Is science overrated?

[Swami]

I am often told that science is the greatest tool for knowledge. Then I notice that scientists admit not having a consensus when it comes to the origin of the Universe, origin of life, origin of consciousness, and if there is life after death.

Why can't scientists answer these questions?

Please feel free to provide any book references that provide clarity on these topics. Thank you. Cheers

[TSGracchus]

[Replying to post 59 by Razorsedge]

Razorsedge: "Your statement just shows why there needs to be a meeting between the Eastern way of thinking and West. Many scientists search for God in the laboratory or expect him or it to conform to those settings. Such approach is an obvious failure. The answer lies in experience and practice. Try doing 'field research'."

In seventy five years I have done a bit of "field research". Meditation has confirmed what science told me: I am not a separate thing. I am not even one thing.

"The human body, consisting of about 100 trillion cells, carries about ten times as many micro-organisms in the intestines. The metabolic activities performed by these bacteria resemble those of an organ, leading some to liken gut bacteria to a 'forgotten' organ." -- ttp://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/11/28/how-many-cells-are-there-in-th

On the cellular level I am a whole ecosystem.

Those cells are living and dying, and the atoms of those cells, spewed from dying stars, some of the hydrogen, existing since the plasma of the singularity cooled sufficiently to form atoms, are constantly cycling into me and back out. I am a pattern of matter and energy flows. The brain has 120 billion neurons, with 100 trillion synapses. The firing of those synapses, are my consciousness. I am the universe aware of itself.

I am not separate.

That is not some mysterious non-material woo. No souls or spirits need be invoked. That is just reality.

Stultitia mortalium sunt!

[Bust Nak]

The questions that I asked are the most important questions. They are the questions that humans have asked ever since our beginning.. Don't you want to know the nature of consciousness or if you'll survive in some form after your body dies?

Sure, I want to know, that's why we put much of our resources into this "greatest tool for knowledge."

All of the examples of scientific advances pale in comparison. Think of it as a test, with my questions accounting for 90% of the grade, and your modern day examples of technological advances amounting to 10% of the grade.

That still put science 10% ahead of the nearest rival.

[Bust Nak]

If you have an unlimited supply of human brain matter, and you have the skills to be able to shape/mold this brain matter into a perfectly shaped human brain..you have the brain..but..

Where would you get the consciousness?

From the material brain obviously.

Go in a lab and produce a "thinking" brain, then. I mean after all, you have all the answers, right? You can't do it, can you?

Just in case you are forgetting, we have been doing that naturally for the past few million years, depending on when exactly you start counting.

Ok, so please explain to me what experiment can you conduct...which will adequately explain how a ghost is able to float through a solid wall.

Most obvious way to start is to try different types of walls. Find out what this ghost can't past through and narrow down what makes the difference between blocking and non-blocking material.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 60 by TSGracchus]

I am not even one thing.

"The human body, consisting of about 100 trillion cells, carries about ten times as many micro-organisms in the intestines. The metabolic activities performed by these bacteria resemble those of an organ, leading some to liken gut bacteria to a 'forgotten' organ."

Methinks you might enjoy this show.
http://www.crunchyroll.com/cells-at-wor ... cus-774883

[benchwarmer]

Now, I am simply asking you what experiment can you conduct which will adequately explain HOW the ghost is able to float through a solid wall.

We know it is a ghost, now how is it doing it? That is the task. Now, do you have an answer for me, sir?

Same answer I already gave. If we KNOW it's a ghost, then we KNOW what it is made of. We also can KNOW what the wall is made of. Once we have all that information we can use observation and analysis to figure out what's going on. Pretty simple in concept.

I can't give you exact details because you haven't given exact details what this ghost is. Ghosts by definition are not real, so if you are positing that we have not found a real one, then that means we are able to examine it and sort out what it is.

Is it made of cheese? Photons? What is it? If we can see it, then please tell us what it is made of so we can further design the experiment.

You are saying we can both see it and it is definitely going through a wall so that means you have a lot of information that you have left out. How do you know it's actually going THROUGH the wall? Maybe it just disappears on one side and reappears on the other. We need details.

[marco]

[Replying to post 30 by For_The_Kingdom]

That's a good and honest response. It's consistent with science not being able to answer these important questions.

No doubt. Naturalism is a self-refuting concept.

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[For_The_Kingdom]

Actually, what I would be questioning is not how the ghost managers to float through solid objects, but HOW it managed to be seen as a material manifestation.

Ok, either way...take your pick. Whichever question you'd like to ask of the two...use the scientific method to get your answers.

Maybe it didn't purposefully try and be seen but the individual witnessing it somehow managed to do so through some kind of ability. Maybe the ghost didn't even realize it had been seen, or if so - either thought that the person seeing it had some ability to do so, or maybe thought it had the ability itself, but didn't know how it was able to?

I would consider these kinds of things to be the way to approach the scenario scientifically - in a scientific manner...

I am getting everything but an answer to the question.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 41 by For_The_Kingdom]

..you have the brain..but..

Where would you get the consciousness?

You have EVERYTHING that you need at which you "claim" is needed for mental processes. Now, again I ask...where is the consciousness coming from??

Until you can answer that, then EVERYTHING you say is absolutely worthless. You can't get the job done, and neither can science.

"The consciousness" comes from the brain system functioning. It is one output of this complicated system of neurons and memory elements operating as an integrated system. There are countless examples of components being assembled into more complicated systems, and those systems can produce functions and outputs that are not possible from the individual components by themselves. If your hypothetical example of being able to form a fully functional brain from "human brain matter" could actually be done in a lab (and as Bust Nak has pointed out, this does in fact happen in the womb although the "human brain matter" forms from an initial neural tube as its beginning), then there is no reason to believe that it would not be conscious if placed in a hypothetical body so that is has all of the other connections and sensory inputs needed for its functioning.

When this experiment is done in the real world (ie. a growing human baby), there is an initial point where there is no consciousness. Obviously, when the neural tube is first formed there is no "brain" to speak of, and so no consciousness. It is only when this structure grows into a fully-formed brain that the system is able to carry out its functions such as thought, processing sensory inputs, storing information (memory), and generally being a sentient being. If the brain is damaged or destroyed in any human being, then these functions also disappear. But the basic point that consciousness is an emergent property of a functioning brain is not challenged or refuted by your little experiment. If you could actually form a brain in a lab from material, and place it into a human body (or even provide functionally equivalent connections and sensory inputs), there is no reason to expect that it would not have consciousness if it is functioning as a proper brain. Thoughts are also just the result of a normally functioning brain, and clearly exist in other animals besides us humans ... although maybe not at as advanced levels due to their less capable brains.

Go in a lab and produce a "thinking" brain, then. I mean after all, you have all the answers, right? You can't do it, can you? So, until you can go in the lab and get results, then spare me all of the bio-babble.

Is that all you've got? So you're position is that if someone can't go into the lab and produce a brain in a petri dish then that somehow proves that consciousness is a divinely created "thing" of some sort? I could say the same thing about dark matter and conclude that it doesn't exist. After all, if you can't go into the lab and make a batch of it then it must not actually exist, despite all of the observational evidence for it.

There is, to date, no credible evidence to refute the idea that consciousness is anything more than an emergent property of a functioning brain. You clearly don't believe that, but it is the simplest and (by far) most probable explanation. Brains are highly complex systems, and that they can produce consciousness purely from the integrated system functioning properly is not a stretch of extrapolation.

[For_The_Kingdom]

From the material brain obviously.

From the brain? Ok, now follow me on this one. Your brain is an independent, physical/material object, right?

Now, think of a football...

How can your brain (this independent, physical object) be about an entity that is completely independent from it!?

Makes no sense.

Just in case you are forgetting, we have been doing that naturally for the past few million years, depending on when exactly you start counting.

?

Most obvious way to start is to try different types of walls. Find out what this ghost can't past through and narrow down what makes the difference between blocking and non-blocking material.

Ok, and if the ghost past through every single one of the walls, then what?

[William]

[Replying to post 66 by For_The_Kingdom]

I am getting everything but an answer to the question.

Oh, you are defiantly getting answers to your questions. It is simply that - as you yourself point out in post#54, you are unable to understand the answers, whereas other readers can and do.

There could be a multitude of possibilities for 'why' that is the case, but that is here nor there.

Some get it and some don't.