Are Spirits Scientifically Possible?

[Neil_Anthony]

Hi Neil,

How is fear possible absent these physiological markers? And how would you know if a spirit is afraid?

I only know when my spirit is afraid. It’s just a feeling… can’t really explain it unless you’ve experienced it too.

 

[crowonsnow]

I only know when my spirit is afraid. It’s just a feeling… can’t really explain it unless you’ve experienced it too.

You can have no “feelings” without those physiological changes. The physiological changes are what you feel.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

You can have no “feelings” without those physiological changes. The physiological changes are what you feel.

How do you know what I feel?

 

[crowonsnow]

How do you know what I feel?

Isn’t it just as fair for me to ask you, “How do you know what you feel?” We don’t need to reinvent language or scientific understanding. The point is that these physiological changes and these “feelings” are one and the same.

If not, we need to scientifically examine these spirits and feelings separately from these physiological changes. How do we do that?

 

[MDK]

Are spirits scientifically possible?

There have been a few discussions lately about whether gods and faeries exist, and we can add a host of other names to that list, but all these entities are different spirits. So are spirits scientifically possible? Yes? No? And please explain.

Is science developed sufficiently to explain all of God’s world? You’re asking if the mind of man has made scientific principles and become equal with all the mind of God has created… If you don’t know the answer to this one, you need more serious help!

 

[Brendan]

Isn’t it just as fair for me to ask you, “How do you know what you feel?” We don’t need to reinvent language or scientific understanding. The point is that these physiological changes and these “feelings” are one and the same.

How do you demonstrate that claim? Can you determine if they ARE, in fact the same thing, or are the physiological an effect of spiritual changes?

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Isn’t it just as fair for me to ask you, “How do you know what you feel?” We don’t need to reinvent language or scientific understanding. The point is that these physiological changes and these “feelings” are one and the same.

Obviously we experience fear very differently. To you, its just sweating and shaking, to me it is an emotion. Apparently I have a spirit and you don’t. I don’t know why. I can’t really explain what its like to you if you haven’t experienced it.

If not, we need to scientifically examine these spirits and feelings separately from these physiological changes. How do we do that?

I really don’t know… I’m not a scientist.

 

[Strategery]

But do spirits have anything thing to do with the natural world?

Absolutely. They interact with it on a regular basis. Nope, can’t prove it scientifically. But I’ve witnessed it first hand on multiple occasions.

 

[Strategery]

I don’t understand. Do you mean it has reasons but you don’t understand it?

No, I mean that it has reasons, but one who claims that “faith is belief without reason” will not accept the reasoning that has led to and strengthened my faith.

 

[jman507]

Absolutely. They interact with it on a regular basis. Nope, can’t prove it scientifically. But I’ve witnessed it first hand on multiple occasions.

As to the post I replied to, if they can interact with the natural world then they would have something to do with science. If you’ve witnessed something, you certainly would have observed it. In that respect it would have something to do with science. To further experiment and come up with conclusions, one would probably only be able to do it indirectly, and that would be difficult too.

Also to note, one is not able to prove anything with science, albeit anything supernatural would be far more sketchy certainty-wise than a lot of other ideas.

 

[crowonsnow]

How do you demonstrate that claim? Can you determine if they ARE, in fact the same thing, or are the physiological an effect of spiritual changes?

You’d have to show me some spirits. Then we might be able to answer that question by examining them and performing tests and experiments. The consensus, however, seems to be that spirits are not scientifically possible.

 

[crowonsnow]

Obviously we experience fear very differently. To you, its just sweating and shaking, to me it is an emotion. Apparently I have a spirit and you don’t. I don’t know why. I can’t really explain what its like to you if you haven’t experienced it.

We don’t have to use an emotional state. We can use something less subjective like the color blue. We can say that blue is only possible because of the activity of a spirit. Does that make the blue spirit any more believable? If not how not?

I’ve tried to get away from an associative link like red / tap dancing gremlins, and fear / personal spirit. So how would the blue spirit become scientifically possible?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Are spirits scientifically possible?

There have been a few discussions lately about whether gods and faeries exist, and we can add a host of other names to that list, but all these entities are different spirits. So are spirits scientifically possible? Yes? No? And please explain.

Science can take account of the spirits one finds in a brewery - but of the other kind, only indirectly at most, in virtue of their effects: the temperature of some at prayer can be tracked scientifically, but not the prayer, nor the spiritual grace that allows it.​

Sometimes people claim to photograph ghosts - whether they really do so, is another matter. IMNSHO, using science to prove praeternatural beings (e.g. angels), or the One Supernatural God, is like trying to prove size by shape: they are not related, except by something other than they. So the attempt is pointless.

 

[crowonsnow]

Science can take account of the spirits one finds in a brewery - but of the other kind, only indirectly at most, in virtue of their effects: the temperature of some at prayer can be tracked scientifically, but not the prayer, nor the spiritual grace that allows it.​

Sometimes people claim to photograph ghosts - whether they really do so, is another matter. IMNSHO, using science to prove praeternatural beings (e.g. angels), or the One Supernatural God, is like trying to prove size by shape: they are not related, except by something other than they. So the attempt is pointless.

Scientifically speaking, spirits are not real, if for no other reason than that spirits themselves are believed to be antiscientific entities. To prove that spirits are real one would have to prove that there is no science, no natural laws and methods to accurately predict behavior. That would be a tough one.

Belief, and belief in spirits is certainly real enough, and has scientifically verifiable results. I’m thinking of the placebo effect or the Hawthorne Effect.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

We don’t have to use an emotional state. We can use something less subjective like the color blue. We can say that blue is only possible because of the activity of a spirit. Does that make the blue spirit any more believable? If not how not?

Blue is a wavelength of light… or are you referring to the experience that a person has when he sees blue?

“Experiencing” something isn’t an action that physics or biology can measure or explain. I believe that a physical thing can not experience, only a spirit can. Physical things will react to stimuli but that isn’t the same as experiencing.

 

[MindOverMatter]

Scientifically speaking, spirits are not real, if for no other reason than that spirits themselves are believed to be antiscientific entities.

This is a fallacy if I have ever heard or seen one.

Just because there might be realities beyond the reach of scientific measurement and understanding, does not make them anti scientific and it does not follow that they do not exist. Anything that transcends empirical knowledge, in other words nature, is not relevant to “scientific research”. However that doesn’t mean that one cannot clearly see that there are in fact aspects of nature that go beyoud the bounds of scientific knowledge (such as what caused the “BigBang”), and therefore points to realities beyond the comprehension of science and the tools we use to develop theories. An object that moves itself and thinks for itself, has by its very actions, broken the chains of deterministic causality, and as such has transcended cause and effect. Our existence is a contradiction to the natural order.

In any case, real Scientists practice methodological naturalism, not naturalism.

Philosophically speaking, the presence of mind points to a reality that is non physical in nature, because the mind, so far as it perceives and freely manipulates the reality of other objects, does not correspond to the behavior of natural inert events. I have ideas that are clearly non-physical, despite their connections with the physical processes of the brain. My ignoring them doesn’t change what I am experiencing. Just because we can see the effects of thinking through brain imaging, does not give us any good reason to ignore the non-physical subjective aspects of mind. If anything, brain imaging gives us proof, through the power of inference, that there is in fact a mind. But it cannot tell us the nature of mind for you cannot measure the subjective aspects of perception or ideas; neither can you ignore them in an attempt to create a physical theory of mind. And hence we have reached the legitimate limits of what “Science” can say about the brain.

What is evident to me, and many others, is that there is a physical aspect of thinking, so far as my thoughts correspond to natural processes and requires them in order for me to have potential and actuality; and there is also the non-physical aspect of mind so far as I can freely create, in my mind, a subjective non physical non-dimensional image of objective reality, free of the blind deterministic and random aspects of nature.

So far as we accept the subjective reality of thinking as being a real phenomenon, it is imposible to create a purely physical theory of mind. The problem which arises from the concept of the mind being caused by purely physical processes is the fact that all my ideas will also be the result of physical processes. If my writing this is in fact caused by a blind natural event, then it is not me that is freely writing, but it is instead nature which is blindly processing thoughts and feelings and typing them into this page. Not only does this challenge the reality of freewill, it undermines science, since we only think and do what nature makes us think. In otherwords it all might be an illusion.

However, this is not my immediate experience as a human being. It has always been obvious that we are a union of mind and body, but it is not at all obvious why freewill and mind ought to arise from a natural ordering of the elements; and therefore it is not reasonable for me to believe that my mind is ultimately a product of nature just because physical processes are involved in my being conscious. Rather it is more reasonable to think that we are dealing with to different realities (“Mind”, and the Physical ordering of “mind”) which have been unified, so far as it is subjectively evident to me that I have freewill and immaterial ideas.

To prove that spirits are real one would have to prove that there is no science, no natural laws and methods to accurately predict behavior. That would be a tough one.

No. One does not. It is the scientist that must prove through the scientific methods that mind is a deterministic product of natural processes. But freewill contradicts this idea, so I don’t see why it would be possible.

I’m thinking of the placebo effect.

The placebo effect proves the dominion of mind over matter, becuase the minds will to believe, or belief, is determining the behavior and the outcome of physical events.