Science vs. Atheism

[Divine Insight]

[youtube][/youtube]

I agree with this view in general. I personally don't see science as supporting atheism actually.

Now it's true that I am extremely atheistic toward the Abrahamic religions. But not for scientific reasons. I reject those religions based on their own self-contradictions and absurdities. When it comes to spirituality in general I'm definitely open-minded and agnostic. I even intuitively lean toward the spiritual. Albeit confessing that I can't know it to be true.

I just thought I'd post this here to see how others view this topic.

So please share your views.

[Hawkins]

You can't explain to me what it is that is actually having an experience of conscious awareness without using gobbledygook/vague/obscure nonsense either.

How would you know? You've never asked. And if anything i said was unclear I'd try to be more accurate and precise. I wouldn't try to befuddle you with bullpoop by using terms and phrases like "the true nature of reality" or "the universe is consciousness".

Instead you say that consciousness emerges from the brain activity, which is clear and causes the reader immediately understand the deepest mysteries of the mind in great detail. I can provide a physical explanation of Jesus's miracles as well. You see, the wine just simply emerged from the water molecules.

there is , of course, some big differences. One, we can examine the brain, and see it's activity, and we can see how damage to the brain, when someone has an accident or a stroke, changes their consciousness.

You can't demonstrate any of Jesus' miracles. We can demonstrate how changing the brain can change consciousness.

You are comparing apples and oranges. Jesus' miracles are about the events happened 2000 years ago. You can't demonstrate anything happened 2000 years ago. I mean anything.

[JohnA]

You can't explain to me what it is that is actually having an experience of conscious awareness without using gobbledygook/vague/obscure nonsense either.

How would you know? You've never asked. And if anything i said was unclear I'd try to be more accurate and precise. I wouldn't try to befuddle you with bullpoop by using terms and phrases like "the true nature of reality" or "the universe is consciousness".

Instead you say that consciousness emerges from the brain activity, which is clear and causes the reader immediately understand the deepest mysteries of the mind in great detail. I can provide a physical explanation of Jesus's miracles as well. You see, the wine just simply emerged from the water molecules.

there is , of course, some big differences. One, we can examine the brain, and see it's activity, and we can see how damage to the brain, when someone has an accident or a stroke, changes their consciousness.

You can't demonstrate any of Jesus' miracles. We can demonstrate how changing the brain can change consciousness.

You are comparing apples and oranges. Jesus' miracles are about the events happened 2000 years ago. You can't demonstrate anything happened 2000 years ago. I mean anything.

If you can't demonstrate anything that happened 2000 years ago, how you make a coherent argument that your Jesus did any miracles, were divine?

LOL. You just argued that you have no possible way of knowing anything about Jesus, or any historic event or person. Well done. This is some honesty from you! You admitted that there is no possible way you can accept anything in the Bible! Why are you still religious then?

And please, do not dance around to promote a self-refuting circular fuss.

[Goat]

Yeah, I'm always a bit wary of 'emergence'. It sounds like an explanation, but often it doesn't actually explain anything. There is no real difference in saying that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain and saying consciousness arises in the brain by magic as neither tell (or attempt to tell) how it happens.

The flocking of birds is often used an example of an emergent property. But the flocking of a collection of birds can be explained and modelled quite accurately on a computer by programming in a few simple rules. No one knows what rules would make consciousness 'emerge' in a brain, or even if there are such rules.
Obviously consciousness does arise in brains. But to say that it an 'emergent' property is a tacit admission that you have no idea how it can happen.

Yet, when a brain gets damaged, consciousness gets damaged. When it gets targeted with drugs that changes what neurons are firing, it changes too. It's not a blind guess... it is a conclusion based on observation.

[instantc]

In other words if a person is having an experience because of this electromagnetic feedback loop and this person dies. Then another person is born and a new electromagnetic feedback loop is having a new experience. How is this second situation truly any different from the first other than merely being a different experience?

At first glance, I think this line of thinking renders the idea of reincarnation impossible rather than proves it. You are asking how you and I are different when both of us are just a sequence of various experiences. Perhaps, as a matter of fact we are all the same, but as a matter of experience we will never be. Regardless of how much I try, it is impossible for me to identify with someone else's experiences.

The nature of the 'I' seems quite problematic to me in other ways too. Suppose you are being teleported from place A to B. You could theoretically watch the atoms of your body being disassembled in place A and then reassembled again in place B. Would that new assemblage of atoms be the same person anymore? Probably yes. Now, suppose the same thing happened, except that this time you wouldn't be disassembled, but rather the new you would be assembled from different atoms, so that you could watch from place A yourself being fully assembled in place B. Would that new assemblage of atoms be you? I would say no, since you are still standing in place A. What do you think?

[JohnA]

In other words if a person is having an experience because of this electromagnetic feedback loop and this person dies. Then another person is born and a new electromagnetic feedback loop is having a new experience. How is this second situation truly any different from the first other than merely being a different experience?

At first glance, I think this line of thinking renders the idea of reincarnation impossible rather than proves it. You are asking how you and I are different when both of us are just a sequence of various experiences. Perhaps, as a matter of fact we are all the same, but as a matter of experience we will never be. Regardless of how much I try, it is impossible for me to identify with someone else's experiences.

The nature of the 'I' seems quite problematic to me in other ways too. Suppose you are being teleported from place A to B. You could theoretically watch the atoms of your body being disassembled in place A and then reassembled again in place B. Would that new assemblage of atoms be the same person anymore? Probably yes. Now, suppose the same thing happened, except that this time you wouldn't be disassembled, but rather the new you would be assembled from different atoms, so that you could watch from place A yourself being fully assembled in place B. Would that new assemblage of atoms be you? I would say no, since you are still standing in place A. What do you think?

This is how thought experiments work then:
You take to mystical unexplained events, and you use the second one to explain the first one.

I just wonder how some can buy into this and actually make a post about it.

[keithprosser3]

"The nature of the 'I' seems quite problematic to me in other ways too. Suppose you are being teleported....What do you think?"

There are so many issues to discuss about teleporting. When I discussed it on another board I was surprised how many people wouuld refuse to use a teleporter point blank because they viewed it as the destruction of their self and the subsequent creation of a completely different person, even if the operation was instantaneous, used the same atoms, the duplicate was identical down to the subatomic level and so on. Their view was that the teleporting works by killing you and producing somebody else who just looks like you.

'The being able to see it happening' version IC mentioned is a useful one and I am glad IC believes 'I' is preserved even under those conditions, but I don't know why he thinks its important that the same atoms are used, as (apocryphally) we are supposed to all change our atoms every few weeks (or is it days?) anyway.

But suppose what IC could see being reproduced did not resemble him, even if the same atoms were used? How much distortion would be acceptable, and what type of distortions? What about a distortion that left IC (or IC v2.0) looking the same but with a different personality? Or vice versa, that is with an unchanged personality but looking different? Which of those distorted copies would be closer to being the original DI? Would either distortion be preferable to a version that was physically (and mentally) identical to the original but made of different atoms?

[keithprosser3]

"The nature of the 'I' seems quite problematic to me in other ways too. Suppose you are being teleported....What do you think?"

There are so many issues to discuss about teleporting. When I discussed it on another board I was surprised how many people wouuld refuse to use a teleporter point blank because they viewed it as the destruction of their self and the subsequent creation of a completely different person, even if the operation was instantaneous, used the same atoms, the duplicate was identical down to the subatomic level and so on. Their view was that the teleporting works by killing you and producing somebody else who just looks like you.

'The being able to see it happening' version IC mentioned is a useful one and I am glad IC believes 'I' is preserved even under those conditions, but I don't know why he thinks its important that the same atoms are used, as (apocryphally) we are supposed to all change our atoms every few weeks (or is it days?) anyway.

But suppose what IC could see being reproduced did not resemble him, even if the same atoms were used? How much distortion would be acceptable, and what type of distortions? What about a distortion that left IC (or IC v2.0) looking the same but with a different personality? Or vice versa, that is with an unchanged personality but looking different? Which of those distorted copies would be closer to being the original DI? Would either distortion be preferable to a version that was physically (and mentally) identical to the original but made of different atoms?

Put starkly, if the only way out of a burning building was to teleport out, which way would IC rather end up: looking different, thinking different or made of different atoms?

[Angel]

[youtube][/youtube]

I agree with this view in general. I personally don't see science as supporting atheism actually.

Now it's true that I am extremely atheistic toward the Abrahamic religions. But not for scientific reasons. I reject those religions based on their own self-contradictions and absurdities. When it comes to spirituality in general I'm definitely open-minded and agnostic. I even intuitively lean toward the spiritual. Albeit confessing that I can't know it to be true.

I just thought I'd post this here to see how others view this topic.

So please share your views.

I see nothing wrong with Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson calling himself an agnostic instead of an atheist. To be an 'active' agnostic simply means to not be dogmatic or to not confuse dogma with certainty just as Thomas Huxley so eloquently explained here. According to Dr. Elaine Ecklund, a sociology professor, only 34% of scientists she surveyed are atheists. She also reports that 30% of scientists described themselves as agnostic (1). So you and Neil deGrasse Tyson are not alone in your agnostic stance.

Sources:
1. Elaine Howard Ecklund, Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 16. Available to read here (then click on pagina 16 link and it's on that page).

[instantc]

'The being able to see it happening' version IC mentioned is a useful one and I am glad IC believes 'I' is preserved even under those conditions, but I don't know why he thinks its important that the same atoms are used, as (apocryphally) we are supposed to all change our atoms every few weeks (or is it days?) anyway.

I didn't mean that using different atoms would change the situation.

Rather, I offered two separate thought experiments. In the first one, you are being disassembled in place A and reassembled in place B (from the same or a different set of atoms). The question is whether the reassembled person is still you.

The second thought experiment is the same, except that you are not being disassembled at all, but rather you watch yourself being assembled in place B from different set of atoms. As far as I can see, this thought experiments shows that the person being reassembled in place B is not you, since in this thought experiment you are still standing in place A.

But suppose what IC could see being reproduced did not resemble him, even if the same atoms were used? How much distortion would be acceptable, and what type of distortions? What about a distortion that left IC (or IC v2.0) looking the same but with a different personality? Or vice versa, that is with an unchanged personality but looking different? Which of those distorted copies would be closer to being the original DI? Would either distortion be preferable to a version that was physically (and mentally) identical to the original but made of different atoms?

Put starkly, if the only way out of a burning building was to teleport out, which way would IC rather end up: looking different, thinking different or made of different atoms?

I think that identity cannot be scientifically established. That is, if you are taken away by aliens to planet X, and at the same time you are replaced by an exact copy, no objective measure could ever establish that your replacement is not you. Objectively, nothing would change on planet earth, but from your subjective perspective, everything has changed, you are on a new planet and someone who looks like you has taken your old place.

[Artie]

The second thought experiment is the same, except that you are not being disassembled at all, but rather you watch yourself being assembled in place B from different set of atoms. As far as I can see, this thought experiments shows that the person being reassembled in place B is not you, since in this thought experiment you are still standing in place A.

You are the sum of your experiences. If it had been possible to put you in some kind of suspended animation so that no atomic or molecular movements had taken place in your body and you copied that the moment you were both "activated" again different atomic and molecular movements would be taking place and you will become "you and him", just two different people who share the same past but not the present.