Can Everything be Reduced to Pure Physics?

[UltraPi1]

Just saying it so doesn't make it so.

I can equally say this if someone says that reality is physical.

Nobody can even get close to discussing that proposition seriously because you can't offer evidence, it cannot be tested, it cannot be falsified.

The evidence is everywhere apparent. If all of reality is conceptual - How can you miss it?

What evidence is there for physical reality that can't also be explained by conceptual means?

 

[Nereid]

My first point states that points that have no matter or energy in them are outside our universe.

What leads you to think such points have any existence (outside your - or my - imagination)?

You must have misread my postulates. I stated that if something is physical, it is in the universe. I also stated that if something is outside our universe, then, well, it is outside our universe. Doesn't that make sense? I also defined what "physical" is: a space filled with matter and/or energy, although "physical" does not adequately describe the latter.

So how can we tell if 'something' is 'a space'? whether it is 'filled with matter and/or energy"? Surely all three terms are 'just' convenient shorthands within certain models of reality constructed by a minor carbon-based lifeform which has been living on a minor planet for a trivially short period of time?

If the big bang theory is true, then the universe once did not exist.

If the universe once did not exist, the big bang would have needed to have taken place outside our universe.

Perhaps you could take another look at the Big Bang theory? The common words in English (and no doubt other languages) - 'once', 'exist', 'take place', 'outside' - may be leading you to make statements that are somewhat at odds with the theory.

Most of the confusion stemming from my points is that it seems nobody thinks that there are any implications resulting from a space outside our universe becoming a space within our universe. If our universe is expanding, volume outside our universe must inevitably be "consolidated."

I'd rather put it that these ideas are a) not at all self-evident, b) inconsistent with GR, and c) insufficient to constitute an alternative cosmological theory (to one built from GR).

So most people think that there is no transition fron non-Newtonian to Newtonian?

What does this mean?

 

[Canute]

By Seafang: There is nothing (physical) outside the universe; never has been; never will be. If 'something' (physical) existed outside the universe we would know about it, otherwise it would not exist; and if we know about it it is a part of the universe; contradicting the postulate that it was outside the universe.

Les's reply: You've surpassed yourself! Talk about nonsense! You have no knowledge of what we don't know, and you have no knowledge of what's outside or was before the universe, or even all that is inside the universe

Les - are you sure about your reply here? I see why you said what you did, but what Seafang says is what Buddhists and Taoists say, what I believe, and what I thought you believed also. Perhaps I've misunderstood your position. Do you not agree that what is outside the world of appearances neither exists nor not-exists?

 

[Les Sleeth]

Les - are you sure about your reply here? I see why you said what you did, but what Seafang says is what Buddhists and Taoists say, what I believe, and what I thought you believed also. Perhaps I've misunderstood your position. Do you not agree that what is outside the world of appearances neither exists nor not-exists?

My objection is to stating something is true when there is no possible way to know, and to also claim that if something exists we would know it. In terms of being something outside the universe which is physical, there could be, for instance, another physical universe a zillion miles from ours. What prohibits that? And if there is, whether we observe it or not has no bearing on if it exists -- that in particular is hugely nonsensical (i.e., to insist if something exists we would know it).

Regarding the Buddhist concept of appearances, that again is an entirely different subject, in my opinion. I don't think it has anything to do with what actually exists or doesn't outside oneself. It has to do with how consciousness relates to what's outside oneself in the practices involved in working toward enlightenment.

Once I got involved in a debate with some meditators about the Indian concept of Maya. They claimed it meant the world of appearances is an illusion. I said no, the world of appearances are real; the illusion is how consciousness views the world of appearances.

Part of the concept derives from the inner understanding that the world of appearances are temporary, and in the case of social appearances, often arbitrary since they are created by humans. But a person being taught the methods of enlightenment is being directed toward what is permanent, lasting. My point to my friends was, it isn’t that external reality isn’t there, its that relating to it as though it is the most important thing that’s the illusion. It is thinking lasting happiness can be found there, and not realizing attachment to the ups and downs of appearances creates that desire which leads to suffering.

In terms of the conscious practice, it is a way of saying don’t get caught up in appearances, either believing in them or disbelieving in them. The entire issue is irrelevant to what the person learning to turn inward needs, and so can be nothing but an distraction. But that practice is entirely different from the world of appearances actually exist.

Quoting the Buddha himself, “Material shape and the other [externals] are impermanent; what is impermanent is suffering . . .” The Buddha taught followers to understand that, “This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self, so that when the material shape and so on change and become otherwise, there arise not for him grief, sorrow, suffering, lamentation and despair.” In contrast to that Buddha prescribed something which will not leave us at the mercy of change by saying, “There is, monks, that plane where there is neither extension nor motion. . . there is no coming or going or remaining or deceasing or uprising. . . . There is, monks, an unborn, not become, not made, uncompounded . . . [and] because [that exists] . . . an escape can be shown for what is born, has become, is made, is compounded.”

I’m sure you are familiar with Kabir. Something he said that I like is, “I always laugh when I think of fish in the ocean getting thirsty.” Another very old Indian allegory is that of the musk deer searching everywhere for the source of its own scent. To me that describes how we search through the clutter of creation for the contentment we carry around inside us all the time, and what the teaching about appearances mostly concerns.

 

[Philocrat]

Well, that's a comment I've not heard in a long while! Thank you very much.
Perhaps one might propose a new name for "the hard science study of fundamentals" since, as I said, "the current state of physics has become rather senile in many respects". I would call the field "metaphysics" except for the fact that metaphysics has already established itself as a "soft science". How about "HARD" metaphysics?
I have spent today reading the entire thread (Oh, I have just perused a great number of posts). Les seems to be a rational person but I like things more exactly defined then he requires. For example:
I define an explanation to be a description of the procedure for obtaining expectations of unknown information from given known information. A good explanation is one where the expectations are consistent with observations (and "observations" are additions to that "known information"). Anyone, let me know if you find fault with that definition!
I agree 100% and wish I could find one. I have never met such a person in my life; at least not one with an education. Education tends to stifle such proclivities. I also suspect Les would baulk at living up to it.

On the "hard problem of consciousness", I think we need an exact definition of what one means by "consciousness". I have my idea but I suspect most here would baulk at using it. (I have not examined hypnogogue's refrence!)
Before one can wonder seriously, one needs to know exactly what you are talking about: define "consciousness".
And I wouldn't expect you be interested if I could not do what I say.
That's what I offered to do isn't it? However, the proof is not trivial and it requires some serious thought. Are you really ready?
Well now, I certainly am confident that I can demonstrate a "valid logical argument"! If that is grounds for dismissal then your idea of hard science and mine seem to be quite far apart.
What you seem to be saying here is that you need your intuitive position on what's right to yield the result or you won't accept it. One would conclude that you certainly are not a person "determined to find and accept the truth no matter what it may be, and who in pursuit of the truth is willing to investigate every facet of existence."

The requirement you state is not the one I claimed to be able to perform. I claim to have discovered a solution to a very specific problem: the problem of explanation itself. If you are willing to accept my definition of "an explanation", then I can show you how to construct an absolutely general "mechanical" model of any possible explanation of anything.

Unless there is an error in my construction procedure, there exists no explanation of anything which can not be mapped into the "mechanical" solutions of that model. The conclusion is that "hard science" is applicable to any problem, philosophical or otherwise. It is the nature of explanation itself.

I am looking for someone who, "in pursuit of the truth", "is willing to investigate every facet of existence, again, no matter what it may be".

I'll be out of town for a week so think about the issue a little before you comment. Again, I define an explanation to be a description of the procedure for obtaining expectations of unknown information from given known information. If you don't like my definition, please give me an example of an explanation which provides nothing regarding your expectations. Or one which provides something which cannot be interpreted as saying something about your expectations.

Have fun guys -- Dick

And consequently, when NEW information is added to the knowledge base, fundamentally, this must accumulate overtime. A good theory, therefore, that is consistent with your definitition of explanation should insist that:

THE KNOWLEDGE BASE SHOULD CONSISTENTLY ACCUMULATE OVER TIME TOWARDS EVERYTHING BEING COMPLETELY KNOWN BY THE PERCEIVER.

Well, my argument to this over the years is that whoever that final individual would be must inevitably (and perhapds irreversibly as well) be wholly structurally and functionally perfect both in substance and in scope.

On the issue of 'Hard Science', the fantasists are currently escaping it using all kinds of sly and dudgy arguments. It is one hell of issue that sooner or later all the intellectual communities must confront. I have been trying to draw everyone's attention to the problem of 'FORMS' that things take when they come into existence, including the form of our current universe. When people talk about Logic, mathematics, mechanical, mutational, causal and relational pathways in relation to the problem of explanation, I always try to redirect their attention to the problem of forms. If people say that they have problems with explanation via the devices of logic, mathematics and other forms of language, then we may have to return back to the drawing board and, as I have said it before, this may involve interfering with things structurally up to the level of forms that those things take when they come into existence. Call me a skeptic if you like, we may have to re-engineer the entire human reality if we were to make any structural and functional progress at all, let alone finally survive physical destruction that may subsequently manifest.

 

[Philocrat]

Philo, science is not meant to deal with questions of purpose. Science is descriptive only of physical processes in terms of cause and effect. In this sense it is defective as a means of describing all of reality, but this is an intentional defect! Science is not neglecting anything; it is simply incapable of answering questions of purpose. Purpose is an entirely subjective thing. Whether or not purposive action exists in a contracausal, non-physical sense isn't even known, and I would say cannot be known through empirical means, including the scientific method. These explanatory deficits you speak of are well known and well discussed here, but how are they relevant to the efficacy of science? Science cannot explain the experience of listening to a great opera, or any subjective experience for that matter, but that does not make it deficient any more than poetics is deficient because it can't explain why some ink dries faster than others.

you should be asking youself:

'WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF PLANET MARS WERE TO BE KNOCKED OFF OR THROWN OUT OF OUR SOLAR SYSTEM BY SOME COSMOLOGICAL EVENT?"

You might perhaps responded by arguing that this could never happen because there is no such known event or because such an event could not be imagined. But how could you know this? This would be a misleading response, for I would expect you to give some thoughts to this question and make an attempt to answer it, at least experimentally in a controlled lab condition. It would be intellectually insufficient to simply ingore it as irrelevant.

However, if you were to look at the question closely and at least experimentally responded to it, I argue that your response cannot just give rise to a 'HOW' answer but must also produce a 'WHY' answer too. So that if someone were to ask you the same question again you would not just give a functional account but also a purposive one as well, even where your experiment shows planet Mars to be functionally, causally and relationally redundant in the grand scale of things, in this very case in our solar system. This purposive analysis allows you to say that:

1) The Planet Mars serves a specific purpose or purposes in our solar system because when you remove it this is what would happen to our solar system

or;

2) The Planet Mars serves no known purpose in our solar system because when you remove it nothing happens...our solar systems just continues normally.

If this is the way you would approach it, then science cannot just prentend to interpret or explain things in nature in a non-purposive way. This approach allows you to think about improving things, making contingency plans, and so on. I call this a PROGRESSIVE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, that is, a method by which you look at how things work or are configured scientifically and equally why they are so, such that this would triger progressive thoughts and actions in you. To pretend that it is doing us any good for science to continue to look at things in an artificial way seems to me to be contrary to the norm...rather regressive instead of progressive in scope and in substance.

 

[honestrosewater]

At a leisurely pace - perhaps in a different thread - it might be interesting to discuss what you would accept as a convincing demonstration of abiogenesis . . . Maybe we could so the same thing re the third area (I'd forgotten that you also had doubts about a physicalist approach to the origin of the universe).

That sounds like fun.

Where's the party?

 

[loseyourname]

you should be asking youself:

'WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF PLANET MARS WERE TO BE KNOCKED OFF OR THROWN OUT OF OUR SOLAR SYSTEM BY SOME COSMOLOGICAL EVENT?"

You might perhaps responded by arguing that this could never happen because there is no such known event or because such an event could not be imagined. But how could you know this? This would be a misleading response, for I would expect you to give some thoughts to this question and make an attempt to answer it, at least experimentally in a controlled lab condition. It would be intellectually insufficient to simply ingore it as irrelevant.

Well, actually a scientist should not be asking that question unless he has a lot of free time simply because that is not likely to ever happen and so funding for the research would be very difficult to come by. Also, I'm not a scientist.

1) The Planet Mars serves a specific purpose or purposes in our solar system because when you remove it this is what would happen to our solar system

or;

2) The Planet Mars serves no known purpose in our solar system because when you remove it nothing happens...our solar systems just continues normally.

If this is the way you would approach it, then science cannot just prentend to interpret or explain things in nature in a non-purposive way. This approach allows you to think about improving things, making contingency plans, and so on. I call this a PROGRESSIVE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, that is, a method by which you look at how things work or are configured scientifically and equally why they are so, such that this would triger progressive thoughts and actions in you. To pretend that it is doing us any good for science to continue to look at things in an artificial way seems to me to be contrary to the norm...rather regressive instead of progressive in scope and in substance.

You know, if that's all you mean by "purpose," then you might want to look into ethology and ecology, both of which deal with this pretty well. It is well known that interconnected parts in a given system all function to keep the system working a certain way. Scientists aren't generally going to refer to this as the "purpose" of any of these given elements, but the choice of words really doesn't make a difference.

 

[Philocrat]

Well, actually a scientist should not be asking that question unless he has a lot of free time simply because that is not likely to ever happen and so funding for the research would be very difficult to come by. Also, I'm not a scientist.



You know, if that's all you mean by "purpose," then you might want to look into ethology and ecology, both of which deal with this pretty well. It is well known that interconnected parts in a given system all function to keep the system working a certain way. Scientists aren't generally going to refer to this as the "purpose" of any of these given elements, but the choice of words really doesn't make a difference.

The issue that I am raising here is beyond the careless notion of 'Availability of Fundings'. In fact, the laymembers of the the world societies (some of whom we know sit naively on tons of money) should be very glad that there are at least a few people around the planet who go out of their ways to ask these sorts of questions. If money is the reason why the intellectual communities are unwilling to answer these 'LIFE-CRITICAL' questions, they too are twice as wrong. Infact, this is one of the reasons why I distinguished between 'FUNDS-DEPENDENT SCIENTISTS' and 'REAL SCIENTISTS' in a UK hosted forums a year ago, or should I say between 'PROCEDURAL' and NON-PROCEDURAL' scientists. My investigation shows that real scientists are those who are motivated by selfless quest for the truth, who often work under the harshest conditions imaginable. They never wait for cosy labs and sophisticated machineries to be available before they are motivated to seek the best of answers to the human problems.

Regardless of this sort of distinction, somewhere along the line someone somewhere must have all the good will in the world and be prepared to find answers to these questions. These are no child's play questions. They are the sorts of questions upon which the entire human existence, let alone survival, may very well depend. So, we ought to desire and genuinely will to answer these question for the collective benefit of all mankind.

 

[Philocrat]

IS MONEY REALLY THE CONSTRAINT?

In the world we have now countless instances of where millions of pounds/dolars are being inherited by cats, dogs, ants and cocroaches. We give billions of pounds in donations to all sorts of noble courses around the planet. We waste incalculable sums annually on pointless wars against ourselves.

Admitttedly, there is nothing wrong with natural creatures inheriting money from their natural lovers. But it is the obsenity of the sums that are often involved that I am concerned. Equally, there is nothing wrong in spending the sort of money that we are now spnding on all the good courses -- it is our natural responsibilty to do so. In fact I am one of the defenders of these sorts of human positive actions.

But the key question is this:

If we can raise money for all these human deeds, why are we unable to do so for the most important human project...THE PROJECT OF ASKING AND ANSWERING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE WHOLE HUMAN PROGRESS AND SURVIVAL?

Clear thinking and intelligence suggest that we should be very glad and be willing to divert all human efforts and resources (with no price tags attached) to such an important project.

The more I think of this, the more I become skeptical as to whether lack of meony is the main reason why we are unwilling to ask the right questions, let alone any attempt and will to answer them in the correct way. Perhaps there is more to this problem than money.

Whatever the problem, however, one thing is now fundamentally clear:

The time is now right for us to start asking the 'WHAT-HOW-WHY' questions and making genuine human efforts to answer them in the most appropriate ways.

 

[Philocrat]

STANDARD DEFINITIONS: How Science Should Ask and Answer Questions.

The golden rule is that science must ask the correct questions and answer them in the most consistent and reliable ways.

1) THE 'WHAT' QUESTION

This investigates the notion of existence. For example, does anything exist at all, and if it does what is it? This is the process of identifying things by their forms or types and sub-classes of types.

2) THE 'HOW' QUESTION

This type of question investigates how anything identified and known, or even suspected to exist, works in relation to other things in time and space. When dealing with this question, the inevitable consequence is to do so in the context of 'PART-WHOLE RELATIONS' in terms of temporal and spatial positions, size, motion, change etc. The How question therefore must aim at underpinning the structural and causal relations of the thing or things concerned.That is, how does anything fit in and work together within the grand scale of things?

3) THE 'WHY' QUESTION

This investigates the outward purpose of a given entity in the part-whole relation or in the grand scale of things. When the what and how questions are raised and made apparent, the why question automatically becomes self-installed and rendered relevant. And the beauty of this is that when we start asking the why question we begin to tumble across such notions as 'Self-improvements', 'causal and relational error corrections', 'structural and functional re-engineering', 'structural and functional progress', 'survival' and so on. And this must happen in a cautious, systematic and all inclusive ways.


The danger in asking the how question without the what and why questions is that the resulting outcome may fail to triger progressive thoughts and actions in us. We may lose momentum and the desires to improve things that we look at in this way that are fundamental and relevant to the human progress and survival. To this end, I argue that the three questions must always be asked and answered in unison. At the moment several postings in this thread tend to suggest that science, for example, can only afford to ask the how question without the what and why ones. Well, to delude ourselves that we can ask and answer one without the other, I guess, is a fundamental intellectual error.

 

[loseyourname]

I'm still not sure what you want. Do you want to see more emphasis on ecology and integrated sciences as opposed to reductionist subspecialties? It would be nice if you could formulate your theses using existing, well-defined terminology. For instance, when you say purpose, are you referring to teleology, or simply to function within a context?

 

[nickdanger]

I'm still not sure what you want. Do you want to see more emphasis on ecology and integrated sciences as opposed to reductionist subspecialties? It would be nice if you could formulate your theses using existing, well-defined terminology. For instance, when you say purpose, are you referring to teleology, or simply to function within a context?

I like your tag lines quoting Einstein. It orients us a bit doesn't it.

 

[Doctordick]

Philocrat, I have real trouble understanding what you are trying to say!

A good theory, therefore, that is consistent with your definitition of explanation should insist that:

THE KNOWLEDGE BASE SHOULD CONSISTENTLY ACCUMULATE OVER TIME TOWARDS EVERYTHING BEING COMPLETELY KNOWN BY THE PERCEIVER.

You wish to add something to my definition of an explanation? (Note a definition and a theory are not the same thing!) And, if you add such a thing, it implies an explanation which is based on an unchanging knowledge base is not an explanation! That kind of removes the general nature of the definition doesn't it?

Well, my argument to this over the years is...

Exactly what does argument 'to' something mean? Is this to be a defense of a position or a refutation?

And I do not understand what you mean by the word "forms".

For the time being, I will presume you are confused. Take a look at

http://home.jam.rr.com/dicksfiles/Explain/Explain.htm

If you can understand that presentation I will be surprised!

On nickdanger's comment to loseyourname:

I like your tag lines quoting Einstein. It orients us a bit doesn't it.

That orientation is a little askew of "scientific" isn't it?

The more information you have, the more patterns you are apt to discover. A verbal explanation constitutes attaching symbols to repeated chunks of information. Then one begins to find repeated similar relationships between these named chunks (and one attaches symbols to these, names for relationships). Verbal explanations are nothing more than such constructs which define your expectations. Under that view of "language" (which includes scientific and unscientific language growth), the comment "It would be description without meaning" sort of descends into drivel doesn't it?

If anyone is interested, the above comment is almost a direct quote taken from a philosophical discussion of "explanation" which begins at:

http://www.astronomy.net/forums/general/messages/4468.shtml

Have fun everyone -- Dick

 

[Philocrat]

Philocrat, I have real trouble understanding what you are trying to say!
You wish to add something to my definition of an explanation? (Note a definition and a theory are not the same thing!) And, if you add such a thing, it implies an explanation which is based on an unchanging knowledge base is not an explanation! That kind of removes the general nature of the definition doesn't it?
Exactly what does argument 'to' something mean? Is this to be a defense of a position or a refutation?

And I do not understand what you mean by the word "forms".

For the time being, I will presume you are confused. Take a look at

http://home.jam.rr.com/dicksfiles/Explain/Explain.htm

If you can understand that presentation I will be surprised!

On nickdanger's comment to loseyourname:
That orientation is a little askew of "scientific" isn't it?

The more information you have, the more patterns you are apt to discover. A verbal explanation constitutes attaching symbols to repeated chunks of information. Then one begins to find repeated similar relationships between these named chunks (and one attaches symbols to these, names for relationships). Verbal explanations are nothing more than such constructs which define your expectations. Under that view of "language" (which includes scientific and unscientific language growth), the comment "It would be description without meaning" sort of descends into drivel doesn't it?

If anyone is interested, the above comment is almost a direct quote taken from a philosophical discussion of "explanation" which begins at:

http://www.astronomy.net/forums/general/messages/4468.shtml

Have fun everyone -- Dick

What I was doing here was not to add to your thoughts or definition of explanation. Quite the contrary. All that it was meant to do was to provide a sort of guide as to what a good theory or definition of the term must envitably encopmpass. We cannot complicate things at all nor should we ever pretend to do so. Even a child understands that all there is to explanation is to add somethning new to what is already known and what is added must be coherent and logically consistent with what is elready known, the content of which I habitually call 'THE KNOWLEDGE BASE'.

In my own school of thought there is only one knowledge base and all the things in it have logically consistent relations, and this is equivalent to a single 'UNIVERSAL SET'. This contains everything there is to be known about the world. All other deductions using set theories, including what your companion is attempting to do here (http://home.jam.rr.com/dicksfiles/Explain/Explain.htm ), must totally and invetably adher to this single Universal set or knowledge base.

A knowldege base or Universal set becomes inconsistent when you model or sample knowledge or what is explainable in a way that is fundamentally vague such that it logically disconnects what you claim to be explaining from everything else in the knowledge base. So, when you claim to have successfully explained something using all your sophisticated modelling, sampling and explanatory devices, the next questions you must ask yourself are these:


1) Does my sampled or modeled explanation results in what I have been calling in this PF 'THE EXPLANATORY DEFICITS'. You have to ask yourself this question otherwise you may very well fall prey to self-deception.

2) Does what results from my proclaimed explanation logically and consistenly connect to every other piece of information in the knowledge base? Don't forget that by explaining, or claiming to explain, you are adding something new (new piece of information) either into your own knowldege base or into the knowledge base of a bystander, both of which have a UNIVERSAL LOGICAL CONNECTION to each other. For nothing which you know, or claim to know, can by enumeration of the SUM TOTALITY OF THE HUMAN EXISTENCE be contemplated and construed in isolation from everything esle!

I claim that whatever we know through explanation ( if at all the notion of the term itself is possible in the first place), or claim to be explaining to ourselves and others, must in the end universally connect and make a final sense to what I always call 'THE FINAL PERCEIVER(S)'. And the argument that I have consistently put across in this PF and elsewhere is that, whoever this Final Perceiver or Perceivers would be must be construed as possessing a complete knowledge base or a universal set of all there is to be known.

 

[Philocrat]

I'm still not sure what you want. Do you want to see more emphasis on ecology and integrated sciences as opposed to reductionist subspecialties? It would be nice if you could formulate your theses using existing, well-defined terminology. For instance, when you say purpose, are you referring to teleology, or simply to function within a context?

I am not in anyway denying that certain processes in nature do contain redundant states or functional elements. Even Aristotle, who can quite rightly be construed as the first true scientist, understood and wholly accpeted this. This is made very clear in Aristotle's teleology, often signatured by his famous slogan 'Nature Does Nothing in Vain". Although, his teleology is contracted to assign functional purposes to things and many people would probably discredit this as merely talking about things and their functions, the reality is that Aristotle's teleology has wider and far-reaching implications, especially when you are looking at the ordering of the world in an holistic way using 'Transitional Logic' (TL). If you take Aristotle's teleology a step further, you just cannot afford not to classify the purposes of things that are purportedly in universal relations into (1) those with ephemeral Purposes and (2) those with Permanent Purposes. Often, it appears as if Aristotle teleology is mistaken to cover only things with ephemeral purposes in nature. I hope that this is not the case, because in actual fact it does extend to cover things with permanent purposes.

This fact can be traced to Aristotle's notion of change. When he was discussing change in relation to causes and effects, surely we could not have have mistaken him to be talking about the kind of change that results in regressive consequences alone, or even the sort that derails into circularism. He must have also been thinking about the sort of change that follow a consistent logical but progressive pathway, or pathways, to structural and functional perfection of things in the world. Should this be the case, and hopefully so, ought we not to insist that the modern science must embrace and uphold methodolgies and analytical procedures that look at things in terms:

(1) WHAT they are?
(2) HOW they work and fit in with everything else?; and
(3) WHY they play the role they are currently playing?

My argument is that the kind of science that looks at the HOW question alone without the WHAT and WHY questions being contemporaneously dealt with, is intellectually insufficient. It is frankly performing a misguided role in the society and doing a great disservice to humanity.

 

[Jeff Lawson]

Can everything be reduced to pure physics? Who cares.

You guys think far too much!

Ultimately, are we not considering which belief system has merit? It seems irrelevant to me whether we choose to delineate branches of science or not. What is at stake here is the scientific method versus superstition.

For me, the scientific belief system has as its basis that: physical reality is that which exists independently of thought (I told you you think too much!) and we can make discoveries about reality be carefully interpreting the data we receive through our senses, albeit as the result of interacting with reality (experimentation).

(I don't buy the collapse of the wave function crap that requires human intervention. Nor, for that matter do I accept that the Uncertainty Principle is necessarily ultimately all that accurate. The fact is that human beings have barely begun to understand reality and the theories we have so far cannot be assumed, a priori, to be anything other than rough approximations. Science has a long way to go but already it’s results transcend those all other belief systems put together and does so by an almost infinite margin, the others, by and large, not so much contributing as detracting from human progress.)

As I see it, the important issue for human beings at the moment is: do we follow a belief system predicated on fantasy, e.g. belief in a god, or do we follow a belief system that is grounded in empiricism. The latter is reliable and productive, the former is positively insane.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Can everything be reduced to pure physics? Who cares.

You guys think far too much!

Hi Jeff, welcome to PF. As far as "thinking too much," well you are in the philosophy section.

Ultimately, are we not considering which belief system has merit? It seems irrelevant to me whether we choose to delineate branches of science or not. What is at stake here is the scientific method versus superstition.

I'd say you aren't being fair with that. While some belief in a conscious creationary force may be superstition, you shouldn't assume all of it is.

However, the question isn't "which belief system has merit," the question is if physics can explain everything. Currently it cannot. Maybe one day it will, but maybe it won't. If you were to review some of things physics cannot explain (talked about extensively here in PF philosophy) you'd find consciousness at the top of the list (I also include the self-organization principle needed for abiogenesis to be a sound theory for the origin of life).

For me, the scientific belief system has as its basis that: physical reality is that which exists independently of thought (I told you you think too much!) and we can make discoveries about reality be carefully interpreting the data we receive through our senses, albeit as the result of interacting with reality (experimentation).

True. But what if there are aspects of reality which aren't availble to sense experience? If sense experience only reveals physicalness, all that proves is the limitations of sense experience. It doesn't prove there isn't "something more."

As I see it, the important issue for human beings at the moment is: do we follow a belief system predicated on fantasy, e.g. belief in a god, or do we follow a belief system that is grounded in empiricism. The latter is reliable and productive, the former is positively insane.

Hmmmm. I suspect your bias is showing. There is no reason a person can't rely on empiricism for everything it can explain (which is lots). But what about what it cannot explain? You don't have to believe in the Christian version of God to remain open to the possibility that there is "something more" going on than physical processes.

 

[Jeff Lawson]

Hi Les

what if there are aspects of reality which aren't availble to sense experience?

By assertion, such reality, if it exists, impinges upon us not at all. It would, therefore, be futile to attempt to characterize it and ridiculous to theorize about it.

Hmmmm. I suspect your bias is showing. There is no reason a person can't rely on empiricism for everything it can explain (which is lots). But what about what it cannot explain? You don't have to believe in the Christian version of God to remain open to the possibility that there is "something more" going on than physical processes.

Too right, I'm biased! I'm not just biased, I'm entirely one-sided: as far as I'm concerned, objective reality is all there is, by definition! Of course there are many things that science cannot explain and I did stress this in my original post. I am certainly open to there being much more than we have yet encountered but if we cannot detect it by empirical means then it may as well not exist for us and dwelling upon such thing leads us down a path to madness.

Let's be clear, the alternatives to scientific discovery (by which I include simply causal relationships that all infants encounter as they develop) have not only provided no satisfactory explanations whatsoever but they have, in the main, led people to act upon false premises that have often been the cause of human conflict.

 

[Les Sleeth]

By assertion, such reality, if it exists, impinges upon us not at all. It would, therefore, be futile to attempt to characterize it and ridiculous to theorize about it.

How do you know there is no impingement when there are yet things to be explained by physicality alone? Let's take an example all of us have experienced. As a child grows and develops he finds all these systems in place for feeding him, clothing him, protecting him, giving him medical attention, educating him . . .

If he were able, he could study each of those systems and understand how they work. He could say that because he understands the mechanics of the systems, there is nothing more to be explained. However, what he hasn't explained is how those systems got organized so they could take care of him.

Similarly, you are ready to say you have got it all figured out because you can explain the mechanics of things. But let's see you prove that mechanics can, all on their own, organize themselves into life and consciousness. Since neither you nor anyone else can demonstrate how that happens, there might just be "something more" impinging.

Too right, I'm biased! I'm not just biased, I'm entirely one-sided: as far as I'm concerned, objective reality is all there is, by definition! Of course there are many things that science cannot explain and I did stress this in my original post. I am certainly open to there being much more than we have yet encountered but if we cannot detect it by empirical means then it may as well not exist for us and dwelling upon such thing leads us down a path to madness.

When I said sense experience might not detect something that exists, I didn't mean to say that some other kind of conscious experience wasn't available. I would agree that if we can't experience anything more than what's physical, and if physicalness can be shown to account for everything, then we don't need no stinkin' "something more."

 

[loseyourname]

When I said sense experience might not detect something that exists, I didn't mean to say that some other kind of conscious experience wasn't available. I would agree that if we can't experience anything more than what's physical, and if physicalness can be shown to account for everything, then we don't need no stinkin' "something more."

I just want to quickly chime in and say that neuroscientists are beginning to realize there is a lot more to what the human brain can "sense" aside from the traditional five categories. Leaving aside the introspective ability to "sense" emotional feeling and personal belief and such, there is also a kinesthetic ability to sense equiblibria and disequilibria in the inner ear, as well as a whole host of tactile sensations of the inner body that are not anything like the sensations of the skin, despite the fact that we traditionally lump all of these sensations under the heading "touch." In fact, there is even the ability of the human mind to perceive aural and visual sensations from tactile input.

 

[Jeff Lawson]

Les: first off, it occurs to me that I might not have been clear about things that are tractable to the senses. I include in the realm of human sensory observation, observations made by our instruments. Carefully constructed instrumentation, such as microscopes, act as an extension of our senses and ultimately involve some human observation, such as reading a meter.

How do you know there is no impingement when there are yet things to be explained by physicality alone?

By definition! We may not have advanced to the stage where our understanding of reality and command of the physical world enables us to detect such subtleties yet, nor may we ever do so, but, in principle, we must be able to detect something that exerts influence upon us. If we cannot then it is not worth considering. (An angel keeps blowing in my ear but I cannot feel it and it has no effect upon me that I am aware of…so, it may as well not be happening…what do I care!)

Let's take an example all of us have experienced. As a child grows and develops he finds all these systems in place for feeding him, clothing him, protecting him, giving him medical attention, educating him . . .
If he were able, he could study each of those systems and understand how they work. He could say that because he understands the mechanics of the systems, there is nothing more to be explained. However, what he hasn't explained is how those systems got organized so they could take care of him.

I fail to see that you are making any kind of progress here...

...He could say that because he understands the mechanics of the systems, there is nothing more to be explained.

It is valid to claim that there is nothing more to explain provided that the scope of explanation is precisely defined and all aspect within that realm are satisfactorily accounted for. Later, it might transpire that hitherto unknown observations are made within the system that prompt us to reconsider our explanation and possibly replace it entirely. (For example, consider how Newtonian gravity was replaced by Einsteinian gravity.)

However, what he hasn't explained is how those systems got organized so they could take care of him.

This is just negligence or inadequate observation. It doesn't mean that such systems cannot be detected and investigated.

Similarly, you are ready to say you have got it all figured out because you can explain the mechanics of things.

I didn't make any such claim, in fact, quite the opposite: I recognize that there are many things that we have not much idea about.

But let's see you prove that mechanics can, all on their own, organize themselves into life and consciousness. Since neither you nor anyone else can demonstrate how that happens, there might just be "something more" impinging.

Our inability to furnish satisfactory explanations does not mean that we will never be able to do so. It is very possible that some phenomena prove too difficult for human beings ever to understand but that doesn’t justify us adopting a supernatural approach. I’d rather not know anything about such phenomena than rely upon bogus superstition. We don’t have to have an explanation for everything but what explanations we do have must accord with reality. Talking abstractly about "something more" doesn't provide understanding, per se. For such an approach to be acceptable, we would have to see results. So, go ahead, enlighten me but if you fail to do so then don't blame me for discounting you as a crank!

 

[Jeff Lawson]

Of course...

Okay, so what is the basis of your alternative approach? Please tell.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Okay, so what is the basis of your alternative approach? Please tell.

First let me say that I appreciate someone who only believes what they can experience. I sense that is where you are coming from; that is, you can see physical reality, you can work with it, you can discover it . . . so that is "real" because it really does exist. Give me a realist any day of the week over baseless believers!

I am hesitant to post my views now because my fellow PF members have seen them so many times. Let me say however that mine is not an "alternative approach." It is an additional approach. We don't need an alternative approach for studying physical reality because empiricism works awesomely well. I believe it it, I trust it, I consider it all but infallible for revealing the secrets of the physical aspects of reality.

A point I've made here a zillion times is, if you use a method that only reveals physical aspects of reality (i.e., empiricism) then what else should you expect to discover? If there is anything around besides physical aspects, it ain't going to show up through science. So I cannot conclude that because science only reveals physical facts, that is all there is to reality.

If you look in the general philosophy area, you'll see an old thread of mine that's been resurrected. If you want to understand what "additional" way there might be for experiencing reality (i.e., besides through senses), check out my opening posts. Here in metaphysics & epistomology, you'll see another recently resurrected thread of mine, and that too will give you an idea of of what I value beyond science.

Of course, you don't have to agree I know anything other than what I've perceived through my senses for us to debate if physical principles and processes can explain everything. I am content to poke holes in physicalism without having anyone believe I have a viable alternative theory.

 

[Seafang]

Les:

Our inability to furnish satisfactory explanations does not mean that we will never be able to do so. It is very possible that some phenomena prove too difficult for human beings ever to understand but that doesn’t justify us adopting a supernatural approach. I’d rather not know anything about such phenomena than rely upon bogus superstition. We don’t have to have an explanation for everything but what explanations we do have must accord with reality. Talking abstractly about "something more" doesn't provide understanding, per se. For such an approach to be acceptable, we would have to see results. So, go ahead, enlighten me but if you fail to do so then don't blame me for discounting you as a crank!

Well your first statement isn't necessarily true. Heisenberg tells us we can never exactly know the present state of even a single particle let alone the entire universe, so even if we had constructed the correct laws of physics, they would fail to predict the future properly. Besides that Godel teaches us that some questions are inherently undecideable; "no matter what" as William Shockley would put it.

But I agree with your main point; the failure to provide a rational explanation for some phenomenon or obsevation, does not justify the acceptance of a completely irrational explanation.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Well your first statement isn't necessarily true. Heisenberg tells us we can never exactly know the present state of even a single particle let alone the entire universe, so even if we had constructed the correct laws of physics, they would fail to predict the future properly. Besides that Godel teaches us that some questions are inherently undecideable; "no matter what" as William Shockley would put it.

But I agree with your main point; the failure to provide a rational explanation for some phenomenon or obsevation, does not justify the acceptance of a completely irrational explanation.

Your version of the uncertainty principle is misleading. We can know some of the properties of a particle to arbitrarily high degrees of confindence, at the cost of being correspondingly ignorant about other properties.

Also Goedel does not apply to geometry or things derived from it, like real analysis. The question is still out on what this exception means for physics.

 

[FulhamFan3]

The "natural" world can be explained entirely by physics. When it comes to emotion and life then that's the realm of philosophy/religion. I believe that the probablities allowed by quantum mechanics allow whatever religion to have a validity.

Science explains how fish die, it doesn't explain why it's important to conserve them.

 

[Nereid]

The "natural" world can be explained entirely by physics. When it comes to emotion and life then that's the realm of philosophy/religion. I believe that the probablities allowed by quantum mechanics allow whatever religion to have a validity.

And while I may respect your belief, I wonder why you hold it in the face of so much good science (e.g. the neurological/chemical/physical aspects of emotion - think drugs, neurotransmitters, etc). I also wonder how well you could make a case that 'the probablities allowed by quantum mechanics allow whatever religion to have a validity' - would you care to try?

Science explains how fish die, it doesn't explain why it's important to conserve them.

Leaving aside for the moment whether science 'explains' anything, there is a great deal that 'science' can tell us about why it's important to conserve fish ... assuming of course that we may wish that our children and grand-children have the opportunity to eat fish (and many other desirable things too no doubt).

 

[Go37Pi]

I think the crux of this argument lies in the question of consciousness, as a few people stated earlier. We cannot measure consciouness because only the individual feels consciousness. Therefore the only way to measure consciousness is to measure ourselves. But such a measurement would necessarily only apply to one individual and would differ from the representation of consciousness that another individual could have. Perhaps we have a bit of, "I think, therefore I am." in this debate. Can we really measure our own ability to measure? Perhaps there is a possible way, but I can't help but believe that we can never measure our consciousness, and thus never represent it mathematically.

 

[FulhamFan3]

And while I may respect your belief, I wonder why you hold it in the face of so much good science (e.g. the neurological/chemical/physical aspects of emotion - think drugs, neurotransmitters, etc).

I'm not to sure what you think I'm negating here. I do acknowledge that emotions can be affected by drugs and other factors. However what makes someone perfer a blond over a brunette? This is something that drugs don't explain. What I actual meant was a conscience is more philosophy/religion.

there is a great deal that 'science' can tell us about why it's important to conserve fish ... assuming of course that we may wish that our children and grand-children have the opportunity to eat fish

What makes it important though? Wanting children and grand-children to eat fish is a matter of conscience, not science. Science can tell you the proper consevation methods and who will die out as a result of not taking those precautions. But the reason why we would take those measures to begin with has to do with conscience.

I also wonder how well you could make a case that 'the probablities allowed by quantum mechanics allow whatever religion to have a validity' - would you care to try?

That's wrong too. What I mean is that it allows for a supreme being of sorts if you believe in one. Before you could predict everything about a system possible as long as you knew enough about a system to begin with. With QM probabilities are unavoidable and it is here where a supreme being decides the future of a particle.

I find it odd that evolution can be in complete conflict with christianity(or at least the really conservative christians) whereas it's completely compatible with buddism or shinto.

 

[Les Sleeth]

. . . why it's important to conserve fish ... assuming of course that we may wish that our children and grand-children have the opportunity to eat fish (and many other desirable things too no doubt).

That's cold Nereid. Preserve poor little fishes so we can EAT THEM.

 

[nightwing darknight]

there is another problem when talking about practically applying physics to the entire world

even though our laws of physics can almost predict the behavior of most of the observed phenomena "as much as the QM uncertainty would allow it anyway"

when talking about building a mathematical / physical model for something even as simple and un complex like car crash of 2 cars
you can never apply the rules to any systems more complex than a few particles
but when talking about the behavior of a macroscopic body which is consisted of billions of particles and its interaction with the surrounding its pretty tough to do so

but the question you would ask next is obviously if we can't apply the laws of physics to these systems then how do weather forecasts and the prediction of planetary orbits work

the answer is approximation and empirical equations
it so happens that the exact laws of physics are hard to apply to a large number of particles
but there also exist a number of approximate and empirical equations that can be readily applied

im saying so because i m as much an engineer as i am a physicist wannabe
so in a way i belong to both worlds
and i noticed in my work as a chemical engineer when designing reactors "chemical reactors because i know that stereotypically you guys hear reactor and you say nuclear"
lets take one aspect of reactor design
heat transfer
we have a multiple layer of laws and equations that govern heat transfer
from laws that work microscopically level and takes into consideration the movement and interaction of each particle
and although considered the most precise method when actually applying this method to something as simple as a tube inserted in hot medium with a cold fluid flowing inside
you would find that it would be a nightmare of equations
even for a computer
a computer could take years to solve such a model when applied to the entire reactor

so we turn to less precise simpler equations
and especially in hat transfer we have a very wide variety of substitute equations

some of them are derived theoretically while others are simply empirical

so when asking can everything be reduced to physics the answer is
even if we have the laws and necessary equations it could be impossible
and i remind you that even though it has been more than 90 yrs since the publication of the general relativity
there are only a considerable number of solutions to it
and by solutions i mean cases where the theory is applied and can be calculated

 

[Nereid]

I think the crux of this argument lies in the question of consciousness, as a few people stated earlier. We cannot measure consciouness because only the individual feels consciousness. Therefore the only way to measure consciousness is to measure ourselves. But such a measurement would necessarily only apply to one individual and would differ from the representation of consciousness that another individual could have. Perhaps we have a bit of, "I think, therefore I am." in this debate. Can we really measure our own ability to measure? Perhaps there is a possible way, but I can't help but believe that we can never measure our consciousness, and thus never represent it mathematically.

Welcome to Physics Forums Go37Pi!

I'm not sure if the 'crux' lies in consciousness, or if 'the hard problem of consciousness' is truly the only (likely) area that can't be 'reduced' to physics (all the while accepting Les' challenge that there are still open questions re life).

If the latter, I'm cool; if there's anything other than the hard problem of consciousness, let's put the cat on the table!

 

[Nereid]

I'm not to sure what you think I'm negating here. I do acknowledge that emotions can be affected by drugs and other factors. However what makes someone perfer a blond over a brunette? This is something that drugs don't explain. What I actual meant was a conscience is more philosophy/religion.

Are you sure? I'll be the first to say that neuroscience has a looong way to go, but other than 'the hard problem of consciousness', what appears to be an insurmountable problem for science? Goodness, there's been enough in the popular literature lately on 'the god gene', and various psychological finding on 'religious experience' to at least hint that religion and philosophy (formal systems excepted) are 'explainable'.

What makes it important though? Wanting children and grand-children to eat fish is a matter of conscience, not science. Science can tell you the proper consevation methods and who will die out as a result of not taking those precautions. But the reason why we would take those measures to begin with has to do with conscience.

On this we are in accord ...

That's wrong too. What I mean is that it allows for a supreme being of sorts if you believe in one. Before you could predict everything about a system possible as long as you knew enough about a system to begin with. With QM probabilities are unavoidable and it is here where a supreme being decides the future of a particle.

Er, no (with respect). In any real sense 'a supreme being' is practically equivalent to 'hidden variables', and there've been several experiments now that show such alternatives aren't consistent with results. Of course, if 'supreme being' = 'random fluctuations', then why create a supreme being?

I find it odd that evolution can be in complete conflict with christianity(or at least the really conservative christians) whereas it's completely compatible with buddism or shinto.

Yes, I puzzle over why some christians get so worked up about evolution, yet those with deep faith in other religions find nothing to be troubled about.

 

[Nereid]

That's cold Nereid. Preserve poor little fishes so we can EAT THEM.

You don't have to Les, nor I ... but homo sap. is a carnivore (or at least an omnivore), and denying that lots of people would like their children to be able to eat fish seems to me a little, shall we say, like an ostrich?

 

[Viper2838]

Yes, I puzzle over why some christians get so worked up about evolution, yet those with deep faith in other religions find nothing to be troubled about.

On the risk of turning this thread into a religious debate, i will try to explain this.
Many Christians are offended and become worked up over evolution because it goes aginst the foundations of the Religion. It says very clearly in Gensis ch. 2 that God made man. Jesus later references this in the New Testiment.

The idea of man evolving from organic matter that floated in some prehistoric sea seems to run slightly counter to this. The idea seems to go something like this: If man was made from sea sludge, in an apparently radnom matter of natural selection, then God didnt create man. This means that Genisis is not true, and must be disregarded, Which means God didnt create the world, and all that lives on it. If this is true, then whose to say that God is real, or omnipotent?

The argument and thought process continues and Chrsitianity as we know it ends.

Thats why some Christians are prone to getting worked up. Personally, I think evolution is no more than a therory, and has no impact on my life, so why bother?

 

[Philocrat]

IS EVOLUTION COMPATIBLE WITH CHRISTIANITY?

Yes!

 

[Philocrat]

The faction or divisionism betweein evolution and chritianity is pointless!

 

[Philocrat]

Both Institutions must slow down and look CAREFULLY at the TYPE of Logic they use to conduct their arguments and derive at their current conclusions. For a different type of logic does not rule out the possibility of both. Instead, it renders both WHOLLY comaptible with each other!

 

[Philocrat]

THE FOUNDATION ARGUMENTS FOR THE LOGICAL COMPATIBILITY OF GOD WITH THE PRODUCT OF HIS/HER CREATION

THE FOUNDATION ARGUMENTS (FA)

FA1 (God is incompatible with logic)

(a) God created the world
(b) If God has finished creating the world, then God is incompatible with logic
(c) If God is still creating the world, then God is compatible with Logic.
(d) God has finished creating the world
-------------------------------------
Therefore, God is incompatible with logic
-------------------------------------

FA2 (God is compatible with logic)

(a) God created the world
(b) If God has finished creating the world, then God is incompatible with logic
(c) If God is still creating the world, then God is compatible with Logic.
(d) God is still creating the world
--------------------------------------
Therefore, God is compatible with Logic
--------------------------------------

The standard assumption is that all other arguments about God's relatons to the world can be deduced from these master arguments.

INTERMEDIATE ARGUMENTS (IA)

IA1 (Evolution is incompatible with Creationism)

(a) God created the world
(b) If God has finished creating the world, then evolution is incompatible with creationism
(c) If God is still creating the world, then evolution is compatible with creationism.
(d) God has finished creating the world
--------------------------------------------------
Therefore, evolution is incompatible with creationism.
--------------------------------------------------


IA2 (Evolution is compatible with Creationism)

(a) God created the world
(b) If God has finished creating the world, then evolution is incompatible with creationism
(c) If God is still creating the world, then evolution is compatible with creationism.
(d) God is still creating the world
--------------------------------------------------
Therefore, evolution is compatible with creationism.
--------------------------------------------------

The question now is which of these alternative arguments do both parties apply to derive at their conclusions. For (FA2) and (IA2) seem to be the most reliable logical pathway to ply.

 

[Les Sleeth]

You don't have to Les, nor I ... but homo sap. is a carnivore (or at least an omnivore), and denying that lots of people would like their children to be able to eat fish seems to me a little, shall we say, like an ostrich?

I was just teasing you of course, although I might point out flesh munchers are likely to eat the ostrich too.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Many Christians are offended and become worked up over evolution because it goes aginst the foundations of the Religion. It says very clearly in Gensis ch. 2 that God made man. Jesus later references this in the New Testiment.

The idea of man evolving from organic matter that floated in some prehistoric sea seems to run slightly counter to this. The idea seems to go something like this: If man was made from sea sludge, in an apparently radnom matter of natural selection, then God didnt create man. This means that Genisis is not true, and must be disregarded, Which means God didnt create the world, and all that lives on it. If this is true, then whose to say that God is real, or omnipotent?

The argument and thought process continues and Chrsitianity as we know it ends.

It doesn't necessarily have to be as you predict. There is no reason why God, say as some highly evolved form of consciousness, couldn't have brought about creation in a natural way and over time.

In my opinion it isn't due to Christian belief in God or Jesus that makes them resist evolution, it is belief in the Bible. The logic of considering the Bible infallible should seem highly suspect after one studies the history of the Bible.

Genesis for example, has two creation stories. Scholars attribute the first version to a priestly writer, usually referred to as "P", and a second older version attributed to an author usually called "J". Moses is claimed to have written all the first five books of the Bible, but how could he have written his own death, plus there are anachronisms throughout the Torah (e.g. empires were mentioned that did exist when Moses lived, the king of Philistines is portrayed hundreds of years before he lived, camels were describd in use before they'd been domesticated, etc.).

In this so-called "documentary hypotheses" (taught at all major divinity schools) besides J and P, three other authors have been recognized (E, R, and D), who are believed to have written the Torah from 1000 to 400 BC.

It's not just the Torah, but throughout the Bible we find the problem of trying to figure out who wrote the various books. It was a Hebrew custom to attribute a literary work to revered Jewish figures, and this custom continued to be a problem for New Testament writings as well. That and the fact that none of the writers are believed to have been witnesses to Jesus' activities leave us with documents we cannot be sure of.

I am sure you are familiar with "Q" and Mark's version appearing in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, and with Luke's admission he'd taken his writings from written and oral traditions (Luke 1:1-4). If the gospel author Matthew was really the disciple Matthew (and therefore a witness) why did he rely on Q and Mark to write his story around (sometimes almost word for word, as in Chapter 6)? Plus the author doesn't claim to be Matthew (the title "The Gospel according to Matthew" was added long after the document's original composition).

The only documents we are certain are first hand accounts are those of Paul, who does not claim to have known Jesus. Luke, as a companion of Paul's (if he was) and Mark (as Peter's secretary) were not witnesses either. Of the four gospels, the book of John is least believed by scholars to be the disciple John. It was written by an educated person fluent in Greek at least half a century after Jesus, not by an illiterate fisherman (Mark 1:16-20) who spoke Arameic as the real disciple, John the son of Zebedee, was portrayed.

Now, I am not saying there aren't inspired and inspiring writings in the Bible. I love parts of the book myself. What I am saying it that once one learns the history of the Bible, it makes little sense to treat it as the infallible word of God. It is clearly revealed to be the word of men, sometime inspired, other times writing history or myth or speculation or (in the case of Revelation) senseless ravings from trance induced by fasting.

Evolution (and I would agree with most believers that evolution hasn't achieved what it has through chemistry and natural selection alone), doesn't contradict anything for a person of faith if that person's faith is in God. But if one's faith in God and Jesus is dependent on the perfect veracity and accuracy of the Bible, then I think one is on shakey ground.

 

[connect]

The answer will come from the realm of computer programming, computer programmers model the world, a well done model is a more accurate description of all aspects of particular subject than its mathematical counterparts. Computer programmers can't make assumptions about what they are modelling, they have to consider every variable.

I put a very simple fact to a professor at my local university, although it was quite clearly fact and she agreed with that, her reply was that we assume it doesn't make a difference.

The problem with this assumption is that if it does infact make a difference then it sort of breaks the basic principle of imperical methods, the controlled experiment.

 

[connect]

Further to my last point, a look at the framework of physics or 'physics in itself' i.e. mathematical structures, will probably provide hints towards understanding why things are like they are. I mean think about the common things in every equation you look at, think about the very fact it is an equasion, all equations are equations, mathematical structures, in someway physics is already unified.

Mathematical expressions are twofold, on one side you have the numbers that express variable quantities and on the other you have the structral operaters that express the relationship between the quantities.

Maybe its the glue itself, the relationship the binds the quantities together that will provide the real clues.

Think about the root of numbers, it might seem obvious as to what they are, but a closer look at such a simple notion provides some very interesting features, especially to physics.

When you look at the world around you, numbers arise from counting objects, you might say there are three coins on the table infront of you. You could also say there are 3 items on the table and each item is different, I mean you could have 3 different coins, but they are still coins.

If you look at those 3 coins, in this case we will say they are all the same type of coin, same size, colour, markings etc. what is it that tells you the 3 coins are different coins, that there are in fact 3 coins on the table in front of you?

The single most apparent thing is that they are in different locations, if they where all in the same location they would be the same coin. We differientiate between the coins because they are in different locations, different spatial regions.

Liebnez spotted this weakness in Netwons studies and as a programmer I recognise the point Liebnez is trying to make. When modelling a moving object in a virtual world, its location becomes an internal rather than external property.

In games programming there is a concept called 'tile based worlds' where a world is made up by the sum of its tiles, the tiles are fixed in location but transform their state over time to represent whatever object is present at that location at that time, like a tv screen where the pixels are tiles and the screen is the world.

I think this is what Liebnez is hinting at, that all entities exist 'within' space.

The concept of numbers is inspired by the world we percieve, the model in our minds.

Numbers are units, objects that are distinct from one another but whos relationship is always the same. The relationship between any number is the distance between them.

1 unit of something
2 units of something
3 units of something

That 'something' is always the same thing, a metre, a minute, a degree.

This rule breaks down when it comes to relativity i.e. variable 'somethings' or time dialation.

Maybe its time to explore Liebnez's route because Netwon's has been explored extensivily, I think branes is simply a repetition of string theory abstracted on itself.

Leibnez's theory is by simple fact 'richer' in detail than Newtons.

The tv screen example illustrates the two's thinking:

Newton would look at a TV screen and tell you each pixel is exactly the same:

Same shape
Same size
Same behaviour (can display one colour at one time from a possible range)

Liebnez would go one step further and tell you that each pixel is in fact unique by virtue of its location, i.e. no two pixels share the same location.

 

[Nereid]

So back to the religious thing (no, this is not a religious discussion!) ... is there any particular reason why deep thinking believers of other faiths don't get worked up over evolution? After all, AFAIK, most have creation myths - which include stories of how people came to be - and there's no doubt a great deal of excellent science (biology, geology, astronomy, etc) to show large parts of those myths cannot possibly be true!

 

[loseyourname]

So back to the religious thing (no, this is not a religious discussion!) ... is there any particular reason why deep thinking believers of other faiths don't get worked up over evolution? After all, AFAIK, most have creation myths - which include stories of how people came to be - and there's no doubt a great deal of excellent science (biology, geology, astronomy, etc) to show large parts of those myths cannot possibly be true!

I get the feeling that with most religions, the specific events in the myth aren't all that important. Rather, it's the moral or theme of the myth that is really cherished, certain core principles by which the universe operates and by which adherents of that faith believe that they should live their lives. No faith seems to cherish and defend the actual narrative content of its mythology quite like evangelical Christianity.

 

[Philocrat]

Connect, your thesis has substantial elements of truth in it. When it comes to the issue of 'IDENTITY AND CAUSAL RELATIONS OF THINGS', Leibniz thesis is logically and quantitativelly clear:


A and B are identical if and only if:

1) A and B are STRUCTURALLY the same

2) A and B are FUNCTIONALLY the same

3) A and B are TEMPORALLY the same (same location in time)

4) A and B are SPATIALLY the same (same location in space)

So, in Leibniz's terms, conditions (1) to (4) must be contemporaneously true for two things to be absolutely identical. None can be true without the other, otherwise A and B must be declared different. For example, identical twins may be structually and functional identical, but as far as the reality of the external world is concerned, they are physically installed in separate time and space locations. There are quantifiable spatio-temporal distances between them!

Well, this is all well and good, but the 'OVER-ABOVE-THE-PHYSICAL' advocates may very well insist that this does not apply to the realm of consciousness or soul or mind or whatever you may wish to call it. Correct me if I am wrong, your thesis seems to suggest that all forms of the human reality and knowledge (as advocated and vehemently defended by JOHN LOCKE) have 'PHYSICAL EXPERIENTIAL ORIGINS'. And as the master himself actually put it 'The Mind is like a blank tablet upon which experience writes'. Right? Well, the over-and-above-the-physical theorists argue (as they have consistently argued in this thread and elsewhere) that this is not the case.

If you say to them, for example:

Here is a mental image of a horse in a man's heard and here is a mental image of a unicorn in the same man's head. Both mental images are in every bit and form identical, except that one has a horn and the other without. And you then ask them 'HOW DID THE UNICORN COME BY ITS HORN?', or 'HOW DID THE HOLDER OF THE MENTAL IMAGE OF A UNICORN DERIVE AT THE NOTION OF A HORN, LET ALONE PLACING IT ON THE HEAD OF A WELL KNOWN HORSE TO GET THE UNICORN?'

Well, nearly all the different versions of the 'Over-and-above-the-physical' thesis would claim that the 'HORN' has no physical sources. If you are lucky, they would admit that all other parts of the mental image of the unicorn, except the horn, came from the external visual observation of a real horse. Anyway, don't take my word for it, directly ask them yourself. Don't worry about them not responding. They are very much arround. They will respond.

 

[Les Sleeth]

So back to the religious thing (no, this is not a religious discussion!) ... is there any particular reason why deep thinking believers of other faiths don't get worked up over evolution? After all, AFAIK, most have creation myths - which include stories of how people came to be - and there's no doubt a great deal of excellent science (biology, geology, astronomy, etc) to show large parts of those myths cannot possibly be true!

Fundamentalism in religion always tends to be the squeaky wheel. You are debating in Western culture where Christianity is the norm, so the fundamentalist Christians are going to speak up first and loudest. If you went to cultures full of fundamentalist Jews or Muslims or Sikhs and started talking the details of evolution, you'd run into the same thing (fundamentalist Buddhists or Hindus are usually less worried about an interpretation that isn't traditional).

However, there is a more relevant issue. The way one approaches science exploration (reduction, analysis) doesn't work for understanding the holistic, unified aspects of human consciousness. The modern adage that when the only tool one has is a hammer, then one goes around treating everything as a nail is truer than ever. Bam, bam, bam! Reduce it, take it apart, analyze it . . .

People who actually have had reason to suspect there is something more than physicalness felt it. That's how it is known -- through feeling and not analysis! So when someone doesn't find anything spiritual through the methods that work for science, they shouldn't blame the spiritual side. To understand the God thing, one has to feel, and feel deeply. That's it. It becomes a pointless discussion when someone insists that inner, holistic experience be converted into an outer, parts "thing."

Of course, if someone doesn't want to feel like that, it's their choice and no one should criticize that. The criticism comes when someone against trying to feel "something more" starts treating those who do enjoy feeling that as though they are lacking intelligence.

 

[Philocrat]

OUTSTANDING PROBLEM

1 MATTER

This monumental creature is by far THE MOST INTELLECTUALLY DEGRADED ENTITY known to man. Matter is so intellectually degraded such that it has now got to a point where it is almost completely psychologically settled in our minds that it has the same outward value as a garment that you wear and throw away when it's torn or out of use. In religious scriptures after scriptures we describe matter and anything made of it as a source of sins, as ephemeral and as completely divorced from the human reality. In science, physics especially, we head in the direction of intutionist mathematics, where cosomological entities and events are described in a manner that neglects their material forms and natures.

Consequently, the MIND-BODY battle is now intellectually so fierce such that it now appears as if though the material or corporeal aspect of the notion of a 'PERSON' must be explained and done away with.

QUESTION:

DOES MATTER HAVE MULTIPLE FORMS? DOES IT EXIST IN DIFFERENT GUISES?

2 WHAT THE TERM 'PHYSICAL' MEAN

'Physical' tends to settle in meaning at anything that stays within the bounds of our five senses and their extensions (all known visual aids such as scientifc instruments and sensors)? The problems that I have pointed out in many places in this thread and elsewhere are these:

1) We tend to scientifically give up at COP (Critical Observation Point). We stop being logical.

2) After we have exceeded COP in observation and measurements we tend to suddenly start believing that the things that we are observing and measuring suddenly stop being logical, lose their snesibility, forms, sizes and shapes, and somewhat derail into total chaos, or, even worse, into absolute nothingness. How can something that you were observing and scientifically tracking from one scale of reference to the next suddenly vanish into oblovion? HOW and WHY should you lose track of it?

3) In all the scientific observations and measurements, we tend to almost completley neglect the logical and quantitative implications of the observer himself/herself. THE PERCEPTUAL CAPACITY OF THE OBSERVER is often not taken into account in nearly all these scientific measurements. We tend to always naively believe that everything in the observer's frame of reference is OK, hence nothing there should be taken into account. Well, my argument is that any PHYSICAL MEASUREMENT aimed at being logically consistent and accurate must take the quantitaive and logical contents of the observer's frame of reference into account. Otherwise, we would for ever be labouring under fundamental errors and ignorance.

 

[Philocrat]

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Since we do not know enough about the exact nature of Matter, instead of intellectually degrading it to this level of worthlessness that we have done, wouldn't it be wiser for us to suspend all judgements about it until we manage to get to know enough about it in the nearest or distanced future? Equally, with all the degrading things we have said about matter, there is currently no single individual on this planet who can claim to to be the authority (alpha and omega) in knowing or accuratley predicting whether matter would form part of the 'FINAL PERFECT HUMAN BEING'. Is it not a good idea for us to slow down a little bit and give it a little bit more thought before jumping into premature conclusions with proscribed terminal consequences?