WHO is GOD in terms of SCIENCE ?
- Thread starter hansda
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So, you are able to describe and understand the nonrational.
Not only that, but you attempt to explain it to me.
And here I made the claim it could not be done.
Have you had this ability a long time, or just recently acquired?
Even among some mathematicians and scientists (as well as philosophers), there is a method to knowledge known as intuition, and intuition is not rational, does not use logic.
I appreciate your interest, do not have time now to continue, may just start a new thread, did a quick google and got this, it may hold you over.
http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/bergson.html
This, and now I'm done until this evening:
http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-co...-research-on-judgment-and-decision-making.pdf
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Interesting post. It sounds like Schrodinger's Cat, except with the cat replaced by a physicist. It does seem to illustrate some difficulties with the quantum idealism interpretations that imagine that minds and conscious observers are somehow collapsing the wave function.
I guess that some of this stuff derives from early quantum mechanics being pioneered by Germans and by a Dane seemingly educated in the German tradition. So when their experiments turned out to be seriously counter-intuitive, they turned to philosophy to help them. And philosophy in that time and place, strongly emphasized Neo-Kantian-style idealism.
So I guess that there's an idea kind of implicitly bouncing around in there that the human mind constructs phenomenal reality, the world of experience. What reality is like in its noumenal sense, unobserved, is unknowable in the Kantian scheme.
Interpeting QM that way, the world as it exists in itself, all around us independent of our "observation", would presumably be something answering to uncollapsed superimposed states. But our subjective experiences of that world kind of freezes it into some logically consistent outcome for each of us, effectively collapsing the wave function on an individual basis.
So... if the observer-collapsing-the-function thing is interpreted in a Kantian way, the collapse would only be in phenomenal subjective experience, and not in whatever unknowable reality lies 'outside' that experience in the external world. The physicist in the box would experience the contents of the box in a logically consistent way as being collapsed, inside his own experience, because that's how human beings experience things. But at the next higher level, the physicists outside the box could only speak of the uncollapsed states in the box (including the physicist it contains) until they open it and their own experiences collapse.
I guess that in this kind of interpretation of QM the microscale/macroscale distinction is being subtly replaced by the objective/subjective distinction.
'Many-worlds' interpretations seem to naturally fall out of this, since to the physicists outside the box, prior to their opening it and observing, there might arguably be multiple superimposed versions of the physicist in the box, each of whom is presumably experiencing the world as if it had collapsed in a different way.
The obvious problem with all this is the solipsistic implications. It would seem to leave each of us in our own little private universe.
I don't buy it myself. I'm inclined to think that this line of reasoning is kind of an artifact of a particular philosophical tradition that probably isn't the best way of conceptualizing things.
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You do realize that Schrodinger gave us this thought experiment to demonstrate how ridiculous the idea is, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat
Not all scientists are atheists, and not all atheists are scientists, but many do turn to science for answers. I am an atheist and I must say that there is no euphoric feeling that greets this realization. It was very difficult to admit to myself that it was all just a fool’s paradise, with no plan, or purpose. I couldn’t modify and accept the lie, as the moderates do. I had to be honest with myself and admit that God did not create humans in his image. That God did not create humans period, and that there was no God, never has been.
Then I really started to feel small, insignificant, and vulnerable. Who was I going to call on when life got tough? *Poof* All of my supernatural powers vanished, just like that. No more hotline to the big guy. My instruction book for life…well, there’s goes that guidance right out the window. Oh, and anyone who has ever hurt you, they’re not going to be punished in some afterlife. It’s up to you to make them aware of it.
You also realize that your social circle may shrink and your loved ones will view you differently. There is no recognition for your good thoughts, no rewards, and it is up to you to be happy. How you view yourself becomes imperative to your contentment. After you realize all of this, you look around and see the mass delusion for what it really is. The idea is powerful and seductive. It wasn’t easy to give it up and you wonder how many others will be able to do so.
At first, you try to avoid the conversations altogether, but you’re not being true to yourself, and it becomes increasingly uncomfortable. You try to avoid using the term atheist. You use terms like nonbeliever, secularist, skeptic, or you simply say that you do not believe in organized religion, but it is not true. The truth is that you no longer believe in anything supernatural, at all.
Your new label now carries many false connotations. People think you are ignorant if you cannot see God in all that surrounds you. They think you’re in denial because being good is too difficult or that you are angry with God. You’re loved ones may feel that you lost your faith because of the hypocrites, or because you are too sympathetic to all the cruelties in the world, and are unable to see that it is all part of God’s plan. Some think that you are simply misinterpreting the scriptures. They feel compelled to save you. It’s "idiot compassion" at it’s finest and it hurts.
The self-southing activity of prayer no longer reduced my anxiety. I had to develop new ways of coping. For me, it all boiled down to my fear of the unknown, the fear of losing control, and with all the questions remaining. Therefore, I turned to science for answers. The concept of heaven became immoral. Life became an experience, an event bound by death. I became a beneficiary of chance with a vivid appreciation for life.
This may sound odd but I actually mourned my future self. Since, I am in the midst of experiencing consciousness, it became tempting to project my future self entering into this darkness, being thrown into oblivion, and utterly ceasing to exist. Conscious of my unconsciousness, aware of my unawareness, how screwed up is that?
You cannot ask who God is in terms of science because science has nothing to say on this matter. You can only ask what God means to those who have turned to science and away from God. For me, God is a historical, mythical deity that ancient humans wrote about, but here and there, the ancient text can offer a little wisdom.
"Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death."
This immanence of nothingness no longer haunts me. I did not witness my beginning and I will not witness my end. My only fear now is the pain associated with dying and my lack of control over future events.
There's a reason why things happen but things do not happen for a reason.
C'est la vie
The Secret You-YouTube
Atheism and the Afterlife-YouTube
Then I really started to feel small, insignificant, and vulnerable. Who was I going to call on when life got tough? *Poof* All of my supernatural powers vanished, just like that. No more hotline to the big guy. My instruction book for life…well, there’s goes that guidance right out the window. Oh, and anyone who has ever hurt you, they’re not going to be punished in some afterlife. It’s up to you to make them aware of it.
You also realize that your social circle may shrink and your loved ones will view you differently. There is no recognition for your good thoughts, no rewards, and it is up to you to be happy. How you view yourself becomes imperative to your contentment. After you realize all of this, you look around and see the mass delusion for what it really is. The idea is powerful and seductive. It wasn’t easy to give it up and you wonder how many others will be able to do so.
At first, you try to avoid the conversations altogether, but you’re not being true to yourself, and it becomes increasingly uncomfortable. You try to avoid using the term atheist. You use terms like nonbeliever, secularist, skeptic, or you simply say that you do not believe in organized religion, but it is not true. The truth is that you no longer believe in anything supernatural, at all.
Your new label now carries many false connotations. People think you are ignorant if you cannot see God in all that surrounds you. They think you’re in denial because being good is too difficult or that you are angry with God. You’re loved ones may feel that you lost your faith because of the hypocrites, or because you are too sympathetic to all the cruelties in the world, and are unable to see that it is all part of God’s plan. Some think that you are simply misinterpreting the scriptures. They feel compelled to save you. It’s "idiot compassion" at it’s finest and it hurts.
The self-southing activity of prayer no longer reduced my anxiety. I had to develop new ways of coping. For me, it all boiled down to my fear of the unknown, the fear of losing control, and with all the questions remaining. Therefore, I turned to science for answers. The concept of heaven became immoral. Life became an experience, an event bound by death. I became a beneficiary of chance with a vivid appreciation for life.
This may sound odd but I actually mourned my future self. Since, I am in the midst of experiencing consciousness, it became tempting to project my future self entering into this darkness, being thrown into oblivion, and utterly ceasing to exist. Conscious of my unconsciousness, aware of my unawareness, how screwed up is that?
You cannot ask who God is in terms of science because science has nothing to say on this matter. You can only ask what God means to those who have turned to science and away from God. For me, God is a historical, mythical deity that ancient humans wrote about, but here and there, the ancient text can offer a little wisdom.
"Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death."
This immanence of nothingness no longer haunts me. I did not witness my beginning and I will not witness my end. My only fear now is the pain associated with dying and my lack of control over future events.
There's a reason why things happen but things do not happen for a reason.
C'est la vie
The Secret You-YouTube
Atheism and the Afterlife-YouTube
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This is incorrect. Every object exists in a superposition for some duration; however, "macro" objects collapse so quickly that we don't have the means to perceive their superpositions. In between the time Ashford doesn't look and chooses to look, the cat has undergone massive amounts of superpositions and collapses. Each collapse represents the most probable outcome given the last collapsed state. The cat is definitively alive or dead long before Ashford looks.
So, an observer does not play any active role in Physics . An observer is passive , just observing the Physics ; happenning around him .
An observer being the observation point , can be considered as Absolutely Static in QD(Quantum Dynamics) .
Try to understand : 'Who is an observer in Physics ?' .
If an observer can exists in Science ; these questions about 'omnipotent' , 'omniscient' and 'omnipresent' can also be asked in terms of science .
Of course observers exist. Duh!
But, if you ask me, the whole idea of an observer being required is untestable. What happens, happens whether anyone is there to observe it or not.
What is the process of observation ?
Isnt there some interaction between the 'event' and the 'observer' ?
In GR, SR, or QM, and what if the observer is merely an apparatus?
An observer is observing GR , SR , QM happenning .
Isnt this observation also an event ?
In this event of observation , Isnt the observer playing some role ?
Why don’t you just cut the crap and get straight to the point? What does any of this have to do with a god? Do you have some sort of pantheistic view or something?
God in terms of science is what we have observed but not been able to replicate experimentally.
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Ya think? Maybe it's because science traffics in the natural, not the supernatural.
I forgot a word on accident that makes a huge difference. That was a quick post... You wrote a sentence before I could change a word! Impressive.
There are still many natural observations we have not been able to replicate.
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