Invisible universe

[Walter]

this has been done so many times now , there's no getting through to him , he simply repeats himself but offers no method or evidence or the slightest glimmer of any way of evaluating what is clearly wishful thinking.

Sriram, saying it over and over again does not make it more true or real.

[Sriram]

The ToE is not a belief, it is a theory drawn from observation and evidence and as such is subject to constant update, unlike beliefs.

Who says only material things exist ?  Energy is not matter, quantum states are not matter, spacetime is not matter. 

Anecdotal evidence is poor quality, typically, so we value forms of evidence that are more robust. Nothing wrong about that. If we open the door to anecdotal testimony, all manner of mumbo jumbo will get sucked in.  It is a good thing that we make effort to keep our knowledge base clean.

I am not talking about the Theory of Everything that scientists are trying to come up with. Not likely to happen anytime soon.  And it certainly cannot be a ToE if it doesn't take into account Consciousness.... or even if it attempts to explain matters of Consciousness, spirituality etc. through some Quantum Mechanical process.

I am talking about the philosophical position some people adopt that only material measurable phenomena can exist, consistent anecdotal experiences cannot be evidence, Science is the only way to understand reality, what we cannot sense directly cannot exist...and so on.

These are clearly wrong premises and a wrong philosophical stand.  There are some articles in the Freethought section that show how the attitude of scientists is now changing. But some people seem to be stuck in the 'Hard' science of the 19th and early 20th century.

[torridon]

I am talking about the philosophical position some people adopt that only material measurable phenomena can exist, consistent anecdotal experiences cannot be evidence, Science is the only way to understand reality, what we cannot sense directly cannot exist...and so on.

We cannot directly sense the vast majority of things and it is because of science, not in spite of science, that we know such things. With our inbuilt senses we cannot hear infrasound or ultrasound, we cannot see dark matter, we cannot see subatomic particles, we cannot sense magnetic fields. What we can sense directly is a tiny fraction of what there is and we have science to thank for revealing all these things.

[Sriram]

We cannot directly sense the vast majority of things and it is because of science, not in spite of science, that we know such things. With our inbuilt senses we cannot hear infrasound or ultrasound, we cannot see dark matter, we cannot see subatomic particles, we cannot sense magnetic fields. What we can sense directly is a tiny fraction of what there is and we have science to thank for revealing all these things.

Yes...these are all through sense extensions.....but they all belong to the same class of phenomena.

But tell me...why do you accept the idea of Parallel universes...but not the idea of spiritual worlds?  What is the difference? This is what I mean by dumping ideas into two boxes.   

[Stranger]

There are some articles in the Freethought section that show how the attitude of scientists is now changing.

Like what? The "Evolvability" one that you didn't understand or the "Atheism dying?!" one in which you made an unevidenced assertion science was changing and ignored my request for clarification?

But tell me...why do you accept the idea of Parallel universes...but not the idea of spiritual worlds?  What is the difference?

As far as I know there isn't even a widely accepted definition of the term "spiritual worlds" - what does it even mean? If you have clear hypothesis or conjecture and can gave reasons why it should be taken seriously, it might be something that could be evaluated. Wittering on about near death experiences really isn't anywhere near enough.

There is no idea (singular) of parallel universes. The term is used to refer to several different ideas with various reasons as to why they might exist. The ideas range from making fairly straightforward assumptions about known and tested theories, to speculations that are no better than science fiction.

So there aren't actually two ideas here to accept or reject.

[torridon]

Yes...these are all through sense extensions.....but they all belong to the same class of phenomena.

But tell me...why do you accept the idea of Parallel universes...but not the idea of spiritual worlds?  What is the difference? This is what I mean by dumping ideas into two boxes.

I'm not sure we do accept 'parallel universes'.  If you refer the the Many Worlds hypothesis, that is a conjectural explanation for observations from quantum mechanics; there are other rival ideas for things that we currently cannot explain through classical physics, but the observations are real and repeatable so there is some real phenomenon there requiring explanation, and we are having to dig deeper past our everyday intuitions about how reality is in order to glimpse what underlying reality these observations are telling us about.  There is no comparable hard evidence for 'spiritual worlds', just cultural beliefs and personal anecdote.