Can science REALLY explain Reality?

[inocente]

Do you disagree with that statement? [that physical explanations of God and God’s activity rule out the spiritual nature of God.]

I don’t know of any physical explanations of God, it doesn’t seem to make any sense to say that God created everything physical and yet was somehow already physical. I believe the totality of all that exists is God and God’s creation, and that God created the physical. Any claimed additions, the tens of thousands of supernatural inventions from various cultures, are imaginary.

In other words can science in principle explain the whole of Reality?

Reality is defined as the state of things as they are, rather than as they are imagined to be.

Philosophy has no means to reduce all its different schools, it’s –isms, down to a single explanation, and even then no way of knowing if it is true.

Due to its methodology, science does home in on one explanation of the objective world. Whether this can explain the whole of reality revolves around whether any two people interpret the explanation in exactly the same way, and I’d say not, that ultimately reality is personal.

 

[tonyrey]

Do you disagree with that statement? [that physical explanations of God and God’s activity rule out the spiritual nature of God.]

In other words can science in principle explain the whole of Reality

?
Reality is defined as the state of things as they are, rather than as they are imagined to be.

Philosophy has no means to reduce all its different schools, it’s –isms, down to a single explanation, and even then no way of knowing if it is true.

Due to its methodology, science does home in on one explanation of the objective world. Whether this can explain the whole of reality revolves around whether any two people interpret the explanation in exactly the same way, and I’d say not, that ultimately reality is personal.

I agree that the interpretation of ultimate reality is personal but that doesn’t imply one interpretation is as true as another. A Godless reality is hardly as true as its converse!

 

[Solus_vistor]

If we don’t know anything for certain how could we be certain everything is uncertain?

I agree with most of what you are saying on these matters, however, be careful with self-referential paradoxes. As arguments they do not lead anywhere. Compare:

There is a famous hairdresser in the Cretan mountain village of Agios Giorgios who shaves all the men in the village who do not shave themselves. Does the barber shave himself?”​

The Cretan says: “All Cretans are liars.”​

Socrates: “What Plato is about to say is false”
Plato: “Socrates has just spoken truly.”​

“This sentence is a lie”​

Let A be the set of all sets that are not members of themselves (Russell paradox)

 

[tonyrey]

I agree with most of what you are saying on these matters, however, be careful with self-referential paradoxes. As arguments they do not lead anywhere. Compare:

There is a famous hairdresser in the Cretan mountain village of Agios Giorgios who shaves all the men in the village who do not shave themselves. Does the barber shave himself?”​

The Cretan says: “All Cretans are liars.”​

Socrates: “What Plato is about to say is false”
Plato: “Socrates has just spoken truly.”​

“This sentence is a lie”​

Let A be the set of all sets that are not members of themselves (Russell paradox)

Good point!

I think knowledge is in a different category because the statement is self-refuting and therefore false. “If we don’t know anything for certain how could we be certain everything is uncertain?” really means “It is irrational to deny certainty is possible if one is certain that certainty is impossible!”

In practice the denial of certain knowledge is refuted by the certainty that 1+1 = 2. All *a posterior *knowledge is based on probability except our knowledge that we are thinking.
Can we reasonably deny that proposition without reducing all our propositions to nonsense?

(I’m not discounting other forms of knowledge like intuition and inspiration.

 

[Solus_vistor]

I believe the totality of all that exists is God and God’s creation, and that God created the physical. Any claimed additions, the tens of thousands of supernatural inventions from various cultures, are imaginary.

Of course, you are entitled to your beliefs, however, let me try to understand you:

1. “the totality of all that exists is God” - that is the standard pantheist position (unless you redefine “exist”, e.g. in the sense of Paul Tillich that, as far as I know, no scientist would be comfortable with).
2. “and God’s creation” - i.e. that God created Himself, or, in a less biblical language, God is the cause (and purpose) of himself, or - equivalently - does not need a cause and purpose for His existence. That is a position I - and presumably most Christians - share. It makes sense even when one is not a pantheist.
3. “and that God created the physical” - if the “physical” is part of “the totality of all that exists”, (what else?), then it follows automatically from 1. and 2.

4a. If the “physical” is the same as “the totality of all that exists” then why mention it at all?
4b. If it is not, then there is Something that belongs to “the totality of all that exists” but is not reducible to the physical, material or whatever you want to call reality that is accessible through representations (theories) via science. Tertium non datur.

4a is the position of atheists/materialists. 4b is the position of those of us who need “supernatural inventions from various cultures” (I prefer the Christian, in particular its Catholic version) to represent that Something that cannot be represented via science.

 

[Solus_vistor]

Good point!

I think knowledge is in a different category because the statement is self-refuting and therefore false. “If we don’t know anything for certain how could we be certain everything is uncertain?” really means “It is irrational to deny certainty is possible if one is certain that certainty is impossible!”

Please note, I did not want to object only to warn, showing the same pattern of “paradoxing” in various contexts. One often hears the “argument” that the concept of omnipotent God is meaningless (or irrational) because He cannot create a rock He could not lift. The standard reply to that - and I am afraid also to your paradox - is that this is not a fault of the concept but of our language: one does not reject belief in God because of that “omnipotency paradox” any more than one would reject set theory because of the Russell paradox.

A possible way out would be that one can be uncertain about many (all) things except for one’s own uncertainty, albeit a position I do not share. Nevertheless, this all depends on how you understand certainty (and uncertainty), knowledge, belief etc. Confusion about the meaning of these and similar terms is what Richard Dawkins et al revel in (and capitalize on).

 

[AlanFromWichita]

As for string theory:

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/string_theory.png
xkcd.com/171/

Thank you! This one’s a keeper!

 

[Gaber]

Welcome, WandererLD. I trust your expereince on these fora will be an adventure!

Originally Posted by tonyrey
Unless you explain what the self is no one is any the wiser.

Is it impossible for the self to be entirely subjective as well? Isn’t science just a system of subjective interpretations built over time with which other people “agree” to? We can “understand” the physical world only with a system which allows us to communicate, but once again, isn’t language entirely subjective?

It can be said “explain the self.”, but that is an impossoble semantic requirement. the self?Self is inexplicable and can only be known to be. Does the eye see itself?

Here again the atificial requirements of incomplete premises restricing inquiry to anthropomorphized forms leads us again astray.

 

[inocente]

Of course, you are entitled to your beliefs

As in you’re entitled to your ridiculous point of view?

Likewise I’m sure. :curtsey:

however, let me try to understand you:

I don’t understand 4b. Where did “Something” come from, why is it needed? If you rewrite 4b using the word God instead, meaning that God is not reducible to the physical, then agreed.

There is God, and there is God’s creation. God’s creation is physical and God is omnipresent. That’s it, end of story. No zombies, vampires, demons, etc. It’s a fairly standard position for a Baptist, or at least those I’ve met. We’re bare-bones monotheists, we don’t see the point of a menagerie of embellishments.

 

[Gaber]

Science is a system of subjective interpretations but its resounding success - sometimes with unexpected/undesirable consequences - is evidence that it refers to objective reality

Tis is precisely where the dualisim of language and the incomplete assesment of the nature of awareness creeps in, giving an erroneous picture, one which cannot be corrected without closer examination thatn the superficial encounter of ordinary “wakefulness.” Science is not proof of an objective reality, it is proof of a commonality of substance and its consistency of self expression.

If the self is entirely subjective it is also a subjective interpretation and what is doing the interpreting? Ad this is a further example fo that erroneous proceedure wherin the substance of self is wrongly identified with its perception of associative/discriminative projection into the illusion of the 4D universe. Does it mean that the Universe doesn’t exist? No. It means that from the perspective of the sense association of awareness, there is the commensurate sense of identifying with a locus called person. That person is trained, necessarily, to encounter the 4D world with the assumption of subject/object awareness. Ans as each pereon only becomes “human” with trainting, as distinct from ferral, so and likewise the person is not transcended and does not self-perceive correctly without doing the necessary work of inquiry into the structure of self awareness.

So while there is a substantive self, even temporaroly a “personal soul,” ultimately this can be discovered to be transcendable as well. So where the problem lies, literally, is in the mistaking of the mental faculty associated with localization of the awareness in a temporary vehicle with the substantive self. The illusion of objectivity is a proceedural error of the mentality, as AofW states by quoting Einstein. There is resounding agreement with this from the Saints and Sages of the Ages.

 

[tonyrey]

Ad this is a further example fo that erroneous proceedure wherin the substance of self is wrongly identified with its perception of associative/discriminative projection into the illusion of the 4D universe. Does it mean that the Universe doesn’t exist? No. It means that from the perspective of the sense association of awareness, there is the commensurate sense of identifying with a locus called person. That person is trained, necessarily, to encounter the 4D world with the assumption of subject/object awareness. Ans as each pereon only becomes “human” with trainting, as distinct from ferral, so and likewise the person is not transcended and does not self-perceive correctly without doing the necessary work of inquiry into the structure of self awareness.

So while there is a substantive self, even temporaroly a “personal soul,” ultimately this can be discovered to be transcendable as well. So where the problem lies, literally, is in the mistaking of the mental faculty associated with localization of the awareness in a temporary vehicle with the substantive self. The illusion of objectivity is a proceedural error of the mentality, as AofW states by quoting Einstein. There is resounding agreement with this from the Saints and Sages of the Ages.

If objectivity is an illusion of “a proceedural error of the mentality” all your statements - and those of everyone else - can be safely ignored…

 

[Gaber]

If the self is entirely subjective everything is entirely subjective. In that case solipsism is true because everything exists in the mind of the subject.

It is, again, easy to make this kind of error in assesment from the standpoint of personal identification. The idea of solipsism makes the error of ascribing substantiality to the personal mind, where in fact the commonality is attributable to “Mind” equatable with Self as Life or Principle. So while solipsism claims “I alone am,” it makes that claim personally.

This is correlative to the idea that a world and existance outside of one’s own perceptions cannot be proved. But that lack of proof doesn’t go far enought in attributing the appearance of what seems to be “outside” and is the expereince which leads to the equally incorrect conclusion that there is an objective existence. If there is objectivity, point to an object and prove to me it is “out there.” No matter what is done, it can be only expereinced “in here.” And yet, it needs to be accounted for. And again, this is done by the realization of the commonality of Substance as Self perceived in these dimensions as self.

The accounting and meaning aspect of all this takes place in mind, as Being as such needs no proof. Each one says “I am” without shadow of doubt. But when it comes to relating that “I am” to the 4D projection, the contents of the localized awareness comes to bear as an interpretive tool. It can be successful in that interpretation only insofar as it correctly alligns and attributes the distinctions between what is proper to the 4D expereince and its four quadrants, and what is properly the province of the first quadrant signified by “I” internally as subject/Subject and “me” as the interface with the expression of commonality appearing in 4D as “objective.”

Also, may I request that for ease of reading and commenting in the response frame we cease using the indistinguishably smaller size 3 type? Perhaps I'm not the only one who has notices all the extra coding in quotes due to that usage?

 

[tonyrey]

I think knowledge is in a different category because the statement is self-refuting and therefore false. “If we don’t know anything for certain how could we be certain everything is uncertain?” really means “It is irrational to deny certainty is possible if one is certain that certainty is impossible!”

I realised you weren’t objecting.
On another thread I have made the point that if we’re not certain we’re thinking we can’t be certain of anything at all - including “we’re not thinking”!

Since this proposition is self-refuting we are thinking - or “the rest is silence”…

 

[AlanFromWichita]

I realised you weren’t objecting.
On another thread I have made the point that if we’re not certain we’re thinking we can’t be certain of anything at all - including “we’re not thinking”!

Since this proposition is self-refuting we are thinking - or “the rest is silence”…

Silence is good.

.

 

[Sair]

I agree that the interpretation of ultimate reality is personal but that doesn’t imply one interpretation is as true as another. A Godless reality is hardly as true as its converse!

Not forgetting, of course, two important things arising from this exchange - one, that the way people imagine reality to be is itself part of reality; and that unless one explicitly defines god, which the major monotheisms initially did but from which definitions they have been progressively backing away in the face of the encroachment of science and modern philosphy, there is no means of demonstrating one way or the other whether a godless reality is less true than the converse. If one makes one’s definition of god sufficiently nebulous, such a god’s existence or otherwise as an independent entity is hardly going to make any difference to our experience anyway; certainly much less difference than people’s inclination to believe or disbelieve in a deity.

 

[Gaber]

Silence is good.

We watched Jeff Dunham last night. Hillllllll arrrrouuuussssss!!! Thanks for sharing.

But you are right, AofW. the contemplation of silence, as the Carmelites practice it in contemplation, one famously, (ok more thatn one,) can in its extreme lead to the discovery of which I constantly speak. It is vastly different from quietism, as it is an inquiry into Substance Itself, and yields a commensurately significant realzation as its fruit.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[tonyrey]

Silence is good.

Then everyone intending to post on this thread, forum, or anywhere else should refrain immediately!

 

[AlanFromWichita]

If one makes one’s definition of god sufficiently nebulous, its existence or otherwise as an independent reality is hardly going to make any difference to our experience anyway.

Actually I’ve found usefulness in this. I may have to stretch a definition of God to barely more than “unmangeable complexity,” but at some point people will accept there are powers they are subject to that cannot be controlled and/or predicted with a specified level of accuracy.

Where there are these admissions, there is a chance of humility.

When Jesus went into the desert for 40 days, He subjected Himself to forces He couldn’t control, and when tempted to control them, declined.

Are there any scientific atheists around, who spend a lot of time in natural settings? (Forest, desert, etc.)

Alan

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Then everyone intending to post on this thread, forum, or anywhere else should refrain immediately!

I have a container. Let’s get it filled up!

http://www.easyfreesmileys.com/smileys/free-sick-smileys-584.gif

 

[Gaber]

I realised you weren’t objecting.
On another thread I have made the point that if we’re not certain we’re thinking we can’t be certain of anything at all - including “we’re not thinking”!

Since this proposition is self-refuting we are thinking - or “the rest is silence”…

And yet again, this is an assesment from personal identification. One identifies themselves mistakenly with the “thinkier,” thinking that tthoughts are “theirs” as a possesed attribute of “self.” If they were, they would not be distiiinguishable as objects distinguishable in awareness. This continual and persistant (remember Einstein?) activity of identifying self with content yields the illusion of subject/object. Seen through, there is still the appearance, but the heirachy of Consciousness>awareness>ideas>thoughts is percieved accurately and the sense of self is correctly attributed as not reliant on mentality, but mentality being reliant on self-awareness, and mentality its contents as perceptions relative to identfying with locus and conditions.