religulous

The only evidence for it is various subjective human experience, which to me isn't very exciting. However, he asserts that materialism is built on an even flimsier foundation... namely it's assertion that phyisical laws are purposeless and just exist out of nothing. It's completely unprovable yet clung to like it's truth.

So, at this point I will ask you what your evidence is for the materialist worldview. What evidence do you have that the universe (or collection of them) arose from a set of purposeless laws that always existed?

I'm not sure where I stand exactly. I don't necessarily buy into Haische's theory, I've yet to finish the book for one. After that I'll need to reflect on it quite a bit and converse with other people (like I am here). However, one pattern I see in materialism is a powerful dogma that really looks and acts like a religion.

 

Give the book a read. It's short.

Of course just saying something doesn't make it a valid point. I find it interesting, however, that you buy into materialism, which you must do on faith, and then make that assertion.

Let's take out of body experience as an example. On the face of it it sound odd. However, there are some exceptional cases. Materialists write these off by essentially saying "out of body experiences violate the principles of materials and therefor the evidence is false". So instead of investigating the idea, the idea is simply discarded as junk. As a result the question goes uninvestigated. This is a theme that I've noticed in science. I know of two cases of it (both from the medical field). If we can test it and rigorously study it and conclude that it's so much stuff, all the better. But shying away from it because it challenges your worldview doesn't advance our understanding of the universe.

 

I actually find your tone here offensive. I believe in no unverified scientific ideas. In fact, unverified ideas are by definition unscientific. What you are really saying is that because our senses are unreliable, we cannot really know anything, and therefore any fantasy is as valid as the most solid scientific theory.

"Maybe I am the only real person and you are all my dreams." "Maybe we are all just god's dream." Etc, etc, ad nauseum. The world view that we can know nothing may be an amusing child's game, but science works in the real world. The computer on which you are reading this is proof that science works.

First of all, materialism does not require faith. Materialism is based on evidence. As noted above, modern technology, from cars to computers, are tangible proof that scientific materialism works. When you assert that materialism "must be taken on faith," you are stating that the existence of cars and computers must be taken on faith.

Do you really want to paint yourself into that corner? Do you really believe, Tripp, that there is no more solid evidence for the existence of computers, than there is for the existence of god???

Second, out-of-body experiences are very real and are investigated extensively. They are subjective experiences. They do not mean that someone's consciousness has actually left their body, but people really have these experiences, and psychologists are constantly learning more and more about the causes and mechanisms of such experiences. The same for phantasmic visions. These have been studied, and there is actual nerve activity in the visual systems of the brain. It does not mean there is a real ghost, but the person is indeed having a real visual experience. Such phenomena are very interesting, and a subject of study by scientists.

However, it is a very great mistake to take the subjective experience as evidence for any supernatural explanation. The real explanation lies in the physiology of perception. But if you are going to say that because perception is subjective I cannot really know that computers and cars actually exist, you are leaping from logic into religious fantasy.

 

Good. I'm glad we can agree on that. Now, lets start with the foundation of materialism, which requires an unproven multiverse and the supposition that the laws of physics have existed from the beginning and are purposeless. THAT is how materialism gets around the anthropic principle and it's completely unverified so by your own definition it is unscientific.

See above...

When did I say that? I have yet to argue about the laws of physics. Your statement of the obvious doesn't help your argument, however. The issue at hand is the origin of the universe and the laws that govern it, not whether the laws of physics that we have so far described exist or not. That was never the question.

You seem desperate to point me into that corner. I have not stated anything of the sort. I'm simply asking (again and again and again) for you to fashion your evidence on the fundamentals of materialism. You have yet to even address the question, let alone answer it.

And I very clearly stated that I'm not sure what it means. However, if you define the problem through the lens of materialism you are limiting yourself. Particularly when there are situations such as people being able to identify things that they couldn't have possibly know about (seeing people in other rooms, etc). The materialist view appears to be quite dismissive. That is my objection. I never said that subjective evidense was proof of anything, just that some experiences don't seem to reconcile well with materialism and that they have been rejected as "false" evidence.

It's sad that these sorts of discussions always devolve into utter shite like this. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

 

What could possibly give you the idea that materialism requires a multiverse??? I personally consider the multiverse extremely unlikely. The anthropic principle is not a barrier that must be surmounted. It is an explanation of why conditions here seem so unlikely.

When did that become the question? The question is whether it makes any sense to invoke a supernatural creator, or whether there is any evidence for one.

The thumpers argue that if science cannot prove how the universe began, then their imaginary friend in the sky must have built it. But this is childish reasoning. We do not know how the universe began, and we might never know. But it is entirely within the laws of quantum mechanics for it to have arisen out of a fluctuation in the quantum vacuum.

There has not been a single case of this. There have been mountains of claims, but every single one that has been investigated has been thoroughly debunked. I believe that James Randi has a standing offer of a mountain of money to anyone who can demonstrate anything of the sort, and to date nobody has claimed the prize.

 

Not true. QM (specifically the Standard Model) only applies for times greater than 10e-43 seconds after the initiation (or whatever lies before that time). This time period is called the Plank Epoch and does not have a workable theory developed yet. Similar problems occur trying to describe (in words or with math) the interior of a black hole.

 

Case of what?

 

Let's suppose that Fl_Prius_Driver didn't make that comment... Regardless, you've basically posited that the quantum vacuum (and the attendant physical laws, of course) just is. You chosen a particular beginning point, one that you cannot prove in the scientific sense. It's comfortable to you and I know why you espouse it. Fair enough, I've got no quibble with it. In fact, I think it's done us some good and it has certainly reshaped the philosophical landscape. However, I think the materialists have simply gone too far and have created a close-minded dogma that does science a disservice. That doesn't mean that we should give credence to every crackpot idea out there. We've got a perfectly good scientific method for that. My only purpose here is to point out that you have, on faith, chosen a particular starting point. Granted, it's quite different to, say, the thumpers that you rail against (not without at least some justification I might add), but it's a starting point none-the-less.

 

You are mistaken. While it is not known how the universe began, a beginning arising from the quantum vacuum does not violate quantum mechanics. Therefore there is no need to postulate a supernatural origin.

That's all I am saying. I cannot offer a working theory of how the universe began, and I do not need to. I only need to show that a supernatural explanation is not needed. It then falls to your court to offer some scrap of evidence for a supernatural origin, which you cannot do, because there is none.

Tripp was claiming that people have had out-of-body experiences unexplainable without resorting to supernatural explanations. He is mistaken. Such claims, when investigated, always turn out to be frauds or to have perfectly naturalistic explanations.

I have not said that the laws of physics "just are." I have said that the incompleteness of our present knowledge does not logically justify assuming a supernatural origin; and certainly does not prove a supernatural origin.

You keep accusing me of accepting science "on faith," and I repeat that this is offensive. Science demonstrates its power and its usefulness by giving us explanations that can be applied to the construction of things that work. I take nothing "on faith." I accept only what reproducible experiment can confirm.

Give me one single reproducible experiment that offers a shred of evidence for anything supernatural.

Faith is (by the most generous definition) "belief in things unseen." The material world, and the conclusions of science are things seen clearly and repeatedly. It is the supernatural that is unseen, and therefore must either be rejected, or accepted on faith.

 

Mistaken about what? The total failure to predict anything in this range is clear proof that the standard theory is incomplete and just an approximation to how the universe works.

I do not understand the supernatural comment. I'm pointing out that present science fails just as badly as supernatural explainations.

See Nature 251, 602 - 607 (18 October 1974) or Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol 64, No. 3, March 1976.

I do not call the above reports supernatural. Since they are in peer reviewed science publications, I would call them science.

 

On the contrary, you are calling it a "failure" that science does not know everything about everything. Or to be more specific, you have pointed to one question science does not know the answer to, and equated that with religion, which has been dead wrong on every explanation of the natural world it has ever offered.

Science works. It is not complete, but it works.

Religion fails 100% of the time. It is therefore reasonable to reject the religious explanation for the beginning of the universe, and to expect the answer, if we ever learn it, to come from science, and to be grounded in "stuff" rather than in "spirit."

Let me put it another way: You visit a foreign country, and you meet two people who offer to teach you the ropes. Juan gives you bad advice every single time. Never once does he tell you the truth. Manuel cannot answer all your questions, but when he does, he tells you the truth and every time you follow his advice things work out well for you. Now you have a question and Manuel says he does not know the answer. Juan gives you an answer. Juan has given you a thousand pieces of advice, and every single one has gotten you in trouble, but now Manuel cannot help you. Do you take Juan's advice this time? Of course not! Juan has established that he is worse than unreliable: he is consistently wrong! The fact that Manuel cannot answer your question this time does not mean that suddenly Juan is reliable.

Juan is religion: always wrong. Manuel is science: consistently right when it has an answer, but does not always have an answer.

The fact that science cannot (yet) tell us how the universe began does not mean that god made it.

 

In summary. God and the supernatural still hide in whatever is unknown. Although everything we know doesn't involve god or the supernatural so far.

I've said it previously: Not knowing something does not add a probability of it being true. You just don't know.

 

No, that's the Many World multiverse model. Basically it states that all quantum resolutions result in the creation of new universes. (you body alone creates a billion billion billion new universes each second). It was first proposed by Hugh Everett in 1957.

 

true but you need to acknowledge that a belief in materialism requires a leap of faith. That's really my point in this brutally long winded thread. That's why I remain agnostic on the issue.

 

Boy, this thread mushroomed, didn't it... Well, I finally went
and saw the movie last night, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Maher
certainly doesn't let most people get a word in edgewise, does he?
And when he essentially meets his match with the orthodox guy,
he can't deal and walks away. I'm sort of surprised they left
that part in. That and the discernible strategy of cherry-picking
interviewees who can't pop off with suitable snappy answers in
time, I think, gives the whole thing a more biased feel than
it actually needs to present.
.
But one thing is pretty clear...
.

.
If we let the ancient warhawk and the apocalyptic crazy-lady into
power, many of us will die in some of the most sick, violent ways
possible at the hands of the ignorant. Can't envision a beefy
redneck in a "GOD HATES FAGS" t-shirt swaggering up to your Prius
and bashing in the side window with the butt of his SKS while you're
sitting in it? It could happen in our lifetime.
.
Look here for a lot more on why.
.
_H*

 

Newtonian physics "works" but does not give an accurate impression of the universe. So, if you want to fly a plane it's great. If you want to understand the atomic world it's worthless. Furthermore, it implied a very incorrect view of how the universe works. Does our current understanding do this? Potentially. Extrapolating it out, as you are want to do, and claim that as truth is intellectually dishonest.

The beauty of science has been it's capable of reexamining itself. I feel that science may be approaching another "come to Jesus" (just to piss you off ) moment, where the orthodoxy must be reevaluated. That doesn't mean that we're all going to become born-again crystal people, but I'll wager that we pursue some other paths that are different to the reductionist path that we're on now.

 

They always do. Just another example of cosmic inflation.

 

Daniel, have you ever entertained the notion that science and spirituality might be part and parcel of the same thing? It's your belief that "stuff" is all there is (which is, sadly, unprovable) that precludes this. If the zero-point field theory is correct, "stuff" is probably just an illusion. What then?

 

Tripp: I wonder if all of this is just that we are using the words "materialism" and "faith" differently?

I believe that the universe is made of "stuff," including matter and energy and possibly "dark" matter and "dark" energy. I believe that energy is the ability to do work, as defined in physics, and that the way new age folks use the word "energy" it has no meaning. I believe that there is no god or creator spirit, and that there are no gods or angels or devils or orishas or any other supernatural beings.

I cannot prove any of this. It is a belief. But it is not "faith" because it is not a belief in things unseen: It is a belief based upon evidence (for the material world) and an utter lack of evidence for anything else.

Upon this I insist: "Faith" means belief without evidence, or belief in things unseen, or (in Mark Twain's words) "believing in what you know ain't so." My belief that there is nothing other than the material world is not faith, because there is abundant evidence for this view. "Belief" and "faith" are not the same thing! I could be wrong in my belief, but with all the evidence pointing toward my belief, and with zero evidence the other way, my belief is based on evidence and reason, and is therefore not "faith."

Science has a track record, visible in our modern technological world, which justifies the belief that its view is legitimate. And since this belief is justified, it is not faith. Religion has a record as well: a record of being always and in every case wrong when it attempts to describe or explain the natural world. Thus any belief in any proposition offered by religion is faith.

 

That's correct. Any event does. There is nothing special about the mind and the brain that contains it.