Science

[Brian2]

No reason to believe that you can go 'beyond empiricism', either. When you can demonstrate the reliability of your claims, get back to us.

If you don't go beyond empiricism then you hide in the naturalistic view of the world, a faith that the empiricism of science can no doubt justify somehow.

 

[Brian2]

Do I understand you correctly? ─ you're saying that consciousness is supernatural?

If that were so, as we continue our researches into the human brain, we should be encountering processes inexplicable in physical terms, where a physical result can't be attributed to a physical cause, no?

I'm not aware of any evidence of that. Can you refer me to any?

I am saying that spirit can be conscious, not molecules, and that the spirit is connected to the brain and body and know the thoughts of the brain etc.
If that means that neurology encounters things that are inexplicable in physical terms, let me know when that happens.
I vaguely remember that sometimes the body reacts, makes a movement before the brain tells it to, or before the brain activity for that movement is detected. Is that what you are talking about?

 

[Brian2]

I am not sure I am following you. What is it that you are saying here?

Science, because of the naturalistic methodology has to come up with some reasoning that enables matter to become conscious. That is not science, that is just justification for saying that consciousness is purely a material (naturalistic) thing. But of course matter is by nature not conscious, so consciousness now becomes an emergent property of matter.
Great, pats on the back, the supernatural (spirit which can be and give life and consciousness) is not defined in terms of nature and divorced from spirit.
I hope that helps.

 

[Brian2]

How do you propose that the supernatural be segregated from the natural so that the supernatural is accurately identified? How do you know that consciousness is not based on the natural. Merely proposing it does not make it supernatural.

Since nothing that exists has been shown to be supernatural, what other condition would you expect scientists to apply to observed phenomena?

It could have been predicted that the naturalistic methodology of science would end up here. It is not science's fault.
Our faith is based on evidence that science does not accept in it's study of the material universe. That is not something that can be blamed on science.
Still the scientific naturalistic methodology is not seen as any more than a working presumption in science and not as a metaphysical fact.
Still some people want to see it that way and say that science has shown it to be so.
I cannot know that consciousness is not based on the natural. But then again it is not known that consciousness can be based on the natural in any real sense, only in the methodological sense.
That however does not stop science (no doubt scientists who are non believers) from broadcasting that they have found consciousness being natural only, or saying that this is what the evidence points to.
But of course they neglect to say that the evidence only points that way because of the naturalistic methodology.
Science in this way can end up as a tool for those who do not believe in God and can justify their unbelief,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, the unbelief that also says that the methodology is also metaphysically true.

 

[exchemist]

That is a bit like saying that the supernatural will never be seen as real in science and anything that looks like that will be just put in the too hard basket until a naturalistic mechanism is found.
That is science and I cannot blame science as a discipline really. It is just that at times science claims things for the natural which theology also claims for the supernatural.

You are quite right - that is exactly what science does with any phenomenon that is alleged to be supernatural. Methodological naturalism is the essence of science.

However, what that implies is that science does not in fact claim for itself things that theology claims for the supernatural. Science is restricted to accounting for reproducibly observable phenomena, in other words phenomena that can be confidently stated to be features of the physical world. To my knowledge, theology does not try to account for such things.

 

[Brian2]

Can you demonstrate supernatural phenomena that were incorrectly classified as natural? Not just speculation about consciousness, but something actual.

Some people believe that near death experiences are a supernatural phenomenon or associated with the supernatural. Has this been demonstrated to be supernatural or merely just claimed to be? Many children believe in Santa Clause. Merely believing in Santa does not support or verify the existence of Santa.

Merely believing in Santa does not verify the existence of Santa but seeing an old man in a Santa suite come down the chimney and leave presents and go again and fly away in a sleigh, that is more than just believing.
NDE might be just some sort of brain activity but verified observations from OBEs in NDEs takes it from the realm of just belief into the realm of evidence imo. Consciousness outside the body.
Is this supernatural?
It is clearly seen as an explanation to be avoided in science,,,,,,,,,,,,,, of course.
What can I say. To me it is obviously what it is, consciousness outside the body. I think that can be classed as supernatural, but maybe I'm just blinded by bias.

 

[wellwisher]

If you study the philosophy of science, it places limits on data, to only data that comes to us from the outside into the sensory systems. We; humans, all have eyes to see and ears to hear, as well as common languages to process this external input data. This theoretically allows outside data, via the senses, to be the same for all, so we; humans, can form a consensus and define external reality all the same way.

In science, if one team makes a new discovery, the experiment will need to be run by other teams to verify. They need to confirm that the conclusions are based on our common sensory natures; all teams need to see the same thing to believe. If this works we have a new rule of science.

A good example of this external checks and balance, was cold fusion. This was performed by one team. Other teams tried and failed to duplicate the results of their experiments, so this claim was not accepted by science, but was considered a fluke.

The problem with this approach is external data, is not our entire reality, due to consciousness. For example, when Doctors need to prescribe pain killers, they need to depend on their patients to tell them their pain level. However, there is no way for the Doctor to objectively tell know if the patient in being truthful. Pain data is real, but it cannot be treated objectively by the philosophy of science, since there are no mind reading tools or ways to empathize with true pain with our senses from the outside. There is a wide range of data that is beyond the philosophy of science, by its own standard of self imposed sensory limitations.

The most important tool of science and all fields of study and expertise is consciousness. Yet the dynamics of the software/firmware behind consciousness is off limits to science, based on its own extroverted philosophy. This means science has no way to determine if its most important tool; consciousness, is calibrated properly. This tool can have a hidden bias that cannot be addressed by the limitations of its own extroverted philosophy. This explains why each generation of scientists often think they are the final truth, only to be made obsolete. Their consciousness was never properly calibrates, due to the philosophy of science not allowing this unique internal data, to each scientist, to be addressed.

Let me give a simple practical example of the down side the extroverted limitations of the philosophy of science. We all have had dreams at one time or another. This phenomena of dreams, putting aside what it is, cannot be seen by any group, from the outside, to form a consensus. It is based on internal data, we have all witnessed, which is often unique to each person. It is real enough, due to billions of first hand internal data witnesses, but it is not something science can approach like a tangible bird or rock, since the group can never agree upon any one unique dream. This unique data may never be duplicated by others in the lab. It is like cold fusion times a billion.

Religion is more about introversion and internal data; faith. Faith is the belief in things not seen by the eyes. Faith is about internal data instead of the external data limits of science. Science is not qualified to deal with faith, based on the limitations imposed by its own philosophy. I could ask any scientist to tell me how they know if their brain and consciousness, used to reach, accept and even create conclusions, was properly calibrated, if the internal dated needed for this assessment is against their philosophy?

For example, water is the main molecular component of life, yet it is not treated as a main thing in terms of life. This shows poor calibration of consciousness. Instead water is lumped into the organics, with casino science, the same math; statistics, used in gambling casinos. This simple point is difficult to get across to biologists, due to lack of consciousness calibration; herd acceptance based on the eyes and casino science.

The analogy is wearing colored sun glasses, that make the world look toned. Certain things will not appear to the eyes, since they are filtered out by the common colored glasses. To see this you need to process internal data so you can factor out the sunglasses. While the consensus will not see anything wrong since they all appear to agree on the tones created by the colored sun glasses; sign of the times. I am both spiritual and a scientist so I am able to use both sets of data to get a better calibration point. Both are useful.

 

[exchemist]

Science, because of the naturalistic methodology has to come up with some reasoning that enables matter to become conscious. That is not science, that is just justification for saying that consciousness is purely a material (naturalistic) thing. But of course matter is by nature not conscious, so consciousness now becomes an emergent property of matter.
Great, pats on the back, the supernatural (spirit which can be and give life and consciousness) is not defined in terms of nature and divorced from spirit.
I hope that helps.

To the extent that consciousness has features that can be reproducibly observed, it falls within the remit of science to try to account for it in terms of nature.

But consciousness is a bit of a flaky topic when it comes to observation. There is no scientific definition of consciousness, so far as I know. Furthermore it is beset with doubtful philosophical assumptions, largely due to the Cartesian duality that western thought has imbibed without always realising it. Many people speak of consciousness as if it were an entity, a thing, somehow superimposed upon "inanimate" matter, whereas it seems to me to be not an entity, but an activity of the brain.

Furthermore, what creatures does one consider to be conscious and on what basis does one make the distinction between conscious and non-conscious creatures? I have never seen a convincing rationale for that. For example, is a wasp conscious? If not, why not? Or a fish? Or a dog? Or a gorilla?

 

[Sheldon]

Let me think ... what if the consciousness is only a visitor to the body, and is politely playing a when-in-Rome role by affecting unconsciousness in the presence of particular chemicals and procedures?

Or maybe those chemicals and procedures actually drive the consciousness back to ─ ahm ─ Consciousland for a while?

Now there's a thought, I sometimes almost lose consciousness when theists posit those kinds of desperate rationalisations. I know it's a little unkind, but also woolly facile platitudes have the same stultifying effect on my consciousness as anaesthetic, well almost. Now I'm resorting to hyperbole and rhetoric, damn it, I owe myself a £1.

 

[Brian2]

There is nothing but evidence that consciousness is derived from the physical functioning brain? Stick a spike through a brain and watch it disappear, never to be seen again, in every single verifiable case. I lost my consciousness utterly on three separate occasions when under general anaesthetic, are you saying anaesthetic removes the soul? Where does it go, and why did it stop recording memories or even dreaming?

The spirit is connected to the brain/body and the combination of body and spirit is a living person.
If the body is not working properly the spirit does not see what we are thinking or make decisions based on anything the body is experiencing or telling the brain. The spirit is still there however.
It sounds like you have decided that those who reported verifiable things in NDEs were lying.

 

[Sheldon]

OBEs in NDE show consciousness existing outside of our body.

Nope. not even remotely true.

To me it is plain enough without doing and scientific research.

Well isn't that handy, but I will need more than mere subjective anecdotal assumptions for unexplained aspects of natural phenomena like the process of a brain dying.

Do you think that our consciousness might be a phenomenon of the material brain or our spirit?

Well I'd have to go for the one we know exists as an objective fact, and all the evidence demonstrates is the source of our consciousness, over the one there is no objective evidence for at all.

 

[Brian2]

Do you seriously believe that is what a neurologist does? I am dubious that you believe that claim.



No, you asked how does anyone know where to draw the line? I answered between evidence and no evidence, science need make no assumptions, merely go where the evidence leads.

The evidence always leads to naturalistic conclusions given naturalistic methodology and the fact that science is only studying the material universe.

 

[ppp]

If you don't go beyond empiricism then you hide in the naturalistic view of the world, a faith that the empiricism of science can no doubt justify somehow.

No reason to believe that you can go 'beyond empiricism', either. When you can demonstrate the reliability of your claims, get back to us.

 

[Sheldon]

Yes atheists do use science to try to show they are right.

Well that is a sweeping generalisation, so it sounds dubious, but we can go as far as to say, that since atheism has no doctrine or dogma, then there is little reason for an atheist to oppose scientific facts.

The areas where science is stepping into theological areas is in places that God said He did. Creation, the origin of life and consciousness.

Well science is simply a method or methods of gaining new knowledge, the alternative is remain ignorant. However the genie is out of the bottle there, so denying scientific facts is becoming more and more of a futile pursuit, one that ends in theme parks with children depicted playing with dinosaurs, that level of denial is doomed to fail.

Any phenomenon that is observed is seen as natural and studied as such and any conclusions are natural conclusions.

Well science can't study what does not exist to be scrutinised, so leaping to conclusion science is flawed because it hasn't bred unicorns is flawed reasoning.

Consciousness is an emergent property of matter.

All the objective evidence supports this.

Life is no more than material in nature.

Again there is no objective evidence that life requires, or has, any supernatural aspect.

Matter/energy has existed forever.

Is this is a scientific claim? I am not a physicist, but this seems like hyperbole to me.

It is at the extremes of science and using the naturalistic methodology that assumptions are made which bring science into theological areas and trying to make them the result of nature.

Scientific facts and conclusions are not based on assumptions, assumptions are only used at the start of the process to imagine new hypothesis, though this is an equally important aspect of the methods. You also seem to be implying science has some sort of agenda to promote philosophical materialism, that is not true, though it may be the outcome of course.

In a way it cannot be helped considering science and what it is and what it presumes.

What does science presume exactly? I think you are again letting paranoia substitute objective and impartial reasoning where science is concerned.

 

[F1fan]

RE: "Supernatural equates to imaginary"

Dr. Jessica Utts (currently a professor at UC Irvine, and former chairwoman of her department) did study ESP and concluded that it was real. She had been a professor of statistics, in the Department of Mathematics, at the University of California, Davis.

Without research, using presumptions only, you cannot conclude anything about ESP.

Dr. Peter Venkman, formerly of New York University, also found that extreme stress can create psychic ability.

 

[Sheldon]

But consciousness is a bit of a flaky topic when it comes to observation. There is no scientific definition of consciousness, so far as I know.

I've seen philosophers struggle to explain it, poor old Daniel Dennet's book Consciousness Explained springs to mind. It might have more aptly been called Consciousness Cured. Sorry if he ever reads this, as I like Dennet and he is often entertaining in person and in print, but this one cured my consciousness as efficaciously as those general anaesthetics ever did. Maybe professional philosophers got more form it, but not for the layman I fear.

 

[Sheldon]

The spirit is connected to the brain/body and the combination of body and spirit is a living person.

I have no idea what means, or what you think a bare subjective claim of this nature is worth?

If the body is not working properly the spirit does not see what we are thinking or make decisions based on anything the body is experiencing or telling the brain. The spirit is still there however.

I see more subjective claims lined up in tandem, no pretence of objective evidence for them though? Also my body never stopped working properly, that's not how anaesthetic works, thankfully.

It sounds like you have decided that those who reported verifiable things in NDEs were lying.

I seriously doubt that it does. I simply don't believe people who claim the findings are evidence for anything supernatural. Not least because whenever you look into them, the conclusions theists and religious apologists like to leap on are little more than argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacies.

However just flick on any news channel, a scientific discovery of that magnitude, would be being ticker taped across the top of the screen.

 

[Sheldon]

The evidence always leads to naturalistic conclusions given naturalistic methodology and the fact that science is only studying the material universe.

Well that and the fact there is no evidence for anything supernatural for science to examine, only subjective anecdotal claims.

 

[F1fan]

As far as I know, we have been capable of altering the consciousness in demonstratable and repeatable ways, as well as affectively turning it on and off like your experiences with anesthetics. However, it remains one of those nagging mysteries that our fringe sciences are trying to wrap understanding around.

Much like we are trying to figure out gravity, but theists aren't claiming gravity is supernatural. And no one is science approaches consciousness as a supernatural phenomenon. This is only an issue because there are theists trying to manipulate uncertainty about a natural phenomenon as a way to argue for th plausibility of their religious beliefs. It strikes me as desperate.

I wonder if it is in fact calculable. If it is there is little doubt in my mind we will attempt to synthesize or replicate it in the form of AGI. (AGI = Artificial General Intelligence... or an AI that thinks and learns like you and I)

Consciousness and intelligence are two different things. The issue with AI is designing a artificial system that can understand it exists and has autonomy of some sort. The 2001/2010 movies touched on this with the HAL 9000 computer character.

 

[F1fan]

Yes atheists do use science to try to show they are right.

That's all atheists (and certain educated theists) have to do to rebut the erroneous claims made by anti-science theists. Science shows itself to be correct, and well educated and wise posters use these as valid rebuttals against creationism, and other bad, religious disinformation.

The areas where science is stepping into theological areas is in places that God said He did. Creation, the origin of life and consciousness.

Science doesn't step into any theological areas, unless theists try to throw ideas under the feet of scientists doing work, and then claiming foul. The fact is theists offer nothing to understanding the reality of how nature works. If anything, anti-science theists try to interfere with others understating what is true about how things are.