No name, just any cartoon that might get you kicked out of the bowling arena. Jesus & Mo for me:Quote:
Originally Posted by Eman Resu
http://www.jesusandmo.net/2013/05/15/stupid/
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No name, just any cartoon that might get you kicked out of the bowling arena. Jesus & Mo for me:Quote:
Originally Posted by Eman Resu
http://www.jesusandmo.net/2013/05/15/stupid/
Maybe religion is irrational to you, but remember that humans are irrational creatures. Maybe there is a reason for that? Maybe there's a type of reason greater than human reason? You know, there's so much us humans don't understand, and yet we have the gall to say that there is no God. How can we possibly know that when our minds are so limited? Does that not strike you as conceited?Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
It is the same with science. So much is yet to be discovered....Quote:
Originally Posted by SentimentalSlop
Once you admit & admire irrationality any excess is permitted. Why not believe in astrology or Zeus? They are just as irrational as Christian beliefs. Why not get really irrational and hold all these views at the same time? They contradict each other? This shouldn't bother an irrationalist.Quote:
Originally Posted by SentimentalSlop
Again, sigh, who says that? There is insufficient evidence for God, just as there is insufficient evidence for the tooth fairy, therefore the rational persons holds that there is no God, just as there is no tooth fairy. Is it conceited not to believe in the tooth fairy?Quote:
You know, there's so much us humans don't understand, and yet we have the gall to say that there is no God. How can we possibly know that when our minds are so limited? Does that not strike you as conceited?
That is like saying, because you love someone, support a football team or admire a opera - all irrational feelings - you must believe in all things imaginary (which are not the same as irrational). Poor argument and rather ilogical. I suppose you believe in astrology and Zeus now?
Love has a rational explanation, it's a combination of sexual attraction and friendship, both readily explained by evolutionary theory. Supporting English football teams is an irrational action that I have cured myself of. For instance, I followed none of the recent England football's team qualification fiasco, apart from catching the appalling racist remarks of their idiot manager.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
You need to be careful with the broad and narrow definitions of rationality (You are assuming I'm using the narrow definition, I'm not, I'm using the broad definition.) Watching an Opera, if you like Opera, or think you could like Opera, is a rational act because it is a "sensible, sane, moderate, not foolish or absurd or extreme" thing to do. Believing in God is not sensible or sane, it's foolish and absurd, and often leads to immoderate, extreme actions.
Love is not the same as physical atraction, which is what you described but do you understand even having faith will be explained by evolutionary theory just like any emotions. And still, being irrational is absolutely normal and healthier. And still: we can be picky with our irrationalities.
Watching Opera can lead to extreme actions. People cry rivers of tears. There is sane, moderate, sensible, not foolish religious people. Aquinas's first cause is rational, it is logical and yet you keep saying there is no logical reason to believe in God. This is very irrational, a bit of absurd claim, since you just ignore a historical fact.
As you finding ridiculous people who is religious, it is ridiculous to not support a football team, even if your option is the English team.
I said love came from a physical reaction & friendship... maybe that's not quite correct in all cases, so I'll broaden it to say it comes from a physical & social reaction. Yes indeed "having faith" can be explained by evolutionary theory. On a recent video, Dawkins says he likes the idea that faith comes from inappropriate attribution of agency. For instance, if you hear the grass move, it's likely to be just the wind blowing, but it's probably of an evolutionary advantage to attribute agency to the movement, that is, assume a carnivore is behind you and run like hell. 99 times out of 100 it will be the wind, but it's worth running like hell 100 times for the one time it is a jaguar. Some people inherited the tendency to attribute agency to *everything*, so if a volcano erupts, "someone did it". Obviously not a jaguar, must be something bigger, must be God. So evolution installs irrational tendencies, sometimes, and they need to be opposed by rationality.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
Not in England :) But I'll give you this, I think it's a positive thing. Some extreme actions are not good though, like burning heretics.Quote:
Watching Opera can lead to extreme actions. People cry rivers of tears. There is sane, moderate, sensible, not foolish ...
Aristotle's physics is considered absurd *today* because it obviously doesn't work, we can excuse Aristotle because not much was known about science, he had an excuse for his ignorance. I'm not sure if Aquinas was mad, bad, or ignorant; but today we can certainly relieve our ignorance. Just as Newton's ideas can be explained to 14 year olds, Aquinas' five proofs for God's existence have been shown to be vacuous today (i.e., irrational.) Dawkins does a reasonable job of this in "the God Delusion", though you can pick up many books of popular philosophy that do a decent demolition job.Quote:
Aquinas's first cause is rational, it is logical and yet you keep saying there is no logical reason to believe in God. This is very irrational, a bit of absurd claim, since you just ignore a historical fact.
The first cause argument comes from the idea that nothing is caused by itself, every effect has a prior cause. This infinite regress is terminated by a first cause: God. The first cause argument makes the entirely unwarranted assumption that God is immune to the regress, that God himself does not need to be caused.
Is that is all they had to do? Just tick a box for which religion they belonged to? I would probably have to tick the "non-religious" box depending on what the other boxes were.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
It is irrational to assume that makes me an atheist.
People like Dawkins need to be careful that those "non-religious" people they are counting on for support don't turn anti-atheist.
When people say there is insufficient evidence for something, they are saying there is no evidence that they accept for something. This is the one of the problems with atheism's relationship with science. It would be the same problem no matter what religion dominated science. Atheists refuse to look at evidence that counters their belief system. They then use their influence to insist that scientists in general refuse to do so as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
What science needs is a tolerant agnosticism, not atheism. Scientists need to have open minds.
Let us also not forget that when atheists gain power, they behave badly as well. To refuse to acknowledge the problems of state atheism and only focus on the problems of other religions opens atheists to the charge of hypocrisy and even bigotry.
Does atheism itself have any "good existence claims"? If atheists cannot argue other religions out of existence, is it acceptable, should atheists get political power, in the name of "science", in the name of "reason", in the name of whatever bogus idealism they currently embrace, to try to force other religions out of existence?
Hardly. There are many atheists who have studied the supposed evidence in great detail, as a quick Google search will show you.Quote:
Atheists refuse to look at evidence that counters their belief system.
The best scientists do, they always keep open the *possibility* that Santa exists, they always remain open to new evidence.Quote:
What science needs is a tolerant agnosticism, not atheism. Scientists need to have open minds.
How can you have 'state atheism'? You can't have a state whose only policy is "Don't believe in God!"Quote:
To refuse to acknowledge the problems of state atheism and only focus on the problems of other religions opens atheists to the charge of hypocrisy and even bigotry.
As its only claim is for the non-existence of something, it's ridiculous to expect an existence claim!Quote:
Does atheism itself have any "good existence claims"?
I would argue no, but that's because I'm a liberal. You can be a liberal atheist, Stalinist atheist, or an atheist of any political persuasion. You can also be a liberal Christian, in which case no force is necessary on either side, but a lot of lively arguments may be expected, and should be encouraged :)Quote:
And if atheists cannot argue religion out of existence, is it acceptable, should atheists get political power, in the name of "science", in the name of "reason", in the name of whatever bogus idealism they currently embrace, to try to force other religions out of existence?
Can religion and science co-exist? They do; now more than ever, they're entirely interrelated. From an article in Physics For The Terminally Stupid Magazine, "How exactly do you produce a Higgs boson?"
"There are a few ways to produce Higgs bosons at the Tevatron at Fermilab which collides protons and antiprotons together. The primary way is when a gluon, which is the particle that holds the quarks together inside a proton, begins to collide with a different gluon from the antiproton. Some of the time, when these gluons have enough energy, and when there is a quantum fluctuation like a roll of a dice choosing a particular number, the gluons will exchange a top quark, and the top quarks will merge, and transform into a Higgs boson."
I guess that since the God Particle depends upon quantum fluctuation, it could be said that the variance which creates this merging of top quarks is... well, you can figure this out by yourself:
God's Particle depends upon
Two errant quarks to marry,
The force which causes this is called
The Blessed Mergin' Vary.
Nice one about the Mergin' Vary, Eman Resu.
Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Thanks; when I read that I kind of lepton it.
If "Science" is responsible for all of creation, then why did "It" choose our planet ONLY?? Science has no intelligence and can't choose, of course. And I'm well aware that all the elements needed are in place here…but why? Why not other places in the universe? You may say there could be others in other universes but why only our planet in all this vastness around us? Why such a perfect design here only? Think about the complexities of that design…why? Just "Why" about everything.
God is the answer to "Why?".
Science is not "responsible for all creation". Instead, science is a method, or a department of knowledge in which observed facts have been logically arranged and systematized, and are subject to verification or falsification.
You are correct, Melanie, that the universe SEEMS miraculous, and inspires awe and wonder. However, God is only one of a great many possible answers to the question, "Why"?
God is the only answer and science is one of the Gifts of God and doesn't have any saying about Who God is or What He's supposed to do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
If God is the only answer, does that mean there is only one question? My only point was that the universe existed before science did – so “science” could not possibly be responsible for all creation.
I agree that science could not possibly be responsible for creation. The word "science" isn't in the Bible because the word didn't exist but science existed and science was created by God, whether there was a name for it or not.
I absolutely agree with your first sentence, which is why I think it behooves people to consider what constitutes good and bad evidence to begin with, rather than just talking about good and bad evidence in the abstract. This is what I love about LessWrong and Bayesian Epistemic Rationalism. If you read that site from the beginning, you'll see how Yudkowsky builds from the ground up a way of assessing evidence in a manner that is as objective as we humans can get. I say AS objective, because Bayes itself acknowledges, in the existence of priors, the subjective nature of human experience, how every piece of evidence we observe is affected and affects our previous experiences and evidence.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
That said, I completely disagree either that atheists refuse to look at the evidence that contradicts their belief system, or that scientists aren't open-minded. For the former, the people that write about atheism generally do so in the context of addressing the arguments and evidence from theism! Dawkins, eg, expresses his atheism through his attack on the "evidence" put forward for ID and Creationism, and how evolutionary biology is far superior in its evidence to either. Indeed, take way Dawkins' critiques of ID/Creationism and you take away the very basis for which we know him as an atheist! You can say the same thing about Krauss and Creationist cosmology, or Shelly Kagen and theistic morality, etc. In regards to scientists, having somewhat open minds is really part and parcel of what they do. As I've said before, however dogmatic individual scientists are, the nature of the scientific method and peer-review is very much a "watch dog" over that dogma turning into blind authority. If science didn't have an open mind, Darwin's theories never would've gained an ounce of footing to begin with, as the idea, back then, would've seemed far too absurd to even other scientists.
Here's something God designed that scientists don't have a clue about. It just so happens to be at the core of creation.
Watch this TED video about the uncertainty of scientists as to the location of electrons and their "mysterious" behavior:
http://www.dump.com/locationelectrons/
This video is a scientific explanation that SCREAMS a Higher Power.
This is just the classic God of the Gaps (we don't know something, so God!), and is plain false is well. Science has an incredibly accurate probabilistic model of how electrons behave, and we have a perfectly deterministic one if we accept those models as real without adding anything unnecessary to them. It turns out, the reason they seem weird to us is because we are made up of particles ourselves, and one particle system cannot observe another without both of them being affected. Our "confusion" was entirely over not considering ourselves in the equation. Take ourselves into account and the weirdness goes away. Even if we DIDN'T know these things and DIDN'T have that model, our ignorance creating a mystery would never be evidence of a "higher power." See here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/hs/think_like_reality/Quote:
Originally Posted by Melanie
Again, to quote the relevant:Quote:
Reality has been around since long before you showed up. Don't go calling it nasty names like "bizarre" or "incredible"... Quantum physics is not "weird". You are weird. You have the absolutely bizarre idea that reality ought to consist of little billiard balls bopping around, when in fact reality is a perfectly normal cloud of complex amplitude in configuration space. This is your problem, not reality's, and you are the one who needs to change.
Human intuitions were produced by evolution and evolution is a hack. The same optimization process that built your retina backward and then routed the optic cable through your field of vision, also designed your visual system to process persistent objects bouncing around in 3 spatial dimensions because that's what it took to chase down tigers... When you go down to the fundamental level, the level on which the laws are stable, global, and exception-free, there aren't any tigers. In fact there aren't any persistent objects bouncing around in 3 spatial dimensions. Deal with it.
Calling reality "weird" keeps you inside a viewpoint already proven erroneous. Probability theory tells us that surprise is the measure of a poor hypothesis; if a model is consistently stupid - consistently hits on events the model assigns tiny probabilities - then it's time to discard that model. A good model makes reality look normal, not weird; a good model assigns high probability to that which is actually the case. Intuition is only a model by another name: poor intuitions are shocked by reality, good intuitions make reality feel natural. You want to reshape your intuitions so that the universe looks normal. You want to think like reality.
How can "probabilistic" be "incredibly accurate"?? Interesting leap of faith you have there.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
"IF"???…..another leap of faith. You might as well throw in a leap of faith in a Higher Power while you're at it….just to be fair. Gotta' just love how God has a few mysteries that He's keeping scientists in the dark about (as well as all of us). He wouldn't want to unleash ALL of his secrets…that would be too much power in the wrong hands.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
You just don't see it do you. You are saying that if you don't know these answers (which you don't) and don't have an accurate model (which you called probabilistic), are ignorant (your words not mine), and can't answer the mysteries…...then you would not be open-minded to another leap of faith concept ? Wait. Didn't you just tell YesNo that scientists are open-minded?Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
POST #100 from MorpheusSandman to YesNo…."I completely disagree either that atheists refuse to look at the evidence that contradicts their belief system, or that scientists aren't open-minded."
The many worlds model doesn't add the needed assumption that allows it to generate the Born probabilities. Therefore it cannot construct a wave function. Therefore it is not an interpretation for how electrons behave. To believe in many worlds requires a "leap of faith", to use Melanie's term.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Considering the absurdity of many worlds and the absurdity of even wanting a strict determinism like it proposes, I think theistic beliefs are more reasonable and more scientific since they fit reality better.
This particular thread is about science vs religion. However, science and religion are not at odds, especially not today with the introduction of fields as part of reality, the understanding that the universe is not deterministic and the realization that the universe is incredibly young. What are actually at odds are science and pseudo-science. I would put beliefs like many worlds in the pseudo-science category.
If a system is innately probabilistic from our perspective then an accurate model would be probabilistic as well, the same way a coin flip is 50/50 or a die roll is 1/6. Are these probabilistic models not "incredibly accurate"?Quote:
Originally Posted by Melanie
I don't see that as a leap of faith at all. So far, every time we've accurately modeled reality it's been of real phenomena. People's reluctance to accept QM models as "real" stems from them upsetting their subjective perceptions/experience of what reality is. So, if you believe the models over our historically fallible perceptions, then the models are deterministic; if you believe our historically fallible perceptions, then you have some explaining to do. How many instances do we need of our perceptions being wrong and our scientific models being right before we start to trust our scientific models over our perceptions? You might as well say it's a "leap of faith" to believe the sun will rise tomorrow.Quote:
Originally Posted by Melanie
Nevertheless, it's foolish to put all "leaps of faith" under the same label as if the leaps are of equal length. Historically, people proposing gods behind natural phenomena are batting a perfect 0%, while science discovering natural causes behind natural phenomena are batting a perfect 1.000. So, now we find ourselves in the midst of another "mystery;" please explain to me why it's an equal "leap" to go with the theory that has been consistently WRONG, as opposed to going with the theory that has been consistently RIGHT? The sun rising is the same thing; sure, maybe the sun WON'T rise tomorrow, and maybe it's a "leap of faith" to believe it will, but to propose that both leaps of faith (it rising VS it not rising) are equal is patently absurd.
Apparently you don't get it either. How is "I don't know" evidence for the theory that "God did it?" Especially from a historical perspective we've used gods to explain tons of things we didn't understand--lightning, the "movements" of the planets/stars, storms, waves, mountains, etc.--and have been wrong EVERY SINGLE TIME! That's not a good track record for gods being behind what we don't understand. However, we do understand quantum mechanics. Engineers use the models in several facets of modern technologies, like GPS and quantum computing. The models work, they're scary accurate. The debate is over how to interpret what they mean and, as I said, if you trust the models are representing real things, then they are deterministic and only become indeterministic from our perspective because we are bound up in the system we're observing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Melanie
Better to have an interpretation that simply says "there's more we don't know" (MW) than to have an interpretation that says "we know everything, but please ignore all of the absurdities and contradictions and violations of scientific, rational, and logical principles that our assumptions create" (CI).Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Yes, an invisible superman behind everything we don't understand is "more reasonable" and "fits reality better" than believing that our QM models are real. I would love for you to explain how theism is the least bit "scientific." How is "we don't understand something, so God did it" scientific?Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.htmlQuote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
14 billions years old is young?Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Many worlds can't even face the facts that we do know.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
It is far more reasonable than gazillions of parallel universes that in the end don't explain anything anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Considering that the universe was previously viewed as eternal, 13.7 billion years is very young. In particular, it is too young, far too young, for chance to fill in the gaps and explain how we got to where we are today. The only God of the gaps is chance, but with the universe being so young, that God did not have time to do anything. Something else must be at work.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
This is plain false, but don't let that stop you from saying it over and over and over and over and over and over.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
And, again, you're judging MW based on its complex consequences (the "gazillions of parallel universes") rather than its simple assumptions, the same simple assumptions that are consistent with everything we know about physics and history; and, again, you're ignoring that great complexity arising from simple premises is what we see all throughout nature within our own universe, not simplicity arising from complexity like Copenhagen; and, again, you're ignoring that MW's problem (Born) is much less significant than CI's multiple problems.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
This is plain false, but don't let that stop you from saying it over and over and over and over and over and over.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I can't help but notice how you failed to meet this challenge: "I would love for you to explain how theism is the least bit "scientific." How is "we don't understand something, so God did it" scientific?""
You did nothing to explain how theism was "scientific." All you did was pull out a big, honking argument from incredulity fallacy ("I can't imagine how a 14 billion year old universe could've created everything by chance, so God did it.").
I don't mind repeating myself. Thanks for giving me the opportunity. I usually try to do it in different ways so I see it from a different angle.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
I don't know a lot about religion, and I can't speak for any particular theism, but I suspect the theisms that present God using the names of Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Rama, Krishna, Saraswati, and the like, are not interested in their Gods being some "God of the gaps" or some "Intelligent Designer" of machines. They think more highly of their Gods than that.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
The God of the gaps has a name. It is called "Chance" and it is the God determinists invoke when they can't explain something. They expect people to accept their God without question, but considering how young the universe is, arguments that this Chance God exists or could have achieved what they claim it did requires a statistical argument that they conveniently refuse to provide.
This is from the link that you cite:
Sometimes creationists compute the astronomical odds against a molecule having a certain structure from the simple probability of n atoms arranging themselves so.
That is exactly what those believing in the Chance God need to calculate. Instead of satirizing the "creationists", they need to get off their butts and show that whenever they claim something occurred by chance that there is a statistical likelihood that it could actually occur by chance.
Here's another quote:
Merely because one cannot believe that, for example, homeopathy is no more than a placebo does not magically make such treatment effective.
Homeopathy could well be a placebo effect without there being any "magic" involved. However, if the universe were deterministic and our consciousness made no difference since we are just machines, ideas these self-proclaimed "rationalists" tend to believe in, there should be no placebo effects. None at all. The existence of these effects means that the consciousness of the patient cured the patient, not the drug, because that patient didn't get the drug.
The general belief systems of theists are not in conflict with the data that science provides today. Their Gods are not spaghetti monsters, but they don't have to be in a universe where fields are possible. Their Gods are not deterministic, but they don't have to be because quantum physics has found uncertainty at the core of matter.
Again, I can't speak for specific theisms, but science doesn't stand in the way of these religions.
What I do find amazing is the extent today that atheists have to go to maintain their beloved mechanistic determinism. If there is anything that has been falsified by modern science it is this atheistic metaphysics.
Obviously. You don't mind repeating yourself even after you've been factually corrected. It vividly reminds me of Creationists who say "evolution has no idea where life came from so evolution is wrong!," then have it explained to them that evolution only seeks to explain why living things change, not where they come from, yet continue to state "evolution has no idea where life came from so evolution is wrong!" Your "evolution = abiogenisis" fallacy is "Bell disproves Many Worlds," amongst others.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Firstly, not a single thing in your post addressed my challenge to explain how theism was "scientific;" secondly, remember that "chance/coincidence" is not a "God" or "God of the gaps," IT'S THE DEFAULT POSITION BECAUSE IT'S THE NULL HYPOTHESIS! You yourself brought up the null hypothesis in the Lost & Found thread and was advocating its usage until you learned that the null hypohtesis and chance/coincidence are the same thing. It reminds me of when you were advocating Richard Feynman as an authority until you learned he was a MW advocate.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
This just shows that you know nothing of probabilities, and it's just the classic, teleological, "argument from big numbers" fallacy. If I go out and look up at the sky, the probability that I will see the exact cloud formation I do is incredibly small; If I'm driving home and note the license plate numbers of every car in front of me, the probability that I would've encountered precisely those license plates is incredibly small; if you calculate every outcome of every game in Vegas over the course of a single night, the probability of that outcome is astronomically small. Every single one of these three "incredibly small probability" events have one thing in common: they all happened by CHANCE. Unless you think there is some "grand design" in me seeing the cloud formation, or those license plates, or those Vegas outcomes, then you, also, would agree it was "chance." Remember, chance is the "null hypothesis," it's the claim that "there is no meaning/design/causal connection between these events." In order to argue it ISN'T chance requires more than just the big probabilities against those events happening. Just because we, as humans, find big probabilities against things that are relevant to us makes zero difference in whether there's some meaning, design, or causal connection in what we experience, including life itself.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Firstly, the universe being deterministic has nothing to do with whether or not our "consciousness" makes a difference. If you program an AI, the programming itself is what defines the AI! Defines what it thinks, says, and does. Our consciousness, if it is a real, physical thing as rationalists believe, would, itself, define what we think, say, and do. Just because we're deterministic would not change in the slightest how important our consciousness is to us. Secondly, I have no idea how/why you're making the connection between "the ideas rationalists believe in" and "there shouldn't be a placebo effect." As a rationalist myself, I believe that the human mind, consciousness, is a very real thing and what it thinks has a profound effect on how it feels and what it does. Just as thoughts can convince a person that they're sick, and, because thoughts are real things, can even MAKE them sick; thoughts can also convince a person that they'll get better if they take something and, because thoughts are real things, can actually GET better.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
What "general belief systems?" It seems unfair to define "general belief system" as "anything in religion not in conflict with science." Meanwhile, Christian beliefs that see The Bible as the inerrant Word of God would believe that the blood of birds and incantations cure leprosy. What has happened in the wake of modern science (not to mention modern morality) is that people progressively shear away from their "general belief systems" those parts of their holy texts that are in direct conflict with science and modern morality; or, if they're like many fundamentalists in the US, they deny modern science, like evolution, in favor of believing the Genesis version of creation. One doesn't have to look hard to find religious beliefs that are, indeed, in direct conflict with science. What's more, the process that generates such beliefs are in direct conflict with the scientific method. There are no religious beliefs that have been reached because of the scientific method, unless you believe The Bible, which, conveniently, is no longer susceptible to the same modern method.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Speaking of something you've said repeatedly despite having been corrected...Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Atheistic metaphysics have NOTHING TO DO WITH DETERMINISM. In fact, with the lone exception of a disbelief in gods, an atheistic metaphysics ENTAILS NOTHING ELSE. I'm sure there are plenty of atheists who believe in Copenhagen or another indeterministic interp. of QM. If science came together tomorrow and definitively determined that the world was indeterministic IT WOULD NOT CHANGE MY ATHEISTIC BELIEFS ONE IOTA. I don't know ANY atheist whose atheism is bound up in their belief in determinism.
There's also some wonderful irony to the above. Back when Newton first came along with his deterministic physics, most religious institutions and believers thought that this determinism was evidence FOR God's grand ordering of the cosmos. Likewise, when quantum physics seemed to show that things were indeterministic at the quantum level, many theists saw this as a challenge to this supposed Godly order, as they could see no reason why God would "play dice" in Einstein's phrasing. Really, I find it funny that you are SO SURE that indeterminism is evidence for theism while determinism is evidence for atheism. Personally, I see both as being COMPLETELY NEUTRAL on the atheism VS theism front.
Typically, though, you've convinced yourself that I believe in determinism because determinism is absolutely crucial to my metaphysical beliefs. This is just you projecting how YOUR mind works onto me. YOU have metaphysical beliefs and refuse to accept anything that goes against them. YOU put inordinate amount of evidential pressure on something like MW while completely ignoring all of the problems in indeterministic QM. I, on the other hand, am happy to accept anything, be it determinism, indeterminism, theism, etc. as long as the winds of evidence are blowing in that direction. If I wasn't, I wouldn't be a rationalist. You, as a non-rationalist, believe that everyone thinks like you, that they have the same biases that are making them believe these things you don't believe. If you genuinely, honestly, appraised the evidence you'd understand why I believe what I do. You may still disagree with me, but you wouldn't be cooking up this cockamamie notions that I'm so desperate to maintain my atheistic metaphysics that I'm deluding myself into believing in determinism. I know why you believe what you do; you WANT to believe in indeterminism because you WANT to believe that human consciousness isn't a deterministic machine because THAT would make you feel insignificant. YOU are a classic victim of wishful thinking. I don't see how there can be any progress in our conversations until you get over this bias/fallacy.
What facts?Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Instead of "chance" one should simply say one doesn't know.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
I see that we agree on something.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
I don't see science standing in the way of these religious beliefs. It does stand in the way of determinism.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
The determinism of many worlds is in direct conflict with modern science, specifically, the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics. If it is OK for many worlds to be in conflict with science, it should be OK for these religious groups to differ as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Atheism seems bound up with determinism, however, I agree that not all atheists are determinists. A mechanistic view of the universe seems to require determinism.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Well, the scientific evidence is in favor of indeterminism. Why don't you accept it?Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
It is not that complicated. My own experience tells me that I do make choices, no matter how restricted these may be. So, if I believed in determinism, I would have to deny the evidence of my experiences without any good scientific reason to do so.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
That Bell does nothing to disprove MW. If you don't know why then you either haven't been reading what myself and others have said, you don't understand what MW is, what Bell is, or you don't understand what you've been reading. Take your pick; but it is a factually factual fact that Bell does nothing to disprove MW.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
The question isn't about absolute knowledge but about the most reasonable initial assumption. Chance/Coincidence is the null hypothesis, it's the most reasonable initial assumption. We should assume that something is chance until we have data that suggests otherwise.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
WHAT religious beliefs? You keep lumping all religious beliefs under one label and acting as if they're all the same. Any time a religious belief has something to say about external reality, I very much think science is "standing in its way" to the extent that no religious beliefs hold up to rigorous, scientific testing.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
This is one of those factually incorrect things you like to repeat ad nauseam. Many Worlds explains the Uncertainty Principle, it is not in conflict with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Why does it seem this way? Have you taken a poll of atheists to see how many are determinists VS indeterminists?Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Because it's not. The scientific evidence is in favor of determinism appearing indeterministic because of us being part of the systems we're observing and our perspectives being limited because of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
And your own experience tells you the Earth is flat and the sun revolves around it. How many times does science have to show that our experiences are limited because of our perspective? If the world was deterministic, you would only know if your brain was infinite in its ability to computer those processes, but it's not. Do you know that our brains make choices before we're even aware of it? http://exploringthemind.com/the-mind...ore-you-decideQuote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
The "good evidence" to deny your experience are the QM formulas themselves (Shrodinger and Heisenberg). Take them as real, as all mathematical models of all natural phenomena has been throughout history, and don't unnecessarily add anything to them, as per Occam's Razor, and you get the determinism of MW. You actually have to unnecessarily add something to them, like a collapse, or unreasonably assume they're "non-real" in order to get indeterminism; and your "reward" for unnecessarily assuming they're non-real and unnecessarily adding a collapse are all of these seemingly irresolvable paradoxes like the non-locality of Bell (ironically, Bell's non-locality is SUPPOSED to be a challenge for CI, NOT for MW!), or the inexplicable mechanism behind the indeterminate collapse itself.
In your desperate attempt to maintain indeterminism, which you feel is necessary for free-will/consciousness, you hand-wave all of the problems and paradoxes that the one-world interps. of QM create, the same problems that physicists have been baffled by for almost a century. Instead, you could just obey Occam's razor, assume the reality of the wavefunction, and you end up with an interp. that is compatible with everything else we know about physics. No irresolvable paradoxes and mysteries. Of course, you don't WANT to do that because you WANT to believe in indeterminism.
What you are presenting are dogmas that you believe in. There is nothing factual about them.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
The experiments that show correspondences between entangled particles separated and then measured show, to my satisfaction, that MW cannot realign the assumed split of these worlds in a way that would guarantee this correspondence can be preserved. That is enough to falsify the claim the MW is any more "local" than any other interpretation.
Now, you need to show how that correspondence can be maintained.
It is best to say that one does not know. There is no reasonable initial assumption. One doesn't actually know that chance was involved.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
However, if one wants to claim some event occurred by chance, then one can test that. Just compute the probability that such an event occurred by chance. If the probability is too small, then one would have to reject that chance was the cause. When one rejects chance, all one knows is that something else was involved. We may not be able to find out what it was.
From my perspective, the differences are minor. Essentially religions guide a born again, kundalini or enlightenment experience using their various traditions, faiths and scriptures.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
It does not. Science is not in conflict with religion but with pseudo-science such as many worlds that calls metaphysical dogmas "facts" and speculations "science".Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
I'm aware of what is presented in that link. I looks to me that it shows that our consciousness is larger than our immediate awareness. It might even be useful as evidence that our consciousness is not generated by our brains.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
To pursue this further, what or who prompted the brain to decide to do something? Why do we still call it our decision?
Once many worlds removes the assumption that allows the Born probabilities to be computed, and supposedly gains some bogus Occam's Razor advantage, it loses touch with reality and scientific evidence. When it claims it is saying something significant about quantum physics, it becomes pseudo-science. Many worlds cannot generate a single wave function let alone make anything "real".Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
The issues with wave function collapse have been addressed by consistent histories. There is no need for many worlds anymore.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Why do you want determinism so badly?Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
:banghead: This is not dogma. This is a fact that any theoretical physicist would confirm. I repeat, it is a factually factual fact that Bell does nothing to disprove MW. If you don't know why then you either haven't been reading what myself and others have said, you don't understand what MW is, what Bell is, or you don't understand what you've been reading. It's your insistence on repeating crap like this that makes me feel you're being intentionally dishonest or a troll.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
:banghead: Pure BS. You yourself were promoting the null hypothesis and now you're backing away from it. The road you're going down would mean we could never assume chance for anything, like the order the leaves fell of a tree. There must be some grand purpose behind it. What nonsense.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
:banghead: This is not how one tests chance and again shows you know nothing of science or probabilities. I already explained this earlier, which is proof positive you don't read or understand what anyone writes. To copy/paste what I wrote just a few posts ago:Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
If I go out and look up at the sky, the probability that I will see the exact cloud formation I do is incredibly small; If I'm driving home and note the license plate numbers of every car in front of me, the probability that I would've encountered precisely those license plates is incredibly small; if you noted every outcome of every game in Vegas over the course of a single night, the probability of that outcome is astronomically small. Every single one of these three "incredibly small probability" events have one thing in common: they all happened by CHANCE... In order to argue it ISN'T chance requires more than just the big probabilities against those events happening.
:banghead: THIS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THOSE TRADITIONS, FAITHS, AND SCRIPTURES BEING COMPATIBLE WITH SCIENCE! You said, and I quote, "I think theistic beliefs are more reasonable and more scientific (than MW) since they fit reality better," yet you haven't done a single, solitary thing to show how ANY religious beliefs are the LEAST bit scientific.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
:banghead: It does so. Many Worlds doesn't call anything a "fact" because it's a F'ING INTERPRETATION! It "interprets" the wavefunction as real and it "interprets" things like the Shrodinger equation and Uncertainty Principle as being a complete-in-themselves description of reality. Those are its "interpretations." You will not find a single MW advocate claiming any of its claims as factual. I dare you to.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
:smilielol5: Consciousness IS awareness!Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Oh, I don't know, how about those deterministic particles the brain is made up of?Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
:banghead: It's actually Copenhagen that, once it adds the assumption that allows the Born probabilities to be computed, loses touch with reality and scientific evidence. You seem to keep forgetting the little problem CI has of being completely and inexplicably irreconcilable with everything else we know about physics. MW is compatible with those things, so MW is completely "in touch" with reality and the scientific evidence; CI is not.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Which still has the problem of erroneously assuming the wave equations are inexplicably unreal. Explain to me how we can have models of unreal things. Once you figure out how to do that, I may take CH seriously.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
:banghead: I don't. To repeat what I said earlier:Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
You've convinced yourself that I believe in determinism because determinism is absolutely crucial to my metaphysical beliefs. This is just you projecting how YOUR mind works onto me. YOU have metaphysical beliefs and refuse to accept anything that goes against them. YOU put inordinate amount of evidential pressure on something like MW while completely ignoring all of the problems in indeterministic QM. I, on the other hand, am happy to accept anything, be it determinism, indeterminism, theism, etc. as long as the winds of evidence are blowing in that direction. If I wasn't, I wouldn't be a rationalist.
I'll repeat further: I DON'T GIVE A FLYING RAT'S *** FLIP TAIL DONKEY HONK ABOUT DETERMINISM. If the collective sciences came together tomorrow and said to me "the universe is indeterministic! We've established this fact beyond doubt!" I'd give a shrug and a nod and say "OK." and would believe the universe was indeterministic and go about my daily life. The universe being (in)deterministic MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, NADA, ZERO, ZILCH, SQUATOLA TO ME! I merely BELIEVE it's deterministic because MW is the best current interpretation of QM we have for the millions of reasons I've given. If a better, indeterministic interpretation comes along, I will believe it. Again, it's YOU who have this desperate need to believe in indeterminism, so you've done everything in your power to discredit MW and ignore all the problems with all of the indeterministic interps. of QM. You are one the most obvious victims of Confirmation bias I've ever seen.
The religious experiences that these traditions are concerned with can be viewed as non-deterministic resonances, or dances, between people and some divine reality. Since we know their experiences are real, the only question is whether that divine partner is real.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
If science had validated mechanistic determinism, one might be able to claim that those believers were dancing by themselves with only an imaginary partner. However, that is not what happened. What happened was mechanistic determinism was falsified. That leaves open the question whether this divine partner is real or not.
Given the existence of these experiences and the falsification of mechanistic determinism, I find these theistic beliefs more reasonable and a better fit to reality than any atheistic objections to them. This voids any imaginary conflict between science and religion that atheists like to promote.
Blatantly false.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Even ignoring the blatant falsity that determinism was falsified, whether you find theistic beliefs to be "reasonable" STILL HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM BEING THE LEAST BIT SCIENTIFIC! Do you know what the scientific method is? Please explain to me how ANY religious belief is compatible with that method.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
What's more, chance, coincidence, the "null hypothesis," does not depend upon determinism to exist (indeed, why would things NOT seem more random and meaningless in an indeterministic universe?); so explain to me how, even in an indeterministic universe, "Goddit" "fits reality better" and "is more reasonable" than chance? And you can't use the "argument from big probabilities" as I've already explained twice.
What I can say is many worlds is not scientific. I don't even think it is rational.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
The view of reality that religious people provide, based on the religious experiences that people actually have, makes more sense given the uncertainty principle of quantum physics, the current knowledge that the universe had a beginning and the existence of reality in the form of fields.
I look at "chance" and "determinism" as paired metaphors. They depend on a mechanistic view of reality in which consciousness and choice are ignored. I don't think either one is more than an approximation to anything real.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Let's see:Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Actual scientists say: Many Worlds is scientific
Actual rationalists say: Many Worlds is rational
YesNo says: Many Worlds isn't scientific, but religion is
YesNo says: Many Worlds isn't rational, but Deepak Chopra is
Hmmmm, I wonder whom we should believe here?
Again, this does not demonstrate how religion is the least bit scientific as you claimed it was. By this rationale, the flying spaghetti monster is also scientific. You have in no way connected The Uncertainty Principle to being evidence for God.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
How in the hell does "chance" depend upon a "mechanistic reality?"Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Plus, let me get this straight; you think there's no such thing as chance, correct? So everything from the way a leaf falls, to specific cloud formations, to the roll of a die, to the fact that I farted at the same time my team scored... none of those things happen by chance? There's some deep meaning and connection behind them all?
If you believe in determinism, how does chance fit in that at all?Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
First, let me define what I mean by chance.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
By chance, I mean an event that, even if it is deterministic in an objective manner, we experience it probabilistically or indeterministically because of our limited experience (as in MW) or limited knowledge (what card in poker will come next) or limited ability to calculate (the coin flip) the deterministic forces. In MW the universal wavefunction may be objectively deterministic but it is subjectively indetermistic; "chance" is, essentially, not knowing whether "you" will see the cat alive or dead, since you can never see it both alive AND dead. In poker, even though the next card is decided after the shuffle, we can not KNOW what that card is; so "chance" arises from our ignorance. For a coin flip, even if we say that there are deterministic physical forces (General Relativity) controlling what side it lands on, we can not calculate them all in order to predict what side it lands on; so "chance" arises from our inability to calculate the deterministic forces.
What's more, in each of these cases (MW, coin flip, next poker card), there is nothing besides those deterministic, non-anthropomorphic, non-agent, non-intentional, forces "controlling" what happens. So by "chance" I also mean a lack of connection between the event and some other "cause" (be that cause supernautral or otherwise). In order for someone to establish a cause BESIDES chance requires the scientific method of removing variables and testing to see if there are connections between events and proposed causes. You can't just experience the event, and then say "God" (or whatever) after the event occurs, because that's when you end up with fake causality and crap theories like phlogiston. God is basically phlogiston; it's something people evoke after the event has happened, but never use to make advanced predictions. That Phlogiston article precisely articulates what's wrong with the "God" hypothesis in all cases.