Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
7 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,816 Year: 3,073/9,624 Month: 918/1,588 Week: 101/223 Day: 12/17 Hour: 1/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Science and origins
onifre
Member (Idle past 2951 days)
Posts: 4854
From: Dark Side of the Moon
Joined: 02-20-2008


Message 17 of 33 (506821)
04-29-2009 2:05 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Richard Townsend
04-28-2009 5:10 PM


Hi Richard,
I'm going to play devils advocate here.
Science does exclude transcendent designers from all hypotheses currently but this is because there is currently no evidence that any exist.
Objectively you are right, no objectively verifiable evidence currently exists. BUT, we forget subjectively.
We cannot deny the existance of our 2 worlds. Our physically experienced world and our subjectively experienced world.
One has a common aspect to it that we can all agree on, the other has a personal aspect to it, that even though cannot be fully agreed upon, does hold more weight to the person experiencing it than does objective evidence - to some extent. So it's existance, whether real or made up, still holds weight for certain people.
I believe this is what is meant when people say you cannot "test" god. How do you test my subjective experience?
Likewise, how could you ask me to flat out reject what I've experienced, even though I cannot fully comprehend it myself?
So to this statment you make:
No scientist can make the proposal that a transcendent designer should be a component of a scientific theory unless they can produce scientific evidence that there is such a being.
I agree with. Science deals with only objectively verifiable evidence that can be observed and repeated.
Anything else is philosophical and personally experienced, but, does hold weight to those who have experienced it.
---------------------------------------------------------
To lyx2no:
"You're a straight up loon, Watson. The St. Louis Cardinals spent the night before smoking marijuana cigarettes with a stand-up comedian*."
Yeah, sorry about that Cardinal fans...
PS. Marijuana "cigarettes"? What's with the 50's Refer Madness reference, dude? - lol
- Oni

"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks
"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Richard Townsend, posted 04-28-2009 5:10 PM Richard Townsend has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by RDK, posted 04-30-2009 3:58 PM onifre has replied

  
onifre
Member (Idle past 2951 days)
Posts: 4854
From: Dark Side of the Moon
Joined: 02-20-2008


Message 24 of 33 (506991)
04-30-2009 6:57 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by RDK
04-30-2009 3:58 PM


Hi RDK,
First, I should start off by saying that I'm an atheist, so I will only argue this from a philosophical stand point, not in support of any religious belief.
In order to be subjectively experienced, the event / thing / deity in question would need to objectively exist in some form or another.
But it does exist in some form, in my mind.
Objectively my mind/brain obviously exist. I experience this spiritual "event" within it, in the same way that I experience the reality that we all can agree on, I just don't do it with any of my sensory inputs (ie. sight, hearing, touch, etc.).
Since we all experience each other, and what we call objective reality, using our sensory inputs, any other way in which I experience something is going to seem unverifiable to you or anyone else, objectively, in our experienced reality.
But what evidence do you have that our sensory inputs, that receive information from what we call "objective reality", is the ONLY way we can know if something exists or not? Why? Because anything else we can see, touch, hear, smell? Do you trust that the nuero functions that receive and desipher all of this information have not over looked something?
Also, that people have called things god(s) in the past, that people equate certain experiences to specific god(s), etc, does not in any way make those experiences and the notion that "there may be more to all of this reality" any less. There very well could be more and the proof is in the experiences themselves.
People have always had them. They orignially made up multiple stories about multiple gods. People have wild imaginations. So what? Do we reject the experience just becuase primitive people, early civilizations, and less educated societies made up a bunch of stories, I say no. The experience is still, IMO, proof that perhaps there is more to existance than what we experience with our 5 sensory inputs.
The only thing you know truly exists is you - "I think therefore I am".
To not get too deep into what that means, as we can pull of into many different areas of philosophy, would you at least agree that maybe there is more to experienced reality than what one particlar bio organism has been able to expereince in it's short life span on this planet?
Yes, subjectivity plays a role in how valid something is to someone, but but there also needs to be something there to actually perceive.
Yes, but we are limited to just 5 ways in which we can know if something is "there". 5 sensory inputs, that is all. Evolved traits mind you. Meaning that the process for giving a species an ability to experience reality is limited to what was needed to survive here, on Earth, that's it.
Given that aspect to how we experience reality, how do we know that we can experience it to it's fullest? What if subjective experiences, that happen in the same way as everything else you experience - (which is to say that basically neuro function send information to and from areas in your brain that you desipher) - are the way in which to experience this higher level of consiousness? And that that constitutes as evidence for "something".
Evolution produced a bigger brain, ever since then our species has become more "aware" of it's experienced reality. Are you, or will anyone else, limit evolution to just morphological changes? Or can evolution also happen within our neurological system? Can we be evolving better and more precise ways to experience reality within the functions of our brain? - If not, why not?
I'm not saying that the Christian god exists, or Zues, or any other man made god-type entity is real. But, given that we have these experiences in our brains, and they seem as real as anything else one experiences, what proof do we have that the subjective experience is not evidence of "somethings" existance? - even if we cannot comprehend it.

"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks
"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by RDK, posted 04-30-2009 3:58 PM RDK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by grandfather raven, posted 04-30-2009 8:08 PM onifre has replied
 Message 27 by RDK, posted 04-30-2009 9:24 PM onifre has replied

  
onifre
Member (Idle past 2951 days)
Posts: 4854
From: Dark Side of the Moon
Joined: 02-20-2008


Message 26 of 33 (507000)
04-30-2009 9:00 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by grandfather raven
04-30-2009 8:08 PM


i can imagine (subjectively experience) a unicorn, thus unicorns objectively exist. are we *really* going there?
Please re-read my post because you have apparently missed my point completely. If you wish to debate it, if not cool.
Did I give any characteristics to anything I experienced?
Did I give any credibility to anything other than the experience itself?
very few subjective experiences of one person correlate with the subjective experiences of another.
This again misses the point entirely.
Who said anything about correlating experiences?
Who said anyone has ever been right in say what the experience meant?
if everyone who ever meditated had the same epiphany, that would support the "subjective experience = objective reality" hypothesis.
Ok. What is "objective" reality? What tells you that what you experience is objectively verified? Your sensory inputs, right?
Is that the limit as to how humans can experience reality? - Maybe, maybe not. Remember, these are evolved traits specific for this environment, there is no evidence that those 5 senses are the limit to possible evolved sensories.
Re-read my post, I did not say that the "subjective" *equals* "objective". I clearly said that you cannot objectively verify *my* experience or objectively experience it either.
Let me try saying it this way: You receive information from your eyes, your brain processes all of this and tells you it's a table in front of you. Now, lucky for me ever human species - with the exeption of those who are blind - comes equipted with functioning eyes as well. Due to our common ancestry and such, we have evolved similar neurological processing functions so that, when I point to the object, you, given that you know what it is, will ALSO see a table.
Great. That's one sensory input that we both have that can help us both determine it's a table.
However, this object is located externally from my brain therefore it can be "seen" in the physical sense by others. But, my experiences are not, they are manifested in my brain and thus will have a single determining factor, me - "I'm the decider".
And thus you will never have the same subjective interpretation as I do of what manifested in my brain.
This does not make me right, nor wrong, it just means we have these experiences. And I'm not saying that because we have these experiences that it's proof for god(s)/supernatural entities/dieties/etc.
But the experiences are common throughout human history. That we have them is proof that humans experience more than what our 5 sensory inputs tell us there is out there, or what you would call objective reality. And, IMO, we can't limit ourselves to just what our 5 sensories tell us exists.
In other words, "If I can't see it, smell it, touch it, hear it, or taste it, it doesn't exist", may not be 100% acurate.

"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks
"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by grandfather raven, posted 04-30-2009 8:08 PM grandfather raven has not replied

  
onifre
Member (Idle past 2951 days)
Posts: 4854
From: Dark Side of the Moon
Joined: 02-20-2008


Message 28 of 33 (507007)
04-30-2009 9:40 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by RDK
04-30-2009 9:24 PM


Hey RDK,
I gotta head out to a show as we speak, I'm late as a matter of fact but this is one of my favorite subjects to discuss. I'll give you some food for thought and then answer your whole post.
Feel free to add more of a response if you feel it's necessary.
Perhaps there has been no need for homo sapiens to sense "events" like the one we're discussing, which is why we just never evolved the ability.
If we didn't have eyes would we be aware of the enitre scope of our existance? Meaning, would we know we are on a planet, in a solar system, in a galaxy, amoungst billions of others, in an infintely large universe?
What else is there, what other sensory functions can we hope to evolve that may show us these new realities?
I think I smoke too much pot...
- Oni

"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks
"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by RDK, posted 04-30-2009 9:24 PM RDK has not replied

  
onifre
Member (Idle past 2951 days)
Posts: 4854
From: Dark Side of the Moon
Joined: 02-20-2008


Message 29 of 33 (507096)
05-01-2009 1:31 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by RDK
04-30-2009 9:24 PM


Would you agree then that this isolated "event" might be 100% inside your head; a figment of your imagination?
Absolutely, but equally, the reality that we experience could just be a figment of our imaginations as well. Would you agree with that?
If you're not using your sensory inputs, then you're not really sensing external stimuli.
I agree with you, no external stimuli that we can currently comprehend was involved. That is not to say that there aren't any other external features to reality, it simply means that with the use of our 5 sensory inputs, reality offers no other external stimuli that we are currently aware of. But we are limited to just those sensory inputs, so who knows. Would you agree with that?
But my main point is that while we, individually, using our natural bodies, can't necessarily be sure that we haven't missed anything somewhere along the line, we do have machines that can do it for us.
Yes, but machines are built by the very species that is limited to it's sensory inputs, so machines are also limited in what they can detect by the very fact that we are limited to begin with.
How did we know to build a machine to test the data gathered about particles? There was a process of raised awareness about sub-atomic scales. We then proceded to discovery this new "world". But this "world" could not have been discovered had it not been for a collection of sensory functions that humans happened to evolve. At one point in time there was not only an enormous macro world that had not been known, but also a micro world that had not been know to exist as well. Now they are known, and it is all due to the fact that we evolved these sensory functions and a brain with the capacity to desipher all of the external info that it receives via these functions.
Since we are the result of a collection of evolved species, each adding new neuro processing functions to each sensory input that they may have had, I cannot point to a time when humans had 4 of the 5 sensory functions and then evolved the 5th. Making my point that once the 5th sensory function was introduced our species became aware of a whole new reality. But, we can speculate as to how that would have been and imagine a process that would add a new sensory function, or an upgrade to the current sensory functions and the brain which desiphers it, that would make us aware of a whole new reality.
This is all of course hypothetical musing, but, IMO, it's not too far fetched of a possiblity.
But yes, I would agree with you that we can't be 100% sure. Perhaps there has been no need for homo sapiens to sense "events" like the one we're discussing, which is why we just never evolved the ability. But in all seriousness, the probability is small.
Perhaps there was no need, perhaps there is a need now.
Evolution is unpredictable, what is needed is not known, IMO.
Or it could just mean that there were natural explanations for what seemed like supernatural events.
Externally, yes. Most definitely, supernatural explanations are bullshit. I'm not saying that a raised awareness about a new aspect of reality would be anything more than natural. Just as eyes raise our awareness about the universe that we find ourselves in, so too could a new sensory function, or an upgrade, make us aware of a new feature to the universe we find ourselves it. I mean, why not?
But to think that we've missed something obvious--something that's been sitting right in front of our noses but requires a sensory adaptation that we haven't evolved yet--is kind of silly.
I hope I have made a good enough argument in the above responses to show why it's not that silly of an idea. Also, the sensory adaptation doesn't just have to be a *new* sensory function, it could very well be an increase in the processing of the information received from the external world. In other words, an increase in complexity to how information is processed in the brain.
I'll try a different angle, though.
Let's say there are no humans, and no other species on the planet with the type of brain to desipher the input received from whatever sensory functions they have.
What type of reality would these creatures assume they exist in, if they could postulate such a thing? How many different external information would they be unaware of?
Lets go one further and say that the species also lacks one of the sensory function. Would you not agree that they would be even less aware of many external features in nature?
What evidence do you have, or anyone else has, that we are at our maximum level of awareness about external features in nature? Could we not be in the very stage of limited awareness that the species in my example was in? If not, why not?
If we were constantly bombarded with something of that nature, don't you think we--or any other of the myriad of organisms all throughout history--would have evolved something that would help us to identify it?
Yes, that is my point, I believe we did, our brain. How old is the current human brain? 200,000 years, or so? Do you, knowing what we know about evolution and the long process that it is, think the brain is done evolving? If so, why?
If not, then could it be possible that the brain IS the "something" that was evolved, since it is unique, that can make us aware of these external stimuli that, up to now, have not been currently experienced?
And, does this not mean that something can exist in nature that, due to our limit in sensory features, can still exist and we have not been made aware of it yet?
- Oni

"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks
"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by RDK, posted 04-30-2009 9:24 PM RDK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by RDK, posted 05-02-2009 11:35 PM onifre has replied

  
onifre
Member (Idle past 2951 days)
Posts: 4854
From: Dark Side of the Moon
Joined: 02-20-2008


Message 32 of 33 (507283)
05-03-2009 1:18 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by RDK
05-02-2009 11:35 PM


Yes, but if we took that to be true (or even a remote possibility) then continuing this debate would be essentially pointless, no?
Well you asked if the "event" could be purely imaginative, which I agree it could be. But since it came about through normal neural processes, equal to that which you use to perceive the reality that you experience, then anything is possible, even me in a Matrix imagining this whole thing.
But to be more specific with my original answer, yes, it could be totally imagined.
It is entirely possible that we have not previously developed a "sixth sense", so to speak, for a stimuli that we had not been presented with. That, or, conversely, we have been presented with it at some point and time (or even still are), and there has just been no need to develop a sensory system for it.
Cool. Then could it would be safe to assume that there could exist something in nature that we can't evidence using our limited sensory inputs?
Up until about a hundred years ago, we knew next to nothing about processes on the atomic level. If your prediction is correct, we should still know nothing about atomic processes simply by virtue of the fact that we cannot view these processes on a macroscopic level.
I think you missed my point. Granted, machines do help us go where our normal features are limited and can't further investigate, but before the machine is built to do a specific task, like the LHC, much has to be known about what is going to be investigated. The machine is told where to go search because we have very good evidence that something should be there (ie. Higgs Boson).
But how did, as you put it, "awareness" of these microscopic levels arise in the first place? By machines we invented to help detect them.
We had the mathematics before any machines were built, and experiments were conducted without machines. But again, we can only investigate what we "see" with our sensory functions, anything outside of what we can experience with these functions isn't going to be known to us, much less will we be able to built a machine to find that which we don't even know exists.
But, we can be in the process of experiencing it, with our brains at higher levels of consciousness, however, since these experiences are always equated with religious god(s) people reject them off hand.
Maybe this is a bit too presuptuous.
There's no good data to fall back on, other than that we know simpler life forms don't have the depth of understanding we do.
I guess it's all in what you consider "good" data. But you're right, for now we muse, shoot the shit and contemplate.

"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks
"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

This message is a reply to:
 Message 31 by RDK, posted 05-02-2009 11:35 PM RDK has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024