The basis of science versus the basis of religion.

[Boojatta]

Isn't our belief that our minds are epiphenomena of material brains itself based ultimately on conscious perception?

If we base science on what we (conscious beings) directly or indirectly perceive, then aren't we making conscious perception (rather than physical objects) the foundation of science?

[patrice]

1. The effects of perception are supposed to be filtered out, or at least

accounted for, by the scientific process, which includes strict peer review, the result is supposed to be observation rather than perception. But no scientific product/knowledge is every independent of the processes that produce it. Knowledge should not be reported as separate "conclusions", but rather only as the most current results in a long sequence of results, all relative to their respective processes.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

16. What are they doing now

in the experiments with subatomic particles where it appears the thoughts of the researcher are influencing what the particles are doing? Have they found a way to filter the scientist's thoughts from the particles?

[SidDithers]

32. More details on these experiments please...nt

Sid

[Odin2005]

49. The Copenhagen Interpreatation of Quantum Mechanics is a load of BS

The only reason the "perception collapses the wave function" nonsense became the dominant viewpoint was because several of the early QM researchers had kooky philosophical views.

[Deep13]

2. Well, no.

If our senses did not provide us with a reasonably accurate perception of the world we would be dead. Senses that fail to warn you of danger or how to locate necessities simply will not keep you alive. Individual failures of perception or biases can be filtered out through repeatable experiments, double-blind testing and other control methods. This method does not always produce accurate results, but so far it is the only method that ever does. Often, it produces incomplete pictures that are expanded as more is learned.

On the other hand, even if science is somehow defective in describing the universe, God does not win by default. There is no reason to suppose there is any divinity anywhere and plenty to suppose there is not.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

18. God does not win by default

but until proven otherwise, one must consider that the possibility of a God exists, even if one considers it a remote possibility, don't they? But then the whole precept may depend upon one's definition of "God". I think we can say that science has proven that the sun does not get into a boat and float with the sacred dead through the underworld until the next dawn; but this was an Egyptian concept of God and the afterlife in ancient times. One could say that the concept of God as a superhuman living on Mt. Olympus is also a concept that science (and mountaineering) have pretty well explained-even the sounds at the Oracle at Delphi appears to have been satisfactorally been shown to have worked through acustics. And right now there are many who are looking for concrete evidence that Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace and blessings upon them all)even existed. So perhaps other God concepts are going to go by the wayside. But that doesn't preclude the fact that there are other concepts of God, ones that see God in a pantheistic fashion--that God is everything, experiencing everything, is within everything.

The mind searches for scientific explanations. The mind finds other ways to define what God might be.

[Deep13]

23. some responses to your points

"...proven otherwise, one must consider that the possibility of a God exists, even if one considers it a remote possibility, don't they?"

Fisrt, as I've indicated in another post, we really have demonstrated that god does not exist. Second, it is not a possibility unless there is a reasonable basis for supposing it. If we want to know what th real answer is, we cannot just assume it is possible for sentimental reasons.

"But then the whole precept may depend upon one's definition of "God"."

For god to be god in any meaningful sense, he/she/it/they must exist independently from the laws of nature and be able to intervene in the universe. Most would also add the he must have created the universe. Recent watered down definitions cannot be called divine in any meaningful sense.

"...But that doesn't preclude the fact that there are other concepts of God, ones that see God in a pantheistic fashion--that God is everything, experiencing everything, is within everything."

A few points in response. First a concept of god is not a reality but only a wished-for reality. As previously noted, such all-inclusive definitions are not god in any real sense, but are mearly metaphoric. God is not everything. A rock is not god. It is a physical object subject to physical "laws" of nature. Break it open and there is nothing inside remotely divine. If god is simply a metaphore for the physical universe (as Einstein saw it) then it is really not a god at all. Your description of what gods have been disproven illustrates my own notion that god is continually being pushed further and further into a corner. Everytime we discover something it becomes one more place that does not need divinity to explain it. Once credited with creating the universe, god has been reduced to a thin metaphore.

"The mind searches for scientific explanations. The mind finds other ways to define what God might be."

Yes, we invent gaps in the knowledge to satisfy wishful thinking. The belief or even need for a god does not make it real. I feel a little silly stating something so obvious, but a lot of people do not seem to have gotten that point.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

24. Your answers don't compute, sorry

to quote you:

For god to be god in any meaningful sense, he/she/it/they must exist independently from the laws of nature and be able to intervene in the universe. Most would also add the he must have created the universe. Recent watered down definitions cannot be called divine in any meaningful sense.

That is your definition, and not the definition of many mystical traditions, going back to the Upanishads (not what I'd call a 'recent watered down definition':) ) and the mystical works of many Sufis, including Ibn Arabi, not to mention the stories and teachings of the Lakota people, which goes back 5000 years. These are the traditions I am most familiar with; there are likely more.

to quote you:
A few points in response. First a concept of god is not a reality but only a wished-for reality.

Oh, I agree a concept of God is not reality. A concept of ANYTHING is merely a concept, wished-for or not. Reality, in the eyes of the mystic at least, comes from direct experience.

to quote you:

Yes, we invent gaps in the knowledge to satisfy wishful thinking.

This appears to imply anything that is not known in science right now is merely wishful thinking. Or do you mean to tell me that in your opinion, science has already found all the answers?

[Deep13]

27. House is on so I will be brief.

I think you are taking my remarks out of context.

I am not intimately familiar with Hinduism. My understanding, however, is that Hindus pray to their gods for intervention in the physical world. That fits my definition.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

29. Not in the Upanishads

It speaks of That which is behind everything, that which is within everything. By behind everything they mean the laws of science-the rythm and order of the universe. As you probably know, there are many many sects of Hinduism, and I am speaking of those sects who are mystical in nature-Swami Papa Ram Das and Mother Krishnabai and Yogananda and other mystic gurus would be examples of this. The point is not to pray to gods for intervention in the physical world, but to become one with reality. Same as the concept in Sufism.

How familiar are you with Lakota spirituality? Just curious.

[ngant17]

3. It is also legimate to ask: how did monotheism evolve?

We know how the scientific method evolved. From rational thinking and logical deduction.

Religion or more precisely, monotheism, did not evolve the same way. I believe, like Dr. Sigmund Freud, that monotheism evolved from sun worship. In one sense, we have to worship the sun because it is the source of all life on Earth. But we don't have to worship it in an irrational sort of way.

[patrice]

4. To me, "God" would, by definition, be undefinable.

Besides the fact that you can't prove a negative, I think people who say there is no "God" are really saying they see no evidence of the thing that people mean when they refer to, or use the word, "God". They see no evidence of anything that meets the definition(s) of the word "God". I agree with them about that much.

However, rational empiricism only addresses a very small subset of the phenomenal multi-verse. I don't think that you have to be irrational to sense that there is really much more going on than we "know".

[cyborg_jim]

6. How do you sense that?

I don't think that you have to be irrational to sense that there is really much more going on than we "know".

It's perfectly logical to conclude that there are things we do not know, it is slight less rational to 'sense' it.

[patrice]

8. Only a small fraction of the perceptual/sensory mechanism is

devoted to what is referred to as logic and rationality.

Perhaps we need distinctions between what is ir-rational, i.e. contrary or opposed to rationality, and that which is a-rational, neither rational, nor opposed to rationality, i.e. other than rational. Recall that the human mind is way older than our language and rational empiricism. Why would something as complex as the human nervous system and its organs of sensation be limited to the functions related to a word that was made up a few hundred years before Christ? Especially when those functions are usually characterized as some kind of false dichotomy, "It's either rational or it's not rational". The actual neurophysical mechanisms are no where near that discreet. There's a great deal of difference between any word and the real phenomenon that a word only points to. Rejecting and denigrating those other processes out of hand, because they are not whatever it is that you are referring to as "rational" is evidence of bias.

[cyborg_jim]

10. You don't get the point

Recall that the human mind is way older than our language and rational empiricism.

Just because the concepts came afterwards doesn't mean they don't apply.

Why would something as complex as the human nervous system and its organs of sensation be limited to the functions related to a word that was made up a few hundred years before Christ?

Because if the universe operates in that way it operates in that way - irrespective of whatever the human nervous system can construct as per a model of it.

Rejecting and denigrating those other processes out of hand, because they are not whatever it is that you are referring to as "rational" is evidence of bias.

Not really - it's just making the point that if a sense is irrational then it's totally unreliable, as opposed to just functionally limited with respect to the nomuenal.

[patrice]

12. .

Just because the concepts came afterwards doesn't mean they don't apply.
I'm not saying they don't apply, just that they are not the whole story.

Because if the universe operates in that way it operates in that way - irrespective of whatever the human nervous system can construct as per a model of it.
I am not saying that the universe does not operate in that way, again only that the rational universe is not the whole story. Rational empiricism itself never yeilds anything other than probabilities and even those never at 100%, i.e. it admits its products are not the whole story, because it is directed at a specific processes and their observable effects. Rational empiricism simply has nothing to say, ***one way or the other*** (x = anything, x exists, x does not exist) about that which cannot be observed or logically deducted from observation.

Not really - it's just making the point that if a sense is irrational then it's totally unreliable, as opposed to just functionally limited with respect to the nomuenal.
It is unreliable in terms of reliability as it is defined by rational empiricism. You're talking about a circular system.

[cyborg_jim]

15. dot

I'm not saying they don't apply, just that they are not the whole story.

The basic problem is that saying it's not the whole story doesn't make it so - it could well be the whole story.

I am not saying that the universe does not operate in that way, again only that the rational universe is not the whole story.

Okay here's the problem for me in a nutshell:

If the universe is not rational then all is lost - all attempts to understand it are going to be wrong, not necessarily because they are wrong now but because an irrational universe can make them wrong at any point for no rational reason.

If the universe is rational then we can have some confidence that rational inquiry can understand it. The universe is not trying to trick us - it's just doing what it does. As such it is merely incumbent upon ourselves to find the right way to expose the rational universe.

As such I make the leap of faith that the universe is rational - not because I can prove it is so, just because if it isn't so then there's no point in trying.

Rational empiricism itself never yeilds anything other than probabilities and even those never at 100%, i.e. it admits its products are not the whole story, because it is directed at a specific processes and their observable effects.

Given the above what could possibly yield 100%?

Rational empiricism simply has nothing to say, ***one way or the other*** (x = anything, x exists, x does not exist) about that which cannot be observed or logically deducted from observation.

Well exactly - but my question is still what can anything else really say about it?

It is unreliable in terms of reliability as it is defined by rational empiricism. You're talking about a circular system.

Not really - it is axiomatic, but it is an axiom supported by the fact the universe does not seem to be out to 'trick' us. Again if it is out to 'trick' us then all is lost.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

20. If the universe is not rational then all is lost

I see from this way of thinking why people would rail against a God concept where the divine being does things on caprice. It would not be rational and would go against the experience science has had with the workings of the universe.

[Deep13]

14. Actually, none of it is.

Senses are like a digital camera. They take in raw information. The information is then sent to the cerebral cortex where it is processed into usable information. The ceberal cortex is like a computer CPU in that regard. The brain processes the data and puts it into proper context. Once we have the data we can subject it to rational processes.

[Deep13]

11. God doesn't win by default.

Even if we are completely wrong about what we know, God does not become the truth by default. However little science knows, it has a lot more evidence behind it than God. To develop a god hypothesis, there would need to be observable evidence supporting the idea. We do not know precisely how the universe happened. That does not mean, however, that the gap can be filled with divinity.

Besides, the dirty little secret of modern science is that sometimes you can prove a negative. Is there life on Venus? No, there is not. How do we know? It is hot enough to melt lead all over Venus at all times. Poles, equator, summer, winter, day and night. 900 deg. F. The only people who say that their might be some form of life we just don't understand only say it because they themselves are ignorant about what is necessary for life to work. Under those conditions there can be no self-replicating chemistry. Ergo, negative life on Venus.

Before one can even ask if there is a god, we need to know what that means. Some definitions are so vague and ethereal that existence of the divine is irrelevant to anything. As a creator of the universe as a diests and heists believe or the sustainer of the universe as theists believe, a god has observable consequences for the universe. In fact, god is a fundamentally scientific question since a godless universe is very different that a divine universe.

God cannot exist. His existence poses a far greater theoretical problem than the universe itself. Any god capable of creating the universe needs to be more complex than the universe (and vastly so) in order to be able to conceive and execute the design. The origin of such a being is far more problematic to explain than the cosmos itself and, therefore, explains nothing. Besides, a study of history and especially the history of religion and psychology presents a pretty compelling case that god began with the human mind and the human need to understand. We created him, not the other way around.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

21. throughout history we have seen gods created in man's image

think of the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece, for example. And the man created gods have definately been used for mischief throughout history.

But I still don't understand why God can't exist--you say God's existance poses a far greater problem than the universe itself because that God needs to be more complex than the universe (why, exactly?) in order to be able to conceive and execute the design. Why? What if one's God concept is that God IS the design, IS the universe, continually creating and evolving, not lording over the thing but actually the thing itself?

There is talk of logic, patterns in the universe-and, I believe, certain scientific laws that have been formulated by folks like Newton and Einstein. Ok. What if that is what is God?

[Deep13]

25. throughout history we have seen gods created in man's image

Well, there thou hast said it. Humans subjectively need god for a variety of reasons and imagined and invented them. That is pretty damning circumstantial evidence we made him up.

"What if one's God concept is that God IS the design, IS the universe, continually creating and evolving, not lording over the thing but actually the thing itself?"

Then it would not be god. It would simply be the natural forces of nature. This is what Einstein meant when he spoke of god. We made it very clear he did not mean a supernatural god. Unfortunately, fundies constantly quote him out of context to claim Einstein as a theist.

The reason god cannot exist has to do with the nature of order. Order is complicated. Chaos is simple. The universe is extremely complicated from the grand scale down to the smallest particles. Anyone creating a universe needs to keep a thumb on every electron, every ray of light, every skin cell and everything else in the universe. That means god has to know all of these things. Knowledge requires a great deal of order to exist. Further, god must be able to make that information become reality. That requires even more complexity on orders of magnitude greater. He must do all of this and keep doing it for all time and with no raw materials at the start. Nothing simple can do that. A rock is simple. It cannot build a television set. If god is real, then his existence poses a far greater problem than the actual universe does.

On the other hand if the universe created itself through some natural process we do not yet know that does not require supernatural intervention, then it is the way it is because the condition of the universe required it. Why makes a bubble round? Is some spirit exerting effort constantly to keep it so? Or does the nature of gas simply mean that it cannot be any other shape?

Richard Dawkins can explain this point far better than I can. I encourage you to read his book The God Delusion.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

28. Well then, I guess my God is Einstein's god

I have no problem with that.

[cyborg_jim]

31. That would make you an atheist,

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

36. If you wish to use that name, but look below.

Number one in the Ten Sufi thoughts:

There is One God, the Eternal, the Only Being; none exists save He.

The God of the Sufi is the God of every creed, and the God of all. Names make no difference to him. Allah, God, Gott, Dieu, Brahma, or Bhagwan, all these names and more are the names of his God; and yet to him God is beyond the limitation of name. He sees his God in the sun, in the fire, in the idol which diverse sects worship; and he recognizes Him in all the forms of the universe, yet knowing Him to be beyond all form: God in all, and all in God, He being the Seen and the Unseen, the Only Being. God to the Sufi is not only a religious belief, but also the highest ideal the human mind can conceive.

[cyborg_jim]

40. Sorry, all that doesn't mean anything.

Besides, if I were to make random speculated guesses about these things then I would have to say that One is insufficient - in order to express everything Two is a minimum requirement. Divinity less than two does not cut it for me.

Either way all you're saying is that you're choosing to call existence 'god' despite the word 'existence' being sufficient.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

41. which shows our thought processes are different

I choose to call the One the One because it is the One and it is known by direct experience. This is the way of the mystic, not only in the Sufi esoteric schools, but also in Christian mysticism, Hindu mysticism, and Native American spirituality. The concept of Unity goes back some 5000 years; perhaps we could say that science is catching up with the mystics of long ago.

[cyborg_jim]

43. It's not about thought processes - it's really just that the words are meaningless

The concept of Unity goes back some 5000 years; perhaps we could say that science is catching up with the mystics of long ago.

What has science got to do with ontology?

If you want to call everything 'One' or 'God' go right ahead - just don't pretend that any deeper meaning is attained by calling it that, because it's not.

[Evoman]

51. Hawwwww....DUDE...like, I totally know kung fu

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

19. Ahkenaten

is believed to be the first monotheist. He worshipped the Aton, which has been symbolically represented by the rays of the sun. The faiths evolving from Beni Israel as well as the faith of the Farsis (Zoroastrianism) all took the basic idea of one God and went with it in their own unique ways.

But even as monotheism evolved, pantheism and the concept of multiple Gods also rose and flourished. What is most interesting is to find the unity in the multiplicity behind some of the faiths with multiple Gods-for example, Hinduism and the secret of Ganesh.

[ngant17]

33. and that was precisely Freud's point

that the monotheism of Judaism origiated from the 18th dynasty of ancient Egypt, aka the monotheism of Ahkenaten.

And so went Judeo-christianity.

Some authors even assert that Moses was Ahkenaten! Interesting theory.

[Random_Australian]

34. What? I could have SWORN that the aten was the sun-disk, not the rays...

after all, that is why the great temple of ahketaten was built as a circle, right?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

35. in one famous frieze,

the Aten was represented by the rays of the sun with little hands at the end of them, blessing the royal family

[Random_Australian]

38. Doh!

Yup, you got me. :rofl: Ah well, a day in which you learn something is not a wasted day as they say. :)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

42. But you were right too!

I was just hearkening back to my Art History days at university.

[heidler1]

52. But there are many Suns, so are there many matching gods?

Suns blow up and evolve into something different, so does that matching god die or?? I believe that as the universe's facts are discovered along with the genetic facts of life and the internal facts of the mind we humans will find less and less reason to look for mystical answers. Many false paths will be used to mislead, but truth will win in the end. Don't hold your breath while waiting.

[HereSince1628]

5. I would argue that what science is up to is the construction of

a communicable (shared) conceptualization of reality.

But, unlike extreme postmodern views of relativism (i.e. the Edinburg School) science presumes there is a real complete potentially knowable reality "out there" regardless of whether we have yet really completely "seen it" or developed an umanbiguous shared vocabulary to communicate about it.

Contemporary practice of science seems to assume that our observations of the observable universe will be imperfect, and that the conceptualizations we construct in order to communicate our understandings (conceptualizations) of it will also be flawed. Trying to beat these limitations of the human condition is why science involves all the controlled comparisons, repeated observations, statistical decision aids and open ended review and challenge in the belief that these steps build self-correction into the growing/crystallization of "truthful" conceptualization.

[Boojatta]

7. The following analogy might be helpful.

Where are we? We're on the third planet from the Sun.

What is the Sun? It's a star.

Which star is it? It's the star closest to the Earth.

What is the Earth? It's where we are. It's the thing under us.

Now go back to the first question: Where are we?

Answer that is not part of a wild goose chase:
We are right here, on the thing that is under us.

If you're interested in it's shape, I can tell you that it is approximately spherical, but now we're starting to go off topic.

We learn which hand is called "left" and which hand is called "right" from people who point (or draw diagrams) and use the appropriate words. Similarly, we learn what the word "Earth" means when people point and/or draw diagrams.

We are conscious beings and our understanding of nature is founded on our conscious perceptions.

[patrice]

9. And we need to stop confusing those conscious perceptions with words.

G - o - d is a word. No word, nor, by extension, any definition (because they're also just words) is the same thing as that to which it refers. This fact would be most true of whatever it is that people mean when they use the word "God".

[Deep13]

13. I guess we are a little short on diagrams and models right now.

Words are how people communicate and even how we think. Words are a symbolic representation of something. They may not make a complete picture, but they do provide a lot. If I say I have a ripe granny smith apple that has been cut in half along the core, then it gives you a pretty good idea of what I mean. Granted, you don't know the weight, diameter, exact shape or acidity. Still, you do know it is not an orange. I think you may be selling the descriptive power of words short.

[cyborg_jim]

17. The problem is that no one can give a really good desciption of "god"

[Deep13]

26. A conscious being existing independently of the universe...

...but free to intervene in it. Some would add such a being must also have created the universe.

[cyborg_jim]

30. That only pushes the problem into what is required for consciousness

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

22. good point

I don't think that my God concept can be put into words. But It can be experienced.

[MistressOverdone]

37. I would guess that science

is as limited as the humans who designed it.

[Orrex]

39. The same is true of religious faith, only moreso

The mechanisms of science require that all assumptions are, in principle, subject to reevaluation, no matter how strongly they've been supported to date. As a result, science is as strong as the aggregation of effort over the decades and far less limited than any subset of the humans who designed it.

Religious faith does not include such mechanisms and is entirely dependent upon the individual, therefore it is as limited as the perceptions of that one individual.

[MistressOverdone]

44. I'll agree with you

but perhaps we should be optimistic and say "limitless" as the perceptions of the individual, and the same with science.

I wish I had a crystal ball to see where science takes us in the next few centuries.

[Boojatta]

45. Do you define "science" to include the realm of logic?

Do you distinguish between historical or observational sciences on the one hand and experimental sciences on the other hand? Do you distinguish between both those kinds of sciences and something like number theory? Do you distinguish between number theory and logic?

[joshcryer]

46. An analoug to what you are saying might be the "map is not the territory" relationship.

However, I don't think it's relevant because science is based on testable and observable things. Even if your perception is not perfect, and even though ones POV is different from the next, you can still create these relationships and the results will always be the 'same.'

[Silent3]

47. There's ultimately no way to ever know the difference...

...between physical objects and our thoughts about them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding_an_sich">Ding an sich. The noumenon. The "thing in itself" -- in a way, it's nothing more than a hypothetical mental construct. But it's a very useful one.

If I assume that my own perceptions have no external touchstone outside of my own mind, it follows that any attempt at communication is at best unreliable, and perhaps ultimately meaningless and purposeless. The things I might wish to discuss might be very different, or might not exist at all, for others with whom I attempt to communicate. In fact, those others themselves might be nothing more than figments of my own perception.

What I would suggest is that the connection between perception and external physical objects, while not at all a provable thing, is a necessary and implicit assumption for the process of communication. Without this important assumption, what you're left with is essentially solipsism, where communication is nothing more than a way to entertain yourself in your own private world.

This world of external physical objects ("objects" in a very broad sense) is what I'd call reality. Rather than getting lost in the murk of talking about "my truth" and "your truth", I think it's far more useful to describe purely personal matters of perception using words like "perspective", and save words like "real", "reality", "true", "valid", etc. to refer only to things which are considered to belong to the shared, external reality which is the necessary and implicit touchstone underlying meaningful communication.

In this context, science is the process of trying to discover and understand the nature of the common world which we implicitly assume we share when we attempt to communicate with each other. Each scientist has nothing more than his or her own perceptions to go on, by making the useful, reasonable and (in order to escape solipsism) necessary assumption, however, that those perceptions relate to some sort of consistent underlying reality, which is as it is, completely apart from those personal perceptions (the tree falling in the forest when I'm not there to hear it is making sound), and then by digging into that assumed reality using a careful methodology of reason and experimentation, the scientist can reach out beyond the confines of self to try to get a closer look at a reality which we all share.

[saltpoint]

48. No. Our brains are governed by principles and random phenomena which

we cannot understand, which they -- our brains -- cannot process.

What delights us in a tulip -- its color, its scent, its adaptability to its environment, its function as collectable in a vase?

Or is it the cunning way it lilts in soft wind against the stone embankment on an Irish hillside, near a close cousin's farmgate?

Or none of those things, or parts of all of those things.

We don't perceive what we don't know. And we don't know what we can perceive.

[Odin2005]

50. The basis of science is falsification.

If a hypothesis cannot be, in principle, have to potential to be proven false it is not scientific. Karl Popper called scientific knowledge "objective knowledge" because scientific theories exist outside the mind as a result of argument and refutation (AKA the scientific method) in the public sphere.

[joshcryer]

53. Indeed, that's why the map-territory / perception relationship is irrelevant.

If society can come to an agreement about some criteria and it is objective and scientific that criteria does exist in what we can call "reality."