The Open Mind

Me neither. So then, science is in standby. Nothing new, no changes, no paradigm shifts, and we're all set to write the Great Pontification of Reality on stone.

Og

I really would like it if you could expand on your rebuke of my approach in this thread. I think I detect sarcasm in your response

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Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

The Open Mind

No sarcasm, I'm being straight and direct as an arrow. The point is (no pun intended) we do not know what the "ultimate reality" is. At first we thought of a Newtonian universe full of particles that acted like billiard balls, now we live in a world with spooky actions at a distance, non-locality, entanglement, etc. For all we know tomorrow we may wake up in a world where multiverses become the established consensus or where the consensus has trashed it. The era of grandiose pontifications of an established truth etched in stone are gone −all we have are "working hypotheses" to get us through. In such a world, a degree of tolerance, openness to newness and readiness to have one's worldview flipped over, are the way to go.

I'm not saying logic is debunked, what I am saying is that what we can at most hope to have are the best theories available at the time being. Those of us who have left these dogmatizing religions is not to fall into the same game and make our own vaticans. If we do so we should prepare for surprises: truths are falling like flies.

Og

Newtonian mechanics wasn't wrong for what it was derived from. It's still used to drop men on the moon and probes on mars. It was clarified as the approximation to a more general theory that filled in holes that arose.

There was the uncertainty principle paradigm shift that moved us into never saying "we know it all," but it's not like newtonian mechanics are wrong. Also, if multiverses became established, it wouldn't discard quantum theory or newtonian mechanics. It'd be a further clarification.

I wasn't trying to lay out a certain view of the world or theory that described something as fact in the quote you took from me above. I was trying to point out how the stance that Buzz was taking didn't fit with the data at all. I wasn't making a positive stance about the nature of the mind other than to discard a theory that the data about the brain clearly does not leave room for.

We can clarify the details of how the brain works just as QM and Relativity clarifies Newtonian Mechanics. But it's not going to change the fact that the brain is a collection of electrically active biological cells who's behavior we understand with great accuracy. The notion of an intrinsic identity to that network of cells (what buzz would call an eternal soul) does not fit at all.

I'm all for an open mind, but let the theories you build up be directed by the data. Theories like religion are scientific hypotheses based on subjective analysis instead of objective analysis. Newtonian mechanics still stands. QM still stands. There are places where QM and Relativity don't match up, but a replacement theory MUST incorporate the predictions of the two as they are EXTREMELY accurate in their realms.

I don't mean to say that science is stagnant, but objective data driven theories (like Newtonian Mechanics) can never be discarded. Data is truth. Interpretations of this truth abound, but if the theory reflects truth, then you don't need to worry about being turned upside down. All you need to worry about is clarification or viewing your topic from a different perspective where the theory looks a little different (but explains the same thing).

I see the current state of science as seeking a point of view. Just as if you were trying to describe a sphere in cartesian coordinates (a disjointed piecewise function 5=sqrt(x^2+y^2), and -5=sqrt(x^2+y^2)), you can change your perspective into spherical coordinatees and describe it with a single number r=5.

It's all about the perspective we take and the point of view. The cartesian form actually does represent a sphere, but the spherical form obviously trivially produces it.

The problem is in finding that coordinate system (perspective) from which to view the universe. But we're not tossing out systems of thought like Newtonian mechanics or Evolution. We're continually clarifying them.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

The Open Mind

I didn't say "Newtonian mechanics". The Newtonian vision, to "work" had to have certain patches, like the universe being infinite to account for it not falling into itself due to gravity. We know it is wrong. The paradigm as a whole is defunct, it does not work, and it never worked, even in sir Isaac's time. Same with our theoretical systems. They are always and necessarily incomplete. Not only that, they work with patches to save them from falling apart like Newton's because of their ultimate implications.

Og

Hrm... I'm not sure what you mean by newtonian vision then. I also don't see why an infinite universe would have been a problem for people in Newton's time to postulate. As far as local earth and solar system features are concerned, it might as well be infinite.

Again, it seems like these are all approximations based on fitting data (truth) with a means of expressing it. Then comes relativity, big bang cosmology, and QM to clarify points where the theory couldn't extend into (because newton didn't have data for it). But again, this doesn't discard newtonian mechanics/vision for the data it described and the perspective of the people at the time.

What do you mean when you say that the paradigm is defunct and NEVER worked? I think it worked quite well and inspired a lot of social change and advancement of science. I think it described many things that made many inventions possible that could allow us to acquire more detailed data to flesh out the holes in the extrapolations of the theory, etc.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

Jasen777

To address the original topic, many agnostics are as agnostic about YHWH as there are about Zeus.

But you need to understand that you can be agnostic about the concept of God in general, while being atheistic about specific gods. I am atheistic about the traditional concept of Zeus. It says that Zeus lives on Mt. Olympus. We've been there and he's not there.

So there's evidence that Zeus (as conceived by the ancient Greeks) doesn't exist. There is however concepts of god(s) that there is not evidence either for or against, and so it is quite reasonable to be agnostic about the god question in general.

jaej

Hmm..

First of all, Og was trying to tell you the primary reason you're christian as opposed to another religion is because of where you were born. Texas. Big surprise you're christian. The other thing he was saying is that you have the same stance regarding other religions as agnostics have toward yours. If agnostics are brave for risking hell, you're just as brave for rejecting Islam's hell. Hopefully you understand this because I'm not sure it can be put in any simpler terms. Also, how is the pope different from the preacher at your church, albeit on a much different scale? They're both merely church leaders. I'm obviously not catholic, but to my knowledge catholics don't treat the pope's words as divine, at least not in the sense of the bible being divine.

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The Open Mind

The system as a whole did not work. If all stars, planets etc had a gravity pull towards each other, the universe should collapse upon itself. To "solve" this problem, Newton proposed that the universe was infinite and homogeneous, so every pull would be cancelled by those in opposite directions. Now we know that isn't true: the universe is not homogeneous nor infinite. The theory was wrong.

In any case, we don't know ultimate reality. We have theories that solve certain problems previous theories did not do so well, but that create their own problems. The panorama of what we call "reality" may change overnight (so to speak), so one of our primary virtues should be openness of worldview, and that's where agnosticism comes in. Not an invitation to open wide all windows and doors and lay down with our eyes closed so that every loony doctrine comes in and makes our home a mental asylum... but a call for epistemic humility, in a way like saying: "I know certain things to a certain degree of certainty, and I will continue to have them with my eyes open, until something better comes around. The 'final product' (if we can say such a thing) of the process I cannot know what will be."

Og

The theory was wrong on a cosmic scale upon which newton had no data. The theory did, however, match local phenomena quite well. Inverse square law gravitational fields and perturbation theory (for 3+ body problems) are still used to drop rovers on mars. That was the point. Empirically derived theories are always solid. It's extrapolations outside of that boundary that don't work. This is why I was saying that the scientific method will continue to clarify and that there are no real paradigm shifts when theory is driven by data (i.e. the scientific method).

I've never heard of this problem with newton's theory. How exactly would your claim about newton's theory collapsing compare to kepler's laws and conservation of angular momentum? If planets fly around a star in a virtually frictionless environment (space), their velocities cause them to keep missing one another while they're being pulled towards one another (hence orbits).

Are you saying newton lacked the big bang data for initial energy input into the universe to give these things initial velocities that create orbits?

Otherwise I don't see where "gravities balancing each other out" come into play at all. Energetic matter moving around will always have enough kinetic energy to counter the gravitational potential fields that it enters. If it has enough, it flies out in a hyperbolic trajectory. If it has just enough, it enters an orbit. If it has too little, it collapses. I see no reason why this requires that the universe eventually collapse on itself.

Energy and angular momentum are conserved. When two objects collide, the momentum is summed or transfered.

As long as theories are driven by empiricism (i.e. newton/kepler's analysis of orbits that they could measure) there will not be paradigm shifts. Think there's ether? Set up michaelson moorley experiment and disprove it. Ether was an extrapolation from sound waves and NOT based on empirical data.

Just observe and don't stray to far from that and you'll never find a theory where "the panorama of what we call reality may change overnight."

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are