um the video poped up as no longer avalible...but that just my be something with IT settings at work.

Got bored 30 seconds in. No god here.

I got bored 90 seconds in . Was that by Christopher Walker or Christopher Walkin?

Hmm. The idea was the thought that the best way to see god is through nature. The video seemed very spiritual to me when combined with the words. With that frame. I was fascinated. Still am. I guess I am weird. I do not argue about that.

It's probably that I just wasn't in a mood for it. And I prefer observing nature IRL.

And we are to believe that on this scale, if God catches us having sex with a girl on a Sunday, he would be so livid that we are both to be shunned by our people and spend eternity in hell unless we take the local priest an unblemished goat?

What a preposterous notion. I would go see a psychiatrist if I saw God...

On the scale of your whole existance if you were a human looking through the eyes of God, by the time the metronome click track in my recording studio has clicked out two quarter beats, a whole human life has come and gone

If it helps you not immediately spit out the idea, think nature=god. But in general I just consider and suggest with this that perhaps nature and its study shows us more of god than most of the other books and texts. The endless debates and little arguments. That observing nature and understanding it is being closer to god/s. At least more so thatn reading a certain book or what have you alone.

When you make your music, is there a little bit of yourself within it? So when someone percieves your music which you create, in a way do they also perceive you? So what I am wondering here, and consider, when we percieve nature and consider its truths, is this the like much of the same.

Actually, looking through God's eyes time is both instant and forever. When you exist outside of time you can view it at any "speed" you like. Therefore your having sex with someone lasts both forever and an insiginificant blip.

Nature doesn't get angry, it doesn't get happy, it doesn't get sad, because we don't have to worry about breaking it's laws. Nature's laws like "Though shalt conserve angular momentum" or "Thou shalt approach zero kelvin as an asymptot" are not breakable. The idea of nature sitting with a marker pen and a whiteboard chalking up black marks to use against us when we die and the real fun starts is ludicrous...

Actually those aren't even nature's laws. They're just our explanations of its behaviour that we have so far found to be correct and work. It is, so to say, our current working model of nature.

We call them laws. "The law of conservation of angular momentum", "The law of conservation of electric charge", "The law of conservation of baryon number" and if you do a google search of scientific theory vis a vis scientific law, you should find we do so for a very good reason...

But either way, you're splitting hairs. We cannot work against nature's divine plan because it is physically impossible to do so... God's divine plan on the other hand is a lot of vulgar ficitions pulled out of the ass of a lot of demented iron age Israelites...

I have no problem with that, but it has to be realised that nature as we know it so far is only self aware in six billion objects the size of an orange that reside in the heads of a particular species of ape on one planet orbiting an indistinct star.

Nature doesn't get angry, it doesn't get happy, it doesn't get sad, because we don't have to worry about breaking it's laws. Nature's laws like "Though shalt conserve angular momentum" or "Thou shalt approach zero kelvin as an asymptot" are not breakable. The idea of nature sitting with a marker pen and a whiteboard chalking up black marks to use against us when we die and the real fun starts is ludicrous...

A lot depends on how you see things. Self-aware. Very strange that one and that distinction. "As far as we know" is probably the key phrase there....

"Black marks". Not so much when we die, but each action or inaction does have a consequence or cost. Not in a moral sense, but in conformity with the greater whole and the rest of the connections within the system/universe. The mistakes are meant with corrections (as a conseuence) much as many other gods are said to do to humans when they break the desired behaviour. Also even after you die, your children or otherwise the people left behind still are affected by your actions or inactions.

Yes I know all of that, but they're still laws of humans trying to understand nature. They aren't nature's laws in that nature didn't set them, nature just behaves in a certain way and our interpretation of that behaviour that we can detect with our faculties is so consistent that we tend to call it a law. But maybe, someday, somewhere, somehow, we will find a way to break those laws and they will be changed to fit the new understanding of how nature works.

We cannot, but maybe someday we will :P

I mean, until science was far enough light was light, but bees could (far as we know) always see UV light and knew it was there. Just like maybe one day we'll be able to make something to traverse a higher dimension than third and voila, time travel.

But this, none of this, has anything to do with what the individual who is dead might be getting up to, does it?

Because we don't know something does not give the more imaginative among us a blank cheque to make up a load of glib horseshit and pull it out of his ass in front of an audience...

I think it is up to each individual to decide what they wish to focus upon or believe.

That will not do. Not if we want to live in the kind of liberal societies we take for granted at the moment. Not if we want to survive at all...

The problem with that is you have people like David Korresh who believe that everyone around them should committ suicide, or like Van Impe who believes that we should do nothing about global warming because the apocalypse is coming, and then you have Yousef Al Khattab who believes that women should be stripped of their rights and everyone should be converted to Islam by force...

The world is not going to be helped if you have a lot of people who are not amenable to arguement who have very strong faiths that are contrary to one another. If we want to survive the next few decades, by which time everyone and his grandfather will have nuclear missiles, some kind of social engineering is going to be required so that all the religious cretins and imbeciles in the world who cannot think critically can be taught to, and hopefully made less dangerous...

The renmaissance idea that everyone's opinion is worth the same as everyone elses is ridiculous. If you need your car fixed you go to a mechanic, if you have chest pains you go to a doctor. The wise thing to do would be to let the people who have spent a lifetime studying cosmology try to explain the Universe, not take your "truths" from stupid and worthless ideas about unicorns, the great joo joo on top of the mountain or an omnipresent and yet strangely absent great invisible smiter who lives in the sky.

And just because the answer cosmologists come up with is, "we don't know yet, but we're doing everything we can to find out." does not give screwballs a lisence to start making things up and then cruelly scamming everyone else around them into believing it...

We are so different in our opinions sometimes, I am amazed by it.

Do you think that I am dangerous to you? Because obviously I have some pretty strong and radical beliefs sometimes although I am not partiularly religious now. If so, explain please why you feel that way so I can understand better.

People apply science every day. If they were taught to understand it as well, religion, and all the evil, cruelty and conceit that rides on it's coat tails could be undermined...

Rofl. This just reminds me of that south park episode that one time...

Understanding does nothing to overcome human nature. It was the understanding that a simple chinese toy could be turned into a weapon of large-scale death that brought about black-powder weapons. It was the understanding that when you split the nucleus of an atom it unleashes massive amounts of energy that lead to the atomic bomb. Human nature is to kill, maim and destroy. The more you understand of it the less you believe that understanding breeds anything but more of the same.

You? No I don't, but I think you are part of a problem that afflicts a large percentage of mankind.

You are scientifically illiterate,

I'm afraid I don't enjoy the kind of schoolyard humour found in Southpark, so I don't know what you are referring to with this...

I'm not for certain but he might be refering to this one:

http://forum.darkness.com/index.php?showtopic=85688&hl=

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000LVGTN...p;redirect=true

It is a bit silly but it does raise some intereesting issues. If you do watch it, I would be interested in what you think of it. It is basically about a futuristic society which has eliminated traditional religion. However, all is not entirely well. While "Praise God" is no longer said, it is replaced with "Praise Science". And the warring factions fight with one another over their individual answer to "The Great Question".

From certain perspectives I am EXTREMELY scientifically illiterate but then so too probably are you. Though I do not know for sure.

I'm surprised by the accusation a little bit, but then again not so much. Rather than trying to defend myself from it, I will just ask you to explain why you believe this about me personally and then from there what information you think I need to see (which I am overlooking) in order to also come to the same beliefs as you. If you'd rather PM that is fine too. I just want to know what you think I am missing and why you think this way. I will look at whatever information you have, and then consider it.

I eat, shit and breathe science... I've been steeped in science since the day I was born. I have spent my whole life around scientists and engineers. My father was a biochemist who went from research into teaching, I myself have studied biochemistry and have a background in biology, physics and engineering, but all of that is academic. The prime maxim of science is simply this:

Observe -> Hypothesise -> Experiment -> Repeat.

Wild surmise is not acceptable to me, it is a violation of my creed.

I wouldn't take it as an insult my friend or an accusation. It is clear to me from what you say that you do not think in a scientific way, that's all. I could have worded it a bit better, but as you've probably noticed, I'm not exactly the most articulate man in the world...

It takes all sorts of people to make a world and scientists are only one cog in a very complex machine. I am not on a mission to stop people having spiritual experiences or seeing the world in a spiritual way, what I simply beg for is that they don't follow the herd and think critically about things they hear. I myself am drawn towards nature worshipping ways of life like Wicca, one of my favourite people in the world is Starhawk. That does not mean that I am going to believe a lot of bollocks about the great joo joo up the mountain in lieu of verifiable facts on what is outside space and time...

Oh. What i meant by that was that what is considered scientifically literate varies by time and with different persons. For example, in 100 c.e., we would likely be considered extremely adept and literate. However, in 2500 c.e. it is likely that neither of us would have the knowledge of seven year old children.

I think one of the main differences between us appears to be that you were not exposed as much to religion (is this true?) as I was at an early age.

You seem to see it that the two have no real room together even in theory. To the point where if someone believes in certain things, you think that they must be unscientific by virtue of that belief. I do not see it that way. I hope you really do not either.

I would not expect you to believe in the great joo joo (lol) up the mountain either based on anything which I say. In fact, I do not really tell people that they should believe in a god or not, I do not feel it is my place or even that I am able to accurately make such a determination at the moment. I do however know that many times the current scientific viewpoint of many people is very much incomplete. And from observation, some of the negative assumptions of possibility including lack of imagination have been/are just as damaging as many of the positive assumptions which you are so very much allergic to.

in regards to this topic, curiously, it is strange that we have issues within it. For myself this topic was meant basically only to say that I think god is best seen within nature.

We call them laws. "The law of conservation of angular momentum", "The law of conservation of electric charge", "The law of conservation of baryon number" and if you do a google search of scientific theory vis a vis scientific law, you should find we do so for a very good reason...

Scientific laws are descriptive, not prescriptive. Scientific laws are at best a good probability, at worst, an unjustified generalization based upon the repetitious coinciding of X number of random events.

In regards to the video, there's too many major assertions that put me off it. Though I like the idea of the principles behind it.

Throne777

I don't know if I agree with that... In the year 2525 if we are still alive, as the song goes, OBserve -> Hypothesize -> Experiment -> Repeat will still be the whole of the scientific method. Someone with your background in technology will understand troubleshooting mentality. Work problems, never jump steps and try to guess the solution to a problem or you'll only make things worse. This applies to the search for human truth too. When we guess, we are building houses with no foundation. The Joo Joo up the mountain line was one I stole from Richard Dawkins, it's purpose is to illustrate how preposterous belief based on guessing can be. As far as science goes, the 20th century advances have taken us into the realms where we are actually flirting with the unknowable.

The glass ceilings over our knowledge of the Universe are now clearly in sight, and we have to accept what has been inevitable straight out of the gate.

That we will never know the answer to the great question.

The term forward reference is sometimes used as a synonym of forward declaration.[1] However, more often it is taken to refer to the actual use of an entity before any declaration; that is, the first reference to second in the code above is a forward reference.[2][3] Thus, we may say that because forward declarations are mandatory in Pascal, forward references are prohibited.

Permitting forward reference can greatly increase the complexity and memory requirements of a compiler, and generally prevents the compiler from being implemented in one pass.

Correct. I think that religion and science are mutually exclusive.

Imagination is wonderful and keeps life interesting. Use it. Use it well, but imagination does not have much part in the search for the truth.

I don't want to tell anyone what they can and can't believe. I am simply telling people what I do or do not believe. Imagination is excellent for writing songs, poems, books, for photography, painting etc. Unicorns are amusing creatures that look great in posters where you can overlay them on a curve generated by a Mandelbrot set. Imagination is wonderful and keeps life interesting. Use it. Use it well, but imagination does not have much part in the search for the truth. Steadfast adherence to data and fastidious methodical thinking are more what's needed for that.



I don't have an issue with that. it's the Jerry Fallwells and the Van Impes and George Bushes I have a problem with.

I think you're confusing scientific laws with scientific theories, but even then random events have nothing to do with this.

The probability of momentum being conserved in every collision that has ever occurred in the history of space and time from the very huge of black holes and planets to the very tiny of W-bosons and electrons by random chance is too preposterous to think about, so we can confidently assert that there is a law of conservation of momentum...

This proposition, that causes and effects are discoverable, not by reason but by experience, will readily be admitted with regard to such objects, as we remember to have once been altogether unknown to us, since we must be conscious of the utter inability, which we then lay under, of foretelling what would arise from them. Present two smooth pieces of marble to a man who has no tincture of natural philosophy: he will never discover that they will adhere together in such a manner as to require great force to separate them in a direct line, while they make so small a resistance to a lateral pressure. Such events, as bear little analogy to the common course of nature, are also readily confessed to be known only by experience, nor does any man imagine that the explosion of gunpowder, or the attraction of a lodestone, could ever be discovered by arguments a priori. In like manner, when an effect is supposed to depend upon an intricate machinery or secret structure of parts, we make no difficulty in attributing all our knowledge of it to experience. Who will assert that he can give the ultimate reason, why milk or bread is proper nourishment for a man, not for a lion or a tiger?

But the same truth may not appear, at first sight, to have the same evidence with regard to events, which have become familiar to us from our first appearance in the world, which bear a close analogy to the whole course of nature, and which are supposed to depend on the simple qualities of objects, without any secret structure of parts. We are apt to imagine that we could discover these effects by the mere operation of our reason, without experience. We fancy, that were we brought on a sudden into this world, we could at first have inferred that one billiard ball would communicate motion to another upon impulse, and that we needed not to have waited for the event, in order to pronounce with certainty concerning it. Such is the influence of custom, that, where it is strongest, it not only covers our natural ignorance but even conceals itself, and seems not to take place, merely because it is found in the highest degree.

But to convince us that all the laws of nature, and all the operations of bodies without exception, are known only by experience, the following reflections may, perhaps, suffice. Were any object presented to us, and were we required to pronounce concerning the effect, which will result from it, without consulting past observation, after what manner, I beseech you, must the mind proceed in this operation? It must invent or imagine some event, which it ascribes to the object as its effect, and it is plain that this invention must be entirely arbitrary. The mind can never possibly find the effect in the supposed cause, by the most accurate scrutiny and examination. For the effect is totally different from the cause, and consequently can never be discovered in it. Motion in the second billiard ball is a quite distinct event from the motion in the first. nor is there anything in the one to suggest the smallest hint of the other. A stone or piece of metal raised into the air, and left without any support. immediately falls: but to consider the matter a priori. is there anything we discover in this situation which can beget the idea of a downward, rather than an upward, or any other motion, in the stone or metal?

And as the first imagination or invention of a particular effect, in all natural operations, is arbitrary, where we consult not experience, so must we also esteem the supposed tie or connection between the cause and effect, which binds them together, and renders it impossible that any other effect could result from the operation of that cause. When I see, for instance, a billiard ball moving in a straight line towards another; even suppose motion in the second ball should by accident be suggested to me, as the result of their contact or impulse, may I not conceive, that a hundred different events might as well follow from the cause? May not both these balls remain at absolute rest? May not the first ball return in a straight line, or leap off from the second in any line or direction? All these suppositions are consistent and conceivable. Why then should we give the preference to one, which is no more consistent or conceivable than the rest? All our reasonings a priori will never be able to show us any foundation for this preference.

In a word, then, every effect is a distinct event from its cause. It could not, therefore, be discovered in the cause, and the first invention or conception of it, a priori, must be entirely arbitrary. And even after it is suggested, the conjunction of it with the cause must appear equally arbitrary, since there are always many other effects, which, to reason, must seem fully as consistent and natural. In vain, therefore, should we pretend to determine any single event, or infer any cause or effect, without the assistance of observation and experience.

Hence we may discover the reason why no philosopher, who is rational and modest, has ever pretended to assign the ultimate cause of any natural operation, or to show distinctly the action of that power, which produces any single effect in the universe. It is confessed, that the utmost effort of human reason is to reduce the principles, productive of natural phenomena, to a greater simplicity, and to resolve the many particular effects into a few general causes, by means of reasonings from analogy, experience, and observation. But as to the causes of these general causes, we should in vain attempt their discovery, nor shall we ever be able to satisfy ourselves, by any particular explication of them. These ultimate springs and principles are totally shut up from human curiosity and enquiry.

No I am not confusing anything. You may wish to read up on what Hume argues on causation (apologies for the length, but you really should read it if we are to continue this discussion):



Essentially, scientific reasoning is a posteriori reasoning, which means that it is based upon sensory experience and nothing that is based upon it is logically necessary. Note especially the billiard ball example. Following from this we come to the conclusion that we cannot prove that any scientific law is actually a law. It is only a highly probable predictor of events.
To sum, you cannot logically prove certainty through a posteriori knowledge.
If you can refute his argument, you've managed to pretty much destroy logic as we know it. So good luck to you.

Throne777

I think you are unquestionably very sincere in your views and I very much like and respect that.

Read Hume? No thanks. Been there. Ptolemy has proven that a towering intellect is no protection against been utterly stupidly wrong. So has Einstein. And Nietzsche managed to prove that a highly developed intellectual outlook can earn you a place in a loony bin after you go crazy and shag your sister!

Philosophical psycho babble aside, this is a semantic argument which is sheer unmitigated splitting of hairs. If you want me to believe that the law of conservation of angular momentum is not a law, then you're going to have to show me a physical example of it being broken, not a load of long winded jabbering by Hume.

So far, it has never been broken in nature since the start of the universe existing. If it ever is broken by nature, our bodies will fly apart at light speed, so if you can design an experiment to break it artificially, you are onto a Nobel Prize my friend. We could use your research to create perpetual motion machines and have infinite energy!

Many people think Nietzsche went mad because of syphilis, which is rather un-related to his genius.
This is not a semantic argument, it is a matter of logic. Since you are un-willing to add anything to this debate, but would rather make childish dismissals, I see no point in continuing this discussion.

Throne777

psychics

I'll answer this fully later. I'm short on time at the moment...

I am challenging you to provide me with an example of a scientific law being broken. You can't because there isn't one, there never has been one, and as long as there is a spacetime continuum for us to live in, there never will be one...

I am not being childish or unfair here, nor am threatening to run off in a sulk because I don't like what you are saying, It is not for anyone to use philosophy, logic, whatever the hell you want to call it to judge scientific laws. The two disciplines are unrelated and mutually exclusive...

What you are doing is literally like trying to use astrology to discredit astronomy, or alchemy to discredit biochemistry. I am not going to worry that the Sun isn't going to rise because it always has, and the chances of it not tomorrow are to ludicrous to be anything but negligible.

Don't you think that the fact angular momentum has been conserved for at least fifteen thousand million years is impressive?

Scientific laws shouldn't be judged by logic? Do you know how mind bogglingly daft that is to suggest?
Need I point out to you (for instance) that science (physics in particular) uses a hell of a lot of mathematics, which just so happens to be statements of logical equivalence. But if logic should not be used in science, then we can safely throw out all instances where science refers to mathematics. Which happens to be quite a lot.
Scientific laws are, as I've said, as highly likely as you can possibly get. What I'm disagreeing with you on, is that they are logically certain; because they're not.

Throne777

Many generations have seemed to have thought this though. Are you sure the ceiling you see now is not an illusion?

So a human may use imagination at times (that is being human) yet still engage in the search for truth or be a part of science. Why does the same not hold true for belief in a religion ot spirituality then?

Also explain to me how one forms a hypothesis (or theory) exactly or sets up a controlled experiment for the first known time. Explain to me please the process. Is there really no imagination involved whatsoever do you think at these stages? It just seems to me as if to a degree there is. It feels a bit like bickering to me to say this, but I feel as if I should because maybe you have an explanation for it that i miss or a clarification of some sort.

Perhaps I am a little bit too defensive sometimes in relation to you and I should not take what you say when you reply to and quote me as being directed at myself, but more to others who you perceive me as being allied with by virtue of the way that I see the world. I'm glad you aren't angry at me after all as sometimes it felt like you were in your posts. When I felt like this, especially in this thread, i usually just stepped back and let you clarify or ignored it totally. If it matters, I'm not fond of Bush or Fallwell either. :)

I think you are unquestionably very sincere in your views and I very much like and respect that.

The problems are now not a matter of technology. In the past, we didn't know what caused bacterial infections because we were waiting the invention of the microscope. Quantum Chromodynamics is different. It isn't the technological apparatus we now lack, it is the mental faculty. Asking what shape a w-boson is is literally like asking how long is a piece of string or what colour is the wind.

We actually mostly agree with most things, before it seems as if it was mainly misunderstanding between us.

This part above. I actually agree with to an extent. I remember of us speaking of visualizing four dimensions and things such as the pentatope. Things like this.However it is also kind of surprising how our minds have adapted and thought of things over the ages if you think about it. Even for the things we are only able to imagine now, it seems as if in the past many of these things were completely unimaginable to early men (though never impossible) because of a lack of a few brekthrus which are related.

Sometiems technology opens doors for us wehich allow us to quantify previously unknown things. Gotta go now.

Then prove it. I challenge you on this issue, to prove what you are saying.

Find me my real life example of a broken conservation law, because frankly what you're saying sounds very platitudinous and more than a little Lower Sixth to me...