Can science REALLY explain Reality?

[tonyrey]

I wouldn’t have thought at this stage of our friendly and enjoyable exchanges I’d have had to specify scientific discoveries

Science. Now that’s Proper Rock N Roll :egyptian:

The final, and only, frontier

I prefer more optimistic, realistic and romantic discoveries which extend far beyond the frontier of the rocks and the rolls!

 

[atheistgirl]

I prefer more optimistic, realistic and romantic discoveries which extend far beyond the frontier of the rocks and the rolls!

I prefer the facts.

The facts Ma’am.

Just the facts

Sarah x

 

[AlanFromWichita]

I prefer the facts.

The facts Ma’am.

Just the facts

Sarah x

Sarah,

How about you can study the facts about rock formations, teeter-totters, and bridges. I’ll study the facts about how people interact emotionally and spiritually. Because the “facts” are, luv is alive and well and influences every human being’s decisions in a measurable way that marketers get paid to study.

We are all different parts to one body. I need people like you to be specialists, to feed information to generalists like me.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. – Albert Einstein

Alan

 

[atheistgirl]

Sarah, have you seen any scientific videos about alleged “mystical experiences” and brain wave patterns? How about the ones that show how anxiety and other emotions can influence the waveshape of the EKG? How about the electromagnetic fields from the heart and how they interact with others nearby? Certainly Star Trek NG wouldn’t have been the same without Troi, right? Empathy is scientifically observable and subject to experiment. Science likes to look at brain wave patterns of people doing various activities including religious, to try to figure out what makes us tick.

I sure have Alan (Hi by the way ).

They’re fascinating.

I remember one study with a guy telling half of a group to raize their right arm, and, in the observing groups brain, the bit concerned with raizing their right arms, lit up, even though they were not moving.

Empathy at work. Simply chemical responses in the brain, but have such profound consequences for us as a species.

If we didn’t have any human empathy, we’d never have any morality.

But it all resides in the physical brain.

It’s truely a fascinating field.

Sarah x

 

[Sample]

**Physical **evidence is your creed! Do you reject scientific authority? Or the authority of your own judgment?

I have never heard the term scientific authority in my life, congratulations for being the first person to introduce me to this saying.

What do you mean by it? Did you not see where I wrote that evidence is my creed, not authority, not consensus, not tradition, etc.? And why would evidence ever need a qualifier like “physical” as you put it? Evidence is sufficient for me.

 

[sw85]

I have never heard the term scientific authority in my life, congratulations for being the first person to introduce me to this saying.

What do you mean by it? Did you not see where I wrote that evidence is my creed, not authority, not consensus, not tradition, etc.? And why would evidence ever need a qualifier like “physical” as you put it? Evidence is sufficient for me.

I agree “physical evidence” is redundant. Evidence is a proof of a physical phenomenon. This is why insisting on evidence is simply begging the question in favor of scientism – it assumes (irrationally, inconsistently, and without basis) that whatever can’t be demonstrated empirically cannot be true.

 

[Candide_West]

Reasons are more important than credentials.

You asked what makes him a recognised authority, I suggest you look up his credentials and anything else you need to know about him to satisfy yourself.*

A summary of a sound argument doesn’t need to be obscure…

I know and entirely agree.But as I said he isn’t presenting arguments in his books he’s providing explanations of how certain features of the mind work. From the questions you raised I thought you might be interested in reading his work. As I said it makes the subject quite approachable.

Obviously if you’re not interested in the answers to those questions then my recommendation is of little use to you.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

You asked what makes him a recognised authority, I suggest you look up his credentials and anything else you need to know about him to satisfy yourself.*

…

Obviously if you’re not interested in the answers to those questions then my recommendation is of little use to you.

In this day and age, to tell somebody they can look something up is redundant.

Every thread on this forum is chock with ideas and suggestions about books, blogs, and biographies to go read. If you can’t give even a single sentence in support of a biographical figure other than “you should check him out,” then your recommendation is really of little use to anyone.

Not to mention, your recommendation was a non-answer. He asked which argument you found convincing, and you said to go look it up. Well, I just did. I Googled “candide west and daniel dennett” and I got a link to this forum with the text “Some books by Daniel Dennett are both really interesting and also accessible to the layman.” which does not answer the question.

Alan

 

[Candide_West]

In this day and age, to tell somebody they can look something up is redundant.

Every thread on this forum is chock with ideas and suggestions about books, blogs, and biographies to go read. *If you can’t give even a single sentence in support of a biographical figure other than “you should check him out,” then your recommendation is really of little use to anyone.

Not to mention, your recommendation was a non-answer. *He asked which argument you found convincing, and you said to go look it up. *Well, I just did. *I Googled “candide west and daniel dennett” and I got a link to this forum with the text “Some books by Daniel Dennett are both really interesting and also accessible to the layman.” which does not answer the question.

Alan

???

Not sure what your point is here, TonyRey asked a number of questions regarding the mind. I ASSUMED that this means he has an interest in the subject. If so then it’s likely that Daniel Dennett’s books will be interesting to him since they answer exactly the kind of questions TonyRey was asking.*

Also I explained that I can’t give an “argument” as his books are focussed on providing explanations. *

I’m not sure what else there is to say, yes clearly to the purposes of the ongoing discussion on this thread the timescale required to acquire and read a book makes it redundant, but so what? I’m not involved in any of the debates on this thread, I’m not using*Daniel Dennett’s books to support some point I’m trying to make, I’m simply directing TR to someone who’s written books which can answer the questions he asked. He can take it or leave it as he chooses.Is there some particular reason why I shouldn’t offer such direction?

 

[Sair]

The natural world is not all of reality, and science hasn’t even begun to explain a small fraction of the complete explanation for it. honest scientists will always be able to say; there’s just so much that we just don’t know.

If we haven’t explained or observed all of the natural universe, how does anyone claim to know that there is a level of existence beyond the natural? It seems to me that the assumption that not all of reality is natural implies that we already know the limits of natural reality, when it’s quite apparent that we don’t. Supposing that there are extant phenomena which are, in principle, beyond the scope of scientific investigation seems premature, to say the least. Any phenomena that are beyond science are thus also beyond our ability to experience in any way and so would seem to be irrelevant to our existence.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

???

Not sure what your point is here, TonyRey asked a number of questions regarding the mind. I ASSUMED that this means he has an interest in the subject. If so then it’s likely that Daniel Dennett’s books will be interesting to him since they answer exactly the kind of questions TonyRey was asking.*

Also I explained that I can’t give an “argument” as his books are focussed on providing explanations. *

I’m not sure what else there is to say, yes clearly to the purposes of the ongoing discussion on this thread the timescale required to acquire and read a book makes it redundant, but so what? I’m not involved in any of the debates on this thread, I’m not using*Daniel Dennett’s books to support some point I’m trying to make, I’m simply directing TR to someone who’s written books which can answer the questions he asked. He can take it or leave it as he chooses.Is there some particular reason why I shouldn’t offer such direction?

I hereby retract. I’d delete it but it’s past the 20 minute edit time, plus you’ve quoted it. My point is obscured or possible misdirected, so I’m not interested in trying to make it anymore. Please ignore this – nothing to see here.

 

[atheistgirl]

it assumes (irrationally, inconsistently, and without basis) that whatever can’t be demonstrated empirically cannot be true.

It’s irrational, inconsistent and baseless to **assert **something is true without being able to demonstrate empirically that it is.

Sarah x

 

[Gaber]

It’s irrational, inconsistent and baseless to assert something is true without being able to demonstrate that it is.

Sarah x

Have to go with the sagacious Amerind on this one, sw85.

 

[atheistgirl]

Have to go with the sagacious Amerind on this one, sw85.

Arrrgghhh!!! Edited as I misread your post.

Sorry!!!



Sarah x

 

[Gaber]

Sarah x

 

[AlanFromWichita]

And why would evidence ever need a qualifier like “physical” as you put it? Evidence is sufficient for me.

I accept all sorts of evidence when considering something. Personal testimony is a form of evidence. A mystic talking about a vision is evidence. A machine recording brain wave patterns during that same alleged vision is also evidence.

Like you say, no qualifiers.

One physics prof I had always insisted we get the temperature and relative humidity of the room every time we did a lab. I don’t think it factored into any of the labs, but he said that is information if we decided later we need it, we can’t get it.

So it is with mysticism and people’s personal ideas and experiences about faith that one might think is entirely conjured up in the imagination. We know they are what governs people’s behavior which is hugely important to science, but like the temperature and relative humidity, if we’re looking at it from a narrow POV, we might fail to record them – and just maybe later we will be interested.

Alan

 

[atheistgirl]

:tiphat:

Sarah x

 

[tonyrey]

Reasons are more important than credentials.

On a philosophy forum we are concerned with reasons rather than credentials.

A summary of a sound argument doesn’t need to be obscure…

I know and entirely agree. But as I said he isn’t presenting arguments in his books he’s providing explanations of how certain features of the mind work. From the questions you raised I thought you might be interested in reading his work. As I said it makes the subject quite approachable.

A summary of a sound explanation doesn’t need to be obscure…
One sentence is better than nothing!

 

[sw85]

It’s irrational, inconsistent and baseless to **assert **something is true without being able to demonstrate empirically that it is.

Sarah x

And you cannot demonstrate empirically the truth of the claim “only that which can be demonstrated empirically can be known to be true,” hence it is irrational, inconsistent, and baseless to assert that it is true.

Your sentiment still hinges on the (unscientific) sentiment that only that which is observable is a basis for knowledge. Again, there is absolutely no reason to believe this is true – ESPECIALLY if you take your sentiment to be something more than a methodological limitation, i.e., an epistemological one.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

On a philosophy forum we are concerned with reasons rather than credentials.

A summary of a sound explanation doesn’t need to be obscure…
One sentence is better than nothing!

On a philosophy forum I love giving my opinions, including brief reasons I suggest other works. If I care about more than name dropping, I’ll want to give it at least a one liner sales pitch.

One thing I’ve noticed on the metadiscussion, is that a great deal of this thread is about procedure rather than information.

Buttt… since we’re not going to get an opinion from the other poster, I’ll take a hit on it and look up this author. I’ll give you my 40 word or less summary if I can control my fingers to that length…

OK, cracking out Wikipedia, the first but never final stop for “serious” researchers: Aha! He talks about Free Will. Maybe we can find something there to object to or endorse. First, let’s get an alleged quote from a 1978 article in MIT Press:
dennett:

The model of decision making I am proposing has the following feature: when we are faced with an important decision, a consideration-generator whose output is to some degree undetermined produces a series of considerations, some of which may of course be immediately rejected as irrelevant by the agent (consciously or unconsciously). Those considerations that are selected by the agent as having a more than negligible bearing on the decision then figure in a reasoning process, and if the agent is in the main reasonable, those considerations ultimately serve as predictors and explicators of the agent’s final decision.

OK. So… next step, looking for something this mortal con understand, I’ll look toward YouTube!! Looks like he talks bout consciousness.

First thing I look for is a short one. Here one four minutes: Daniel Dennett on Deflating Consciousness

I listened to it. Least I could do considering how much longer we’ve spent avoiding his work. I thought it was an interesting theory. I’m not sure I know enough about it to decide on my own view on it but at first glance I think it could be a first order approximation anyway.

Here’s my summary of the video: “Conscious mind does not hold information that it doesn’t need.”

Alan