Can science REALLY explain Reality?

[OrdinaryMelkite]

What is your theory about that connection that would violate the 1st Law of Thermodynamics? What makes you think either Newtonian or Eisensteinian physics applies to the supernatural state? Do you know the prevailing theories in science concerning how many dimensions the universe comprises?

For someone who identifies themselves as a Christian, you speak very much like an atheist. There’s film, pictures and so forth, but why would you give that any credibility? You see, the non-scientific and prejudiced mind first moves to “explain away” whatever doesn’t fit in their comfortable version of reality. What photo or film would satisfy you?

Millions of people saw the apparition of a woman atop a Coptic Orthodox church over a span of three years, people of various faiths and a rather large number of atheists. No one, including the journalists swarming over the area trying to figure out the presumed “hoax,” ever could explain it. Thousands of feet of film were shot, probably millions of pictures taken.

But my question is: what makes you believe an angel a demon, a vision or other supernatural apparition should be photographable?

What do you believe in that you cannot see? Do you believe there is such a thing as “dark mater” that does not interact with Time/Space in any discernible way but somehow is purportedly responsible for the speeding up of universal expansion, in direct contradiction to what science insisted was true for generations, which is that the universe was slowing down? They had math to prove it. Math dependent on the Laws of Thermodynamics.

But when finally able through new technology to measure the rate of collapse, they found expansion, speeded up, instead. Which violates the laws of thermodynamics so…so… well… there MUST be “dark matter.”

Right?

Like to explain in detail how that’s possible?

And explain to me how you, a Christian, don’t believe in angels.

Great post as always, Julia Mae. I would hate to go up against you in Paleoanthropology class.

(Not that I could or would, anyway…my mind does not go “that way,” if you know what I mean. I’m the English Major/Religion guy who knows a lot of stuff from reading voraciously. Math and most of the Sciences have always been like some foreign country to me. Still count with my fingers occassionally (shame on me, right?). I DID like Geology in College, but that was about it. )

Actually, I would posit, though (to get back to the subject at hand) that there IS no such thing as “supernatural,” but only natural things which science cannot explain yet but which may be explainable in the future----and if religion and science finally unite together.

With the term “supernatural,” we are stepping into a possible definition of what exactly there is that is “inside” or “outside” Nature.

Some Pantheists (at least of the Spinoza persuasion) would posit "Everything in the Universe is within Nature. So God=Nature.

I would say that the truth is closer to the PANENTHEISTIC position-----------like Hegel’s conception of Nature, for example----------or the truth laid out by Holy Mother Church. Within, but also outside of Nature.

I personally am in no way shape or form a Pantheist (which Atheism has hijacked as its own nowadays anyways)---------I tend to find Panentheism much more to my liking. :thumbsup:

 

[OrdinaryMelkite]

I saw a lecture recently by Richard Hawking in which he states that physics has now explained how matter can materialize out of nothing. Way over my head.

Are you talking about Richard Dawkins or Stephen Hawking?

Anyway---------------

If that is the case, what intelligence caused the action of matter producing itself out of nothing?

And does this person know the astronomical probablity of matter randomly being able to somehow ACCIDENTALLY produce itself out of nothing?

Just a question.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Name a philosopher/theologian in the last hundred years who had as much influence as, say (just for starters) penicillin, big bang theory, genetics or computers.

This is really interesting, I just saw it reviewing the thread. You want to compare a person with what? Theory, medication and technology.

John Paul II had a far greater influence on the world, IMO (unprovable), than Big Bang Theory which has, essentially, no impact. There are some individuals who were probably impacted, but in the greater scheme of things, hardly a blip on the surface of reality.

 

[tonyrey]

That is what I explained to my thesis adviser when I told him to stop touching my instruments while I was acquiring data. I did not want to be concerned about the state of his soul when I killed him for messing up my experiment.

:tiphat:

 

[Julia_Mae]

Great post as always, Julia Mae. I would hate to go up against you in Paleoanthropology class.

Thanks. You wouldn’t go up against me, we’d just be in the same study group.

(Not that I could or would, anyway…my mind does not go “that way,” if you know what I mean. I’m the English Major/Religion guy who knows a lot of stuff from reading voraciously. Math and most of the Sciences have always been like some foreign country to me. Still count with my fingers occassionally (shame on me, right?). I DID like Geology in College, but that was about it. )

Sounds like me, exactly. I double-majored in English, was surprised by my passion for paleoanthro, and have never been able to balance a checkbook. (No idea how I squeaked through statistics.) Geology is the degree almost all paleontologists have, or had, as until recently it was not offered as a major. I designed my own major out of classes from different disciplines.

Actually, I would posit, though (to get back to the subject at hand) that there IS no such thing as “supernatural,” but only natural things which science cannot explain yet but which may be explainable in the future----and if religion and science finally unite together.

My beliefs also, although I would say will explain, and “reunite.” Religions just explained the world. “Witch doctor” “Medicine man.” I use supernatural because it seems the vernacular everyone kind of thinks of the same way. We can talk about “ghosts” or Saints, but we are always talking about eternal life. Psychism isn’t supernatural, that’s probably going to get figured out first, but it is common to all the Saints who are known for “supernatural manifestations.” So the connection is there.

But I am happy with any word anyone wants. Metaphenomena, anyone?

With the term “supernatural,” we are stepping into a possible definition of what exactly there is that is “inside” or “outside” Nature.

Some Pantheists (at least of the Spinoza persuasion) would posit "Everything in the Universe is within Nature.

And “universe” means everything, both the “heavens and the earth” God created. So, God can’t be the universe, but, as the Hindu says: neti-neti. Anything you can point to is not God: not this-not this, including what we sometimes call the Other Side.

I’ve been called a panentheist on some forums way back when, but I was not. Still am not.

We will someday explain reality, all of it, IMO, but we will never explain God.

 

[Equites_Christi]

It has become apparent to me that there is an essential question which neither side is discussing.

Namely: Is everything that is knowable or true able to be proven by science, and therefore, everything which is not able to be proven by science, is either unknowable or false?

 

[tonyrey]

It has become apparent to me that there is an essential question which neither side is discussing.

Namely: Is everything that is knowable or true able to be proven by science, and therefore, everything which is not able to be proven by science, is either unknowable or false?

Since science is based on metaphysical principles **not everything that is knowable or true is able to be proven by science, and therefore, ** not everything which is not able to be proven by science, is either unknowable or false! (A plethora of negatives but I couldn’t be bothered to work out the translation into positive statements…)

 

[Julia_Mae]

It has become apparent to me that there is an essential question which neither side is discussing.

Namely: Is everything that is knowable or true able to be proven by science, and therefore, everything which is not able to be proven by science, is either unknowable or false?

I think I would say everything knowable is able, potentially, to be investigated and explained by human inquiry which is commonly called “science” these days.

Things in a locked room still exist, even if we never find the key. The key still exists, too, and some future someone may put them together. (This reminds me of Touch)

 

[tgrath]

You don’t seem to have read the entire post you responded to, you might want to review. Or maybe you just didn’t understand the proposition?

How far is it from the earth to the sun? You don’t know. You can Google the answer, but then you know what someone else said. You choose to have faith that the answer is correct. (Or maybe you don’t, but your “knowledge” is faith-based.)

Perhaps next year, someone will say the earth is a different distance from the sun based ion new research. You will now find a different answer. But you might also find most of the scientific community accepts the new answer. Just as they accepted the old one. They have “faith” in it.

If you reread the post you replied to, take note of the probability element.

True. None of us has enough time or expertise to personally verify every scientific theory. One experiment may be of better design, or performed more carefully than another. You might interpret the results differently than another person might. Yet we also accept the validity of scientific claims based on large accumulation of evidence from multiple independent sources. Acceptance of such claims has more “factual” basis than something only derived by faith. When we accept something as “true”, we have faith in certain underlying paradigms. Faith is always involved. For example, for many years time was considered to run on a static scale. Mass was considered always to be the same for the same object. Light was believed to only travel in a straight line. These assumptions matched our perception and observation. They were shown to be false long before they were observed experimentally to be false. Very few people understand the mathematics required to “prove” these three statements. Intuitively, one can understand the principles and what the experiments show. Few of us will ever see the inside of a large accelerator, much less build one, to test the effect of velocity on radioactive half lives, and thereby test the theory that time slows as velocity increases. So, we read about the experiment, and decide for ourselves what to accept. Another radical insight could change all the rules about how we have been thinking.

 

[Sair]

It has become apparent to me that there is an essential question which neither side is discussing.

Namely: Is everything that is knowable or true able to be proven by science, and therefore, everything which is not able to be proven by science, is either unknowable or false?

Science generally doesn’t deal in ‘proof’ - only logicians and mathematicians do that. Science deals in hypothesising as to why certain phenomena are as we perceive them, in gathering evidence and using that evidence to build theories of how reality actually works.

I would say that everything that is knowable to us - that is, everything of which we may possibly be aware, which may have some impact upon our existence - is, in principle, accessible to scientific investigation. Proof? Quite possibly not, since, as I said, science does not deal in proof, but in rigorous investigation and theory-building. It may well be the case that not everything that actually exists is knowable to us. If that is so, then there are indeed extant phenomena which are inaccessible to science - but being so, they are also quite irrelevant to our own existence.

For those who insist that there are realms of reality that are comprehensible to us yet immune to scientific investigation, and that religion (and to an extent, philosophy) is the way to access these realms of knowledge, I can think of no better response than the following, from Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot (quoted in Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins):

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant”? Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.” A religion , old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.

And not to forget a much shorter but no less inspiring quotation from Dawkins himself - “Science is the poetry of reality.”

 

[Julia_Mae]

It may well be the case that not everything that actually exists is knowable to us. If that is so, then there are indeed extant phenomena which are inaccessible to science - but being so, they are also quite irrelevant to our own existence.

History contradicts you. We know there have been things inaccessible to science that impacted human life, yet, those impacted didn’t know it.

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant”? Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.” A religion , old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.

Dawkins, outside of his field, is a fairly ignorant guy and a bigot, as well. Which is why he gets regularly creamed in the debates. Until relatively recent times, many, possibly most, the great scientific discoveries were made by religious persons, Catholics, for the most part, who were the ones, because of faith and the science of theology, who were able to imagine that the universe is much greater and grander and held infinite possibility. It’s only the atheist who closes off possibility to some narrowly-defined set of parameters outside of which his mind dares not go.

 

[Sair]

History contradicts you. We know there have been things inaccessible to science that impacted human life, yet, those impacted didn’t know it.

If they were ultimately impacted by these realities, then said realities are not inaccessible to our experience, hence not beyond the scope of science - it doesn’t follow that science must immediately perceive all realities. It is a cumulative endeavour.

Dawkins, outside of his field, is a fairly ignorant guy and a bigot, as well. Which is why he gets regularly creamed in the debates. Until relatively recent times, many, possibly most, the great scientific discoveries were made by religious persons, Catholics, for the most part, who were the ones, because of faith and the science of theology, who were able to imagine that the universe is much greater and grander and held infinite possibility. It’s only the atheist who closes off possibility to some narrowly-defined set of parameters outside of which his mind dares not go.

My experience has been that Dawkins’ reasoning and explanations are rather too subtle for those who choose to debate him; his response to a Christian questioner’s disingenuous query about the origins of DNA at the 2010 Global Atheist Convention, just as an example, was as thorough-going and as charitable as one could wish. What’s more, his impatience and dismissiveness are largely directed at those who insist upon the primacy of religious dogma over demonstrably effective scientific findings. Be that as it may, if this is your opinion of Dawkins, what do you make of the likes of Sagan or Hawking or Lawrence Krauss (whose book A Universe From Nothing I am currently reading)? I shudder to imagine your estimation of someone like Christopher Hitchens, who was not even a professional scientist, but whose animosity towards religion came from thoroughly humanist quarters.

It’s really no surprise that many pioneering scientists were members of religious orders, since that was one of the few environments at their time that allowed for sustained intellectual study. The departure of science from the religious fold is also largely unsurprising, since it is, in fact, those who adhere to doctrinal explanations of the world who are generally found to be closed to other possible (and dare I say, more probable) explanations - to which scientific investigation is the key.

 

[Julia_Mae]

**Originally Posted by Sair **
It may well be the case that not everything that actually exists is knowable to us. If that is so, then there are indeed extant phenomena which are inaccessible to science - but being so, they are also quite irrelevant to our own existence.
**JM:**History contradicts you. We know there have been things inaccessible to science that impacted human life, yet, those impacted didn’t know it.

This is the original exchange. The bolded part is your contention and I responded to.

If they were ultimately impacted by these realities, then said realities are not inaccessible to our experience,…

But that wasn’t the issue and not what you said. The issue in your statement is that if things are inaccessible to science, then those things do not impact our existence. Yet, they do. Microscopic life, inaccessible to science for most of our existence, has always impacted our existence. Yet, people did not know that. Many still don’t.

it doesn’t follow that science must immediately perceive all realities.

I agree and so, of course, we certainly cannot assume that there are not still things impacting us of which we are not aware. You have contended, incorrectly, that certain phenomena we sometimes term “supernatural” are beyond the scope of human investigation. You have presumed that apparitions have never been photographed and have, in that, presumed they can be, yet, you also presume they are beyond the scope of human investigation, yet, somehow, you have knowledge of them.

This statement:

My experience has been that Dawkins’ reasoning and explanations are rather too subtle for those who choose to debate him;

Can only elicit one response from those of us who are familiar with the debates:



And it’s off-topic, anyway.

I think everyone who wants to honestly discuss the topic has pretty much expressed their opinion adequately, so I see no value in continuing.

BTW, Baptists are sola Scriptura Christians. Maybe you should pick Scientology next time.

 

[inocente]

No scientists allow for persons in their scientific investigations. They are concerned with natural objects like bodies - not intangible souls or minds.

Are you making a satirical jibe that anthropology, linguistics, psychology and the other social sciences don’t count as real science? No matter, the young field of neuroscience will lead to tangible models of mind, give it a little time.

 

[inocente]

Nope. Only infatuation is. That’s the “luv” and “ga-ga” feelings one feels for someone.

The other types of love are not emotions.

Love of family is reasonable and rational - you need your family to survive.

Love of friends is reasonable and rational - strength in numbers, and a pack mentality to survive.

Unselfish love - agape - supernatural, super-rational.

None of these types of love are emotional - though emotions do come with with them both positive and negative.

However, you seem to be saying that a steak dinner is a vegetable because it comes with a salad that has vegetables in it. Love is not an emotion just because there are emotions that come with it.

Whether you intend it, your comments on familial and brotherly love come over as a bit heartless: survival may be why they developed but isn’t at all how we experience them, we don’t calculate risk/benefit on who to love (psychopaths and pseudo-love excepted).

On emotions, you sound like you think they’re demeaning, but they are not just superficial, they are a big part of who we are. Have a look around at some definitions, including emotional intelligence, which is somewhat squidgy to define but essential for our self- and social-awareness.

Love is an emotion and is irrational, c.f. “But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him”. Mercy isn’t rational, the priest and the Levite rationally passed on by. I don’t know about Catholicism but a major thing in the Baptist branch is that Christ’s love is unconditional, Christ loves us despite all the reasons why He should rationally pass us by.

Actually subjective things can be measured by natural science. Fear raises blood pressure and skin temperature changes. That doesn’t mean all blood pressure risings and skin temperature changes are fear, but those are signs.

Again we seem to be using words differently: to me objective means based on facts rather than personal beliefs or feelings, subjective means the reverse. Thus blood pressure and skin temperature are objective.

Yes, there is subjective and objective elements. But there are many objective things - like love, which are not subjective. You can tell who loves their family by observation versus who wants nothing to do with their family. You can tell who loves his friends versus wanting to be a loner. You can tell someone who is selfish, self-centered, egotistical and a taker vs someone who is giving, self-sacrificial, self-denying and helpful. It is not subjective, there are objective criteria to measure agape.

Our conversation started with your post #47, where you said that love is outside the jurisdiction of science because science cannot measure it. You appear to have changed your mind as you’re now saying the opposite, that love can be observed and quantified.

I agree, philosophy and theology have a band and make great music together.

I agree, but of course they’d be nothing without playing to the beat of science.

 

[inocente]

That is what I explained to my thesis adviser when I told him to stop touching my instruments while I was acquiring data. I did not want to be concerned about the state of his soul when I killed him for messing up my experiment.

(advanced warning would have been appreciated so I didn’t have to clean orange juice off my monitor).

 

[inocente]

When one guy says he say a mammal that laid eggs, no one believed him and probably shouldn’t have. But when a ship full of sailors said they saw a furry creature with webbed feet and a duckbill that laid eggs, they should have been given more credibility.

Science told them they were wrong and it was impossible.

How many people need to witness and describe something before they are given credibility?

I don’t know. When UFOs were all the rage, sightings by cops and airline pilots were given more credibility than those of teenagers from the 'burbs. Part of reality is how we process and sift information.

Science doesn’t exist as anything that “lets” or “insists” you do anything. Some scientists, like say Dawkins, think a rather large portion of the population cannot be trusted to make up it’s own mind about and must be told what to believe.

I wander if he got that strategy from Christian missionaries?

*As someone who spent a large portion of her professional lifetime working in science, I guarantee you the resistance to anyone who dares to “think for themselves” is very great. In fact, the only way anything new is ever discovered in science is for someone to commit scientific heresy and push past scientific “knowledge.” *

While the philosophy and theology departments are shining examples of an absence of peer pressure? Don’t think so, all disciplines are populated by human beings, and all human beings have faults.

One of the standard CAF peer pressures is that science is made of slugs and snails and religion is made of everything nice. From posters who spend a lot of their time on a computer and network connection impossible without science . (Another is pretending not to be materialistic, as if owning a computer is essential to spiritual well-being ).

Despite its faults and messiness, science has taken the lead role in explaining reality, while philosophy and theology are left in the dust. Lock away the children, for once it’s time to bash modern theologians. While I don’t always agree with him, here’s Señor Ratzinger (my emphases):

*For when we are told that we have to distinguish between the images themselves and what those images mean [literal vs. figurative reading of scripture], then we can ask in turn: Why wasn’t that said earlier? Evidently it must have been taught differently at one time or else Galileo would never have been put on trial. And so the suspicion grows that ultimately perhaps this way of viewing things is only a trick of the church and of theologians who have run out of solutions but do not want to admit it, and now they are looking for something to hind behind. And on the whole the impression is given that the history of Christianity in the last 400 years has been a constant rearguard action as the assertions of the faith and of theology have been dismantled piece by piece.

…]As far as theological views of this sort are concerned, finally, quite a number of people have the abiding impression that the church’s faith is like a jellyfish: no one can get a grip on it and it has no firm center. It is on the many half-hearted interpretations of the biblical Word that can be found everywhere that a sickly Christianity takes its stand – a Christianity that is no longer true to itself and that consequently cannot radiate encouragement and enthusiasm. It gives, instead, the impression of being an organization that keeps on talking although it has nothing else to say, because twisted words are not convincing and are only concerned to hide their emptiness. - philvaz.com/apologetics/p81.htm*

*Which is unrelated to the topic: *can science explain reality? **

Belief-in-belief for the sake of belief-in-belief is part of our reality, and the reason why many religionists expect others to unquestioningly accept their morality, beliefs and version of reality can be explained by science (I’m guessing it’s a tribal survival mechanism).

 

[tgrath]

History contradicts you. We know there have been things inaccessible to science that impacted human life, yet, those impacted didn’t know it.

Dawkins, outside of his field, is a fairly ignorant guy and a bigot, as well. Which is why he gets regularly creamed in the debates. Until relatively recent times, many, possibly most, the great scientific discoveries were made by religious persons, Catholics, for the most part, who were the ones, because of faith and the science of theology, who were able to imagine that the universe is much greater and grander and held infinite possibility. It’s only the atheist who closes off possibility to some narrowly-defined set of parameters outside of which his mind dares not go.

I’ve seen Dawkins in person. He did not get creamed at all by his rather hostile questioners. Far from it. He was giving a speech accepting an award. He offered to field questions on his current research. A contingent of quite hostile religious people had managed to get seats at the ceremony. They attacked him verbally. What struck me most was how charitable he was with his opponents. He was very eloquent. Have you heard him, and not just sound bites? What is your opinion based on?

 

[Gaber]

Since science is based on metaphysical principles **not everything that is knowable or true is able to be proven by science, and therefore, ** not everything which is not able to be proven by science, is either unknowable or false! (A plethora of negatives but I couldn’t be bothered to work out the translation into positive statements…)

Please explain how you see science as being based on metaphysical principles?

 

[inocente]

What is your theory about that connection that would violate the 1st Law of Thermodynamics? What makes you think either Newtonian or Eisensteinian physics applies to the supernatural state? Do you know the prevailing theories in science concerning how many dimensions the universe comprises?

Ah, have the string dings now settled on a number of dimensions? 26? 42? I think the correct term would be hypotheses, calling them theories gives them a dignity they may not deserve.

From what you’ve said, I think you use the term supernatural differently from most I’ve met on CAF, who seem to be substance dualists, conceiving a ghost in a machine. The idea seems to be that the human mind is (as it were) on a non-physical server interfaced with the material brain. Information disappears from the physical domain when uploaded while other information appears when downloaded. Both events imply a transfer of energy between ghost and machine, in and out of the physical domain. Eminently falsifiable of course.

*For someone who identifies themselves as a Christian, you speak very much like an atheist. There’s film, pictures and so forth, but why would you give that any credibility? You see, the non-scientific and prejudiced mind first moves to “explain away” whatever doesn’t fit in their comfortable version of reality. What photo or film would satisfy you? *

A neat little snapshot on your reality - you see, the non-scientific and prejudiced mind first moves to “explain away” whatever doesn’t fit in their comfortable version of reality. Thanks for your kind offer but I’m not about to believe whatever people tell me to believe to fit in with their comfortable version of reality.

Incidentally, I’m an engineer but much of my education was in science, and I was an atheist who became Christian, I didn’t just get born into it like most.

See, I have claws too, probably best we avoid anything that can be taken as personal.

*Millions of people saw the apparition of a woman atop a Coptic Orthodox church over a span of three years, people of various faiths and a rather large number of atheists. No one, including the journalists swarming over the area trying to figure out the presumed “hoax,” ever could explain it. Thousands of feet of film were shot, probably millions of pictures taken. *

Puh-lease, there’s loads of examples on YouTube of those pranks, and if you do a bit of research you’ll find that, yes, they’re all pranks. Same kind of gig as crop circles.

But my question is: what makes you believe an angel a demon, a vision or other supernatural apparition should be photographable?

I’m going on other peoples’ descriptions. If they’re not visible in any waveband then they can’t have any effect on the physical world.

*What do you believe in that you cannot see? Do you believe there is such a thing as “dark mater” that does not interact with Time/Space in any discernible way but somehow is purportedly responsible for the speeding up of universal expansion, in direct contradiction to what science insisted was true for generations, which is that the universe was slowing down? They had math to prove it. Math dependent on the Laws of Thermodynamics.

But when finally able through new technology to measure the rate of collapse, they found expansion, speeded up, instead. Which violates the laws of thermodynamics so…so… well… there MUST be “dark matter.”

Right?

Like to explain in detail how that’s possible?*

I think you’re referring to dark energy, which is very different from dark matter.

Accelerating expansion is an inference based on observed increasing red shift, unpredicted by string dings or other theorists. One hypothesized cause is dark energy.

As I understand it, the observation may put to rest an old question. Whatever dark energy is, by causing expansion it must have the opposite sign to the gravitational energy of matter. It seems probable that adding up the total energy of both would give a zero sum, meaning the total energy of the whole universe is nada, hence the slightly misleading expression “a universe from nothing”. I don’t know if the idea is falsifable, but it’s so stunningly beautiful that I’ll use a bit of faith, I want it to be true.

And explain to me how you, a Christian, don’t believe in angels.

Is that a royal command or something? I’ll answer your question this once, it’s because when I was baptized in the Spirit, the Spirit didn’t make it a precondition that I leave my brain behind so I kept it.