WTF

[shah]

1. an unintelligible assumption, because any description something would require at least partial knowledge to give a description at all.

There is more to reality than observable and scientifically testable phenomena, and our materialist reductionist approach to the world is a rather ridiculous one if you ask me. its interesting to me how you raise something like quantum mechanics, (of course I am limited in this regard) but isnt this just theoretical and mathematical claims by people like Stephen Hawkins that fall outside of the realm of any demonstrable scientific inquiry?


2. All inquiry with respect to reality must come to a full investigation of what is. I find it sheer cowardice on the part of scientist or philosophers who are so invested in finding out the origins of the universe when they would say, like you are, that there isnt necessarily an outside, a before or a cause. How can we know this to be true, to even dare may such statements?...............is it that we are afraid if what we might find out, so we limited ourselves or rule out certain possibilities because of the fear they may be true?

This is why I can respect a man like Antony Flew, who as he said, his commitment is to to the Socratic maxim of following the evidence wherever it leads..............

3.
there can be no default position, any seeker of truth must investigate all possibilities until their validity is demolished by enough evidence to show them to be untrue.
Again only intellectually dishonest cowards take this stance, in part because many have a pre-comittment to a particular view, so instead of seeking truth we seek to oppose a view that differs from our position regardless of whether it may be valid or not

hey zamb, just wanted to add that there are many principles of quantum mechanics that have been demonstrated -- the statistical nature of reality on a tiny scale is just that, but as you scale up it becomes an average of these probabilities. the "easiest" experiments are watching light bend around a rigid object (suggesting wave-nature of light) as well as the double-slit experiment (so a wave probabilistic wave interfering itself until it is observed/interacted with, cause a collapse of the wave -> choosing a position). it took over half a century for eisten's theory of relativity to be experimentally verified, but it was mathematically consistent at the macro scale.

for the second bit, i don't think science is supposed to answer the "why" for many questions, why is the universe organized as such, why does the standard model have 16 components, why does the higgs field exist, but rather the how -- what gives matter its mass ? well the newly-detected higgs particle and its field do. to ask for demonstrative proof is not reasonable, you cannot demonstrate that evolution has occured over a billion years because that doesn't fit into a laboratory, and you cannot demonstrate that even when travelling at 99.999% the speed of light, to the observer light still passes him at the constant speed of light (due to collapsing of spacetime) and you cannot demonstrate that dark matter isn't composed of some massless particle that can move faster than speed of light hence our inability to detect it other than its gravitational consequences.

i guess my point is, science and mathematics in particular is just a language with which we describe nature. and just as with any language, you can write more and more specific sentences that more accurately reflect observations. and sentences with contradictions are thrown out, and those that can be improved are. now the issue is, how can you connect the description of the very small with the very big ? well, for the time being people use semicolons ( quantum ; general relativity) but string theorists are hard at work with ideas that are mathematically sound but for now not empirically observed (11 dimensions, sub-electronic vibrating strings that determine what fundamental particles they become, etc)

as for the universe, well there are suggestions that beyond lies virtual particles that are popping in and out of existence (this is consistent with the mathematical models) and that the big big bang was a consequence of some broken symmetry during one of these events -- so in theory if we looked past our sheet of a universe which is expanding faster and faster (and at some point expansion will surpass the speed of light leaving us seemingly in the middle of nowhere) we could observe other universes forming.

but let's not go too far down the rabbit hole , perhaps this post really deserves the title of its thread

[ambrosian]

Regarding the statement about scientists attempting to claim there is no outside influence on the creation of the universe - there is no difference between claiming that the universe exists eternally or as an infinite regression of Big Bangs and collapses and saying that there was an ancient alium or G.O.D entity that caused the initial big bang. Scientists have no problem with admitting such, as they are all just assumptions; we have no knowledge of what existed before the Big Bang or how it came to be.

There is, however, a problem that exists with the supposition of an Abrahmic omnipresent and omnibenevolent entity, a being that watches over the universe in its entirety. Absence of evidence might not be proof of absence, but it's certainly a good place to start.

Example: We might posit that there are 100s of invisible, intangible, tiny and pink elephants wandering about you at any moment that have absolutely no effect on the environment about them. Whether or not they exist matters not, since although they might exist, they have no effect on anything and thus no influence on our world. We could also talk about how a causal dangler such as this is unreasonable to believe in, but the point is that there is no reason to believe in something that has no visible or tangible (physical) effect on the world, as there is no evidence for it.

The problem with God/supernatural constant 15' radius invis beings is that there is no way of proving that they exist. The onus is not upon the person who decries something does not exist to prove thus either. It is up to the claimant of the positive statement, rather than the negative, to show evidence for why something might exist. Of course, the negative claimant may also provide some argument defending his position by playing devil's advocate for a moment and further inquiring about the line of reasoning the positive claimant may take.

[ambrosian]

shah: I also was thinking of mentioning the fact that science is there to answer the how, not the why, which is a great point. We know a LOT of the hows these days and the supernatural has been continually proven unnecessary to explain these hows.

i wish i had something to contribute apart from philosophical musings. someone post some laffs pls.

[Venus in Furs]

i find it astonishing that someone with a collection to finish, on 'accrued increments' of sleep, can waste so much time arguing about religion on a fashion forum... contextually speaking, it's in the right thread at least.

I know matters of religion and such can get testy sometimes, but not with me

[zamb]

i find it astonishing that someone with a collection to finish, on 'accrued increments' of sleep, can waste so much time arguing about religion on a fashion forum... contextually speaking, it's in the right thread at least.

the same way I find it astonishing that you would be concerned with what other people spend their time doing especially it does not concern you...............but ah well

contextually speaking you are expressing your thoughts in the right thread

[sheepishlord]

Streetwear according to reddit's male fashion advice. never have i seen such a haven of circlejerkers and jcrew patrons.

[Rei]

1. an unintelligible assumption, because any description something would require at least partial knowledge to give a description at all.

There is more to reality than observable and scientifically testable phenomena, and our materialist reductionist approach to the world is a rather ridiculous one if you ask me. its interesting to me how you raise something like quantum mechanics, (of course I am limited in this regard) but isnt this just theoretical and mathematical claims by people like Stephen Hawkins that fall outside of the realm of any demonstrable scientific inquiry?

2. All inquiry with respect to reality must come to a full investigation of what is. I find it sheer cowardice on the part of scientist or philosophers who are so invested in finding out the origins of the universe when they would say, like you are, that there isnt necessarily an outside, a before or a cause. How can we know this to be true, to even dare may such statements?...............is it that we are afraid if what we might find out, so we limited ourselves or rule out certain possibilities because of the fear they may be true?

This is why I can respect a man like Antony Flew, who as he said, his commitment is to to the Socratic maxim of following the evidence wherever it leads..............

3.
there can be no default position, any seeker of truth must investigate all possibilities until their validity is demolished by enough evidence to show them to be untrue.
Again only intellectually dishonest cowards take this stance, in part because many have a pre-comittment to a particular view, so instead of seeking truth we seek to oppose a view that differs from our position regardless of whether it may be valid or not

1. Such as? We come back to me asking you for an example.

And no, in quantum mechanics we get the best predictions in science and things are measured with high accuracy.

2. It's not about being afraid but being open. However we can dismiss ideas that don't match with the information we have. Like say if time began at big bang, there would be no before right? Sure it's not that simple in reality but you get what I'm after here. And it's exactly what science does, follows the evidence. No need for needless assumptions.

3. This just doesn't make any sense. It's not a pre-commitment but logical way of thinking to filter out the crap so to say. No reason to start investigating these invisible pink elephants for example. I'm sure some philosopher would have something to say about this.

[Lane]

I knew Napoleon didn't exist, there's no way some midget french dude would have been responsible for conquering that much land.

[the breaks]

Why don't you drop the unwarranted spiteful condescension, reflect on why you're so bothered by people who have no bearing towards you, and grow up.

Nothing posted in this thread has any real bearing on any of us when you think about it.

[Patroklus]

I made that joke a couple of months ago; that we can't prove that Napoleon exists, we can only present an overwhelming amount of evidence that he exists. But who's to say that the entirety of 19th century Europe wasn't lying to us? Can you show me the body of Napoleon? Can you prove it's Napoleon's corpse?

There's an argument that a belief in science is faith based, and it's not incorrect because you don't know all information collated by every field of science, and you don't understand it (don't lie, you don't), and you don't know for sure if scientists are just fudging shit. But it's not really correct either, because it's different to trust that at least most scientists are doing the best they can than it is trust that Buddha managed to figure it all out after just thirty days of sitting under a tree.

You can trust me though. Write me in during the next presidential election.

[cowsareforeating]

^ i actually might, given your fiscal cliff speech.

[Patroklus]

Imagine how many Rick leathers the bailout could have bought.

The answer is roughly eleven and a half billion.

[BSR]

There's an argument that a belief in science is faith based, and it's not incorrect because you don't know all information collated by every field of science, and you don't understand it (don't lie, you don't), and you don't know for sure if scientists are just fudging shit. But it's not really correct either, because it's different to trust that at least most scientists are doing the best they can than it is trust that Buddha managed to figure it all out after just thirty days of sitting under a tree.

absolutely true, this is called 'epistemic dependance', the fact that nobody has direct rational justifications of 99% of her/his beliefs, and must rely on grounds he has no access to (but others she/he trusts have). But of course there is a big difference bewteen believing on indirect rational grounds and believing on irrational grounds, as you also say. The classic formulation of this 'dependance' theory is to be found there.

[ambrosian]

Streetwear according to reddit's male fashion advice. never have i seen such a haven of circlejerkers and jcrew patrons.

back to the 4dongs [b]rother :)))))))))

speaking of buddha, i'm very interested in the guy in the news recently who survives on air. he's sat under that tree for so long that he's become one - it's like trolls 2 without the trolls. thermodynamics only applies to closed systems anyway...

[interest1]

Irresistible coin toss.

My New Year's resolution is to only look at the pictures in this thread, going forward.
No reading allowed.
.