Debunking Religion? [Archive]

phoenixthoth

Sep28-03, 11:39 PM

some people believe that some people can either themselves or by channeling other energy change wine into the blood of christ.

this is a scientifically challengable claim. one might call it a tangible claim.

while it would be difficult to know if it was christ's blood in particular without having a bona fide sample of his blood, we could at least tell if the new substance was anything like blood. if yes, that tells us nothing, for that doesn't prove it's the blood of christ. if no, then that would constitute some proof that transsubtantiation doesn't happen. (i mean, we could try it a google many times in the lab and it may always fail but that doesn't PROVE it will not work on the google +1st time. in other words, proving it is impossible is quite different from proving whether anyone can currently do it.)

after the transsubstantiation, i would suspect that it still smells and tastes like wine. but scientists typically don't trust their senses, right, unless their senses are pointed at an intsrument rather than at the thing itself? has anyone put the fluid after the ceremony in a beaker and analyzed it? i'm sure it has been done many times, in fact, with the evidence supporting the position that it is still wine. i wonder if there has been any investigation on whether it is different in *any* unusual way even if it's not blood.

then i heard an attempt at a counterargument by a religious person that was somewhat interesting. a small part of the wine, once ingested, eventually gets turned into blood within the body. this was his claim; if true, it would have to be in some convoluted way. but that doesn't prove it's the blood of christ; in fact, it suggests that it's your blood since your body made it. in the gnostic gospel of thomas, jesus said something similar. to paraphrase, he said, "blessed is the lion eaten by a man, for it becomes human."

it would appear to me that a scientist would have to struggle with that quote. the word "becomes" is ambiguous. perhaps it's not even precise enough of a statement to be tested.

furthermore, the claim isn't that the wine becomes the blood of christ after it's ingested, but before.

personally, i'm leaning towards thinking that literal, physical transsubstantiation lacks any scientific support. but a statement like, "the spirit of the wine is changed to the spirit of christ's blood," isn't even approachable, one way or the other, by science. but to then call such a statement pointless, or especially FALSE, is just a matter of personal opinion. everyone has the right to their personal opinion, just don't abuse that priveledge.

even if the whole scientific community agreed that literal, physical transsubstantiation doesn't seem to ever happen in the lab, that would not, of course, debunk every religion (or even catholicism) nor would it prove God doesn't exist. not saying anyone has ever said that; i'm just stating the obvious here.

cheers,
phoenix

phoenixthoth

Sep28-03, 11:52 PM

"My personal opinion is that it does not matter how many people believe in it"

i agree with you but i don't think most scientists do.

why do scientists feel the need to have other scientists agree with them? why does the public only put stock in things scientists (emphasis on the plural form) are in agreement on (i know that's a broad, sweeping generalization)? why is reproducability in other labs important if it doesn't matter how many people believe in it? wouldn't one self-proclaimed expert be enough, then? why do things suddenly get considered fact or almost fact once it has been reproduced in only a hundred thousand labs?

i think what you meant to intend was that even if everyone on earth was a christian but you, that wouldn't convince you that there is a God. am i right? well, i feel the same way about science and every system of knowledge, especially including religion. i think we agree that popularity is not proof. i say that even though science is very popular here in the west as is religion to an extent.

a personal opinion. i don't see why science should attempt to debunk religion or religion debunk science (such as the copernicus thing). why should they interact at all? they, to a large extent, seem to be about entirely different subjects. a statement like, "muhammad was a prophet" seems to me unapproachable by science as a statement like, "the universe is eleven dimensional" seems unapproachable by religion.

cheers,
phoenix

russ_watters

Sep29-03, 09:20 AM

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
If a claim can be subjected to scientific scrutiny, as in the case of the Shroud or Turin for example, this seems reasonable. Thats not religion, its archeology. There isn't any test that can be done on that shroud that can determine who exactly (if anyone) it covered.

Applying science to religion is utter fallacy and both sides fall into the trap. It fails because science and religion are wholly incompatible worldviews with religion holding the trump card.

No scientific evidince can ever mean anything with regard to religion because if there is a God, he can make the evidence look like whatever he wants. Any such discussion of science vs religion ends as soon as someone says "God wants it that way." There is nothing left to discuss.that's funny. isn't string theory, with all its hyperdimensional stuff and tiny strings that won't be even close to tangible for many years, if ever, full of intangible claims? Similar fallacy for two reasons.

One, just because we can't test all of a theory's claims now doesn't mean we never will. In fact, its a virtual requirement that a theory have untestable implications: thats what a prediction is. There is no better way to strengthen a theory than for it to make a prediction that is only much later shown to be true.

Two, much/most of string theory is tangeable. Its ok if a theory makes impossible to verify claims as long as they aren't completely off the wall and the other claims fit well with existing data.some people believe that some people can either themselves or by channeling other energy change wine into the blood of christ.

this is a scientifically challengable claim. one might call it a tangible claim. Now to qualify my previous statments a little: when religion makes a scientifically testable claim, then it is possible to apply science to religion. But clearly, when such claims are shown to be wrong, it has no bearing whatsoever on the beliefs of the faithful, so its of interest to no one. And when on rare occasion such claims are shown to be right (or at least possible) its taken as proof of the religion. To me this is nothing less than intellectual dishonesty from those who would try to use science to prove their religion.

Ivan Seeking

Sep29-03, 01:46 PM

Originally posted by russ_watters
Thats not religion, its archeology. There isn't any test that can be done on that shroud that can determine who exactly (if anyone) it covered.

If the thing is only 200 years old wouldn't this pose a problem for the religious interpretation?

Nereid

Sep29-03, 02:14 PM

Originally posted by FZ+ (partial quote)
The only things that are debunkable are claims that enter the grounds of science - materialist claims, that can be tested by experiment and logic. Therefore, the religion related threads that post here can only be ones that refer to tangible claims of prophecy etc, and not intangible claims (such as the existence/goodness of god) or historic stories (eg. Noah's ark.) Individual dogma referring to things that can happen now or in the future can be debunked, but religions as a whole, beliefs, or "What The Bible Said" cannot.

Comments?
Just a question or two of clarification, if I may FZ+:
1) To what extent do you consider the fields of linguistics, sociology, ethnology, semiotics, etc to be on the same playing field as science?
2) If any of them are, as we don't have a top level set with any of these names yet, should we?

phoenixthoth

Sep29-03, 05:04 PM

"One, just because we can't test all of a theory's claims now doesn't mean we never will. In fact, its a virtual requirement that a theory have untestable implications: thats what a prediction is. There is no better way to strengthen a theory than for it to make a prediction that is only much later shown to be true.

Two, much/most of string theory is tangeable. Its ok if a theory makes impossible to verify claims as long as they aren't completely off the wall and the other claims fit well with existing data."

regarding the first paragraph and what came before it that i didn't quote, i don't see the fallacy. i never said the claims can't be tested now. just said they were intangible claims. mainly wanted to point out that religion isn't the only branch of knowledge making intangible claims; science sometimes does, too. and so the requirement in the first posting in this topic that only tangible claims be discussed in this topic makes me wonder what implications that requirement would have if posted in a topic under hyperdimensional space theory.

i'm all for intangible claims, personally, whether they be about God or 11 dimensions. i'd love to see it all the nifty predictions shown to be true. but i'll stick to the rules and only discuss tangible claims here.

i completely agree with the statement, "Its ok if a theory makes impossible to verify claims as long as they aren't completely off the wall and the other claims fit well with existing data," but i think that idea applies to religion and philosophy (especially when it comes to the philosophy of mind). i am fully confident that the claim that there is a God is not "completely off the wall." whether it "fits" existing data, i'll let you decide for it seems that that depends on how you look at the data.

(my whole philosophy on the God issue, however, is that no evidence will *ever* be sufficient to prove God exists to one bound by rational thought and logic. here's an example of why. suppose a being appears claiming to be immortal, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. for now, i'll just talk about immortality and omnipotence. that the being is immortal is a tangable claim. what would actually prove it? waiting to see if it ever dies. this requires an infinite amount of time. if you outlive the being, problem solved. if it outlives you, no information. even if it continues to exist for a billion generations, that doesn't mean it will live even one day longer. therefore, it is IMPOSSIBLE to prove that it is immortal. that the being is omnipotent is a tangable claim. what would actually prove it? seeing if it can do anything. even if it can end world hunger over night, shrink the universe to a point, raise the dead, heal the sick, turn water into wine, make the detroit tigers win 162 games next year (which is the hardest task of all thusfar presented), etc., that doesn't prove it can do ANYTHING. after each feat, you can always say the following, "neat trick, how about something bigger?" therefore, it is IMPOSSIBLE to prove that it is omnipotent. with the case of immortality or omnipotence, at some point, you may abandon logic and take a leap of faith; the question is how much circumstantial evidence does the trick. this seems very related to the following decision problem in mathematics: given a random hyperreal number x, can one decide if it is limited or unlimited in a finite amount of time? this is equivalent to the question of whether it can be decide if 1/x is a nonzero infinitesimal in finite time.)

"Now to qualify my previous statments a little: when religion makes a scientifically testable claim, then it is possible to apply science to religion. But clearly, when such claims are shown to be wrong, it has no bearing whatsoever on the beliefs of the faithful, so its of interest to no one. And when on rare occasion such claims are shown to be right (or at least possible) its taken as proof of the religion. To me this is nothing less than intellectual dishonesty from those who would try to use science to prove their religion."

does anyone know what impact copernicus had on the faithful? i'm no expert, but i wonder if the church tried to censor the research thinking that it would lead to a major upheaval among the faithful. that is giving the faithful such little credit, btw.

i don't understand it when the faithful try to prove their religion through science. is the goal to persuade scientists to believe in God? to give their children, living in a society where schools run on the fuel of science and not religion, something more convincing?

evolution is another challenge to the scientifically testable claim that the earth/universe started in six days and that humans appeared independently of other animals. reminds me of what stephen hawking wrote in "the universe in a nutshell." the pope actually had a meeting with him and others and i think he said the big bang theory was ok to study. i think the happy compromise is the view that God still created it, though the way it grew and evolved as science tells us updates what the bible tells us as if the bible was a version 1.0 and what science is telling us is now like 15.0 (or something).

cheers,
phoenix

megashawn

Sep29-03, 07:03 PM

mainly wanted to point out that religion isn't the only branch of knowledge making intangible claims; science sometimes does, too.

But science makes these claims and produces results. Religion makes these claims, and, well, just makes the claims. There is not one shred of physical evidence to support any religion.

There, its all debunked, you can all burn your bibles now [:D]

phoenixthoth

Sep29-03, 07:16 PM

megashawn,

there is not one shred of physical evidence that there are more than three dimensions.

by YOUR "logic," this debunks all such theories.

burn all journals and papers discussing such things as well.

when it comes to mathematics, theories on arithmetic may be the only thing supportable by physical evidence. you can provide physical evidence for the theorem "1 + 1 = 2." much of mathematics cannot be supported by physical evidence. for example, that there are infinitely many orders of infinity. by YOUR "logic," since there is no physical evidence, this debunks many mathematical theorems. burn all such books as well.

or perhaps you can explain why lack of physical evidence debunks a theory involving the nonphysical in a more persuasive manner.

or at least answer this: why does a claim about something that is nonphysical need to be supported by physical evidence?

in christianity, for example, the theory is that there is a God, a Holy Spirit, and a Jesus. do you really think the first 2/3 of that can be debunked for lack of physical evidence, being about the nonphysical?

i don't even see how lack of physical evidence DISPROVES even a physical theory. to disprove a physical theory, there would have to be physical evidence to contradict the theory. even under the false premise that religion is a physical theory, is there enough physical evidence to disprove it?

when cantor was developing his different orders of infinity theories, dedekind raised scathing objections not unlike yours. cantor's response was essentially this: as long as it's internally consistent, it is not an invalid pursuit (not unlike playing chess). (whether it's interesting or useful is another question. many mathematicians, i would say, are in fact completely uninterested in the foundations in mathematics that cantor was involved in.) to that, you'll probably enlighten me as to all the internal inconsitencies of the bible, but that is not by any means what i take to be the main treatise on God that i use. in fact, to me, the bible is essentially useless. like the orders of infinity theory, since string theory is internally consistent (as especially evidenced when the differnt types got unified into M-theory), it is also not an invalid pursuit. i think we can all agree that it is interesting but i don't know if we can all agree that it's useful. it definitely has the potential to be. you spoke of results. perhaps you can enlighten me as to the results of string theory.

cheers,
phoenix

megashawn

Sep29-03, 08:33 PM

Hah, wow, that struck a nerve huh? I just want to take this time to point out the big toothed smile at the end, I was joking.

Sorry, I'll try to be more clear in the future.

I'll respond to you in a pm later, I think this is exactly what they didn't want to happen with this thread.

phoenixthoth

Sep30-03, 03:34 AM

megashawn,

that smile went unnoticed and changes the whole complexion.

i guess my remarks may be applicable to the whole "tangibility" requirement of the thread.

i don't think the tangible claims make up the heart of religion and therefore restricting to them won't give tons of insight.

cheers,
phoenix

Nereid

Sep30-03, 12:56 PM

phoenixthoth: why is reproducability in other labs important if it doesn't matter how many people believe in it?
Just a quick note on this (rhetorical?) question of yours.
A: reproducability is one of the touchstones of the scientific method. Generalising like crazy, 'if it ain't reproducable, it ain't science' ... no matter how many people believe (or not).

Nereid

Sep30-03, 01:08 PM

russ_watters: There isn't any test that can be done on that shroud that can determine who exactly (if anyone) it covered.
But we sure can rule out an awful lot of people![:)]

For instance, it didn't cover anyone who died between 200 BC and 200 AD.

Nereid

Sep30-03, 01:22 PM

phoenixthoth: there is not one shred of physical evidence that there are more than three dimensions.
Are you sure?
jeff, from another thread in this forum: The 10-dimensional IIB string theory allows two equivalent descriptions; one in which ordinary strings are very heavy while D-strings (1-dimensional D-branes) are very light, and one in which the opposite holds. This duality has a geometric interpretation in terms of two additional toroidal dimensions. But these appear not to be actual dimensions in the sense that the extra dimension in M-theory is. Although aspects of F-theory are known to originate in M-theory and have been useful tools in framing some 10-dimensional problems in terms of 12-dimensional geometries, it's ultimate meaning is unclear.
There, physical evidence that there are more than 3 dimensions, if only because "The 10-dimensional IIB string theory" is a phrase in the English language which has meaning to both its speaker and at least one of its hearers (oh, and it's written down, so we can validate the statement for ourselves - it's 'reproducable').

But I don't think you mean this kind of physical evidence; so, would you be so kind as to state clearly what kind of physical evidence you do mean?

russ_watters

Sep30-03, 01:47 PM

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
Amazing! If the thing is only 200 years old wouldn't this pose a problem for the religious interpretation? Amazing! Nope. Not one little bit. But we sure can rule out an awful lot of people!

For instance, it didn't cover anyone who died between 200 BC and 200 AD. According to whom? You guys are falling into the same trap. I've said in other threads: applying science to religion is fallacy. To those who matter - those with religious convictions - science has nothing to say of any relevance (unless of course it says what they want it to say). Radiocarbon dating (or any other scientific evidence) will not ever convince a religious person there is no God. i never said the claims can't be tested now. just said they were intangible claims. mainly wanted to point out that religion isn't the only branch of knowledge making intangible claims; science sometimes does, too. and so the requirement in the first posting in this topic that only tangible claims be discussed in this topic makes me wonder what implications that requirement would have if posted in a topic under hyperdimensional space theory. Fair enough, phoenix - I'd say that requirement is flawed.

Nereid

Sep30-03, 02:32 PM

According to whom? You guys are falling into the same trap. I've said in other threads: applying science to religion is fallacy. To those who matter - those with religious convictions - science has nothing to say of any relevance (unless of course it says what they want it to say). Radiocarbon dating (or any other scientific evidence) will not ever convince a religious person there is no God.
{This is a reference to answers to Russ' statement that "There isn't any test that can be done on that shroud that can determine who exactly (if anyone) it covered."}

Perhaps just a tad black and white Russ? Aren't there millions of people who don't really know, who aren't sure, whose religious convictions are weak and wobbly? Among these millions aren't there many who are curious about the validity of various religious claims? Who wonder if those really clever scientists and engineers who brought them nice cars, mobile phones (translation for our American cousins: "cellphones"), and the internet have looked into what that rather stained, old-looking piece of cloth is?

And when it comes to therapeutic stem cell research (for example), doesn't this abdication start to get in the way of doing really helpful research?

phoenixthoth

Sep30-03, 05:01 PM

FZ+ "My personal opinion is that it does not matter how many people believe in it - an assertion held by many is no more immune than an assertion held by the few. What is the line is the nature of the claim."

phoenixthoth "why is reproducability in other labs important if it doesn't matter how many people believe in it?"

Nereid "Just a quick note on this (rhetorical?) question of yours.
A: reproducability is one of the touchstones of the scientific method. Generalising like crazy, 'if it ain't reproducable, it ain't science' ... no matter how many people believe (or not)."

the question wasn't rhetorical. it was meant for FZ+. the thing is, i completely agree with what he's saying. another way to ask the question is this: if it doesn't matter how many people believe in it (a scientific theory or result, for example), why would testing it out in other labs have ANY importance when you've already proven it to yourself?

i guess the tacit conclusion i'm not making clear is that FZ+'s statment when combined with what Nereid pointed out reveals that FZ+'s statment contradicts "one of the touchstones of the scientific method." in other words, i would say that a scientist does care how many people (scientists, mainly) believe in it.

regarding the shroud thing: we'll NEVER be able to prove it was the shroud of jesus. even if we did, that doesn't prove jesus was the son of God. nor would it verify such things like jesus turning water into wine. in my mind, searching for that shroud is a useless endeavor and a complete waste of time. so what if radiocarbon dating narrows it down to a 400 year window surrounding 0AD? that "evidence" should be the new definition of CIRCUMSTANTIAL in the next edition of the oxford english dictionary. granted, it rules out millions, actually billions, of people, but all it does is narrow it down to however many people lived on earth between -200 and 200. the shroud issue should be put to rest. may it rest in peace.

a side question: what about "labs" that are unique, such as a new kind of particle accelerator that is the only of its kind. are results obtained in that unique lab where reproducability is impossible viewed upon with ANY credibility AT ALL? if so, that would seem to be a direct contradiction to the scientific method. all results obtained should be viewed as conjectures to be in line with the scientific method.

cheers,
phoenix

FZ+

Sep30-03, 05:22 PM

Oh boy, I did open a can of worms here.

this is a scientifically challengable claim. one might call it a tangible claim.
True. That's why it is open to debunking here. Note the context of my post. I was not arguing for the superiority of tangible claims - I was arguing for some sort of tangible link to reality to make the hypothesis scientific - in terms of String/M-theory, this consistutes seeking certain specific polarisation patterns in the CMB and looking for additional dimensions with various telescopes, neutrino detectors and so forth, whilst constantly searching for additional implications. A hypothesis that lacks this tangibility is not automatically false. It smply cannot be dealt with in the context of the S&D forum, and so we should avoid arguments regarding it - it does, as Greg rightfully concluded, lead only to a case of clashing opinions.
The tangibility marker is a method of determining where the debate belongs. Intangibility does not doom the idea, nor elevate it. It does make it unscientific and inherently indeterminate, however.

Before you spot it, I will point out that science itself, in accordance perhaps with Godel, cannot be "a scientific theory". But it works damned well, and no one has come up with an alternative yet. [;)]

why do scientists feel the need to have other scientists agree with them?
i think what you meant to intend was that even if everyone on earth was a christian but you, that wouldn't convince you that there is a God.
Become science is a characterised by the flow of ideas. And no, ideas do not consistute a belief, as it is simultaneously essential that theories should receive skepticism, and a will to challenge. What the spread of science ensures is to allow a maximal amount of input from all sectors, and the facility for the maximum amount of objective evidence.

But now focus on the exact wording I used: "an assertion held by many is no more immune than an assertion held by the few".

You have been barking up the metaphorical tree. Scientists seek to spread their ideas because to be credible scientific theory, the theory must not be immune. In fact, it is in the interest of scientists to make theory as least immune as possible, exposing all possible flaws in the theory - and that is part of the reason why science spreads. What I am saying is the popularity of GR does not make it immune from debunking - and indeed attempted debunkings and editings of GR continue, even accelerating nowadays (String theory is one such attempt). You have mistaken me for suggesting the opposite.

A theory is like a car. Even if it's never going to turn into a porsche, it's good taking it out for a test drive, isn't it? Don't buy from dodgy dealers...

i don't see why science should attempt to debunk religion or religion debunk science (such as the copernicus thing).
This is what I was seeking to address. I agree perfectly with Greg over the abolition of the Religion forum, but I seek to sharpen up what we mean by religion here. When a religion takes on the mantle of science and makes a claim in the territory that can be dealt with by science, that claim can be discussed regardless of whether it constitutes someone's belief system. What is not arguable - and indeed by nature pointless to argue - in something only in terms of someone's belief. Eg. Christians are good. Atheism is evil. God is called Jehovah. God is better than Santa Claus.

This says absolutely zilch about whether or not they are true.

Nereid:
1) To what extent do you consider the fields of linguistics, sociology, ethnology, semiotics, etc to be on the same playing field as science?
Tough question, especially as I know little about these fields. To a degree, I think these subjects occupy a little of both - there can be the mechanics and history of each process, which is tangible and arguable by reference to evidence. But to a degree there present some judgement in these fields, and to those debates, there are no right answers.

2) If any of them are, as we don't have a top level set with any of these names yet, should we?
Can you clarify what you mean by this?

phoenixthoth

Sep30-03, 07:12 PM

FZ+,

"The tangibility marker is a method of determining where the debate belongs. Intangibility does not doom the idea, nor elevate it. It does make it unscientific and inherently indeterminate, however."

fair enough. i don't think it makes it NECESSARILY unscientific or indeterminate though, especially not INHERINTLY indeterminate. consider the intangible claims about there being multiple orders of infinity. they are unscientific, i agree, but not indeterminate. (however, there are claims in that subject which are inteterminate even within the context of mathematics.) granted, a lot of the time, intanglible claims are unscientific in the sense that SCIENCE won't decide their truth. that's NOT to say their truth can't be decided!

Nereid: "There, physical evidence that there are more than 3 dimensions, if only because "The 10-dimensional IIB string theory" is a phrase in the English language which has meaning to both its speaker and at least one of its hearers (oh, and it's written down, so we can validate the statement for ourselves - it's 'reproducable').

But I don't think you mean this kind of physical evidence; so, would you be so kind as to state clearly what kind of physical evidence you do mean?"

that's exactly like saying that because i write "God exists" that means there is phyiscal evidence that God exists. by physical evidence, i mean something that can either directly or indirectly confirmed by our five senses. by indirectly, i mean that the assistance of something that enhances our awareness beyond human limitations (such as a gamma ray detector). if we could make a device that could actually give us "sight" into higher dimensions (and not just the wake of the ship as in the case of the neutrino business), then that would constitute physical evidence that there are higher dimensions. until then, their existence is an INTANGIBLE claim. by that, i mean that there is no physical evidence, my definition, that they exist. in terms of the neutrino stuff, i view that as like the wake of a ship and only circumstantial evidence. that's NOT to say that overwhelming circumstantial evidence isn't convincing, though it is, in a sense, indirect. another kind of indirect than mentioned earlier and not neccessarily inferior.

FZ+: "A theory is like a car. Even if it's never going to turn into a porsche, it's good taking it out for a test drive, isn't it? Don't buy from dodgy dealers..."

i like that attitude but i wonder if many scientists feel that way. i noticed that you didn't say "don't TEST DRIVE from dodgy dealers," and in that sense, i fully agree. you can't know a theory will turn into a porsche until you test drive it. the same applies to religious theories.

greg has the right to change his mind especially if he wants to conserve precious server space about having a religion forum. i'm left wondering why it was in a science forum in the first place. i doubt a religious forum would have a string theory forum. (these are just rhetorical thoughts.)

nereid: "If any of them are, as we don't have a top level set with any of these names yet, should we?"

FZ+: can you clarify?

i think he/she is wondering if you should add those subjects to PF. my opinion is no since those aren't sciences that stem from physics like chemistry is. this is *P*F, after all. (but then again, WHY HAVE ANY PHILOSPHY BESIDES THE PHILOSOPHY OF PHYSICS??) but if they are, i'd be very much interested in there being a PSYCHOLOGY topic.

it's interesting to note which non-physics (and even non-science) related topics go on and which ones don't and which ones were abolished. i guess you have to make that arbitrary line somewhere.

FZ+, one final thing. i'm glad to see my suspisions confirmed that there are scientists out there who examine their beliefs. it seems like many people who believe in science (such as folks having only up to high school level) just accept it not unlike dogma, not unlike religious folk who accept their dogma. for example, i used to accept that water molecules are comprised of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom on faith, if you will. i no longer do. nor have i decided that statement is false. i'm sort of a science agnostic as well as sort of a religious agnostic. on the other hand, there ARE religious folk who examine THEIR beliefs and they don't just accept it like dogma. the ones who examine their beliefs in both areas (science and religion) are the ones i have more respect for, to be honest. (so, in essence, i'm saying i have respect for you.)

cheers,
phoenix

FZ+

Sep30-03, 07:32 PM

i don't think it makes it NECESSARILY unscientific or indeterminate though, especially not INHERINTLY indeterminate.
It is neccessarily. The Popper definition of science is based on the principle of falsifiability, and nothing intangible can be falsifiable.

consider the intangible claims about there being multiple orders of infinity.
That is still indeterminate. It can only be considered true within the context of the mathematical axioms, and it is impossible to prove these axioms. In effect, it represents a tautology. If however we can test this, including the base axioms, then the mathematics gains tangibility.

that's NOT to say their truth can't be decided!
Yes it is, adding the qualifier in terms of objective decision. If it is intangble, our only marker is consistency, and so without a grounding in the whole argument, we cannot say if this actually refers to anything. Hence the great debate over mathematics - is mathematics inherent in the universe, and so tangible by the effects we observe, or is mathematics something we apply, and so intangible and by neccessity indeterminant?

the same applies to religious theories.
But there is a great distinction here between tangible claims that are only religious by association, and religious belief systems. Religious belief systems are not cars in the first place. By the nature of the argument, they cannot be tested. They are cars without wheels. They are immune to being test driven. The difference between a scientific theory and an "intangible" religious theory is that while the scientist strives to make his theory vulnerable, the religious man strives to make his idea invulnerable. Even in maths we try to cut down on the use of axioms.

I am pointing out that what makes religious arguments generally fruitless is not the link to God, or the number of believers, but the fact that it is intangible, and existent only as a belief system. You might as well try to prove 1+1=2.

From my understanding of it, the topics etc stem from practicality. We cannot afford to dilute the forum into too many sub-forums. Not enough people are interested

phoenixthoth

Sep30-03, 08:29 PM

i don't think it makes it NECESSARILY unscientific or indeterminate though, especially not INHERINTLY indeterminate.
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It is neccessarily. The Popper definition of science is based on the principle of falsifiability, and nothing intangible can be falsifiable.

here's an intangible claim that is false. alephnull = alephone. i have falsified an intangible claim, therefore, the claim is falsifiable. this disproves your statement that nothing intangible can be falsifiable.

"quote:
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consider the intangible claims about there being multiple orders of infinity.
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That is still indeterminate. It can only be considered true within the context of the mathematical axioms, and it is impossible to prove these axioms. In effect, it represents a tautology. If however we can test this, including the base axioms, then the mathematics gains tangibility."

reliance on axioms. in that sense, everything in science is indeterminate. an example of two axioms accepted by science that are impossible to prove: (1) what you see in labs is what is actually occurring and (2) what you read in scientific journals is what is really written there. in other words, an eastern view that everything is an illusion. when one has one apple and places another apple next to it, the assumption is that there isn't a third apple there that you're just not seeing, but you can't prove it's not there. if you think not seeing it proves it's not there, then you're accepting as an axiom that what you're seeing is what is really there.

furthermore, that means much of math is indeterminate for all but the most esoteric fields come down to set theory. much of science is written in the language of mathematics. since mathematics is indeterminate, then so are those parts of science which depend on math.

either way, much of (if not all) science depends on axioms whether they be scientific ones or mathematical ones. philosophy, and indeed, no pursuit can escape the reliance on axioms. in my mind, that makes them all equally vulnerable (or invulnerable).

quote:
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that's NOT to say their truth can't be decided!
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Yes it is, adding the qualifier in terms of objective decision. If it is intangble, our only marker is consistency, and so without a grounding in the whole argument, we cannot say if this actually refers to anything. Hence the great debate over mathematics - is mathematics inherent in the universe, and so tangible by the effects we observe, or is mathematics something we apply, and so intangible and by neccessity indeterminant?

the claim 1 + 1 = 2 is an intangible claim. i have to admit, you are right, its truth cannot be decided using reason. but if we abandon reason, then its truth is assured by all the circumstantial evidence that supports it. one way to go is to place one apple next to another and see if there are two apples. but of course, the statement "1+1=2" isn't just about apples. therefore, this little experiment doesn't prove that 1+1=2. in fact, we can repeat the experiemnt a google times with a google different objects but that doesn't prove 1+1=2 in general for all things. to conclude that would be to use induction rather than deduction. another way to go would be to use the axioms of set theory, but we've already seen how those are indeterminate. therefore, reason has to be abandoned if one is to accept the statement 1+1=2 as being true. and if this is true yet reason doesn't prove it, what else is out there that is true that reason doesn't prove? (by reason, i mean deductive logic.)

quote:
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the same applies to religious theories.
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But there is a great distinction here between tangible claims that are only religious by association, and religious belief systems. Religious belief systems are not cars in the first place. By the nature of the argument, they cannot be tested. They are cars without wheels. They are immune to being test driven. The difference between a scientific theory and an "intangible" religious theory is that while the scientist strives to make his theory vulnerable, the religious man strives to make his idea invulnerable. Even in maths we try to cut down on the use of axioms.

that there is a God is an example of a religious theory. there are definitely ways to test drive this theory. i've posted other articles in this matter elsewhere (eg "on removing little self taint from messages received from the source). you could say that "god exists" is an axiom as well as "there is a set with no elements." math and religion are equally vulnerable (that's not to say both vulnerable or both invulnerable--i haven't decided yet).

I am pointing out that what makes religious arguments generally fruitless is not the link to God, or the number of believers, but the fact that it is intangible, and existent only as a belief system. You might as well try to prove 1+1=2.

funny how i wrote about that equation before knowing you mentioned it. what i'd like to point out is that 1+1=2 is believed to be true yet there is NO PROOF FOR IT! so why are religious people looked down on (i hear words like "sheep") so much for believing in God? of course, i'm NOT saying YOU look down on them... the important thing is that a lot of science depends on things like 1+1=2, brother.

From my understanding of it, the topics etc stem from practicality. We cannot afford to dilute the forum into too many sub-forums. Not enough people are interested"

well, why not put up a few experimental ones and see if they attract attention? by your rationale, religion should definitely be there; people were interested.

cheers,
phoenix

russ_watters

Sep30-03, 10:06 PM

Originally posted by Nereid
Aren't there millions of people who don't really know, who aren't sure, whose religious convictions are weak and wobbly? Among these millions aren't there many who are curious about the validity of various religious claims? Yes, but please note, the subject of my post was not those people, it was the people with religious convictions.

Also, maybe its a catch-22, but someone who thinks they are basing religious convictions on evidence is falling into yet another trap: by definition, religious convictions require FAITH. So someone who is willing to base their religious convictions on science really has no religious convictions at all. And when it comes to therapeutic stem cell research (for example), doesn't this abdication start to get in the way of doing really helpful research? I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you talking about religion interfering with scientific research? Could you clarify?

Nereid

Oct1-03, 01:17 PM

To phoenixthoth: because i write "God exists" that means there is phyiscal evidence that God exists. by physical evidence, i mean something that can either directly or indirectly confirmed by our five senses. by indirectly, i mean that the assistance of something that enhances our awareness beyond human limitations (such as a gamma ray detector). if we could make a device that could actually give us "sight" into higher dimensions (and not just the wake of the ship as in the case of the neutrino business), then that would constitute physical evidence that there are higher dimensions. until then, their existence is an INTANGIBLE claim. by that, i mean that there is no physical evidence, my definition, that they exist. in terms of the neutrino stuff, i view that as like the wake of a ship and only circumstantial evidence. that's NOT to say that overwhelming circumstantial evidence isn't convincing, though it is, in a sense, indirect. another kind of indirect than mentioned earlier and not neccessarily inferior.
This tangible/intangible, and "physical evidence" (as you define it) approach has got so much packed into it that to even begin picking it apart would probably need its own forum. Just to list, in shorthand, a few things that would have to be sorted out:
- inference (e.g. extra-solar planets, dark matter)
- abstraction (e.g. dimension, time)
- theory/hypothesis/principles (e.g. the dependence of the 'assistance of something that enhances our awareness beyond human limitations (such as a gamma ray detector) on theory')
- role of mathematics
- even definitions/nomenclature/terms.

As FZ+ said, a real can of worms.

BTW, neutrinos are tangible, by your definition.

Nereid

Oct1-03, 01:41 PM

To FZ+:
1) To what extent do you consider the fields of linguistics, sociology, ethnology, semiotics, etc to be on the same playing field as science?
If you consider that the reported results in these fields come as a result of the application of the scientific method, then they can be used to debunk religion; specifically "The only things that are debunkable are claims that enter the grounds of science - materialist claims, that can be tested by experiment and logic. Therefore, the religion related threads that post here can only be ones that refer to tangible claims of prophecy etc"

To FZ+ and phoenixthoth:
2) If any of them are, as we don't have a top level set with any of these names yet, should we?
... in "Other Sciences", or "Social Sciences".

To Russ and phoenixthoth:
And when it comes to therapeutic stem cell research (for example), doesn't this abdication start to get in the way of doing really helpful research?
Perhaps it's just perception, but IIRC, there was a recent decision by the Bush Administration to ban the use of federal funds for stem cell research using fetal tissue. If this were just 'cloning' research, fair enough; but as I read it, the ban was on ALL stem cell research. Apparently this ban arose from pressure by some christian groups. Haven't scientists tacitly allowed this to come to pass, by not vigorously confronting the faith-based beliefs of a small minority? Especially in an avowedly secular state?

theEVIL1

Oct1-03, 02:40 PM

RELIGION is an outward sign of a comitment of a particular set of beliefs. BELIEFS are based on one or more faiths. I have faith, hell, we all do. MY faiths are: that the sun will rise tomorrow (I know the sun really does not "rise") and that the earth will go on spining at 924 mph. Thes faiths are NOT based on some ancient archaic writings, nor on what I HOPE to be true..but on rational and reasonable experiences and can be shown to have been 100% true PRIOR to now..thus highly predictable for the future. THIS is where mystical faith and rational faith depart. As my friend Carl used to say "true science prefers it's coldest facts to it's fondest delussions." AND that is pretty much it...in, as SH might say.."IN a nutshell.."

radagast

Oct1-03, 05:13 PM

What do you define mystical faith as?

radagast

Oct1-03, 05:18 PM

Originally posted by russ_watters
... maybe its a catch-22, but someone who thinks they are basing religious convictions on evidence is falling into yet another trap: by definition, religious convictions require FAITH. So someone who is willing to base their religious convictions on science really has no religious convictions at all...

OK, I really like this paragraph. Hope you don't mind but I'm clipping it and saving this one to disk. [:D]

FZ+

Oct1-03, 05:47 PM

here's an intangible claim that is false. alephnull = alephone.
No. Here is a claim that following on from a series of axioms, is defined as false. But no objective way exists to talk of the validity of the axioms themselves, unless we give the statement tangibility by stating that 1+1 =2 etc and all the statements that build up to it are representative of some element of reality. Otherwise, my concept of alephfoo may be different from yours, and so the debate collapses.
this disproves your statement that nothing intangible can be falsifiable.
No. In fact, what you have done is to confuse the scientific idea of falsification. Falsification does not mean the declaration of falsehood, but the proof by means of reference to reality.

in that sense, everything in science is indeterminate.
True! Look up for a very interesting article on "Why does science work?", somewhere. Indeed, perhaps the biggest miracle in the universe is that maths and science are actually effective.

But there are degrees of indeterminancy. We can never declare absolutely something as true. (Including this post, paradoxically as it seems) We can however make the statement that somethings are more indeterminate than others, and we do that by trying to minimise our assumptions/axioms, and placing reference to tangible events. The nature of knowledge denies us pure determinancy, but there is a word of difference between something that is not determinable by the limitations of the universe, and not determinable by neccessity of the argument.

but if we abandon reason
The sleep of reason does nightmares make.

therefore, reason has to be abandoned if one is to accept the statement 1+1=2 as being true. and if this is true yet reason doesn't prove it, what else is out there that is true that reason doesn't prove?
No, reason is not to be abandoned - as this brings the question, abandoned in favour of what? Deductive reasoning, by definition, cannot bring new knowledge. But a test is useful, as it shows up flaws.

you could say that "god exists" is an axiom as well as "there is a set with no elements."
But on the basis of maths we can build things. We can show the apparent inconsistency that would arise if maths were not true, and hence we are persuaded into assuming maths in correct. Maths in general is a vulnerable axiom - it is an axiom that leads to implications, that should be reflected in the real word. God, can give either tangible implications or intangible ones - tangible = vulnerable, and useful, intangible = invulnerable, and opinionated. There is a sharp divide now between platonic mathematics and formalistic mathematics.

By Formalistic mathematics, true. Maths is immune to scientific study, and is a network of tautologies only, and so as a whole has no truth value. By Platonic mathematics, false, because the whole of maths represents something tangible and experiencible in the real word. In this case, maths is neccessarily a science, and can be shown to be true or untrue.

what i'd like to point out is that 1+1=2 is believed to be true yet there is NO PROOF FOR IT!
Yes. But its belief is not the reason why 1+1=2 can not generally be dealt with. It is in the nature of the statement. Unless we make it a statement regarding the real world.
so why are religious people looked down on (i hear words like "sheep") so much for believing in God?
It's a fun sport people try out now and then. Theists call atheists sinners, evil, etc etc, and atheists call them back. Ok, to make the real point... The major bad point of all religions (from the perspective of an atheist/agnostic) is the emphasis on faith. Faith involves the striving for invulnerability of an argument. It is not the belief itself, but the fanatical aspect and lack of skepticism which accompanies it. Maths is sufferable because it is useful, it provides a rigid set of implications with which we can deal with. Religions on the other hand most insist on intangibility, and lack of usefulness. And there is a practical alternative to religion, whilst insisting 1+1!= 2 is rather non-useful.

But in general, it is more a case of religious people attempting to patronise non-religious people. (Count the percentage population gap!)

FZ+

Oct1-03, 06:24 PM

If you consider that the reported results in these fields come as a result of the application of the scientific method, then they can be used to debunk religion;
I see... But I hope I am not too naive in stating that in general, these fields strive to understand, not to judge. In effect, the application of this study tells us only the extent of people's belief, not whether their beliefs are correct.

phoenixthoth

Oct1-03, 09:10 PM

Originally posted by Nereid
To phoenixthoth:
This tangible/intangible, and "physical evidence" (as you define it) approach has got so much packed into it that to even begin picking it apart would probably need its own forum. Just to list, in shorthand, a few things that would have to be sorted out:
- inference (e.g. extra-solar planets, dark matter)
- abstraction (e.g. dimension, time)
- theory/hypothesis/principles (e.g. the dependence of the 'assistance of something that enhances our awareness beyond human limitations (such as a gamma ray detector) on theory')
- role of mathematics
- even definitions/nomenclature/terms.

As FZ+ said, a real can of worms.

BTW, neutrinos are tangible, by your definition.

yes, but that higher dimensions might exist as a result of any observation based in neutrinos would fall into the category of "inference." i don't think inference statments provide anything more than cirumstantial evidence for what are intangible claims. that's not to say that overwhelming circumstantial evidence isn't convincing. for example, a cop pulls over a guy standing next to a wrecked car. he's drunk. the cop arrests the guy for drunk driving. he pleads not guilty because the cop never observed him as being the driver of the car. (this was in an isolated area with no one else around.) granted, seeing him next to the car is circumstantial evidence, but it's convincing. i believe his not guilty case actually held up and he was released. i, unlike the court system, am convinced by overwhelming circumstantial evidence. but the question is how much circumstantial evidence is enough to rule out every possible (further, REASONABLE) doubt?

phoenixthoth

Oct1-03, 09:17 PM

the claim 1 + 1 = 2 is an intangible claim. i have to admit, you are right, its truth cannot be decided using reason. but if we abandon reason, then its truth is assured by all the circumstantial evidence that supports it. one way to go is to place one apple next to another and see if there are two apples. but of course, the statement "1+1=2" isn't just about apples. therefore, this little experiment doesn't prove that 1+1=2. in fact, we can repeat the experiemnt a google times with a google different objects but that doesn't prove 1+1=2 in general for all things. to conclude that would be to use induction rather than deduction. another way to go would be to use the axioms of set theory, but we've already seen how those are indeterminate. therefore, reason has to be abandoned if one is to accept the statement 1+1=2 as being true. and if this is true yet reason doesn't prove it, what else is out there that is true that reason doesn't prove? (by reason, i mean deductive logic.)

the last question inspired me. some of what's in http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/lowell.html is relevant. the parts about godel's incompletness theorem which states that with any axiomatic system, there are TRUE statments using the same language as those axioms that will NEVER be proved from the axioms.

so, when i ask what else is out there that is true that reason doesn't prove, i'm suggesting that the statement "God exists" is one of them.

however, this assertion would probably be extremely difficult to prove. even within just mathematics, it's relatively easy to show that there are unprovable true statements but HARD to actually decide if a PARTICULAR statement is undecidable, ie, if it will EVER be proven true or false.

phoenixthoth

Oct1-03, 09:21 PM

Originally posted by russ_watters
Yes, but please note, the subject of my post was not those people, it was the people with religious convictions.

Also, maybe its a catch-22, but someone who thinks they are basing religious convictions on evidence is falling into yet another trap: by definition, religious convictions require FAITH. So someone who is willing to base their religious convictions on science really has no religious convictions at all. I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you talking about religion interfering with scientific research? Could you clarify?

as previously mentioned, there are true statements that cannot be proved (roughly speaking).

DEFINITION: faith is believing such a statement though there is no proof. for example, many mathematicians have faith in the riemann hypothesis, as far as i know. that's not to say they don't still reserve some small doubt about it. in that sense, their faith isn't absolute faith, which is when there is no doubt.

phoenixthoth

Oct1-03, 09:28 PM

Originally posted by theEVIL1
RELIGION is an outward sign of a comitment of a particular set of beliefs. BELIEFS are based on one or more faiths. I have faith, hell, we all do. MY faiths are: that the sun will rise tomorrow (I know the sun really does not "rise") and that the earth will go on spining at 924 mph. Thes faiths are NOT based on some ancient archaic writings, nor on what I HOPE to be true..but on rational and reasonable experiences and can be shown to have been 100% true PRIOR to now..thus highly predictable for the future. THIS is where mystical faith and rational faith depart. As my friend Carl used to say "true science prefers it's coldest facts to it's fondest delussions." AND that is pretty much it...in, as SH might say.."IN a nutshell.."

i understand you two categories of faith.

i hope you're not making the JUDGEMENT that one kind of faith is "better" than the other.

either way, faith doesn't constitute proof, as we all know. for sure, faith alone will not convince someone else. the proof is almost in the results. many people do have positive results with God. many do not.

Loren Booda

Oct1-03, 09:31 PM

The fact that many objectively consider science, philosophy or other natural pursuits to be forever incomplete poses the possibility that they are continually approaching an infinite, ordered whole. As there are many functions of the brain beyond rational argument, so there are many justifications for religion. The choice is ours: we are god, or we are with God. (Either for you is fine by me.)

phoenixthoth

Oct1-03, 11:53 PM

Originally posted by FZ+
[B]No. Here is a claim that following on from a series of axioms, is defined as false. But no objective way exists to talk of the validity of the axioms themselves, unless we give the statement tangibility by stating that 1+1 =2 etc and all the statements that build up to it are representative of some element of reality. Otherwise, my concept of alephfoo may be different from yours, and so the debate collapses.

defined as false. well, then, as everything depends on certain assumtions, axioms, then there is no way to ever say that any statement is objectively false. if you don't believe that aleph0 = aleph1 is an objectively false statement (even though this can't be proven except by first arbitrarily defining "false"), i don't know if we can have a meaningful discussion. i believe the statement is objectively false. can you prove that the statement "aleph0 = aleph1" is NOT objectively false?

No. In fact, what you have done is to confuse the scientific idea of falsification. Falsification does not mean the declaration of falsehood, but the proof by means of reference to reality.

the scientific idea of falsification is just another arbitrary definition of falsehood similar to the one that you pointed out in math. it's no longer science vs religion; it has become science vs math! when we can't even agree on what false means, you can't talk at all about statements being false. of course, by the scientific definition of falsehood, many, many "false" mathematical statements (like aleph0=aleph1) are not "false" (according to scientists) because there is no possible reference to reality. YET, science USES the statements that can't be shown to not be false by their definition of false in their arguments!!!

however, math is a part of reality. just a non-physical reality. thus, the two ideas of false can be combined.

a romantic sketch. when God said, "let there be light," that was the beginning of the universe. the whole of objective truth (physical and non-physical) corresponds to an infinitely bright light. in the physical universe, the lights are stars. in the non-physical reality, the initial light are the axioms. the non-physical stars are theorems, those are the lights. so the astronomer's search for other stars is like the mathematician's search for more theorems. black holes correspond to theorems which can't be proven using the axioms. i like to call such things thought holes. when i approach a thought hole, i feel like it will suck me (rather, my mind) into it. but that astronomers can find evidence that a black hole is a star leads me to believe that one day it will somehow be possible to realize that thought holes are true theorems as well. i know it's a strech...

True! Look up for a very interesting article on "Why does science work?", somewhere. Indeed, perhaps the biggest miracle in the universe is that maths and science are actually effective.

But there are degrees of indeterminancy. We can never declare absolutely something as true. (Including this post, paradoxically as it seems) We can however make the statement that somethings are more indeterminate than others, and we do that by trying to minimise our assumptions/axioms, and placing reference to tangible events. The nature of knowledge denies us pure determinancy, but there is a word of difference between something that is not determinable by the limitations of the universe, and not determinable by neccessity of the argument.

i don't think it's a miracle at all. to me, it suggests that all the stuff is OBJECTIVELY TRUE despite the fact that it all rests on assumptions and arbitrary defnitions meant to correspond to our intuition. to that end, perhaps INTUTION is the true vehicle for accessing OBJECTIVE truth. this is what i hint at in my article "on removing little self taint from messages received from the source," which is somewhere on this site.

well, either way, i think the statement "we can never declare absolutely something as true" is absolutely false. and i'm not just being cute and saying, "we can DECLARE it." you know, like, i can DECLARE that 1+1=0 (which it is in the smallest field containing just 1 and 0). seriously, though, i think there are things that can be declared as absolutely true. however, any attempt to prove it using any axiomatic system will absolutely fail. it's not a paradox. two examples: "1+1=2" and "God exists." belief in such declarations is what i call FAITH. in the next millenium, perhaps faith will be the new accepted version of what constitutes proof, but i doubt it.

The sleep of reason does nightmares make.

No, reason is not to be abandoned - as this brings the question, abandoned in favour of what? Deductive reasoning, by definition, cannot bring new knowledge. But a test is useful, as it shows up flaws.

you may not be fully aware of how much of a nightmare it can be when reason sleeps. (to give just the tip of the iceburg, look at dr. nash.) i hope you're not, in fact. it's not something anyone should fully be aware of. to use your words, you're quite right: reason is put to sleep. not abandoned, as i said. when it is appropriate, it wakes up. nightmares. remember that nightmares are not real. don't you think it is irrational to be afraid of nightmares? on the other hand, in addition to nightmares, there are also very beautiful dreams; dreams i wish everyone could share in. these dreams are precisely what gives us objective truth. certainly, nightmares don't.

so, to answer your question, it is to be abandonded AND nightmares avoided (at all costs). another thing is this. the answer to your question is what i think will actually make us able to declare things as being absolutely true. in a metaphorical way, these are the dreams i mentioned.

But on the basis of maths we can build things. We can show the apparent inconsistency that would arise if maths were not true, and hence we are persuaded into assuming maths in correct. Maths in general is a vulnerable axiom - it is an axiom that leads to implications, that should be reflected in the real word. God, can give either tangible implications or intangible ones - tangible = vulnerable, and useful, intangible = invulnerable, and opinionated. There is a sharp divide now between platonic mathematics and formalistic mathematics.

i think you're wrong when you used the word "should." why do math axioms have to always lead to things in the real world? i assume you're talking about something like the banach-tarski "paradox." you say, "maths in general is a vulnerable axiom," and, "intangible = invulnerable." don't you think the axioms are intangible? how can math be both invulnerable and vulnerable? perhaps this is the platonic/formalistic split you're talking about. you're right about the opinionated part. people have different opinions about the axiom of choice. people have their opinions about euclid's axioms. probably riemann's OPINION was most important to you.

By Formalistic mathematics, true. Maths is immune to scientific study, and is a network of tautologies only, and so as a whole has no truth value. By Platonic mathematics, false, because the whole of maths represents something tangible and experiencible in the real word. In this case, maths is neccessarily a science, and can be shown to be true or untrue.

the whole of mathematics is not representable by something tangible or experiencible in the (what you call) real world. try representing the category of all categories or the class of all sets in the "real" world. try verifying the banach-tarski theorem experimentally.

Yes. But its belief is not the reason why 1+1=2 can not generally be dealt with. It is in the nature of the statement. Unless we make it a statement regarding the real world.

let's suppose we make it a statement about the real world. it says that when you add one quantity of ANYTHING to another equal quantity of that same thing, you then have two such quantities. in order to prove this experimentally, you'd have to try it will all things for to do anything less is to not prove it for ANYTHING.

part 2 to follow.

phoenixthoth

Oct1-03, 11:53 PM

It's a fun sport people try out now and then. Theists call atheists sinners, evil, etc etc, and atheists call them back. Ok, to make the real point... The major bad point of all religions (from the perspective of an atheist/agnostic) is the emphasis on faith. Faith involves the striving for invulnerability of an argument. It is not the belief itself, but the fanatical aspect and lack of skepticism which accompanies it. Maths is sufferable because it is useful, it provides a rigid set of implications with which we can deal with. Religions on the other hand most insist on intangibility, and lack of usefulness. And there is a practical alternative to religion, whilst insisting 1+1!= 2 is rather non-useful.

really? in group theory, one can say 1+1=0 when dealing with the group {0,1}. are you saying group theory is non-useful? hmm... RATHER non-useful, even!

how can you possibly say that religions lack of usefulness? just because it isn't useful to YOU doesn't mean it's not useful to billions of people. likewise, science is not useful to many people. you say math is useful. how is the banach-tarski theorem useful? you say that emphasis on faith is a "major bad point" in religion. how else does one go about realizing the objective truths that can't be proven in axiomatic systems? i think you have too much faith in reason*. you have this faith because it's "useful" to you. likewise, faith in God is held on to tightly because it is "useful" to them. it's just that faith alone will never convince someone else of the objective truth. any attempt to do so through such means is a waste of time.

*for example, what if i didn't accept modus ponens? what if you talked until you were blue in the face that modus ponens is true but i just didn't share your faith in it? yes, you have faith in modus ponens just as i would have faith that it isn't true. you're probably wondering how someone could doubt modus ponens. that reminds me of religious people wondering how someone could doubt that God exists.

But in general, it is more a case of religious people attempting to patronise non-religious people. (Count the percentage population gap!)

well, i don't have the data you have, evidently. i've always seen it as the science people attempting to patronize the religious people. you even called faith a major bad point of religion. hmm...

cheers,
phoenix

russ_watters

Oct2-03, 12:15 AM

Originally posted by theEVIL1
MY faiths are: that the sun will rise tomorrow (I know the sun really does not "rise") and that the earth will go on spining at 924 mph. Thes faiths are NOT based on some ancient archaic writings, nor on what I HOPE to be true..but on rational and reasonable experiences and can be shown to have been 100% true PRIOR to now..thus highly predictable for the future. THIS is where mystical faith and rational faith depart. As my friend Carl used to say "true science prefers it's coldest facts to it's fondest delussions." AND that is pretty much it...in, as SH might say.."IN a nutshell.." There is no such thing as "rational faith." That's an oxymoron. Faith by definition REQUIRES a lack of evidence or explanation. Your expectation of the sun rising tomorrow is a high probability prediction based on scientific theory.Originally posted by radagast
OK, I really like this paragraph. Hope you don't mind but I'm clipping it and saving this one to disk. [:D] Not at all - in fact, I'm honored.

However, I'll need you to send me $1 every time you reuse it. [:D]

phoenixthoth

Oct2-03, 12:20 AM

Originally posted by Loren Booda
The fact that many objectively consider science, philosophy or other natural pursuits to be forever incomplete poses the possibility that they are continually approaching an infinite, ordered whole. As there are many functions of the brain beyond rational argument, so there are many justifications for religion. The choice is ours: we are god, or we are with God. (Either for you is fine by me.)

just because they approach an infinite, ordered whole doesn't mean they'll ever get there.

my choice is #2.

cheers,
phoenix

phoenixthoth

Oct2-03, 12:26 AM

Originally posted by russ_watters
There is no such thing as "rational faith." That's an oxymoron. Faith by definition REQUIRES a lack of evidence or explanation. Your expectation of the sun rising tomorrow is a high probability prediction based on scientific theory. Not at all - in fact, I'm honored.

However, I'll need you to send me $1 every time you reuse it. [:D]

i agree. all faith is irrational. that's why letting reason sleep at times is helpful. we let it sleep when we expect the sun to rise tomorrow for we can't really be absolutely sure that it will. but doubts never cross our minds even though we can't be absolutely sure that it will.

radagast

Oct2-03, 08:33 AM

Originally posted by russ_watters
...Not at all - in fact, I'm honored.

However, I'll need you to send me $1 every time you reuse it. [:D]

Ahh, the concept of faith again. [:)]

Nereid

Oct2-03, 12:31 PM

Nereid, Q to phoenixthoth: This tangible/intangible, and "physical evidence" (as you define it) approach has got so much packed into it that to even begin picking it apart would probably need its own forum. Just to list, in shorthand, a few things that would have to be sorted out:
- inference (e.g. extra-solar planets, dark matter)
- abstraction (e.g. dimension, time)
- theory/hypothesis/principles (e.g. the dependence of the 'assistance of something that enhances our awareness beyond human limitations (such as a gamma ray detector) on theory')
- role of mathematics
phoenixthoth (yep, it's an extract) said: yes, but that higher dimensions might exist as a result of any observation based in neutrinos would fall into the category of "inference." i don't think inference statments provide anything more than cirumstantial evidence for what are intangible claims.
So, a partial list of areas of science beyond the pale, in your view (this is a question):
- all of cosmology
- a large part (most?) of astronomy
- most of high energy particle physics
- heavy elements, beyond ~Lr
- much of genomics
- most of sub-crust geology and geophysics
- all of evolutionary biology
- ...

phoenixthoth

Oct3-03, 04:50 AM

i'm not really sure the true extent to which scientific claims are actually intangible. i would guess that the vast majority of them are tangible.

i guess i have to be clear on what i mean by tangible. for example, from the typical point of view that tangible means you can touch it, a photon is intangible. that's not what i mean, exactly. tangible means something you can perceive with any of the five senses with the assitance of some device used to expand awareness (such as a telescope or particle accelerator).

even by that definition, i think a statement like "the universe is 11 dimensional" is an intangible claim.

this topic said that no intangible claims are allowed to be discussed. just wondered how stephen hawking would feel about such a restriction.

regarding intangible claims, here's what FZ+ said:

"The tangibility marker is a method of determining where the debate belongs. Intangibility does not doom the idea, nor elevate it. It does make it unscientific and inherently indeterminate, however."

so, then, the claim "the universe is 11 dimensional" is unscientific and inherently indeterminate. i wish stephen hawking and his cabal luck in determining the inteterminate. (one may note that i argued that intangible claims are not indeterminate.) you may want to check out this paper
http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/toe.pdf
where it is argued that mathematical existence is physical existence. pythagoras's secret society called the semicircle believed that reality, at its deepest level, is mathematical in nature. if this paper is "correct," that would appear to lend evidence to the pythagorean belief...

cheers,
phoenix

radagast

Oct3-03, 08:34 AM

Originally posted by phoenixthoth
so, then, the claim "the universe is 11 dimensional" is unscientific and inherently indeterminate. i wish stephen hawking and his cabal luck in determining the inteterminate.

This is extremely misleading, and incorrect. Eleven dimensions are not grabbed out of the air, they are part of a cogent model of observed behaviour. If something that can explain the behavior better, without extra dimensions, is found, then I would see no reasons to keep them, but to say it is unscientific is highly inaccurate.

Nereid

Oct3-03, 08:46 AM

phoenixthoth (yep, it's an extract) said: yes, but that higher dimensions might exist as a result of any observation based in neutrinos would fall into the category of "inference." i don't think inference statments provide anything more than cirumstantial evidence for what are intangible claims.
It's not the tangible/intangible per se in your approach to science that I'm interested to get to the bottom of, it's the 'inference' part.

GR is a theory about mass and spacetime (and more). Observations of a neutron star binary show a certain pattern. The observations can be matched very closely using GR. In particular, you can infer from the observations and theory that significant energy is being lost from the orbital system in the form of gravitational radiation. Is gravitational radiation verboten in your view of science?even by that definition, i think a statement like "the universe is 11 dimensional" is an intangible claim.
How about this then: "There are theories which posit that the universe has 11 dimensions. At least some of these theories make predictions which are wholly consistent with observations and experimental results. As a shorthand, we write 'the universe is 11 dimensional'".

phoenixthoth

Oct3-03, 04:51 PM

Originally posted by radagast
This is extremely misleading, and incorrect. Eleven dimensions are not grabbed out of the air, they are part of a cogent model of observed behaviour. If something that can explain the behavior better, without extra dimensions, is found, then I would see no reasons to keep them, but to say it is unscientific is highly inaccurate.

i agree with you radagast, but this is the conclusion drawn from the FZ+ quote.

to say that 11 dimensions explains observations doesn't prove that there are 11 dimensions. that, to me, seems like a non sequitor. that is, unless occam's razor is an absolutely true statement which can be objectively verified.

cheers,
phoenix

phoenixthoth

Oct3-03, 05:02 PM

Originally posted by Nereid
It's not the tangible/intangible per se in your approach to science that I'm interested to get to the bottom of, it's the 'inference' part.

GR is a theory about mass and spacetime (and more). Observations of a neutron star binary show a certain pattern. The observations can be matched very closely using GR. In particular, you can infer from the observations and theory that significant energy is being lost from the orbital system in the form of gravitational radiation. Is gravitational radiation verboten in your view of science?
How about this then: "There are theories which posit that the universe has 11 dimensions. At least some of these theories make predictions which are wholly consistent with observations and experimental results. As a shorthand, we write 'the universe is 11 dimensional'".

nothing is verboten; just classifying claims and pointing out that sometimes the evidence is direct and sometimes it's from inference. not making a personal judgement on the superiority of various forms of evidence. to me, intangible claims shouldn't be verboten in science.

i'd have to look at the data and see how the observations justify the statement, "the universe is 11 dimensional." whatever the data is, i have the suspician that it's not going to be actually "seeing" it, but seeing physical consequences of non-physical realities.

cheers,
phoenix

FZ+

Oct3-03, 05:44 PM

if you don't believe that aleph0 = aleph1 is an objectively false statement (even though this can't be proven except by first arbitrarily defining "false"), i don't know if we can have a meaningful discussion.
But it cannot be objectively true, as you have declared there that this does not represent anything in reality. The meaningful conversation relies on a shared set of definitions (called language) - and speaks nothing of whether the language has a true basis.

can you prove that the statement "aleph0 = aleph1" is NOT objectively false?

Can we just look back over our concept of indeterminancy please? By indeterminancy, this means that I can't prove objectively it to be false - and neither can you prove it to be true. Whether it is true or false is a matter of subjective feeling and opinion.
In fact, you have perfectly captured the failure of most discussions about religion. Faced with this indeterminancy, it is simply impossible to have a meaningful conversation.

the scientific idea of falsification is just another arbitrary definition of falsehood similar to the one that you pointed out in math.
I don't see why you are consistently failing to get this point. Falsification has nothing to do with falsehood! Science has nothing to do with the unfalsifiable. What we get here is that mathematical axioms are non-scientific entities. What we do not get is a contest between science and mathematics, because neither can deal with the other. That is why there are no debunking maths posts, and that is why there should be no misguided debunking religion posts.

really? in group theory, one can say 1+1=0 when dealing with the group {0,1}. are you saying group theory is non-useful? hmm... RATHER non-useful, even!
I think you are failing to understand my point, as this is precisely what I meant. The idea of truth in this context is one of tautology - that in the formulation of the definition, we have forced the 1+1=0 statement to be true. In fact, it is probably more sensible to refer to this not as truth, but as consistency - like saying that 2 = 1+1 is consistent with 1+1=2. But what matters is the formulation of the rules itself. Does 1+1 = 0 represent something in nature. To that, if you follow a formalism based philosophy, you can only say that it is indeterminate, and that in exploring maths we dynamically change it to suit our needs.

The situation is wholly different in a platonic view of course. As far as the platonic view is concerned, this whole argument is moot because maths really is something that has tangible effects in the real world. 1+1=0 in some cases is a scientific discovery. Do you understand?

Because it seems you don't.

Let's start off from basics.

False = Is contradicted by reality.
True = Is supported by reality so far.
Indeterminate = Unable to test for support/contradiction by reality. Neither false nor true.
Falsifiable = Can be tested for contradiction by reality.
Consistent = provides a logical framework with other claims.
Tangible = Interacts with what is observable. Can be detected or implicates behaviour that can be measured.

When we talk of true mathematics, we really mean consistent mathematics. A mathematical "proof" consistutes a search for that consistency. In this way, we can make the whole of mathematics one body. We cannot however, unless we adopt the platonic idea of mathematics being tangible in itself.

String(or M) theory is a theory that is consistent as far as we know with past true theories, tangible in what it claims will happen, and is increasingly falsifiable. String (or M) theory is incomplete.

In terms of science, because of the element of falsifiablility, it is impossible to "prove" a theory in an absolute way.

Nereid

Oct3-03, 06:10 PM

Originally posted by phoenixthoth
nothing is verboten; just classifying claims and pointing out that sometimes the evidence is direct and sometimes it's from inference. not making a personal judgement on the superiority of various forms of evidence. to me, intangible claims shouldn't be verboten in science.

i'd have to look at the data and see how the observations justify the statement, "the universe is 11 dimensional." whatever the data is, i have the suspician that it's not going to be actually "seeing" it, but seeing physical consequences of non-physical realities.

cheers,
phoenix Is there something special about '11 dimensions'? (or 'gravitational radiation'?) If you're OK with one, why not the other?

If you get infected with an antibiotic-resistance strain of [pick you favourite nasty], aren't you seeing physical consequences of non-physical realities, evolution in this case?

FZ+

Oct3-03, 07:16 PM

Precisely Neried. It only makes sense to use the idea of tangibility in this way. In the context of claims, there is no way we can observe them directly, rather we observe what is predicted, implicated or influenced by them.

I don't sense you. I detect the photons emitted by you.

phoenixthoth

Oct4-03, 02:13 AM

Originally posted by Nereid
Is there something special about '11 dimensions'? (or 'gravitational radiation'?) If you're OK with one, why not the other?

If you get infected with an antibiotic-resistance strain of [pick you favourite nasty], aren't you seeing physical consequences of non-physical realities, evolution in this case?

when did i ever say i was OK or not OK with either "11 dimensions" or "gravitational radiation?" i'm just saying "11 dimensions" is intangible. by what FZ+ said earlier, this makes it unscientific and indeterminate. while it may be difficult to objectively determine it, i think that one day the axioms of science and mathematics may determine it, but that's not what FZ+ means by "determine," for he says that a statement like, "aleph0 = aleph1," another intangible claim, is indeterminate though it is clearly "determinable" (in fact, false) by axioms.

i don't see how evolution is a non-physical reality. maybe i'm just not up on evolution theory. is it that there is some non-physical influence on dna? since to me, non-physical means intangible, this would provide more evidence that intangible claims are not unscientic but they are still indeterminate (in an absolute sense). but if axioms are accepted, they become determinate (not in an absolute sense).

cheers,
phoenix

phoenixthoth

Oct4-03, 02:20 AM

Originally posted by FZ+
Precisely Neried. It only makes sense to use the idea of tangibility in this way. In the context of claims, there is no way we can observe them directly, rather we observe what is predicted, implicated or influenced by them.

I don't sense you. I detect the photons emitted by you.

it is the sense of sight that allows you to detect photons. you're using the sense to establish detection. therefore, you are sensing the photons which gives indirect evidence (although by no means conclusive) that she exists.

btw, i don't think she emits photons unless she's wearing a shirt with glow in the dark stars on it (or what not). she's probably reflecting photons that are emitted from other sources. if we're going to split hairs over "sense" vs "detect", we might as well split hairs over "emit." the goal of splitting hairs in either case escapes me.

cheers,
phoenix

phoenixthoth

Oct4-03, 03:18 AM

Originally posted by FZ+
But it cannot be objectively true, as you have declared there that this does not represent anything in reality. The meaningful conversation relies on a shared set of definitions (called language) - and speaks nothing of whether the language has a true basis.

i never said it is objectively true. but you can't prove it's objectively false, either, it seems. i think "aleph0 = aleph1" may represent, in some sense, something in reality. aleph0 is the mathematical measurement of the infinity consisting of discrete elements (such as the set of natural numbers) while aleph1 is the mathematical measurement of the infinity consisting of a continuum (such as the set of real numbers). i don't know: is anything in reality continuous? i know time is no longer considered continuous...

Can we just look back over our concept of indeterminancy please? By indeterminancy, this means that I can't prove objectively it to be false - and neither can you prove it to be true. Whether it is true or false is a matter of subjective feeling and opinion.
In fact, you have perfectly captured the failure of most discussions about religion. Faced with this indeterminancy, it is simply impossible to have a meaningful conversation.

so the heisenberg uncertainty principle, and whatever else in science that involves the indeterminate, can not be conversed about in a meaningful way?

btw, lots of people have meaningful conversations about religion. to say it is impossible to have such a discussion flies in the face of emprical data.

I don't see why you are consistently failing to get this point. Falsification has nothing to do with falsehood! Science has nothing to do with the unfalsifiable. What we get here is that mathematical axioms are non-scientific entities. What we do not get is a contest between science and mathematics, because neither can deal with the other. That is why there are no debunking maths posts, and that is why there should be no misguided debunking religion posts.

that's odd. then the name "falsification" is utterly misleading if it has nothing to do with falsehood. it should be called, "supercalifragilisticalization," if has nothing to do with something being true or false.

is it or is it not true that in science, one does the experiment without forming an expectation about the result? in other words, if you look for a certain outcome, then one may be tempted to see patterns that aren't there or fudge the data a little to get the conclusion that is desired? therefore, it should be standard scientific practice to conduct an experiment without having a desire for the outcome. when you title this thread "debunking religion," you have set a desired outcome. or at least, that's how it comes off. a better title would be "investigating religion."

I think you are failing to understand my point, as this is precisely what I meant. The idea of truth in this context is one of tautology - that in the formulation of the definition, we have forced the 1+1=0 statement to be true. In fact, it is probably more sensible to refer to this not as truth, but as consistency - like saying that 2 = 1+1 is consistent with 1+1=2. But what matters is the formulation of the rules itself. Does 1+1 = 0 represent something in nature. To that, if you follow a formalism based philosophy, you can only say that it is indeterminate, and that in exploring maths we dynamically change it to suit our needs.

The situation is wholly different in a platonic view of course. As far as the platonic view is concerned, this whole argument is moot because maths really is something that has tangible effects in the real world. 1+1=0 in some cases is a scientific discovery. Do you understand?

well, if i'm not understanding the statment, "insisting 1+1!= 2 is rather non-useful," i don't see how.

we should probably throw the word "objectively" in front of true or false if that's what we mean. i'm falling into the "trap" of often referring to "true" statements (in math or otherwise) as true, when, in fact, they're not objectively true (or objectively false). well, group theory is based on statements like 1+1=0; don't you think group theory is important in quantum mechanics, string theory, and other fields? to give a concrete example, that is the kind of arithmetic used on clocks. clocks occur in nature.

much of mathematics is not platonic.

Because it seems you don't.

Let's start off from basics.

False = Is contradicted by reality.
True = Is supported by reality so far.
Indeterminate = Unable to test for support/contradiction by reality. Neither false nor true.
Falsifiable = Can be tested for contradiction by reality.
Consistent = provides a logical framework with other claims.
Tangible = Interacts with what is observable. Can be detected or implicates behaviour that can be measured.

When we talk of true mathematics, we really mean consistent mathematics. A mathematical "proof" consistutes a search for that consistency. In this way, we can make the whole of mathematics one body. We cannot however, unless we adopt the platonic idea of mathematics being tangible in itself.

when can anything be contradicted by reality? this would require that we have a way to be objectively SURE that we have any awareness of reality. neo, in the movie "the matrix," had no awareness of reality whatsoever until he took the red pill (or was it the blue pill?). how can you say what reality is if you can't even prove you're not in a matrix in which the rules are subject to change at the whim of the robots who control it?

so far. so things can be true today and not tomorrow? that is not an acceptable definition of truth. i claim that ALL people with pictures of homer's boss as their icon have your beliefs. then, by your definition, this claim is true for it is true so far. to me, one instance hardly proves it's true. i guess we'll have to agree to disagree on what true means. furthermore, the word "supported." what does this mean? the predictions rarely EXACTLY match the observations, correct? there is some tolerance of DIFFERNECE to "reality" that is ACCEPTABLE. but, there is still a difference. technically, by your definition, this wouldn't make the claim true. very, very, very, very, very plausible, perhaps.

well, by your definition, i would argue that "aleph0 = aleph1" is not indeterminate for nothing in reality thus far, as far as we know, is different from itself. i too think it's not indeterminate. however, the claim that there is a cardinal number x such that aleph0 < x < aleph1 has been shown to be indeterminate in the mathematical sense.

by your definition of tangible, God is tangible for it interacts with the whole universe. i agree with the "detected" part but the "implicates behavior" part i don't. the warppage of space-time changes the behavior of light rays but that doesn't mean the warpage is tangible, to me, at least.

don't patronize me. it's not that i don't understand you. it's that i disagree. i'm not chalking up your disagreeance of me as a lack of understanding...

i don't think mathematics is one network of tautolgies. it may consist of several collections of consitencies... but i guess you could call that whole collection one body if you would also call twin brothers one body.

you seem to have contradicted yourself. you said this:
False = Is contradicted by reality.
Falsifiable = Can be tested for contradiction by reality.
but you also said this:
Falsification has nothing to do with falsehood!

well, i see two words starting with contradict and two instances of reality. it seems that they have SOMETHING to do with each other. i retract my "supercalifragilisticalization" comment for they do have something to do with each other.

String(or M) theory is a theory that is consistent as far as we know with past true theories, tangible in what it claims will happen, and is increasingly falsifiable. String (or M) theory is incomplete.

In terms of science, because of the element of falsifiablility, it is impossible to "prove" a theory in an absolute way.

since we have different view on what "tangible" means, we cannot agree on whether "11 dimensions" are tangible. i simply don't see how you could say that they're tangible until we have a new kind of telescope to "see" into them. but i guess that's where we'll have to agree to disagree.

you say it's "increasingly falsifiable," but isn't it really the case that string theory has a long way to go before it will be accepted by the experimentalists (people like feynman, who i know is dead)? i've heard that we won't have the technology to test some major predictions for a LONG time...

"it is impossible to "prove" a theory in an absolute way." that's mainly what i'm trying to argue. that's essentially what i think you think about religion. but when you say that about religion, you say that, "faced with this indeterminancy (where by that i mean an inability to prove it in an absolute way), it is simply impossible to have a meaningful conversation." if that is the case, it shoudl apply to science as well. i think meaningful conversations are to be had in both fields even though no theory in either field will ever be proven "absolutely."

in his [nash's] autobiographical essay, written after he won the nobel, nash writes that “rational thought imposes a limit on a person’s concept of his relation to the cosmos.” he refers to remissions not as joyful returns to a healthy state but as “interludes, as it were, of enforced rationality.”

it is my deep suspician that removing such limitations is exactly what will lead us to be able to prove a theory absolutely.

cheers,
phoenix

Nereid

Oct4-03, 02:48 PM

phoenixthoth: when did i ever say i was OK or not OK with either "11 dimensions" or "gravitational radiation?" i'm just saying "11 dimensions" is intangible. by what FZ+ said earlier, this makes it unscientific and indeterminate. On Sept 30, in a post earlier in this thread: "there is not one shred of physical evidence that there are more than three dimensions."

Perhaps we should start a separate discussion - in Philiosphy? - where we can come to some agreement on the words we use and the way we use them? [?]

Nereid

Oct4-03, 02:55 PM

FZ+, what seems a long time ago now: The only things that are debunkable are claims that enter the grounds of science - materialist claims, that can be tested by experiment and logic. Therefore, the religion related threads that post here can only be ones that refer to tangible claims of prophecy etc, and not intangible claims (such as the existence/goodness of god) or historic stories (eg. Noah's ark.) Perhaps a better pair of criteria might be
-> 'ability to make testable predictions', and
-> 'success of idea/theory in tests'.

Also, since this is PF, some relevance to physics would be welcome.

bettysfetish

Oct4-03, 03:25 PM

[:D] Betty here, I'm new.
I was raised Baptist, went Agnostic, and am currently creationalist. My ties with religion have bound with my scientific knowledge.
Would anyone here perhaps consider that mabey science and religion are seeking the same answers through different "equations", if you will. One may argue that 2+2+2=6 while the other insists that 3+3 is the "Only" correct way to reach the answer. I feel that religion has given me explanations for events from the viewpoint in time now, or as of the writting of the Bible, looking backwards with explanations for everything I now see.
Whereas science has taught me to look for the explanation at "The Beginning" and looking forward through time. Considering the quantum physics at work in "the beginning", I would think that events in the old testiment can be easily explained.
Would anyone consider "That as the universe was entering "false vacume" that the expansion rate exceeded "C?" If you subscribe to that ideology then you would agree that "time&space" were pacticly at a stand still. THIS, for instance, could explain the disagreement between science and religion on how much time elapsed between creation and man.
I hope someone is intriqued here. I'll go on if I'm not totally rejected with this concept. It's all theory anyway till we find a "Quark" or "talk with God."
L8R[8)

Nereid

Oct4-03, 03:54 PM

Hi Betty, welcome. [:)]

Since this thread is entitled "Debunking Religion", I guess FZ+ (the originator) would be OK with me asking you to provide half a dozen, specific, concrete predictions in the realm of physics from your religion. I'm thinking of things like:
- the mass of the Higgs
- the rest mass of at least one of the neutrinos
- the > TeV photon spectrum of GRBs

Some other things that would be nice include:
- the nature of 'dark energy'
- the size/mass distribution of Oort cloud objects

You may, of course, have your own physics favourites.

theEVIL1

Oct4-03, 04:22 PM

Jeus Mary and Joseph. Enuff already!! Is this a physics forum or a META physics forume? As the late CS once said "You cannot logically debate a believer. Their faith is not based on facts, but on a need to believe."

And there you have it....... Douglas rides again.

Can I PLEASE get an "AMEN?"

[g)]

phoenixthoth

Oct4-03, 04:48 PM

Originally posted by Nereid
On Sept 30, in a post earlier in this thread: "there is not one shred of physical evidence that there are more than three dimensions."

Perhaps we should start a separate discussion - in Philiosphy? - where we can come to some agreement on the words we use and the way we use them? [?]

just because there is no physical evidence doesn't make it false. i'm a mathematician, remember. to me, most things are "true" despite lack of physical evidence. i never said i wasn't "OK" with "11 dimensions." again, just trying to say that the claim is intangible. therefore, by FZ+'s argument, that makes it unscientific and inherently indeterminate.

cheers,
phoenix

phoenixthoth

Oct4-03, 04:57 PM

"One may argue that 2+2+2=6 while the other insists that 3+3 is the "Only" correct way to reach the answer."

anyone who says "3+3=6" is a "correct" way to get 6 is mistaken. there is no "correct" way to get 6. certainly, one can't say it's the "only" "correct" way to get 6.

of course, there may be more "elegant" ways of getting 6 or more "brute force" ways of getting 6, but any way to get 6 is just as "correct" as any other way.

there are literally uncountably many ways to get 6. (for definitions of uncountable, aleph0, and aleph1, see http://mathworld.wolfram.com/UncountablyInfinite.html . as you can tell, i've been adopting the continuum hypothesis but not in a way central to my arguments.)

i like your choice of 6 because it's the first perfect number.

cheers,
phoenix

phoenixthoth

Oct4-03, 05:01 PM

Originally posted by Nereid
Hi Betty, welcome. [:)]

Since this thread is entitled "Debunking Religion", I guess FZ+ (the originator) would be OK with me asking you to provide half a dozen, specific, concrete predictions in the realm of physics from your religion. I'm thinking of things like:
- the mass of the Higgs
- the rest mass of at least one of the neutrinos
- the > TeV photon spectrum of GRBs

Some other things that would be nice include:
- the nature of 'dark energy'
- the size/mass distribution of Oort cloud objects

You may, of course, have your own physics favourites.

i'm not bothering to actually check what FZ+ said, but i think he said to talk about RELIGIOUS tangible claims. i doubt any religion is making claims on the above topics.

what are your physics theories and equations regarding the existance or nonexistence of God, Nereid?

cheers,
phoenix

phoenixthoth

Oct4-03, 05:06 PM

Originally posted by theEVIL1
Jeus Mary and Joseph. Enuff already!! Is this a physics forum or a META physics forume? As the late CS once said "You cannot logically debate a believer. Their faith is not based on facts, but on a need to believe."

And there you have it....... Douglas rides again.

Can I PLEASE get an "AMEN?"

[g)]

sometimes for people faith is based on a need to believe. but NOT always. i doubt, for instance, that hawking has a special NEED to believe that there are 11 dimensions. personally, to me this seems like douglas is suggesting that faith is based on some form of psychological inadequacy. for some people, the evidence of God hits them in the face whether they want to believe or not. many of those still don't want to believe. but when confronted with more and more evidence, they see no choice to believe despite the fact that they don't want to believe. it, for them, it certainly not based on a need to believe.

one could just as well say to darwin, before he was done with his research, had a need to believe in evolution. but i doubt that is the case. to suggest it is patronizing.

cheers,
phoenix

Nereid

Oct4-03, 08:57 PM

what are your physics theories and equations regarding the existance or nonexistence of God, Nereid? [;)] [;)] [;)]
Well, I asked Mum and Dad about that - Doris and Nereus to most people - and they said it's nothing to do with them. Mum went and asked Seshat, cause I bugged her to (she's a bit in awe of Thoth, tho' Dad gets on with him just fine), and she agreed, but suggested asking GoG. I'd forgotten about GoG (God of the Gaps), he's so hard to find these days. Me and my sisters call him InShGo - the Incredible Shrinking God - he really has got much smaller in the last couple of thousand years.
[;)] [;)] [;)]

How about we start a separate thread, somewhere in Philosophy?

bettysfetish

Oct4-03, 09:21 PM

[:))] PHEONIXTHOTH, Hi, BETTY HERE. Did you mean you want me to show how the Higg's field can be intertwined with religion?
First off, I am "not" devoutly religious. I am a firm beleiver in the inflationary scinerio as it explains how you get "something from nothing" so to speak. If "God" or whatever you may want to refer to the intity was responsible for "Creation" then exactly how he or it accomplished this feat is not explained to us. Besides, 2000 years ago, who would have been able to grasp the concepts required to understand how it occured.
What got me started here was the thought that perhaps "We all seek the answer to "Where Have I Come From?" and that it may not be necessary for science to debunk religion or viseversa if both could except the fact that each are right.
Beside, language in the bible is symbolic and open for interpretation in several ways. When it says the heavens and earth were created in seven days; In real time, from the viewpoint of the observer, Jesus for example it did take seven days. However from a physics viewpoint the expanding universe was exceeding "C" in it's energy state untill the energy converted to mass as the Higg's Field was shed. During this hyper-expansion, if exceeding "C", time and space would be slowed untill the first four or five "DAYS" if you will (as you can,t have a "day" untill your on a sphere that rotates), would, from the quantum physics viewpoint take about 14.5 to 15 billion years.
I think your way ahead of me in some of your terminologies as you totally lost me with a couple of questions.
You may have to deal with me in simpler terms untill I can catch up with some of you.

phoenixthoth

Oct4-03, 11:45 PM

Originally posted by Nereid
[;)] [;)] [;)]
Well, I asked Mum and Dad about that - Doris and Nereus to most people - and they said it's nothing to do with them. Mum went and asked Seshat, cause I bugged her to (she's a bit in awe of Thoth, tho' Dad gets on with him just fine), and she agreed, but suggested asking GoG. I'd forgotten about GoG (God of the Gaps), he's so hard to find these days. Me and my sisters call him InShGo - the Incredible Shrinking God - he really has got much smaller in the last couple of thousand years.
[;)] [;)] [;)]

How about we start a separate thread, somewhere in Philosophy?

when i asked, "what are your physics theories and equations regarding the existance or nonexistence of God, Nereid," it was mainly a rhetorical technique employed to examine your request earler, which was, "Since this thread is entitled "Debunking Religion", I guess FZ+ (the originator) would be OK with me asking you to provide half a dozen, specific, concrete predictions in the realm of physics from your religion. I'm thinking of things like:
- the mass of the Higgs
- the rest mass of at least one of the neutrinos
- the > TeV photon spectrum of GRBs

Some other things that would be nice include:
- the nature of 'dark energy'
- the size/mass distribution of Oort cloud objects"

what i'm mainly trying to get at is that using religion to answer physics questions is like using science to answer religion questions. they just have two totally different definitions of what constitutes evidence and what constitutes a "proof." this makes using one set of tools on the other difficult if not impossible. the applications of the two endeavours also appear mostly mutually exclusive with one notable exception, perhaps among others, when it comes to explaining the origins of the universe. on that note, i see great compatibility between scientific and certain religious theories on the origins of the universe. to me it seems like one could say that God started it all and science explains the physics, and what not, of the rest.

i don't know if people still think the origin was a singularity or not, but the question remains where did "it," whatever "it" looked like, come from? even if it were proven to come from "nowhere," that doesn't seem to determine the God issue. it's plausible that an omnipotent being is capable of creating something from nothing, but plausibility doesn't constitute scientific proof. the other possibility in my mind, however unlikely, is that "it" has always existed in some form or another; there was no "beginning," only a sequence of slow and subtle or rapid and obvious metamorphases (note, this or isn't xor). this would contradict the bible directly, but it wouldn't contradict, per se, God's eternality. in that sense, even if the universe used to contain nothing (not even time), that, at least to a mathematician, is not to be equated with nonexistence. the "empty set" comes to mind. (then again, within mathematical philosophy, people debate on whether the empty set exists. the odd thing to me is that people base the foundations of number theory on the empty set (it is a modern definition of the number zero) even if they're not sure if it exists.)

perhaps the universe started when the empty set became self aware. it put a box around itself, {0}, and then 1 became {0}. 1 eventually grew into real numbers (the line), which grew into the complex numbers (a plane) and dimensions expanded as awareness grew until there was a sudden leap into the aleph0 dimension. then, it kept going from there. just kidding!

my personal opinion about starting a new thread is that once the original poster helps perpetuate whatever the current topic is, then one is inclined to follow their lead.

cheers,
phoenix

bettysfetish

Oct5-03, 12:17 PM

[6)] Hi, Phoenix.
Hey, You know, I guess your right. It may be like having to do a job with the wrong tools; Trying to answer science questions with religious phylocifies(i know i got that word wrong). But I do think that we can wnswer religious questions with science but these types just won't attribute anything to anything else but "The Hand Of God."
I commend them for their reverent dovotion nonetheless.
I'm not leaning toward religious stuff at this site. I'd like to keep things on a scientific level and if something comes along that may explain a certain event in the Bible then so be it.[t)]
I think events most likely did start with a "Singular Event." Probably a "Quantum Fluctuation." Are you of that belief as it seems?
I have to stop for now, but have much more as I've been taking notes; the old lady is back home and I promised I'd paint the bedroom.
L8R.

phoenixthoth

Oct5-03, 02:40 PM

actually, i'm not sure about that belief (regarding the origins) at all. for one thing, i wasn't there (as far as i remember, but i've been known to have amnesia in the past). another thing is that scientific theories about it seem to hinge on the assumption/theory that current scientific theory is constant throughout time; ie, the "laws" of physics today (within the last, say, 500 years) are what they were, say, 12 billion years ago. for this seems a difficult assertion to prove to me. i guess what i'm wondering is that even if there is a "one-inch equation" that unifies the four forces, would that be the same equation as it might have been 12 billion years ago? is that provable? if they think the universe could suddenly cotacysmically bang for no apparant reason, then why not the equations suddenly "bang" and change for no apparant reason as well? i'm not making a hard and fast claim that the "laws" did change but i'm reserving to right to doubt that they remain constant. by "laws," i'm not just talking about how newton's law of gravity "changed" into GR; by "laws," i mean whatever are the true descriptions of reality. my doubt of constancy is partly influenced by the eastern suspicion that what we think we see isn't necessarily what is really there (one might to go so far as to call what we see an illusion, but i have a slightly more refined version of that that unifies east/west doctrine that i may post in philosophy if i get around to it).

cheers,
phoenix

bettysfetish

Oct5-03, 03:06 PM

[o)] Ahh, no one's been here since I left.
I think "Zero" does have/or "is" a value. Do you agree?
When using "theory" to make conclusions, one must "Exprapolate" ideas and results. See if this is analogious; You want to know how many phone books one bullet will penitrate. You fire at one book(all measurments and volicities recorded) and it passes thru. Thru two books as well. Then three. If the "exiting" volocity of each firing compaired to one another a "decelleration rate" can be compiled, "BUT", your out of books. I think it would be simple to "Extrapolate" the results to detirmine how many more books we need, therefore we should be able to get results without completing the test "just because we can't forsee a roadblock to our experiment." Is "that" too far off the wall?
And many scientific experiments vier off course with exciting results.
I do agree with you that this certainly does not solve the "God" connection. If they don't hear it from him, it's not news.
If "Zero" does indeed have a value, then it seems the vacume of "No Space&Time" was a "Functional System", albeit a negitive one, for lack of a better term. And being a System, and considering the fact that "All Systems "MUST" Evolve To A Lower State Of Energy" then this would imply that "-NOTHING-", in and of itself, is an unstable system; and an unstable system must evolve.
"WHAT" would you guess might happen here? Is this the point where we just wait for a year, or mabey a trillion years, or mabey a billion trillion years for something to happen? Who Knows?? Is this the "Uncertainty Principle?"
All jokes aside,
The "box" analogy you used might be concieved as the Higg's Field; as a form of containment. And the "Leap into Alepho Dimension" sounds to me like a description akin to the point where we "entered" false vacume, which would have preceeded the "Big Bang" by about 10 -45 seconds give or take a few .000000000000000ths..[;)]
someone else must read this too, any ideas?: that extrapolate on knowns results or excepted theories? There are several theories that begin and end with the results we see today.
False Vacume didn't just start on it's own, something lead to the imbalance of matter over anti-matter to "Get The Ball Rolling" so to speak. whos got an idea here? Does any one understand more that I about The "K"(little L)Meson? I know it's decay is not "invairiant", meaning that it does not "Always" decay equally into particle/ anti-particle. It's one of only a couple/few that dont "always" follow C.P.T. predictions. This, it seems, MUST(i think) [?]be what determined whether we were to end up made of matter or anti-matter. Once we entered "false vacume"(if you agree with the theory)then the balance would have to be "set" at that point. After "leaving" false vacume, nothing could change the balance as the nuculi have come together and atoms are beginning to form.[b(]Man-- is that too deep, or do you think I'm off the deep end? [;)]
Well we'll talk later.

bettysfetish

Oct5-03, 03:17 PM

Just saw your post. Sounds like we're still relating.
I certainly don't mean to make an attempt to change any of your ideas and theories any more than I would like it.
I need to go soon but i'd like to mention in ref to "the laws back then." I agree that Measurments(all considered) could be of different values back then. However the laws of nature must be the same universally. This does not mean that all observers may see the same results, only the same laws.
Gotta go, but throw some more thoughts out; later.[;)]

Nereid

Oct5-03, 03:45 PM

phoenixthoth: another thing is that scientific theories about it seem to hinge on the assumption/theory that current scientific theory is constant throughout time; ie, the "laws" of physics today (within the last, say, 500 years) are what they were, say, 12 billion years ago. I promised myself to not post to this thread again, but ...
phoenix, I'm not sure what you intend to say here, but I would simply like to ask you what you think astronomy can say about this, beyond ~500 ly from the solar system? In particular, if I could show you a smooth continuity of phenomena from ~<10 ly out to ~12 billion ly, would that have relevance to your statement above?

(fair warning: if you say "yes", then the effort to solidly demonstrate that 'smooth continuity' will consume several years of your time)

FZ+

Oct5-03, 08:26 PM

i think "aleph0 = aleph1" may represent, in some sense, something in reality.
If it does, then we can discuss it scientifically. If it doesn't there is no point trying to argue if it is true or otherwise to someone who does not hold the same axioms to you.

so the heisenberg uncertainty principle, and whatever else in science that involves the indeterminate, can not be conversed about in a meaningful way?
It gives tangible predictions. The involvement of the indeterminate is utterly irrelevant, but the tangible results are. HUP provides a violation of the bell inequalities. We have found these inequalities, so until further notice HUP is true. And scientific.

that's odd. then the name "falsification" is utterly misleading if it has nothing to do with falsehood.
Yep. It is.

is it or is it not true that in science, one does the experiment without forming an expectation about the result? in other words, if you look for a certain outcome, then one may be tempted to see patterns that aren't there or fudge the data a little to get the conclusion that is desired?
It is not true. A formulation of a hypothesis which is then tested is an essential part of science. Preliminary experiments may help to give you an idea of the hypothesis to form, but testing predictions is essential. To prevent too much subjectivity getting through, we preform falsification - ie. we do the opposite and look for evidence that disproves the hypothesis. And to allow this, and so lend scientific credibility to our theory, we make our the theory as vulnerable as possible, and spread it about for people to attempt to tear it apart.

Science is realistic. No one is ever going to conduct an experiment without a desire for a particular result.

when you title this thread "debunking religion," you have set a desired outcome.
Further, this thread isn't science. This thread is a discussion to set out common boundaries. The title debunking religion shows the subject of discussion. I didn't say that this would be successful. Indeed, my repeated position is that in most cases, any attempt would be futile.

well, if i'm not understanding the statment, "insisting 1+1!= 2 is rather non-useful," i don't see how.
I am talking in two avenues.

One is formalistic - saying that maths is created for our convenience. Hence, 1+1 can equal whatever we like. We say it equals 2 usually because its helpful. And when we want, we can make it equal 0. Or any such stuff. We cannot say either is true, but rather useful in a particular context, and consistent with other matters at hand.

One is platonic. In such a case, the apparent inconsistency of the two equations is due to a lack of clarity in our language - that we mean different 1s and 2s and +s and =s in these cases. Maths is true, and is a science, because the mathematical laws are real laws and we can consider each successful prediction as a triumph of the theory of maths.

how can you say what reality is if you can't even prove you're not in a matrix in which the rules are subject to change at the whim of the robots who control it?
Physically speaking, reality is what we measure. What we can't measure, see etc is not real to us.
Ok, reject physics definition for now. If what we see is not real, then what is? That is what you have captured in your statement. If our existence is a lie, all other things are lies too, for we have no reference to make them real. In fact, we cannot even talk about reality, without experiencing it. Cypher is right - the matrix is more real than the real world.

Ok, suppose you reject both. Then change the phrasing to observation if you really have to.

that is not an acceptable definition of truth.
That's a definition you're gonna have to live with, and have to use if you want to understand what I say, and many people say. Because the alternative is that nothing is true.
You can still change to relatively true, I guess, but to follow such a definition is to make truth itself pretty irelevant.

by your definition of tangible, God is tangible for it interacts with the whole universe.
Reality check. We are talking theories here. God, if one exists, may well be tangible. But beliefs in god as a theory may or may not give tangible implications. What I am saying is that ones that do give tangible predictions are debunkable, and ones that can't aren't. Warping of space gives tangible predictions. If we reject that, then no theory is tangible.

What we touch when we hold an apple is not solid. It is the ghostly prescence of an EM field, which influences various atoms and so on.

don't patronize me. it's not that i don't understand you. it's that i disagree. i'm not chalking up your disagreeance of me as a lack of understanding...
I'm not patronising you but it is clear you don't understand me. If you did, you wouldn't be arguing over the definitions. The definitions are a translation guide so you can see my earlier statement in the light I meant them to say. It doesn't matter whether you agree with them or not, but that you don't continue to misunderstand me. If you reject them, at least the use of them, it is as though you reject the alphabet. Nothing I said before will make sense, and you will quite reasonably persist in disagreeing with what I didn't mean. My position is much closer to yours than you think.

The semantics are choking this conversation. See this example.

Falsifiable = Can be tested for contradiction by reality.
but you also said this:
Falsification has nothing to do with falsehood!
Is it not clear what I meant here?

Falsifiable refers to the testibility of a theory. It doesn't say anything about the results of the test. Falsification is the act of the test. It does not say if the test is successful or not. Falsification is nothing to do with falsehood, because the falsifiability of a theory says nothing about whether it is false or not.

The flat earth theory is a falsifiable one. So is relativity.

Another example.
since we have different view on what "tangible" means, we cannot agree on whether "11 dimensions" are tangible.
It does not matter whether you agree or not. This is an example of an application of the definitions, to show how it comes up with useful conclusions.

but when you say that about religion, you say that, "faced with this indeterminancy (where by that i mean an inability to prove it in an absolute way), it is simply impossible to have a meaningful conversation." if that is the case, it shoudl apply to science as well.
I would invite you to look through the archives of the religion forum to see what I meant. Science incorporates evidence - that is essential. If you say a religion makes a tangible claim, then viola, that religion is science. Not neccessarily true science, but science. And that is that.

In that case, I use abolute when I meant objective.

it is my deep suspician that removing such limitations is exactly what will lead us to be able to prove a theory absolutely.
And that will be the biggest disaster ever to befall mankind.

Perhaps a better pair of criteria might be
-> 'ability to make testable predictions', and
-> 'success of idea/theory in tests'.

The first is essential what I said. The second is irrelevant, as we are talking about debunkibility, not actual truthfulness.

bettysfetish

Oct5-03, 08:47 PM

[8)]FZ+ - - Holy Cow! How many times did you put "that" through the schreder?? I enjoyed the read.
You phrase yourself well in my opinion.
KUDOS.
L8R

phoenixthoth

Oct5-03, 09:17 PM

Originally posted by Nereid
I promised myself to not post to this thread again, but ...
phoenix, I'm not sure what you intend to say here, but I would simply like to ask you what you think astronomy can say about this, beyond ~500 ly from the solar system? In particular, if I could show you a smooth continuity of phenomena from ~<10 ly out to ~12 billion ly, would that have relevance to your statement above?

(fair warning: if you say "yes", then the effort to solidly demonstrate that 'smooth continuity' will consume several years of your time)

i understand what you're getting at. just to start off, approximately how many astrological phenomena have been observed in the 10 to 15 billion ly range?

phoenixthoth

Oct5-03, 10:09 PM

If it does, then we can discuss it scientifically. If it doesn't there is no point trying to argue if it is true or otherwise to someone who does not hold the same axioms to you.

again, we have to be careful about what we mean by "true." you contend that truth means "is supported by reality so far." i completely reject this notion of truth entirely. if you drop "so far," i'd be more inclined to accept it. wouldn't you agree that so far, from what we observe in reality, that nothing is the same as anything greater than itself (using any reasonable definition of "greater" that you like)? if so, then aleph0 != aleph1 is a true statement (ie aleph0 = aleph1 is a false statement), using your definition of "true."

the reason why "so far" is inadequate is clear. consider the following claim:
all people who physically attack me will be and have been of african american descent.

this has been the case so far.

by your definition of truth, the claim is, therefore, true.

to me, the truth of the claim won't be revealed until i'm dead, at which point one can observe if all attacks were by african americans.

It gives tangible predictions. The involvement of the indeterminate is utterly irrelevant, but the tangible results are. HUP provides a violation of the bell inequalities. We have found these inequalities, so until further notice HUP is true. And scientific.

in my way of thinking, the HUP proves indeterminacy in certain circumstances.

I am talking in two avenues.

One is formalistic - saying that maths is created for our convenience. Hence, 1+1 can equal whatever we like. We say it equals 2 usually because its helpful. And when we want, we can make it equal 0. Or any such stuff. We cannot say either is true, but rather useful in a particular context, and consistent with other matters at hand.

One is platonic. In such a case, the apparent inconsistency of the two equations is due to a lack of clarity in our language - that we mean different 1s and 2s and +s and =s in these cases. Maths is true, and is a science, because the mathematical laws are real laws and we can consider each successful prediction as a triumph of the theory of maths.

that's fine but notice that "real" includes things that are intangible such as the law aleph0 < aleph1.

Physically speaking, reality is what we measure. What we can't measure, see etc is not real to us.
Ok, reject physics definition for now. If what we see is not real, then what is? That is what you have captured in your statement. If our existence is a lie, all other things are lies too, for we have no reference to make them real. In fact, we cannot even talk about reality, without experiencing it. Cypher is right - the matrix is more real than the real world.

so, then, is love unreal? you can measure changes in the body, try to measure changes in personality, but is that what love is? is intelligence unreal? is the width of an electron measurable? i can very well whip out a ruler and measure my "imaginary" friends; does that make them real to you?

you'll probably remind me that you started that by saying, "physically speaking." well, the reality i refer to is not bound to the physical.

"if what we see is not real, than what is?" well, the holograms we see are only a part of reality. the rest of reality consists of an entirely nonphysical counterpart i call the "concept" of the hologram. the reality of a coffee cup is the totality of the physical coffee cup plus coffee cupness. by definition, the real world is real. therefore, nothing can be more real than that. AS real, yes. i'm not saying the holograms don't exist or that they aren't real. but they're hollower than the complete picture. this is analogous to the reality of a law being comprised of both its "letter" and its "spirit".

That's a definition you're gonna have to live with, and have to use if you want to understand what I say, and many people say. Because the alternative is that nothing is true.
You can still change to relatively true, I guess, but to follow such a definition is to make truth itself pretty irelevant.

i can very well live with it and reject it. i don't think that is the alternative. it's just may be that nothing is provably true. that doesn't make the concept of truth irrelevant to me.

Reality check. We are talking theories here. God, if one exists, may well be tangible. But beliefs in god as a theory may or may not give tangible implications. What I am saying is that ones that do give tangible predictions are debunkable, and ones that can't aren't. Warping of space gives tangible predictions. If we reject that, then no theory is tangible.

well, when we say space-time warpage has tangible effects on the universe, we're also talking about theories, aren't we? the existence of God theory has tangible implications. a notable claim is that God created the universe, which is a pretty substantial tangible effect on things.

a question about falsifiability. you say "can be tested..." how can you PROVE when something can or cannot be tested. isn't it always possible that it's just that we can't think of a test or that we don't have to tools to test? or is there a way to prove that no one will ever come up with a way to test it?

It does not matter whether you agree or not. This is an example of an application of the definitions, to show how it comes up with useful conclusions.

it matters if i disagree with your definitions.

I would invite you to look through the archives of the religion forum to see what I meant. Science incorporates evidence - that is essential. If you say a religion makes a tangible claim, then viola, that religion is science. Not neccessarily true science, but science. And that is that.

what makes a science true?

And that will be the biggest disaster ever to befall mankind.

there were certain quantities that were thought to contradict rational thought so much they were even given the name "irrational numbers." what actually happens is that rational thought induces a state where you're convinced something is impossible for there is no "rational" reason YOU CAN SEE why it is possible. do you think creativity is a rational process? is genius a rational process? are applying tools of creativity and genius big disasters?

The first is essential what I said. The second is irrelevant, as we are talking about debunkibility, not actual truthfulness.

well, if we're not discussing the truthfulness of religion, what's the point in debunking it?

cheers,
phoenix

phoenixthoth

Oct6-03, 08:19 AM

Originally posted by bettysfetish
[o)] See if this is analogious; You want to know how many phone books one bullet will penitrate. You fire at one book(all measurments and volicities recorded) and it passes thru. Thru two books as well. Then three. If the "exiting" volocity of each firing compaired to one another a "decelleration rate" can be compiled, "BUT", your out of books. I think it would be simple to "Extrapolate" the results to detirmine how many more books we need, therefore we should be able to get results without completing the test "just because we can't forsee a roadblock to our experiment." Is "that" too far off the wall?

this isn't quite going to make sense at first (perhaps):

i can see how extrapolation to a few more books is less risky than extrapolation to a few billion books.

in other words, extrapolating well beyond available data is often risky. sometimes extrapolating even slightly beyond available data is risky. either way, extrapolation isn't absolute truth for sure.

cheers,
phoenix

bettysfetish

Oct6-03, 04:10 PM

Betty's back.
Well Phoenix, I'm not sure where to go with that.
A large percent, it seems, of the answers I seek can only be answered through theory and practice.
Perhaps I'll start a thread on "Creational Theory" as "most" of my questions lean towards scientific explanations up to the point of "Leaving False Vacume." This was started as "debunking religion" and I don't see much "scientificly" that relates to the bible untill the "Big Bang"(i hate that term) which Most would assume to be "The Moment Of Creation."
The most exciting point during creation might have been the few milliseconds leading up to false vacume.
I looked through my books seeking a quote that might justifie best some good reasons why theory, conjecture, and exprapolation of exsisting knowledge is necessary for science to proceed. However I could not find a thing that concurred "it's not important."
I'll look for you as well as others on a new thread. I'll use the caption above. I'll drift back here, mabey, if the creational theory thread makes it to the "Bang."[6)]

Nereid

Oct6-03, 04:24 PM

Originally posted by phoenixthoth
i understand what you're getting at. just to start off, approximately how many astrological phenomena have been observed in the 10 to 15 billion ly range? None. But if you meant 'astronomical' phenomena, please take a look at the thread I'm going to start in General Astronomy.

phoenixthoth

Oct6-03, 04:46 PM

oops! yeah, i meant astronomical. i wonder what that freudian slip means...

Nereid

Oct6-03, 06:09 PM

phoenixthoth: approximately how many astronomical phenomena have been observed in the 10 to 15 billion ly range? A:
1) quasars with z > ~3
2) galaxies with z > ~3
3) the CMB (cosmic microwave background).

[edit: the relationship between z and distance is somewhat model dependent. Differences of ~10% (OOM).]

From the first year's WMAP results, the age of the universe is inferred to be 13.8 billion years. Here's a selection of papers:
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_mm/pub_papers/firstyear.html

Of course, the quasar we see at z = 6 (not the most distant seen) is 'no longer' ~13 billion ly out; the universe has expanded some since the light from it that we now see started its journey.

phoenixthoth

Oct6-03, 06:51 PM

what's z?

Loren Booda

Oct6-03, 09:46 PM

Redshift. z=[del][lamb]/[lamb] , where [del][lamb]=[lamb]'-[lamb] is the change in wavelength (due to cosmological expansion) of a light ray from a distant source, [lamb] is its emitted wavelength, and [lamb]' is its detected wavelength. In linear (Doppler) approximation, z=v/c, where v is the recessional velocity of the source and c the speed of light.

FZ+

Oct7-03, 06:06 PM

i completely reject this notion of truth entirely.
I don't care.
i can very well live with it and reject it.
I don't give a damn.

it matters if i disagree with your definitions.
No it does not.

Consider what I am saying to be a foreign language. The list of definitions I gave you is a dictionary to that language. You may disagree that "je" means I, or "aimer" means to like, but can you for a moment just look past that and read what I posted for what I meant?

I don't care what you think the definitions are. At this moment, I am precisely focused on one thing - getting it across to you the real meaning of what I have posted. You have, by rejecting my definitions effectively read out a French sentence as though it was written in British. I cannot simply be bother arguing any more which is the better language, or whatever.

What matters is that you are treating what I wrote as saying something it is not, because you have failed to match up the correct vocabulary to the argument.

Don't you see what you are doing is generating a strawman fallacy? I agree almost precisely with the content of your response to my "absolute proof" thing, but if I took it at face value and applied my sense of what rational means, it is complete and unadulterated BS. You are disagreeing with a target that does not exist.

Look, it would be easier if you simply posted what you think I mean, and then I'll point out the fallacies.

phoenixthoth

Oct7-03, 08:48 PM

Consider what I am saying to be a foreign language. The list of definitions I gave you is a dictionary to that language. You may disagree that "je" means I, or "aimer" means to like, but can you for a moment just look past that and read what I posted for what I meant?

using your definitions, what you have written is internally consistent. likewise, by a mathematican's definition of truth, it is false that aleph0 = aleph1. this is also false by the scientific definition of truth because nothing in reality so far is the same as something greater than itself. (perhaps when all fields decide that something is false, that provides evidence that it is absolutely false...) you said that intangible claims are inherintly indeterminate. i still say that "aleph0 = aleph1" is a determinate intangible claim and i've even shown this to be the case using the scientific definition of truth. i would agree that SOME intangible claims are indeterminate, but not all. this leads one to question whether or not the "intangible" God existence claim is as indeterminate as you think it is, for no longer are all intangible claims indeterminate.

I don't care what you think the definitions are. At this moment, I am precisely focused on one thing - getting it across to you the real meaning of what I have posted. You have, by rejecting my definitions effectively read out a French sentence as though it was written in British. I cannot simply be bother arguing any more which is the better language, or whatever.

What matters is that you are treating what I wrote as saying something it is not, because you have failed to match up the correct vocabulary to the argument.

i don't think the scientific definition of truth is something it is not. i'm saying that is not the definition of truth. i think it does matter which is the better language. and the scientific definition of truth is clearly inferior; i indicated this by my african american claim which would be "true" by the scientific definition of truth.

how am i treating what you are writing as something it is not?

Don't you see what you are doing is generating a strawman fallacy? I agree almost precisely with the content of your response to my "absolute proof" thing, but if I took it at face value and applied my sense of what rational means, it is complete and unadulterated BS. You are disagreeing with a target that does not exist.

Look, it would be easier if you simply posted what you think I mean, and then I'll point out the fallacies.

in a strawman fallacy, the argument in question is changed to a weaker version of that argument; then the weaker version is attacked. when did i do this? in other words, when did i change your argument into a weaker version of that argument?

here's what i think you mean. nothing can be proven absolutely. that includes scientific claims, mathematical claims, and religious claims. some intangible claims are determinate and some are not. for example of the former, consider the warpage of space-time. i contend that while the effects of space-time warpage are tangible, the space-time warpage itself is not tangible. for an example of the latter, consider the God question. you consider that an intangible claim even though one of the sub-claims is that God had a tangible effect on the universe in that God created the universe. to me,
space-time warpage : effects on the universe :: God : effects on the universe. in other words, space-time warpage and God are equally tangible/intangible yet, to you, the space-time warpage claim is determinate while the God claim is not. i agree that the latter may not be determined by the scientific method but that doesn't neccessarily imply it cannot be determined period. the opening few lines of this paragraph put the three fields on equal footing, yet you consider discussion in the third field (and i'm not quoting) a waste of time. this seems as unfortunate as someone working in the third field calling the discussion of science a waste of time. i'm not arguing the utility of science but you seem to argue the utility of religion.

nash said something to this effect. rationality places limitations on one's feeling of connection to the cosmos. then i said that once we remove those limitations, the hunch is that we will be able to know the truth of certain things absolutely though proving it to someone else using axiomatic schemes and limiting definitions is probably impossible. your response was something to the effect of that being the biggest mistake of mankind. my reply intended to imply that creativity and genius are not rational processes; those are two tools in which the aforemention limitations stemming from rationality are removed. then i asked how use of those two non-rational tools would be a mistake at all, much less the biggest mistake of mankind. you never answered this. the best possible counter argument i can think of you proposing stems from the computational theory of mind which states that all mental functions are computational in nature, albeit their rationale is not understood. but i haven't gotten to the point in "how the mind works," by a so called leading computational mind theorist, where creativity and genius are discussed. i'm quite interested to see what his evidence is that creativity and genius are rational/computational in nature. this claim i am highly skeptical of.

cheers,
phoenix

FZ+

Oct9-03, 06:22 PM

i still say that "aleph0 = aleph1" is a determinate intangible claim and i've even shown this to be the case using the scientific definition of truth.
Hence, you are talking the platonic idea of maths. In which case, yes, maths in science. It can be tested that 1+1 =2, and it can be tested by observation that the law of maths that alephfoo refers to is correct.

God is only determinate if it is tangible - if it is testable in the same way you would test alephfoo. This is a matter by definition. I did not say whether or not God had to be tangible.

i'm saying that is not the definition of truth.
And I am saying that is, in the posts I have written. You have instead surplanted your definition of truth into what I have written, I created absurd results. Of course you will.

When I am talking about truth here, that is all I mean. It may not correspond to what you consider as truth, but that is what I mean. Geddit?

how am i treating what you are writing as something it is not?
Let us take an example.

"i'm just saying "11 dimensions" is intangible. by what FZ+ said earlier, this makes it unscientific and indeterminate."
This is precisely what I did not say. I used a definition of intangible which covered the indirect effects, and that is all I mean here. However, in these arguments, you present the misleading picture that I consider something determinate if it is physically existent, and then proceeded to argue over several posts with me with the idea that you know my opinion better than I do.

"some intangible claims are determinate and some are not. for example of the former, consider the warpage of space-time. i contend that while the effects of space-time warpage are tangible, the space-time warpage itself is not tangible."
Here you have blurred my contention with my argument.

Let's try and simplify this part of the argument once and for all. I have chosen the definition of tangible/intangible to differentiate against something that gives observable effects and predictions, and something that by definition cannot. For example, the claim that God buried a gold casket filled with antimatter under London Station is clearly gibberish, but it is tangible. Meanwhile, the contention that an absolutely undetectable substance exists in the universe is intangible, because as a matter of nature it can never be observed. The idea that an inverse square relation exists for gravity is tangible, since we can measure the strength of the magnetic field, and pink fairies are also tangible. The claim that God created the universe to look exactly like it would if God did not exist is intangible. The claim that God left some sort of signature to show that God did create the universe is tangible.

In short, I am sequestering the world tangible to refer to not just entities but ideas. I am not using the word to distinguish between abstract and concrete, as you show that you think I am.

I am not saying anything about religion. I am not even attacking religion. Look at the title of the thread: "Debunking Religion". I am more or less targetting atheists here, questioning if Religion can continue to be attacked, as per the scientific method - since by the scientific method, the only way to determine truth is by attacking something. The point about the immunity of religion is that if no "tangible claims" are made, then no real "tangible attacks" can be made either. In which case, the threads boil down to either checking for consistency, or just emotional garbage on both sides.

then i said that once we remove those limitations, the hunch is that we will be able to know the truth of certain things absolutely though proving it to someone else using axiomatic schemes and limiting definitions is probably impossible. your response was something to the effect of that being the biggest mistake of mankind.
Now understand the context of that. The context is in point number one - we can never know everything. By Godel's theorem, nothing we can know can possibly be complete, and things that we must definitely think are true have often turned out not to be. By inference, I am saying that it is impossible to know anything as absolutely true, because the human mind is absolutely flawed. All we will end up would be an illusion of absolute truth, and a stagnating wall to progress. The process of knowledge relies on us asking questions, and someone taking anything as absolutely true is a fool.

rationality places limitations on one's feeling of connection to the cosmos.
What I then realised was that (presumeably) you were considering my conception of rationality at all. Rather, your example (irrational numbers) showed that you were in fact talking about things like common sense, which I consider as the delusion of absolute truth. What I considered as rational was to see things - old things, new things, old ideas, new ideas with skepticism, and continuously test them. That is often the stimulus for genius, and what differentiates genius from plain madness.

In effect, my definition of rational was the opposite of your definition of rational. The fanatic (who does not look without, but fools himself in self-righteousness) is the most irrational by my book, and the most rational in yours. Do you see?

phoenixthoth

Oct9-03, 09:17 PM

Hence, you are talking the platonic idea of maths. In which case, yes, maths in science. It can be tested that 1+1 =2, and it can be tested by observation that the law of maths that alephfoo refers to is correct.
is "aleph0 = aleph1" a tangible or intangible claim?
just to be crystal clear, what's your definition of a tangible claim? oh wait... i think you mention this later in the post...

And I am saying that is, in the posts I have written. You have instead surplanted your definition of truth into what I have written, I created absurd results. Of course you will.

When I am talking about truth here, that is all I mean. It may not correspond to what you consider as truth, but that is what I mean. Geddit?

did you mean "i created absurd results" or "you created absurd results"? by your definition of truth, the claim "all people who will or ever have attacked me are african americans" is true because it is an observation consistent with reality so far. i'm not surplanting my definition of truth here; this is your definition. and yes, the result is absurd. do you see? do you get it? do you understand what i'm saying?

Let us take an example.

"i'm just saying "11 dimensions" is intangible. by what FZ+ said earlier, this makes it unscientific and indeterminate."
This is precisely what I did not say. I used a definition of intangible which covered the indirect effects, and that is all I mean here. However, in these arguments, you present the misleading picture that I consider something determinate if it is physically existent, and then proceeded to argue over several posts with me with the idea that you know my opinion better than I do.

"some intangible claims are determinate and some are not. for example of the former, consider the warpage of space-time. i contend that while the effects of space-time warpage are tangible, the space-time warpage itself is not tangible."
Here you have blurred my contention with my argument.

this is when i wasn't aware of what you meant by intangible. i was using a common sense definition of intangible at the time, not unlike how the scientific definition of truth isn't common sense. there's nothing wrong with redefining truth or contradicting common sense as long as the theory is internally consistent.

Let's try and simplify this part of the argument once and for all. I have chosen the definition of tangible/intangible to differentiate against something that gives observable effects and predictions, and something that by definition cannot. For example, the claim that God buried a gold casket filled with antimatter under London Station is clearly gibberish, but it is tangible. Meanwhile, the contention that an absolutely undetectable substance exists in the universe is intangible, because as a matter of nature it can never be observed. The idea that an inverse square relation exists for gravity is tangible, since we can measure the strength of the magnetic field, and pink fairies are also tangible. The claim that God created the universe to look exactly like it would if God did not exist is intangible. The claim that God left some sort of signature to show that God did create the universe is tangible.

In short, I am sequestering the world tangible to refer to not just entities but ideas. I am not using the word to distinguish between abstract and concrete, as you show that you think I am.

i agree that in your definitions of intangible and determinable, it is indeterminate whether a by definition undetectible substance exists. the thing is that i'm not saying God's presence is undetectable (some people think it is). the human consciousness is able to detect it while, as far as i know, no instrument or device can. the claim that God left some sort of signature to show that God did create the universe is tangible and, furthermore, the signature is "readable" via the human consciousness and perhaps by other methods. get it? do you see? do you understand what i'm saying?

Now understand the context of that. The context is in point number one - we can never know everything. By Godel's theorem, nothing we can know can possibly be complete, and things that we must definitely think are true have often turned out not to be. By inference, I am saying that it is impossible to know anything as absolutely true, because the human mind is absolutely flawed. All we will end up would be an illusion of absolute truth, and a stagnating wall to progress. The process of knowledge relies on us asking questions, and someone taking anything as absolutely true is a fool.

Godel's theorem refers to mathematics and mathematical axioms, which are not the same as what we know. incompleteness is that there are theorems which cannot be proven with axioms and deduction to be either "true" or "false" (in the mathematical sense). how does that suggest that it is impossible to know something that is "true?" to me, it just suggests that it is impossible to prove it. you said "someone taking anything as absolutely true is a fool." an interesting conclusion can be drawn from this. when God knows something is true, it knows that it is absolutely true (being omniscient). therefore, God is a fool. interesting... if foolness is some kind of ordered relation, that suggests that eveyone is a fool; so singling anyone out and calling them a fool is pointless for everyone is a fool by that rationale.

if there is a God, it would have the power to grant a human access to absolute truth.

john nash used to write cryptic notes on blackboards around campus. once i wrote on a blackboard, "NOTHING is the key to the universe. a FOOL sees NOTHING."

What I then realised was that (presumeably) you were considering my conception of rationality at all. Rather, your example (irrational numbers) showed that you were in fact talking about things like common sense, which I consider as the delusion of absolute truth. What I considered as rational was to see things - old things, new things, old ideas, new ideas with skepticism, and continuously test them. That is often the stimulus for genius, and what differentiates genius from plain madness.

In effect, my definition of rational was the opposite of your definition of rational. The fanatic (who does not look without, but fools himself in self-righteousness) is the most irrational by my book, and the most rational in yours. Do you see?

a set of ideas you don't seem to be skeptical about are your definitions of truth, falsifibility, tangibility, provability, etc. an interesting self-contradiction. or perhaps you are skeptical about those ideas but just aren't public about the skepticism. if you're not skeptical about your own notions of truth (etc), then, by your definition, you are irrational. you sound pretty self-righteous about your notions. do you see?

cheers,
phoenix

Ivan Seeking

Oct11-03, 12:45 AM

A site I happened upon:

http://condor.stcloudstate.edu/%7Elesikar/einstein/

phoenixthoth

Oct11-03, 01:45 AM

thanks. i'm posting that on my forum...

FZ+

Oct11-03, 06:44 PM

by your definition of truth, the claim "all people who will or ever have attacked me are african americans" is true because it is an observation consistent with reality so far. i'm not surplanting my definition of truth here; this is your definition. and yes, the result is absurd.
Actually, that isn't absurd. You might for instance never get attacked, which would validate this perfectly. And it gives predictions. All well and good.
Just observe that what is true today will not always be true. You have surplanted your definition of true here when you say it is absurd. In the same way, a claim can be true within a specified surrounding in evidence. Eg. If I was blind, I can say it is true to me that light does not exist. But, you, with the benefit of more evidence - like vision - can note otherwise. So my claim is true only to a certain extent, at least until the additional evidence is communicated to him.

I was nudging more towards your statements that relativity is not scientific.

Do you touch?

this is when i wasn't aware of what you meant by intangible.
This was also before you disputed that you didn't understand what I am saying, and that you disagreed with my definitions.

the claim that God left some sort of signature to show that God did create the universe is tangible and, furthermore, the signature is "readable" via the human consciousness and perhaps by other methods.
Exactly. The moment we establish the significance of consciousness as an instrument rather than a processing centre, and rule out the huge variety of rival consciousness "measurements" that say the complete opposite, and look at the evidence from the full overview.

Do you hear?

Godel's theorem refers to mathematics and mathematical axioms, which are not the same as what we know.
No, godel's theorem refer's to all formal systems of logic, including itself.

how does that suggest that it is impossible to know something that is "true?" to me
That doesn't say that at all. It says it is impossible for you to know something that is true to me, and everyone else, in an absolute fashion.

when God knows something is true, it knows that it is absolutely true (being omniscient). therefore, God is a fool.
How can God know that he knows everything? That's part of the illogic of omnisicience. Also one of the reasons that most theologies that involve omniscience choose to say that God decides not to use it. (Other arguments involve preservation of free will etc etc.)

if foolness is some kind of ordered relation, that suggests that eveyone is a fool;
No, everyone who believes that they know everything is a fool.

if there is a God, it would have the power to grant a human access to absolute truth.
Even omniscience cannot transcend logic. If it could, there is no way we can talk about it reasonably.

Do you taste?

once i wrote on a blackboard, "NOTHING is the key to the universe. a FOOL sees NOTHING."
And this proves your sanity, how? [;)]

an interesting self-contradiction. or perhaps you are skeptical about those ideas but just aren't public about the skepticism. if you're not skeptical about your own notions of truth (etc), then, by your
That is correct. I am irrational.

Definitions, by my definition ([:)]) must be irrational. Because they only serve as labels for the chaos within. A think of something, and I throw a name at it - skepticism, truth, tangibility. However I try to formalise it, there is no way I can eliminate the inductive step, the sudden jump. I did not intend my thought processes to be "true", and I do not believe that there is a true instance of "correct", only conveniences that are agreed on - or at least understood, and that may be more useful in certain contexts.
Self-righteous? There is no right for me.

If someone says they are purely rational, they are either dead, or lying. We can always try to minimise our irrationality.
Look at my title, just above my avatar to the left of my post. What does it say?

We are all mad, but in different ways.

Do you smell?[:D]

The way I see it, there are two things that are attackable about my statements.

1. My claim that debates about claims that do not hold "tangibility" cannot acheive a conclusive (and so, useful) result short of finding inconsistencies. To disprove this, find a counterexample.

2. My claim that religions are not inherently unarguable.