as I do belief I have said elsewhere), their assertions and claims must be demonstrated to be grounded in sound and valid knowledge--they must stand the test of trial and error in observation, over the largest number of sample spaces possible, over a long stretch of time, to hold. They have failed already. Plato was incorrect due to a lack of sound and valid knowledge. Much of Western Philosophy has erred by taking that route. Even Aristotle missed a good bit. Had he figured out the vestibular system's input into self-motion relative spatial conditions, his On The Soul would have been written up a bit differently in some places; to say the least. There is no experiential acknowledgement of acts, the results of acts, and the connection between the experiences as recorded and properly retrieved memory, and the external facts of nature, that does not pass through the broad sense of scientific method. Nothing ! The mere sound knowledge that normally functioning people will not sense a sweetness when they drink coffee into which salt, instead of sugar, has been stirred. This is a simply instance of scientific method learning and knowing--unless otherwise mentioned, I always use that in the broadest possible sense.

It has been tested, scientists think that the human body is kept alive because it reduces entropy but that's not true understanding, the human body is made to be kept alive because of the vital force 'Prana' which is responsible for the retrospective creation of the empirical reality along with the help of a metaphysical mind and metaphysical sense organs.

'Prana' consists of nothing other than air, and the intake of air for the purpose of certain cellular functions. Again, however, this would be totally off topic. I appreciate the effort in locating and sharing the other links. I am aware of the cases in general, and am aware of the fallacy in reporting on the in the mass media. I am aware of the twisting and sensationalizing that goes on in order to, basically, make sales. I will not deny that it even can creep into the world of science publications--which really a shame, but reflects the matter of being essentially a part of the world of life forms.

There are various ways to test the claim that the empirical reality is only a state of mind and there is no excuse for still believing that the empirical reality exists independent of the human mind.

Again, off topic. However, since you, the OPP, have raised this, please do allow me to share another one with you. It's called 'The Brick Test of Mindfulness.' A subject is strapped to a heavy, and bolted-down chair, so that the subject cannot interfere with any limbs, nor can move the upper torso. A professional baseball player is handed a standard kiln-dried, high density brick. The athlete then throws the brick as he would a baseball, so as to have the brick hit directly on the subjects forehead, from a distance of 6 meters. If the subject through both observation and accurate report demonstrates no change in the state of mind (flow of consciousness as an acknowledged and reportable identifier of same-selfness in a consistent pattern), then we have empirical evidence that mind can be thought to have a substrate other than the tissue of brain. Would you be convinced enough in the incorrect claims and assertions of the ancients to take that test? Edited September 27, 2012 by LimbicLoser

immortal · September 27, 2012

Thank you for getting back, immortal, and spending the time to put forth your arguments. I see a major problem at the root, nevertheless, and wish to look that over some--investigate it, attempt to falsify it, and see it there is actually anything pragmatic worth keeping and propagating. I would greatly appreciate your care and concern--and level-headed reasonableness and fairness--in doing so.

By what line of reasoning can the following assertions be demonstrated to be based on sound and valid knowledge, and what can you show that would allow the disinterested third party to acquiesce that you (and the original authors) have attained that knowledge through a means that any individual would equally have access to, and opportunity to learn:

Bernard D'Espagnat is well known for his works on Quantum Theory and Reality and his life time research in Quantum Physics has led him to his concept of what he calls a Veiled Reality and he thinks an independent reality exists which is not embedded in space-time which is the ultimate reality. Bernard himself advised that the great eastern philosophical system should be considered and I am showing that as Bernard says there is indeed a lot of knowledge in both the eastern esotericism as well as in the western esotericism which give us some amazing insights into the nature of our reality.

It is worth noting that d’Espagnat himself notices that the similarities between his conception of veiled reality and “the great eastern philosophical systems should be considered. . . ” But because modern science is mostly embedded in the Western tradition, he prefers to confine himself to comparisons with Western philosophical systems like Platonism and Aristotelism.99

- Joonathon Duqette, philosopher of Religion.

There is indeed different systematic methodologies in eastern philosophical systems to arrive at valid accumulation of knowledge which are useful for practical purposes and anyone can access that knowledge as any time.

Chāndogya Upaniṣad

Second khanda describes Five-Fold Sama or Sama with Five Organs (Pancha Vidha Sama).

First 11 khanda's deal with Upasana of Sun and this Upasana is known as Madhu Vidya.

15th Khanda describes Kosha Vidya for begetting long life and valour for one's son.

16th and 17th Khandas detail Purusha Vidya which results in increased life span of practitioner. It is told that seer Mahidasa Aitareya lived for 116 years by practicing Purusha Vidya.

A meditational practice called Samvarga Vidya, propagated by Raikva, is also described.

Fifth Chapter

The fifth chapter starts with a fable proclaiming the superiority of life breath over other senses. An esoteric knowledge of Five Fires (Panchangi Vidya) is also described. The concept ofVaishvanara Atman is also elucidated in this chapter

Vidya means knowledge, its not book knowledge, Vidya means to have real knowledge of bringing a dead plant back to life or even a dead person for that matter, this is real knowledge, its not book knowledge. Its Esotericism and its as valid a field of study as any other study of the sciences or the philosophical doctrines. Very few research has been done on these Vidyas and very few people actually go after researching the methodologies of such forms of knowledge. Many scholars have already made important contributions into this field of study and its as practical as any other sciences is. Therefore this God hypothesis is as valid a hypothesis as any other scientific hypothesis for explaining the origin of our cosmos and its workings.

1.
The word religion in the above is capitalized. On what grounds do you reason there is a linguistically pragmatic reason for doing so? Can you provided equivalent application of the '
special assignment identifier
function in English which would help draw out the need for such. (Capitalization function usually follows the patterns of a. new sentence identifier, b. proper noun identifier, c. standard title/heading/sub-heading identifier, d. abbreviation identifier, and e. special assignment identifier.) Hinduism is a religion in the sense of being a loosely grouped theist-involved religious belief system. There is no need at all to capitalize the word religion there. Shintoism is a religion, Christianity is a religion, Islam is a religion, Baha'i is a religion, Zoroastrianism is a religion--
and all of these are theist-involved religious belief systems.
(Buddhism, especially the Mahayana, amounts to a theist-involved religious belief system in that the Buddha has all but become a god in most sects and lines of the general, overall system.) Patriotism is a religion, as is Nationalism, but neither of these are
theist-involved
religious belief systems with information sources spelling out doctrine, or describing and prescribing any gods or goddesses.

Esotericists commonly argue that there is common esoteric essence in all the religions of the world and therefore all those religions which you have mentioned can be dumped as One and simply call it as "Religion" by capitalizing the word as I am not arguing for any particular religion instead I am arguing for what's there in all the religions of the world. You may find differences in those religions but for an esotericist there are no differences between those religions. In this way the capitalization of the word "Religion" is justified. It represents "something".

2.
The words mind, and intellect are capitalized too. Please do the same as expressed in 1. above.

As I said, its a thing, an entity and it should be capitalized to differentiate it from the common misunderstanding of associating the mind with the brain.

3.
In English when one uses the capitalized form of the common noun '
god
,' it is no longer a common noun, but becomes a proper noun. (see capitalization function rule of thumb above) When one writes "
God
," at the best (and allowing some room for the misguided confusion which can come from it for sake of political correctness [
spits on the ground
]) that one is either talking about Yahweh, the later late Christian biblical god, or the god of the Quran,
period !
The more accurate and original standard will only allow talking the referent for the word form '
God
' to be Yahweh, or the biblical god--
not even the Arabic Allah falls under that classification
.

It is a fact that not all theist-involved religious belief systems have Yahweh for their referent when their information sources give us descriptive and prescriptive information on the gods of those several systems. It is a fact that not all such systems have the biblical god for their referent either. That means that not all religions are talking about God. Talking about
a god
(or goddess), yes; and there are many different and distinct systems which had been, have been, or are, talking about a total of thousands of gods.

God is a person, an anthropomorphic being and he deserves capitalization and Judaism is not the only religion which has achieved monotheistic thoughts in fact all religions recognize a supreme Father or a God.

4.
In the above, when you use the phrase, "
God's stuff
,' it is far from clear just what you might have in mind. It can be gathered, from reading you, what you might wish to insinuate, or lead the reader for formulate with her, or his, mind, but that is not productive enough for any sound argumentation. First of all, even taking up the proper use of the common noun '
god
,' (which is countable noun by the way, and must take the indefinite article unless otherwise filled in by other words [
such as the, my, this, etc.
]), it makes no sense at all to say that my mind is a substance which is equivalent to being a god. That mind is brain is as close to fact as we can get, and we might as well go ahead and call it a fact. (And please do not confuse this more precise wording with that of '
the mind is the brain
.') Neither the mind which is of the processing of my neural tissue, nor that which is of yours, has anything to do with
a superhuman male being of a human-like nature which has some degree of power of nature and the minds and acts of human beings and animals
! (
compare goddess
)

Mind is an anthropomorphic God, Intellect is an anthropomorphic God, Time is an anthropomorphic God, Space is an anthropomorphic God etc and they all emanated from one supreme Father or God and hence they all are made of God's stuff.

To demonstrate the opposite is an external fact of nature, you will have to demonstrate in the third person perspective without executing any action on your own. In other words, to argue the a priori external (not a figment of anyone's mind to begin with) fact of nature, you will need to demonstrate the connection of known facts of external nature to a particular described god. You will have to cross out by elimination any contrasting claims among the several claims to that privy information by the sources which make the several theist-involved religious belief systems first, however.

That's exactly what I am trying to demonstrate that the several theist-involved religious systems are actually saying the same thing and there is no ambiguity in the different religions of the world and that's what esotericism is all about. Both the eastern as well as western esotericism have a core agreement with the ontological reality which they try to describe in their texts or in their myths.

One tell tale sign here is your usage of the pronoun 'we.' Interesting. While I have lost much of my Hindi skill, and only have the English-Hindi dictionary (and not the Hindi-English one; and feel no need to go on line, for here), I can sense the Sanskrit coming through in those compound words. However, be that as it may, it makes no point in argumentation towards the sound knowledge that we have on hand today, so as to refute it in any way at all. There is no such thing as a metaphysical sense organ at all! Every single sensation that enters the attention of consciousness (which is clearly dissociable to a degree) that you, immortal, and I, can report on at all, is due to neural (and glia) function within the bounds of certain connectivity, chemical, and protein processing, interaction, and attraction/repulsion events. This is as pragmatically close to fact as one can get, and so we might as well go ahead and call it a fact.

Where is my machine capable of strong AI?

Don't argue that science is all there is when scientists really have no idea as to what the nature of reality actually is. All evidence is pointing to an existence of a metaphysical mind which is the product of a divine God and if you want to falsify it then come up with a machine capable of strong AI and if not this God hypothesis is a strong contender for explaining the origin of our cosmos and anyone can testify that metaphysical sense organs and a metaphysical mind with an Intellect exists by applying eastern methodologies in their research studies.

Yes, that would be off subject, and thus not best for the thread, actually. For that reason, therefore, we should leave all talk about 'mind' aside. The reason for that is because you have made some very well demonstrated false assertions, and to demonstrate the fallacies here would take a whole bunch of off topic discussion. (If you were to wish to defend your view, take it to the sub-forum wherein we can deal with cognitive neuroscience, and consciousness science, and I'd be more than happy to see if I can help you understand the inquiry better. )

I am actually tired of defending my views again and again. I have laid out my arguments very well in this thread, if you want to raise some issues please do it in this thread and I'll try my best to address them.

My link

Yes, I am aware of that, and (as I do belief I have said elsewhere), their assertions and claims must be demonstrated to be grounded in sound and valid knowledge--they must stand the test of trial and error in observation, over the largest number of sample spaces possible, over a long stretch of time, to hold. They have failed already. Plato was incorrect due to a lack of sound and valid knowledge. Much of Western Philosophy has erred by taking that route. Even Aristotle missed a good bit. Had he figured out the vestibular system's input into self-motion relative spatial conditions, his On The Soul would have been written up a bit differently in some places; to say the least. There is no experiential acknowledgement of acts, the results of acts, and the connection between the experiences as recorded and properly retrieved memory, and the external facts of nature, that does not pass through the broad sense of scientific method. Nothing ! The mere sound knowledge that normally functioning people will not sense a sweetness when they drink coffee into which salt, instead of sugar, has been stirred. This is a simply instance of scientific method learning and knowing--unless otherwise mentioned, I always use that in the broadest possible sense.

Sugar doesn't have the property of sweetness and people who suffer from synaesthesia are evidence for that view and many cognitive scientists firmly believe that one need to study qualia far more seriously.

'Prana' consists of nothing other than air, and the intake of air for the purpose of certain cellular functions. Again, however, this would be totally off topic. I appreciate the effort in locating and sharing the other links. I am aware of the cases in general, and am aware of the fallacy in reporting on the in the mass media. I am aware of the twisting and sensationalizing that goes on in order to, basically, make sales. I will not deny that it even can creep into the world of science publications--which really a shame, but reflects the matter of being essentially a part of the world of life forms.

You are confusing the epistemology of Religion with the epistemology of Science. Religion doesn't talk about molecular biology or any other kinds of stuff like quarks, protons, electrons etc so please for god sake don't ever confuse 'Prana' with the air which science tries to explain by modelling its behaviour. 'Prana' is different and its metaphysical and it too is an anthropomorphic God which has a form and it is formless.

Again, off topic. However, since you, the OPP, have raised this, please do allow me to share another one with you. It's called 'The Brick Test of Mindfulness.' A subject is strapped to a heavy, and bolted-down chair, so that the subject cannot interfere with any limbs, nor can move the upper torso. A professional baseball player is handed a standard kiln-dried, high density brick. The athlete then throws the brick as he would a baseball, so as to have the brick hit directly on the subjects forehead, from a distance of 6 meters. If the subject through both observation and accurate report demonstrates no change in the state of mind (flow of consciousness as an acknowledged and reportable identifier of same-selfness in a consistent pattern), then we have empirical evidence that mind can be thought to have a substrate other than the tissue of brain. Would you be convinced enough in the incorrect claims and assertions of the ancients to take that test?

I am talking of wisdom traditions here and these traditions can be testified with specific methodologies based on eastern standards, no one needs to kill each other or get oneself hurt, it clearly shows your ignorance of the practices of these wisdom traditions and how unwise you are to suggest that.

juanrga · September 27, 2012

scientists think that the human body is kept alive because it reduces entropy

This is another blatantly false claim. A mature body does not reduce entropy but remains in a stationary state where its entropy is constant.

Ben Banana · September 28, 2012

Why did we all skip over my last response? I think it was quite important to this discussion. Immortal, could you please reply?

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/67990-why-scientific-realism-might-be-false/page__view__findpost__p__703988

LimbicLoser · September 28, 2012

As usual, I appreciate the timely response, immortal, and can only say that I, too, will strive to be as consistent with such. I will slip away from time to time as certain deadlines and events and activity here prevent presenting and arguing here. I ask that you please bear with me on that.

Error upon error makes straightening things out a bit time consuming, but for the moment I am willing to work with you to see if I can help you grasp the more accurate and correct information (on a number of areas that you wish to express thoughts on). If I may here, I would like to second the request motioned by Ben Bowin, above. His, or her, earlier input in the form of questions will have a degree of bearing. Otherwise, one, or two points here.

Bernard D'Espagnat is well known for his works on Quantum Theory and Reality and his life time research in Quantum Physics has led him to his concept of what he calls a Veiled Reality and he thinks an independent reality exists which is not embedded in space-time which is the ultimate reality.

And like Penrose, among a few others, he is incorrect in his position, and makes false statements and claims. Those statements and claims are what must be looked at and fully inspected. To simply spurt out a statement made by any one of them on, for example, the condition of having a state of consciousness, does nothing more than repeat the error they had originated.

Esotericists commonly argue that there is common esoteric essence in all the religions of the world and therefore all those religions which you have mentioned can be dumped as One and simply call it as "Religion" by capitalizing the word as I am not arguing for any particular religion instead I am arguing for what's there in all the religions of the world. You may find differences in those religions but for an esotericist there are no differences between those religions. In this way the capitalization of the word "Religion" is justified. It represents "something".

This does not account for the capitalization of the word, except to signify an attempt to desire to point out the reason why the fifth rule of thumb is being attempted to be appealed to. Esotericism, like Mysticism, falls under the definition of a religion. If one is talking of that religion, they should use that proper noun, namely, Esotericism. The Esotercist will find points of Esoteric dogma across the spread of various interpretation, and textual wording, from among any number of information source materials of the standard theist-involved religious belief systems available. This in no way negates, nor causes exception to, the standard common definition, and usage of, the noun 'religion.'

While the word 'religion' does operate as a non-count noun within certain contexts, it is not always the case, and doing so habitually only leads to confusion and a big mess--as we can see evidence of here. Moreover, it is a fact that such usage does not call for capitalization. This is a fact, immortal, not just an opinion of mine. What I hope you will be able to do, is accept the proper usage of the term. If you wish to talk about the (usually-so)theist-involved religious belief system which is Mysticism, or Esotericism, then please specify the entities so as to assure clear and accurate referent identification. Your capitalization is incorrect here.

As I said, its a thing, an entity and it should be capitalized to differentiate it from the common misunderstanding of associating the mind with the brain.

As I had said, this is a false statement. I will have to work on showing that to you later, however, as if we were to go to any exhaustive degree of presentation on that, it would easily take a whole thread in and of itself.

God is a person, an anthropomorphic being and he deserves capitalization and Judaism is not the only religion which has achieved monotheistic thoughts in fact all religions recognize a supreme Father or a God.

This will have to done elsewhere and later too, for it too is hopeless inaccurate and misguided. The English form 'God' is a proper noun; that means (again) it is a given name for a certain god. For the information source of any theist-involved religious belief system to have one god as being supreme above the others, to whatever degree and to whatever extent, in no way cancels out the other gods and goddesses presented by the same information source. The Tanakh, closed by the late Second Temple Period, on the other hand, presents only one deity, Yahweh, as being the true (thus said-to-be) actual god of all. (It does not deny Baal, or Dagon, or the others, but simple posits them as figments of the imaginations of men.) Again (and I guess I'll have to do this later, elsewhere, also) the noun 'god' is not a countable noun, so you cannot write the following sentence: I think that god is silly. If you were to say that orally, it would be talking about Yahweh as the referent for the spoken form 'God.' This too, immortal, is a fact--like it or not, it is a fact. We have to deal in facts, or the as-close-as.

Mind is an anthropomorphic God, Intellect is an anthropomorphic God, Time is an anthropomorphic God, Space is an anthropomorphic God etc and they all emanated from one supreme Father or God and hence they all are made of God's stuff.

Completely false statements.

Don't argue that science is all there is when scientists really have no idea as to what the nature of reality actually is.

Please don't conflate or confound here. I have no where used the terminology 'science,' as though it were some mass of a thing with some uncountable nature of no self-holding form, or boarders. Scientific method, in its broadest sense, however, is the only method we have of knowing anything at all. This too, is a fact.

I am actually tired of defending my views again and again. I have laid out my arguments very well in this thread, if you want to raise some issues please do it in this thread and I'll try my best to address them.

It is fine for one to speak their mind, tell others what they think, and all; that is the beauty of free speech, indeed. It is a different thing all together to go around misleading and misrepresenting things in a public arena. Yes, you said what you think probably a number of times, and you have worked towards defending them, but as I have correctly stated above, error on top of error, will correctness make not!!

Sugar doesn't have the property of sweetness and people who suffer from synaesthesia are evidence for that view and many cognitive scientists firmly believe that one need to study qualia far more seriously.

False. I'll have to deal with this later, there a number of synethesia types (grapheme-color being the most common, but with also time unit-color, muscial sound-color, general sound-color, phoneme-color, smell-color, sound-touch, vision-taste, sound-temperature, touch-temperature, etc.). That sugar carries the property which signals the cellular identification of sweetness (as opposed to sour, salt, unami) in the properly functioning pathways, is a fact. Of all the studies, and contact with those who have done studies with synathesia (which is not a malfunction so as to say that one 'suffers' for the polymodal sensory connectivity), I have never heard of any who conclude from their studies that due to the results of their studies, cognitive neuroscientists should pay more attention to quale. That is completely incorrect, and off-the-wall.

You are confusing the epistemology of Religion with the epistemology of Science.

Actually, not. I am correcting the confusion which has been forced upon you, immortal. It is a fact that it is through the organ which is the brain, consisting of the various cell types which amount to the tissue which is brain (as opposed to the brain, the organ), and is through this organ only, that perception, such as is acknowledged through the process which amounts to consciousness, can be achieved. It is the same for you, as it is for me, as it had been for those who had walked the ash covered terrain of Africa--whose prints we have record of. The authors of all the theist-involved religious belief systems ever created by humankind, gained information in exactly, and only through, the brain. This is a fact.

..., it clearly shows your ignorance of the practices of these wisdom traditions and how unwise you are to suggest that.

Actually, I may not be as ignorant of the Eastern philosophies as you may emotionally be lead to think at the moment. Especially should this be obvious with the amount of time we have interchanged, and have presented on this board so far, right?! Jumping to conclusions is not a good thing.

ps I have no time to proof-read at the moment, as will do so later (depending). Please forgive and allow for any errors or typos. Thanks and apologies. LL

Anilkumar · September 28, 2012

That doesn't pretty much clarify or specify the goals of the Religious-traditions, Immortal. Could you clarify/specify?

The epistemology of Science and Religion are inherently different.

The world of Religion appears when the metaphysical mind disentangles itself with the metaphysical sense organs and in this state one can access the noumenon of the world. Immanuel Kant was wrong when he said that it is impossible to know the noumenon as all our knowledge is arrived through the sense organs but religion says, no, there is an another way of knowing i.e. by disentangling the mind which is entangled to the metaphysical sense organs. Bernard D'Espagnat and I firmly believe that Religion can indeed know the noumenon, the ultimate reality which is not embedded in space time and exists independently of us.

The world of Science i.e. empirical world, the phenomenal world, the world of appearances appears when the mind is entangled with the metaphysical sense organs i.e. what we call empirical reality is only a state of mind.

Since Science studies phenomena, the observable & Religion addresses Noumena, the un-observable [not yet defined]; thus the two are on different paths. Then they could not conciliate.

Edited September 28, 2012 by Anilkumar

immortal · September 28, 2012

That doesn't pretty much clarify or specify the goals of the Religious-traditions, Immortal. Could you clarify/specify?

Just like the empirical sciences, the goal of the Religious traditions is the pursuit of Truth, understanding the true nature of reality and the workings of the cosmos as Stephen Hawking says if we can understand the working of the cosmos then we can control it. Therefore the ones who understand the cosmos will be the masters of nature rather than its mere slaves subject to its forces.

The main goal of Religion is to understand the way the cosmos works, hence the goal of both Science and Religion are one and the same i.e. to understand nature.

Since Science studies phenomena, the observable & Religion addresses Noumena, the un-observable [not yet defined]; thus the two are on different paths. Then they could not conciliate.

Yes, one cannot reconcile Religion and Science based on the same epistemological grounds, they deal with different things. Religious traditions tries to understand the nature of reality existing independent of the human mind. However its wrong to think that both Religion and Science are diverging, no its not, its actually converging. Even though their methodology is different and deal with different things they both converge at a common point and make the same conclusion about the nature of reality which we are living in.

If there is ever a Law of both Religion and Science then this should be it.

"What we call empirical reality is only a state of mind"

juanrga · September 28, 2012

Just like the empirical sciences, the goal of the Religious traditions is the pursuit of Truth, understanding the true nature of reality and the workings of the cosmos as Stephen Hawking says if we can understand the working of the cosmos then we can control it. Therefore the ones who understand the cosmos will be the masters of nature rather than its mere slaves subject to its forces.

The main goal of Religion is to understand the way the cosmos works, hence the goal of both Science and Religion are one and the same i.e. to understand nature.

Another blatantly false statement. Religion has nothing to do with experimental science. In fact religion is completely unrelated to any science. As is well known Hawking agrees on that religion is useless to understanding nature, although you often pretend in this thread that he is supporting your incorrect view. The difference between religion and science is well-summarized in the next quote:

The difference between science and religion is that the former wishes to get rid of mysteries whereas the latter worships them.

immortal · September 28, 2012

And like Penrose, among a few others, he is incorrect in his position, and makes false statements and claims. Those statements and claims are what must be looked at and fully inspected. To simply spurt out a statement made by any one of them on, for example, the condition of having a state of consciousness, does nothing more than repeat the error they had originated.

Oh!, they make false statements and they are incorrect? This is not your personal blog, this is a discussion forum, how do you say their claims are wrong? You can go on and be deluded as though there is no problem at all but I for sure doesn't want to be deluded. Its a simple fact that no element of physical reality exists corresponding to a physical quantity, the classical scientific realism is dead, do you just thought that philosophers are not going to question it and will just blindly accept what biased scientists say without examining the truth? We will question the foundations and assumptions of Science and the beliefs of scientists which they are so stubborn that they doesn't want to give up even though all evidence are against their beliefs. Its very clear that science is becoming more dogmatic and not being intellectual honest in accepting what the truth of the matter is.

QUANTUM MECHANICS AND "OBJECTUATION" -Bernard d'Espagnat

Realism and Objectivism in Quantum Mechanics -Vassilios Karakostas, 2012

For instance, Michael Nielsen and Isaac Chuang in their book on the foundations of “Quantum computation and quantum information”, after summarizing the consequences to be drawn from Bell’s theorem, claim:

What can we learn from Bell’s inequality? … Most physicists take the point of view that it is the assumption of realism which needs to be dropped from our worldview in quantum mechanics, although others have argued that the assumption of locality should be dropped instead. Regardless, Bell’s inequality together with substantial experimental evidence now points to the conclusion that either or both of locality and realism must be dropped from our view of the world if we are to develop a good intuitive understanding of quantum mechanics (Nielsen and Chuang 2010, p. 117).

While Arthur Fine in his much-discussed book “The shaky game”, in its 2nd edition of 1996, expressly states:

Realism is dead. … Its death was hastened by the debates over the interpretation of quantum theory, where Bohr’s nonrealist philosophy was seen to win out over Einstein’s passionate realism. Its death was certified, finally, as the last two generations of physical scientists turned their backs on realism and have managed, nevertheless, to do science successfully without it. To be sure, some recent philosophical literature has appeared to pump up the ghostly shell and to give it new life. I think these efforts will eventually be seen and understood as the first stage in the process of mourning, the stage of denial, … for realism is well and truly dead, and we have work to get on with, in identifying a suitable successor (Fine 1996, p. 112).

Science needs to redefined and reshaped and scientists should adopt weak objectivism and should not use strong objectivist language while describing their scientific concepts and models.

This does not account for the capitalization of the word, except to signify an attempt to desire to point out the reason why the fifth rule of thumb is being attempted to be appealed to. Esotericism, like Mysticism, falls under the definition of a religion. If one is talking of that religion, they should use that proper noun, namely, Esotericism. The Esotercist will find points of Esoteric dogma across the spread of various interpretation, and textual wording, from among any number of information source materials of the standard theist-involved religious belief systems available. This in no way negates, nor causes exception to, the standard common definition, and usage of, the noun 'religion.'

While the word 'religion' does operate as a non-count noun within certain contexts, it is not always the case, and doing so habitually only leads to confusion and a big mess--as we can see evidence of here. Moreover, it is a fact that such usage does not call for capitalization. This is a fact, immortal, not just an opinion of mine. What I hope you will be able to do, is accept the proper usage of the term. If you wish to talk about the (usually-so)theist-involved religious belief system which is Mysticism, or Esotericism, then please specify the entities so as to assure clear and accurate referent identification. Your capitalization is incorrect here.

When I use the term "Religion", I am referring to all the religions of the world, I am talking of Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Tibetian Vajraism etc. I am not talking of any particular religion or any particular god like Yahweh or Buddha or any other gods. The word 'Religion' represents all the religious traditions of the world and their basic doctrines and concepts. Perhaps a better term would be Esoteric Religions of the world.

This will have to done elsewhere and later too, for it too is hopeless inaccurate and misguided. The English form 'God' is a proper noun; that means (again) it is a given name for a certain god. For the information source of any theist-involved religious belief system to have one god as being supreme above the others, to whatever degree and to whatever extent, in no way cancels out the other gods and goddesses presented by the same information source. The Tanakh, closed by the late Second Temple Period, on the other hand, presents only one deity, Yahweh, as being the true (thus said-to-be) actual god of all. (It does not deny Baal, or Dagon, or the others, but simple posits them as figments of the imaginations of men.) Again (and I guess I'll have to do this later, elsewhere, also) the noun 'god' is not a countable noun, so you cannot write the following sentence: I think that god is silly. If you were to say that orally, it would be talking about Yahweh as the referent for the spoken form 'God.' This too, immortal, is a fact--like it or not, it is a fact. We have to deal in facts, or the as-close-as.

When I am using the word God, I am not leaving out Yahweh either, all names corresponding or representing God from different religions are included in it. All religions are talking of the same concept of God. Is that clear to you?

As I had said, this is a false statement. I will have to work on showing that to you later, however, as if we were to go to any exhaustive degree of presentation on that, it would easily take a whole thread in and of itself.

Completely false statements.

Please don't conflate or confound here. I have no where used the terminology 'science,' as though it were some mass of a thing with some uncountable nature of no self-holding form, or boarders. Scientific method, in its broadest sense, however, is the only method we have of knowing anything at all. This too, is a fact.

It is fine for one to speak their mind, tell others what they think, and all; that is the beauty of free speech, indeed. It is a different thing all together to go around misleading and misrepresenting things in a public arena. Yes, you said what you think probably a number of times, and you have worked towards defending them, but as I have correctly stated above, error on top of error, will correctness make not!!

As long as its not falsified, my claims are not false claims, its a valid hypothesis for the origin of our cosmos.

False. I'll have to deal with this later, there a number of synethesia types (grapheme-color being the most common, but with also time unit-color, muscial sound-color, general sound-color, phoneme-color, smell-color, sound-touch, vision-taste, sound-temperature, touch-temperature, etc.). That sugar carries the property which signals the cellular identification of sweetness (as opposed to sour, salt, unami) in the properly functioning pathways, is a fact. Of all the studies, and contact with those who have done studies with synathesia (which is not a malfunction so as to say that one 'suffers' for the polymodal sensory connectivity), I have never heard of any who conclude from their studies that due to the results of their studies, cognitive neuroscientists should pay more attention to quale. That is completely incorrect, and off-the-wall.

If you have not heard it anywhere then hear it now.

Cognitive Science - wiki

Another important mind-related subject that the cognitive sciences tend to avoid is the existence of qualia, with discussions over this issue being sometimes limited to only mentioning qualia as a philosophically open matter. Some within the cognitive science community, however, consider these to be vital topics, and advocate the importance of investigating them.^[9]

[9]^ A number of authors consider the qualia problem to be part of the cognitive science field, e.g. Some philosophical issues in cognitive science: qualia, intentionality, and the mind-body problem,Qualia: The Hard Problem, and indeed the entire discipline of philosophy as being part of the cog sci field, e.g. What is Cognitive Science?, while other reputable sources that cover both qualia and cog sci do not draw any obvious connection between them, e.g. the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Jan 2008 online edition) does have full-size articles on both qualia and cog sci, but qualia are not even mentioned in the cog sci article while cog sci is not mentioned in the qualia article.

Actually, not. I am correcting the confusion which has been forced upon you, immortal. It is a fact that it is through the organ which is the brain, consisting of the various cell types which amount to the tissue which is brain (as opposed to the brain, the organ), and is through this organ only, that perception, such as is acknowledged through the process which amounts to consciousness, can be achieved. It is the same for you, as it is for me, as it had been for those who had walked the ash covered terrain of Africa--whose prints we have record of. The authors of all the theist-involved religious belief systems ever created by humankind, gained information in exactly, and only through, the brain. This is a fact.

Nope, if that was the case we had to abandon this endeavour of different ways of knowing the world, that's too myopic, do mathematicians invent their mathematics or do they discover them? Many think that they access it based on intuition and the whole argument of Sir Roger Penrose is based on that, therefore your argument that there are no other valid means of knowing the world is fundamentally flawed and there is nothing wrong in actually investigating whether there are other possible means of knowing which gives us practical useful knowledge. You want to prima facie reject it but I want to investigate it and no your conclusion is not a fact, that's dogmatism.

Roger Penrose contends that the foundations of mathematics can't be understood absent the Platonic view that "mathematical truth is absolute, external and eternal, and not based on man-made criteria ... mathematical objects have a timeless existence of their own..."

Actually, I may not be as ignorant of the Eastern philosophies as you may emotionally be lead to think at the moment. Especially should this be obvious with the amount of time we have interchanged, and have presented on this board so far, right?! Jumping to conclusions is not a good thing.

The ignorance is showing in the kind of arguments you are making.

I'm very happy with this response, because it's a lot more rigid than anything you've said before; however, I remain in disagreement. I still see a critical lack of connection between all of your discrete beliefs expressed there.

1. "the mind is something different from the human brain and that the empirical reality which includes also the brain and that the attributes of particles doesn't exist independent of the mind"

2. mind alone exists out there in the physical world then what's behind the human mind is the "Intellect"

3. what's behind the Intellect is the "Pleroma of God" representing the totality of divine powers

Even if these were appropriately demonstrated to be strongly associated, by the collective manner they do not form a very robust belief. We can conclude the basis of just one of these components to be severely incorrect -- an event which has already occurred -- implying your total belief was weakly designated and nothing more. If these ideas don't logically correspond one-to-one, there's a great likelihood they were merely designated to unnaturally support a select core ideology: that means it's arbitrary.

Yes, those three premises are very important for this discussion. The second and the third premise or the argument is from Religion and its eagerly waiting to explain those things if the first premise turns out to be true. Therefore its very important to figure out in the coming years with all the further research in quantum mechanics as well as experiments from consciousness studies as to whether the premise 1 is in fact true or not without any shadow of doubt. That's the only last hope for religion as far as I see it.

I think both Science as well as Religion can battle it out in providing evidence in favour or against the validity of the premise 1.

juanrga · September 28, 2012

Oh!, they make false statements and they are incorrect? This is not your personal blog, this is a discussion forum, how do you say their claims are wrong? You can go on and be deluded as though there is no problem at all but I for sure doesn't want to be deluded. Its a simple fact that no element of physical reality exists corresponding to a physical quantity, the classical scientific realism is dead, do you just thought that philosophers are not going to question it and will just blindly accept what biased scientists say without examining the truth? We will question the foundations and assumptions of Science and the beliefs of scientists which they are so stubborn that they doesn't want to give up even though all evidence are against their beliefs. Its very clear that science is becoming more dogmatic and not being intellectual honest in accepting what the truth of the matter is.

Several of us already said you in this discussion forum that Penrose and D'Espagnat are incorrect. We already gave you literature showing why they are incorrect. Your above reaction as if you had read this criticism of their work by the first time is very funny. :lol:

I know what you are going to ignore this advice once again but I am rather persistent: No matter how many times you insult others calling them "deluded," "biased scientists", intellectual dishonests or "stubborn", the scientific facts will not change; religion will continue being useless for a fundamental understanding of reality.

Edited September 28, 2012 by juanrga

immortal · September 29, 2012

Several of us already said you in this discussion forum that Penrose and D'Espagnat are incorrect. We already gave you literature showing why they are incorrect. Your above reaction as if you had read this criticism of their work by the first time is very funny.

I know what you are going to ignore this advice once again but I am rather persistent: No matter how many times you insult others calling them "deluded," "biased scientists", intellectual dishonests or "stubborn", the scientific facts will not change; religion will continue being useless for a fundamental understanding of reality.

This is what they call the biggest scandal of Quantum Mechanics.

THE REAL SCANDAL OF QUANTUM MECHANICS Am. J. Phys. in press 2009

Physicists still holding onto classical notions of realism even though all evidence are against scientific realism.

Concept The mental Universe - Nature

The only reality is mind and observations, but observations are not of things. To see the Universe as it really is, we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things.

All they needed was a theory of mind and they have it now. All evidence is pointing to a theistic view of our existence where the mind is a product of a divine God and a God hypothesis is a reasonable hypothesis explaining the origin of our cosmos and all these are compelling enough to investigate the pleroma of God.

Science can learn from Religion and Religion can learn from Science.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

- Albert Einstein

Edited September 29, 2012 by imatfaal
Removal of potentially dodgy link to copyrighted material

**imatfaal** · September 29, 2012

!

Moderator Note

Immortal - you cannot post links to sites that reproduce copyrighted material; we as a forum cannot facilitate skirting around the rights of the copyright holder from the publication of protected material.

as a tip - if the publishing magazine has a paywall to stop the casual visitor from reading the material it is unlikely that other websites have permission to publish the article in full on the web. please do not link to such sites.

juanrga · September 30, 2012

This is what they call the biggest scandal of Quantum Mechanics.

THE REAL SCANDAL OF QUANTUM MECHANICS Am. J. Phys. in press 2009

The above link starts with (emphasis in the original)

The real scandal of quantum mechanics is that so many physicists still insist on thinking about quantum phenomena with classical ideas.

I already wrote 94 posts ago:

The result of using classical concepts where they do not belong is to generate contradictions and paradoxes of the sort which, especially in more popular expositions of the subject, make quantum physics seem magical. Magic may be good for entertainment, but the resulting confusion is not very helpful to students trying to understand the subject for the first time, or to more mature scientists who want to apply quantum principles to a new domain where there is not yet a well-established set of principles for carrying out and interpreting calculations, or to philosophers interested in the implications of quantum theory.

What is the point on repeating what has been said to you before?

Physicists still holding onto classical notions of realism even though all evidence are against scientific realism.

Both statements are untrue as shown in repeated occasions in this thread. You have not even provided a single pseudo-evidence.

Concept The mental Universe - Nature

The author says that observations are not things. "Things" is not a scientific term, but a rather vacuous term. I am not going to debate about such terms because is a waste of time.

Precisely, one of the characteristics of scientific method is the precise definition of terms used in the language before debating about them.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

- Albert Einstein

The complete quotation is:

The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Though I have asserted above that in truth a legitimate conflict between religion and science cannot exist, I must nevertheless qualify this assertion once again on an essential point, with reference to the actual content of historical religions. This qualification has to do with the concept of God. During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image, who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence, the phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favor by means of magic and prayer. The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old concept of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes.

Einstein also defends science:

For any one who is pervaded with the sense of causal law in all that happens, who accepts in real earnest the assumption of causality, the idea of Being who interferes with the sequence of events in the world is absolutely impossible. Neither the religion of fear nor the social-moral religion can have any hold on him. A God who rewards and punishes is for him unthinkable, because man acts in accordance with an inner and outer necessity, and would, in the eyes of God, be as little responsible as an inanimate object is for the movements which it makes. Science, in consequence, has been accused of undermining morals—but wrongly. The ethical behavior of man is better based on sympathy, education and social relationships, and requires no support from religion. Man's plight would, indeed, be sad if he had to be kept in order through fear of punishment and hope of rewards after death.

He gives a definition of religion that contradicts yours:

As regards religion, on the other hand, one is generally agreed that it deals with goals and evaluations and, in general, with the emotional foundation of human thinking and acting, as far as these are not predetermined by the inalterable hereditary disposition of the human species. Religion is concerned with man's attitude toward nature at large, with the establishing of ideals for the individual and communal life, and with mutual human relationship. These ideals religion attempts to attain by exerting an educational influence on tradition and through the development and promulgation of certain easily accessible thoughts and narratives (epics and myths) which are apt to influence evaluation and action along the lines of the accepted ideals.

Explains how religion would not interfere science:

It is this mythical, or rather this symbolic, content of the religious traditions which is likely to come into conflict with science. This occurs whenever this religious stock of ideas contains dogmatically fixed statements on subjects which belong in the domain of science. Thus, it is of vital importance for the preservation of true religion that such conflicts be avoided when they arise from subjects which, in fact, are not really essential for the pursuance of the religious aims.

Emphasize how scientific results are independent of religion:

While it is true that scientific results are entirely independent from religious or moral considerations, those individuals to whom we owe the great creative achievements of science were all of them imbued with the truly religious conviction that this universe of ours is something perfect and susceptible to the rational striving for knowledge. If this conviction had not been a strongly emotional one and if those searching for knowledge had not been inspired by Spinoza's Amor Dei Intellectualis, they would hardly have been capable of that untiring devotion which alone enables man to attain his greatest achievements.

And gives remarks about religious zealots very similar to those remarks I have given:

A man who is convinced of the truth of his religion is indeed never tolerant. At the least, he is to feel pity for the adherent of another religion but usually it does not stop there. The faithful adherent of a religion will try first of all to convince those that believe in another religion and usually he goes on to hatred if he is not successful. However, hatred then leads to persecution when the might of the majority is behind it.

Edited September 30, 2012 by juanrga

LimbicLoser · September 30, 2012

Oh!, they make false statements and they are incorrect? This is not your personal blog, this is a discussion forum, how do you say their claims are wrong?

Actually, immortal, I have good reason to say, among other points, that the parts which you have presented regarding quantum mechanics having anything to do with consciousness, for example, has been fully demonstrated to be incorrect; false.⁽¹⁾ Some other applications which you wish to make, also, are false, as well as a number of things you have said regarding the pragmatic world we live in. Penrose, as A.N. Whitehead, also, is just as guilty of misleading folks in kind of similar ways; as are a good number of others who tend to wish to hold some 'status quo' as it relates to the theist-based religious belief systems we have inherited from the ancients. (Who were very uninformed on such things. ) I am not talking about quantum theory, per se, or all the studies and such done in that area, and the progress that is slowing being made. I am not talking about mathematics. (and I know folks can take that to meaningless (trivial) planes as well.) I'm talking about the corrections which you need to make regarding the best understanding of cognitive neuroscience and consciousness science to date, the better and more correct usage of certain English terms, and the matter of more precisely and clearly presenting.

Its a simple fact that no element of physical reality exists corresponding to a physical quantity, the classical scientific realism is dead, do you just thought that philosophers are not going to question it and will just blindly accept what biased scientists say without examining the truth?

First of all, I will say up front, that if you are by any chance imagining that you are practicing philosophy in what you are doing here, I would suggest checking to make sure there are at least some bushes down below, when you fall. Yes, I know that there are those who think that by claiming to be writing within the discipline of 'philosophy,' they have some license to say anything at all. The 'cold-cash-on-the-barrelhead' truth, if academic circles were approached, would blow those clouds away real fast... resulting in a hard fall into reality. A reality check only hurts those who have not had it yet. I know for a fact that you cannot go out and find anything which you can bring in and set on the table in any realistic way at all, which is not physically subtrated. But again, that is not the real beef here. You have made false claims about the ability to know, the processing which is what the condition of having a state of consciousness is. Quantum has absolutely nothing more to that than the oval window of the ear has to do with color perception acknowledgement.

We will question the foundations and assumptions of Science and the beliefs of scientists which they are so stubborn that they doesn't want to give up even though all evidence are against their beliefs. Its very clear that science is becoming more dogmatic and not being intellectual honest in accepting what the truth of the matter is.

Well, please do provide the citations, immortal, if it is in fact true. I mean, you have been making an assertion (a claim to know) all along, and have not presented anything other than textual passages from some Vedic text, or from some writers of Buddhist or Hindu philosophy schools, or maybe a misunderstood, or misconstructed Wiki page. I have told you, and it is correct, that simply quoting someone will not do the trick if they are simply saying, or writing, it without, themselves, presenting some hard evidence for their having reached that conclusion.

Science needs to redefined and reshaped and scientists should adopt weak objectivism and should not use strong objectivist language while describing their scientific concepts and models.

When I use the term "Religion", I am referring to all the religions of the world, I am talking of Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Tibetian Vajraism etc. I am not talking of any particular religion or any particular god like Yahweh or Buddha or any other gods. The word 'Religion' represents all the religious traditions of the world and their basic doctrines and concepts. Perhaps a better term would be Esoteric Religions of the world.

Yes, I know that the word religion can be used in that generic sense of the community of all the theist-involved religious belief systems. I am pretty sure I had demonstrated that much. Your usage, nevertheless, is incorrect. First of all, again, there is absolutely no reason at all to capitalize the word. Secondly, when you couch the opening of some claim along the lines of, "... Religion says... , then you had better put something there that each and every system agrees on... otherwise you will be as guilty of ignorance you seemingly wish to cast on others--and without any information, or clues, at all, upon which to back such desired prancing. Do you understand what I mean?

I have corrected your understanding faults. You have yet to learn. It is not 'science,' not 'religion.' It is scientific method (in the broadest sense), and theist-involved religious belief systems. Everything that you can learn, is learned through the process of scientific method. It works like this:

A. The primary and necessary elements.

1. There must be an observation primarily involved.

a. a matter of a state of circumstance/condition or an operation/process of observational things.

b. a means, or access by which, to observe.

c. a logically and properly developed process (method) of identifying and classing the distinct and distinguished elements involved with/incurred through, the observation.

2. There must be an act of testing for further observation.

a. an act of application of natural, or non-natural, elements (and/or events) in relation and juxtaposition to those in (A.1.a.)

b. a means, or access, by which to act (see A.2.a.) and to observe during and having acted

c. a logically and properly developed process (method) of identifying and classing the distinct and distinguished elements and/or events (A.2.b.) as contrasted to the lack of an act of (A.2.a) which leaves on (A.1.)

B. The secondary and practical elements.

1. A reason (objective), or cause (mental disposition), for executing (A.).

a. a circumstance, condition or predicament of a personal or social nature which needs, or is deemed to need, some alteration, improvement of, or release from, (A.1.)

b. an emotion condition, circumstance, or disposition of mind by which a deep desire to know of, and/or understand the matters of, (A.1.a. and A.2.c.)

c. a proposition, or understanding obtained of the nature of (A.1.a.) which due to (B.1.a. or B.1.b.) is acted on as per (A.2.) and verified through such by reproduction of the same over sample space and time

2. A summary and/or interpretation towards a summary/conclusion of (A.1.a., and/or A.2.c.).

a. a statement of exact and nearness of exactness of all observations (A.1. and A.2.)

b. a proposition (assertion/claim/prediction) of down-stream matters of states of circumstances, conditions, or operations/processes which are thus understood to will have been (established) due to (A.2.c.)

c. a statement which identifies a working value (interpretation) which data of (A.2.c.) is understood to involve, represent, or be worthy of relative to other non-involved but operationally, or categorically relative to (A.2.c.) matters. (This will be followed up in another post, for reader-friendliness.)

When I am using the word God, I am not leaving out Yahweh either, all names corresponding or representing God from different religions are included in it. All religions are talking of the same concept of God. Is that clear to you?

Your error is of course clear to me. What you are doing, of course, far too many are guilty of, but, notwithstanding, it is essentially incorrect. Again (and I'll do this elsewhere too), in the English language, when you write the word 'God,' you are doing so to identify a specific god, namely, in the first place YHWH (and in that case, YHWH ONLY) and in the second place, the biblical god of post third century Christianity (basically). In the third place, there is usage of it for the god of the Islamic system. (A usage which I very strongly suggest be dropped.) You are using the written form incorrectly, and I have corrected you on that. The common noun 'god' is not uncountable, and so you cannot write, and be correct in doing so, the following: "... all names corresponding or representing God from different religions are.... This is utter nonsense and silliness. YHWH is not Baal, neither Ra, neither Dagon, neither any of the following:

Huitzilopochtli, Tezcatilpoca, Tialoc, Chalchihuitlicue, Xiehtecutli, Centeotl, Omaacatl, Yacatecutli, Mixcoatl, Xipe, Dis, Tarves, Moccos, Epona, Mullo, Damona, Esus, Drunemeton, Silvana, Dervones, Adsallta, Deva, Belisama, Axona, Vintio, Taranuous, Sulis, Cocidius, Adsmerius, Dumiatis, Caletos, Ollovidius, Albiorix, Leucitius, Vitucadrus, Ogmios, Uxellimus, Borvo, Grannos, Mogons, Sutekh, Resheph, Anath, Astarte, Ashtoreth, Hadad, El, Addu, Nergal, Shalem, Nebo, Ninib, Sharrab, Melek, Yau (which may possibly be the link to YHWH's creation), Ahijah, Amon-Re, Isis, Osiris, Horus, Khnum, Montu, Amun, Amun-Ra, Anubis, Molech, Ashimath, Asherah, Bel, Gad, Rephan, Meni,

and so on...

Gods have names, you know, in almost all cases of human created gods. There are some overlapping attributes, and such, but the given activities and such, by the several information sources we have, do not allow that all these god models equal each other. It just doesn't happen. You have an urgent need to adjust your usage of the English written form, and stick with the lower case form, 'god.' Then, you need to make sure that you use as it actually, is, a countable noun. If you are talking about a certain god, then you use the indefinite article a. If you are talking about plural gods, then be sure to pluralize it properly. If you are talking about a specific god other than the biblical god, or the Islamic god, then please use the personal name of the god you are talking about. If you are talking about the Jewish model, then feel free to use YHWH--it's not going to kill you, or cause you to loose eyesight.

It is absolutely false that all theist-based religious belief systems are presenting the same single god concept. That they are all presenting gods, is of course true, the concept of a god, does not amount to the fullness of the descriptive terms they give for their models. Try any way you like, and you will never find any room at all to match the concept provided for YHWH, and that provided by the collected texts describing Horus. Not all theist-involved religious belief systems are talking about the same concept of a single god because all their gods are different. You should have worded that as follows, to be correct: all theist-involved religious belief systems talk about a concept of a god.. Your usage is uninformed, incorrect, and needs to be adjusted. You have not been talking about God, to date. Is that clear to you?

Other errors will have to be dealt with in time--some at more proper locations so as to save space here on this thread (although they are very relevant).

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Edited September 30, 2012 by LimbicLoser

immortal · October 2, 2012

The above link starts with (emphasis in the original)

I already wrote 94 posts ago:

What is the point on repeating what has been said to you before?

Both statements are untrue as shown in repeated occasions in this thread. You have not even provided a single pseudo-evidence.

Perhaps you didn't watched the David Mermin's video, there is no element of physical reality corresponding to a physical quantity, the classical notion of scientific realism is dead and the apparent anthropism is quite evident.

The author says that observations are not things. "Things" is not a scientific term, but a rather vacuous term. I am not going to debate about such terms because is a waste of time.

Precisely, one of the characteristics of scientific method is the precise definition of terms used in the language before debating about them.

If you had read the article fully, he uses precise scientific terms like quantum objects, quantum fields etc. Who sees things only what they want to see? Shying away from the truth doesn't win your position.

The complete quotation is:

Einstein also defends science:

He gives a definition of religion that contradicts yours:

Explains how religion would not interfere science:

Emphasize how scientific results are independent of religion:

And gives remarks about religious zealots very similar to those remarks I have given:

A lot of things have changed since Einstein died, no one knows what he was going to say now that the experiments of Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger have gone against his beliefs and the context of his quotations is no longer the same as was then.

“Quantum theory is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. Quantum theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the Old One. I, at any rate, am convinced that He (God) does not throw dice.”

- Albert Einstein

Which was corrected by Stephen Hawking as, "God not only plays dice, but he throws them where we cannot see"

And recently Elitzur said, "Aharonov's view is somewhat Talmudic: everything you're going to do is already known to God, but you still have the choice."

Anilkumar · October 2, 2012

. . . However its wrong to think that both Religion and Science are diverging, no its not, its actually converging. Even though their methodology is different and deal with different things they both converge at a common point and make the same conclusion about the nature of reality which we are living in. . .

I didn't say they are diverging. I said they are on different paths. To conclude whether they CONVERGE ultimately, is subject to the definitions of the Noumena & the Nature of Reality existing independent of the human mind, [which I will not be discussing in any detail here] and subject to the Methodology used to attain the Goals set, which I would like to discuss.

Just like the empirical sciences, the goal of the Religious traditions is the pursuit of Truth . . .

Define Truth from the Religious point of view.

[if you would like to know the Definition of Truth from the point of view of Science, I could oblige.]

Just like the empirical sciences, the goal of the Religious traditions is the pursuit of Truth . . .

. . . be the masters of nature rather than its mere slaves subject to its forces.

The main goal of Religion is to understand the way the cosmos works . . .

By your stipulation, the Goals of the Religious Traditions are;

Pursuit of Truth
To become the masters of nature rather than its mere slaves subject to its forces
To understand the way the cosmos works

But then, that leads eventually to the questions;

How do the Religious Traditions hope to attain these Goals? OR in other words,

Show; How the Religious Traditions are Efficient to attain these Goals?

Please give the List of Religious traditions that can help us attain those goals; separately for each category as follows,

To attain Truth [After defining it]
To attain mastery over nature
To attain the understanding of the working of the cosmos

And show that they can take us to the stipulated goals.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Anilkumar

immortal · October 2, 2012

I didn't say they are diverging. I said they are on different paths. To conclude whether they CONVERGE ultimately, is subject to the definitions of the Noumena & the Nature of Reality existing independent of the human mind, [which I will not be discussing in any detail here] and subject to the Methodology used to attain the Goals set, which I would like to discuss.

They are based on a different methodology and also on a different epistemology but the goals are the same i.e. to understand the way the nature works.

Define Truth from the Religious point of view.

[if you would like to know the Definition of Truth from the point of view of Science, I could oblige.]

Even Religion is after questions like what is the world made of? Do we have free will? Where do we come from? and therefore ultimately both Religion and Science is after the pursuit of understanding the way the nature works and build testable models of it.

By your stipulation, the Goals of the Religious Traditions are;

Pursuit of Truth

To become the masters of nature rather than its mere slaves subject to its forces

To understand the way the cosmos works

But then, that leads eventually to the questions;

How do the Religious Traditions hope to attain these Goals? OR in other words,

Show; How the Religious Traditions are Efficient to attain these Goals?

They have non-positivistic methods which help them to gain practical useful knowledge just like we have got modern technology by applying the scientific empirical method which is solely based on basic observation.

Please give the List of Religious traditions that can help us attain those goals; separately for each category as follows,

To attain Truth [After defining it]

To attain mastery over nature

To attain the understanding of the working of the cosmos

And show that they can take us to the stipulated goals.

Sure.

1. Valentinian Tradition of the Gnostic Christians.

2. Smartha Tradition of the Vedic Aryans.

3. Jewish Mysticism, Kabbalah

4. Tibetan Buddhism

5. Neoplatonism

6. Proto Indo-Iranian Religions

7. Proto Indo-European Religions

juanrga · October 2, 2012

Perhaps you didn't watched the David Mermin's video, there is no element of physical reality corresponding to a physical quantity, the classical notion of scientific realism is dead and the apparent anthropism is quite evident.

That video does not count even as half-evidence. Scientific realism continues to work. Your "anthropism" plays no special role in nature as science has shown during its entire history: Physics showed that Earth is not the center of Universe, chemistry showed that the living and the non-living are made of the same atoms; biology showed that we are an evolving specie as any other...

If you had read the article fully, he uses precise scientific terms like quantum objects, quantum fields etc. Who sees things only what they want to see? Shying away from the truth doesn't win your position.

His main statement is quoted at the very start: "observations are not things". Apart from being a trivial statement, "things" is a not a scientific term and discussion about such vacuous terms is useless. Contrary to what you believe "quantum fields" is not a precise term. They cannot be rigorously defined even in the free case.

A lot of things have changed since Einstein died, no one knows what he was going to say now that the experiments of Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger have gone against his beliefs and the context of his quotations is no longer the same as was then.

You are now dismissing Einstein because I gave a full an extensive quotations where he clearly disagrees with you. You did not dismiss him when you gave a partial quote and pretended that he was supporting your point.

In any case, the important point is that recent research supports his point of view about reality and quantum theory. Bohr was wrong, as Weinberg said to you.

They are based on a different methodology and also on a different epistemology but the goals are the same i.e. to understand the way the nature works.

The goal of religion was never that. But let us concede you, for a moment, that this is its goal. The conclusion here is that religion is a poor method to develop that goal because everything said by religion about nature is either not provable (which means it is useless) or has been proven to be plain wrong.

During last 1000 years you cannot find a single basic fact about nature that had been predicted/derived/provided by religion. Not a single gadget/device/material/plane/car/treatment... works thanks to knowledge provided by religion. Those are the facts and they are persistent.

Edited October 2, 2012 by juanrga

immortal · October 2, 2012

Actually, immortal, I have good reason to say, among other points, that the parts which you have presented regarding quantum mechanics having anything to do with consciousness, for example, has been fully demonstrated to be incorrect; false.⁽¹⁾ Some other applications which you wish to make, also, are false, as well as a number of things you have said regarding the pragmatic world we live in. Penrose, as A.N. Whitehead, also, is just as guilty of misleading folks in kind of similar ways; as are a good number of others who tend to wish to hold some 'status quo' as it relates to the theist-based religious belief systems we have inherited from the ancients. (Who were very uninformed on such things. ) I am not talking about quantum theory, per se, or all the studies and such done in that area, and the progress that is slowing being made. I am not talking about mathematics. (and I know folks can take that to meaningless (trivial) planes as well.) I'm talking about the corrections which you need to make regarding the best understanding of cognitive neuroscience and consciousness science to date, the better and more correct usage of certain English terms, and the matter of more precisely and clearly presenting.

If you notice my posts in this thread I have not used the word consciousness at all or not used it quite often in my posts because I know no one knows what Consciousness is, its a term which is confusing and different people will give different definitions for that. I am clearly using the word "Mind" and separating it from the neural processing of the brain. For me Mind and brain are two different things and this is not just mere speculation because there is much scholarly evidence that our ancients did knew that there is a "Mind" which exists and also an "Intellect" which exists and the English language is clearly poor when it comes to conveying religious terminologies. For example - We have clear precise terms in the east for the Mind and the Intellect called as "Manas" and "Buddhi" respectively and the context of those words clearly specify that they are something different than the brain and that's exactly how the eastern philosophical traditions still see it and will continue to do so.

So I hope you can understand the problem here for me for conveying these ideas in English, I need to change something or introduce a capitalization to convey my ideas so that people don't associate the idea of the Mind (Manas) with the brain because according to eastern philosophical schools Mind is really something different than the brain and its something which science hasn't figured it out yet.

I am shocked by the fact that how you blatantly state that the arguments of Sir Roger Penrose and Bernard D'Epspagnat are false and incorrect, if it is so then why don't you come up with a machine capable of strong AI and there by simulating conscious thought and make machines answer problems with yes or no answers for which no algorithm exists. You're not doing that instead you are simply stating that their arguments are false by holding a personal biased position, if their arguments were falsified I would have packed my stuff up and would have gone by now.

First of all, I will say up front, that if you are by any chance imagining that you are practicing philosophy in what you are doing here, I would suggest checking to make sure there are at least some bushes down below, when you fall. Yes, I know that there are those who think that by claiming to be writing within the discipline of 'philosophy,' they have some license to say anything at all. The 'cold-cash-on-the-barrelhead' truth, if academic circles were approached, would blow those clouds away real fast... resulting in a hard fall into reality. A reality check only hurts those who have not had it yet. I know for a fact that you cannot go out and find anything which you can bring in and set on the table in any realistic way at all, which is not physically subtrated. But again, that is not the real beef here. You have made false claims about the ability to know, the processing which is what the condition of having a state of consciousness is. Quantum has absolutely nothing more to that than the oval window of the ear has to do with color perception acknowledgement.

I don't think there is anyone who does better philosophy than Bernard D'Espagnat and he wasn't afraid to tackle those philosophical issues of Bell experiments where most physicists shy off from giving a proper answer. Please do read the entire thread before making comments like that.

"The thrust of d'Espagnat's work was on experimental tests of Bell's theorem. The theorem states that either quantum mechanics is a complete description of the world or that if there is some reality beneath quantum mechanics, it must be nonlocal – that is, things can influence one another instantaneously regardless of how much space stretches between them, violating Einstein's insistence that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

But what d'Espagnat was really interested in was what all of this meant for discerning the true nature of ultimate reality. Unlike most of his contemporaries, d'Espagnat was one of the brave ones unafraid to tackle the thorny and profound philosophical questions posed by quantum physics."

- NewScientist

From Bernard D'Espagnat's paper Quantum Theory and Reality.

This is the third or the fourth time I am asking the question which one of those three premises are in error? and no one gave me an answer and they simply dodge the question. I know Bernard D'Espagnat is intellectually honest and I know what recent experimental findings are saying and I didn't studied Michael Rae's 'A beginner's guide to Quantum Physics' and understood all the philosophical difficulties over the interpretation of quantum physics and the measurement problem for nothing. I very well know what I am talking here.

Well, please do provide the citations, immortal, if it is in fact true. I mean, you have been making an assertion (a claim to know) all along, and have not presented anything other than textual passages from some Vedic text, or from some writers of Buddhist or Hindu philosophy schools, or maybe a misunderstood, or misconstructed Wiki page. I have told you, and it is correct, that simply quoting someone will not do the trick if they are simply saying, or writing, it without, themselves, presenting some hard evidence for their having reached that conclusion.

"Dr. James G. Garrick, an orthopedic surgeon and director of the Center for Sports Medicine at St. Francis Hospital in San Francisco, said his clinic saw 39 patients with yoga injuries in 2002, up from 11 in 2001. Most of the injuries patients suffered were to the knee, followed by lower back and shoulder. The injuries result from people trying to stretch their bodies into difficult poses that are beyond their physical limitations. "The last couple of years we've been seeing a dramatic increase in the number of people injured doing yoga," Garrick said. "It's frightened us.""

That's just the number of people who visited a hospital, imagine how many are out there who didn't go to the hospital and they know that there is something wrong with this world or its nature of reality just like the Gnostics who differentiated this empirical reality as kenoma and the Platonic reality the Pleroma which is far more real than this empirical reality. This is the reason why I said you guys do need a reality check.

Bernard D'Espagnat is absolutely right when he says that the basic components of objects - the particles, electrons and quarks etc cannot be thought of as self-existent.

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."^[60] In an article in the Guardian titled Quantum weirdness: What we call 'reality' is just a state of mind 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.^[61]

Yes, I know that the word religion can be used in that generic sense of the community of all the theist-involved religious belief systems. I am pretty sure I had demonstrated that much. Your usage, nevertheless, is incorrect. First of all, again, there is absolutely no reason at all to capitalize the word. Secondly, when you couch the opening of some claim along the lines of, "... Religion says... , then you had better put something there that each and every system agrees on... otherwise you will be as guilty of ignorance you seemingly wish to cast on others--and without any information, or clues, at all, upon which to back such desired prancing. Do you understand what I mean?

Yes, I do understand what you mean, I better prefix the word religion with esoteric because I am not talking of the exoteric religions but I am talking of Esoteric Religions. Thanks.

I have corrected your understanding faults. You have yet to learn. It is not 'science,' not 'religion.' It is scientific method (in the broadest sense), and theist-involved religious belief systems. Everything that you can learn, is learned through the process of scientific method. It works like this:

A. The primary and necessary elements.

1. There must be an observation primarily involved.

a. a matter of a state of circumstance/condition or an operation/process of observational things.

b. a means, or access by which, to observe.

c. a logically and properly developed process (method) of identifying and classing the distinct and distinguished elements involved with/incurred through, the observation.

2. There must be an act of testing for further observation.

a. an act of application of natural, or non-natural, elements (and/or events) in relation and juxtaposition to those in (A.1.a.)

b. a means, or access, by which to act (see A.2.a.) and to observe during and having acted

c. a logically and properly developed process (method) of identifying and classing the distinct and distinguished elements and/or events (A.2.b.) as contrasted to the lack of an act of (A.2.a) which leaves on (A.1.)

B. The secondary and practical elements.

1. A reason (objective), or cause (mental disposition), for executing (A.).

a. a circumstance, condition or predicament of a personal or social nature which needs, or is deemed to need, some alteration, improvement of, or release from, (A.1.)

b. an emotion condition, circumstance, or disposition of mind by which a deep desire to know of, and/or understand the matters of, (A.1.a. and A.2.c.)

c. a proposition, or understanding obtained of the nature of (A.1.a.) which due to (B.1.a. or B.1.b.) is acted on as per (A.2.) and verified through such by reproduction of the same over sample space and time

2. A summary and/or interpretation towards a summary/conclusion of (A.1.a., and/or A.2.c.).

a. a statement of exact and nearness of exactness of all observations (A.1. and A.2.)

b. a proposition (assertion/claim/prediction) of down-stream matters of states of circumstances, conditions, or operations/processes which are thus understood to will have been (established) due to (A.2.c.)

c. a statement which identifies a working value (interpretation) which data of (A.2.c.) is understood to involve, represent, or be worthy of relative to other non-involved but operationally, or categorically relative to (A.2.c.) matters. (This will be followed up in another post, for reader-friendliness.)

Before you write an abstract to a paper or even start doing a project on it what one needs to do at first is understand the problem. Understanding the problem is the first basic step and I do understand the problem of the current consensus among the physicists on scientific realism and religious thinkers and scientists turned philosophers who mix modern science with Eastern mysticism without noticing the fact that their epistemology is different. So basically what one needs is to first understand the current problems in various fields and the various competing hypothesis and ideas explaining a particular phenomena and I am quite well aware of the current problems in some of these fields.

Your error is of course clear to me. What you are doing, of course, far too many are guilty of, but, notwithstanding, it is essentially incorrect. Again (and I'll do this elsewhere too), in the English language, when you write the word 'God,' you are doing so to identify a specific god, namely, in the first place YHWH (and in that case, YHWH ONLY) and in the second place, the biblical god of post third century Christianity (basically). In the third place, there is usage of it for the god of the Islamic system. (A usage which I very strongly suggest be dropped.) You are using the written form incorrectly, and I have corrected you on that. The common noun 'god' is not uncountable, and so you cannot write, and be correct in doing so, the following: "... all names corresponding or representing God from different religions are.... This is utter nonsense and silliness. YHWH is not Baal, neither Ra, neither Dagon, neither any of the following:

Huitzilopochtli, Tezcatilpoca, Tialoc, Chalchihuitlicue, Xiehtecutli, Centeotl, Omaacatl, Yacatecutli, Mixcoatl, Xipe, Dis, Tarves, Moccos, Epona, Mullo, Damona, Esus, Drunemeton, Silvana, Dervones, Adsallta, Deva, Belisama, Axona, Vintio, Taranuous, Sulis, Cocidius, Adsmerius, Dumiatis, Caletos, Ollovidius, Albiorix, Leucitius, Vitucadrus, Ogmios, Uxellimus, Borvo, Grannos, Mogons, Sutekh, Resheph, Anath, Astarte, Ashtoreth, Hadad, El, Addu, Nergal, Shalem, Nebo, Ninib, Sharrab, Melek, Yau (which may possibly be the link to YHWH's creation), Ahijah, Amon-Re, Isis, Osiris, Horus, Khnum, Montu, Amun, Amun-Ra, Anubis, Molech, Ashimath, Asherah, Bel, Gad, Rephan, Meni,
and so on...

I am not being silly because you don't see what I see.

"Esotericists frequently suggest that there is a concordance between different religious traditions: best example is the belief in prisca theologia (ancient theology) or in philosophia perennis (perennial philosophy)."

- Esotericism (wiki)

There is a common esoteric essence in all the esoteric religions of the world and most people don't see it because of their preconceived notions, cultural and other social issues and they are really myopic and the same is the problem with you.

Gods have names, you know, in almost all cases of human created gods. There are some overlapping attributes, and such, but the given activities and such, by the several information sources we have, do not allow that all these god models equal each other. It just doesn't happen. You have an urgent need to adjust your usage of the English written form, and stick with the lower case form, 'god.' Then, you need to make sure that you use as it actually, is, a countable noun. If you are talking about a certain god, then you use the indefinite article a. If you are talking about plural gods, then be sure to pluralize it properly. If you are talking about a specific god other than the biblical god, or the Islamic god, then please use the personal name of the god you are talking about. If you are talking about the Jewish model, then feel free to use YHWH--it's not going to kill you, or cause you to loose eyesight.

It is absolutely false that all theist-based religious belief systems are presenting the same single god concept. That they are all presenting gods, is of course true, the concept of a god, does not amount to the fullness of the descriptive terms they give for their models. Try any way you like, and you will never find any room at all to match the concept provided for YHWH, and that provided by the collected texts describing Horus. Not all theist-involved religious belief systems are talking about the same concept of a single god because all their gods are different. You should have worded that as follows, to be correct: all theist-involved religious belief systems talk about a concept of a god.. Your usage is uninformed, incorrect, and needs to be adjusted. You have not been talking about God, to date. Is that clear to you?

Throughout this thread I have been talking of the Pleroma of the west and the Mandala of the east and showing how common their understanding of the numinous was and that should be quite clear to others as to what concept of God I am talking here about.

Other errors will have to be dealt with in time--some at more proper locations so as to save space here on this thread (although they are very relevant).

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Thanks for citing all these sources and would love to read them and have a better hold on the recent developments on Consciousness studies and yes this will take time and also a whole specific thread for that and I have studied the basics of Molecular Neurobiology from Cell and Molecular Biology, E.M.F De Robertis jr and E.D.P De Robertis and if we go to the technical arguments that itself takes a whole another thread. However what Bernard D'Espagnat is arguing is that even neurons fall under empirical reality because even they are made of same objects like particles, quarks etc and the quantum rules apply to them and there by even neurons and in fact this whole empirical reality or the phenomenal world cannot be said to self-existent independent of the human mind.

That video does not count even as half-evidence. Scientific realism continues to work. Your "anthropism" plays no special role in nature as science has shown during its entire history: Physics showed that Earth is not the center of Universe, chemistry showed that the living and the non-living are made of the same atoms; biology showed that we are an evolving specie as any other...

That doesn't change the fact that there are scientists with in the scientific community who disagree with you as I have shown in this very thread.

His main statement is quoted at the very start: "observations are not things". Apart from being a trivial statement, "things" is a not a scientific term and discussion about such vacuous terms is useless. Contrary to what you believe "quantum fields" is not a precise term. They cannot be rigorously defined even in the free case.

That's what the main tenet of the paper was that science doesn't know what the world is made up of and it should be emphasized that when you quote from the CERN scientists website that its true only from their own perspective and not that its the final word.

You are now dismissing Einstein because I gave a full an extensive quotations where he clearly disagrees with you. You did not dismiss him when you gave a partial quote and pretended that he was supporting your point.

All along I am questioning the assumptions of science and its foundations and therefore your assumption that I see scientists as gods is not true and don't need their quotes to justify my beliefs because I am not making a God of the gaps argument here, I am making an argument which fills a gap in our knowledge and showing that even science can learn from religion and on that particular quote Einstein is indeed supporting my views as you yourself have quoted here.

The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Though I have asserted above that in truth a legitimate conflict between religion and science cannot exist,

This is turning out to be true because science and religion are indeed converging at a common point and there is no conflict between science and religion.

I must nevertheless qualify this assertion once again on an essential point, with reference to the actual content of historical religions. This qualification has to do with the concept of God. During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image, who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence, the phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favor by means of magic and prayer. The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old concept of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes.

That doesn't mean I have to agree with all the other things Einstein said and I definitely don't agree with Einstein's views which is in bold and that's one of the reasons why there is still no common consensus as yet emerged from scientific community from the time of Einstein up to now on the interpretation of the results on Bell Experiments which has important consequences for a Theory of Everything. Its because scientists have ignored a God hypothesis which explains the origin of the cosmos.

The truth of the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution was this.

"Gods are real.

And these gods are everywhere, in all aspects of

existence, all aspects of human life."

-James Hillman

In any case, the important point is that recent research supports his point of view about reality and quantum theory. Bohr was wrong, as Weinberg said to you.

As far as I know Weinberg said "neither Bohr nor Einstein knew what the real problem was". That's what he said.

The goal of religion was never that. But let us concede you, for a moment, that this is its goal. The conclusion here is that religion is a poor method to develop that goal because everything said by religion about nature is either not provable (which means it is useless) or has been proven to be plain wrong.

During last 1000 years you cannot find a single basic fact about nature that had been predicted/derived/provided by religion. Not a single gadget/device/material/plane/car/treatment... works thanks to knowledge provided by religion. Those are the facts and they are persistent.

The wisdom hidden in the wisdom traditions were showed in this very thread and they didn't made up these ideas on their own, they got that wisdom and knowledge because the methodology of religion works.

Edited October 2, 2012 by immortal

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