Can science REALLY explain Reality?

[tonyrey]

Why? I’ve no idea what you’re on about - what has the CCC got to do with animism?

You asked for a definition of the soul:

CCC 363 In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human *life *or the entire human person.230 But “soul” also refers tothe innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him,231 that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man.
364 The human body shares in the dignity of “the image of God”: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:232
Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. 233
365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body:234 i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.
366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not “produced” by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection."

1. Do you agree with the Church?
2. If not why not?

 

[Mystic_Banana]

Well … I’d suggest that any fringe belief, such as flat earth, dark stars or disembodied minds will tend to invoke conspiracy theories since they provide the believer with an excuse as to why the majority don’t share their belief - we’ve all been brainwashed.

Er, wasn’t it you who were accusing supernaturalists of avoiding difficult points when they don’t have good answers?

David Morrison, director of SETI, CSI Fellow and Senior Scientist at NASA’s Astrobiology Institute at Ames Research Center, says he receives 20 to 25 emails a week about the impending arrival of Nibiru: some frightened, others angry and naming him as part of the conspiracy to keep the truth of the impending apocalypse from the public, and still others asking whether or not they should kill themselves, their children or their pets.

Talking of which, what happened to that big asteroid that was supposed to be heading for earth? It was on the news and everything. First it was supposed to be coming, then it wasn’t, then it was again…

How can you possibly know that “psychological problems” are more widespread than in 234 BC, or for that matter 1698?

Well why worry about all that, when you’ve supplied a confirmatory future prediction you presumably believe in:

WHO says depression is “the 4th leading contributor to the global burden of disease” and will be the second highest by 2020 - are you suggesting dealing with that by going back to drilling holes in skulls to let out the demons?

:takeoff:

So, despite how wonderful psychiatric treatment is, and the glory of our ever more knowledgeable science industry, a humanity increasing informed by such wonders will be drastically increasingly clinically depressed, predictions you presumably credit predict, in 8 years time. I think I’ll stick to going to confession, which is probably the practice Freud parodied poorly when he invented psychoanalysis anyway

Well a least stone age man didn’t deliberately wreck the whole frontal lobe, rendering victims helplessly vegetitive, which our mental health industries were doing only about 40 years ago! Pass the trephine!! :hammering:

 

[AlanFromWichita]

“Whether science can REALLY explain Reality” is actually a philosophical question.

Alan

 

[Mystic_Banana]

“Whether science can REALLY explain Reality” is actually a philosophical question.

Alan

I’m sure we managed to touch on that somewhere…

 

[AlanFromWichita]

I’m sure we managed to touch on that somewhere…

It did bump it up in “my posts” search, though.

 

[inocente]

You asked for a definition of the soul: [Catechism of the Catholic Church - PART 1 SECTION 2 CHAPTER 1 ARTICLE 1 PARAGRAPH 6]](Catechism of the Catholic Church - PART 1 SECTION 2 CHAPTER 1 ARTICLE 1 PARAGRAPH 6])

1. Do you agree with the Church?
2. If not why not?

I asked you to define what you mean, but instead you do a cut-and-past job, although for some reason you omitted three pertinent paragraphs.

It’s not a definition, it’s not your definition, and the section is 475 words long even before adding the footnotes!

Fine, I’ll adopt the same lazy debating style - you’ll find my exact and precise understanding of the soul in the entire bible and the entire Library of Congress. Hope that’s as helpful to you as you are being to me.

 

[inocente]

Er, wasn’t it you who were accusing supernaturalists of avoiding difficult points when they don’t have good answers?

The only difficulty in answering your call for mystic ignorance (“a widespread delusion of knowledge is the ages greatest folly”) was deciding whether or not to use adjectives such as barbaric and inane.

Talking of which, what happened to that big asteroid that was supposed to be heading for earth? It was on the news and everything. First it was supposed to be coming, then it wasn’t, then it was again…

I couldn’t make any sense out of that.

*Well why worry about all that, when you’ve supplied a confirmatory future prediction you presumably believe in: *

That’s the second time you refused point-blank to answer a question. Are you trolling?

So, despite how wonderful psychiatric treatment is, and the glory of our ever more knowledgeable science industry, a humanity increasing informed by such wonders will be drastically increasingly clinically depressed, predictions you presumably credit predict, in 8 years time. I think I’ll stick to going to confession, which is probably the practice Freud parodied poorly when he invented psychoanalysis anyway

Well a least stone age man didn’t deliberately wreck the whole frontal lobe, rendering victims helplessly vegetitive, which our mental health industries were doing only about 40 years ago! Pass the trephine!! :hammering:

Rather than depression rising, did it not occur to you that other illnesses might be falling? That’s kind of an obvious point for anyone who thinks with their brain, but not apparently for those who instead use an invisible, undetectable, inexplicable thinking substance.

Incidentally, it also doesn’t seem to have occurred to your invisible, undetectable, inexplicable thinking substance that a lot of your fellow Catholics are doctors in your detested “knowledgeable science industry” .

Other than that, I don’t really want to talk to an abject cynic who advocates barbarism. If you want me to continue, you’ll need to show that you are not a trolling dilettante and have a genuine interest in the mind, mental health and the thread topic. Up to you.

 

[tonyrey]

I asked you to define what you mean, but instead you do a cut-and-past job, although for some reason you omitted three pertinent paragraphs.

It’s not a definition, it’s not your definition, and the section is 475 words long even before adding the footnotes!

Fine, I’ll adopt the same lazy debating style - you’ll find my exact and precise understanding of the soul in the entire bible and the entire Library of Congress. Hope that’s as helpful to you as you are being to me.

I emphasized the significant words but you obviously do not wish to commit yourself.

 

[tonyrey]

Er, wasn’t it you who were accusing supernaturalists of avoiding difficult points when they don’t have good answers?

Talking of which, what happened to that big asteroid that was supposed to be heading for earth? It was on the news and everything. First it was supposed to be coming, then it wasn’t, then it was again…

Well why worry about all that, when you’ve supplied a confirmatory future prediction you presumably believe in:

So, despite how wonderful psychiatric treatment is, and the glory of our ever more knowledgeable science industry, a humanity increasing informed by such wonders will be drastically increasingly clinically depressed, predictions you presumably credit predict, in 8 years time. I think I’ll stick to going to confession, which is probably the practice Freud parodied poorly when he invented psychoanalysis anyway

Well a least stone age man didn’t deliberately wreck the whole frontal lobe, rendering victims helplessly vegetitive, which our mental health industries were doing only about 40 years ago! Pass the trephine!!

There only remains the delightful prospect of a nuclear holcaust - of which we have been given a foretaste with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now there’s real progress for you!
The epitome of efficiency. Science really does work wonders - without religion of course…

 

[inocente]

I emphasized the significant words but you obviously do not wish to commit yourself.

I saw that you had, but when lay Catholics tell me only certain words and phrases in the CCC or scripture are significant, I tend to feel they are out of their depth. Not as I’m suggesting that’s necessarily the case here of course, perish the thought.

And it’s a bit rich to imply that I have something to hide when you’ve never given any reason whatsoever why I should ignore scripture, common sense and all the evidence to believe in your invisible, undetectable, inexplicable thinking substance.

 

[tonyrey]

I saw that you had, but when lay Catholics tell me only certain words and phrases in the CCC or scripture are significant, I tend to feel they are out of their depth. Not as I’m suggesting that’s necessarily the case here of course, perish the thought.

And it’s a bit rich to imply that I have something to hide when you’ve never given any reason whatsoever why I should ignore scripture, common sense and all the evidence to believe in your invisible, undetectable, inexplicable thinking substance.

So you believe thoughts are produced by electrical impulses?

 

[AlanFromWichita]

So you believe thoughts are produced by electrical impulses?

I have one model that has been pretty useful in discussing memes. I can consider a thought as a being unto itself which typically desires to grow and spread. When these thoughts inject themselves into our experience from time to time we see the symptoms – we experience the consciousness of the thought, and the electrical pulses can be detected by machines. Meanwhile, as the thought runs in the subconscious and/or the conscious thought train it causes other behavior that is specimen-dependent. For example, the thought can once produce joy and at another time or to another person, the same thought produces sorrow. (Note from the thought’s point of view it can spread through joy or sorrow – so the thought doesn’t need a particular emotion to correspond to it in order to thrive, just so long as there is emotion.)

Alan

 

[Gaber]

I have one model that has been pretty useful in discussing memes. I can consider a thought as a being unto itself which typically desires to grow and spread. When these thoughts inject themselves into our experience from time to time we see the symptoms – we experience the consciousness of the thought, and the electrical pulses can be detected by machines. Meanwhile, as the thought runs in the subconscious and/or the conscious thought train it causes other behavior that is specimen-dependent. For example, the thought can once produce joy and at another time or to another person, the same thought produces sorrow. (Note from the thought’s point of view it can spread through joy or sorrow – so the thought doesn’t need a particular emotion to correspond to it in order to thrive, just so long as there is emotion.)

Alan

Yes, thoughts are “serving suggestions” proposed to the awareness and have infulence according to our degree of identifications with them as pertinent of our sense of self. It is the awareness that is primary, as it as that that we decide what to do with a thought: accept reject, link, how and with what, to make a train. that train is an ad hoc paradigm of the part of reality we are responding/reacting to, and it is already colored by what went before.

Again, this is why it is extremely and surprisingly useful to go beyond the mind of thought constructs to the awareness itself. And as we know from history, literature, religious practice, etc, even science, (I can tell you of my experience with an ecg machine, and others can tell of experiences with brain wave recorders) there are altered states that are easily understood, once you’ve been there, to be altared, if you will.

But whatever they are called, you can “there” experience first hand what it is that is behind your thinkum, dinkum or not. But once having had such, you will know with absolute clarity that a thought is just a thought. You will never mistake one or a string of them, for yourself again. And you will also clearly poerciev that waht is now a matter of understanding by experience has always already been the case.

However, due to the procedural error of mistaking the nature of subject/object awareness to be the be all and end all and the equivalent of self, as reason might have you mistakenly believe. Fortunately, this is usually curable with some effort. Or call it Grace. But ripeness will precipitate it in your lap of awareness, ready or not. Then the world changes, yet remains what it is.

So my, or anyone of the thousands who could, explaining it is utterly useless, as is a swimming manual unless you actually get in the water and make your mistakes. Or not!

 

[inocente]

So you believe thoughts are produced by electrical impulses?

No, that would be a bit like saying your question was written by the alphabet. There are trillions of atoms in a neuron, billions of neurons in the brain, and trillions of connections between them, so the explanation for thoughts isn’t in physics but at a much higher level.

One interesting thing is that a thought happens mostly under the covers, while we’re only consciously aware of, as it were, the outline summary.

This challenges our intuitions, so imho the interesting question in current research is What are thoughts anyway? Until we have a better objective understanding of exactly what thoughts are, I’m not sure of the value of speculating further than that.

 

[jochoa]

I’m sorry, but I do not think so.

Science’s domain concerns explaining the world of nature and its phenomena.

It is PHILOSOPHY (and Religion) that explain Reality, not science.

Anybody who thinks Science=Reality is under the spell of Scientism, and that is faith-based.

And true science is NOT faith-based in any way. It concerns studying and explaining (defined) natural phenomena. NOT reality.

Got this explanation from a response in another forum. Parapharsed this somewhat and added “religion” to it. Made by a scientist, as a matter fact.

Thought it wa a cool response to a question asked there.

Anybody agree/disagree with it?

I agree with the statement as presented, however, I like to consider the following:

The Science of perfecting patience for unbreakable peace and kindness for limitless happiness=Reality

Thoughts?

 

[AlanFromWichita]

The Science of perfecting patience for unbreakable peace and kindness for limitless happiness=Reality

Thoughts?

I usually attribute the process of such perfection to “contemplation,” and the science thereof to “mystical theology.” That does not necessarily imply “supernatural.” Mystical theology is really about the human brain and its functions.

Alan

 

[jochoa]

I usually attribute the process of such perfection to “contemplation,” and the science thereof to “mystical theology.” That does not necessarily imply “supernatural.” Mystical theology is really about the human brain and its functions.

Alan

Interesting, my friend!

Since I consider your signature to be simple science of impatience yielding disturbance, would you consider your signature to be “mystical theology?”

One who is easily angered or offended is an accident waiting to happen.

It also seems to me that your signature, has equally as much to do with body, spirit, and will as it does the mind and its functions.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Since I consider your signature to be simple science of impatience yielding disturbance, would you consider your signature to be “mystical theology?”

I guess I could. I could call that “mystical theology acc’d to MOI.”

It also seems to me that your signature, has equally as much to do with body, spirit, and will as it does the mind and its functions.

Well … it also has to do with the fact that I was just told that my ideas “offended” somebody. Funny they quoted my post but then were offended by ideas that I hadn’t put forth. I suppose I should feel honored that my thoughts were important enough to somebody they were willing to erect a straw man to protect themselves from hearing them.

Alan

 

[tonyrey]

So you believe thoughts are produced by electrical impulses?

But you believe thoughts are entirely physical events?

 

[inocente]

But you believe thoughts are entirely physical events?

If you mean physical as in cogs and wheels like Descartes’ machine then no, but if you mean emerging from the laws of nature and explicable then yes.