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Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
tacit #4420 09/27/09 10:02 PM
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Originally Posted By: tacit
• How much evidence do you have to support the notion that some divine cosmic being made the world in six days and created woman out of the rib of man? smile

• Or is that even the creation myth you prefer?

• Are each of these ideas "no better than any other"?

Perhaps some stories are more believable than others. laugh

I will say this: if someone [conclusively] *proves* something, it's a little late for you to 'stand up' and say you believe it. You merely learn what someone else studied. (and we all do that... so, no big deal). Myth has its place, where no proof exists.


Originally Posted By: tacit
Given all that, and given that there can be no evidence, not one shred, to support any of this, how do you choose a faith?

Originally Posted By: "Hal Itosis"
The existence of a God/Creator has neither been proved *or* disproved, AFAIK.

And cannot be. Yet I am betting that you don't believe in Apollo, Amaterasu, Geong Si, Freyr, Iris, Kagutsuchi, Maia, Marduk, Bast, Yarikh, Tiamat, Rama, Ninazu, Lugh, Hathor, Juturna, Fenrir, Ceres, Dagon, Ohkuninushi, Shapsu, Vishnu, Yum Kimil, Xochiquetzal, Tonatiuh, Selene, Shiva, Rhea, Orgelmir, Mot, Hermes, Ixtab, Davlin, Ceridwen, Athirat, Balder, or Horus, yet they can be neither proved nor disproved either. So how do you choose a god to believe in?

Just choose whatever pleases you. [it's your life friend... not mine.]

I'm more agnostic than theistic, because i don't claim to know one way or the other (let alone have knowledge of any details). It's more of a "feeling" really, that something *beyond* congealed matter is behind all this (life, you, me, etc). And i suspect we haven't yet invented the instruments to detect it, or developed the lexicon to describe it.


Originally Posted By: tacit
It's not even hard to shred. The author doesn't know what science is.

Sorry, I'm busy enough defending my own words. Perhaps if you get in touch with Davies, the two of you can discuss each other's viewpoints and reach some understanding.

Last edited by Hal Itosis; 09/27/09 10:12 PM.
Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
tacit #4423 09/28/09 01:43 AM
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Originally Posted By: tacit

Originally Posted By: "Gregg"
I'm not buying that. You are trying to imply that all hospitals not founded or operated by a religious organization are "Atheist Hospitals". No way! Oh, but I'm sure you can demonstrate that's true for each of the nearly 4,000 institutions.


I'm not saying any such thing; what is an 'atheist organization,' anyway? I'm saying that hospitals are most commonly built for reasons which are not religious.


Sure you did. ...and, you tell me. I guess atheists don't organize for the purpose of helping the sick. That was kind of the point. Health care is big business of course, so the profit motive is a big one.

Originally Posted By: tacit

How many hospitals were founded by atheist organizations? Seven and a half times more than were founded by religious organizations!


I guess you "misspoke". The "I'm not buying that" remark was in reference to that quote. I'll accept your revision. smile

Originally Posted By: tacit
How many hospitals have been built by the Assemblies of God, or the Fundamentalist Mormons? How about the Christian Scientists, who hold as a matter of faith that all of medicine is a sin, and that only the power of the Holy Spirit can cure disease?


I don't see a point here. This does not negate the fact that hospitals are supported by Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, Mennonites, Methodists, Presbyterians, and those of the Jewish faith. (Webster's definition) wink

Anyway, enough of this tangent I interjected. The other stuff is far more interesting.

Last edited by Gregg; 09/28/09 12:48 PM.
Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
Gregg #4427 09/28/09 04:36 AM
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Originally Posted By: Gregg
Health care is big business of course, so the profit motive is a big one.

Ah... so that's what the 'A' in A.I.G. stands for. wink
[jest kidding folks]

Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
Hal Itosis #4433 09/28/09 08:45 AM
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> It's more of a "feeling" really, that something *beyond* congealed matter is behind all this (life, you, me, etc). And i suspect we haven't yet invented the instruments to detect it, or developed the lexicon to describe it.

That, I think, is the most expressive comment so-far posted in this thread (the parts I've read, anyhow).

(My own take on the matter is "Reality is a dream; god is the dreamer.")


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In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
Hal Itosis #4457 09/29/09 12:43 AM
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Originally Posted By: Hal Itosis
I'm more agnostic than theistic, because i don't claim to know one way or the other (let alone have knowledge of any details). It's more of a "feeling" really, that something *beyond* congealed matter is behind all this (life, you, me, etc).


Throughout history, many people have had many feelings about the way the universe has operated, all unsupported by evidence and often in sharp contrast with one another.

It is a natural human urge to want to believe in something "more." I don't understand why this is necessary; the universe is filled beyond measure with elegant truths, many of which far surpass our feeble imaginations of gods and demons. Faith describes tiny, limited worlds; the reality is majestic and beautiful beyond imagining.

The gift of science, as unappreciated as it is, is that it lets us learn that the physical universe is awe-inspiring beyond the wildest dreams of prophets and seers.

If you wish to understand the majesty of reality, feel with your heart, but check your facts. smile


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Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
tacit #4460 09/29/09 03:41 AM
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Originally Posted By: tacit
Faith describes tiny, limited worlds; the reality is majestic and beautiful beyond imagining.

Huh? IYHO.

Einstein and Newton both had faith (in some sort of Creator/Being). So have many great scientists. [sadly, you're just swatting at flies here.]

There's no shortage of opinions out there... plenty of which disagree with your assessment. I.e., faith doesn't have to exclude "reality" (and/or all the awesomeness and/or all the majesty you wax so poetically about). Why do you continuously polarize the two? They're only mutually exclusive in one's mind, if one chooses to *believe* that. You do have a "religion" apparently: it's called Scientology perhaps? No? So, what do you call this agenda/mission then?

And please don't throw the Bible at me... i'm not even talking about that. (if that's the source of this hang-up, find someone else to pummel). Check out "The Tao of Physics" maybe... Capra is better able than me to express the [inevitable] union from both perspectives.

Last edited by Hal Itosis; 09/29/09 03:50 AM.
Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
ryck #4476 09/29/09 01:57 PM
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An argument can be made that if Newton approached his craft as an atheist he would have been more vigorously opposed than he was. The same can be said about Einstein.

One would need to consider the time line and the power of organized religion when these great thinkers were promoting their ideas. My question would be, how many people were never heard from as a result of their anti religious positions?

How much further would we have advanced if the opponents of the Prime Mover weren't reprimanded, jailed, tortured or killed?

Last edited by sandbox; 09/29/09 01:59 PM.
Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
sandbox #4478 09/29/09 03:36 PM
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IMHO, since late 19th century this is no longer an issue, at least, not a major one. On the contrary, some atheists, like Lysenko and Lepeshinskaya in Russia stalled great and reputed genetics research shunning and imprisoning competitors using some slogan-like stupidities, political accusations and data falsifying. To a certain extent, the same happened in China under Mao but this is less known. After the end of Mao's rule this negative influence of religion of belligerent atheism on science has gone, hopefully, forever.
P.S. I am not sure Einstein's (or Mileva's, as some claim) theory suffered that much from religious zealots, although you may be quite right about Newton. Concerning the latter's beliefs, nothing is really clear; there are steady claims that he was a prominent free mason.

Last edited by macnerd10; 09/29/09 03:37 PM.

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Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
macnerd10 #4486 09/29/09 05:54 PM
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Even intelligent people can have their limits.
Einstein was pounded by zealots on both side and chose to take the middle ground. He was a Jew, influenced by Catholicism as a child. A reader of Immanuel Kant and Spinoza. Spinoza's work was classic but it took a century before it was recognized, because of his religious position he was dashed by the Jews and Christians.

One cannot possibly be brought up in a environment of religion and not be influenced by it. So Einstein was open to the idea, rejected by both sides which was a good place to be in his time. It was unreasonable to defend a religion while you were dissecting theories held by believers and to discount believers while trying to convince them that his ideas should be considered.

Last edited by sandbox; 09/29/09 06:17 PM.
Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
sandbox #4490 09/29/09 06:56 PM
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Agree!


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Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
Hal Itosis #4544 09/30/09 09:36 PM
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Originally Posted By: Hal Itosis
Einstein and Newton both had faith (in some sort of Creator/Being). So have many great scientists.


So?

Originally Posted By: Hal Itosis
There's no shortage of opinions out there... plenty of which disagree with your assessment. I.e., faith doesn't have to exclude "reality" (and/or all the awesomeness and/or all the majesty you wax so poetically about). Why do you continuously polarize the two?


Because I come from a reality-based approach to understanding the physical universe; I do not believe that comforting myths have value over truth.

When you look at the world of faith, you see the same things repeated over and over again. People invent all sorts of stories, with not a tiny shred of evidence to support them, which other people accept as truth on faith. These stories inevitably describe a physical universe wich is smaller and simpler than the reality. How many times has a faith-based system said "Oh, my God, we were wrong! The universe is even older, even larger, even grander than we thought!"?

When you look to inventing belief systems without any physical evidence to support them, you find that human imagination is rather feeble. If all these faiths are true, how come they all describe such small worlds? How come no prophet or seer has ever received a vision from god that tells him that the universe is incomprehensibly huge and incomprehensibly fine-grained and billions of years old?

No, prophets and seers tell us of tiny worlds, with the stars mere pinpricks in the sky rather than entire suns in their own right. Prophets and seers tell us that the world (75% of which is covered with water) was invented specifically for man (who has no gills).

It's sad, really, to be so insecure as to have to believe all these nonsense stories in order to feel good about ourselves. It's sad, it blinds us to the truth, and it makes us petty and evil. People are altogether too eager to kill one another over who has the best imaginary friend; what, in all that, is the value of believing stories without any reason to suppose they are true?

Originally Posted By: Hal Itosis
They're only mutually exclusive in one's mind, if one chooses to *believe* that. You do have a "religion" apparently: it's called Scientology perhaps? No? So, what do you call this agenda/mission then?


Um...reality?

Originally Posted By: Hal Itosis
And please don't throw the Bible at me... i'm not even talking about that. (if that's the source of this hang-up, find someone else to pummel). Check out "The Tao of Physics" maybe... Capra is better able than me to express the [inevitable] union from both perspectives.


BWAH ha ha ha!

*gasp* *gasp*

Hee hee hee! Stop, you're killing me! The Tao of Physics, that completely discredited old rag that is the laughingstock of real physicists, that feeble and desperate attempt to do some incredibly creative metaphoric interpretation of Hindu superstition in order to try to convince people that, no, it really really looks like a layperson's flawed understanding of quantum mechanics? That book that has become the foundation of a whole truckload of New Age superstitious twaddle that tries to convince us that "quantum physics" is responsible for everything from Tantric sex "energy manipulations" to ESP? Are you KIDDING me? I'm surprised you haven't mentioned "What the Bleep do We Know" (which tells us, among other things, that water has the magical ability to absorb "energy vibrations" from human emotions and even read written Japanese).

Still, I do think there's a valuable point lurking in there.

I think it's interesting that people will, on the one hand, try to claim that we can know truth through faith without looking at evidence, and on the other hand, somewhere deep inside will still try to act like rationalists. That's why we see the faithful clutching desperately for science to justify their faith.

It's not just books like The Tao of Physics or twaddle like What The Bleep Do We Know. Look in any religious book store and you will find entire sections filled with so-called "scientific proofs" that this or that faith is "real." You'll see books that try to "prove" that Jesus is the Messiah or that Mohammad talked to some god or other.

Even faiths in things like young-earth creationism try to wrap themselves up in the language and dressing of science. They long for the legitimacy of science, because on some level they seem aware that science is a tool that has had, and continues to have, success at exploring and understanding the nature of the physical world that faith has never matched.

How many times have we had a faith-based, supernatural explanation for some part of the physical world, and then replaced it with a natural explanation? Many, which is why faith has to be anti-intellectual.

How many times have we had a natural explanation for some part of the physical world, and then replaced it with a faith-based, supernatural explanation? Um...exactly never.


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Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
tacit #4546 09/30/09 10:19 PM
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Originally Posted By: tacit
So?

So... science and scientists don't have to exclude -- or include -- that possibility. It's a personal matter. Can't your scientific mind even grasp the concept? [you don't have to agree... but your understanding seems somewhat impoverished.]


Originally Posted By: tacit
When you look at the world of faith, you see the same things repeated over and over again. People invent all sorts of stories, with not a tiny shred of evidence to support them, which other people accept as truth on faith. These stories inevitably describe a physical universe wich is smaller and simpler than the reality. How many times has a faith-based system said "Oh, my God, we were wrong! The universe is even older, even larger, even grander than we thought!"?

When you look to inventing belief systems without any physical evidence to support them, you find that human imagination is rather feeble. If all these faiths are true, how come they all describe such small worlds? How come no prophet or seer has ever received a vision from god that tells him that the universe is incomprehensibly huge and incomprehensibly fine-grained and billions of years old?

No, prophets and seers tell us of tiny worlds, with the stars mere pinpricks in the sky rather than entire suns in their own right. Prophets and seers tell us that the world (75% of which is covered with water) was invented specifically for man (who has no gills).

It's sad, really, to be so insecure as to have to believe all these nonsense stories in order to feel good about ourselves. It's sad, it blinds us to the truth, and it makes us petty and evil. People are altogether too eager to kill one another over who has the best imaginary friend; what, in all that, is the value of believing stories without any reason to suppose they are true?

I quoted all of that (this time) simply because it has absolutely nothing to do with me or my particular flavor of "faith", and it illustrates (epitomizes/proves) how obsessed you are with the topic in general... but blissfully ignorant as to the personal nature of faith. All that noise has nothing to do with me... and therefore has no purpose [in a reply to me] but obfuscation.


Originally Posted By: tacit
Um...reality?

Really?... you mean "perception" or what?
[Your turn now]: why is the sky blue?


Originally Posted By: tacit
BWAH ha ha ha! *gasp* *gasp* Hee hee hee! Stop, you're killing me! The Tao of Physics, that completely discredited old rag that is the laughingstock of real physicists, that feeble and desperate attempt to do some incredibly creative metaphoric interpretation of Hindu superstition in order to try to convince people that, no, it really really looks like a layperson's flawed understanding of quantum mechanics?

Really?... layperson?... let's see now.
Quote:
After receiving his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of Vienna in 1966, Capra did research in particle physics at the University of Paris (1966-68), the University of California at Santa Cruz (1968-70), the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (1970), Imperial College, University of London (1971-74), and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory at the University of California (1975-88). He also taught at U.C. Santa Cruz, U.C. Berkeley, and San Francisco State University.

[Your turn now]: your scientific credentials are what?


Originally Posted By: tacit
Still, I do think there's a valuable point lurking in there.

I think it's interesting that people will, on the one hand, try to claim that we can know truth through faith without looking at evidence, and on the other hand, somewhere deep inside will still try to act like rationalists. That's why we see the faithful clutching desperately for science to justify their faith.

It's not just books like The Tao of Physics or twaddle like What The Bleep Do We Know. Look in any religious book store and you will find entire sections filled with so-called "scientific proofs" that this or that faith is "real." You'll see books that try to "prove" that Jesus is the Messiah or that Mohammad talked to some god or other.

Even faiths in things like young-earth creationism try to wrap themselves up in the language and dressing of science. They long for the legitimacy of science, because on some level they seem aware that science is a tool that has had, and continues to have, success at exploring and understanding the nature of the physical world that faith has never matched.

How many times have we had a faith-based, supernatural explanation for some part of the physical world, and then replaced it with a natural explanation? Many, which is why faith has to be anti-intellectual.

How many times have we had a natural explanation for some part of the physical world, and then replaced it with a faith-based, supernatural explanation? Um...exactly never.

You're supernatural wink -- write a book why don't you? confused
Perhaps others will get off on (or feel comforted by) all the negative energy.

Last edited by Hal Itosis; 09/30/09 10:23 PM.
Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
Hal Itosis #4548 10/01/09 12:43 AM
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we need this guy back...



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Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
roger #4549 10/01/09 12:48 AM
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Yes, although we still have:



http://www.randi.org/site/


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The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth. - Niels Bohr
Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
crarko #4550 10/01/09 01:02 AM
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Originally Posted By: crarko
Yup. My dog is better than your dog.

Speaking of dogs, I don't have a horse in this race, but it seems to me that there's an obvious point that has yet to be made in this thread: the full-blown symphony of existence is inherently ungraspable by rational thought.

That is, the brain is fundamentally a filter between reality and the individual ego, a mechanism for reducing the cacophony of sensory input to manageable proportions by muting or squelching some information, classifying some information according to constantly-evolving taxonomic schemes, grouping similar data relationships together on the basis of apparently shared underlying patterns, etc.

Our capacity to understand, in other words, is limited by the very logic we employ to elaborate that which we do understand. We can no more describe all of reality using science than we can describe all possible feelings or states using language. And just as the very act of composing sentences represents a reduction of the fullness of expression in the interest of communicating a specific idea, the act of describing the universe scientifically represents a reduction of the fullness of description in order to grasp a specific relationship among observed phenomena.

* * * * *

I was in the cathedral at Chartres on a family vacation when I was a teenager. It was the middle of a weekday, and with parts of the ceiling undergoing repair, the organist was practicing amidst the informality of drop cloths and scaffolding.

Hearing that music (which some would hold to be sacred) reverberating through that ancient Gothic edifice (held by many to be sacred) by the dusky light of eight-hundred-year-old stained glass windows (a particularly renowned example of what numerous folks believe to be a sacred art form) certainly evoked a sense of connectedness to something greater than myself (or my family, or the other folks in the cathedral, or the other folks in France, or the U.S., or any other subdivision of reality). I don't consider myself religious, but I do consider myself to have, for want of a better word, a spiritual life...and that was a spiritual experience.

What constitues spirituality? Is it a vestigial remnant of the days when we sought to explain the unknown by creating divine or magical figures because we hadn't developed the tools to explain things rationally?

I think not, or at least not for me. I think spirituality is simply a different medium of perception, one in which understanding occurs emotionally rather than rationally. Otherwise, whence comes art? music? poetry?

* * * * *

If I did have a horse in this race, it would be that science explains everything that is explainable scientifically—a continually expanding body of phenomena—but that only a portion of everything that is explainable is explainable scientifically, and that portion of experience which lies outside of the descriptive abilities of science is, like that portion of expression which lies outside of the ability of language to communicate, infinite.



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Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
dkmarsh #4553 10/01/09 01:27 AM
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Consider how we experience what we call "reality":

We don't actually see. Light enters the eye and stimulates specialized light receptors (rods for black&white, cones for color). When stimulated, that receptor sends a nerve impulse to a specialized area of the brain that interprets those impulses as seeing.

We don't actually hear. Oscillating air cause the eardrum to vibrate. Those vibrations are passed via three small bones (hammer, anvil, stirrup) to the cochlea and sets up vibrations in the cochlear fluid. The fluid, in turn, causes specialized "hairs" to vibrate and those hairs send a nerve impulse to a specialized part of the brain which interprets the nerve impulses as sound.

All senses (and there are many more than five) work this way. The big point is that the nerve impulses from those receptors are IDENTICAL in nature. It is the part of the brain that receives the impulse that interprets it. If you could switch the nerves from the ear to the optical part of the brain, you would "see" sound.

What is color? It isn't real. Yes, different wavelengths of light are detected by the cones but our perception of red, green, blue, etc. results from a section of the brain that receives an impulse from a particular receptor. Again, the impulses are IDENTICAL. In fact, we only see three "colors", namely red, green and blue because those are the three types of cones that we have. Other colors result from the stimulation of more than one type of cone and, again, are interpretations of the brain.

How much of the external world do we actually know? In truth, none of it because our sensations are all filtered by our brains. It is impossible to imagine a color that you have never seen. Many birds and insects have receptors that respond to ultraviolet. What does it look like? If their perceptions are at all like ours, it looks like a color that we have never seen. We can use film that is sensitive to ultraviolet but we don't actually see it. Instead, the film converts UV to a color that we can see.

Astronomers deal with this all the time. They realized, long ago, that most of the light in the universe falls outside our limited perceptions of wavelengths. So, they scan the skies for radio waves, UV, X-rays, and gamma rays. We can devise methods of converting those things to visual media that are visible to us, but we don't really experience them.

Patients undergoing brain surgery are generally conscious (the brain has no pain receptors so only local anesthetics are needed). When a visual area of the brain is stimulated with a mild electric current, the patient sees things. To the patient, this is just as real as "actual" sight.

In conclusion, our senses give us the illusion that we can know our surroundings. This is only an illusion.


Jon

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Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
dkmarsh #4554 10/01/09 01:32 AM
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"A poet once said "The whole universe is in a glass of wine." We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imaginations adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the Earth's rocks, and in its composition we see the secret of the universe's age, and the evolution of the stars. What strange array of chemicals are there in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts — physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on — remember that Nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!"

R.P. Feynman wink


---

The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth. - Niels Bohr
Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
tacit #4555 10/01/09 01:32 AM
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Originally Posted By: tacit
I think it's interesting that people will, on the one hand, try to claim that we can know truth through faith without looking at evidence, and on the other hand, somewhere deep inside will still try to act like rationalists. That's why we see the faithful clutching desperately for science to justify their faith.


I'm not sure who you think believes that, but it does fit conveniently into your conclusion. Which came first?

Rather, I, and many people I know, find confirmation of faith (specifically, belief in a Creator) in scientific knowledge. I don't have a habit of studying and debating these things, so I will reference a web site (again) where many such points are made. I have had the pleasure of listening to a few lectures given by the author.

http://www.doesgodexist.com/Pamphlets/Go...dInHisWord.html

It's long, and I don't imagine many who are following this discussion will read it, nor do I expect (or want) a point-by-point rebuttal. I just offer it as another perspective that I haven't seen expressed here as yet.

Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
jchuzi #4558 10/01/09 02:15 AM
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Originally Posted By: jchuzi
All senses (and there are many more than five) work this way. The big point is that the nerve impulses from those receptors are IDENTICAL in nature. It is the part of the brain that receives the impulse that interprets it. If you could switch the nerves from the ear to the optical part of the brain, you would "see" sound.

In conclusion, our senses give us the illusion that we can know our surroundings. This is only an illusion.


I'm confident that you like the sound of your violin, most of the time that is. smirk I wonder if you realize that your explanation allows for the possibility, perhaps even the inevitability, that the favorite piece you like to play on it sounds to others like anything from a punk band to a Caterpillar planer in full swing, and that its appearance resembles a blue whale as much as a hapless army vehicle launched by an IED? And then I'm not even talking about its smells. shocked

Against the background of this potential confusion it's good to hear your reassurance that all creation is an illusion... cool


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Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
alternaut #4566 10/01/09 10:38 AM
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Speaking about my violin playing, I have been told that the strings sounded better when they were in the cat. mad

NOTE: Violin strings are not made from catgut and never were. AFAIK, the origin of that term is not known with certainty.


Jon

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Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
jchuzi #4567 10/01/09 10:41 AM
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Uncertainty abounds///

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catgut>


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
dkmarsh #4578 10/01/09 08:50 PM
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The Psychology of Grand was well understood in the early development of our species, like shock & awe. Show a sheep herder a huge building with colored glass and art they could have never imagined, fill the room with endless sounds of choirs or organs, let them touch the fine finished wood and stonework. have them smell the candles and oils and the senses will be overwhelmed causing and emotional response that some relate to spiritualism.

Follow me and this can be yours in paradise. The problem is that we are sensory creatures and when dead have no operating sensors. Why would a spirit need sensors? Why would a spiritual being need sensors? Could someone have a spiritual experience if they had no sensors?

Chemistry, or chemical energy creates the Felling of emotion that overwhelms our understanding of what our sensors are telling us and if your properly programmed the explanation will be a spiritual experience.

Without the program in place the experience would not be explained as spiritual, spirituality is learned through a nurturing process.





Originally Posted By: dkmarsh

Originally Posted By: crarko
Yup. My dog is better than your dog.

I don't consider myself religious, but I do consider myself to have, for want of a better word, a spiritual life...and that was a spiritual experience.

What constitues spirituality? Is it a vestigial remnant of the days when we sought to explain the unknown by creating divine or magical figures because we hadn't developed the tools to explain things rationally?

I think not, or at least not for me. I think spirituality is simply a different medium of perception, one in which understanding occurs emotionally rather than rationally. Otherwise, whence comes art? music? poetry?

Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
sandbox #4580 10/01/09 09:20 PM
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Originally Posted By: sandbox
spirituality is learned through a nurturing process.

And sometimes, near-death experiences. wink

--

Speaking of which... since dogs have such acute hearing, i wonder what they hear when Jon fiddles with his catguts.

Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
Hal Itosis #4584 10/01/09 09:56 PM
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Originally Posted By: Hal Itosis
Speaking of which... since dogs have such acute hearing, i wonder what they hear when Jon fiddles with his catguts.
Their howls tend to drown out my playing so they probably don't hear too much. tongue


Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365
Re: Unexplained Scientific Principles
jchuzi #4586 10/01/09 10:09 PM
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It's just "too many notes".


Alex
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2.8 GHz Xeon Mac Pro 2010, 16 GB RAM, OS 10.11.2, Office 2011, LAN
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