Does God Exist?

[Gee]

Greylorn;

If you did not feel the need to poke at science so much, maybe Blaggard would not feel the need to defend it so staunchly.

What do you think? Maybe?


Blaggard;

If you would consider starting a new thread entitled something like, Isn't Science Just the Grandest Thing in the World, then the rest of us could go and take a poke at science every once in a while. Then you could get on your horse and defend your lady love -- science -- and we could all discuss the topics that are reflected in the titles of our threads.

What do you think? Maybe?

G

[Gee]

Another thing to note is that the sub/unconscious mind is not really known by us rationally. We get glimpses in our dreams -- where prophesies often come from -- and we get ideas that are not really clear like ESP -- which occasionally seems to have predictive powers and defies the limits of time and space. Of course, "God" could easily be President of the Paranormal Club, so this makes sense too.

Could be, but Hameroff has an alternative explanation.

You have been busy.

Ginkgo;

I would be interesting in learning what Hameroff's alternative explanation is. Could you give a brief outline of it? If it would take this thread off-topic, then give the explanation in Pure Consciousness?.

There are a lot of people, who question how "God" thinks, but I seriously doubt that there is any thinking going on. Consider that in almost all religions, there is a "God" or top "God" that is all knowing. Then consider what thinking actually is; we think by deducing, comparing, and calculating in order to extrapolate new information and learn new ideas or thoughts. Why would an "all-knowing God" need to learn anything? It seems kind of redundant as "God" already knows everything. So I think that the idea of "God" thinking, or "God's mind" is kind of silly and probably an anthropomorphic concept.

Logic and rationalization are both linear processes and amount to, if this, then that. So they are both processes that can only work in a cause and effect, and time and space, environment. So if there is a "God", then that "God" would not use logic or rationalization, but is there a way to organize knowledge without logic and rationalization? Not sure, but studies of the sub/unconscious mind seem to indicate that relationship and sameness and difference would be how information is organized.

It occurs to me that this is also how matter and the Universe are organized, by laws of sameness and difference and relationship. If you think of sameness and difference in terms of attraction and repulsion, you will find that everything from photons, to molecules, to ecosystems, to solar systems, to galaxies, works the same way. Everything has a sameness and difference in relation to each other, which translates to an attraction and repulsion that holds everything in balance, causing it to continue. So if there is a logic in the Universe, then I think this would be it.

I suspect that life forms work by the same rules, except that since life is aware, it is interpreted as "want and not want" instead of "attraction and repulsion". The "wants" are mostly dictated by hormones and pheromones (through the unconscious aspect of mind) and cause each specie to mate, group, and work for their own survival. It also causes the specie to attack other species, again to ensure survival. But all of these "wants" in different species attacking other species do not destroy the environment; they actually cause it to continue.

So if "God" has a logic, I suspect that it is sameness, difference, and the relationship of them and between them. But we have not yet even considered discussion of emotion, and if religion is about anything, it is about emotion. Morals are about emotion. "God" is about emotion.

G

[Greylorn Ell]

Ginkgo;

I would be interesting in learning what Hameroff's alternative explanation is. Could you give a brief outline of it? If it would take this thread off-topic, then give the explanation in Pure Consciousness?.

There are a lot of people, who question how "God" thinks, but I seriously doubt that there is any thinking going on. Consider that in almost all religions, there is a "God" or top "God" that is all knowing. Then consider what thinking actually is; we think by deducing, comparing, and calculating in order to extrapolate new information and learn new ideas or thoughts. Why would an "all-knowing God" need to learn anything? It seems kind of redundant as "God" already knows everything. So I think that the idea of "God" thinking, or "God's mind" is kind of silly and probably an anthropomorphic concept.

Logic and rationalization are both linear processes and amount to, if this, then that. So they are both processes that can only work in a cause and effect, and time and space, environment. So if there is a "God", then that "God" would not use logic or rationalization, but is there a way to organize knowledge without logic and rationalization? Not sure, but studies of the sub/unconscious mind seem to indicate that relationship and sameness and difference would be how information is organized.

It occurs to me that this is also how matter and the Universe are organized, by laws of sameness and difference and relationship. If you think of sameness and difference in terms of attraction and repulsion, you will find that everything from photons, to molecules, to ecosystems, to solar systems, to galaxies, works the same way. Everything has a sameness and difference in relation to each other, which translates to an attraction and repulsion that holds everything in balance, causing it to continue. So if there is a logic in the Universe, then I think this would be it.

I suspect that life forms work by the same rules, except that since life is aware, it is interpreted as "want and not want" instead of "attraction and repulsion". The "wants" are mostly dictated by hormones and pheromones (through the unconscious aspect of mind) and cause each specie to mate, group, and work for their own survival. It also causes the specie to attack other species, again to ensure survival. But all of these "wants" in different species attacking other species do not destroy the environment; they actually cause it to continue.

So if "God" has a logic, I suspect that it is sameness, difference, and the relationship of them and between them. But we have not yet even considered discussion of emotion, and if religion is about anything, it is about emotion. Morals are about emotion. "God" is about emotion.

G

Gee,

Your second paragraph comes close to the logical conclusion that God can either think, or be omniscient, but not both. You've got the right idea. There are many forms of information processing that we lump into the category of "thought," some of which we share with critters and computers. Creative thought is a different thing. A being who know all things cannot possibly have a creative thought.

"Digital Universe -- Analog Soul" begins by pointing out that religionists have invented a God-concept that cannot possibly exist. This does not mean that there is no creator, no intelligent engineers behind the universe's creation. It only means that we need to rethink the God-concept.

A core principle of Beon Theory is that God is neither omniscient, omnipotent, nor singular. It proposes that "God" had an origin, and describes the possible mechanism. Given these assumptions, this "God" existed merely as a potential for consciousness. It originally knew nothing and was unaware of its own existence.

[Gee]

Gee,

Your second paragraph comes close to the logical conclusion that God can either think, or be omniscient, but not both.

Greylorn;

If it only comes "close" to that conclusion, then I did not make myself clear. It can not be both.

Creative thought is a different thing. A being who know[s] all things cannot possibly have a creative thought.

Not sure where you are going here. It looks like you are saying that the "creator" did not have any creative thoughts by which to create. That would make creation an automated process. Or are you arguing that a "creator" can not be all knowing?

"Digital Universe -- Analog Soul" begins by pointing out that religionists have invented a God-concept that cannot possibly exist. This does not mean that there is no creator, no intelligent engineers behind the universe's creation. It only means that we need to rethink the God-concept.

Well, I can certainly agree that we need to rethink the God-concept. But I am more inclined to rethink and try to understand what has been previously learned, than to create another concept.

A core principle of Beon Theory is that God is neither omniscient, omnipotent, nor singular. It proposes that "God" had an origin, and describes the possible mechanism. Given these assumptions, this "God" existed merely as a potential for consciousness. It originally knew nothing and was unaware of its own existence.

There are a lot of assumptions here. Assumptions do not generally make for good philosophy. If this original "God" knew nothing and was unaware of it's own existence, then where did knowledge come from?

G

[Greylorn Ell]

Gee,

Your second paragraph comes close to the logical conclusion that God can either think, or be omniscient, but not both.

Greylorn;

If it only comes "close" to that conclusion, then I did not make myself clear. It can not be both.

Then we are agreed. One duck down.

Creative thought is a different thing. A being who knows all things cannot possibly have a creative thought.

Not sure where you are going here. It looks like you are saying that the "creator" did not have any creative thoughts by which to create. That would make creation an automated process. Or are you arguing that a "creator" can not be all knowing?

Yes, I am.

"Digital Universe -- Analog Soul" begins by pointing out that religionists have invented a God-concept that cannot possibly exist. This does not mean that there is no creator, no intelligent engineers behind the universe's creation. It only means that we need to rethink the God-concept.

Well, I can certainly agree that we need to rethink the God-concept. But I am more inclined to rethink and try to understand what has been previously learned, than to create another concept.

Unless I've misunderstood your previous posts, you are an atheist or agnostic, not one who believes in a God. Are you seriously proposing to rethink and understand an idea that you've rejected, rather than accept your own conclusion that it is false and move on to logical concepts?

A core principle of Beon Theory is that God is neither omniscient, omnipotent, nor singular. It proposes that "God" had an origin, and describes the possible mechanism. Given these assumptions, this "God" existed merely as a potential for consciousness. It originally knew nothing and was unaware of its own existence.

There are a lot of assumptions here. Assumptions do not generally make for good philosophy. If this original "God" knew nothing and was unaware of it's own existence, then where did knowledge come from?

G

My book develops the statements that I've labeled "assumptions" as conclusions. I cannot present them as conclusions here, without the same development.

I've already spent years answering questions like this, and put them into Digital Universe..., available to those whose curiosity is genuine, and to anyone else willing to cough up the price of a nice microwaved dinner and a domestic beer at a chain restaurant. Way too much to pay for life-changing knowledge, I know, when the same money can be spent to produce tomorrow's turds.

[Gee]

Well, I can certainly agree that we need to rethink the God-concept. But I am more inclined to rethink and try to understand what has been previously learned, than to create another concept.

Unless I've misunderstood your previous posts, you are an atheist or agnostic, not one who believes in a God. Are you seriously proposing to rethink and understand an idea that you've rejected, rather than accept your own conclusion that it is false and move on to logical concepts?

I don't really think that I am atheist or agnostic, but I can see why you would think so. I actually think that "God" does exist, just not as interpreted. I think of "God" and consciousness as being the same thing, so I am pretty sure that "God" exists because consciousness exists.

After years of studying religions' concepts of different "Gods", and philosophy's interpretations and theories of consciousness, and the paranormal, I have concluded that something exists that would be defined as supernatural. It is also clear that every known culture and society from before recorded history to now has developed some interpretation of this supernatural, and that their interpretation becomes their religion. This is entirely too much commonality to call it coincidence, and there is at least some truth in each of these interpretation, be it from philosophy or religion.

I am also not buying psychology's interpretation that "God" is just a reflection of our Mommy and Daddy issues. Although it is possible that some of the "God" ideas could be a reflection of the Mommy and Daddy issues, this idea does not explain the larger evidence of the paranormal, so it does nothing to disprove the supernatural.

So my conclusion is that something "supernatural" does exist, that this something is usually referred to as "God", and that religions study this something. It is also clear that this something is never known, but always interpreted. Why?

While looking for the answers to "why", I have noted that religion deals predominantly with emotion, that morals are about emotion, that "God" is supposed to be about love -- emotion, that the paranormal is often activated by and/or relative to emotion, and that the subconscious aspect of mind is ruled by emotion. It is also interesting to note that emotion can not be known in the rational mind -- but only interpreted. This looks like an abundance of coincidence to me, so I have been studying emotion.

I do not like to develop a theory before obtaining all of the relevant facts, so my mind is still open.

G

[Greylorn Ell]

Well, I can certainly agree that we need to rethink the God-concept. But I am more inclined to rethink and try to understand what has been previously learned, than to create another concept.

Unless I've misunderstood your previous posts, you are an atheist or agnostic, not one who believes in a God. Are you seriously proposing to rethink and understand an idea that you've rejected, rather than accept your own conclusion that it is false and move on to logical concepts?

I don't really think that I am atheist or agnostic, but I can see why you would think so. I actually think that "God" does exist, just not as interpreted. I think of "God" and consciousness as being the same thing, so I am pretty sure that "God" exists because consciousness exists.

After years of studying religions' concepts of different "Gods", and philosophy's interpretations and theories of consciousness, and the paranormal, I have concluded that something exists that would be defined as supernatural. It is also clear that every known culture and society from before recorded history to now has developed some interpretation of this supernatural, and that their interpretation becomes their religion. This is entirely too much commonality to call it coincidence, and there is at least some truth in each of these interpretation, be it from philosophy or religion.

I am also not buying psychology's interpretation that "God" is just a reflection of our Mommy and Daddy issues. Although it is possible that some of the "God" ideas could be a reflection of the Mommy and Daddy issues, this idea does not explain the larger evidence of the paranormal, so it does nothing to disprove the supernatural.

So my conclusion is that something "supernatural" does exist, that this something is usually referred to as "God", and that religions study this something. It is also clear that this something is never known, but always interpreted. Why?

While looking for the answers to "why", I have noted that religion deals predominantly with emotion, that morals are about emotion, that "God" is supposed to be about love -- emotion, that the paranormal is often activated by and/or relative to emotion, and that the subconscious aspect of mind is ruled by emotion. It is also interesting to note that emotion can not be known in the rational mind -- but only interpreted. This looks like an abundance of coincidence to me, so I have been studying emotion.

I do not like to develop a theory before obtaining all of the relevant facts, so my mind is still open.

G

Gee,

You have missed your opportunity to develop a theory, and while your mind may not be closed, it is well shuttered.

Throughout this thread I have admired the fine combination of restraint and cogency you have provided. I've never been able to maintain the integrity of any thread I've started, yet you manage this one like a four-master sea captain navigating the storm of the century, with an unruly crew, and here it is, still on track. I have also been impressed by your exemplary logic; you have come so close to getting it right.

Once I thought about a PM in which I declared that, had a mind such as yours studied physics instead of law, you would have long since developed ideas similar to my own, except that yours would be better.

Now I see you as the accomplished captain of a Constellation-class sailing ship, presented with an unconventional proposal--- abandon ship. Never mind that you can sail it anywhere, anytime, through storms and doldrums. Never mind that its timbers are sound, its sails are strong, and its sheets are new. There is a different boat for you to command.

Its power comes not from the inconsistent wind of the skies, a wind that is comfortable because the tiny hairs on your skin can feel its strength and direction, but from a constant wind generated within matter itself that no human senses can feel. Towering masts are replaced by a stubby tower full of arcane instruments, and the wood of the hulls is replaced by layers of steel. It can live above the waters or below, and from either position can affect the lives of people and the course of nations with the touch of buttons on illuminated panels.

Yet here you are, comfortable with your knowledge of a wooden sailing vessel and figuring that this knowledge will see you through, despite having taken a telescope to the skies and obtained a glimpse of greater possibilities, ignoring the opportunity to take the helm of a more powerful machine simply because, at the moment, you do not understand it.

Consider the possibility that you and I and Steven Hawking share this in common: We have gone off-track and failed to fulfill our purposes and promises. So the universe has kicked us in the ass, hard enough to obtain our attention, while curtailing our opportunity to indulge easier and more conventional options.

[Blaggard]

Greylorn;

If you did not feel the need to poke at science so much, maybe Blaggard would not feel the need to defend it so staunchly.

What do you think? Maybe?

OK one last post before I leave you too your mindless waffle.

I don't really need to defend it since nothing he has ever said has remotely attacked it and since he's never debated this with real scientists and never will because religious people, whatever half assed drivel they dredge up to support worthless illogical babble, will not and can not listen to reason. It's for this reason people like Grey often lead cults. They get so overpowered by their own egotistical rambling that no criticism from anywhere is ever going to be enough, he's lost all objectivity following a fantasy to it's natural end, in this way all religions have a foundation as do those who end up with their adherents taking cyanide in order to meet with the mothership that will take them to eden or whatever nonsense their prophet preaches. And believe me there are a hundred so called prophets like grey on the internet talking around in ever decreasing circles devoid of any reason. He's amongst a cohort of babbling messiah figures.

Blaggard;

If you would consider starting a new thread entitled something like, Isn't Science Just the Grandest Thing in the World, then the rest of us could go and take a poke at science every once in a while. Then you could get on your horse and defend your lady love -- science -- and we could all discuss the topics that are reflected in the titles of our threads.

What do you think? Maybe?

G

I already said that I am not here to defend science, just to point out where the science is mangled, but of course you never read any of my posts because you're too busy waffling a priori nonsensical bullshit at each other to have the common decency to read what people say, without posting lazy puerile ad hominems in lieu of tackling the subject in any sort of scientific way. Grey is the same he merely ignores any contention and skips woefully on in his waffle from one non sequitur to another in a long line of criminally bad logic and egotistical self agrandizement. This is not philosophy, this certainly nothing to do with science, this is pure religious babble and nothing more, so please don't think I need to defend science, since nothing grey has said has anything remotely to do with it.


As I say it seems to me there is really very little philosophy on this forum happening, presumably the happy clapper arm waving crowd and trolls like Hex have driven them all away.

Nothing to see here folks, please be on your way, and I'll leave you with that.

Probably no point in responding it's unlikely I'll read it, just carry on with the word salad and religious babble after I have gone oh supreme steersman of the grand ship Mary Celeste.

[Ginkgo]

Blags has made some good points.

I have noted that when it comes to science there is a fair bit on ontological sleight of hand going on from time to time. No doubt there are a number of reasons for this-some probably a genuine mistake in reasoning. The topic starts out on a firm scientific footing and ends up with a metaphysical conclusion. It isn't a legitimate process.

I tend to do this myself, but I try and take care to make sure that I let the audience know that I am making an ontological switch. Very important to do so when it comes to science. Especially quantum science, where metaphysics seems to have found a niche.

[uwot]

The topic starts out on a firm scientific footing and ends up with a metaphysical conclusion. It isn't a legitimate process.

I tend to do this myself,

We all do. We all make ontological assumptions, even physicists unless they are extremely hard nosed instrumentalists. Science stripped of any metaphysics is empirical, it is only what is seen to happen. As soon as you ascribe things like mass and charge to things, you have stepped beyond the observable phenomena and you are attributing qualities to explain the effect on whatever instrument you happen to be looking at. Mass, charge, spin, gravity, energy and whatnot are ultimately names given to effects. They can be relied on to affect matter in predictable ways, but no one, not even scientists know what they are beyond their effects.

[Blaggard]

ok after reading those two posts I am convinced there is some philosophy going on here, I shall stay for now.

They at least are attempting some philosophy.

To add to what uwot just said hard nosed instrumentalists don't really exist and you are quite right that intrinsic properties like spin are induced but they are also experimental, based on the observations such as Compton scattering and so on; no one believes in just the evidence of experiment, that is what the peer review process is for and is also why there are many philosophical interpretations, shut up and calculate probably the most instrumentalist of the interpretations, really is nothing more than a positive assertion that nothing can be done to prove the uncertain, but one can at least calculate what experiment will yield inductively and without a precise classical systematic approach. In other words it's just Copenhagen lite. Or Copenhagen without the premise of having to provide an ontology, only having to yield to the experimental analysis and methods of science. Feynman was in this camp as are most of the more mainstream scienctists, not really caring to explore the philosophical ideas about what is a particle wave duality and superposition. If it works the experimentalists are less bothered than the theorists about why it works or what exactly the wave looks like if indeed it can ever be known to any precision.

Incidentally looking at where the wave is not, is one way of inferring where it is used in science, in that way you build up a picture of the wave without disturbing it, but this of course does not mean you know what something unobserved is, only what it isn't. Bohr used Kants philosophical ideas to more fully realise Copenhagen here is a good synopsis of his philosophical wranglings.

Bohr's more mature view, i.e., his view after the EPR paper, on complementarity and the interpretation of quantum mechanics may be summarized in the following points:

The interpretation of a physical theory has to rely on an experimental practice.
The experimental practice presupposes a certain pre-scientific practice of description, which establishes the norm for experimental measurement apparatus, and consequently what counts as scientific experience.
Our pre-scientific practice of understanding our environment is an adaptation to the sense experience of separation, orientation, identification and reidentification over time of physical objects.
This pre-scientific experience is grasped in terms of common categories like thing's position and change of position, duration and change of duration, and the relation of cause and effect, terms and principles that are now parts of our common language.
These common categories yield the preconditions for objective knowledge, and any description of nature has to use these concepts to be objective.
The concepts of classical physics are merely exact specifications of the above categories.
The classical concepts—and not classical physics itself—are therefore necessary in any description of physical experience in order to understand what we are doing and to be able to communicate our results to others, in particular in the description of quantum phenomena as they present themselves in experiments;
Planck's empirical discovery of the quantization of action requires a revision of the foundation for the use of classical concepts, because they are not all applicable at the same time. Their use is well defined only if they apply to experimental interactions in which the quantization of action can be regarded as negligible.
In experimental cases where the quantization of action plays a significant role, the application of a classical concept does not refer to independent properties of the object; rather the ascription of either kinematic or dynamic properties to the object as it exists independently of a specific experimental interaction is ill-defined.
The quantization of action demands a limitation of the use of classical concepts so that these concepts apply only to a phenomenon, which Bohr understood as the macroscopic manifestation of a measurement on the object, i.e. the uncontrollable interaction between the object and the apparatus.
The quantum mechanical description of the object differs from the classical description of the measuring apparatus, and this requires that the object and the measuring device should be separated in the description, but the line of separation is not the one between macroscopic instruments and microscopic objects. It has been argued in detail (Howard 1994) that Bohr pointed out that parts of the measuring device may sometimes be treated as parts of the object in the quantum mechanical description.
The quantum mechanical formalism does not provide physicists with a ‘pictorial’ representation: the ψ-function does not, as Schrödinger had hoped, represent a new kind of reality. Instead, as Born suggested, the square of the absolute value of the ψ-function expresses a probability amplitude for the outcome of a measurement. Due to the fact that the wave equation involves an imaginary quantity this equation can have only a symbolic character, but the formalism may be used to predict the outcome of a measurement that establishes the conditions under which concepts like position, momentum, time and energy apply to the phenomena.
The ascription of these classical concepts to the phenomena of measurements rely on the experimental context of the phenomena, so that the entire setup provides us with the defining conditions for the application of kinematic and dynamic concepts in the domain of quantum physics.
Such phenomena are complementary in the sense that their manifestations depend on mutually exclusive measurements, but that the information gained through these various experiments exhausts all possible objective knowledge of the object.

Bohr thought of the atom as real. Atoms are neither heuristic nor logical constructions. A couple of times he emphasized this directly using arguments from experiments in a very similar way to Ian Hacking and Nancy Cartwright much later. What he did not believe was that the quantum mechanical formalism was true in the sense that it gave us a literal (‘pictorial’) rather than a symbolic representation of the quantum world. It makes much sense to characterize Bohr in modern terms as an entity realist who opposes theory realism (Folse 1987). It is because of the imaginary quantities in quantum mechanics (where the commutation rule for canonically conjugate variable, p and q, introduces Planck's constant into the formalism by pq − qp = ih/2π) that quantum mechanics does not give us a ‘pictorial’ representation of the world. Neither does the theory of relativity, Bohr argued, provide us with a literal representation, since the velocity of light is introduced with a factor of i in the definition of the fourth coordinate in a four-dimensional manifold (CC, p. 86 and p. 105). Instead these theories can only be used symbolically to predict observations under well-defined conditions. Thus Bohr was an antirealist or an instrumentalist when it comes to theories.

In general, Bohr considered the demands of complementarity in quantum mechanics to be logically on a par with the requirements of relativity in the theory of relativity. He believed that both theories were a result of novel aspects of the observation problem, namely the fact that observation in physics is context-dependent. This again is due to the existence of a maximum velocity of propagation of all actions in the domain of relativity and a minimum of any action in the domain of quantum mechanics. And it is because of these universal limits that it is impossible in the theory of relativity to make an unambiguous separation between time and space without reference to the observer (the context) and impossible in quantum mechanics to make a sharp distinction between the behavior of the object and its interaction with the means of observation (CC, p. 105).

In emphasizing the necessity of classical concepts for the description of the quantum phenomena, Bohr was influenced by Kant or neo-Kantianism. But he was a naturalized or a pragmatized Kantian. The classical concepts are merely explications of common concepts that are already a result of our adaptation to the world. These concepts and the conditions of their application determine the conditions for objective knowledge. The discovery of the quantization of action has revealed to us, however, that we cannot apply these concepts to quantum objects as we did in classical physics. Now kinematic and dynamic properties (represented by conjugate variables) can be meaningfully ascribed to the object only in relation to some actual experimental results, whereas classical physics attributes such properties to the object regardless of whether we actually observe them or not. In other words, Bohr denied that classical concepts could be used to attribute properties to a physical world in-itself behind the phenomena, i.e. properties different from those being observed. In contrast, classical physics rests on an idealization, he said, in the sense that it assumes that the physical world has these properties in-itself, i.e. as inherent properties, independent of their actual observation.

Complementarity is first and foremost a semantic and epistemological reading of quantum mechanics that carries certain ontological implications. Bohr's view was, to phrase it in a modern philosophical jargon, that the truth conditions of sentences ascribing a certain kinematic or dynamic value to an atomic object are dependent on the apparatus involved, in such a way that these truth conditions have to include reference to the experimental setup as well as the actual outcome of the experiment. This claim is called Bohr's indefinability thesis (Murdoch 1987; Faye 1991). Hence, those physicists who accuse this interpretation of operating with a mysterious collapse of the wave function during measurements haven't got it right. Bohr accepted the Born statistical interpretation because he believed that the ψ-function has only a symbolic meaning and does not represent anything real. It makes sense to talk about a collapse of the wave function only if, as Bohr put it, the ψ-function can be given a pictorial representation, something he strongly denied.

Indeed, Bohr, Heisenberg, and many other physicists considered complementarity to be the only rational interpretation of the quantum world. They thought that it gave us the understanding of atomic phenomena in accordance with the conditions for any physical description and the possible objective knowledge of the world. Bohr believed that atoms are real, but it remains a much debated point in recent literature what sort of reality he believed them to have, whether or not they are something beyond and different from what they are observed to be. Henry Folse argues that Bohr must operate with a distinction between a phenomenal and a transcendental object. The reason is that this is the only way it makes sense to talk about the physical disturbance of the atomic object by the measuring instrument as Bohr did for a while (Folse 1985, 1994). But Jan Faye has replied that Bohr gave up the disturbance metaphor in connection with his discussion of the EPR thought-experiment because he realized that it was misleading. Moreover, there is no further evidence in Bohr's writings indicating that Bohr would attribute intrinsic and measurement-independent state properties to atomic objects (though quite unintelligible and inaccessible to us) in addition to the classical ones being manifested in measurement (Faye 1991).

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/

It's a well written piece whether you agree with it's conclusions or not.

And by the way I am not suggesting grey is a cult leader, but had he more ability to persuade and a load more charisma that is where he could end up. Not that all cults are bad, but most do not seem to be very realistic or self reflective, or analytical. Which seems to me to bring all sorts of perilous presumptions to the table without any sort of logical reflection on their basis.

At the end of the day I would defend his right to believe whatever he likes and to proceed in doing so, but I don't find it very pragmatic to deal in sloppy science while you are revealing your beliefs, if you say it's mostly faith then fine, if you start claiming evidence exists then this comes under sciences remit, be sure you understand the science though, or all sorts of dumb ideas become possible; he says that he believes in experiment, and I am sure he does, just how he intends to do any experiments is what leaves me less convinced, he needs the qualification and training on the subject whether he believes in it or not to play in the big boys domain, the last genius to not be playing in the big boys domain was Einstein who was lazy at college and only attained a third class degree meaning he could not attend German universities to do their equivalent of a PhD, and had to rely on the meagre wages of the patent clerk (although in physics there is less reliance on laboratory science than other of the hard sciences) at the end of the day though he was right, and being right experimentally is the only game in town, and the reason he got a Nobel prize although he deserved more than one IMHO.

He published his 3 seminal papers in 1905, it took 16 years though for him to get the recognition and at first he was lambasted mercilessly, although he did at least have the training and mathematical skill to prove his ideas although the actual experiments were done by others. Being criticised is what raises science out of the mire of human bias, without it it would perish or at least become just philosophy which is of course where it was born to some extent. Prove it or no one cares. Maths a fly on the wall documentary where you proselytise your faith, some diagram, it's worthless you need peer review to come up with any sort of ontology, let alone epistemology.

I personally see science as a very flawed system that needs revision and change, but that which does not kill it makes it stronger, just like evolution is one death after another, building a sort of life form based on what dies more so even than what lives, science evolves by critique not by gesticulation. But unlike philosophy good science requires a good deal of learning to tackle it, and that should not be a problem to those who are attacking it, it is though it seems.

And no I am not saying you need no education in philosophy to indulge in it, to any level that will convince your peers you probably do unless you are a prodigy. I just mean you need the skills to tackle science where as you can ponder the meaning of life if you are a numptie.

You have missed your opportunity to develop a theory, and while your mind may not be closed, it is well shuttered.

Yours isn't of course, I'd say yours is deep underground, buried under a mile of concrete and a tonne of reinforced steel. Ie you're in a bunker...

[Ginkgo]

The topic starts out on a firm scientific footing and ends up with a metaphysical conclusion. It isn't a legitimate process.

I tend to do this myself,

We all do. We all make ontological assumptions, even physicists unless they are extremely hard nosed instrumentalists. Science stripped of any metaphysics is empirical, it is only what is seen to happen. As soon as you ascribe things like mass and charge to things, you have stepped beyond the observable phenomena and you are attributing qualities to explain the effect on whatever instrument you happen to be looking at. Mass, charge, spin, gravity, energy and whatnot are ultimately names given to effects. They can be relied on to affect matter in predictable ways, but no one, not even scientists know what they are beyond their effects.

Yes, you are correct. However, just to add my own observations.

It is possible to start out as an instrumentalist and move to a position of talking about unobservable entities. Most of the time this is hard to avoid when it comes to science. However, the scientist hasn't moved from the position of talking about existence in scientific terms. The problem I have is when one starts out talking about scientific existence and then slides over to talking about EXISTENCE and BEING. That is to say, a scientific explanation for God, Gods, and other such intelligent agencies.

I am not against this. I am just against it being called science.

[Ginkgo]

Another thing to note is that the sub/unconscious mind is not really known by us rationally. We get glimpses in our dreams -- where prophesies often come from -- and we get ideas that are not really clear like ESP -- which occasionally seems to have predictive powers and defies the limits of time and space. Of course, "God" could easily be President of the Paranormal Club, so this makes sense too.

Could be, but Hameroff has an alternative explanation.

You have been busy.

Ginkgo;

I would be interesting in learning what Hameroff's alternative explanation is. Could you give a brief outline of it? If it would take this thread off-topic, then give the explanation in Pure Consciousness?.

There are a lot of people, who question how "God" thinks, but I seriously doubt that there is any thinking going on. Consider that in almost all religions, there is a "God" or top "God" that is all knowing. Then consider what thinking actually is; we think by deducing, comparing, and calculating in order to extrapolate new information and learn new ideas or thoughts. Why would an "all-knowing God" need to learn anything? It seems kind of redundant as "God" already knows everything. So I think that the idea of "God" thinking, or "God's mind" is kind of silly and probably an anthropomorphic concept.

Logic and rationalization are both linear processes and amount to, if this, then that. So they are both processes that can only work in a cause and effect, and time and space, environment. So if there is a "God", then that "God" would not use logic or rationalization, but is there a way to organize knowledge without logic and rationalization? Not sure, but studies of the sub/unconscious mind seem to indicate that relationship and sameness and difference would be how information is organized.

It occurs to me that this is also how matter and the Universe are organized, by laws of sameness and difference and relationship. If you think of sameness and difference in terms of attraction and repulsion, you will find that everything from photons, to molecules, to ecosystems, to solar systems, to galaxies, works the same way. Everything has a sameness and difference in relation to each other, which translates to an attraction and repulsion that holds everything in balance, causing it to continue. So if there is a logic in the Universe, then I think this would be it.

I suspect that life forms work by the same rules, except that since life is aware, it is interpreted as "want and not want" instead of "attraction and repulsion". The "wants" are mostly dictated by hormones and pheromones (through the unconscious aspect of mind) and cause each specie to mate, group, and work for their own survival. It also causes the specie to attack other species, again to ensure survival. But all of these "wants" in different species attacking other species do not destroy the environment; they actually cause it to continue.

So if "God" has a logic, I suspect that it is sameness, difference, and the relationship of them and between them. But we have not yet even considered discussion of emotion, and if religion is about anything, it is about emotion. Morals are about emotion. "God" is about emotion.

G

Yes, there is a way for information to exist without rationality. Note that I did say information, not knowledge. There is a good reason for this distinction.

Basically Hameroff is saying that dreaming might be as close as humans are going to get to witnessing quantum superposition. Hameroff also feels that this fits in with Blanco's account of logic.

[Greylorn Ell]

It is possible to start out as an instrumentalist and move to a position of talking about unobservable entities. Most of the time this is hard to avoid when it comes to science. However, the scientist hasn't moved from the position of talking about existence in scientific terms. The problem I have is when one starts out talking about scientific existence and then slides over to talking about EXISTENCE and BEING. That is to say, a scientific explanation for God, Gods, and other such intelligent agencies.

I am not against this. I am just against it being called science.

Ginkgo,

Just in case you are alluding to my statements, this seems a good time to clarify my position.

It begins with the statement that anything that exists and interacts with any aspect of the physical universe is itself physical, by definition. The term "physical" is not a synonym of "material." Matter is just one component of the physical universe, comprising about 4.7% of the whole. Electromagnetic fields are not material, yet are physical.

Thus if there is any kind of "god" who created some aspects of the universe, that god must interact with it at the physical level and therefore is itself a "physical" entity, however immaterial it might be.

The same arguments apply to the human soul, or as I call it, "beon." If a soul is going to heaven or hell or a more rational state of post-death existence, it must be responsible for the thoughts and actions that determined its particular fate. To do so it must interact with the brain, attentive to sensory input and also capable of controlling its body's actions via the brain. The brain is a physical mechanism at multiple levels. It is composed of matter, but its actions are electrical in nature, and it produces electromagnetic fields. If an entity interacts with a human (or any other) brain, it must be physical.

That is part of the reason for my renaming the soul as beon. The soul is well-defined in this context as a spirit, somehow unconnected with the physical universe. Beon is defined as physical.

These considerations led me to the inevitable conclusion that any useful ideas about any creator or the human soul must be removed from the province of religion, wherein ideas are believed to somehow be independent of physical reality, and brought into consistency with science.

This does not make the ideas I've developed under these constraints "scientific." However it does mean that some of them are potentially verifiable by scientific methods. This also means that the same ideas are falsifiable.

Suppose that beon is detected, perhaps by some kind of exotic magnetic field interferometer observing it leaving the brain post-death, or even better, leaving and re-entering in a drug-induced out-of-body event. Suppose a general purpose beon detector is subsequently developed, allowing anyone to determine if someone (such as an Alzheimer patient) is actually "home." Such a device would also be useful for detecting the extremely painful states of surgery patients for whom the anesthetics failed. But what effect would such an experiment have upon Beon Theory, or any other theory that predicted the discovery?

Would it be labeled "scientific?"

I think not, until at least a half-century has passed during which the dogmatists in both science and religious corners have died off. Establishment scientists would be reluctant to allow any notion that might interfere with their insistence that every aspect of the universe must be explained without recourse to intelligence, especially if intelligence was indeed the cause of it.

But their disapproval would be a warm embrace compared to the reaction of religionists. Think how the Pope, his Cardinals and Bishops; the heads of Christian sects worldwide; grand Ayatollahs and their Mullahs, Hindu priests and Buddhist monks, and silly gurus worldwide; would react to the experimental verification of an entity that they've been making money by promoting for millennia, all the while calling it a spirit.

These clowns would see their meal tickets going up in eventual but certain smoke, their followers abandoning church and Sunday school or whatever other teaching formats they employ, in favor of regular schools that will someday be able to teach from textbooks which declare that beon exists and is known to survive bodily death, and might even return in another piece later down the road.

I think that a reproducible, successful scientific experiment that confirmed the functional reality of beon (or an entity with similar properties) would trigger serious sociological changes, worldwide, and would eventually transform all human societies.

[Ginkgo]

It is possible to start out as an instrumentalist and move to a position of talking about unobservable entities. Most of the time this is hard to avoid when it comes to science. However, the scientist hasn't moved from the position of talking about existence in scientific terms. The problem I have is when one starts out talking about scientific existence and then slides over to talking about EXISTENCE and BEING. That is to say, a scientific explanation for God, Gods, and other such intelligent agencies.

I am not against this. I am just against it being called science.

Ginkgo,

Just in case you are alluding to my statements, this seems a good time to clarify my position.

It begins with the statement that anything that exists and interacts with any aspect of the physical universe is itself physical, by definition. The term "physical" is not a synonym of "material." Matter is just one component of the physical universe, comprising about 4.7% of the whole. Electromagnetic fields are not material, yet are physical.

Right from the start this is where I stop and start to question.

I think you have an ontological problem here. I am familiar with physicalism and this position categorically states that everything that is knowable about the universe can be expressed in physical terms.

If you want to include electromagnetic fields as physical then I go along with that to a point. However, physical properties are not fluid enough to include non-physical entities.


P.S. Just an after thought.

Why don't you drop the distinction between physical and material and called it all material. It's just a suggestion, but I think it would solve some of the ontological problems