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Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Please Read OP)

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    #5822
    tommy2bad
    Registered Users Posts: 4,255 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    Brian Shanahan wrote: »
    Here you go.

    Thats what I thought, no link at all.


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    #5823
    tommy2bad
    Registered Users Posts: 4,255 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    Zombrex wrote: »
    That doesn't matter, it is still measurable. There is no "measurable but not measurable by science". There is just measurable, and as you say these things are measurable.
    Measured with what?

    Those two things have little to do with each other. If the universe is clockwork so is love. If the universe isn't clock work, neither is love. You could replace "love" there with anything. We can measure the temp of water at boiling, does that mean the universe is or isn't clockwork?

    How we define, measure or evaluate love will have no baring on the clockwork nature of the universe or undetermined nature of the universe.
    We are talking across each other


    All empirical measurement is relative. The only question is relative to what. The classic example of this is simple movement. You are going 5km an hour. That is fine for general use, but the first question a scientist would ask is "5km an hour relative to what."

    If you say "I'm in a lot of pain" a doctor, who cannot jump into your head and assess your pain, and as you point out has no way to measuring your pain next to his, would ask "a lot of pain relative to what"


    Yes you can, you can quantify it based on your scale. Even if the emotion of love only existed in your head then it would be possible to measure and study it, using the scientific method.
    No you cant, and your pushing science beyond it's bounds at this stage.
    I have a feeling that your definition of measurable is closer to my definition of expressible.


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    #5824
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    There seems rampant confusion on this thread regarding the distinction beteen the scientific method and a philosophy of science. The scientific method has ben established for centuries and does not need any philosophy to sustain it.

    Observation --> Research --> Hypothesis --> run experiments to test hypothesis ---> analyze results / draw conclusions --> report results

    A philosophy of science like any philosophy changes over time and tries to define what science can tell us and how reliable it is. Karl Popper for example for much of his career claimed that Darwin's theory of eveolution was not a real scientific theory at all in terms of his philosophy of science, he later recanted on this. That's what Feynmann was referring to, a philosophy of science is for the birds, and few scientists pay any attention to it. As the physicists say "shut up and calculate"


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    #5825
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    nagirrac wrote: »
    So, if I understand you correctly, your logic is that it is impossible for someone to hold a set of beliefs (say for example, be a Christian) and hold true to the scientific method. What absolute balderdash.

    Some what unsurprisingly you don't understand me correctly.

    You claimed that Popper's thoughts on science would be "entirely different" to his thoughts on other things such as God.

    It is unlikely that Karl Popper, the father of modern scientific thinking, believed a whole set of things about knowledge and what we can and cannot know with confidence, and then abandoned all of that because he happened to be thinking about something else, such as God.

    The principles of science apply to everything we wish to know.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    You seem wedded to the philosophy of science. Here's what Richard Feynmann, an atheist, had to say on the matter: "Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds". I believe Feynmann was a most excellent scientist, how come he did not agree with you, as apparently you speak for science?

    You will have to ask him.

    Though it is a bit odd that you bring up Karl Popper, one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century, then have it pointed out to you that Popper isn't supporting you, he is in fact damning you, so you then bring up Feynmann to criticism philosophy of science. :rolleyes:

    Are you just Google Searching this stuff?
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Everything you have posted on this thread indicates that your worldview is that the only path to knowledge is through the philosophy of science. What absolute nonsense.

    Explain the other ways to knowledge and then explain why these ways to knowledge are not incorporated into the scientific method if they also work at allowing humans to hold confident beliefs about the nature of reality.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    So, here we go again. It is obvious now you do not understand what quantum theory is telling us and what Bell's theory is telling us. Bell's theory is not telling is "we don't know", it is telling us that our reality is non-local. Do you understand that expression and what it means? or do I have to take the time to educate you again?

    I know perfectly well what non-local means. Based on the wild conclusions you are drawing from an fascinating but rather simple concept, is clear you don't.

    Non-local means that interaction between two particles without any known intermediary force. Bell's theory demonstrated through a statistical model that appears to no hidden variables, ie it is not just that we haven't discovered the force that makes these interactions possible. This is amazing to humans because we are so used to locality, that actions are transmitted via forces, even invisible forces such as magnetism and gravity.

    That is all fine. Then you go off the reservation.

    It does not mean, nor have anything to do with the universe being "magic", nor that "all things are possible", nor that the universe "selects" what it wants to happen It simply means particles, in particular states, can effect other particles at distance without a force between them.

    We don't understand non-locality beyond simply knowing it happens. But even if we did understand it there is no connection between non-locality and the nonsense you are talking about. Non-locality is just the opposite of locality, we used to think every action required the transmission of force through space time, now we know it doesn't. That is it.

    Again you are just making stuff up, and pretending that science, or scientific ignorance, supports you in this ridiculous enterprise.


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    #5826
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    tommy2bad wrote: »
    Measured with what?

    Anything you want. The "tommy2bad scale" if you like. As far as I know no one has bothered coming up for a scale of "love", since I can't see any practical value to it, but sure knock yourself out if it is important to you.
    tommy2bad wrote: »
    We are talking across each other
    Ok ...
    tommy2bad wrote: »
    No you cant, and your pushing science beyond it's bounds at this stage.
    The "bounds" of science are claims about nature that can be examined tested and falsified.

    "I'm in a lot of pain" is a claim about nature. "I'm in love" is a claim about nature. Both of them should produce predictions about various things such as behavior, depending on how finely you actually define the concepts (after all both "pain" and "love" are in of themselves a form of theory, a human term used to classify and describe nature phenomena we experience)

    You can test these things, you can draw theories about them, you can measure them.

    The only thing you have to be aware of is the scales you are using and the confidence you have in what you come up with, which is why things like psychology are known as "soft sciences" because often the margin of error or uncertainty will be very large. So long as you are aware of this and don't treat your results with the same level of certainty as they do in the "hard sciences" like physics, you will be fine.


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    #5827
    Morbert
    Registered Users Posts: 3,457 ✭✭✭Morbert


    nagirrac wrote: »
    QFT is an extension of QM, it proposes a theoretical framework for describing "field like" objects and "particle like" objects.

    There are three things to consider, quantum theory (a framework for calculating the results of any experiment we may run), quantum facts (what we observe) and quantum reality (what actually is).

    From the facts we observe it is entirely logical to assume a local, determinate reality. Bell's theory however proves that reality is non-local and indeterminate. It proves that in our underlying reality all things are possible and thus the only plausible conclusion is that nature selects from the "all things possible" to give us the universe we observe. We know this because Bell proved that 1+1=3.

    Bell's theorem only pertains the hidden variables. You can still have deterministic evolution of the system. This isn't magic. It's just an ontology that is different to classical physics.


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    #5828
    tommy2bad
    Registered Users Posts: 4,255 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    Zombrex wrote: »
    The only thing you have to be aware of is the scales you are using and the confidence you have in what you come up with, which is why things like psychology are known as "soft sciences" because often the margin of error or uncertainty will be very large. So long as you are aware of this and don't treat your results with the same level of certainty as they do in the "hard sciences" like physics, you will be fine.

    "There are only molecules—everything else is sociology"
    Crick or Watson, cant remember which one.

    Thats my point, almost, we are not measuring these things we are describing them and vaguely at best. Science is not the answer to everything, it a tool that gives us data. The questions come from us. The answers come from us.


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    #5829
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    tommy2bad wrote: »
    Thats my point, almost, we are not measuring these things we are describing them and vaguely at best.

    What do you think "measuring" is?

    You are making this way more complicated that it needs be, or you have a vastly inflated notion about what science is actually doing.
    tommy2bad wrote: »
    Science is not the answer to everything, it a tool that gives us data. The questions come from us. The answers come from us.

    We are part of the natural world. We can be studied using science just like everything else.

    Perhaps if you explained what your fear is about all of this, it would make more sense to me. What happens if we start measuring, quantifying and studying "love" using the scientific method. And please don't say it ruins all the romance :)


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    #5830
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Zombrex wrote: »
    Non-local means that interaction between two particles without any known intermediary force. Bell's theory demonstrated through a statistical model that appears to no hidden variables, ie it is not just that we haven't discovered the force that makes these interactions possible.

    lol.. you accuse me of googling stuff and then post what you found on wiki, the only difference being you garbled the English. I'm afraid something as profound as Bell's theory cannot be expressed by a few sentences from wiki.

    I am referring to the implications of Bell's theory. Clearly what entanglement means is that particles continue to influence each other instantaneously after being separated (regardless of distance and time difference), but the point (which wiki missed) is that this is not due to any possible force field between them but from the very fact that they were once connected.

    To grasp the implications of Bell's theory you have to start with the measurement problem in QM. Before observation, reality exists as a wave of possibilities (the psi function). Upon observation, the wave collapses to particles we can measure and observe. This is what is going on in the double slit experiment for example. The "prior to observation" reality is non-local and indeterminate where everything is connected to everything else, all possibilities are possible, the "post observation" reality is apparently local and determinate. What Bell (and many subsequent scientists) proved is that this is incorrect, that all of reality is non-local and indeterminate, it just appears local and determinate to us.

    There has been much debate about observation and whether it needs a conscious observer to collapse a wave function. Clearly it does not as equipment can be set up to conduct experiments with no human interaction (other than designing the equipment and looking at the results). The problem however is for quantum theory to work, it assumes the existance of measurement instruments without explaining how their existance came about. If the only way we know the observable physical world comes about is through collapse of wave functions, how did the physical world we observe come about? How did the material we made the measurement device from come about?

    This is why we have at least 10 interpretations of QM, all of which are essentially guesses by the way, as there is no compelling experimental evidence to back up one over the other (although the De Broglie-Bohm interpretation is the most consistent with Bell's theory).

    ..and so, on to Bell. What Bell started out with is the common sense basic assumption that a non-local quantum theory gives rise to local quantum facts, that everything predicted by QM will result in observations that are always local. What he got however was experimental results showing that QM theory and experimental observation matched, confirming that reality was non-local. Put simply, a local reality expects 1+1=2, Bell's experiment proved that 1+1=3i.e. this is what nature actually produced. This experiment has been repeated over distances of 50km, it simply works, and it is not based on speculation, it is based on a mathematical proof from observed experimental data.

    What nature is telling us is "I don't work like you think I work". So there go your emperical measurements, poof.

    That is the science, now on to the speculation.Bell's theory tells us that quantum weirdness that we do not understand (magic) does not just exist at the subatomic world but extends up into our observed macroworld. Why would nature need to use such a weird reality to produce what we see as our observed world and why is this weird reality essentially hidden from us? One explanation is that the mental world is all that really exists, that all observed reality comes from mental processes. The mind of God collapsed a universal wave function to create all the matter and energy we see in the universe. What is a little disturbing is that if this is true, the mind of God could make it all disappear just as easily.


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    #5831
    philologos
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,479 ✭✭✭✭philologos


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Where did you get the idea I dismiss things off the cuff? Any views I have on religion are based on careful examination of what they say.

    What I think is that as we evolve as a species our concept of "God" will continue to evolve. We started out worshipping the sun and the moon, we then moved on to "revealed" religions, and today I would say we are in the atheistic "science as religion" era. To move on, we need to understand that "nature" is driven by a mental process that creates everything we observe from underlying chaos.

    I'm not saying this to you because I want to be contrary. I really believe that you could be missing out on the most important thing that mankind needs to know, and indeed what God has shown us through Jesus.

    Whose concept of God is it anyway? - If God is real as we both believe Him to be then it doesn't matter a damn what you or I think. What matters is what He thinks, indeed what He has revealed, what He has said and what He has done.

    You said that you would be embarrassed in case that you might say something wrong about God. How embarrassed would you be if God actually revealed Himself to us by sending His Son Jesus to pay the full price for sin and you rejected Him? If that is the case it isn't humility to deny Jesus, it is pride. Humility means repenting and believing in Jesus. It's to say that He is more and I am less. That's what I realised when He made the gospel clear to me.

    The idea of "moving on" is absurd in the light of a God who is constant and a God who is the same. It is pseudo-intellectualism which points to a sense of self-importance. The idea that Jesus is a regressive idea. That would be an embarrassing conclusion if you met Him face to face, to say "Jesus, I know you were a big thing back then, but we needed to move on because we were far better than anything you had to offer".

    That's not humility. Humility would be looking into this objectively and seeing for yourself who He really is before coming to conclusions.

    Again, I'm not saying that to be contrary, I'm saying it because I really care and I really think that you could be genuinely surprised at what you read if you looked to Mark's gospel for example.


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    #5832
    lmaopml
    Registered Users Posts: 3,080 ✭✭✭lmaopml


    Oh something all interesting on the Atheist / Christian debate thread :D and the narkiness died down - cool!

    This is my kind of mediocre understanding....so bear with me here.

    I always thought that the 'wave function' was merely a mathematical set of probabilities that get more predictable on the macro scale if you like - whereas 'wave partical duality' or the 'uncertainty principle' only applies to particles that have not interacted with other matter as such - as in a single photon. The observer or consciousness is not really what actually collapses the wave like nature, but merely the measurement of it.

    The results of the double slit experiment, and the elusive quantum entanglement mind melting fact so has really only given rise to 'interpretations' of the results, which various different physicists are more convinced by due to the math getting more elegant - as in the many worlds theory that eliminates the need to collapse the wave and takes the experiment at face value - but no one interpretation is more likely than the other just yet, and we haven't got the ability to 'observe' them just yet other than on paper in mathematical form - and none of those interpretations really rely on each individuals consciousness at all, but only on physical interactions with matter.? Yes/No?

    Where's Morbert? :pac:


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    #5833
    Fanny Cradock
    Registered Users Posts: 10,245 ✭✭✭✭Fanny Cradock


    Pushtrak wrote: »
    He isn't the only scientist to say philosophy contributes nothing to science. Off the top of my head, I can point to Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss.

    Indeed, Hawkins and Krauss have recently questioned the use of philosophy. In doing so they have been accused of enthusiastically using philosophy to denigrate philosophy.

    Roger Penrose and Alister McGrath discuss Hawkins most recent book here. The irrepressible Krauss mostly talks over Rodney Holder in this discussion.


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    #5834
    Pushtrak
    Registered Users Posts: 4,640 ✭✭✭Pushtrak


    Fanny Cradock wrote: »
    Indeed, Hawkins and Krauss have recently questioned the use of philosophy. In doing so they have been accused of enthusiastically using philosophy to denigrate philosophy.
    I find philosophy interesting. Granted, I haven't been doing it academically very long (just started this year). That said, one could take a view that this kind of denigrates philosophy in a way. By that I mean, without even intending to do it, they are, whereas a philospher isn't going to accidentally do physics, or science broadly speaking.

    Edit: I will check out the links though.


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    #5835
    lmaopml
    Registered Users Posts: 3,080 ✭✭✭lmaopml


    Fanny Cradock wrote: »
    Indeed, Hawkins and Krauss have recently questioned the use of philosophy. In doing so they have been accused of enthusiastically using philosophy to denigrate philosophy

    Absolutely. Science and philosophy kind of go hand in hand - and mind you not just any one kind of philosophy either - I think they all have to be measured in some way though by a principle, when interpreting scientific data, and I think that's what Hawkins may have been alluding to - enough room to breath, and still be human, but not run amok.


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    #5836
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    nagirrac wrote: »
    To grasp the implications of Bell's theory you have to start with the measurement problem in QM. Before observation, reality exists as a wave of possibilities (the psi function). Upon observation, the wave collapses to particles we can measure and observe. This is what is going on in the double slit experiment for example. The "prior to observation" reality is non-local and indeterminate where everything is connected to everything else, all possibilities are possible, the "post observation" reality is apparently local and determinate. What Bell (and many subsequent scientists) proved is that this is incorrect, that all of reality is non-local and indeterminate, it just appears local and determinate to us.

    There has been much debate about observation and whether it needs a conscious observer to collapse a wave function. Clearly it does not as equipment can be set up to conduct experiments with no human interaction (other than designing the equipment and looking at the results). The problem however is for quantum theory to work, it assumes the existance of measurement instruments without explaining how their existance came about. If the only way we know the observable physical world comes about is through collapse of wave functions, how did the physical world we observe come about? How did the material we made the measurement device from come about?

    What are you talking about? Nothing you just said has anything to do with Bell's theorm, nor is there is there any "implication" about where the "material we made the measurement device" came from.

    You are just making stuff up.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    So there go your emperical measurements, poof.

    What?

    Bell's experiment demonstrated that based on a statiscial matrix it was not hidden variables causing undetected locality.

    It in no way mean "empirical measurements, poof"

    You seem to just randomly pick scientific theories and then attach some nonsense on to the end as if the theory justifies the nonsense.

    Darwin showed that species evolve over time, so the moon is cheese!
    nagirrac wrote: »
    That is the science, now on to the speculation.Bell's theory tells us that quantum weirdness that we do not understand (magic) does not just exist at the subatomic world but extends up into our observed macroworld.
    That is not what Bell's theory tells us. For a start we already knew that long before Bell came along.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Why would nature need to use such a weird reality to produce what we see as our observed world and why is this weird reality essentially hidden from us? One explanation is that the mental world is all that really exists, that all observed reality comes from mental processes.

    How in Zeus' name is that "one explanation". An explanation for what?

    I'm getting a headache from this crap. You are just making nonsense up. Bell's theory has nothing to do with mental processes.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    The mind of God collapsed a universal wave function to create all the matter and energy we see in the universe.

    There is no "a wave function" for all matter. There are wave functions for every particle. Are you trying to say God collapsed all wave functions? If so why do we still have wave functions? Is God dead?

    Wave functions collapse when particles interact with each other. There is no need for a "God" to do this. You just need 2 or more particles, which we have in this universe, you might have noticed.

    And NONE of this has anything to do with Bell's theorem.


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    #5837
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Zombrex wrote: »
    What are you talking about?
    And NONE of this has anything to do with Bell's theorem.

    I wouldn't know even where to start zombrex, everything you said demonstrated your complete vacuous lack of understanding of the topic..
    You might get a hint if Morbert fails to come on and either defend your drivel or contradict much of what I said.

    Read again what you wrote.. You wrote nothing responding to the science topic in my post, other than one phrase you got from wiki. You even conveniently excised the whole Bell's theory section. You reserved your venom for the speculation section, which exposes you for what you are.. someone who hates the mention of anything that even sniffs of God, and tries to hide behind science as religion. This is obvious from the fact you don't know any science, and just cry fowl when some science comes along you don't like.

    Get yourself a decent QM textbook and then read up on Bell's theory.
    You need the former to truly "get" the latter.. but then again what is there to "get".. the science is clear. Bell did not suggest that reality was non-local, he proved it. We live in a universe where local facts (what we observe) are displayed on non-local fabric.


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    #5838
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Zombrex wrote: »
    There are wave functions for every particle. Are you trying to say God collapsed all wave functions? If so why do we still have wave functions? Is God dead?

    Sorry, missed this bit. No, collapsed specific wave functions to the states that made our universe from the infinite number of states possible (Everett's many world's interpretation, except the mind of God doing it). There are of course wave functions still there and we can collapse them ourselves, thats what we do in QM experiments.

    You really need to look at the wiki entry for Bell's theory and read it, its a bit of a start.. or read a proof of Bell's theory, there are several online. This is one I've read but there are many others. Just read the conclusions, its two short paragraphs.

    http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/kenny/papers/bell.html


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    #5839
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    philologos wrote: »
    You said that you would be embarrassed in case that you might say something wrong about God. How embarrassed would you be if God actually revealed Himself to us by sending His Son Jesus to pay the full price for sin and you rejected Him?

    No, I quoted what Kark Popper said to make the a point to zombrex. I do think the appropriate response from a non believer is to be humble and say we don't know and certainly not to attack those who say they know God from their subjective reality.

    I don't have anything against Christianity or Jesus Christ. I just think there are many pathways to truth involving different beliefs, some religious some non religious. None of them know God anyway as you say.


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    #5840
    philologos
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,479 ✭✭✭✭philologos


    nagirrac wrote: »

    No, I quoted what Kark Popper said to make the a point to zombrex. I do think the appropriate response from a non believer is to be humble and say we don't know and certainly not to attack those who say they know God from their subjective reality.

    I don't have anything against Christianity or Jesus Christ. I just think there are many pathways to truth involving different beliefs, some religious some non religious. None of them know God anyway as you say.

    Instead of this thread being bogged down in atheist vs deist arguments we need to consider Christianity.

    I'm genuinely interested why do you as a deist reject the gospel in consideration of some of what I asked a few posts ago?


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    #5841
    Brian Shanahan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,232 ✭✭✭Brian Shanahan


    tommy2bad wrote: »
    Thats what I thought, no link at all.

    So your concept of evidence is simply "stuff I agree with"?

    Honestly it is pointless trying to educate you, because you are willfully uneducatable.


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    #5842
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    nagirrac wrote: »

    I wouldn't know even where to start zombrex, everything you said demonstrated your complete vacuous lack of understanding of the topic..
    You might get a hint if Morbert fails to come on and either defend your drivel or contradict much of what I said.

    Read again what you wrote.. You wrote nothing responding to the science topic in my post, other than one phrase you got from wiki.

    The science in your post has literally nothing to do with what you claim are the "implications" of the science.

    Show me where Bell or any scientist working on Bell theory stated anything about all things being possible or the universe selecting an outcome.

    Again you could have said the implication of Bells theory is the moon is cheese and it would have made as much sense.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    You even conveniently excised the whole Bell's theory section.
    Bell's theory is fine. Bell's theory has nothing to do with what you go on to speculate.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    You reserved your venom for the speculation section, which exposes you for what you are.. someone who hates the mention of anything that even sniffs of God, and tries to hide behind science as religion.

    What I can't stand is people who take the honest hard work of scientists and misrepresent this work in order to push their own swacky nonsense.

    Your posts are like listening to Tom Cruise rant on about mental health medicine or a Creationist claim that astrophysics supports Flood theory (lot if water in th solar system don't you know).

    You have taken Bell's research, all wonderfully good science, and without any justification rhyme or reason you have claimed it supports not only the notions that anything is possible and the universe selects a reality, but that an intelligence creates the universe by collapsing wave functions. Wtf are you talking about, there is nothing about any of that in Bells theory.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Bell did not suggest that reality was non-local, he proved it. We live in a universe where local facts (what we observe) are displayed on non-local fabric.

    Yes he did, and that has nothing to do with what you claimed, ridiculously, are the "implications" of this.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Sorry, missed this bit. No, collapsed specific wave functions to the states that made our universe from the infinite number of states possible (Everett's many world's interpretation, except the mind of God doing it). There are of course wave functions still there and we can collapse them ourselves, thats what we do in QM experiments.

    Well yes of course :rolleyes:

    If all particles in our universe are being maintained in their collapses state be a universal intelligent observer (or as I like to call it Nagirrac's completely made up idea), then how are we able to put particles into the wave function state without this universal observer observing them and collapsing the wave function

    Does this observer look away when ever we happen to be doing an experiment?

    Perhaps ask Bell, after all all of this is an implication from his theory, right?
    nagirrac wrote: »
    You really need to look at the wiki entry for Bell's theory and read it, its a bit of a start.. or read a proof of Bell's theory, there are several online. This is one I've read but there are many others. Just read the conclusions, its two short paragraphs.

    http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/kenny/papers/bell.html

    You really need to stop talking nonsense.


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    #5843
    tommy2bad
    Registered Users Posts: 4,255 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    Zombrex wrote: »
    What do you think "measuring" is?

    You are making this way more complicated that it needs be, or you have a vastly inflated notion about what science is actually doing.



    We are part of the natural world. We can be studied using science just like everything else.

    Perhaps if you explained what your fear is about all of this, it would make more sense to me. What happens if we start measuring, quantifying and studying "love" using the scientific method. And please don't say it ruins all the romance :)

    No fear, just caution about the knowability of what we call reality.
    I am assuming we are discussing the limits of knowledge rather than the existence of anything at all.
    I brought up love, justice, hate, stuff we take for granted as existing but when subjected to examination all we can 'measure' is behavior. Behavior of people, chemicals whatever. (Yes, Brian Shanahan, their are actual studies and experiments you could have linked to). What we prove the existence of isn't love or hate though, it's a set of phenomena. We can repeat the same 'measurement' for religious experience and as easily prove the existence of God.
    See how it gets stupid?
    Why is it that atheists will accept love hate justice mercy as 'real' yet refuse the same acknowledgment to God? And I do realize that I'm probably asking a question that has no good answer any more than 'why do you believe their is a god'. Again I think it's down to personality.


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    #5844
    lmaopml
    Registered Users Posts: 3,080 ✭✭✭lmaopml


    Zombrex wrote: »
    The science in your post has literally nothing to do with what you claim are the "implications" of the science.

    He/She did say that it was merely his 'speculation' - not a fact, not presented as a fact.

    I would have more sympathy with your post if he was publishing books or presenting his speculation as a 'fact' like say for instance the way some New Age Spiritualists do, or even some scientists..lol... - on the other hand, it's kind of like the pot calling the kettle black imo, you don't see that you are making a statement about God because of your philosophy and worldview and indeed equate it loosely with scientific fact too.

    I think this is what Hawkins may have been talking about - it's like running amok, and instead of enjoying the incredible beauty around us in nature, to try to overextend 'what' we know and put something into it as fact that doesn't add to it, and that it really has nothing to say about in the first place.

    tommy2bad wrote: »
    No fear, just caution about the knowability of what we call reality.

    I think that's possibly a very good and very wise position tommy.


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    #5845
    Morbert
    Registered Users Posts: 3,457 ✭✭✭Morbert


    I'm having a hard time seeing the relevance of quantum physics to the topic at hand. Quantum physics is strange, but in the context of theology, this isn't terribly relevant. It simply means the laws of physics and descriptions of systems have a different form.


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    #5846
    Brian Shanahan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,232 ✭✭✭Brian Shanahan


    Morbert wrote: »
    I'm having a hard time seeing the relevance of quantum physics to the topic at hand. Quantum physics is strange, but in the context of theology, this isn't terribly relevant. It simply means the laws of physics and descriptions of systems have a different form.

    Using quantum physics to "prove" god is as valid as using quantum physics to "prove" homeopathy. Quantum is often used by people who don't understand any science in order to "back up" their gibberish, because quantum physics have often been publicly described as weird.


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    #5847
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Brian Shanahan wrote: »
    Using quantum physics to "prove" god is as valid as using quantum physics to "prove" homeopathy. Quantum is often used by people who don't understand any science in order to "back up" their gibberish, because quantum physics have often been publicly described as weird.

    I actually largely agree with you here. There is a lot of mumbo jumbo out there from people who have no more than a veneer of science, if any at all. The worst offenders are atheists who make claims linking science to their worldview, as if science was a proof against God, something it is not and most likely cannot ever be.

    Quantum physics is weird.


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    #5848
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Morbert wrote: »
    I'm having a hard time seeing the relevance of quantum physics to the topic at hand. Quantum physics is strange, but in the context of theology, this isn't terribly relevant. It simply means the laws of physics and descriptions of systems have a different form.

    The relevance is that it is atheists who continually bring science into the theology debate. Any rational discussion about the existance of God would leave science out of the discussion as science has nothing to say on the subject. Individual scientists may have plenty to say on the subject, but that is beside the point, science itself to my knowledge has never set out to prove or disproof God, so making claims for science in this context is a feeble argument.

    Atheits need to do better than appeal to scientism if they want to participate in an adult discussion about God.


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    #5849
    tommy2bad
    Registered Users Posts: 4,255 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    nagirrac wrote: »
    I actually largely agree with you here. There is a lot of mumbo jumbo out there from people who have no more than a veneer of science, if any at all. The worst offenders are atheists who make claims linking science to their worldview, as if science was a proof against God, something it is not and most likely cannot ever be.

    Quantum physics is weird.

    Quoting doesn't include the original post so just to be clear, I'm +1 on this.

    Quantum physics is wierd, well counter intuitive anyway.


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    #5850
    marienbad
    Registered Users Posts: 9,463 ✭✭✭marienbad


    nagirrac wrote: »
    I actually largely agree with you here. There is a lot of mumbo jumbo out there from people who have no more than a veneer of science, if any at all. The worst offenders are atheists who make claims linking science to their worldview, as if science was a proof against God, something it is not and most likely cannot ever be.

    Quantum physics is weird.

    Can you give an example of such atheists ? I must say I don't see them. The best the science can say surely is that we don't know .

    In my experience it is the reverse that is true where people of belief have resorted to 'science'' to prove their worldview and thus provoked a reaction.


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    #5851
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    marienbad wrote: »
    Can you give an example of such atheists ? I must say I don't see them. The best the science can say surely is that we don't know .

    In my experience it is the reverse that is true where people of belief have resorted to 'science'' to prove their worldview and thus provoked a reaction.

    The appropriate response on the God question is that the objective evidence from science tells us nothing. Have you read the God Delusion? Do you not think Dawkins is making an argument to try and prove the non-existance of God using science? A careful reading of his book demonstrates he uses science selectively, and picks and chooses to make his argument. He is as entitled to peddle his worldview as anyone, but unfotunately a lot of people interpret him as an authority on the God question, when he clearly is not.

    What atheists on this forum need to at least attempt to understand is that knowledge comes from both objective (externally measured) and subjective (internally experienced) sources. There is absolutely no compelling evidence to claim objective sources are more valid, given we don't even know if our objective reality is actual reality. Thats was my point in bringing up Bell's theory, it proves that actual reality is very different to how we observe it. It is very difficult to wrap your head around what a non-local reality is, that all models of local realism are incompatible with the most solid and unshaken scientific theory in the history of science..

    There is a very strong argument to be made that our subjective experience is more valid than our objective observations. This is where the discussion should be, and not arguments over who owns science.


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