Searching for GOD...

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Illusions do not have to be illusions of things that exist - MC Escher or Salvador Dali more than adequately demonstrate that.


O.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=salvador+dali+clock

[Outrider]

No reason to posit a God in the first place? How so? since there is patently a universe here it is not illegitimate to ask why is all this here? Was it created?

How did it come to be here, yes. Why is it here - no, not really. Why presume there is a reason?

I can categorise your long list of what I take you to have put in as ''laughables'' (argumentum ad ridiculum) into those which create and contingent. Also what you are trying to do is to slyly create a pantheon out of unified divine by farming out and separating attributes.(Trivialisation) That was all Shoddy argumentum ad ridiculum on your part IMHO.

It was a demonstration that tendency towards superstition is universally human - it's happened in multiple cultures, apparently independently. It also demonstrates the absence of any actual information or data about any supernatural entities given the lack of any convergent ideas about those supernatural entities.

Your new definition of history....how does that fit in with your previous statement History is a pattern where pattern seemed to suggest a pattern as in a pattern of phenomena...like science.
History is a continuum but is not a repeating pattern. History does not subsequently equate with science.

I didn't intend to give the impression that history was a repeating pattern of phenomena as though there were an unavoidable tendency for events to repeat themselves - sorry if that's how it came across. The events that have come before are what they are, regardless of our understanding. History is our creation, our narrative of what we believe has been the important and the trivial elements that led events to occur as they did - that's the pattern that we attempt to fit to things.

Your definition of hallucination is one that I used although I would argue that religious experience does not often involve artifacts of touch, smell, vision, hearing of taste since there generally the claim is that God does not have physical attributes.

The (few) accounts I've come across have referred to it as a 'sensation' or a 'feeling' without being adequately able to define it accurately. In the absence of any common language - I haven't had anything I recognise as that experience to compare it against - it's a difficult concept to convey.

I don't think Dali and Escher examples are adequate for your defence that you can have illusions of things that don't exist....perhaps you need to expand.

Drawings are illusions - we look at them, we have a sensation that mimics reality but isn't of reality. Any artwork, really, is an illusion, but Dali's surrealist works and Escher's mathematically impossible constructions, tesselations and recursive imagery imply possibilities without explicitly replicating anything that's actually real or, indeed, physically possible.

Bruce Hood should have learned the lessons learned by Dawkins when he ended up having to justify and have others justify his jazzy, slick and controversial titles.

As rebuttals of the work go, that's got brevity on its side, but not much else.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Outrider

Firstly I would say this is an extreme position. Since God is proposed as a cause.

''If, as a scientist, you aren't assuming philosophical naturalism, you are removing the assumption of cause and effect - without that cause and effect, science doesn't work. Implicit in conducting science is assuming philosophical naturalism.''

A definition of PN as belief in cause and effect is one i'm not familiar with and in any case God intervenes as a cause.

You misunderstand the general definition of ''Philosophical naturalism'' in order to make this point.

Secondly, aren't Escher's diagrams Mathematical rather than mathematically impossible.

Thirdly, To follow your argument about illusion to it's logical end would require us to dismiss mathematics and whatever point Dali was trying to make.

Fourthly, That Escher's maths somehow bleeds into the empirical senses does not negate the mathematical value of them. These ''illusions'' exist mathematically and cause that bleed and have intrinsic mathematical value. 

[Nearly Sane]

Except god is not proposed as a caused cause and everything else in methodological naturalism is. The uncaused cause is in normal terms a nonsense. In an interventionist sense it rips cause and effect apart.

[Outrider]

Firstly I would say this is an extreme position. Since God is proposed as a cause.

But an uncaused cause.

''If, as a scientist, you aren't assuming philosophical naturalism, you are removing the assumption of cause and effect - without that cause and effect, science doesn't work. Implicit in conducting science is assuming philosophical naturalism.''

A definition of PN as belief in cause and effect is one i'm not familiar with and in any case God intervenes as a cause.

But not as an effect, as I understand it.

You misunderstand the general definition of ''Philosophical naturalism'' in order to make this point.

My not accepting, perhaps, the definition you've not given doesn't mean that 'misunderstand the general definition', it just means that I don't share your understanding of it.

Secondly, aren't Escher's diagrams Mathematical rather than mathematically impossible.

Some are, some aren't. The tesselations, amongst others (I'm thinking, particularly, 'Sky and Water' here) are mathematical. Others ('Belvedere', for example) are mathematically (geometrically, in this instance) impossible.

Thirdly, To follow your argument about illusion to it's logical end would require us to dismiss mathematics and whatever point Dali was trying to make.

I don't see how it would render mathematics redundant, I suspect you'll have to expand on that a little. I'm not sure Dali was trying to make a point, I always got the feeling that when he claimed he was it post-hoc rationalisations to try to make himself look clever -that's just personal opinion, obviously.

Fourthly, That Escher's maths somehow bleeds into the empirical senses does not negate the mathematical value of them. These ''illusions'' exist mathematically and cause that bleed and have intrinsic mathematical value.

Which is lovely, but doesn't change the fact that they are images - illusions - of things that aren't real, which was what they were cited for in the first place.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Except god is not proposed as a caused cause and everything else in methodological naturalism is. The uncaused cause is in normal terms a nonsense. In an interventionist sense it rips cause and effect apart.

Science isn't interested in uncaused causes merely cause and effect.
For example it does not effect the scientific method whether the universe is uncaused or caused so your argument does not stand.

Popperian analysis accommodates the uncaused cause in it's suggestion that just because something happens a million times there is no guarantee that it will happen the million and oneth.

[Outrider]

Science isn't interested in uncaused causes merely cause and effect.
For example it does not effect the scientific method whether the universe is uncaused or caused so your argument does not stand.

Depends on which field of science. Biology, yes it's irrelevant, but cosmology would dearly love to have accurate, reliable data on what caused the universe.

Popperian analysis accommodates the uncaused cause in it's suggestion that just because something happens a million times there is no guarantee that it will happen the million and oneth.

And, equally, nothing in science says that because something has happened a million times doesn't mean that before that it still happened. However, in the absence of evidence for any changes, why presume changes. Not having something ruled out isn't grounds to accept that it's the case, it's just a philosophical musing.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Fourthly, That Escher's maths somehow bleeds into the empirical senses does not negate the mathematical value of them. These ''illusions'' exist mathematically and cause that bleed and have intrinsic mathematical value.

Which is lovely, but doesn't change the fact that they are images - illusions - of things that aren't real, which was what they were cited for in the first place.

O.

Not only is it lovely, the idea also counters your theory of religion as disease.

Science is not interested in whether a cause is caused or uncaused since we are talking about cause and effect.

You seem to be confusing the term physical with real...that is a scientifically unevidenced philosophical decision.

In what way is 'Belvedere' mathematically impossible?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Science isn't interested in uncaused causes merely cause and effect.
For example it does not effect the scientific method whether the universe is uncaused or caused so your argument does not stand.

Depends on which field of science. Biology, yes it's irrelevant, but cosmology would dearly love to have accurate, reliable data on what caused the universe.

Popperian analysis accommodates the uncaused cause in it's suggestion that just because something happens a million times there is no guarantee that it will happen the million and oneth.

And, equally, nothing in science says that because something has happened a million times doesn't mean that before that it still happened. However, in the absence of evidence for any changes, why presume changes. Not having something ruled out isn't grounds to accept that it's the case, it's just a philosophical musing.

O.

You are doing the extreme thing saying one has to leap to a presumption rather than an accommodation.

You are trying to pass this obvious character and methodological flaw off as a scientific virtue.

Could cosmology proceed if it isn't presumed it has a natural cause and has always existed? It seems it can.

[Outrider]

You are doing the extreme thing saying one has to leap to a presumption rather than an accommodation.

No, science cannot make an accomodation because there is no place in science for uncaused causes or spontaneous effects. Without a methodology that assumes intrinsic links between cause and effect you cannot operate science.

I'm dismissing accommodation because science gives us answers with validation whilst religious thinking doesn't, but that's my personal philosophy which goes beyond the philosophical materialism that underlies science.

You are trying to pass this obvious character and methodological flaw off as a scientific virtue.

Only to the same extent as you're trying to pass of scientific rigour and accepting the inherent assumptions of a philosophy off as 'a flaw'.

Could cosmology proceed if it isn't presumed it has a natural cause and has always existed? It seems it can.

To an extent. Would that data open up new avenues of enquiry and learning - quite probably.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You are doing the extreme thing saying one has to leap to a presumption rather than an accommodation.

No, science cannot make an accomodation because there is no place in science for uncaused causes or spontaneous effects. Without a methodology that assumes intrinsic links between cause and effect you cannot operate science.

I'm dismissing accommodation because science gives us answers with validation whilst religious thinking doesn't, but that's my personal philosophy which goes beyond the philosophical materialism that underlies science.

You are trying to pass this obvious character and methodological flaw off as a scientific virtue.

Only to the same extent as you're trying to pass of scientific rigour and accepting the inherent assumptions of a philosophy off as 'a flaw'.

Could cosmology proceed if it isn't presumed it has a natural cause and has always existed? It seems it can.

To an extent. Would that data open up new avenues of enquiry and learning - quite probably.

O.

Again you have a problem here dictating what science can accommodate because the universe may have arised spontaneously. It's cause therefore can never be described by science. That shows the limitations of science rather than the possibility of the spontaneous appearance of the universe.

We can therefore never be certain that a spontaneous event cannot happen anytime anywhere.

Philosophical naturalism is opinion

[Nearly Sane]

Science isn't interested in uncaused causes merely cause and effect.
For example it does not effect the scientific method whether the universe is uncaused or caused so your argument does not stand.

Popperian analysis accommodates the uncaused cause in it's suggestion that just because something happens a million times there is no guarantee that it will happen the million and oneth.

Sorry, but your representaion of Popper's addressing of teh problem of induction here, while true, irrelevant.

There is nothing in Popper which allows for ripping up the idea of a naturalistic assumption of cause and effect, and inserting a non naturalistic cause, without a methodology (how many times have you been asked fior one and not provided it?), means that numbers are entirely specios.

As I pointed out to Outrider, every effect may be because of a non naturalitic 'cause'. In the absence of any method of determing that, it merely illustrates that the problem of induction, that you cannot assume that the same thing will happen, does not even arise in your approach. You do not even have enough of a method for people to worry about induction as your approach is incoherent

[Outrider]

Again you have a problem here dictating what science can accommodate because the universe may have arised spontaneously. It's cause therefore can never be described by science. That shows the limitations of science rather than the possibility of the spontaneous appearance of the universe.

I've long accepted the philosophical limitations of science. Those same limitations apply to every phenomena we experience, whether we currently have a scientific explanation for them or not. Gravity could be an intrinsic function of the interaction of Higgs Bosons within atoms with the background Higgs Field, or it could be a remarkably coincidental series of spontaneous events.

Science MUST presume the philosophical naturalism of cause and effect, or none of its conclusions mean anything. The justification for accepting those conclusions is that, from them, predictions have been made which have proven to be validated by further experiment. So long as reality continues to behave consistently, science will continue to be validated, updated and relevant.

Nothing in science, history, nature or philosophy has ever changed the possiblity of a spontaneous universe: it's a possibility now, it was a possibility when it was first posited, and there's no way to quantify the likelihood.

We can therefore never be certain that a spontaneous event cannot happen anytime anywhere.

Which is why scientific findings are always provisional. There is always the possibility of data which disrupts the current paradigm. There is, also, the possibility of phenomena which are spontaneous, which don't comply with the assumption of philosophical materialism. Science does not ignore the phenomena, but it doesn't accept 'it just happened' as an answer, it hypothesises and then tries to develop tests to validate or disprove the hypothesis.

Philosophical naturalism is opinion

[/quote]

Philosophical naturalism is a philosophy. The findings of science, which are based on that philosophy are - to varying degrees - validated hypotheses and conjectures as to the nature of reality.

Philosophical naturalism is 'opinion' to the extent that any philosophy is only opinion - we lack sufficient scope of sense and experience to adequately determine any absolutes as reference for any philosophy.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Again you have a problem here dictating what science can accommodate because the universe may have arised spontaneously. It's cause therefore can never be described by science. That shows the limitations of science rather than the possibility of the spontaneous appearance of the universe.

I've long accepted the philosophical limitations of science. Those same limitations apply to every phenomena we experience, whether we currently have a scientific explanation for them or not. Gravity could be an intrinsic function of the interaction of Higgs Bosons within atoms with the background Higgs Field, or it could be a remarkably coincidental series of spontaneous events.

Science MUST presume the philosophical naturalism of cause and effect, or none of its conclusions mean anything.

But Popper has already shown us how to treat or approach conclusions...and not in the way you are suggesting.

[Outrider]

But Popper has already shown us how to treat or approach conclusions...and not in the way you are suggesting.

How is it not? Hypothesise - test the hypothesis (whether by confirmation or negation) - accept those hypotheses as provisionally true which aren't negated and which have validatory findings - the more validatory findings the better supported, but science will always be provisional.

I'm failing to see how that's not in accordance with Poppers thinking, broadly.

The problem with ONLY seeking falsification is that there is no way to test certain unfalsifiable claims. In the absence of an assumption of philosophical naturalism and, therefore, irrevocable cause and effect, you cannot falsify a claim - you just end up with 'it didn't work this time, but so what'?

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

But Popper has already shown us how to treat or approach conclusions...and not in the way you are suggesting.

How is it not? Hypothesise - test the hypothesis (whether by confirmation or negation) - accept those hypotheses as provisionally true which aren't negated and which have validatory findings - the more validatory findings the better supported, but science will always be provisional.

I'm failing to see how that's not in accordance with Poppers thinking, broadly.

The problem with ONLY seeking falsification is that there is no way to test certain unfalsifiable claims. In the absence of an assumption of philosophical naturalism and, therefore, irrevocable cause and effect, you cannot falsify a claim - you just end up with 'it didn't work this time, but so what'?

O.

I'm talking about the ''rock solid'' certainty of conclusion you appear to be infusing and what Popper is getting at with the ''No guarantee of no difference with the millionth and one''.

That puts us in region of 'miracle' occurrence I would say. The point is a popperian universe where rare exceptions cannot be ruled out ''accomodates'' an interventionist God in terms of the level of likelihood claimed.

In the Popperian universe we can be very reasonably certain that we will not see such an event and I believe we are not likely to see a miracle.

We are bound though not to say that events never, ever will happen.

I suppose Polkinghorne would argue that I am off the mark and say that God's miracles are really God's use of very unlikely events. 
 

[ippy]

Big W, wouldn't it be a good starting point for you if you were to take a bit more of a look into Astrology and Tarot?

Perhaps they're a bit more like a science to you when compared to religious myth and superstition or would the Astrology and Tarot be too realistic?

ippy

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Big W, wouldn't it be a good starting point for you if you were to take a bit more of a look into Astrology and Tarot?

Perhaps they're a bit more like a science to you when compared to religious myth and superstition or would the Astrology and Tarot be too realistic?

ippy

Ippy I have done, they are ''Pseudoscientific'' IMHO.

[ippy]

Big W, wouldn't it be a good starting point for you if you were to take a bit more of a look into Astrology and Tarot?

Perhaps they're a bit more like a science to you when compared to religious myth and superstition or would the Astrology and Tarot be too realistic?

ippy

Ippy I have done, they are ''Pseudoscientific'' IMHO.

If they, as you say Mr W, Astrology and Tarot are"Pseudoscientific", what does that make out the religions to be?

Only Astrology and Tarot are equally as credible as any of the religions they have the same amount of evidence to support them as any of the religions have.

oippy 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Big W, wouldn't it be a good starting point for you if you were to take a bit more of a look into Astrology and Tarot?

Perhaps they're a bit more like a science to you when compared to religious myth and superstition or would the Astrology and Tarot be too realistic?

ippy

Ippy I have done, they are ''Pseudoscientific'' IMHO.

If they, as you say Mr W, Astrology and Tarot are"Pseudoscientific", what does that make out the religions to be?

Only Astrology and Tarot are equally as credible as any of the religions they have the same amount of evidence to support them as any of the religions have.

oippy

Religions are not trying to be a science Astrology and Tarot are.......that's what we have science for, see?

[torridon]

I'm talking about the ''rock solid'' certainty of conclusion you appear to be infusing and what Popper is getting at with the ''No guarantee of no difference with the millionth and one''.

That puts us in region of 'miracle' occurrence I would say. The point is a popperian universe where rare exceptions cannot be ruled out ''accomodates'' an interventionist God in terms of the level of likelihood claimed.

In the Popperian universe we can be very reasonably certain that we will not see such an event and I believe we are not likely to see a miracle.

We are bound though not to say that events never, ever will happen.

I suppose Polkinghorne would argue that I am off the mark and say that God's miracles are really God's use of very unlikely events.

'Extremely rare' does not equal 'miraculous', it equals 'extremely rare'. The difference is philosophical. Rare events will occur naturally by virtue of probability, that does not imply some supernatural intervention breaking natural law has taken place.

[floo]

Weird things happen from time to time, I have experienced plenty throughout my life. The mistake is to jump on the supernatural bandwagon instead of striving for a natural explanation!

[Outrider]

But Popper has already shown us how to treat or approach conclusions...and not in the way you are suggesting.

How is it not? Hypothesise - test the hypothesis (whether by confirmation or negation) - accept those hypotheses as provisionally true which aren't negated and which have validatory findings - the more validatory findings the better supported, but science will always be provisional.

I'm failing to see how that's not in accordance with Poppers thinking, broadly.

The problem with ONLY seeking falsification is that there is no way to test certain unfalsifiable claims. In the absence of an assumption of philosophical naturalism and, therefore, irrevocable cause and effect, you cannot falsify a claim - you just end up with 'it didn't work this time, but so what'?

O.

I'm talking about the ''rock solid'' certainty of conclusion you appear to be infusing and what Popper is getting at with the ''No guarantee of no difference with the millionth and one''.

That puts us in region of 'miracle' occurrence I would say. The point is a popperian universe where rare exceptions cannot be ruled out ''accomodates'' an interventionist God in terms of the level of likelihood claimed.

In the Popperian universe we can be very reasonably certain that we will not see such an event and I believe we are not likely to see a miracle.

We are bound though not to say that events never, ever will happen.

I suppose Polkinghorne would argue that I am off the mark and say that God's miracles are really God's use of very unlikely events.

How many times do I need to state that scientific findings are always provisional? I appreciate that there is a tendency for people in general - and I'm guilty of it, on occassion - to talk about scientifically revealed 'facts', and in practical terms the world operates as though that were the case.

In philosophical discussion, however, I'm aware that science is only ever provisional... but then, in philosophical terms, everything (bar, possibly, Cogito Ergo Sum) is only ever provisional.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Weird things happen from time to time, I have experienced plenty throughout my life. The mistake is to jump on the supernatural bandwagon instead of striving for a natural explanation!

The New Testament itself councils against basing one's faith on ''signs and wonders.'' Why do you think this is and what other parts of the New Testament message might be more important and being ignored both by signs and wonders based Christians and antitheist campaigners?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I'm talking about the ''rock solid'' certainty of conclusion you appear to be infusing and what Popper is getting at with the ''No guarantee of no difference with the millionth and one''.

That puts us in region of 'miracle' occurrence I would say. The point is a popperian universe where rare exceptions cannot be ruled out ''accomodates'' an interventionist God in terms of the level of likelihood claimed.

In the Popperian universe we can be very reasonably certain that we will not see such an event and I believe we are not likely to see a miracle.

We are bound though not to say that events never, ever will happen.

I suppose Polkinghorne would argue that I am off the mark and say that God's miracles are really God's use of very unlikely events.

'Extremely rare' does not equal 'miraculous', it equals 'extremely rare'. The difference is philosophical. Rare events will occur naturally by virtue of probability, that does not imply some supernatural intervention breaking natural law has taken place.

I think what Polkinghorne is saying is that have been referred to as miracles are in fact not things which are impossible but things which
are extremely unlikely and that when they happen in a cluster and apparently centred on a person then that points us to God.