format_quote Originally Posted by
Gabriel Ibn Yus
"likely all of them" - you see - you are not so rational after all.
You believe in science - that is in a sense your religion. This is ok.
However, in my opinion it is a very partial religion as it pertains only to things
which are provable - as you quoted from Mr. Einstein - in which he himself says that the truth can never be scientifically proved and therefore you believe in a religion which finds the truth, at
best meaningless (for the simple reason that it does not want to deal with it). - and you still believe these people on everything else
they say. I find it hilarious.
Please find me an experiment that proves that you are alive. If you can I
would be glad to see this experiment.
Ok - so you want through all the scientific walkthrough "science museum propaganda
stuff" - but did you verify the experiment about the dreams - the one you quoted
before?
Or do you think that, for you, because you verified some generic scientific experiment about
some fancy issue like "Quantum physics" that anybody else has verified and belongs
to mainstream it also validates any other scientific experiment that any other
person does?
At the end result - you did quote an experiment or a scientific research which you have not verified (the one about the dreams). This is a problem as it means that I can not trust what you say.
I do not want to be harsh - but I do want to make a point.
You can say that there is a limit to what you can personally verify and at some point
you have to believe other people - but I would say that it is completely the point
I am trying to make.
In fact - this is also the importance of religious education - because a truly religious
person tend to be much more honest than a non-religious person because a religious person
sees himself as a part of a community while a non-religious person does not.
Gabriel, the issues you are now raising are those of epistemology - the branch of philosophy dealing with what we can know, and how we know what we know. I think I can answer a lot of your questions by describing the form of epistemology I use, and where it has led me.
Epistemology is based on metaphysics; and metaphysics are based on assumptions, or axioms. These axioms are neither provable nor disprovable - they simply /are/, and at best, lead to a framework which turns out to be better or worse at helping you figure things out. After a good deal of consideration, I've managed to reduce my axioms to just one: "Thinking about the evidence of my senses can lead to useful conclusions". Some of the most basic ideas that come from this axiom are that I exist, that the universe exists, that other people exist, and that logic is useful.
Usually, if someone tries to pull the argument that I can't "prove" they exist, or I exist, or the universe exists I respond with the Stick argument - I start whapping them with a stick. If I don't exist, then nobody's whapping them, so they don't need to duck. Shall I start whapping you to prove I really exist? :)
Once this initial framework is in place, then it's possible to examine various forms of argument and "proof", and decide whether or not they really /do/ prove what they're claimed to prove, or are instead logical fallacies. This is "epistemology". Some forms of evidence turn out to be better than others; some turn out to have nothing to do with anything. The truth is what it is; some aspects of it can be learned more easily than others, some can't be learned at all (as Godel and Heisenberg discovered), but it's out there, just waiting for us to go looking for it.
I have, personally, experimentally verified that putting an electric current into water results in the generation of hydrogen and oxygen gases; and that this H and O can be combined into water. Water is H2O - this is a fact, proven to me by myself, and proven innumerable times and innumerable ways by other people. I have, personally, validated a number of other predictions of the theory that matter is made of atoms, that those atoms fit into the periodic table, and chemistry in general.
I have, personally, verified some of the predictions of the current consensus theories about particles smaller than atoms. For example, I own a thingummy, which contains a certain amount of tritium gas, which decays at a predictable rate, releasing electrons; the inner surface of this thingummy is lined with phosphor, which absorbs electrons of a certain sort, and releases energy in the form of photons, with energy that puts them in the range of visible light. (I call it my "nuclear keychain".) I've done other experiments various parts of this field, as well... hm, let me put it this way: I've played with a Geiger counter.
Taking chemistry in another direction leads to geology; I live in a geologically interesting area, and regularly go hiking, and base my predictions of what I will find based on this science. Companies make billions of dollars based on figuring out where to find mineral resources.
Taking chemistry in another direction, we develop astronomy: the general nature of the solar system, the existence of other stars, the fact that our sun is inside a galaxy called the Milky Way, the existence of other galaxies, Hubble's discovery that other galaxies are receding from us in a certain way, and from that last item, realizing that all the galaxies we can see used to be smooshed together around 13 billion years ago. What happened before then? Insufficient data to be sure. (My own pet theory: Observing any given volume of empty space closely enough reveals 'quantum fluctuations', where particles pop into existence from nothingness, along with their anti-particles, all the time, and usually the particle/anti-particle pair bump right back into each other and disappear... but sometimes, they don't, and enter into a relatively stable existence as 'real' particles. The kicker is, there isn't any theoretical upper limit to how much energy in any such quantum-fluctuation... in other words, it's possible that our whole universe is the result of one such fluctuation, which spontaneously appeared out of the ocean of quantum chaos.)
Taking chemistry in yet another direction, we get into biochemistry, and biology. The existence of cells; the observation that the frequencies of genetic variations change in populations over time; the observation of evolution in progress; the similarities and differences in genetic codes of various organisms suggesting common descent; the whole schmear. (Eugenie Scott recently put it, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.")
From biology, we can narrow our focus into neurology, neuro-psychology, and psychology: the science of the mind, including the limitations of our senses, our in-built cognitive biases, and so on, thus allowing me to account for these limitations in my thinking and overcome them. (A good self-instruction manual on these in-built mental limitations is "Mind Hacks: Tips & Tools for Using Your Brain" by Tom Stafford and Matt Webb.)
From psychology, the existence of more than one mind leads to the science of sociology: how different minds interact. And, once some sociological data has been collected, it is possible to develop a set of rational ethics for how such individuals can interact with each other. My own baseline ethical standard is that 'good' is 'the preservation and promotion of sapient life', occasionally adding the clause '(particularly my own life)'. Given that we haven't encountered any aliens or uplifted any animals, 'sapient life' is very closely cognate, but not quite identical, to 'human life'. From this core ethical principle can be derived virtues such as self-reliance, productiveness, integrity, honesty, (rational) pride, justice, benevolence, and courage. Once an ethical system is developed, it is possible to apply it to the field of politics, and come up with the idea that initiation of force is bad, certain rights should be supported (to life, to liberty, to the pursuit of happiness, to the ownership of property, to free speech, to self defense), the necessity of having some government to allow for the peaceful resolution of disputes of ownership, that certain governmental systems are better than others (laissez-faire capitalism, classical-liberal democracy, constitutionalism, separation of powers, checks and balances), to having opinions on particular political issues.
And, finally, once we have all of the above established, we can start looking at certain other items, about which people claim certain things, and considering the evidence for or against them. For many of them, the available scientific literature is that which one would expect for false premises: out of a large number of studies, a very small number report they work, but the better the studies, the fewer report any significant effect. Some of these claims include: acupuncture; chiropractic medicine; colon cleansing; detoxification; ear candling; folk and herbal remedies; holistic medicine; homeopathy; iridology; naturopathy; osteopathy; astral projection; curses; exorcisms; faith healing; ghosts; magick; psychics; vampires; voodoo; witchcraft; astrology; dowsing; dream interpretation; feng shui; hypnosis; numerology; UFOs; and miscellaneous others. One of the prime pieces of evidence here is the million-dollar prize offered by James Randi for anyone who can demonstrate the supernatural (in such a way that ordinary illusionists' magic tricks are ruled out)... for which not a single application has passed the most preliminary tests. These are the results that would be expected if the supernatural does not exist at all; and thus, based on that evidence, that is the conclusion I have reached.
Given what I have personally investigated and discovered, and what has been verified by thousands of other people, I hope you don't take it badly if I take your opinion on how poor and awful "science" is and that it can't /really/ discover anything and so on to be so much codswallop. Fortunately, there's an easy cure for belief in codswallop, and it's the same as the cure for any other form of ignorance: curiosity. Unfortunately, if you don't have any curiosity, and can't see the benefits of having it, there isn't much else I can do to give it to you. But I can hope that you will be able to figure out on your own that H. L. Mencken was right when he said, "I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant."
Thank you for your time,
--
DataPacRat
lu .iacu'i ma krinu lo du'u .ei mi krici la'e di'u li'u traji lo ka vajni fo lo preti