Peak Religion

[Bozzio]

You are trying to explain how, after starting off from a universe of ?fundamental particles? we come to have selves. Simply using the terms doesn?t count as explaining them. What is this self which is organizing and replicating? What distinguishes this entity from the rest of the universe? What is its ontological status?

Hi Peter,

Could you explain what you think is behind this process? If you believe it to be god or some other force then what evidence do you have to prove this other than to suggest there has to be another reason because the scientific answer is incomplete?

[goslow]

This debate is very interesting, but I can't quite understand this need folk seem to have for hard evidence in order to believe something. Frankly most scientific theories rely on evidence that not fully complete and not wholly conclusive (and I am working in science so I know a bit about that). Some goes for crime solving. Its very rare you can finally prove something like you can in mathematics. In reality I suggest we all run our lives without hard evidence for a lot of the assumptions we make.

To take the PO example. I see a lot of belief involved in how people react to the PO idea (and hence this debate is highly relevant to this forum!). Do they believe in a mad max outcome, a totalitarian state, or something more benign? You might try to extrapolate from other situations, but your belief about possible outcomes (that affects your preparations) is not a matter of hard evidence.

I can't see why some folk think religious people are so strange for doing the same, but with supernatural entities (i.e. God) if they start to experience something like that and are also impressed by the testimonies of others. Both of which are some evidence to the believer, but not hard enough for actual proof.

I would agree it impossible to prove the existence of God like some of the creationist types seem to want to do. What I would suggest is that people are forming their own opinion about what they believe (i.e. God does not exist) because they don't like the idea for some reason, then seeking out some arguments to support there assumptions. That seems to be just the same approach as the creationist types, but using a different set of assumptions.

I can tell my story, you tell me yours...we cannot finally prove our own story. I would say you decide what to believe on the basis of our conscience, gut feeling, whatever you want to call it.

[Blue Peter]

Hi Peter,

Could you explain what you think is behind this process? If you believe it to be god or some other force then what evidence do you have to prove this other than to suggest there has to be another reason because the scientific answer is incomplete?

Well, I usually compartmentalize my beliefs depending upon the audience, and the hat I'm wearing / mood I'm in.

Looking at things from a scientific point of view, I think that mind, life etc. are inexplicable. There is literally nowhere in scientific theories for such things to go. If you look into the brain, you don?t find any mind; if you study brain reactions or mechanisms, they work without any reference to mind. Similarly, from an evolutionary viewpoint, you start with fundamental bits of matter with a few properties (nothing like life or mind) flying around, and there?s no way to explain anything else appearing as time goes by. Where could anything else come from? All it is, is bits of matter moving around.

I think all that?s fairly safe from a scientific perspective. Obviously, it?s very difficult to prove a negative, but I?m fairly clear in my own mind that that?s the way things are, though I?m always willing to look at other things.


If you want to take things further ? and since life and consciousness certainly do ?exist?, we have to - then you have to move to a philosophical or theological perspective. The problem here is that it is very difficult to say anything, because, by definition, having moved from a scientific perspective, we?re not dealing with things and forces and processes. Thus, God is infinite (not limited by any object) and eternal (outside of time); you can?t refer to him as an object or as a cause or anything. But, in some sense, one can see God as the cause of everything (the link a few pages back to the Douglas Harding stuff gives, I think, the best practical explanation of this, and then the works of Alan Watts as the best theoretical explanation). In some ways, all these philosophical/theological phrases don?t actually say anything, but in other ways it can prove very useful.


I don?t know whether that answers your question, and probably not very well, but that?s where I am,


Peter.

[RenewableCandy]

Hmm. The basis of science is that you can use a theory to make a prediction (and, said prediction might be useful). For example Einstein's general relativity (1905) predicted that light would bend round a massive object. When WWI was over, British astronomers took measurements during the next solar eclipse, and yes, the apparent positions of the stars 'behind' the sun confirmed the theory (note, not 'proved').

Similarly, as a scientist I predict that this thread will run and run...

[brasso]

Science could easily be classed as a dogmatic religion

No, no, No, NO! It has nothing to do with religion - no faith is required.

I think this is the most interesting, a most misunderstood aspect of religion. If your definition of a religion is a system of beliefs which requires blind faith, then Buddhism is not a religion! Buddhism actually includes questioning your practice - that is not blind faith. Paganism doesn't really need blind faith either, although that depends on who you ask...!

The fortean times was actually started by Charles Fort, because of all the evidence which contradicted the current scientific paradigm which was being ignored. Ignoring evidence which doesn't fit your theory doesn't really count as pursuing truth. Eg. drug companies sponsoring research is going to skew the results...

Sorry about my terminology, which probably only caused more confusion. When I refered to paganism, I was talking about the religious aspect of the religion, eg. the goddess and god, etc., whereas witchcraft refers to this plus the use of the craft, eg. for a healing. They're just labels I've picked up from one author or another - feel free to discard them.

[sentiententity]

I can't quite understand this need folk seem to have for hard evidence in order to believe something

Did you read my response to your earlier post? Evidence is important; it is what sets apart science from raving conspiracy theories, religions, superstitions, fairy stories and urban myths, and all the rest of it. I find it amazing that people seem actually happy to revel in their ignorance and superstition, and seem so confident and, gobsmackingly, smugly pleased about gaps in current knowledge, waving entire fields of hard-earned knowledge away with a "they'll never explain x". Although I suppose, if everyone had that attitude, they would be right.

Do you believe in fairies?

s.

[brasso]

Do you believe in fairies?

It's that word again 'believe'. As the link below says, I do not believe anything. I would respond with, 'How open-minded are you?'

http://www.rawilson.com/trigger1.shtml

[sentiententity]

Well, I usually compartmentalize my beliefs depending upon the audience, and the hat I'm wearing / mood I'm in

This explains a lot.

I think that mind, life etc. are inexplicable

Why? "I don't understand it and don't plan to make the effort" just means that you don't understand it, not that it is not possible. I've already tried to explain that life is just interesting chemistry (working under the constraints of evolution by natural selection), and yet you (deliberately?) confuse the physical changes occurring in a rock with metabolism and claim that this shows something else must be going on. I find it hard to believe you read my previous response to you, and impossible to believe you understood it if you did. I thought it was clear enough. Despite what you said about me sneaking in "things which trying to explain, ?A self-contained chemical system? ?self-organise, replicate?, I didn't do that - all those terms are precise, carefully-chosen so that they don't (or shouldn't) need extra definition. How are those goals of the living thing achieved? At the risk of sounding reptitive...chemistry. No mystic woo required...

we?re not dealing with things and forces and processes. Thus, God is infinite ...

We're not dealing with anything we can detect in any way or have any evidence for. Why then "thus, god is infinite..."? This is a non sequitur. Surely the reasonable conclusion is "therefore, god doesn't exist"?

in other ways it can prove very useful

Please, show us how this can be useful. I haven't found it so, and am interested to see.

s.

[21st_century_caveman]

See previous posting Wed Feb 06, 2008 4:10 pm. The proper question is what evidence is there that there is something?

The point is that there is no evidence either way.
Therefore it could be regarded as both reasonable and unreasonable to believe or not believe in, for example the FSM.
Any position is valid, it just depends on your point of view.

No, it's an anecdote. If everyone perceives it, then it is an observation. You need to do an experiment for it to be an empirical finding, but even then you would not be entitled to call it a "truth".

Lets have a look at the dictionary definition of empirical:

empirical

1. derived from or guided by experience or experiment.
2. depending upon experience or observation alone, without using
scientific method or theory, esp. as in medicine.
3. provable or verifiable by experience or experiment.

So, if i experience or observe something then that is equally as true as something derived from an experiment, which could of course be on my own consciousness and it operation.

In science, we don't claim to discover truths (which I would have thought you would know if you had "studied and practiced it at length") - that is mathematicians. Science, strictly speaking, is always provisional.

I think some prominent scientists might disagree with you there, many have expressed the view that they simply discovered a pre-existing truth or law, which ties in nicely with the fact that science is based on mathematical principals.

I'm working from the reasonable assumption that I am not the centre of the universe.

Sorry, i should have been more clear there.
What i meant was that science needs to include an accurate description of the internal subjective realm that is consciousness or mind, unfortunately by its very mode of operation it is limited to external objective truths, it therefore rejects as an illusion the empirical existence of many aspect of the mind.
This may be surmountable with further developments in science and technology, specifically the ability to link to minds together so that they can experience each other.

Other good models may be conceivable, but I think that science is the best one by a comfortable margin. I am genuinely surprised that this seems to be contentious.

It is not contentious, science just needs to come to accept its limitations.

Or do you mean that the description of consciouness is rubbish? Certainly, hardly complete.

Its not that we even have any rubbish theories of how unconscious matter can become conscious and where the interface between the two is, we simply don't have any.

In this sentence, "matter" means "live neurons, their associated synapses and other, higher levels of organisation".

There you go, "higher levels of organisation" there is absolutely nothing physical about higher levels of organisation, organisation is complexity is information and as far as i know information is not physical.

This is really insulting.

Well, some of your jibes about hippies and woo (whatever that is) could be offensive, not to me though i've been called worse.

Oh, and science isn't a belief system.

This is a prime example of one of limitations of science, the inability to accept that it is fallible just like everything else, that it is somehow above everything else and sees how reality truly is.
Science makes models which it rigorously tests and then says that it believes that the thing being modelled happens in a particular way.
Take for example the atom, a scientist must test theories about atoms in a indirect way since it is not possible to view, smell, taste, hear or touch an atom directly, therefore there is an element of belief in science.

To assert something as true you need to demonstrate it. This is where truth is defined as that which is in agreement with reality (that is in a scientific sense).

Yet i cannot prove to you in any objective scientific way that i possess consciousness, this is the problem.

Reality is external observable and testable.

Surely that denies the existence of the internal subjective realm of direct experience. Sounds like Logical Positivism to me, a dehumanising philosophy.

A self-contained chemical system that uses energy available from it environment to locally and temporarily reverse entropy to self-organise, replicate and conserve the information required to do these things.

This conservation of information is quite an interesting idea, conservation suggests the inability to create or destroy something (in physics anyway), so if the information which is represented by a complex living process cannot be destroyed then where is it? what is it?

In my humble opinion, Quantum Mechanics has really taken science beyond the limits of its own nature, it puts the subjective consciousness of the observer back in the model as something important, certainly not an illusion and hints at information being something very elemental.
However that may be just hippy woo nonsense.

[Blue Peter]

Well, I usually compartmentalize my beliefs depending upon the audience, and the hat I'm wearing / mood I'm in

This explains a lot.

I usually just stick to scientific arguments when discussing this topic; however, since it came up in a thread dealing explicitly with religion, I am willing to take things further and discuss the religious aspects. However, I think that in the part of the discussion with you, I will stick to the scientific points.

I think that mind, life etc. are inexplicable

Why? "I don't understand it and don't plan to make the effort" just means that you don't understand it, not that it is not possible.

You don?t know anything about whether I have made any effort or not.

I've already tried to explain that life is just interesting chemistry (working under the constraints of evolution by natural selection),

You haven?t explained; you have stated.

and yet you (deliberately?) confuse the physical changes occurring in a rock with metabolism and claim that this shows something else must be going on.

I merely pointed out that self-replication is a red herring. I too used to think that it was important. However, thanks to:

Kampis, George, (1991), Self-modifying Systems in Biology and Cognitive Science: A new framework for dynamics, information and complexity, Oxford: Pergamon.

I realized that there really wasn?t any essential difference between A -> A (the rock, boring) and A -> B -> C -> A (living systems, interesting). The latter is just more complicated and the sleight of hand fools us into thinking that something clever is going on, when it?s not.

I find it hard to believe you read my previous response to you, and impossible to believe you understood it if you did. I thought it was clear enough. Despite what you said about me sneaking in "things which trying to explain, ?A self-contained chemical system? ?self-organise, replicate?, I didn't do that - all those terms are precise, carefully-chosen so that they don't (or shouldn't) need extra definition. How are those goals of the living thing achieved? At the risk of sounding reptitive...chemistry. No mystic woo required...
s.

Those terms are commonly used, but what you need to do is to explain where this self, which is replicating, came from, and what it is. For instance, the atoms/molecules of a living system are constantly changing. Viewed in those terms, the self is not constantly replicating, because it?s a different self each time. Oh, but, we want to say, it?s still the same?what?.... pattern? But, what?s a pattern? Is it something objective? If so, what is it, and where did it come from? There weren?t any patterns of, say, humans around at the big bang. Or is it something subjective, the fact that I view the world in such a way as to see such things. But in that case, what value does that have? especially seeing as the explanation is also supposed to apply to me, the observer.


Peter.

[EmptyBee]

21st Century Caveman: Surely, if consciousness perceives there to be "something else out there" in other words, something greater than itself, then that is an empirical truth.

No, it's an anecdote. If everyone perceives it, then it is an observation. You need to do an experiment for it to be an empirical finding, but even then you would not be entitled to call it a "truth". In science, we don't claim to discover truths (which I would have thought you would know if you had "studied and practised it at length") - that is mathematicians. Science, strictly speaking, is always provisional.

I am suspicious of the assumption that science is the only valid source of knowledge, not merely regarding material reality, but in regarding any level of experience or consciousness which might transcend material reality, which is, to date outside of the purview of science.

It only seems sensible to allow for the provision that there may be more to reality or consciousness than science is currently capable of comprehending. The reductionist approach with knee-jerk invocation of Occam's Razor strikes me as potentially flawed.

The position of denying the validity of all claims to mystical or spiritual knowledge (the original definition of agnosticism) requires justification. Because the evidence for there being any intersection between a purported supernatural/transcendent reality and material reality is limited to anecdotal experience, and inherently subjective, the simplest refutation is that "it's all in their heads" - Occam's Razor strikes again.
However, the thesis that spiritual beliefs only arise because of psychological insecurities or social conditioning strikes me as rather facile, because it demands that certain types of experience be discounted out of hand.

Arguably religious beliefs as a framework for understanding the universe have been repeatedly surpassed and discredited by science, particularly when taken literally rather than metaphorically. But when the (justified) faith in the scientific method gives rise to dogmatic proclamations about what types of knowledge or inquiry are valid or invalid, then I begin to question whether there isn't some psychological bias at work.

So, we know there are no such things as gods like Apollo and Jupiter as we as fairies and goblins and all kinds of daemons because we can not do any test to show they are there. The simplest explanation becomes that they are figments of our imagination. The same then goes for the god of xianity or islam. There?s so way to tell the difference between that god and all the other gods and imaginary creatures we invent, thus that god belongs in the same set as the other imaginary creatures.

In what sense do you know these things are not real if you acknowledge there is no way to prove or disprove their existence? You can argue they have a low probability being real because a model of reality that manages to accommodate them seems unnecessarily complicated, but that's not the same as knowing they don't exist.

Consciousness could be argued to be transcendent of gross matter, that we are more than the sum of our parts. The materialist will argue that this sense of self has no objective reality and is a subjective illusion created in our brain in order to better fulfil our biological imperatives.

Now if something as apparently self-evident as our own sense of being is considered illusory, one has to ask what (if anything) in the universe can be considered objectively real? How do we know that matter is more real than mind, particularly in light of its baffling behaviour in quantum physics and the curious relationship of observer to a purportedly external and objectively knowable external reality? If this reality can only be described in mathematics, and mathematics is meaningless independent of a cognisant interpreter, in what sense is matter more real than mind?

In my humble opinion, Quantum Mechanics has really taken science beyond the limits of its own nature, it puts the subjective consciousness of the observer back in the model as something important, certainly not an illusion and hints at information being something very elemental.
However that may be just hippy woo nonsense.

I think we may be thinking along similar lines here.

[Bozzio]

Just believing in something is not absolute proof of its reality. My three children who are all under 6 believe without doubt that Santa exists and fairies swap their teeth for coins.

If I were to believe in god then it would be as an all encompassing force which holds everything together but not as a creator or absolute spiritual being running the show. But even if god exists, I don't see why I or anyone should spend time and energy worshipping it especially if that leads to divisions between human beings in the process. Look at how many people have died because of the words in some books without any proof that those words are evidence of fact.

[syberberg]

While still sitting on the fence, I'll throw a stone in the scientific pond...

The G?del incompleteness theorem, by which the early-twentieth-century logician and mathematician Kurt G?del proved that no mathematical system?no formal system of logic of any type?can ever be truly complete, in the sense of proving everything within its scope.

[21st_century_caveman]

The G?del incompleteness theorem

I've read about, i cant say i understand the technical details but in its simple form it is easy enough to grasp.
What strikes me is that it effectively dooms the scientists searching for a logically consistent theory of everything based on axioms to failure from the begining, yet no one seems to have noticed.

[goslow]

Do you believe in fairies?

s.

Sorry, I did not pick that up. I welcome scrutiny of my beliefs as a Christian, I believe they can stand up to that. Some beliefs like flat earth, moon made of cheese etc can be fairly conclusively disproved with evidence everyone should be able to agree on. Christianity does not fall into that category, because its claims cannot be investigated by the scientific method. You can scrutinise in other ways (e.g. evaluate personal experience) but this is not a subject for scientists. The type of evidence that science needs (results of reproducible experiments or direct observations) is not really available.

I don't normally think about fairies existing. But if you are to press me on it (following my own logic) I can't say for sure that nothing like that doesn't exist! I have never met one... I can be rather more positive about the existence of God, because I have a personal experience of Him, plus the testimony of others through the Bible and other sources. We can weigh the Bible as evidence in the same way as any historical document. But you can't make people believe by force of argument, they have to decide for themselves.