# Are there any people left that believe in "Astrology"?



## jmiliad (Mar 11, 2015)

I got inspired about that by seeing my "zodiac" stated in my profile (which is also completely wrong like the whole "science of Astrology" IMO and I'd loved to know if there is any way to remove it).

So are there any? Please explain why even if it's a yes or no.


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## gbar (Mar 11, 2015)

I imagine you remove it by removing your birthday information?


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## jmiliad (Mar 11, 2015)

gbar @ Wed Mar 11 said:


> I imagine you remove it by removing your birthday information?



That was pretty... obvious!

Thanks gbar


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## AC986 (Mar 11, 2015)

Yes. Apparently a conservative politician here in the UK believes Astrology will help the NHS get out of it's current difficulties.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 11, 2015)

jmiliad @ Wed Mar 11 said:


> I got inspired about that by seeing my "zodiac" stated in my profile (which is also completely wrong like the whole "science of Astrology" IMO and I'd loved to know if there is any way to remove it).
> 
> So are there any? Please explain why even if it's a yes or no.



Yes, one of our beloved Tory MPs in the UK not only believes, it but thinks it should inform our health policy:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/ ... ealth.html

Terrifying.


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## germancomponist (Mar 11, 2015)

Are there any people that believe in our sciences?

The world is a flat, isn't it? :mrgreen: o/~ o-[][]-o


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## AC986 (Mar 11, 2015)

germancomponist @ Wed Mar 11 said:


> Are there any people that believe in our sciences?
> 
> The world is a flat, isn't it? :mrgreen: o/~ o-[][]-o



It's a either a flat or an apartment. Take your pick. Or even a condominium.


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## germancomponist (Mar 11, 2015)

adriancook @ Wed Mar 11 said:


> germancomponist @ Wed Mar 11 said:
> 
> 
> > Are there any people that believe in our sciences?
> ...



You got my message? :-D


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## JonFairhurst (Mar 11, 2015)

I kind of believe in astrology and kind of don't.

Then again, I'm a Gemini, so what do you expect from us?


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## rayinstirling (Mar 11, 2015)

Next thing is we'll be calling our Earth Urantia :roll:


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## Stephen Baysted (Mar 11, 2015)

rayinstirling @ Wed Mar 11 said:


> Next thing is we'll be calling our Earth Urantia :roll:



Or Gaia.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 11, 2015)

I thought the concept of astrology (stars and planets out in space somehow affecting our makeup and lives etc.,) so preposterous that I deliberately took my own poll. I had so much respect for the friend that was claiming it's veracity, I began to ask everyone I knew or met in order to be armed with my own study the next time we spoke. I was sure I would find zero reliability to the superstition. Within a month's time I could practically tell anyone's sign at first guess. Once in an office at Universal Studios I found myself in a room with four perfect strangers. I was able to tell each one their sun sign without error. Once at a considerable distance I was only able to see from a lady's knee to her beautiful leather boots: impeccable taste. I asked this stranger if she was a Leo which she immediately confirmed. After decades of this kind of thing you know there's something to it. It's just fun for me in the end.


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## autopilot (Mar 11, 2015)

Like most Taureans I don't believe in astrology at all.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 11, 2015)

autopilot @ Wed Mar 11 said:


> Like most Taureans I don't believe in astrology at all.



Very true. I've lost count of the people under that sign that couldn't be more distant from it as a concept. It's an Earth sign so the goings on in the heavens don't seem to appeal to them much. Being as physical as they are (the Bull) it is remarkable how many are dancers and choreographers. I worked with a string of them and most if not all were Taurus.

Being an Aquarius I once read that Libra was my most compatible sign. Just out of college I looked back over the years recalling six girls I had major crushes on. All six were Libras.


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## TGV (Mar 11, 2015)

Of course it's nonsense, and of course there are dozens if not hunderds of millions who believe in it. Just look at the esoteric section in your book store or on Amazon. I've personally had contact with a (small) music label that was interested in publishing astrological music.

Why do you ask, jmiliad?


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## G.R. Baumann (Mar 12, 2015)

I had someone (from the Finance Investment Industry) telling me about a shower head that changes the spin direction of the water. Cost Euro 1.200,-. 

Background: Right spinning water adds negative vibes while left spinning water... blah blah blah, it was a longer blurb.

I was tempted to ask him whether he ever heard about coriolis, but I refrained and let him finish firing his esoteric bullcrap upon me which ended as usual with the sentence "You don't believe that do you? Google it!"....

:lol:


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## AC986 (Mar 12, 2015)

JonFairhurst @ Wed Mar 11 said:


> Then again, I'm a Gemini



Oh Jon. I'm so sorry top hear that. That's awfully bad luck old boy. Was it a close call, or is it a definite?


:lol:


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## jmiliad (Mar 12, 2015)

@adriancook & Guy Roland

That's indeed terrifying. Cause if this guy was elected that means that the source of the issue is much bigger, right?

@TGV Since high school that I got my first telescope I was really interested in astronomy and I still am. It wasn't long till my research quickly led me to completely abort astrology. So like Dave Connor I had my research and I'm curious about what other people think. It's mostly sad to see people in my country believing that the stars are affecting their lives and they are so convinced by it and they don't even make a simple research about it. You know, friend, it's the easiest thing to blame a bad situation in your life in the movement of the planets than finding the real source of the problem. People need to believe that for some things, it's meant to be that way, so they can do nothing about it and that's easy and reassuring.

@G.R. Baumann I fell your pain... 

Guys, I'll leave you the first link I stumbled upon on google searching for "axis precession and astrology false" (or something like that).

http://www.livescience.com/4667-astrological-sign.html

In synopsis the sun's path name is "ecliptic". The ecliptic during the year passes from the zodiac constellations. So your zodiac is the constellation that ecliptic was passing by the month you were born. BUT. Earth's axis is NOT stable, it completes a full twist every 26.000 years. Considering that, if you just observe the night sky you'll find out that zodiacs are actually one zodiac... back. So if you thought your whole life that you are a Virgo you are actually a Leo. 

Considering just that, the whole "science" of astrology is just plain wrong cause most astrologists are not even aware of that and I say that from experience. It's that simple everyone can observe if he/she just knows the constellation and observe them (just lift your head up) periodically each month.

But after all, I'm a Leo (September 3rd), and most of the times, we're all full of crap, aren't we?


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## AC986 (Mar 12, 2015)

jmiliad @ Thu Mar 12 said:


> @adriancook & Guy Roland
> 
> That's indeed terrifying. Cause if this guy was elected that means that the source of the issue is much bigger, right?



Uhhhhhhh…..yeah.


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## SergeD (Mar 12, 2015)

We are born at a given moment in a given place and like vintage years of wine we have the qualities of the year and of the season in which we are born. Astrology does not lay claim to anything else. - C.G.Jung

Sit on a park bench on 15th of July, what is your feeling about life? Sit on that same park bench on 15th of January, is your feeling the same about life?

Sidereal astrology is one of numerous stupid things that make astrology dubious.


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## Frederick Russ (Mar 12, 2015)

<opinion on>

I rarely comment in OT. But astrology? To me, it's a parlor game intended for fun but people decided to take it seriously - IMO. It actually IS fun. But my own take: don't consort the stars for important decisions because astronomically speaking, Jupiter is squaring Mars and opposing Saturn and some astrologer assigns meaning to that in relation to how this for example conjuncts your Venus in Neptune ... which is why you should avoid business that day. Perhaps a previous incarnation of WC Fields decided to assign meaning to legitimate star and planetary movement. The funny thing is that people yearn for answers so they don't have to feel afraid all the time. But they're not gonna find it in astrology IMO.

</opinion off>


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## Dave Connor (Mar 12, 2015)

TGV @ Wed Mar 11 said:


> Of course it's nonsense...



That's what I thought. So I did my own survey in order to prove to someone how ludicrous it was. My survey proved so completely verifiable that it would have been completely dishonest of me to deny the results.

What research have you done in order to prove or disprove?


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## Dave Connor (Mar 12, 2015)

Frederick Russ @ Thu Mar 12 said:


> <opinion on>
> 
> I rarely comment in OT. But astrology? To me, it's a parlor game intended for fun but people decided to take it seriously - IMO. It actually IS fun. But my own take: don't consort the stars for important decisions because astronomically speaking, Jupiter is squaring Mars and opposing Saturn and some astrologer assigns meaning to that in relation to how this for example conjuncts your Venus in Neptune ... which is why you should avoid business that day. Perhaps a previous incarnation of WC Fields decided to assign meaning to legitimate star and planetary movement. The funny thing is that people yearn for answers so they don't have to feel afraid all the time. But they're not gonna find it in astrology IMO.
> 
> </opinion off>



I agree. Having fun with something like this is one thing but living your life by it quite another which I would never recommend.


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## gsilbers (Mar 12, 2015)

for astrology, this book is amazing. even if you don't believe on it , you will be very surpised
http://www.amazon.com/Linda-Goodmans-Su ... 0800849000


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## Daryl (Mar 12, 2015)

I don't see why people shouldn't believe in Astrology. It's called Faith.

D


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## TGV (Mar 12, 2015)

Dave Connor @ Thu Mar 12 said:


> TGV @ Wed Mar 11 said:
> 
> 
> > Of course it's nonsense...
> ...


Is this a strangely worded challenge? You just mention the word "research". That is not enough. Show us your research method and data, then we can discuss.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 12, 2015)

I've already already explained my research if you read my posts. My question is whether you have done any research. By that I mean any at all. I'm wondering what you are basing your dismissal on.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 12, 2015)

By the way it's people WHO believe in astrology, not people that believe. 

My sign is Slippery When Wet.

(More seriously, I do believe there are astrologers who are uncannily perceptive - but I think it's because of them, not because of the alignment of the stars when someone is born.)


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 12, 2015)

Just in case anyone genuinely thinks there might be something in it, start with Wikipedia and its references:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrolog ... _criticism

(Nb - I'm personally totally uninterested in further discussing that side of it, it's as good a use of my time as considering whether or not ducks could be used as a valid means of space travel. I only link that for those who fancy reading up themselves on the detail of the actual scientific evidence - I'm more than happy to simply accept the unanimous conclusion of the scientific community, without following the grind of their studies.)

Reading some stuff over breakfast that some lowly journo has magicked out of thin air in a newspaper is one thing - saying it should be incorporated into a country's medical system is quite another. Taking Astrology seriously is potentially dangerous as refusing medical treatment on religious grounds.


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## madbulk (Mar 12, 2015)

Not specific to Astrology, but ain't it something... you can be talking with someone, and you think you've got them sized up to some extent and then...
"Wait, you believe what?!"


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## Dave Connor (Mar 12, 2015)

The brevity of communication on the internet seems to often preclude in-depth conversations to a large extent. To say that someone 'believes' in Astrology in itself is a huge subject because the concept of 'believing' is an enormous one. Ten people saying they 'believe' in something could very well have ten different meanings. Case in point is that I would not say 'I believe in astrology' but rather accept that there is an uncanny consistency to people behaving much like their sign would suggest. That's a far cry from a belief or faith in something. In my case it's an observation of a phenomena, not a creed of any kind.


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## madbulk (Mar 12, 2015)

I wasn't calling you out btw, Dave.
 But now I am. What you describe, to a non-believer is belief. 

Any non-believers out there correct me if you think I'm mistaken.

If it's believers on one side of the street, and non believers on the other sidewalk. I'd say you're on the other side, or struck by a passing bus.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 12, 2015)

madbulk @ Thu Mar 12 said:


> I wasn't calling you out btw, Dave.
> But now I am. What you describe, to a non-believer is belief.
> 
> Any non-believers out there correct me if you think I'm mistaken.
> ...


You made a point I was going to make which is the fact that there is a general categorization of acceptance or rejection of Astrology. You are saying that some level of acceptance is belief and total rejection non-belief. I was assuming that and trying to distinguish a little more finely as a way of addressing some comments here about 'believing' in it. It is not a matter of faith or creed to me. It is something I have observed and tested and found to be amazingly consistent. So I don't 'believe' in it in my thinking but have been able to prove it with consistency over decades. As I said, the only reason I even studied it was to prove what a preposterous concept it was. In doing this I actually proved myself wrong. So I went from hostile to accepting. In fact I went from 'believing' it was nonsense to a more objective observation there was something to it to the point of provable to my own skeptic nature.


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## Mike Greene (Mar 12, 2015)

Dave, I think the idea of being able to guess someone's sign is an interesting one. I imagine there are some people who learn their sign, realize they're supposed to have certain characteristics based on that sign, then accentuate those characteristics in their daily lives. Sort of a self fulfilling prophecy.

Like a Leo may learn that Leos are supposed to be stubborn, so he thinks, _"Hey, I am indeed stubborn sometimes! This astrology stuff is true!"_ Of course, everyone has stubborn tendencies, but astrology validates this trait for this person. So then that person lets his stubbornness flag fly proud and free. So then Dave sees this extra helping of stubbornness and guesses he's a Leo.

I could believe that's true. I'll bet you can indeed guess with a better than 1 in 12 rate what sign someone is. Especially amongst some of wife's friends.

Here's a challenge for you. On this forum, you must have some inklings of the personalities of many of the members, enough to guess their signs. Care to make some public guesses? I don't mean that challenge in a confrontational way, by the way. I'm just thinking this could be a fun parlor game sort of thing if you're up for it.


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## madbulk (Mar 12, 2015)

Back to my originally intended point, and related I think to Dave's, personal experience can be a wildcard... 
I was actually thinking of another friend, who believes that because a psychic went out on a limb and came up big one time, that there might be something to it.
And there might.
But this guy OTHERWISE, not inclined to believe anything.
So you never know. Personal observation is, to me, unreasonably influential.
Seen it with my own eyes, I'm telling ya!


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## robh (Mar 12, 2015)

I once knew someone who consulted the stars to figure out what to name his child.

Rob


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## Dave Connor (Mar 12, 2015)

Mike, In order to size someone up I would want to have a more interactive connection with them. But honestly, it doesn't matter to me if someone accepts the veracity of Astrology. Virtually all ancient cultures accepted it in one way or another so I find that kind of thing interesting. But I'm not out to convert anyone and don't live by it in anyway. It's just fun.

Your balanced approach would suggest you have Libra in there somewhere but that is a very basic simple guess.


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## Mike Greene (Mar 12, 2015)

You would be right. :mrgreen: 

Although I have no belief whatsoever in astrology, I do sometimes wonder if I play up the "balance" side of me, just because I know I'm a Libra and that's how I'm supposed to be. (Like the Leo example I gave.) In other words, I suspect Libras (for example) are indeed more "balanced" than average, simply because they're more likely to think about it.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 12, 2015)

I'm not surprised Mike. Now if you multiply getting it right at a very high percentage over decades than you see that it's not born out of a 'need to believe in something' but a provable, observational phenomenon.


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## madbulk (Mar 12, 2015)

I saw it with my own eyes.


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## Mike Greene (Mar 12, 2015)

Ah, but that's just anecdotal. (Sorry, my masters was in math with an emphasis in Probability and Statistics, which makes me ultra skeptical of anecdotal evidence.) That's why I think you should do a test for real someday. As I said, I think you'd do better than 1 in 12 for the reasons I gave. What would be interesting is to see how _much_ better.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 12, 2015)

Mike Greene @ Thu Mar 12 said:


> Ah, but that's just anecdotal. (Sorry, my masters was in math with an emphasis in Probability and Statistics, which makes me ultra skeptical of anecdotal evidence.) That's why I think you should do a test for real someday. As I said, I think you'd do better than 1 in 12 for the reasons I gave. What would be interesting is to see how _much_ better.



I suppose if I was trying to prove something to someone I would do this or that but I imagine all of us prove things to ourselves and it's enough. In my case the statistics over so many years are so unusually high in favor of there being something to it that I was satisfied long ago.


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## gsilbers (Mar 12, 2015)

Mike Greene @ Thu Mar 12 said:


> You would be right. :mrgreen:
> 
> Although I have no belief whatsoever in astrology, I do sometimes wonder if I play up the "balance" side of me, just because I know I'm a Libra and that's how I'm supposed to be. (Like the Leo example I gave.) In other words, I suspect Libras (for example) are indeed more "balanced" than average, simply because they're more likely to think about it.


.

ok libra dude.
let us know what you think about this:

http://sunsignsbylindagoodman.blogspot. ... rough.html


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## G.R. Baumann (Mar 13, 2015)

Many many years ago.... I was a young man and lived with my girlfriend in a old belgium farm that had been converted to living space by it's owner. We had a nice flat under the roof, and the rooms below were rented by a chap in his early 30s. 

After a while we got known to eachother and I was astonished about all those babes coming and going daily. Some really attractive and interesting women with more than only looks, but a brain between their ears.

Turned out that he consulted them for a fee, and all of them were in a crisis of some sorts.

He had a Schneider Computer with 2x 5 1/4inch floppy disks and a program that printed some fancy looking astrology charts and the whole shebang. He was gifted as a chap who could read people, that was beyond doubts, and people opened up to him quickly.

He made quite a living from that, or in my words, he took advantage of peoples personal misery, then again... me thinks, it takes two, always....doesn't it? 

This whole esoteric industry creates a massive turnover. Not astonishing though, snake oil sales people were always around, and the harder the times, the more of them appear.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 13, 2015)

I was trying to quote Frederick's statement and accidentally reported him to himself!! Ha!! Mods please ignore...these darn tiny buttons on mobile!!

Anyway Frederick, your statement about existential fear is spot on, though I suspect your solution to it is quite different from mine.

As to astrology, I'm a total Leo but I really can't buy into it. As others have said, there's way too much wiggle room in the readings.


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## Vision (Mar 13, 2015)

Dave Connor @ Thu Mar 12 said:


> madbulk @ Thu Mar 12 said:
> 
> 
> > I wasn't calling you out btw, Dave.
> ...



I think your research says a great deal Dave. In fact, you’re probably the most qualified person in this thread to talk about the subject. For someone to just denounce this as “nonsense” is quite arrogant, especially if you’ve done 0.. zippy research to back up your claims. Why is it exactly nonsense? Because you don’t understand it? 

I’m not a “believer” type, I’m a facts, hard data type. I enjoy researching interesting subjects like this, because I simply want to know the science (or not) behind it.. and then examine the results of my findings. My conclusion is that there are some uncanny traits about people and their astrological signs that strike true more often than not. I think people really get skeptical about astrology because like a lot of things, astrology can, and has been exploited so much. I also think it has been subverted into a sort of religious concept, when it has to do more with science, and spirituality.. a totally different thing than religious ideology. 

One thing I’ve come to realize in life, is that there is a lot we as human beings don’t know. I’m humble enough to step back, weigh things, and see things for what they are. I try not to just blindly make a dismissive conclusion based on bias, or ignorance.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 13, 2015)

Vision @ Fri Mar 13 said:


> I simply want to know the science (or not) behind it.. and then examine the results of my findings. My conclusion is that there are some uncanny traits about people and their astrological signs that strike true more often than not.



Again, start here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology# ... _criticism

A soap box moment, with all due apologies as I'm going to go off on one. Not aimed at any individual here.

I've come to the view that the single biggest problem with mankind here on Earth today is that as a whole our species has not evolved to the point where we understand the value of how we got this far - science - and act accordingly on best scientific knowledge. People don't understand how science works, and why the scientific method is supremely valuable. People value uninformed armchair opinion more highly than the rigours of academia. So a person why accepts the consusus wisdom of the finest collective minds that have themselves examined something, is viewed as lesser than someone who has spent half an hour independently "researching" on the backwater blogs of the internet.

In the science vacuum, consipracy theory and folk myths thrive. People are unable to see any difference between a paid lobbyist and a scientific expert in a field, and treat both opinions with equal weight. Indeed, there's been a particularly sinister counter-movement in the past 5-10 years coming to the fore where lobbyists have attempted to portray - with some success - that the scientiific method itself is somehow politicly radical, and not representative of balanced thinking. This is a terrifying prospect.

I'd love to shrug off astrology as a harmless series of parlour tricks, but the views of the Tory MP in the UK show that it's not harmless, its potentially extremely dangerous because people DON'T UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE between rational thinking and superstition or politics, and are literally prepared to make life and death decisions based on folk myths - not just for themselves, but in a way that will impact others. And those who do value the scientific method are dismisses as "arrogant".

And an important caveat. Science does not hold a monopoly on all Earth experiences or wisdom, nor does it pretend to (and if it strays from its borders it should be slapped on the wrist and put back in its Faraday cage). Art is an obvious companion. And even faith / religion in general needn't be the aversary of science either, as many prominent and brilliant scientists of faith can attest down the years. The confusion arises when the dividing lines get blurred and see a holy text as a science book, or when they think a scientific discovery closes the door on philosophy or metaphysics.

So print the horoscopes for sure. Marvel at the parlour tricks. But don't for a millisecond confuse the issue as to whether or not this stuff has genuine scientific validity to predict the future. By all means go and read all the science - with your eyes wide open to the genuine scientific method, rather than psuedo-science and its sham papers and blogs which form the appearance of the genuine scientific method. And remember - magicians are the most honest folks around, as they TELL you that they are out to deceive you. Its the sharks, the salesmen and the faith healers who are to be avoided.

Off soap box, must get on with some work...


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## Vision (Mar 13, 2015)

I agree with a lot of what you are saying.

Not to belabor the subject.. not quite sure why you used wikipedia as a source. Was this to show that wikipedia is the most reputable source of info on the subject? 

Skimming through that info, I see a lot of data from scientists. I already understood confirmation bias.. etc. But that wiki doesn’t say much to me personally. Like you said.. (and in a way I was trying to say as well) we as a collective human species, scientists included, simply aren’t evolved enough to understand the subject. 

With that said.. in my experiences, similar to Dave, there is something to astrology that tells me it’s more credible than not.


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## muk (Mar 13, 2015)

Mike's and Guy's statements reflect my own opinion pretty well. I don't think that esoteric believes are very dangerous though (at least not in the big majority of cases), only to the peoples wallets.

There are some strong believes in the audio world too. Many people swear that their 2000$ copper/silver/gold/nickel-audiocable sounds soooo much better than any other cable they have ever heard. Regrettably I have never found someone who was willing to actually putting their claims to test (which you could quite easily with a freeware tool). General reasoning is: 'I don't need to test it, I hear it'. Which is fine by me, everybody is free to belief what she/he wants to. But personally I wouldn't want to spend that kind of money on any claim that isn't willing to be backed up (or falsified) by facts.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 13, 2015)

Vision @ Fri Mar 13 said:


> Not to belabor the subject.. not quite sure why you used wikipedia as a source. Was this to show that wikipedia is the most reputable source of info on the subject?



It's easy to bash Wikipedia, but it tends to self-balance pretty well over time (vested interests tend not to get away with much) and the main point is - everything is referenced. Its not a source, but links to many and is generally a good jumping off point.

And just to notch it up to a nicely absurdest level, here's a good referenced Wikipedia entry on the reliability of Wikiepedia....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia


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## Richard Wilkinson (Mar 13, 2015)

Like Homeopathy, it's fine if people want to believe it, but both are equally preposterous and shouldn't be anywhere near government funding, charities etc.


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## dgburns (Mar 13, 2015)

well I must admit I do kinda get suckered into the astrology thing.But it is also interesting to have a reading done using your very own particular info such as place of birth,time of birth exactly.They always say that the only way to get a more precise reading is to do just that.They also say that the overall "if you were born between these dates" is just a very general thing and not to be taken too seriously.
That all said,I wonder how they take in all this info and make such strange "predictions" about who you are based on star positions.still,get suckered in more often that not.
mtc


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## gbar (Mar 13, 2015)

dgburns @ Fri Mar 13 said:


> well I must admit I do kinda get suckered into the astrology thing.But it is also interesting to have a reading done using your very own particular info such as place of birth,time of birth exactly.They always say that the only way to get a more precise reading is to do just that.They also say that the overall "if you were born between these dates" is just a very general thing and not to be taken too seriously.
> That all said,I wonder how they take in all this info and make such strange "predictions" about who you are based on star positions.still,get suckered in more often that not.
> mtc



It's 3rd century BCE, pre-scientific pseudoscience (at least, I would argue, that was the apex of the practice: when Zoroastian magi were genuinely believed by people of Persia and the Ancient Near East to possess real insight, and when Priests in Babylon and Egypt were really highly regarded). Here's how it seems to work if it seems to work: the more "detailed" (transits, progressed charts, etc) it is, the more scattered and numerous are the generalities proposed. Then add your confirmation bias and the fact you are prone to seeing patterns even when there are none (hey, patterns is what we do well... even if there are not patterns) and that you are also prone to remember something that reinforces your pre-existing beliefs, and presto-magico!

I will say something for the ancient folks who practiced this, though: Calendars are nice, and you really, really can plan when to plant crops by studying the apparent movement of stars, and you really can navigate using Polaris.

The rest, though, is kind of silly, IMO. It sort of begins with the belief that the planets were Gods and such (with Zoroastians, angels). And some of it blatantly reveals its historic origins and that it was thought the stars, moon and Sun revolved around the Earth. Take the idea of a retrograde. For example, people who really, really believe in this stuff are especially on-guard around Mercury retrogrades because Mercury is the God of communication, and they believe errors in communications and (updated to 20th century) electronic devices are more common during these periods because he's going backward! Mercury, the planet, is not going backward (lol). It just has a smaller elliptical orbit.

In fact, now that I think about it, Mercury and all his predecessors (Hermes, etc) are a perfect example of fitting the method to a story about these "stars" that were not "fixed in the Heavens". Mercury moves more quickly, therefore, he must be the messenger, right? Therefore, he must be the God of communications, right? And Updated to the 20th century, your iPhone too.

But I get a kick out of the Christmas manger story every year when Westerners talk about "Three Wise Men" (Zorastian magi), especially since I know that many of those same people shun Astrology as an "occult" practice, but are content and even find their Faith rejuvenated by the annual Nativity Play at their local MegaChurch(tm) 

"Paradise is exactly like where you are right now
Only
Much, much
Better" - Laurie Anderson.


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## SergeD (Mar 13, 2015)

Dave Connor @ Thu Mar 12 said:


> Mike Greene @ Thu Mar 12 said:
> 
> 
> > That's why I think you should do a test for real someday.
> ...


Dave, I can help you regarding this challenge. Of course, it's not something like Gauquelin statistics, but it has some value. 

To Mike and all non-believers here :

Get the sign of your best friends you met in your youth. Are some signs appearing more than others?

Get the sign of people you really don't know what to say when you meet them, not people you hate, only people which you have no good chemistry at all. Are some signs appearing more than others?

List qualities that you admire in others. Find your moon sign into your astrological chart here (fill the manual profile)
http://www.astrotheme.com/horoscope_cha ... endant.php 
(Accurate time of birth is important because the moon is running fast.) 

Your moon sign is what you are not, and also what you admire in others.

Go here http://www.astrotheme.com/astrology_signs.php

read the meaning of the zodiacal sign that matches your moon sign and read the qualities you listed earlier. 

Is the test well explained?


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## madbulk (Mar 13, 2015)

This is so awesome.


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## dgburns (Mar 13, 2015)

gbar @ Fri Mar 13 said:


> dgburns @ Fri Mar 13 said:
> 
> 
> > well I must admit I do kinda get suckered into the astrology thing.But it is also interesting to have a reading done using your very own particular info such as place of birth,time of birth exactly.They always say that the only way to get a more precise reading is to do just that.They also say that the overall "if you were born between these dates" is just a very general thing and not to be taken too seriously.
> ...



Fun stuff!

I think you're saying you don't believe in it,but it seems to me you're in WAAAY deeper then I ever was,or care to be :mrgreen: .

I'm more of a "don't cross the black cat" or "walk under the ladder" kinda observer...more for entertainment value.
I also put in half a scoop of coffee into the coffee maker for the "fairies" and walk into the woods with a small crook of bread in my trousers (a la East Coast Canada folklore).... but then again,what the heck do I know anyway  

the East coasters put bread into their pants so they can get back out of the woods,in case you're not up on your folklore.Don't ever want to piss off the "whatever it is" that'll eat you in those woods after all !!


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## Dave Connor (Mar 13, 2015)

Folks, a wikipedia article is not capable of undoing reality. This is something I have found perfectly consistent over decades. A single sentence by a member here in the form of a question resulted in me getting his sign correct. That's not a lot of information about the fellow whom I don't know at all. As far as statistics what are the odds of that? I once guessed four strangers who I had known a matter of seconds just for fun and got each one right the first time. I wish someone would tell me the statistics on that. Whatever twelve possible answers each on four people correct with no errors. Been doing that kind of thing since the 70's. 

Perhaps more importantly is the fact that this is a hobby to me similar to model airplanes or something. It's just a fun thing to do as a card game is fun or a word game. It's just not that important. What it is, is a hoot.


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## TheUnfinished (Mar 13, 2015)

Dave Connor @ Fri Mar 13 said:


> Folks, a wikipedia article is not capable of undoing reality.


That is true. And if we're talking about reality... Scientific studies have repeatedly shown that there is nothing in the claims of astrology.

I mean, how could there be?

Arbitrary collections of stars that are absolutely nowhere near each other have had a similar impact on the lives of each one twelfth of EVERY human being that has ever lived? Seriously?

An ability to guess people's star signs is nice. But, in reality (again), all it proves is that you're good at guessing star signs. It does not have any impact on the veracity of astrology in any way, shape or form. 

There is a very good reason that anecdotal evidence is rejected in serious studies. It is hugely unreliable.


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## madbulk (Mar 13, 2015)

1 in 12 and 1 in 20,000
By the way, is there something that is capable of undoing reality? Cuz that would be neat.


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## Stephen Rees (Mar 13, 2015)

madbulk @ Fri Mar 13 said:


> 1 in 12 and 1 in 20,000
> By the way, is there something that is capable of undoing reality? Cuz that would be neat.



Beer?


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## dgburns (Mar 13, 2015)

TheUnfinished @ Fri Mar 13 said:


> Dave Connor @ Fri Mar 13 said:
> 
> 
> > Folks, a wikipedia article is not capable of undoing reality.
> ...



Just as a half joke though-take a look at quantum physics which states that a particle is changed by simply being observed.It's state changes the moment it is observed,maybe there's a connection here ?? (half jokingly written)

but still one wonders about that Cat ? Shrodinger's Cat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat

again with the wiki,but oh well it is friday!


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## madbulk (Mar 13, 2015)

Beer? Judges say.... No. 
They go on to say, beer may change your perception of reality, but your perception of reality, particular for the sake of keeping this thread alive and confrontational and entertaining to me if only to me, is not necessarily reflective of actual reality.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 13, 2015)

TheUnfinished @ Fri Mar 13 said:


> Dave Connor @ Fri Mar 13 said:
> 
> 
> > Folks, a wikipedia article is not capable of undoing reality.
> ...



That is what I thought and in my effort to prove it I ended up being able to demonstrate that there was something indeed to it as unexplainable as it seems to be. I've heard farmers almanac has been more accurate than all the weather science we have which is the unscientific in the end being more reliable than science.

The empirical evidence basis for science is a good one and has been highly fruitful to the benefit of mankind. Quantum mechanics though is proving there are myriad other laws at work in other dimensions and highly unpredictable at that. Just because something is not measurable (after a blink of an eye in time on the cosmic clock in earth science) doesn't negate it's veracity. Nonetheless I consider a repeatable, reliable, demonstrable principal 'scientific' enough. I do not care if there are those who have a different criteria. They are not able to change a lifetime of experience I have had. The least of my concerns on this earth in any case.


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## Vision (Mar 13, 2015)

I agree. The problem I have with some these official so called scientists, are that they don't really truly understand the nature of reality.. no more than me or anyone else in my opinion. These are measured earth theories.

Centuries ago humans were considered to be the center of existence. How could you know where your existence fits in the grand scheme of things, if you have limited knowledge that only applies to human/earth logic? We had no clue there where billions of stars within billions of galaxies. We still don't know our role in the universe. I know I'm probably coming off as existential right now. 

Earth sciences are infantile. We can't even cure the common cold. We've only had cars, and airplanes for about 100 or so years. Within past half century created that atom bomb. We are in a constant state of war, decease, and corruption. I know I'm going off on a tangent a bit.. but I think that in terms of our limited knowledge and wisdom, these things (with science) are interrelated. I think scientists are doing the best they can with what they've got, which isn't much.


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## wesbender (Mar 13, 2015)

Good lord, there's actually a full two pages here debating the veracity of astrology?

Well okay, if science isn't your thing (cringe), at least read up on its history, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology

Astrology (along with many other superstitions) was an easy way to explain things for civilizations who didn't know any better.

In 2015, we should definitely know better.


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## Vision (Mar 13, 2015)

wesbender @ Fri Mar 13 said:


> Good lord, there's actually a full two pages here debating the veracity of astrology?
> 
> Well okay, if science isn't your thing (cringe), at least read up on its history, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology
> 
> ...



I personally never said "science isn't my thing". My point is that I think some of our sciences and understanding aren't as advanced as we make it out to be. 

And why couldn't this be a couple of pages.. it's just a fun debate. Not losing any sleep over this.


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## wesbender (Mar 13, 2015)

Vision @ Fri Mar 13 said:


> I personally never said "science isn't my thing". My point is that I think some of our sciences and understanding aren't as advanced as we make it out to be.
> 
> And why couldn't this be a couple of pages.. it's just a fun debate. Not losing any sleep over this.



Wasn't directed at you (or anyone else) personally.

I think that any respectable scientist will readily admit that their (and our) understanding of reality is far from advanced, and really, that's at the very nature of what they do -- admit a lack of understanding, followed by doing everything they can to figure it out.

Regarding the various supernatural/superstitious beliefs (including astrology) of humanity... one can either choose to view reality as it presents itself, the ever-changing observable existence. Or, one can view it based on ideas and concepts that exist only within the biased thought patterns of the human brain.

And, I'm not so sure about the 'fun' part, I find it more discouraging than fun that people still buy into these sorts of superstitions.


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## gbar (Mar 13, 2015)

wesbender @ Fri Mar 13 said:


> And, I'm not so sure about the 'fun' part, I find it more discouraging than fun that people still buy into these sorts of superstitions.



I look at it this way, so long as people aren't basing important decisions on superstition, where's the harm? It is funny. People are funny.

Now, when somebody says, "The sea levels can't rise because God promised to never do that again, and it's also how we wound up with rainbows", that's a bit scary


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## Lannister (Mar 13, 2015)

It's a silly superstition, a bit like today, Friday the 13th, that I don't believe in.

Although I do wonder to myself sometimes why I will go out of my way to not walk under a ladder...


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## wesbender (Mar 13, 2015)

gbar @ Fri Mar 13 said:


> I look at it this way, so long as people aren't basing important decisions on superstition, where's the harm? It is funny. People are funny.
> 
> Now, when somebody says, "The sea levels can't rise because God promised to never do that again, and it's also how we wound up with rainbows", that's a bit scary



But people do let their superstitious beliefs influence important decisions quite frequently. Not necessarily astrology (though that does happen, as evidenced by Guy's posts in here), but the same thought process used to accept astrology as fact is also used to accept other superstitions as fact, some of which have done a remarkable job of doing terrible things throughout history.


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## JonFairhurst (Mar 13, 2015)

Regarding superstition, I like numerology. Normally, I would never swim 1300 meters, but I did today, being Friday the 13th.

I'm a Seahawks fan, so I'm a "12". I'll often choose to do things in counts of 12. When grabbing a locker, I'll often choose one with the same number as a favorite player's jersey number. I'll avoid the numbers of famous opponents.

Does this practice add to my luck? Does it help my team win? I highly doubt it. So why do I do it?

I think it lowers anxiety. It associates my actions with things I like and disassociates my actions from dangerous things (13) or things or people I dislike. So it simply reflects my hopes and allegiances. It informs my identity.

And it's fun.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 14, 2015)

Everyone's belief in the nature of things, whether scientific or faith-based, could change in an instant. Think about what you think you know- empirical, instinctual, whatever. You don't really "know" anything, because reality is ineluctable to us. Draw your conclusions as you may, you don't really "know" anything. This entire world/universe/whatever could simply be a construct for a bored superior being. We analyze and make pompous pronouncements, but for all we know we may be existing in a zoo (a common theme in science fiction.)


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 14, 2015)

NYC Composer @ Sat Mar 14 said:


> Everyone's belief in the nature of things, whether scientific or faith-based, could change in an instant. Think about what you think you know- empirical, instinctual, whatever. You don't really "know" anything, because reality is ineluctable to us. Draw your conclusions as you may, you don't really "know" anything. This entire world/universe/whatever could simply be a construct for a bored superior being. We analyze and make pompous pronouncements, but for all we know we may be existing in a zoo (a common theme in science fiction.)



Larry, while this may true (and has provided for some terrific sci-fi films I agree), madness can only lead down that road if we endeavoured to apply it to the way we run society. Of course, people are free to believe whatever they want provided it does not negatively impact on someone else. The problem is that frequently it DOES impact on someone else. Crucially, the moment a government policy is influenced by superstition (which has been found to be demonstrably false by the scientific method), we're in big big trouble. In India recently they even had to introduce an anti-superstition and black magic act in the country - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Super ... _Magic_Act . And looks like they needed it too - 2011 India had declared astrology a "trusted science" http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... eferral=PM . 

Incidentally, this is my favourite horoscope:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-1onbpXIAAOtf2.jpg:large


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## AR (Mar 14, 2015)

I know this is a little bit off topic...
Are there any of you who believe in God? I mean like, not just believe that there's a higher power, but I mean like really being a reborn believer? I sometimes find it hard to work in the industry and being a Christian at the same time.


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## TGV (Mar 14, 2015)

NYC Composer @ Sat Mar 14 said:


> Everyone's belief in the nature of things, whether scientific or faith-based, could change in an instant. Think about what you think you know- empirical, instinctual, whatever. You don't really "know" anything, because reality is ineluctable to us. Draw your conclusions as you may, you don't really "know" anything. This entire world/universe/whatever could simply be a construct for a bored superior being. We analyze and make pompous pronouncements, but for all we know we may be existing in a zoo (a common theme in science fiction.)


But since we like to act on what we know, and not on what might true with a likelihood very, very close to 0, that kind of reasoning is useless.

We will never know reality for what it is (no idea why you use the word "ineluctable" in this context), but we can observe it. If the same action repeatedly results in the same observation, we can hypothesize over it. Then we can imagine other ways of observing the phenomenon, and see if the hypothesis still holds. We do this in everyday life. You pick up a stone, let it go, and it falls. No exceptions. That makes you aware that you shouldn't let go of things that you don't want to fall.

But that's only halfway to science, because we're prone to forming bad hypotheses. Very bad ones, really, just because we cannot imagine the mechanism underlying our measurements/observation. Science is about weeding out the bad hypotheses.

Occam famously said it: don't involve unnecessary entities in your explanation. If you drop that principle, I can explain our existence and give it meaning in an infinite number of ways, all involving monsters, tentacles and the reason fire trucks are red, or the precession of the earth's axis amongst twelve arbitrarily chosen dot drawings in the heavens.


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## Richard Wilkinson (Mar 14, 2015)

AR @ Sat Mar 14 said:


> I know this is a little bit off topic...
> Are there any of you who believe in God? I mean like, not just believe that there's a higher power, but I mean like really being a reborn believer? I sometimes find it hard to work in the industry and being a Christian at the same time.



I find religion to be the same as homeopathy, astrology etc. Incompatible with common sense. I know and understand it brings hope and peace to some people, but I can't understand why someone would base their whole lifestyle on a set of principles but not make the slightest effort to test the evidence/logic behind those principles.

If I needed medical treatment, I'd ask medical professionals why, how and what sort of treatment would be best. I'd do supplemental reading to reassure/terrify myself too.

When I need a new sample library/instrument, I look at reviews, listen to demos, read manuals and user stories etc. to find out which one would be most effective and why.

If I was religious, I'd have to be completely sure I'd picked the 'correct' one - with solid evidence as to why that particular religion was right. And why living according to those principles - often with shady judgements on women, homosexuality, capital punishment etc - would be better than living with a morality based on humanism, common sense, empathy and reciprocal reasoning.

As it stands, none of the religions have a great track record with morality, but mainly they're jusy too flagrantly in opposition to common sense that I can't understand why one would base decisions on them.

Plus Britain is a very secular place and barely anyone I know is religious, so it's a numbers thing also.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 14, 2015)

Introducing religion as a talking point here is brave indeed. It used to the the maxim to avoid religion and politics in civil discussion. I say that now it's legato.

FWIW, I don't think religion is quite the same thing. Or rather, the broader subject of spirituality I'm not sure can be so easily dismissed, primarily because it doesn't (or, again, shouldn't) occupy the same space as science. It's not provable or testable, but one could argue the same for love or art. Things start to unravel when spirituality strays from its boundaries, and people feel the need to create human laws or bombs out of it, or take stuff like the creation myth literally in the face of all reason and evidence. All of which to me makes as much sense as using, say, pop lyrics as a way to solve crime (which actually happens in the film Copycat by the way, about the dumbest plot device of all time). Pop music is great and all and has tremendous value in its own right, but it's not really a proper tool to fight crime, is it?

I mean, I'm as interested at the fractured edges of science as the next person. The nature of reality is 11 bisecting dimensions? Huh? Super-symmetry does what now?! Wonder, reflect, marvel and keep on studying. I think we need to show all due humility in the face of such incomprehensible things which might indeed lead to hidden truths and unknowns.

But unknowns they surely be. Bottom line - if we can't test it and prove any cause and effect here in our humble four dimensions, we have no businesses making laws about it.


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## AR (Mar 14, 2015)

Two facts that totally convinced me in believing in greater power is the fact that our planet is in perfect constellation to the sun. If the Earth would've been even 1 mile closer to the sun life would've been impossible since the coldest places would be that hot like the Death Valley. If the Earth would've been 1 mile further from the sun our planet would've been a ice planet. That fact is enough for me to convince me in believing in God. Now I know most of musicians are agnostic or atheistic. My dad a very famous guitarist was too. Well, you can say that's all part of Big Bang. Though certain tragic happenings in life will change you. Definitely. Having cancer, being infertile, loosing a close person to death. Just my life experience. As long as everything goes fine nobody asks for a deeper meaning in life, why should we? We are our own Gods, until we have to face death. Ask the surviving Golden Gate Bridge jumpers.
The second fact why I'm believing in God. Please ask yourself. The year is....? Why? ...hmmm, good question, not? Even evolution scientists use this time scheme: "This animal lived 150000 BC" I always keep smiling when I hear that. Ain't that a contradiction in terms? Shouldn't we say today is 14th March 19004653? ....just sayin'. Don't give a peeeep about what I'm saying. Just think for yourself.


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## TGV (Mar 14, 2015)

AR @ Sat Mar 14 said:


> Two facts that totally convinced me in believing in greater power is the fact that our planet is in perfect constellation to the sun. If the Earth would've been even 1 mile closer to the sun life would've been impossible since the coldest places would be that hot like the Death Valley. If the Earth would've been 1 mile further from the sun our planet would've been a ice planet. That fact is enough for me to convince me in believing in God.


Time to drop the belief, then. The earth's distance to the Sun fluctuates 3.5 million miles during the year.


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## SergeD (Mar 14, 2015)

This researcher proved in some way that science also has its share of Nostradamus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOZAV9AvIQE

There are just as much idiots in science than astrology. But this is not to say that science itself is silly


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## Richard Wilkinson (Mar 14, 2015)

I've heard a few people use that 'such great odds must mean it isn't just random' line. 
Depending on your view of universe size, parallel universes etc, you could argue that with such a huge (even infinite) number of galaxies/universes, almost every eventuality has played out. So there are universes with ice planets, fire planets, sentient life, lifeless rocks etc . Our galaxy just happens to be one where the conditions were right for life (as we know it) to evolve.

Re. time - the Gregorian calendar has been standard for a while now, so convenience is a large part of why we still use it.

And 'deeper meanings' - science is always looking at stuff like extraterrestrial life, the origin of the universe, the nature of consciousness etc. It's not like science is a walled-off unemotional machine looking to kill any wonder or mystery. Science is just a process for learning more about the world and the universe.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 14, 2015)

TGV @ Sat Mar 14 said:


> NYC Composer @ Sat Mar 14 said:
> 
> 
> > Everyone's belief in the nature of things, whether scientific or faith-based, could change in an instant. Think about what you think you know- empirical, instinctual, whatever. You don't really "know" anything, because reality is ineluctable to us. Draw your conclusions as you may, you don't really "know" anything. This entire world/universe/whatever could simply be a construct for a bored superior being. We analyze and make pompous pronouncements, but for all we know we may be existing in a zoo (a common theme in science fiction.)
> ...



You're right about ineluctable- I misunderstood its meaning, so thanks for pointing it out.

I'm not a scientist nor a religionist, just an observer. My point still holds though-all science derived from hypotheses and repeatability may be comforting for us in establishing a little framework for our perceived physical universe, but it could all be a construct, the reasons for which we won't ever know. I agree with Guy- that way lies madness, so carrying on with what we think we know is probably best practice, but I don't think that obviates my point. Logically, the fact that we know so little about our own existences should lead us to be very open and broadminded about saying ""I suppose that's possible."

I don't have any spiritual faith, but I don't make fun of those who do as I have no better explanation for the origin of things, the nature of things or the meanings behind them. Same with astrology (to bring things back around)-Dave has done research and has proofs for himself. Who am I to say no? Though I'm not a believer, my skepticism is usually reserved for the ways people use the things they believe rather than the belief systems themselves.


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## AR (Mar 14, 2015)

TGV @ Sat Mar 14 said:


> AR @ Sat Mar 14 said:
> 
> 
> > Two facts that totally convinced me in believing in greater power is the fact that our planet is in perfect constellation to the sun. If the Earth would've been even 1 mile closer to the sun life would've been impossible since the coldest places would be that hot like the Death Valley. If the Earth would've been 1 mile further from the sun our planet would've been a ice planet. That fact is enough for me to convince me in believing in God.
> ...



That does explain only why we have summer and winter. Though the circular path doesn't change, right? In fact it changed for 1 cm when the Thailand tsunami happened. I think that little shift was enough to change a winter degrees as well as summer degrees for the past few years. Though imagine the earth just 100m off that planetary orbit.


@wilx: so why the Gregorian calendar and not the Chinese for example? ...And I'm even half Jewish :/


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## Hannes_F (Mar 14, 2015)

What I wonder about is: Could it be that people with less exact knowledge about astronomical details and more belief in spiritual causations could often (not always) make better composers? Because their belief makes the wings of their inherent genius grow better? Inspiration anybody?

Sorry if this is against the general swing of this thread, you know I like to provoke a bit, even against a majority  What zodiak sign does that make me?

Speaking as a member here, not as a mod BTW.

@AR no the seasons are not caused by the ellipsy of the earth orbit, they come from the tilt of the axis (except you mean a different type of seasons). If you want to maintain your argument then you would need to say that some studies estimate the habitable zone to begin at 99% of earth's distance while others say it ends at 101%, so that makes a delta of +/- 1% to be halfway safe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstel ... table_zone

So if you exchange 'mile' by 'percent' in your argument then it could have some value.

On the other hand there would be very much to say how tight the concept of this 'habitable zone' really is or not. It is a model with an awful lot of assumptions.


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## TheUnfinished (Mar 14, 2015)

AR @ Sat Mar 14 said:


> TGV @ Sat Mar 14 said:
> 
> 
> > AR @ Sat Mar 14 said:
> ...


Erm, no. The seasons are not caused by the Earth's proximity to the Sun, merely which part of Earth is facing the Sun, because of the tilt to Earth's axis.

The fact that there is the 3.5 million mile fluctuation shows that Earth's elliptical orbit actually has a bit of leeway.

Even so, you could technically argue "Well, it's within that zone, so therefore it IS in the perfect place and therefore... God exists!" But that's something of a circular argument.

If there are perfect conditions for life to exist, then if that occurs enough times in the universe, it is actually inevitable for life to form on such planets. And this does not require any outside intervention.

Also, if there is life on Earth because God put it there, what was he doing when making Mercury, Venus or Saturn? Were they errors, experiments? What purpose do they serve within the framework of that 'logic'?

You didn't know that the distance between the Earth and Sun fluctuates a great deal and you don't understand what causes the seasons. Yet, this is one of the FACTS you base your belief in god on? They're not solid foundations are they?

As for the calendar thing... that's just silly. A small amount of historical knowledge will answer your question.


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## AR (Mar 14, 2015)

Okay, well, we need the other planets as an antipole to our planet within this universe. I think their gravity is responisble so the earth turns around it's own axis. Everybody knows the moon is responsible for the tide. Whatelse? Maybe if we had no moon, birds (probably) had no orientation. Same goes for Jupiter, Mars, etc. Though I believe they serve a slightly different purpose. Farmers say 20th century was warmer than 19th century because of the constellation to Jupiter. And scientists say that looking at our universe life & vegatation is only possible in our orbit. Ain't my words. Look at the other planets. Nada.
I wouldn't say we have seasons cause of the the axial tilt. That can change permanently. (Like the last few years in our country.) Don't get me wrong. This is just my personal fact I see when looking at the whole picture. Don't wanna say that my facts work for you. To me understanding the whole universe got simpler when having in mind that there is an creator. The bible says itself: Be sceptical. So be scpetical. Believe in God or not. Your choice. It's just so funny when mentioning the word religion or God everyone get's so itchy and uncomfortable  Am I'm hitting a nerve here or what?


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## Mike Greene (Mar 14, 2015)

AR @ Sat Mar 14 said:


> TGV @ Sat Mar 14 said:
> 
> 
> > AR @ Sat Mar 14 said:
> ...


I think you might be misunderstanding why some places on Earth are hot and other places are cold. At first glance, it would seem that the equator is hot because it's closer to the sun, and the Arctic is cold because it's further from the sun.

But that isn't the reason. In fact, as TGV suggested, the Earth's orbit is not a perfect circle. It's an ellipse, where the Earth will be 3 million miles closer to the sun in January than it will be in July. That's right, we're closest to the sun in _January!_ 3 million _miles_ closer! Freaky, right?

So a place like New York City is 3 million miles closer to the sun in January than the Cairo is in July. So shouldn't New York City's January temperature be hotter than Cairo's July temperature?

We know that it isn't, of course. But why, you might ask?

The reason places close to the equator are hot is because they have less of an atmospheric filter. The sun has a straight shot to the ground. Further north, on the other hand, the sun hits the ground at an _angle._ So it has to pass through more air to get to us. That air filters the sun's rays, so less heat gets through.

The bottom line is that you could move the Earth ten million miles closer to the sun, but it would only raise the temperature by a degree or so.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 14, 2015)

I think there's been a bit of confusion here on what the fine tuned anthropic principle is. It's not really the specifics of the Earth which are remarkable - I believe the current thinking is that there's probably thousands of Earths in the known universe and therefore we're rather ordinary ("mostly harmless"). It is rather that the base conditions of our universe allows for our Earth (and the life on it) at all. And the odds of that are, apparently, infinitesimally small. 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe

FWIW I think this is religion's / Deists' best shot. You either need to invoke near-limitless multiverses - which to an ordinary sap like me always seems as much as an unprovable hypothesis as saying "God did it" but does have the advantage of being less comprehensible to mere mortals and therefore more credible - or accept what appears to be a magic trick.

The magic trick goes "We exist in the universe. Therefore the probability of our universe having the base conditions which are required for conscious, sentient beings is 100%. Ta da". This has always struck me as even more absurd than multiverses, rather like picking yourself up by your own shoelaces. It feels like David Blaine came up with it on an off-day as a joke.

So from my perspective, it is indeed very odd that we're all here (doubly so in VI Control), and the only explanations readily available all sound terribly unconvincing. Which is itself terribly interesting. What it doesn't do, however, is open the door for any one specific belief system to claim it is any more credible than any other.


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## AR (Mar 14, 2015)

Okay, so we are kinda stuck now. Some say there is no God, some say there is a God. And we're banging our heads against the wall and still can't explain the universe. TOO COMPLEX for anyone. I think that has something to do with the problem that we can use only 6% of our brain. Astrology and Sciene would be that easier if we could use a little more percentage.


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## Richard Wilkinson (Mar 14, 2015)

AR @ Sat Mar 14 said:


> I think that has something to do with the problem that we can use only 6% of our brain. .



This is also nonsense, I'm afraid.


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## TheUnfinished (Mar 14, 2015)

Oh dear.


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## AR (Mar 14, 2015)

Ok guys, I give up. Gotta go. Work is calling...


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## Dave Connor (Mar 14, 2015)

Would it be fair to say that anyone who doesn't wonder at the physical universe is only using a small percentage of their brain?


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 14, 2015)

To be fair to AR, I think a lot of folks are in his / her position (just realised not sure which gender you are, AR). When you start digging, it gets terribly complicated. The vast majority of us give up trying, some earlier than others. Lots take one or two nuggets of info, and perhaps don't quite fully understand them. But AR's basic point - "it's beyond human comprehension" - I do have sympathy with, cos it is. If M theory is right, I don't think it's possible for the human mind to comprehend what it mathematically describes.

And this (unfortunately) is where astrology creeps in. It's a bit like the old discredited "God of the gaps" theology - what we don't understand, we ascribe to God, or aliens or the stars themselves. The reason why it's a discredited notion is simple enough - we learn more, and the knowledge-vacuum gets filled. So if God used to live there, we just kicked him out. Oops.

But I have a slightly different take on that. The sum of human scientific knowledge has performed this remarkable trick of us being more ignorant now than when we begun, in a sense. Back in Newton's day it was all pretty much sown up - a glorious clockwork universe that we could observe and measure, all the ancient mysteries resolved with handful of supremely elegant laws and equations. Yes, a few holes to fill here and there for sure, but it was a towering achievement of learning and endeavour. (Tangent - Titanic as myth plays into this great folly, the hubris of the masters of the universe)

Now consider what Newton knew nothing about. Electromagnetism. Electricity. Radiation. Quantum mechanics. Genetics. Dark matter and energy... and plenty more. Like an inverted set of Russian Dolls, as one question got answered, it opened up entirely new areas that we never even knew existed.

So curiously, although we forced out the classical God of the Gaps, God seems to have bigger and bigger places in which to live. He keeps wafting off to ever more impenetrable yet cavernous spaces.

Now I'm interested in all this science stuff. I can't wait to hear what the next scientific area of lack-of-knowledge is opened up. But most people really aren't - they get enough to know that the universe is some "tricky shit". And in pours the quackery, the frauds, the deluded and the charlatans to sell you a neat and tidy resolution to all that frightfully complicated theoretical physics and quantum theory. And frankly you can't blame 'em for trying.


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## madbulk (Mar 14, 2015)

Holy crap.


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## AR (Mar 14, 2015)

Sorry for being a controverse fundamentalistic religious a**hole. I just wanned to shake that conversation here a little bit. Sorry. I know I'm a anti-social person. I just find it interesting how much time it just takes to go through all the posts. Do you have that much time for vi-control? Cause I apparently do? (Okay, guilty I confess...I do check every week here to see if rctec posted something intersting new.)


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## NYC Composer (Mar 14, 2015)

Who called you that??


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## rJames (Mar 14, 2015)

Before I answer this I must know; what is your sign?





Ron


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## José Herring (Mar 14, 2015)

AR @ Sat Mar 14 said:


> TGV @ Sat Mar 14 said:
> 
> 
> > AR @ Sat Mar 14 said:
> ...



I haven't been paying attention to this thread, only occasionally glanced at a few post so I don't know what's being discussed but.....HOLY MOTHER OF GOD are you confused!!!

You can't conclude correct conclusions when you are reasoning from things that are made up and don't happen to be true.


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## AR (Mar 14, 2015)

You wanna convince me that there is no God? Haha, give it a try!


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## José Herring (Mar 15, 2015)

AR @ Sat Mar 14 said:


> You wanna convince me that there is no God? Haha, give it a try!



Nah, wouldn't dream of it. 

Just don't use false arguments to convince yourself that there is. You either believe in Him or you don't.

Faith is weak if faith has to be reasoned. If it has to be reasoned then it's no faith at all.

God is. If you truly believed, that would be enough. No need for the hocus pockus mumbo jumbo you posted above.

People talk about he has a lot of faith, or he's losing faith or his faith is strong. Faith is either/or. You believe 100% or you don't. There is no, I kind of believe or I believe because or here's proof.


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## tokatila (Mar 15, 2015)

My 5-year old knows more about the natural order than any founder of the major religion. Just saying.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 15, 2015)

josejherring @ Sun Mar 15 said:


> AR @ Sat Mar 14 said:
> 
> 
> > You wanna convince me that there is no God? Haha, give it a try!
> ...


 
Really? I probably know half dozen youngish people who have a hesitant faith, much of it based on early teaching vying with more recently aquired objectivity, and I'm not so sure how any of them will end up. On what do you base your belief that faith is all or nothing? is it evidential, or just your opinion?


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 15, 2015)

josejherring @ Sun Mar 15 said:


> Faith is weak if faith has to be reasoned. If it has to be reasoned then it's no faith at all.
> 
> God is. If you truly believed, that would be enough. No need for the hocus pockus mumbo jumbo you posted above.
> 
> People talk about he has a lot of faith, or he's losing faith or his faith is strong. Faith is either/or. You believe 100% or you don't. There is no, I kind of believe or I believe because or here's proof.



Yeeeeeaaaah... I too think this is a misunderstanding of the nature of faith. It's easy to brand "faith" ad belief in something despite all evidence to the contrary, but that's a silly caricature. I have great respect for people of faith who themselves understand what their faith is and isn't, and how it fits into a big picture of the world (and indeed who struggle with their own faith as they do so). I have less respect for people who believe in something demonstrably false.

I apologise for being the first to utter the dreaded words "Richard Dawkins", but he's done atheism no end of harm by failing to grasp even basic concepts that are understood by even moderately intelligent people of faith. His strident brand of dogmatism strikes many as evey bit as intransigent as those of the fundamentalists, and I see their point.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 15, 2015)

I have no faith, but I think it's ridiculous to tell people of any faith just exactly how it should be. Of course, I believe that about most things. Definitive people who opine vehemently about matters of conjecture just make me tired.


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## TGV (Mar 15, 2015)

I think it's a semantic problem, like pregnant: can you be a bit pregnant or not? In a sense, you either have faith or you don't, but you could just as well define it as a probability over future events.

I had a friend who could not see blindness as 0% vision. His reasoning was: if you can see 0%, you still can see something, so you're not blind. He was not a very mathematically minded person, but we could adapt to each other's idiosyncrasy. So be it. This discussion does not have serious consequences, but don't derail it over (arbitrary) semantics.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 15, 2015)

I prefer passionate empathy to analytical jibberjabbery, to coin a word.

This thread is illustrative to me- it's exactly why I refuse to call myself an atheist. Atheists are forming their own bloodless, humorless Church of Non-Believers. In the end, almost all groupthink constructs lead to ruinous and harmful conclusions.


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## TheUnfinished (Mar 15, 2015)

Anyone who claims to know exactly how things are is almost certainly wrong.

But there have been some provably false statements in this thread, which always get followed up by either "Well, we just don't know..." blurring of honesty or a "Hey, stop harrassing me" play of the victim card.

Yes, I'm an atheist. No, I don't have all the answers (or indeed many) and I don't claim to. 

A number of my friends and family have religious faith, and it varies wildly in who they believe in, what they believe in, and how much they believe in it. And quite iften none of that has remained a constant in their lives... Hey, even I believed in god as a kid.

I disagree with them, but I don't condemn them. Doesn't mean I can't point out completely untrue statements they make. It would be a deeply dangerous road to go down to not say somthing out of a fear of offending them. That's how idiotic nonsense like Creationist museums arise.


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## muk (Mar 15, 2015)

NYC Composer @ Sun Mar 15 said:


> Atheists are forming their own bloodless, humorless Church of Non-Believers. In the end, almost all groupthink constructs lead to ruinous and harmful conclusions.



Sounds like you're agnostic, Larry. I'd call myself agnostic. On those metaphysical questions anybody can claim anything, and there's no way to know. Of course there are the claims that defy what is scientifically proven (think creationism; but also astrology and homeopathy, for example). These beliefs I find unreasonable. But beliefs about things we don't know are a different matter. Everybody can make their own assumptions there. I'm content with the answer: we don't know. That's why I'm an agnostic. But until (if ever) there is more knowledge about it, anybody who is not can fill out the blank spaces with assumptions to their own liking.


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## Waywyn (Mar 15, 2015)

AR @ Sat Mar 14 said:


> Two facts that totally convinced me in believing in greater power is the fact that our planet is in perfect constellation to the sun. If the Earth would've been even 1 mile closer to the sun life would've been impossible since the coldest places would be that hot like the Death Valley. If the Earth would've been 1 mile further from the sun our planet would've been a ice planet. That fact is enough for me to convince me in believing in God. Now I know most of musicians are agnostic or atheistic. My dad a very famous guitarist was too. Well, you can say that's all part of Big Bang. Though certain tragic happenings in life will change you. Definitely. Having cancer, being infertile, loosing a close person to death. Just my life experience. As long as everything goes fine nobody asks for a deeper meaning in life, why should we? We are our own Gods, until we have to face death. Ask the surviving Golden Gate Bridge jumpers.
> The second fact why I'm believing in God. Please ask yourself. The year is....? Why? ...hmmm, good question, not? Even evolution scientists use this time scheme: "This animal lived 150000 BC" I always keep smiling when I hear that. Ain't that a contradiction in terms? Shouldn't we say today is 14th March 19004653? ....just sayin'. Don't give a peeeep about what I'm saying. Just think for yourself.



Sorry, but your post screams, I do not understand science, therefore I believe in god!

To explain this a little bit: I spent lots of time (not just internet) and had lots of very interesting (but also drop dead stupid) discussions about this topic. I could seriously write a book about it by now ... but one thing (among many others) almost always was the same thing happening:

Almost every argument within a discussion about being sceptical about science and the universe in general actually showed that the person was either completely uneducated, just a bit educated about the most basic knowledge of science or that they believed YT conspiracy videos more than physics book from the 8th grade from school! Sorry, but you probably never heard about the Goldilocks zone, no ... or with other words, if you sit at the perfect distance from a campfire it happened because someone put you there? NO! It happened because if you go to near you burn yourself and if you are too far away your are freezing. No planets can't decide were to go, but apparently we have more planets in our solar system. The ones who are too far away are too cold, the ones who are nearer to the sun are too hot? Got it? Obviously ONE planet had to be in the right distance (as it happens with many more KNOWN by now in other solar systems!)

Please don't get me wrong, if someone personally wants to believe in "a god who created mankind, put sin on them, sent himself down to let mankind kill himself because they didn't follow his rules, so he decides to slaughter around 3 billlion people, to finally blow up this whole universe soon and creates a new earth but letting himself as his son rule for another 1000 years until he releases Satan from his chains" is totally fine to me!

Furthermore, if you say, you believe in god because our calendar is 0 at Jesus birth and go from there, is seriously stupid, because we all know 1st there have been different calendars throughout time (and still have in other countries) and 2nd (taken from the web):

"To complicate matters further, it seems that Dionysius' made an error in his calculations. Herod the Great, who the Bible says was alive at the time of Christ's birth, died in the year 4 B.C., based on the reports of Josephus. According to the Gospel of Matthew, when Herod was unable to trick the astrologers into leading him to the Child, he ordered the slaughter of all the male babies in Bethlehem. Since Herod's command (which is not attested outside the Gospels, but is consistent with his historical character) was to kill all babies under age 2, this event occurred no more than 2 years after Christ's birth. If we assume that this happened near the end of Herod's life (which seems likely), this puts Christ's birth in the year 5 or 6 B.C."

Sorry for giving you a peeep and get some facts a straight and educate yourself a little if you want to doubt scientific facts!


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 15, 2015)

Of course it's perfectly right and fair to point out basic errors, and to call people on it if they believe something based on a demonstrable falsehood. And there's a lot of it about. But it's s very short step to then go beyond that and caricature pretty much all spiritual beliefs in a way that a) makes them look deliberately ridiculous and b) usually is a straw man in that often they don't believe that anyway.

One of my biggest problems with Dawkins is his inability to respect the views of extremely intelligent colleagues and peers who have arrived at different conclusions to him. One that springs to mind is John Polkinghorne, a student of Dirac who extensively studied quantum theory (and wrote the Very Short Introudction series book on it) and cosmology, before becoming an Anglican priest. It's easy to pick on fundamentalists and faith healers, far more difficult to pick on the likes of Polkinghorne. Dawkins can offer little more than a shrug on the subject and offer a wafer-thin explanation of such people being unable to accept reality, something deeply patronising to his contemporaries.

(Tangent - as I understand it, while religious belief is pretty low proportionately among scientists, it varies by discipline - cosmologists are more inclined to also have a faith than evolutionary biologists, which I think is very interesting).

Just because someone intelligent believes something of course doesn't make it true. It does make it harder to dismiss, however. At a minimum, that's the level of debate one has to engage with, not the low hanging fruit of the scientifically ignorant horoscope readers.


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## Waywyn (Mar 15, 2015)

I had to add a little something, but since we are on a musicians and composer forum, let me try to give you an example of the way how science vs god (or other topics e.g. homeopathy, astrology etc.) debates/discussions almost always happen:


A scale is written on a wall:

C D E F# G A B C

1st guy: Oh look, C maj scale
2nd guy: Uhm no, this is not Cmaj
1st: Of course it is, it says C D E F G A B C. I 've read it in a book and someone told me!
2nd: No, there is a sharp in it?
1st: What are you telling me? It is clearly a C maj scale!
2nd: No, there is a sharp to it, according to the science of proven music and harmony theory it means that the F is raised a halftone up and therefore the scale is C lydian

the next possible answer contains one or more of the following things:
What are you giving me that science crap?! You can't prove anything! I personally believe this and therefore it is C maj! I feel offended! You are arrogant! You guys claim to know everything! So you are saying there is no C maj?!


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 15, 2015)

Wow... er.... not really, Alex.

(Does anyone read my posts? I got a lot more response when I was banned. Think I'll start talking about legato again).


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## Hannes_F (Mar 15, 2015)

Alex, your example is one of definitions, about what matches them and what not. Thinking in definitions is very useful in engineering but not necessarily in all parts of science, especially when it comes to difficult topics or scientific frontiers.

While definitions can be helpful parts of scientific models there comes a line where one needs to do research with open outcome. In that area definitions can become obstacles because they are restrictions - by definition  Therefore exclusively thinking in definitions can easily lead to circular reasoning, and to ignoring what is beyond those definitions (even if that ignoring actually would be unscientific).

PS.: Yes I read your posts Guy, and they are reasonable to me.


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## Waywyn (Mar 15, 2015)

Hannes and Guy (sorry, didn't mean to overead your post):

All I wanted to say is that most people I talked with regarding faith, god or whatever topic is, that they used arguments which made you aware that they don't even know what they were talking about?

I remember one discussion that someone said the universe is 10000 years old. I simply asked, well if this is so, every star or nebula further away than 10000 lightyears shouldn't exist. How do you explain that? The guy answered: Well, god put a perfect illusion shield around us so we think it is bigger than that! The guy totally "knew" that but didn't even understand the basic definition of a lightyear!

Sorry, but this is as stupid as saying: An argument to believe in god is our calendar starting at 0 or as in my expample, a C major scale is C D E F# G A B C!

I hope I made myself clear and I say this again: If anyone wants to personally believe, be my guest, but if someone tries to convince me or others by simply throwing wrong facts, all I say is: Get your facts straight and educate!

If anyone comes along to me and goes into those harder to explain topics when even scientists only come up with theories and he says: Of course it have been that some god or a being caused this universe or what is even further around it into existence! ... I would totally say: YES, it could be ... but it is just a theory as much as:

- aliens created this universe during an experiment and destroyed themselves
- the universe may actually be a program you sent yourself into and you are the only being surround by illusions to test yourself on a specific matter!
- it just happened because of physics who may be different in any other of the universes out there

If someone says this is madness or crazy it is not any more crazy than the belief that some guy created an earth back then and put two humans on it which - oh wonder without causing any incest issues - ending up in almost 8 billion people!


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## Waywyn (Mar 15, 2015)

pardon me another add, but one more thing regarding this from AR:

"Two facts that totally convinced me in believing in greater power is the fact that our planet is in perfect constellation to the sun. If the Earth would've been even 1 mile closer to the sun life would've been impossible since the coldest places would be that hot like the Death Valley. If the Earth would've been 1 mile further from the sun our planet would've been a ice planet. That fact is enough for me to convince me in believing in God."


... so what about the loa loa filariasis?
If it is reason enough to believe in a god only because the earth has the right spot from the sun, then what about that little worm who needs to live inside children eyes and eating from the inside out, making them blind?

Is this also part of the marvelous design or do we hear now "well, shit happens" or all about those arguments of Satan causing this or god lets us suffer so we can appreciate the "good"?!


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## SergeD (Mar 15, 2015)

Our lives are conditioned by cycles. Astrology is based on the cycle of seasons and planets that pass around a common core. All the rest is just bells and whistles.

In the northern hemisphere, the Sun gives us maximum energy in summer. In winter, we provide our own internal resources to compensate this lack of energy. This has nothing to do with the configuration of some stars having a zodiac sign in.

In my youth, I knew nothing about astrology. My best friends were born under the sign of Libra and Pisces. I had, and still have, no chemistry with Capricorns, we can just not connect emotionally. It is not blah - blah, it is based on facts, at least on my own experience.

We are in the 21st century, and this modernity allows to do, without effort or astronomical knowledge, the little test that I proposed above. So, instead of denigrating astrology, at the risk of feel ridiculous, people should see by themselves the merits of their assertions.


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## Hannes_F (Mar 15, 2015)

Waywyn @ Sun Mar 15 said:


> All I wanted to say is that most people I talked with regarding faith, god or whatever topic is, that they used arguments which made you aware that they don't even know what they were talking about?



Yes, that is often true, sadly. But not always.


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## Waywyn (Mar 15, 2015)

Hannes_F @ Sun Mar 15 said:


> Waywyn @ Sun Mar 15 said:
> 
> 
> > All I wanted to say is that most people I talked with regarding faith, god or whatever topic is, that they used arguments which made you aware that they don't even know what they were talking about?
> ...



Oh absolutely, (not always that is)!


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## muk (Mar 15, 2015)

Serge, I tried to take this little test, but couldn't find what you are referring to as 'moon sign'. Is it the ascendant?


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## Dave Connor (Mar 15, 2015)

NYC Composer @ Sun Mar 15 said:


> I have no faith, but I think it's ridiculous to tell people of any faith just exactly how it should be. Of course, I believe that about most things. Definitive people who opine vehemently about matters of conjecture just make me tired.



Agreed. Here you have every scientist ever born agreeing that all scientific knowledge starts from the big bang and moves forward (for obvious reasons.) There could be a hundred trillion millennia of what we call time prior to that. With just as many dimensions and laws - we just don't know. Even so our own sciences such as quantum physics and mechanics are proving that there are other coexistent dimensions presently that are indeed observable and even measurable.

It is inherent in the human mind to think that certain knowledge is immutable and will end with them. The flat earth at the center of the universe was once that. Now it's a joke line.

People who think that God is an unscientific concept for some reason fail to include the possibility that like anything else, science may indeed prove God not only exists but is the most scientific being in any dimension. To not be open to that possibility strikes me as unscientific.


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## Consona (Mar 15, 2015)

God cannot be proven or disproven in any way.

In a fact, anything cannot be proven or disproven in any way, so now what?


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## José Herring (Mar 15, 2015)

Consona @ Sun Mar 15 said:


> God cannot be proven or disproven in any way.
> 
> In a fact, anything cannot be proven or disproven in any way, so now what?



You have to set the parameters.

You have to say given that these conditions of "a" and "b" are true then it can be observed that x,y,z do occur, ect...

So given the condition that there is a physical universe then things like time, matter, energy, space, motion can be said to exist. So then you can study these things for what they are and look for patterns and better understanding.

But, that doesn't say that things outside of matter, energy, time and space don't exist, but only that it can't be observed within those limitations or that not enough is know about these things to make an accurate observation. 

But there are a lot of things that could possibly exist out of the physical universe. If you suspect as I do, then anything of any importance exist outside of it as unfortunately for me science never offered up any explanation as to the origins of the universe that can't be defeated utterly by asking a few simple child like questions. 

So then you have two choices, you either say, "someday science will figure it out" and slavishly wait for some scientist to figure it out for you, or you just realize what science is good for and use it for that and setup a cutoff point and say beyond those parameters science is kind of useless, but below that point it is utterly important to know. 

So for me, if I need to know what vaccines are effective to protect my child from getting some crippling disease I turn to science. If I want to know how to navigate the starts I turn to science. But, if my son is sad and confused and I need to help him get through it I turn away from science, because the only answer that it has come up with for dealing with problems of the soul are to deny that man has a spirit and then give it a pill if it's sad for too long. Yeah.....not much of an answer.


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## SergeD (Mar 15, 2015)

muk @ Sun Mar 15 said:


> Serge, I tried to take this little test, but couldn't find what you are referring to as 'moon sign'. Is it the ascendant?



For example, if in your birth chart the Moon is in Taurus, then this is your Moon sign. Thus, some qualities that you would like to possess yourself should be found into the sign of Taurus.


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## Lex (Mar 16, 2015)

josejherring @ Sun Mar 15 said:


> But, if my son is sad and confused and I need to help him get through it I turn away from science, because the only answer that it has come up with for dealing with problems of the soul are to deny that man has a spirit and then give it a pill if it's sad for too long. Yeah.....not much of an answer.



Maybe in US, sad if it is like that.
Modern behavioural science is certainly not just about selling pills, and denying your spirit.


alex


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## José Herring (Mar 16, 2015)

Lex @ Sun Mar 15 said:


> josejherring @ Sun Mar 15 said:
> 
> 
> > But, if my son is sad and confused and I need to help him get through it I turn away from science, because the only answer that it has come up with for dealing with problems of the soul are to deny that man has a spirit and then give it a pill if it's sad for too long. Yeah.....not much of an answer.
> ...



What evidence if any does modern behavioral science give about the soul of man? And please don't come back to me with genes and DNA and genetic predisposition.


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## Lex (Mar 16, 2015)

josejherring @ Mon Mar 16 said:


> Lex @ Sun Mar 15 said:
> 
> 
> > josejherring @ Sun Mar 15 said:
> ...



Evidence? Why would you need evidence for existence of personalities?
Unless, I misunderstood and you believe a soul is some metaphysical part of you that is somehow detached from your consciousness and personality?

alex


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## choc0thrax (Mar 16, 2015)

Personally I became disillusioned with modern behavioral science long ago and turned to Scientology. Even built my own E-meter by hooking two soup cans up to a Roomba that I place in my lap. And while my homemade machine does nothing more than give me mindblowing orgasms I think that's pretty impressive on its own. I now audit myself 2 to 3 times a day.


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## Vision (Mar 16, 2015)

Holy crap.. I just stepped out the house a few days ago for a bag of donuts, and the thread blew up to like a million posts. :lol: 

How about this.. everyone here that has participated, or will participate in this thread state your birth sign. 

This is the perfect real time experiment. 

Let's see if your sign says anything about your responses to these topics.. (including the religious debates). Heck.. even better, how it relates to your music.. :D i.e. your favorite style, your compositional approach, etc. 

I'm a Sagittarius.


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## Astronaut FX (Mar 16, 2015)

For as long as there have been humans, humans have turned to some form of religion to, in part, explain the things that we cannot otherwise explain. Over time, science has provided answers to many of those things. Because of that, I think it's natural to begin questioning the validity of religious beliefs.

At the same time, I can certainly understand the comfort that religion provides so many, and the fear of so many believers in how empty they may find life to be if it were to be proven they are wrong.

I consider myself an atheist who hopes he is wrong.

I generally don't engage in these discussions, except there is one point I always like to bring up. Some segments of religious beliefs would suggest that my failure to believe in and of itself would lead to my eternal damnation. I have a real issue with that. A god that would equip me with the intellect to question her existence, and then punish me for using it? That's analogous to my giving a six year old a pack of matches and a can of lighter fluid, and then beating his ass for burning down the house. Most would consider that bad parenting.

I most certainly don't believe in that sort of god.


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## Saxer (Mar 16, 2015)

the main problem in this 'sience against religion' discussion is that religious people often treat sience as a religion too (and certainly as a 'wrong' religion). but it isn't. it is just a method of proving theories. sience itself can't explain something. but if you can explain something and prove it it becomes sience.

if a sientist has a theory he has to believe in this theorie first. then he tries to prove it. if he fails he has to change the beliefe. because he *knows* that he's believing something wrong.

there are so many gaps in our knowledge that we have to fill it with 'beliefs'. there is just such al lot of unknown territory we only can imagine. and that's ok.

the problem starts when someone tells you *what* to believe to fill this gaps. 

the world is full of people who wants to have power over others. don't ask me why. "let others think what i want them to think" is one of the most violent ways to control others.

churches used this power over the whole period of culture in mankind. they allowed what to think and they prohibid what not to think. to keep their power contradiction is forbidden. and they wrote these rules into the belief itself. a devious method!

this way to think is deeply internalized into our culture. there's a incedible fear in change. a lot of people refuse against new ways of thinking. this fear is the main problem in our world. fear to change the money system, fear to vote different, fear to close harmful companies, fear to trust in others who believe different.

i hope there would be a way out... a good start could be: if you really want to believe in a something like a god create your own one. don't believe old stories written by someone else in a single 2k-old book. and don't believe others who tell you what's wrong or right. nobody knows it.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 16, 2015)

Saxer @ Mon Mar 16 said:


> the main problem in this 'sience against religion' discussion is that religious people often treat sience as a religion too (and certainly as a 'wrong' religion). but it isn't. it is just a method of proving theories. sience itself can't explain something. but if you can explain something and prove it it becomes science.



When science is held as having the answers to _everything_ then it has been elevated to religion. Scientists will be the first one's to tell you that science cannot explain everything. In fact the people most often awed and baffled by the physical universe are scientists. Particularly when they find out how wrong they are about this or that postulate. It seems daily we read where yesterday's scientific conviction has been undone by today's findings whether it's dietary discoveries or astronomical anomalies that refute prior thinking. In short, to declare that science is the explainer and answer to everything is more a religious or philosophical statement than a provable scientific one.


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## José Herring (Mar 16, 2015)

Lex @ Mon Mar 16 said:


> josejherring @ Mon Mar 16 said:
> 
> 
> > Lex @ Sun Mar 15 said:
> ...



No, the soul IS your consciousness and personality. That thing that animates life and makes us and all living creatures different than a rock or a dead corpse. 

You say "modern behavioral science" and then say there need not be scientific proof to back up the claims of this science. Which makes modern behavioral science, not a science but yet another Godless faith based on mystic musings.

So again I ask, what proof does this modern behavioral science have that makes it legit? Because if it had anything and was of any importance then I would think that it was making progress in helping people somewhere which would be proof of its efficacy.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 16, 2015)

josejherring @ Mon Mar 16 said:


> No, the soul IS your consciousness and personality. That thing that animates life and makes us and all living creatures different than a rock or a dead corpse.



Is that a scientific definition, or your opinion?


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## José Herring (Mar 16, 2015)

NYC Composer @ Mon Mar 16 said:


> josejherring @ Mon Mar 16 said:
> 
> 
> > No, the soul IS your consciousness and personality. That thing that animates life and makes us and all living creatures different than a rock or a dead corpse.
> ...



Dictionary definition. :lol: 


soul
[sohl]

Synonyms
Examples
Word Origin

_noun
1.
the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part._

All kidding aside, if I want to understand the physical world then I turn to science. If I want to understand life, thought, emotions, ect..I turn elsewhere. Science just doesn't have adequate enough explanation of these things to interest me.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 16, 2015)

josejherring @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> NYC Composer @ Mon Mar 16 said:
> 
> 
> > josejherring @ Mon Mar 16 said:
> ...



I might argue that your first stated definition differs slightly from the dictionary definition, but the difference is fairly moot- so thanks for clarifying,


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## Lex (Mar 16, 2015)

NYC Composer @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> josejherring @ Tue Mar 17 said:
> 
> 
> > NYC Composer @ Mon Mar 16 said:
> ...



Well they kind of ARE very different. I mean if your "soul" is separate entity from your body (body&soul), will you still have it if I remove your brain together with your consciousness and personality in it?

alex


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## Lex (Mar 16, 2015)

josejherring @ Mon Mar 16 said:


> Lex @ Mon Mar 16 said:
> 
> 
> > josejherring @ Mon Mar 16 said:
> ...



Again I don't understand you. You are asking for scientific proof that consciousness and personality exist in humans??

What does it have to make it legit, well for starters you can read about mental illness care in , let's say, 1915-ish and compare it to care we are are able to do today.

Does science have answer to everything, no , not even close. But that is exactly what makes it exciting, especially in current times where it seems there is one new answer almost every day. There are so many things humans don't understand yet, that includes many questions about our consciousness too.

But why is it easier, for so many people, to turn to mysticism then simply say "we don't know at this point in time..." ?

alex


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## José Herring (Mar 17, 2015)

@ Larry, 

True enough. Imo, the dictionary definition is pretty incomplete. 

@ Lex,

I offer this. A famous Neurosurgeon, working at Loma Linda University became a neurosurgeon because he was looking to understand the brain which to him was the seat of consciousness. The more he studied, the more he realized that the brain didn't contain consciousness. He found that the more he dissected the brain, the more surgeries he did, the more he realized that the brain was only a routing switch board. So he gave up his search and just stuck to surgery. 

Man has dissected the brain to death for nearly 200 years now, looking for the personality of man. He hasn't found it. For further information read Broca's Brain. The full version direct from him and not some altered knock off.

Also Look up the Nun Study. The real study, not the altered version. Briefly a group of scientist got some nuns to donate their brain to science after they died. They studied the nuns before they died then after. They were shocked and one even turned to religion after the study. They concluded that the brain not only didn't determine personality but also didn't determine a person's memory, ect... They had one that was alive, sharp as a tack and alert until her death. When they examined her brain it was calcified, damaged and diseased. Another nun exhibited all the signs of Alzheimer's when alive. They got her brain and it was physically perfectly healthy. 

In another study, a scientist did IQ test while the subjects where monitored by a brainwave detector. He found one for one the more brainwaves recorded by the subject the worse they did on the IQ test. The less intense brain activity the higher the IQ test. Results verified. He was stumped.

Embrace the idea that these things are non corporal and you start to see what Lao Tzi was talking about when he said,"The Tao is empty
When utilized, it is not filled up
So deep! It seems to be the source of all things"

The spirit of man is the source of physical life but it itself is not physical. 

Over the years I've paid attention to this, and I came to the conclusion that consiouness, intelligence, ect... aren't physical in nature. So I looked elsewhere for answer and I found them.

And yes, there are plenty of documented cases of people leaving their body and coming back to it. Could they be imagining it? Perhaps, perhaps we're all just bone and tissue and that's it. But, I had a friend who died for 30 minutes, remembers being above his body, the paramedics taking his body in an ambulance to the hospital, the doctors trying to revive him. He watched all of this from above his body, the doctors were able to get him breathing on his own again and he came back into the body at that point.

For me, I could never go back to thinking that I was a body and that there was nothing else after that. And, believe me, if you saw this guy after he came out of the hospital, you would have known he died from the way he looked. Blood clots coming out of his eyes. It was wild.


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## TGV (Mar 17, 2015)

Jose, you believe there is a soul. Fine with me. I don't (BTW, if you start quoting random academics: I've got a PhD and two post-docs in neuro-cognition, so there you go). Let me tell you that the "brain waves" argument is downright bollocks.

The soul is not a concept that can possibly work in science. You say that the soul is not physical, and almost every definition agrees on that (well, apart from the 21 grams thing). That means it cannot be measured. Unfortunately, that also means that the soul itself has no way of interacting with the world: if something can interact with the physical world, it is physical. So the concept seems based on an internal contradiction. Until that is cleared, the soul cannot be an object of study.

But almost every neuro-scientist will agree with you that looking at a brain and dissecting it will not show you the seat of intelligence. Brain processes are far too complicated for that. But you mention Broca. Broca was a pioneer in the study of brain damage. If there's one thing that neuroscience has learned over the last 100 years, it is that damage to a certain part of the brain affects a rather specific set of cognitive functions; how else would a neurosurgeon have a job? Damage to Broca's area affects linguistic performance, damage to the hippocampus affects creation of new memories, etc. And not only in humans, but in animals too. That strongly suggests that at least a large part of our feelings, memories and intelligence is a product of the physical brain. Do with it whatever you want, but don't argue that the brain is a dumb container for the soul and that physical processes cannot bring forth feelings and intelligent behavior.


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## Lex (Mar 17, 2015)

TGV @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> Jose, you believe there is a soul. Fine with me. I don't (BTW, if you start quoting random academics: I've got a PhD and two post-docs in neuro-cognition, so there you go). Let me tell you that the "brain waves" argument is downright bollocks.
> 
> The soul is not a concept that can possibly work in science. You say that the soul is not physical, and almost every definition agrees on that (well, apart from the 21 grams thing). That means it cannot be measured. Unfortunately, that also means that the soul itself has no way of interacting with the world: if something can interact with the physical world, it is physical. So the concept seems based on an internal contradiction. Until that is cleared, the soul cannot be an object of study.
> 
> But almost every neuro-scientist will agree with you that looking at a brain and dissecting it will not show you the seat of intelligence. Brain processes are far too complicated for that. But you mention Broca. Broca was a pioneer in the study of brain damage. If there's one thing that neuroscience has learned over the last 100 years, it is that damage to a certain part of the brain affects a rather specific set of cognitive functions; how else would a neurosurgeon have a job? Damage to Broca's area affects linguistic performance, damage to the hippocampus affects creation of new memories, etc. And not only in humans, but in animals too. That strongly suggests that at least a large part of our feelings, memories and intelligence is a product of the physical brain. Do with it whatever you want, but don't argue that the brain is a dumb container for the soul and that physical processes cannot bring forth feelings and intelligent behavior.



o-[][]-o o-[][]-o o-[][]-o


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## José Herring (Mar 17, 2015)

You are misrepresenting what I said, and then fully confirm it at the same time. So you confused me.

I do respect your beliefs. But, if you get punched in the jaw and pass out, that would effect linguistic performance and the creation of new memories too. So if you damage the brain permanently. These things would be effected permanently especially memories which are just the recordings of physical universe perceptions routed through the brain.

So your arguments don't disprove mine but rather for you it ends in the brain and for me the brain acts as conduit. A way for the non corporeal soul to communicate with the physical universe. So they are connected.

But, look. Neither one of us is going to convince each other of anything different so I'll just leave it at that. Other than to say that for me, once I started thinking in a different direction things got a lot better for me in terms of my mood, behavior personality, kindness, patience ect.... It didn't matter what was assaulting my senses, I just started separating myself from that stuff and there is a peace that comes with that. This is what Lao Tzi was talking about when he said this: To the mind that is still the whole universe surrenders. 

I'm striving to achieve that. I can't do it thinking about the brain. I can do it thinking that I'm something separate than this universe and thus can control it and not be the effect of it.

If the reverse works for you and you are at peace and happy, then in all sincerity, I'm happy for you.

o-[][]-o o-[][]-o o-[][]-o o-[][]-o o-[][]-o :mrgreen:


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## TGV (Mar 17, 2015)

Thinking of the brain as a conduit for the soul is not a fruitfaul path. To me it seems that even theologically it is a dangerous road (animal brains are quite like our own brains; does it mean all animals have a soul?).

Believe in the thing that feels right. But don't act upon it. Never trust your beliefs to be correct. There are 7 billion people on this world, and most of them don't share your beliefs. Are they all wrong? That's where scientific and objective thinking comes in. Because we can (well, many of us, anyway) agree on observations made in the physical world. See it as a common basis for communication and understanding. Something on which you can rely to a large extent when you have to take a decision that affects other people. You can believe in the influence of the stars, or immortal beings, but keep it personal. Take your motivation from it, base your morals on it, but when your mind crosses the boundary to the physical world and starts interacting with it, trust objective knowledge better. That's all.


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## Hannes_F (Mar 17, 2015)

TGV @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> But almost every neuro-scientist will agree with you that looking at a brain and dissecting it will not show you the seat of intelligence.



Interesting. What will they say instead?


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## TGV (Mar 17, 2015)

That it's a bloody mess.


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## Richard Wilkinson (Mar 17, 2015)

josejherring @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> @ Larry,
> 
> Man has dissected the brain to death for nearly 200 years now, looking for the personality of man. He hasn't found it.



That's an oddly definitive statement. Isn't personality an abstract concept that covers a range of brain function? It's not a neat compartment we can identify and isolate. 

And personality is absolutely affected by changes and trauma to the brain. Many brain injuries have resulted in distinct personality changes - not reduced cognition or disability, but often wholesale changes in what might be referred to as the soul. 

I looked at that nun experiment and found some fascinating ideas on alzheimers, but nothing on shocked scientists converting to religion, and no mention of *'They concluded that the brain not only didn't determine personality but also didn't determine a person's memory'. * That's a pretty big claim! Are you sure that's what they concluded? 

EDIT - I just read some more on the study. Here's the report if you're interested.

The main conclusions seem to be vocabulary, intelligence and optimism are very significant factors in keeping mentally fit into old age. Nothing about personalty or souls.

I don't understand why you need to invent a mystical element to consciousness. People, cats, dogs, elephants etc vary in intelligence, attitude, humour, temperament and so on in many different ways. All common sense suggests that those variations are down to stuff that happens in the brain. Isn't that wonderful and interesting enough without having to pretend humans are extra special (they aren't) because they have a soul?

And many tests have been done re. the floating above hospital bed anecdotes, and sadly nobody so far has identified pictures placed high up where they would see from their floaty position.

Here are some fairly rugged examples of brain damage affecting personality:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 2-0054.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 0-0021.pdf
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pr ... nge-part-i
http://www.nasponline.org/publications/cq/39/7/traumatic-brain-injury.aspx (http://www.nasponline.org/publications/ ... njury.aspx)
http://www.brainline.org/content/2010/0 ... njury.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2327235/
https://www.headway.org.uk/executive-dy ... njury.aspx

Believe that personality is nothing to do with the brain if you want. It's just that the evidence makes it very hard for me to do the same.


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## gbar (Mar 17, 2015)

wilx @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> josejherring @ Tue Mar 17 said:
> 
> 
> > @ Larry,
> ...



Oh yeah, brain trauma can have major impacts on things like "personality". Everything from strokes to head injuries to brain tumors/cancer.

There's a guy who was a carpenter who lost part of his frontal lobe who became angry, paranoid, and heard voices after having his brain injured in an accident who is sitting in death row in Missouri right now. He shot a police officer while he was sitting in his patrol car with his seat belt still on and his weapon still holstered.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mis ... ge-n324281

Some of the stranger types of brain trauma that are teaching tools are things like Anterograde amnesia that happen when somebody's hippocampus is damaged. In some notable cases, persons have become unable to move anything into long-term memory, so they forget what happened seconds after it happened, and yet... thanks to regions of the brain involved in habit are able to do complex tasks that have been part of their day-to-day routine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ObnErfTblY

One guy had to be supervised because he would get up in the morning and fix bacon and eggs, go back to sleep, and then do that 9 or 10 times throughout the day. He would also go on "walks" with his dog which scared everybody, but he somehow found his way home every time except.... for a time when the city was working on the road.

And yet... if he walked from the living room into the kitchen, and you asked him to describe the living room, he wouldn't know how to do that. He couldn't point out his own house, and yet he made it home with the dog most of the time.

On a personal note, I have known somebody who had a brain injury in a car accident, and the transformation was profound, and he never was the same person again. He was an angry, petulant 6 to 9 year old for the rest of his life. 

There's a reason most surviving larger life forms have that organ encased in bone (skull).


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## Waywyn (Mar 17, 2015)

a few hundred years ago, people thought that Thor causes thunderstorms ... now we know what it is.

Now people say there is a soul but we do not yet fully understand the brain! ...

I think I will go with Hitchens on this one:

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” – Christopher Hitchens.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 17, 2015)

TGV @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> Thinking of the brain as a conduit for the soul is not a fruitfaul path. To me it seems that even theologically it is a dangerous road (animal brains are quite like our own brains; does it mean all animals have a soul?).
> 
> Believe in the thing that feels right. But don't act upon it. Never trust your beliefs to be correct. There are 7 billion people on this world, and most of them don't share your beliefs. Are they all wrong? That's where scientific and objective thinking comes in. Because we can (well, many of us, anyway) agree on observations made in the physical world. See it as a common basis for communication and understanding. Something on which you can rely to a large extent when you have to take a decision that affects other people. You can believe in the influence of the stars, or immortal beings, but keep it personal. Take your motivation from it, base your morals on it, but when your mind crosses the boundary to the physical world and starts interacting with it, trust objective knowledge better. That's all.



Every bit of mankind's history tells us that we are tribal, superstitious creatures who tend to band together under sets of commonly held "spiritual" beliefs. Not facts- beliefs. Do I think that provable, repeatable objective facts should be the basis for how we humans should look at our world? Yes. Do I believe that's likely for the vast majority of people on the planet any time in the near future? Hardly. I think you're describing the world as you'd like it to be instead of how it is. 

Right now, two of the best American examples I can think of are:

1. A surprising number of people reject the premise of evolution.
2. An equally surprising number of people believe in angels. Literally.

I write a fair amount of songs that channel peoples' need for an overarching power to watch over them, so this is an interesting subject for me. I think people are very attracted to the concept of angels as personal minders. As to evolution, the need for literal interpretations of ancient texts leads to all sorts of direct disagreement with objective science (not to mention disagreements on how to interpret or live by them, see Sunni and Shia). The intellectual portion of the first world may be moving towards objectivity, but again, a surprising piece of the first world clings to a traditional and magical belief system- and that's just the first world.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 17, 2015)

Waywyn @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> a few hundred years ago, people thought that Thor causes thunderstorms ... now we know what it is.
> 
> Now people say there is a soul but we do not yet fully understand the brain! ...
> 
> ...



Yet cartoonists are killed for such dismissiveness. I think it's madness that needs to be stood up to, but it's an objective fact that at this point, "dismissing" the assertion held by some that Mohammed's likeness is not to be trifled with- can be fatal.


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## Consona (Mar 17, 2015)

josejherring @ Sun Mar 15 said:


> Consona @ Sun Mar 15 said:
> 
> 
> > God cannot be proven or disproven in any way.
> ...


Parameters don't help, they are subject to regress ad infinitum problem. Noone ever found proposition that is definitively true. Even ancient Greeks already found this problem.  Look at _the Five Modes_ by Agrippa.


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## Hannes_F (Mar 17, 2015)

TGV @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> if something can interact with the physical world, it is physical.



That is an assumption, and a very questionable one. It could easily be that some faculties of non-physical matter are able to interact strongly with the brain (and weakly beyond the brain).



TGV @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> So the concept seems based on an internal contradiction. Until that is cleared, the soul cannot be an object of study.



Therefore this is faulty logic.



TGV @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> That strongly suggests that at least a large part of our feelings, memories and intelligence is a product of the physical brain.



Agreed as far as the superficial personality goes - but notice the limitation in your own formulation.



TGV @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> animal brains are quite like our own brains; does it mean all animals have a soul?



Yes that would be the conclusion of your train of thought.

We have come to a point where neuroscientists tell musicians not to use their soul or, if they do, not to speak about it. Because many today don't know their own soul nor know what it is, have lost touch to their finer faculties actually, and therefore the soul can not be part of the widely accepted model in neuroscience. As a conclusion they feel inclined to forbid musicians to feel it, perceive it as a reality and use it in the way the great musicians and composers of the past did. 

It is always like that as long the basic approach stays reductionistic-materialistic. "In our model we can not explain consciousness. Therefore consciousness can not exist." "In our model we can not explain free will. Therefore free will can not exist." "In our model we can not explain any soul. Therefore a soul can not exist."

I think that tells more about the current state of neuroscience than about what is really going on.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 17, 2015)

I'm not sure whether or not this is pertinent to the current discussions re neuroscience...

I read a very interesting book a while ago called Quantum Questions. It was an anthology of some writings of some of the 20th Century's greatest physicists - Einsten, Bohr, Dirac, Schroedinger etc. The editor claimed that all had what he called "mystical" world views. That may sound crazy / heretical, but what I understood he meant was that all understood the limitations of physics. What physics can do is describe the properties of something, it can't tell you about the nature of things. One example was brought up recently in Ex Machina - if you are colourblind, no amount of scientific description of the word "red" can ever inform you of the nature of redness. For that, you'd need to plug somebody else's optics directly into your brain (assuming colourblindness wasn't brain malfunction).

That was a bit of a revelation to me. It's a huge (and probably illogical) jump from there to anything that we describe as "God", but all this discussion of soul reminds me of it. Neuroscience can tell us much about how we function, and dysfunction is so illuminating in showing us how we work. But if "soul" is a meaningful phrase for us, I'm not sure neuroscience is the right tool for the job in telling us about it. The regions of the brain and neural pathways are, to me, analogous to mathematically describing redness when it comes to discussion of the soul.

Well hey, could have that all wrong of course. As to animals - who knows. Many dog owners I know would passionately argue their dogs have souls, fwiw.


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## gbar (Mar 17, 2015)

Guy Rowland @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> One example was brought up recently in Ex Machina - if you are colourblind, no amount of scientific description of the word "red" can ever inform you of the nature of redness.



I disagree.

You may never see red, but red light has a range of wavelengths that can be described and measured by devices that do just that.

We can't see X-rays or radio waves, but we have devices that can transmit, receive and aggregate information and present it in a matter that is very informative


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## gbar (Mar 17, 2015)

Hannes_F @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> non-physical matter .




I simply must pick at nits here: non-physical matter is a contradiction in terms.

Look up the definition of matter


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 17, 2015)

gbar @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> Guy Rowland @ Tue Mar 17 said:
> 
> 
> > One example was brought up recently in Ex Machina - if you are colourblind, no amount of scientific description of the word "red" can ever inform you of the nature of redness.
> ...



Ah - oh dear, you've entirely missed the point.

No amount of wavelengths, anaysis of optical systems or anything will ever tell a colourblind person what red is, even if were studied for a thousand years. Now maybe in the future they may even be able to stimulate it artificially in a brain that could enable a colourblind person to experience it - and then discover what red is theselves by experience. But their work, by itself, can't reveal its nature, only describe it.

Science is engaged in a different task. And that's a very important point that indeed all those great 20th C physicisists well understood. Physics describes mathematical properties of our universe, it cannot reveal their nature.

I spent most of my life thinking philsiophy was rubbish. Eventually I had to concede that however much it irritated the hell out of me, all roads eventually lead there.


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## gbar (Mar 17, 2015)

Guy Rowland @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> gbar @ Tue Mar 17 said:
> 
> 
> > Guy Rowland @ Tue Mar 17 said:
> ...



Did I miss it? I am slow sometimes. So if we say red is 620-750 nm length for one wave cycle or 400-484 THz, that doesn't tell us anything? And if I say most humans can't see anything outside of the 430-790 THz range, nothing?

Honestly, I doubt two of us see color in precisely the same way  It's close enough for most of us that, "watch out for the coral-colored snakes" and "don't eat the green fruit or the red mushrooms with white spots" works for most people for survival purposes 

Bees apparently detect light into the the ultra-violet region, and that's not something we can do unassisted, but it's useful for bees to be able to do that as it guides them to flowers with the nectar they are seeking. What might appear to be nearly identical flowers to humans can be vastly different to bees  neat huh?

I like science. I'm a fan. Every time you learn something new, you find out you don't know hundreds or thousands of related things 

Do you know what a waterbear (Tardigrade) is? Life is weird.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 17, 2015)

I love science too. But yes, you're missing it. As I said (twice I think), all that wavelength stuff does is describe mathematical properties (and absolutely that's useful in all kinds of ways) but in no way does it tell a colourblind person what redness actually is. Plug in someone else's optics into their brain - bingo. Ah, that's what redness is.

Philosophy, baby. Resist it as long as you can, but it'll get you in the end.


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## Hannes_F (Mar 17, 2015)

gbar @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> Hannes_F @ Tue Mar 17 said:
> 
> 
> > non-physical matter .
> ...



No, not necessarily. 
Atmittedly it seems to be a slip of tongue or of logic but it is neither 



> Look up the definition of matter



Definitions do not help always. As I said earlier in this thread definitions are boundaries and thus they are not suitable where one needs to overcome limitations.

But for the sake of it I looked it up in Wikipedia 

"Before the 20th century, the term matter included ordinary matter composed of atoms and excluded other energy phenomena such as light or sound. This concept of matter may be generalized from atoms to include any objects having mass even when at rest, but this is ill-defined because an object's mass can arise from its (possibly massless) constituents' motion and interaction energies. Thus, *matter does not have a universal definition, nor is it a fundamental concept in physics today*." 

Actually the concept of 'matter' is quite outdated in modern physics. What we call 'physical matter' is really only energy in a specifically bonded state. There is no indication why this energy should not exist in differently bonded states as well, on the contrary.


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## gbar (Mar 18, 2015)

This is old now, but it is musical, and I couldn't resist


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## Hannes_F (Mar 18, 2015)

Instant bookmark  genius. Proves the point (obviously), only that using lay terms usually works better when talking to non-physicists.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 18, 2015)

Guy Rowland @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> I'm not sure whether or not this is pertinent to the current discussions re neuroscience...
> 
> I read a very interesting book a while ago called Quantum Questions. It was an anthology of some writings of some of the 20th Century's greatest physicists - Einsten, Bohr, Dirac, Schroedinger etc. The editor claimed that all had what he called "mystical" world views. That may sound crazy / heretical, but what I understood he meant was that all understood the limitations of physics.


Yes and so did Bach, Beethoven and Mozart.
People who claim science as the ultimate source of all wisdom are being religious when they say that - not scientific. It's an unprovable belief. The fact that science is a wonderful field of fact gathering that has enhanced man's existence almost immeasurable does not mean it's a golden calf to be bowed down to. The number of scientists who believe in other dimensions or heavens or whatever you want to call them is considerable because they are faced with the limits of scientific knowledge every day.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 18, 2015)

I think most scientists wouldn't claim science = all wisdom. I mean, Dawkins leans that way, but he's Dawkins.

I don't want to loose sight of one thing though in all this mystical / philosophical contemplation - I passionately argue that the scientific method is of supreme importance. Some take this philosophical debate too far, and try to suggest the scientific method itself is just another form of belief, which is silly and, well, false.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 18, 2015)

My point is that many people label certain concepts or modes of thought that are not provable or disprovable scientifically as _nonscientific_. They don't seem to realize that their position is not scientific and that they are espousing a _belief_ according to the criteria of what is _scientific_. Criticizing what they consider an unscientific belief with their own unscientific belief. That is a religious approach and the very way of thinking they are criticizing. Interestingly you also often find a hostility and intolerance to variance with their position that you find in religious belief.


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## gbar (Mar 18, 2015)

Another video must lol


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 18, 2015)

Dave wrote:



> The number of scientists who believe in other dimensions or heavens or whatever you want to call them is considerable because they are faced with the limits of scientific knowledge every day.



Heavens is only religion, but other dimensions is a part of string theory. The reason many theoretical physicists believe that is because their equations predict it, and they all - I really mean that, all of them! - readily agree it's unlikely to be a testable hypothesis due to the unfathomably small sizes.

So in a way it's philosophy rather than science, but other ways it's pure theoretical science. And it's totally different from religion.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 18, 2015)

^ Jumping in at the end - I haven't read the rest of this thread.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 18, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Wed Mar 18 said:


> Dave wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


'Heavens' is simply an ancient term that is synonymous with dimensions Nick: a parallel plane of existence. The word is often used as a catch all in English translations from Greek and other languages where the original word was far more defining. Even so, today when looking up at the stars, people refer to them as the 'heavens' so it's also used to describe our own observable universe. So it's not only religion and I'm surprised you would consider it so. It's common in our vernacular and not uncommon on weather forecasts daily.
Why would belief in other dimensions which as you say scientist are in hardy agreement on be necessarily religion? You just said it is science. Why not allow for the purely scientific and leave religion out of it: my point in the end.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 18, 2015)

I just had a tangential discussion to this one about souls. It's totally obvious that everyone and every animal (to varying degrees) has a soul! There's no way to look into my dog's eyes and claim otherwise.

That doesn't mean I believe it's separate from our bodies or that it remains after we're dead. The best words I can use are completely misappropriated from Ray Kurzweil: we're spiritual machines. (He's talking about actual machines.)


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 18, 2015)

Dave, I'm not sure what you're saying or sure you're sure what I'm saying - probably because I'm jumping into the end of this conversation and reading backward.

What I'm saying is that...okay. There were five different varieties of string theories a few years ago. Then Edward Witten came along with one that united them, called M Theory. It posits 11 dimensions.

People who study those things are engaged in *research*. They use scientific tools - equations and stuff; they're working on a plausible theory of everything - a way to reconcile gravity (our best theory of large scales) and quantum mechanics (which explains very small scales) - both of which have been proven by countless experiments, but which are nonsense to each other.

Those dimensions are properties of space - a totally different thing from the heavens, Heaven and Hell, and other religious concepts, regardless of the words you use.

That's all I'm saying.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 18, 2015)

> Why would belief in other dimensions which as you say scientist are in hardy agreement on be necessarily religion?



Oh, I'm not saying they all agree on the existence of other dimensions!

I'm saying that all the scientists who are researching string theories understand that they're not testable hypotheses and may never be!


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## Dave Connor (Mar 18, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Wed Mar 18 said:


> > Why would belief in other dimensions which as you say scientist are in hardy agreement on be necessarily religion?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Ok roger on that. In any case, that seems to be a great example of the mysterious nature of the universe exceeding empirical science's ability to measure or verify it (as likely as it's existence may be.) It just seems reasonable to me (scientific) that there are other dimensions, making it almost bizarre that people criticize others for regularly accepting that possibility. Ascribing an acceptance of parallel dimensions to only 'religious' belief also a strange, prejudicial viewpoint.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 18, 2015)

Well, this isn't just *a* great example, it's *the* great example! As soon as you talk about the universe itself, you reach before everything we can sense. Light is a few hundred thousand years after, and even gravity is a fraction of a second after.

The gravitational waves from just after the big bang they announced last March - and later withdrew (they may have been dust in the Milky Way) - are about the closest I can imagine us getting. It's down to 36 decimal places of a second or something like that, but it's not creation itself. 

In any case, I think we're probably talking about two different concepts with the word "dimensions."


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## Dave Connor (Mar 18, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Wed Mar 18 said:


> In any case, I think we're probably talking about two different concepts with the word "dimensions."



I'm okay with _dimensions_ being the very wide net that it seems to be as a term. You and I may be referring to different or differing dimensions in our examples but I am using it as an objective scientific term. I've cited quantum mechanics and the discoveries there which is what you are referring too as well or similar studies anyway I think.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 18, 2015)

AR @ Sat Mar 14 said:


> I know this is a little bit off topic...
> Are there any of you who believe in God? I mean like, not just believe that there's a higher power, but I mean like really being a reborn believer? I sometimes find it hard to work in the industry and being a Christian at the same time.


AR, you would have very willing partners in conversation with J.S Bach, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and countless people today. Why be bothered about a favorite topic of conversation in every culture on planet earth since the beginning of human history?
When my brother interviewed for Harvard Medical School, the first question he was asked was his thoughts on the existence of God. It was not a frivolous question. He ended up at perhaps the only med school superior to Harvard: Georgetown (a Jesuit school.) Deep thinkers have been pondering God for millennia.

EDIT: Apologies that I did not quite catch your specific reference to being 'reborn' which is fair enough as it a tenant of a particular faith. I'm adding this because I didn't mean to suggest {obviously} that all cultures have discussed a single faith but rather the topic of _God_. The number of Christian believers in our western culture is certainly a large one and should hardly be off limits in discussion I would think.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 18, 2015)

Dave Connor @ Wed Mar 18 said:


> AR @ Sat Mar 14 said:
> 
> 
> > I know this is a little bit off topic...
> ...



As a dispassionate non-believer and a math and science challenged individual, let me ask the science guys in the thread this question- is there anything that comes from nothing? If not, what theories have you regarding our existence?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 18, 2015)

I'm not a "science guy," but do you mean our existence or the universe's existence?


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## NYC Composer (Mar 18, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Thu Mar 19 said:


> I'm not a "science guy," but do you mean our existence or the universe's existence?



Yes.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 19, 2015)

NYC Composer @ Thu Mar 19 said:


> As a dispassionate non-believer and a math and science challenged individual, let me ask the science guys in the thread this question- is there anything that comes from nothing? If not, what theories have you regarding our existence?



I think I qualify as a science guy, but not if you mean pure atheist. I'm fuzzier than that. But still a science guy. So talking here about the origins of the universe, not the probability of us being in it (which I've already droned on about).

My understanding on this is extremely limited. For what its worth - there was no beginning in the way we traditionally think of it, so there was no "nothing" from stuff to emerge from. Time itself wraps around like a parabola. There was never a minute zero for the universe, although it got infinitely close to one (which is not the same thing).

(please please someone more intelligent than I correct this if its wrong, it might well be).

I did also hear that all the energy in the universe cancels itself out, the equal and opposite reactions if you will. Still doesn't answer some fundamental questions like "how did no matter explode out into a uinverse" though, does it?

It does seem a little bit of a conjuring trick, doesn't it? An elegant solution to what was before the big bang - there was no "before the big bang". And why is it reasonable to presume that stuff has always existed (originally in the form of a singularity?) I genuinely have no idea on that, but I suspect there is a reasonable answer for those with intellects superior to mine. Hopefully one will be along soon to better answer this question.

Again, I it seems to me that we're at the limits of human comprehension. I don't mean that we can't study it more because of course we can and must. I mean we're dealing with concepts that the human brain can't process, like multi-dimensionality or an infinite regression of time. We can mathematically describe them, but we can't really say what they actually mean or what their reality is (back to my redness fixation).

This thread is definitely in the right subforum - universe repair.


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## Saxer (Mar 19, 2015)

NYC Composer @ 19.3.2015 said:


> As a dispassionate non-believer and a math and science challenged individual, let me ask the science guys in the thread this question- is there anything that comes from nothing? If not, what theories have you regarding our existence?


there's one single answer to that: we don't know why we are.

that doesn't mean there's a god who made us. that would just postpone the question. the question would be: who made god? and does he believe in something? and thinking about the one who made god: who made him?


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## NYC Composer (Mar 19, 2015)

Right.

I have no answers. Defining the nature and properties of our physical existence is interesting to some, and I'm glad it is. However, we are left with no answers about hows and whys. That leave many people with a thirst that can't be slaked, hence the worship of elemental gods (which made some sense in early agrarian economies) and eventually the monotheistic monarchal gods, who reflected the kings and emperors, the role models who came to dominate later.

Astrology strikes me as a pseudo- scientific explanation for the nature of our individual beings, while also investing the interpretive shamans as somewhat priestly, so you get a bit of both worlds. Dave, you need a cloak and a wizard's hat if you want to start practicing this art professionally. :wink:


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## gbar (Mar 19, 2015)

Guy Rowland @ Thu Mar 19 said:


> An elegant solution to what was before the big bang - there was no "before the big bang". And why is it reasonable to presume that stuff has always existed (originally in the form of a singularity?) I genuinely have no idea on that, but I suspect there is a reasonable answer for those with intellects superior to mine. Hopefully one will be along soon to better answer this question.
> 
> .



I'm not so sure it works that way. I'm not a physics/cosmology guy, but I got the impression that... working backward, about 13.8 billion years ago, the Universe was smaller, denser and had a much higher energy state.

And then the math gets squirrelly at temperatures and energy levels that high, and for some reason only people who do the math seem to understand, you can't observe that moment working backward from our time and space because they (our time and space) didn't exist  

So maybe the phrase "before the big bang" doesn't make that much sense? Since our whole idea of time didn't exist in the first moments of our universe?

I can't pretend to understand theoretical physics/cosmology any more than that because if you dive in any deeper it gets really weird, is hotly debated, and it all sounds 100% nuts.

I like computers and biology and even archeology a lot more than the entire field of physics, though, so I am prejudiced. Physics was never easy for me. Somehow I got through the less abstruse classes in Classical Physics and even got good grades, but it was one long struggle for me, and I suspect the professors gave me better grades than I deserved 

At any rate, I am told asking "what was before the big bang?" is a bit like asking "what is North of the North Pole?"


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 19, 2015)

gbar @ Thu Mar 19 said:


> I'm not so sure it works that way. I'm not a physics/cosmology guy, but I got the impression that... working backward, about 13.8 billion years ago, the Universe was smaller, denser and had a much higher energy state.
> 
> And then the math gets squirrelly at temperatures and energy levels that high, and for some reason only people who do the math seem to understand, you can't observe that moment working backward from our time and space because they (our time and space) didn't exist
> 
> ...



Actually that's pretty much exactly what I was trying to say, with my limited knowledge. And the North Pole analogy is a good one, if inevitably leading on to more questions.


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## gbar (Mar 19, 2015)

Because the thread needs more Melody Sheep :lol:


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## Hannes_F (Mar 19, 2015)

gbar @ Thu Mar 19 said:


> At any rate, I am told asking "what was before the big bang?" is a bit like asking "what is North of the North Pole?"



One can say that according to a current model our time came into existence together with our space, with other words there is a time-space continuum _specific to our cosm_ (and, certainly, specific to our special sort of consciousness). And if watched closely then time in this continuum is not always what it seems to be (an absolute measure) but dependent of other things and circumstances, and it is a part of this specific manifestation of time-space that we are living in. So asking what came before that assumed big bang_ within our own time-space continuum_ is indeed equivalent to asking what is North of the North Pole. It is considered 'a wrong question' to ask.

(That big bang would also have been an anomaly in time-space and time would have ran with a much different speed shortly after than now).

However it is completely possible that there are other time-space entities ('cosms') and the question "what was before our time started" is not as absurd within the bigger picture, with other words if it should turn out that we are living next to other time-space bubbles and possibly even within other time-space bubbles ... within even more time-space bubbles. We would however have to accept that this is then a completely different sort of 'time' that we are asking about. 

Therefore the answer could not be given in the sort of time that we are used to.


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## robh (Mar 19, 2015)

AR @ Sat Mar 14 said:


> I know this is a little bit off topic...
> Are there any of you who believe in God? I mean like, not just believe that there's a higher power, but I mean like really being a reborn believer? I sometimes find it hard to work in the industry and being a Christian at the same time.


I am.

Rob


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 19, 2015)

N of the N Pole is Stephen Hawkins' line, of course.

The LHC may actually provide clues about the multiverse theory, i.e. our big bang may not be unique.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 19, 2015)

AR, why would you find it hard working in the industry being Christian? It's not like Christians are persecuted or areligious people are the majority...anywhere!

In my experience the question doesn't even come up. Who cares? To me it's just another way of looking at the same things - unless you're a creationist freak, in which case you have issues as far as I'm concerned.

But that's not what you're saying, I think.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 19, 2015)

Even if you come down on _we don't know_ as a sort of philosophical stance, the question of _what is it we don't know_ still boggles the mind. The universe is expanding and is thought to likely contract and collapse at some point. So how many times has it expanded and collapsed? 12,000 trillion? _We don't know._ Nothing prior to the big bang? Pure guess. You might as well guess that prior to the big bang was a swath of time that makes the life of our universe less than a millisecond in relative time. Again, we don't know. Or there was (or is) dimensions that are timeless. Science is at a loss presently in even addressing questions like this which is why it should be kept in perspective as to it's ability to answer both physical and non-physical questions.


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## Hannes_F (Mar 19, 2015)

One thing is for shure: Nature is the teacher, we are the students.

Any tiny electron acts _in reality and in realtime_ according to principles that we can not even express fully as equations, not even to speak about solving them (fully). Which means even this tiny electron participates on cosmic _reality _in a way that currently is way beyond the grasp of our brightest theorists.

So if there is a discrepancy between _anything _and the theories I (as a physicist that has been doing fundamental research for a decade) would always try to find the error on the side of our theories. That is the only way for learning imo.

If asked about my opinion I would like to define a sort of 'Positivism 2.0': If we can positively and scientifically confirm any empiric finding then we can take that as a part of our reality and need to try include that into our models. However it is utmost dangerous to _deny anything_ just based on our models. As soon as we say or think 'that is not possible' or 'that does not exist' we should at least honestly add 'according to these axioms and to that model' but if these axioms or that model do not hold tight we might be in error while nature is always right. Very many statements of the negative kind have been historically proven wrong, whereas the positively confirmed findings have shown a much better longlivety (sometimes longer than their first explanations though).

In front of that background I am very reluctant to dismiss the collected experiences of mystics, yogis, meditators, religious and philosophical teachers through the centuries as unreal or pure phantasy. I think they are worth studying since many of them have dealt with realities and might have found solid insights about reality within themselves. The exact explanation might be a topic totally for itself.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 19, 2015)

Dave Connor @ Thu Mar 19 said:


> The universe is expanding and is thought to likely contract and collapse at some point.



Actually if I understand correctly, that theory went out the celestial window some time ago. I believe the current thinking is that the universe will keep expanding, and will not contract. So the first time the universe doesn't contract, then obviously the whole infinite loop thing is broken.

That used to be one possible answer to the fine tuned anthropic principle - the universe expands and contracts and infinite number of times, so one time the conditions are bound to be right for life. However, that option I think has closed, leaving only multiverses or that magic trick where you just say the probability is 100%, cough loudly and quickly move on.


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## Hannes_F (Mar 19, 2015)

Guy Rowland @ Thu Mar 19 said:


> I believe the current thinking is that the universe will keep expanding, and will not contract.



True but that thinking changes every few years. See my post above and never say never. 

The current model is dependent on a lot of assumptions and there are good reasons for all of them. However the current expansion model is extremely dependent of how what we call 'dark energy' works. If any of those assumptions turns out to be slightly different then the interpretation of the open, asymptotic or cyclic universe will change again.

And even if all the assumptions would turn out to be correct for the moment this does not mean that e.g. the behaviour of that 'dark energy' could not change over time. I would say the possibility that it will change through millions of years is much higher than to be static. As a result it is too early to bet, especially on that point.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 19, 2015)

Just to be sure, Dave, not knowing everything doesn't invalidate what we do know. Nor does it invalidate hypotheses that are good possibilities.

So you have to be careful not to jump to the fallacy of composition - one thing is true (or in this case unknown), therefore something unrelated must also true (unknown).

We don't know what caused the big bang - never mind that cause and effect is a temporal concept - therefore we don't know whether burying a muffin in the garden doesn't cure nearsightedness...or whether or not astrology is a load of BS.

I tend to think it is, but as I said, I believe there are astrologers (and others) who are very perceptive for whatever unexplained reason.


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## germancomponist (Mar 19, 2015)

Watch this and tell me what do u think?!


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## Waywyn (Mar 19, 2015)

Hannes_F @ Thu Mar 19 said:


> It is considered 'a wrong question' to ask



It is actually not! The big bang (which many people see as some kind of explosion which started everything) could also have been something like a big bounce. Meaning before the point of the smallest singularity it could have been a previous universe which expanded from a previous singularity and then collapsed.


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## germancomponist (Mar 19, 2015)

Waywyn @ Thu Mar 19 said:


> Hannes_F @ Thu Mar 19 said:
> 
> 
> > It is considered 'a wrong question' to ask
> ...



True!
And, could something did happen that we are not able to imagine. Who knows... .


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 19, 2015)

Alex, if you're interested in this stuff, look up Roger Penrose's lecture at the LHC on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YYWUIxGdl4

I find his theory somewhat unconvincing, because it requires that entropy be swallowed up in black holes. If you read Leonard Suskind's "The Black Hole Wars" - a great book - you'll see why I say that.

But it's pretty interesting anyway.


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## choc0thrax (Mar 19, 2015)

germancomponist @ Thu Mar 19 said:


> Watch this and tell me what do u think?!




Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Rjuuk6NAM


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## germancomponist (Mar 19, 2015)

choc0thrax @ Thu Mar 19 said:


> germancomponist @ Thu Mar 19 said:
> 
> 
> > Watch this and tell me what do u think?!
> ...




Hi hi..., but seriously, did you watch the video what I posted?

You know what? I think we all know next to nothing.


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## choc0thrax (Mar 19, 2015)

germancomponist @ Thu Mar 19 said:


> choc0thrax @ Thu Mar 19 said:
> 
> 
> > germancomponist @ Thu Mar 19 said:
> ...




I watched some of it. I think I'd have to be unemployed to be able to rationalize watching all 96 minutes.


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## germancomponist (Mar 19, 2015)

choc0thrax @ Thu Mar 19 said:


> germancomponist @ Thu Mar 19 said:
> 
> 
> > choc0thrax @ Thu Mar 19 said:
> ...




I think that religions have much knowledge of history destroyed / deleted?


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## Dave Connor (Mar 19, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Thu Mar 19 said:


> Just to be sure, Dave, not knowing everything doesn't invalidate what we do know. Nor does it invalidate hypotheses that are good possibilities.



Nick I was addressing confident assertions about the unknowables. You will notice I didn't assert that any of the possibilities I suggested are likely - only possible. One pure speculation is as good as another is my point.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 19, 2015)

Guy Rowland @ Thu Mar 19 said:


> Dave Connor @ Thu Mar 19 said:
> 
> 
> > The universe is expanding and is thought to likely contract and collapse at some point.
> ...


That speaks to my earlier point of science not being the end-all of knowledge. It is constantly changing which is why I'm curious as to the zealotry with which people cling to it.

My understanding is that Hawking was fond of the universe expanding and collapsing concept. I'm not positive about that but if so, has he changed his thinking on that?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 19, 2015)

I think he likes the "many worlds" theory, which is that every possible history has to happen, each time branching off into a separate universe.

To me it's crazy, but what can I say.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 19, 2015)

Science fiction and theology are about equal on the LBS*






*Larry Believability Scale


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 19, 2015)

Dave, about the zealotry...actually that's one of the most important things that separate science and religion. Scientists *welcome* it when they're proven wrong! Religion is the opposite.

But the huge theories - Newtonian physics, relativity, and quantum mechanics will never be proven wrong, they'll just be proven incomplete (in fact they already have). There's no zealotry in that at all; it's just the way it am.

Newton's laws of motion and gravity still work beautifully for things like planes and rocket flights to the moon. Einstein came along and showed that the concept doesn't work when you get to huge scales, and relativity has been proven over and over too. Same with quantum mechanics - there will never be an experiment to disprove it (although there are lots of interpretations).

And I love reading about this crazy stuff.


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## Hannes_F (Mar 20, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Fri Mar 20 said:


> Newtonian physics, relativity, and quantum mechanics will never be proven wrong



May I suggest a different interpretation:

F = m*a is wrong.
F' = - F'' is wrong.

We must write

F ≈ m*a
F' ≈ - F''

or 

F = m*a + E
F' = - F'' + E

where E are error functions.



> , they'll just be proven incomplete (in fact they already have).



I know what you want to say but no, Newtonian mechanics is not incomplete, it is wrong. The Newtonian laws would be 'incomplete' if there were any situation where they would be correct. However there is always an error. This error is only small with big objects but philosophically it is huge.

If the Newtonian laws were exactly correct then one could theoretically calculate the resulting power that is applied to every particle in the universe, and the Newtonian laws would then predict where every one of them moves to in the next moment (after an infinetesimaly small delta of time). If that would be repeated again and again one could predict the future of every particle and therefore of the whole universe.

While this would be not executable in practise it would still mean that the future would be fixed, and no free will would be possible in this deterministic world. The universe would be working like a huge clockwork with fixed outcome, only that we would not know it. But that is old think.

Newtonian physics are based on the concept of mathematical (differential-) functions and that came from the paradigm that nature 'functions'. Nature was seen as a machine in the 18th and 19th century, compounded from smaller 'machines' (physical bodies). But it is time to say goodbye to the underlying concept and that will never happen in our minds as long as we see classical physics as a concept that is basically right but just needs some minor corrections here and there.

Particles are not little stupid bullets drawn about by little force vectors. Those little bullets don't exist. They are a wrong starting point for our thought. 

Philosophically we really need to radically abandon this concept or we will never understand what quantum physics really is about, we will never understand the so called paradoxons. For those we need a new starting point.

I know it's difficult to find that swich in our thinking. But it is worth it because it means a revolution


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 20, 2015)

Well, we're looking at the same thing with different words, Hannes. You're right, of course, but don't you think it's like peeling an onion? You get to increasing levels of detail the farther down you go?

And my layman's understanding of particles is that they're excitations in a wave. The best way my brain can picture it is to imagine a cross-section of a wave - like a piece of rope that's shaking - coming toward you. Only it doesn't just oscillate back and forth, it moves around in all directions. It looks like a point.

Then for Heisenberg, I just picture a standard Fourier transform, like in a DAW. If you zoom really far in (a particle) you can't see the waveform, and if you zoom out you can't see the particle.

Analogies that aren't quite right - because particles can be in more than one place at the same time, they're entangled, etc. - but it's a way for my brain to get the concepts.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 20, 2015)

Also, I think theoretical physicists acknowledge what you're saying about your switch in thinking. It seems to me they're way beyond that, actually.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 20, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Thu Mar 19 said:


> Dave, about the zealotry...actually that's one of the most important things that separate science and religion. Scientists *welcome* it when they're proven wrong! Religion is the opposite.



I wasn't referring to scientists Nick if you read my early posts. Scientists tend to be objective and live with a sense of awe and wonder. I was referring to those who use science as a weapon against spiritual beliefs as if it is a religion itself and can provide all the answers in any realm of knowledge which of course it can't. I wish people like that would be more scientific and less dogmatic about the field of science.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 20, 2015)

√


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## SergeD (Mar 20, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Fri Mar 20 said:


> And my layman's understanding of particles is that they're excitations in a wave. The best way my brain can picture it is to imagine a cross-section of a wave - like a piece of rope that's shaking - coming toward you. Only it doesn't just oscillate back and forth, it moves around in all directions. It looks like a point.



Or a wave on the ocean which is only energy until it struck the beach (matter) like a projectile.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 20, 2015)

Well, that's the double slit experiment...but what I'm doing is trying to make sense of that! Waves turning into points when they hit the beach...that's as weird as it gets.


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## SergeD (Mar 20, 2015)

A wave may be like a rubber band that stretches. If a chisel cut this elastic, the energy released could create that point having the impact of a projectile.


And if the behavior of an electron under stress is unpredictable, are we facing a stupid device or an elementary life form which reacts to aggression? After all, is life must necessarily start at viruses level?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 21, 2015)

If electrons are alive then everything would have to be considered alive, and that's not any definition of life I've ever heard. They don't synthesize what they need out of other things.

Also, from Wikipedia:

"Viruses are considered by some to be a life form, because they carry genetic material, reproduce, and evolve through natural selection. However they lack key characteristics (such as cell structure) that are generally considered necessary to count as life. Because they possess some but not all such qualities, viruses have been described as "organisms at the edge of life"."

And:

"The smallest contiguous unit of life is called an organism. Organisms are composed of one or more cells, undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, can grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce (either sexually or asexually) and, through evolution, adapt to their environment in successive generations."


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## Hannes_F (Mar 21, 2015)

Electrons certainly don't fit into our anthropomorphic definition of life. However that definitinon has changed over time and would only need some minor changes more in order to include particles. 

The virus example has brought great difficulties to the 'definition of life' (and there are more examples for problems). First they were considered as dead, then as life-near substances, now they are life-near organisms that need other organisms to reproduce. Such terms as 'life-near substances' are inconsistent and look like a backdoor escape, just in order not to change the definition consequently and frankly admit that viruses are alive and the old definition was wrong.

It might be an unusual thought first that particles should have at least some 'life' because normally we attach several conditions to life that fit to our order of size, our known metabolism, our reproduction method and so on. However why should be something dead just because it is small? Why should it be dead just because it does not eat food (but it eats energy)? Why should it be dead because it does not fit into the pattern of bisexual reproduction (but there are other know reproduction types in nature, and energetic _states _can proliferate very well)?

Are we ready to acknowledge a single DNA as a living being? If not, how can we say it is the indespensable base of life? If yes, is it a living molecule?

_If_ makro-molecules like the DNA live, what about smaller molecules? What about atoms then?

How is it possible that a construction of dead und stupid particles is dead (as we assume) but if in a thought experiment you add more and more particles to it you would come to a point where adding _just one more_ of those dead particles it would make that lump a living being? 

Is that really possible without any of the single particles having some own 'life'?

http://www.amazon.de/Alles-lebt-Geistes--naturwissenschaftliche-Erkenntnisse/dp/3837030830/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426989872&sr=8-1&keywords=alles+lebt+es+gibt+nichts+totes (http://www.amazon.de/Alles-lebt-Geistes ... chts+totes)


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 21, 2015)

By that definition there's almost no difference between a dead person and a live one. And yet by my definition the difference is a matter of life and death.


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## SergeD (Mar 22, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Sun Mar 22 said:


> By that definition there's almost no difference between a dead person and a live one.



Unless this person is a superset of less evolved structures, like a cell is a superset including ribosomes, liposomes etc ... The cell is not the sum of its organelles, it is rather an organism that has its own consciousness and who used his intelligence to agree on the terms of a relationship with less evolved partners. Electrons could maybe fit in this evolution scheme.

"life always finds a way" as say Dr. Ian Malcolm. I don't believe in god but have a very strong belief in consciousness of the life. 

Exit


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## rJames (Mar 22, 2015)

So are you saying that it is the particular alignment of the stars at the moment that this chisel breaks the rubber band that creates the personality of the energy particles?

CAuse if this is true, then thread closed and solved!!


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## Hannes_F (Mar 22, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Sun Mar 22 said:


> By that definition there's almost no difference between a dead person and a live one.



A good call. Because a corpse is full of life - that literally tries to crawl away from the moment of death on. Up to then it was under the regime of 'something else' and the question is what that is. According to the materalistic model it is the uninterrupted electrochemical circle in the brain, according to religious models it is the soul. 

I am not very comfortable with both these concepts because I see contradictions with both. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Leibniz said that this 'something' is the Monad which is a Pythagorean term that was also used by the neo-Platonists, and I like that very much. According to Leibniz a monad is a spiritual entity, an elementary spiritual unit (not a material atom) that can not be divided for any given life cycle, and it is this monad that makes the difference between what we perceive as life and death. According to those models the monad brings about the soul, and the soul merges with the body in order to form the personality.

So ... yes, the personality is dependent on the physical body, especially on the brain. But there is more, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monad_%28philosophy%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadology

I'm sorry to introduce a new term here because it is certainly confusing. But Nick's objection was a good one and I did not find a way to answer it without introducing the monads. To answer with 'soul' alone would imo not be correct.

rJames, we needed 7 pages to come from astrology to this, so we might need another 7 pages in order to get back ...


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## germancomponist (Mar 22, 2015)

Hannes_F @ Mon Mar 23 said:


> rJames, we needed 7 pages to come from astrology to this, so we might need another 7 pages in order to get back ...



:D :mrgreen: o/~


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## fitzo (Mar 22, 2015)

Hannes, was your book translated into English? 

Sadly, my German is terribly inadequate, being 45 years unused. 

Thanks.


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## Hannes_F (Mar 22, 2015)

fitzo, unfortunately not but I can try to do a synopsis (not in this thread).


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## fitzo (Mar 22, 2015)

Hannes_F @ Sun Mar 22 said:


> fitzo, unfortunately not but I can try to do a synopsis (not in this thread).



Thank you for responding, Hannes. I would not presume, however, to ask your time to synopsize this, despite my interest. 

I put the text of the description at Amazon through a translator and, though the results were predictably a bit odd (as most machine translations are), it did provide a good idea of the topic and direction. 

It sounds like an engrossing read, and must have been deeply interesting as a project with your interdisciplinary colleagues. 

Best regards,
mike


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 22, 2015)

rJ, we've moved onto far more interesting and crazy stuff. I love reading about theoretical physics - and it's taken me a long time to understand what I'm reading. For a long time I'd have to re-read each paragraph over and over until I got it...and then when I came back the next day I'd forgotten it.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 22, 2015)

Hannes, what I get from skimming those Wikipedia pages is that Monism is a detailed way of saying everything is connected. I definitely think that's true in one sense, but like most things it depends on what question you're asking.

In the realm we all live in, all those fundamental parts - or that single "substance" - is put together in an almost infinite number of ways!


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## choc0thrax (Mar 25, 2015)

In other intellectual news it appears someone from a reality TV show has finally laid the ultimate smackdown on atheism:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/p ... r-atheists


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## rJames (Mar 25, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Sun Mar 22 said:


> rJ, we've moved onto far more interesting and crazy stuff. I love reading about theoretical physics - and it's taken me a long time to understand what I'm reading. For a long time I'd have to re-read each paragraph over and over until I got it...and then when I came back the next day I'd forgotten it.



Fine, if we're going totally out there...I keep wondering about the nature of gravity. Is it a force? Or is it really the nature of how higher dimensions manifest in the lowly 3 dimensional world that we can comprehend. For instance, if time were a fourth dimension then comprehending things from the 4th dimension would see all of time at once and gravity would not be a force on things but rather their shape.

Why does gravity derive from mass? Because mass/objects are really just 4 or 5 dimensional things penetrating into the 3D world that we can comprehend. When a sphere (3D) penetrates a plane (2D) it appears as a growing circle; infinitely small then growing to its circumference and then shrinking back to nothing. 2D comprehension sees only a circle that changes size. when in reality a sphere has penetrated a plane.

What would a 4 or 5 dimensional object (say a consciousness or even a living ecosystem) look like as it passed through a 3D space?

Ron

(I guess it would all depend on the alignment of the stars as it began its passage)


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 25, 2015)

Beats me! But I've been totally out there for a long time. Screw astrology. 

I don't think anyone really knows what gravity is. But the keys must be that space and time are related (Einstein), that mass and energy are equivalent (also Einstein), that the Higgs field gives particles mass...and also that in a sense all time is an illusion. I'm being summoned to watch the Clippers game and don't have...time...to explain that last one. 

When you get to consciousness or ecosystems passing through 3D space...you've lost me.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 25, 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BjGWLJNPcA

Brian Greene is great.


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## SergeD (Mar 26, 2015)

rJames @ Sun Mar 22 said:


> So are you saying that it is the particular alignment of the stars at the moment that this chisel breaks the rubber band that creates the personality of the energy particles?
> 
> CAuse if this is true, then thread closed and solved!!



Did I mention that the stars have something to do with astrology? Did I talked about alignment of the stars?

Imagine a child coming into the world and losing his dad that same day. Unknowingly, his perception of life is compromised by the sadness of his mother who lives in mourning. The seasons, their light, their temperature, their impact on people's mood, could also modulate his future perceptions of life. I do not see here any esoteric phenomenon.

By the way, there is no alignment of the stars, only planets. I'd be embarrassed for not being able to distinguish a planet from a star and then explain interactions between the third the fifth dimension :wink:


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## rJames (Mar 26, 2015)

Serge, you're taking offense to my humor?

"alignment of the stars," is a saying; stars do change their alignment from any perspective and in a very real sense. When the universe expands, the stars change alignment. Everything is relative, if you catch my drift. (ha ha very punny)

I don't claim any scholarly expertise. Just wanted to join the fun speculation. Thanks for your critique on my intellect. I'll try to keep my place from now on.

Ron


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## Daryl (Mar 26, 2015)

rJames @ Thu Mar 26 said:


> I don't claim any scholarly expertise. Just wanted to join the fun speculation. Thanks for your critique on my intellect. I'll try to keep my place from now on.
> 
> Ron


Yeah Ron, stick to subjects you know something about. or about which you know something, if you want to avoid ending the sentence with a preposition. Or stick to subjects you know something about, c***, if you're a House of Cards fan. :lol: 

D


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## rJames (Mar 26, 2015)

Let me get this straight, Daryl. You're asking me to never post again at VI?

Haven't seen House of Cards yet but I have a cue by that name (who doesn't?).


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## Dave Connor (Mar 26, 2015)

The direction this thread has taken emphasizes the fact that in spite of all the scientific knowledge gathered on earth (and much of it changing constantly from this 'truth' to that 'truth') we live in a universe that still remains very mysterious and unexplainable. There are sciences that don't even exist yet that will become necessary to try and understand what has yet to be discovered. This is the reason that there has long existed philosophy or religion or whatever because man has been trying to penetrate into areas of knowledge that defy empirical science's ability to explain.

Unfortunately man has made a religion out of science. So he develops margarine using a scientific process which ends up killing people due to error. Science can be as deadly as any religion.


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## Daryl (Mar 26, 2015)

rJames @ Thu Mar 26 said:


> Let me get this straight, Daryl. You're asking me to never post again at VI?


HAHA, well I wouldn't go that far. :wink: 



rJames @ Thu Mar 26 said:


> Haven't seen House of Cards yet but I have a cue by that name (who doesn't?).


Actually I don't. Maybe that's where I'm going wrong.

Thoroughly recommend HoC though. Tedious score, but great drama. IMO, of course......

D


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## chimuelo (Mar 26, 2015)

HoC is DCs desperate attempt using leverage from multi million dollar tax breaks for fellow wealthy white Liberals to convince the Sheep that 382 Multi Millionaires in Congress, 46,000 Multimillionaire Lobbyists (sons, daughters, retired Congressmen) and 19 Billionaires are killing each other in scripted battles just so they can serve us better, since we are incapable of standing on our own 2 feet, and I bet they believe in Astrology if they are paid to...
Only in America do wealthy folks fight so hard to serve so many.... _-)


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## rJames (Mar 26, 2015)

(trying to be serious now)
Dave,

I don't think science changes truth from one truth to another so much as it builds upon truth or facts that are proven to the greatest degree humanly possible to truths that are even more specific and many times proven to a greater degree of accuracy.

Science builds whereas it seems that religion stakes itself down to a simplified understanding of a very complex reality and then stays there unwavering in the face of obvious facts to the contrary.

The statement, "man has made a religion out of science," just sounds like talking points. You'll have to explain that one to me.

How many religions are there in the world that believe that they have the one and only truth? Except on the bleeding edge of scientific theory, scientists around the world accept proven facts as facts.

How is this like religion?


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## Daryl (Mar 26, 2015)

chimuelo @ Thu Mar 26 said:


> HoC is DCs desperate attempt using leverage from multi million dollar tax breaks for fellow wealthy white Liberals to convince the Sheep that 382 Multi Millionaires in Congress, 46,000 Multimillionaire Lobbyists (sons, daughters, retired Congressmen) and 19 Billionaires are killing each other in scripted battles just so they can serve us better, since we are incapable of standing on our own 2 feet, and I bet they believe in Astrology if they are paid to...
> Only in America do wealthy folks fight so hard to serve so many.... _-)


Er, no. It's a re-make of a successful British TV show. Don't know where you got the subtext from.

D


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 26, 2015)

House of Cards is my favorite program on TV. It's freaking great, and Jeff Beal's scoring is fantastic.

***

Dave, as I said before: science is NOT a religion in any way, shape, or form. There are mysteries, some of which may never be solved, but that has nothing to do with anything.

And by the way many of them have already been solved and more will be solved. Watch the latest coming from the LHC, for example, now that they have it working at full speed. They already found the Higgs particle, and that was just the beginning.

The first "pictures" of gravitational waves from right after the big bang may or may not be dust in our galaxy - which the scientists involved in the study readily admit - but other teams are working on the same thing. We'll see. And those are the first pictures of gravitational waves in general, not just from the first measurable time after our universe was created. That was all predicted by theoretical physicists, just as Einstein predicted gravitational lensing before it was proven.

Ron is absolutely right. Writing off all of science as the same as a religion is just an excuse not to deal with it, in my opinion.

And saying that because there are mysteries in the universe (or multiverse) that means it's also a mystery whether or not astrology is worth "believing in"...? Where's the logic in that?

Yes, I know it's not exactly what you're saying, but religion is something very different. So is philosophy.


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## José Herring (Mar 26, 2015)

Damn I had written this whole long thing and then realized it will cause more upset than the discussion is worth. So I'll just give the tip of it.

Imo the religionist can condemn science and the Godless scientist/atheist can condemn religion but they are missing the point. And one big point is that both have killed millions of people on Earth. So both fields lack sufficient enough understanding of the activities of life that makes survival possible and that is an understanding of epistemology.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 26, 2015)

That's what I call a red Herring. 

Astrology and science are at odds with one another. Science and most religions - except for creation myths and so on - are not.

The truth is that many if not most inventions can be used for good and bad. Fire, the wheel, nuclear power...


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## José Herring (Mar 26, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Thu Mar 26 said:


> That's what I call a red Herring.
> 
> Astrology and science are at odds with one another. Science and most religions - except for creation myths and so on - are not.



If man had a sufficient understanding of epistemology then he would be able to distinguish those areas of knowledge and separate them into proper categories and know where they apply and where they don't apply. Right now, mankind can't do that. Even our best thinkers. So he can't think well enough with any of those subjects. He often tries to use one to bash the other when in conflict because he has no real way of determine the difference between fact and opinion.

I lean on the side of science because at least it demands experimentation and results so thus has brought man out of the dark ages and into a better understanding of the universe. But, it certainly hasn't brought him a better understanding of his fellow man or why he behaves as he does or how to fix it. On that count mankind himself is still in the dark ages though his technology has conquered for the most part the environment.


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## José Herring (Mar 26, 2015)

So the problem isn't with any of these subjects. Not even vaguely. The problem lies with mankind's ability to think.

The OP is a great example. Does anybody "believe" in Astrology. It exist and can only exist as a belief. So a better question to ask would be does anybody still believe in beliefs?


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## rJames (Mar 26, 2015)

josejherring @ Thu Mar 26 said:


> Nick Batzdorf @ Thu Mar 26 said:
> 
> 
> > That's what I call a red Herring.
> ...



Hmmm. If mankind can understand that individuals can be driven by greed but can't do anything about it, then science has not brought about a better understanding of our fellow men?

You don't think that scientists have a grasp on the kinds of things that are verifiable and those that are not?

You don't think that mankind or scientists specifically realize certain limits to verifiable facts?

I sure hope you lean towards science. I hope you lean hard towards science. The only place where I hear anyone even hinting that science thinks it has all the answers is from religion. Scientists know full well their limitations.

But when you say that the earth was created 4000 years ago, you have to come up with an argument against the evidence.


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## rJames (Mar 26, 2015)

josejherring @ Thu Mar 26 said:


> The problem lies with mankind's ability to think.



The problem lies with a large portion of mankind's ability to think. AMEN


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## José Herring (Mar 26, 2015)

I include myself. That is the difference. Everybody always thinks it's the other guy and doesn't realize that it's an every man problem. Every single one of us has this problem in varying degrees. If we didn't we'd not be human. We'd be something far better.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls......


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## rJames (Mar 26, 2015)

(kind of a personal discussion between two friends now but...)

Give yourself more credit than that. You yourself know how to have a perfect planet with no wars. You don't need God for that. You probably put it into practice every day. Most likely you don't covet your neighbors land. And you probably don't care if he is a Muslim or a Jew or a Christian or a Zoroastrian. You have the answer and you put it into practice.

But just because you have the answer doesn't mean that you can prevent war. But you have the answer cause you've thought it out critically and weighed it along with the beliefs that you have been forced to have through proximity.

You probably don't believe that you can prove God's existence or non-existence, nor do you believe that you have the answer to why the universe banged into existence. Because you do understand your limits.

You probably don't believe you will cure cancer tomorrow. (you might believe that you will write a symphony that will live on forever) but that's probably more of a wish than a belief, just as it is to many of us here at VI.

Its when we start to believe that science is not valid because we want the myths to be true that we damage our own epistemology.

You are free to put yourself into that category, if you wish, but don't lump all of us in there.


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## José Herring (Mar 26, 2015)

What you say is all true.

I put myself in that category for no other reason that I believe again that it's far too easy to think that it's somebody else's problem and not my own. Saying that those people over there can't think does little to cure me of the ways in which I don't think.

Case and point, I use to believe in the big bang. After examining all the evidence and thinking it through for myself I just realized that far too many including myself have come to the idea that the big bang has validity but yet all the "evidence" or lack of it only proves that it's an opinion. It doesn't even make it up to a theory as a theory would at least require some evidence and it's not even a hypothesis as you would have had to observe something to make it into a hypothesis. So using the big bang as a theory is a belief. That you find evidence to support that belief could just be circumstance. Or it could be true. But there's no direct evidence to make it conclusive.

So when we reduce science down to the opinions of a few scientist and everybody starts going off in that direction, we've turned science into a religion.

So for me it's not just the other idiot that can't think. I've also dropped the ball in discovering the truth by mistaking opinions of half deluded musings that gain popular appeal as fact because those I trusted to know thought it was real.

As for the origins of the universe, it had none. Origins would me that it came from some place. The origin of the species in Africa, ect.... The universe came from no place. And if you can conceive of a space without objects and divorce it from time you can see that space isn't a thing but I dimension through which things can be perceived. Space exist senior to objects and time. Without space you can not have objects or time thus space is senior to them both.

So that's another place that science has accepted a truth that isn't true. Physics conceives of time and space as almost the same thing. They talk about it as space/time. Truth is you can have space without time. Space can exist independent of time it has to or there would have been nothing even if you believe in the big bang for matter and energy to expand into and there exist even to this day space beyond the reaches of matter or energy.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 26, 2015)

Those are straw man arguments, Jose. Any scientist will tell you that the big bang is just our best theory, but it's based on the observation that the universe is expanding, and then just playing that backward. The cosmic expansion - the very first part of it - is always acknowledged as a "probably" rather than a "truth."

Also, your ideas about space aren't "truths that science has accepted that aren't true." You always hear cosmologists talking about the *known* universe. And there are different theories about what space is, whether it's "granular" (I don't know the correct word), what its properties are - including dark matter and dark energy - and there's more. The general idea is that space came into being along with time, when the big bang started. There is no space on the other side of the universe.

There are also theories about the universe that predict it did have an origin. That's what the multiverse theory is (or really theories are, because it's more than one) - the idea that while time and space began with the big bang, universes pop up all the time like bubbles.

So it's not that scientists just believe things because they have some kind of undue faith in things that haven't been proven. They come up with ideas and develop them - and drop them just as fast when they find they're not plausible!


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## rJames (Mar 26, 2015)

You've examined all the evidence regarding the big bang? Wow. Like you said, we all have to understand our own limitations regarding knowledge. Lovely word, "epistomology," although not really in my lexicon. But examining ALL the evidence regarding the big bang. That's way beyond my pay grade.

Space can exist beyond time, again, beyond my pay grade. I totally know that I can't grok that.

You know, I don't really get how my computer works but I can still make it work for me. I couldn't build it from bare resources, nor could I program it, but I believe it exists.

Again, the only time I hear people reducing science down to a few scientists is when religious beliefs are being tenuously defended. Science is not about following a few scientists but about believing the consensus of scientists.

Whether the big bang explains existence is not important. It won't cost you anything . Believeing that your God will make you victorious over your enemy could be lethal.

Get it? There's a difference. An important difference.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 26, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Thu Mar 26 said:


> Dave, as I said before: science is NOT a religion in any way, shape, or form. There are mysteries, some of which may never be solved, but that has nothing to do with anything...Yes, I know it's not exactly what you're saying, but religion is something very different. So is philosophy.



I don't know how you guys miss my point over and over. _Treating_ science as a religion (i.e. it has ALL the answers) is an unscientific conception. It is against all current science since so many things remain unknown. Even postulating that science will even be _able_ to explain _everything_ is akin to a religious belief. There are so many questions unsolved and beyond it's grasp it seems. Yet some people argue science as if it's a religion that trumps all other areas of knowledge. It is still in is infancy; still in the womb really, as far as the time put in on this planet on the cosmic clock. I am not anti science. I am against science being held up as a religion. It isn't and doesn't have all the answers while often being incredibly wrong. I think it has done wonders for mankind and offers great hope in so many areas but I don't bow down to it as some ultimate answer for all things - it isn't.


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## rJames (Mar 26, 2015)

Dave, this is why it sounds like a talking point to me.

No one in science believes that science has all the answers. That is an idea that is easy to prove wrong and so religion says that is what science thinks. Not so.

Science knows that it does not even have a fraction of the QUESTIONS. Much less the answers. Show me an example of one scientist who says that science has ALL of the answers. Maybe science is the way to examine all questions but not that it HAS provided all of the answers. This is just not so. (classic straw man argument)

But it would be easy to show examples of religious people that say they have all the answers. i.e. the pope is infallible. I'm not sure if that is the right word but that he speaks with the word of God.

And forget about all the people who have religion and pray to find the right answer. So, if you pray, you get the right answer? But if you use science you might not. (which, of course is true... using scientific methods DOES NOT guarantee a correct answer

CAn you admit the same about religion? About prayer? About religious leaders?

I don't miss your point. I am not convinced by your logic (or faith).

You don't have to have faith in science. It can be tested.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 26, 2015)

rJames @ Thu Mar 26 said:


> Dave, this is why it sounds like a talking point to me.No one in science believes that science has all the answers. That is an idea that is easy to prove wrong and so religion says that is what science thinks. Not so.



rJ are you reading my posts thoroughly? You're making my point. If these are talking points than you have the same ones. I said that it is unscientific to believe science has all the answers. I said that scientists tend to be the most in awe of the universe and also understand how little we know. However, there are _people_ that exalt scientific knowledge as some ultimate thing to the point where they dismiss anything they consider cannot be measured in a test tube as not valid. Simply because empirical science is unable to prove or disprove it. That is a dogmatic approach to knowledge that smacks of religiosity (I am not putting down science or religion) I am putting down the exaltation of science as if it's a religion. Why is that fact a straw man argument? It's a simple observation which seems very obvious to me and no doubt others.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 26, 2015)

rJames @ Thu Mar 26 said:


> You don't have to have faith in science. It can be tested.



So you agree that science should not be treated as a religion - my primary point. "It can be tested" is a contextual and limited statement that cannot begin to apply to areas of knowledge that may be closer to infinite than finite. Again, this is my point. Science is so limited that those limitations may be it's most defining factor.

I love science and am scientific by nature but science has taught me that it is a very recent exercise by mankind and unable to answer questions that are important to mankind.


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## José Herring (Mar 26, 2015)

Yes Ron a person can review all the data supporting the big bang because believe it or not, there isn't anything much.

@ Nick where do I begin? You accuse me of throwing out straw man arguments then come in with some stuff that has even less scientific proof or validity than the big bang. Granular space....jeezus.....what's next, the earth rest on the backs of turtles standing on mud floating in aether?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 26, 2015)

Jose, you didn't read what I wrote!

I listed a bunch of things that are *theories,* granular space being one of them (a totally reasonable one, by the way).

The straw man argument is when you say scientists accept certain things as truth, and then go on to tear down what you think they accept as truth - when a) that's not what they accept, and b) they don't accept any of this as "truth," they treat it as theory!


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## rJames (Mar 26, 2015)

Dave,

I'm glad I could help to prove your point that science should not be treated like religion.

Jose, I'd rather have you as a friend than care whether you believe in the big bang or not.

BTW I was thinking the same thing. Nick may believe that the earth rests on the backs of turtles.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 26, 2015)

These are all ideas, Jose. They're well developed and they're interesting, but nobody assumes they're proven!

Wikipedia:

Causal sets
The causal sets programme is an approach to quantum gravity. Its founding principle is that spacetime is fundamentally discrete and that the spacetime events are related by a …

[and it goes off and leaves me behind]

http://www.einstein-online.info/spotlights/causal_sets/?set_language=en (http://www.einstein-online.info/spotlig ... anguage=en)


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 26, 2015)

There's also a video by Fay Dowker on YouTube that explains causal set theory pretty clearly, in terms of entropy and stuff we can follow. But I don't want to link a long video, since you think it's crazy and aren't interested. 

***
One thing we may learn more about is black holes, and they may gain insight into them at the LHC soon. They probably have a lot of similarities to the universe "before" the big bang. Or not.

***
Dave, obviously undue certainty is undue. I can think of a couple of people who are certain atheists on the other side of the same coin certain religious people are. They think everything is just its mechanism, and there's no human spirit, just cold hard facts. To me that's the same thing - undue certainty.

But that's a few people.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 26, 2015)

rJames @ Thu Mar 26 said:


> Religion is just dogma. There is no questioning. You use the very tenets of the scientific method to try to destroy its credibility. .


Not ignoring your other points, it's just that this is central to my point and where you may not get what I'm trying to say: 

Science is currently exploring other dimensions in the fields of quantum mechanics unless I'm mistaken. In principle they are anyway so I would imagine that is acceptable as a statement of fact. To restrict the idea even more let's just say that, _it is not unscientific to theorize that there are other dimensions parallel to ours._ This theory or belief has been common among all tribes and cultures on this planet throughout time for the most part. Some may say that's _Religion._ However if in fact there are other planes of existence or consciousness then it will have turned out that their supposition was _scientific _ all along. But if not true, why should that kind of thinking be called unscientific when it is so close to scientific thought today? My point is that in the name of science, people's beliefs are often derided simply because they haven't been proven. They are attacked as if they have the wrong religion by those who think they have the right one - Science.


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## rJames (Mar 26, 2015)

I think their supposition would be considered mythology or religion. Science is not a fact, it is a system. Its possible that it was a known fact at one time and just got written into the dogma, or it could just be a good guess based on observation of reality. It doesn't make it science. It reveals it as a fact.

When you study science you are studying method. I think that's where we've been miscommunicating.

If the religion were to be able to describe why the parallel dimension exists, they would convince all scientific skeptics. Because people who rely on science, need to know why, not just what.

the people that you say make science into a religion are just asking for verification to the greatest degree possible of what can be called, "fact." 

The religious person might be right about a parallel universe and still be wrong about the existence of one leader called God, or the timeline of history on the earth, or about any of the oral tradition stories that were handed down generations and then translated into other languages. Definitely not science.

I think both of us, many of us in this thread are getting a little caught up in definitions. So, I'd like to let it lie if possible.

I agree with more than you think Dave. What we sense is only a tiny portion of what is. Guessing at what IT is... is fun but not science. Not when I do it, not when anyone does it. Its fun to theorize. Personally, I'll leave it to the scientists to sort it out. I will not be asking my Rabbi. Well, I was brought up Christian anyway, you know.

Ron


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## Dave Connor (Mar 26, 2015)

rJames @ Thu Mar 26 said:


> .
> If the religion were to be able to describe why the parallel dimension exists, they would convince all scientific skeptics. Because people who rely on science, need to know why, not just what.Ron



No actually that's not true. It would only mean they found a way _other than the scientific method_ to prove something. If that's not a possibility than one could say, _Science is the only way..._ which gets back to my point.

Not meaning to be contentious. Your points which a very good are helping me make mine by way of contrast. I'm not negating what you're saying I'm saying that it doesn't seem reasonable for a single method to have all the answers. Don't get me wrong, I think science is awesome in the number of things it's able to verify, prove and practice. It is a wonder that way and I'm hoping major scientific breakthroughs are headed our way in every field of science. It is an area of knowledge but not capable of providing ALL knowledge.

I realize we are not far apart on numerous things so I'm addressing where we may be for the sake of discussion. All good : )


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 26, 2015)

Is there any other way than the scientific method to prove something objective?

I don't think there is.

Religion deals with subjective reality.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 26, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Thu Mar 26 said:


> Is there any other way than the scientific method to prove something objective?


There could be a thousand different ways Nick. Science hasn't proved it's the only way. A few hundred years of a methodology of proving something as factual in a singular dimension or even a few different dimensions doesn't strike me as some slam dunk on reality and what it actually is. Even so science is finding out that things are behaving wildly different than they can predict in quantum physics etc. Science hasn't convinced me it's able to solve all mysteries or that the mysterious is strictly the domain of religion - that's a philosophical concept.. They haven't even convinced me there's nothing to a native American rain dance or countless other mysteries. It is an admittedly limited area. There are topics they won't even touch which doesn't make them untouchable in other ways.


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## rJames (Mar 26, 2015)

Oh Dave, Dave, Dave.

Describe for me how this mythical religion that we are hypothesizing about proved that there are parallel dimensions.

Its a parallel dimension so we can't perceive it, we can't sense it. How will it come to pass that we all agree that this religion has been right all along?

There is only one way really. The religion of science would have to convene a tribunal in Paris or somewhere in Switzerland. Then they would discuss it and decide whether it were true. So you see, the religion of science would have to be the final word. Whoops, I guess I was describing how the church would, "prove," it.

There is no way to prove something other than the scientific method!!!!!!

The scientific method IS NOT a series of steps. It is ANY method that proves something. It can be double blind studies. It can be mathematical proofs. It can be experimentation. It can be observation. 

Definition of Science. (from an arbitrary source; Dictionary.com)
1.
a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws:
eg.the mathematical sciences.
2.
systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.
3.
any of the branches of natural or physical science.
4.
systematized knowledge in general.
5.
knowledge, as of facts or principles; knowledge gained by systematic study.
6.
a particular branch of knowledge.
7.
skill, especially reflecting a precise application of facts or principles; proficiency.

My point with the definition is that "proof," and "science" are bound together. Its just the way it is.

There is no "proof" that is strictly religious. You can say otherwise all you want but it won't make it true.

Its only "proved" by definition, through science. "Proof," in the English language, only has meaning through science.

What about that don't you understand.

There can be "facts" without science. Although you could use science to verify them. But there is NO proof. Without science. Give me an example otherwise. Of something that has been proved (to all of us) that has not undergone one of the definitions above.

No more debate, just give me an example.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 26, 2015)

rJames @ Thu Mar 26 said:


> Oh Dave, Dave, Dave.
> 
> Describe for me how this mythical religion that we are hypothesizing about proved that there are parallel dimensions. Its a parallel dimension so we can't perceive it, we can't sense it.


That is an unprovable statement scientifically speaking. You can only say that YOU can't perceive it or science cannot measure or prove it satisfactorily or at least hasn't yet. The fact that it's beyond science is nothing new: so is anything prior to the big bang. Just because science cannot perceive whatever dimensions existed before the big bang doesn't mean they don't exist. They are beyond the scope of science. Nothing mythological about that - it is beyond the purview of science. Refute that logic please.

Mythical religion? There are thousands who believe in various dimensions. What do you think New Agers and astral planes or the countless faiths that belief in Heaven or Hell or the Hades of the Romans or whatever the Aborigines believe and on and on. These peoples have simply believed in other worlds or dimensions or afterlives or whatever you want to call it. Science has not negated that possibility even to the smallest degree.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 26, 2015)

Ron I read your full post. I understand all that. You are stating the criteria by which _Science_ approaches and considers any area of knowledge that it can deal with empirically. Along with that are the attendant semantics which are basically intractable in order to make the system consistent and unassailable by nonscientific considerations. It MUST function that way or it becomes unreliable and a sort of free for all that begins to blend into philosophy or belief. Totally fine. I have zero issue with that. That is as it should be. 

Science cannot however, disprove things that are not subject to it's view. It cannot prove it is capable of addressing or even being workable in every dimension. It is not entirely workable here. It's brilliant right up to the Big Bang but deaf and mute to anything prior. Isn't that a scientific fact? If it is, then it is proven that science is helpless in a single area which allows the logic of saying it may be helpless in more than one area.


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## Ed (Mar 27, 2015)

Has there ever been a time where a method other than science has lead to verifiable results?

Has there ever been a time where assuming a supernatural explanation has lead to verifiable increase in knowledge?

The answer is no. Until this happens it's all just feels. There's nothing wrong with not knowing, but there is a lot wrong with pretending you do. Just because something has been believed for a long time doesn't mean it is more factual. If you can't show it you can't claim to know it. There is a reason why faith is the anthesis of science, but is the bedrock of every religious/new age belief system.


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## gsilbers (Mar 27, 2015)

another bump for linda goodman's sun signs book. 
if you want to learn what astrology is really about. that book will help.


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## SergeD (Mar 27, 2015)

rJames @ Thu Mar 26 said:


> Serge, you're taking offense to my humor?
> Ron



Sorry Ron, I just pointed out that my comments were not related to stars. On a forum we're a bit autistic, since it is impossible to interpret facial expressions. At least my reply demonstrated that non-matter (your post) can impact matter (my physiological reaction)!

Newton, Kepler, and Galileo studied astrology and I do not believe that these brilliant minds in the field of science could have been so naive. It may even be that such a form of activity allowed them to fuel their research in the understanding of the physical world.


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## rJames (Mar 27, 2015)

Hey Serge, no problem. I was trying to be ludicrous. Obviously, I'm not intelligent enough to do it well. :D 

It was just my way to enter the discussion and I just chose your words because they had less to do with Astrology than other posts. I have no idea what you are talking about even though when I was much younger I loved to read about the unfathomable.

In my prime I would have brought up the quark that they call "strangeness."

Which brings me to Dave. They called it strangeness because of its unpredictable behavior or its inability to be found or something like that.

Science is well aware of its limitations. Science can't prove God's existence or non-existence. I think it is a fair statement to say that it is almost impossible to disprove something using science. You can prove some things up to an infinite point but you can't prove that something just beyond that won't disprove your proof.

You can't (you shouldn't) discount science because it doesn't have all the answers.

Unless you have a better theory, the big bang stands. That's science. When more information comes in, the theory gets closer to complete. It doesn't affect us anyway unless we want to believe an alternate theory. Then, you need to evaluate. But the evaluation can't be, "I like this one more, it makes me more comfortable." Well, you can do that but I for one would rather live with an uncomfortable truth than a comfortable lie.

I don't believe in a God that will help my team win today's football game or that he will help our troops defeat the infidels. That is just too small for a God that created (or is) an entire universe. 

I like religion. It helps to keep people in check who might just run amok if they were not threatened with hell.

I can't conceive of a God who would let a child be born into excruciating circumstances, give him 80 years to realize that there is a loving, caring God in heaven OR send him to hell for eternity. Talk about ludicrous. 

But its also hard to imagine what was just beyond the big bang. What's on the other side? And if its another singularity exploding out the other way forming a universe, what happened before that all started?

Still not going to pray to God to help me get that gig. He's too busy doing everything or maybe nothing. That doesn't mean that though doesn't affect matter or circumstances. 

Science, as we know it, (can't tell you about science throughout the universe) is only 2,000, 4,000, 10,000 years old. What will science clarify in the next 20,000 years?

But, as defined, it will be science that clarifies.

BTW if we look at our bodies outside of time, that is, if time is a dimension... step back and look at your timeless body. It is a long wormlike thing that starts at your birth or conception and is, at once, everywhere you've ever been. The times are not discreet but connected so if I drove to LA my body stretches to LA. Put that body onto an earth that is hurtling through space, interwoven with all the other bodies on the earth and stretching back in time, connected to our mothers, our mothers mothers and so on, even to the particles that make us... its all connected if we look at time simultaneously. The universe is made up of these amazing tendrils that stretch back to the big bang. Step back further and look at the object that is the universe. What the hell is that thing?


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## Dave Connor (Mar 27, 2015)

Ron, what I am saying is that the concepts of other dimensions and consciousness existing in those realms strikes me as a highly scientific proposition. Why must that be a religious concept? What about an atheist who theorizes that it may be probable from a statistical viewpoint. Must we label the poor fellow as religious? I am not talking about God in all this. I'm talking about the scientific nature of the universe and that the religious and non-religious may have concepts about other dimensions that are beyond science's ability to prove or disprove. That does not make them less scientific in nature and often times are perfectly logical assumptions such as life on other planets.


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## rJames (Mar 27, 2015)

Dave... then we agree.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 27, 2015)

rJames @ Fri Mar 27 said:


> Dave... then we agree.



Amen brother ; )


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## Ed (Mar 27, 2015)

Serge, brilliant minds can still be wrong about some things and right about others. There's plenty of scientists that have had a great positive effect on our collective knowledge but still held to irrational beliefs. Newton believed in alchemy as well. Do you? Maybe a silly question, you probably do. 

It doesn't matter if you believe something, it matters why you believe it. It doesn't matter if you are smart or have been correct in the past unless you can demonstrate a good reason for anyone else to believe it as well then it just doesn't matter. Your feelings don't matter, unless what you want to be true is more important to you than what is actually true

Ps. The notion of other dimensions as a consequence of quantum physics doesn't give us free reign to make up whatever we like. Something like Astrology doesn't suddenly become scientific because concepts in quantum physics sound like science fiction to you.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 27, 2015)

> Is there any other way than the scientific method to prove something objective?





> There could be a thousand different ways Nick. Science hasn't proved it's the only way. A few hundred years of a methodology of proving something as factual in a singular dimension or even a few different dimensions doesn't strike me as some slam dunk on reality and what it actually is. Even so science is finding out that things are behaving wildly different than they can predict in quantum physics etc. Science hasn't convinced me it's able to solve all mysteries or that the mysterious is strictly the domain of religion - that's a philosophical concept.. They haven't even convinced me there's nothing to a native American rain dance or countless other mysteries. It is an admittedly limited area. There are topics they won't even touch which doesn't make them untouchable in other ways.



This is going around in circles.

Lots of things can't or haven't yet been explained "by science." Lots of things can still be ruled out because they're blatant bullshit - like rain dances, I'm afraid. 

(That is, if you're expecting it to change the weather. It may have spiritual benefits, but that's something else.)


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## Dave Connor (Mar 27, 2015)

Because science has failed to explain so many things that are experiential and repeatable Nick, it does not confer upon it an ultimate stature in the acceptance or dismissal of countless phenomena.

A story: After a performance (of Shakespeare?) directed by Orson Wells using an all black cast of which numerous Haitians were employed, the performance was savaged by a local critic in New York. The response was for a number of these performers to stay up all night and perform a ritual including beating drums and various curses in order to kill the man who wrote the article. He was dead within hours. As John Houseman told the story, Wells was completely convinced it was due to the ritual against the man. Orson Wells is one of the most intelligent people to ever muse on any subject that I have ever heard. His stature as true genius established when he was in his 20's. An artist of the highest order with supreme gifts in theatre and film. If a guy with that level of intelligence can so thoroughly accept something I would be very careful of accusing him of being full of shit. Would you accuse him of that?


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## Ed (Mar 27, 2015)

Dave Connor @ Fri Mar 27 said:


> 7An artist of the highest order with supreme gifts in theatre and film. If a guy with that level of intelligence can so thoroughly accept something I would be very careful of accusing him of being full of [email protected]#t. Would you accuse him of that?



Um, absolutely yes. A thousand times yes. "Brilliant minds" can and do believe stupid OR just wrong things all the time. 

Thats the thing about science, the human mind can be deceived and deluded by feelings and emotions. The scientific method allows us to step back and see the big picture. It doesn't allow your emotions and feelings to cloud your judgment because it relies on evidence. If you have ever seen the amount of research and testing that the pharmaceutical industry needs to go through to bring a new drug to market you might understand this. You wouldn't trust a doctor telling you to take a cancer treatment where the only evidence is a few people that really really believe it works, but where there is no evidence otherwise, or where all the tests that have been done show no evidence it works at all.

It doesn't matter if there is something science can't explain, that doesn't mean we are at all justified in dreaming things up just to fill the gap.


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## Hannes_F (Mar 27, 2015)

Ed @ Fri Mar 27 said:


> It doesn't matter if you believe something



Ed, your general grasp about science is right according to school knowledge ... but especially in regards to that point there is room for more, on several levels, and even according to scientific evidence. Just saying ... not enough time right now for references, sorry ...


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 27, 2015)

Orson Welles was intelligent therefore death by drum beating and curses is repeatable?

Not according to my astrologer.


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## SergeD (Mar 27, 2015)

Ed @ Fri Mar 27 said:


> Serge, brilliant minds can still be wrong about some things and right about others. There's plenty of scientists that have had a great positive effect on our collective knowledge but still held to irrational beliefs.



It seems logical to me Ed. These three scientists have irrational beliefs in astrology, but it is rational to say, without having studied astrology, that astrology is based on no logical premise.

Alchemy was a fad until one discovers that the stars are alchemists, as well as meteorites. One day technology, with sufficient energy, will be able to transmute lead into gold.


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## gbar (Mar 27, 2015)

SergeD @ Fri Mar 27 said:


> Ed @ Fri Mar 27 said:
> 
> 
> > Serge, brilliant minds can still be wrong about some things and right about others. There's plenty of scientists that have had a great positive effect on our collective knowledge but still held to irrational beliefs.
> ...



Uhh, yeah, Astrology has no scientific basis. None, nada, zip, zilch. It evolved from scientifically naive religions/cultures that believed the stars were gods or angels who influenced events here on Earth.



As for brilliant scientists who go psychoceramic (psychoceramics is the fictional study of cracked pots).... there's even a diagnosis/category for people who earn a Nobel Prize in Science and then become crackpots and raving loons.


http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nobel_disease

The Nobel disease is a term used to describe a phenomenon in which Nobel Prize-winning scientists endorse or perform "research" in pseudoscientific areas in their later years. In reality, this "disease" most likely demonstrates that even the most brilliant people are not immune to crank ideas and belief in such ideas will persist to some degree even among Nobelists. It also makes for a convenient argument from authority for lesser cranks, because if a Nobel Prize-winning scientist says it, it must be true!


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## Dave Connor (Mar 27, 2015)

Ed @ Fri Mar 27 said:


> Um, absolutely yes. A thousand times yes. "Brilliant minds" can and do believe stupid OR just wrong things all the time.


I don't know if _belief_ is the right word in Mr. Wells' case. He witnessed something and drew a conclusion which he probably didn't associate with his intellect. In fact he was probably convinced against his own intellect. But he was smart enough to know that not everything can be ruled on by science.

The number of peoples and cultures that have practices that make no sense to the modern western mind is many thousand for many thousand years. For them to be indicted by following generations as delusional in the name of objective science when that same science is incapable of reaching back and examining each culture in controlled scientific experiments is unscientific. To become a grand inquisitor against them in the name of science is a religious posture convinced of it's righteous cause but without any scientific proof.


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## Ed (Mar 27, 2015)

SergeD @ Fri Mar 27 said:


> Ed @ Fri Mar 27 said:
> 
> 
> > Serge, brilliant minds can still be wrong about some things and right about others. There's plenty of scientists that have had a great positive effect on our collective knowledge but still held to irrational beliefs.
> ...



See this is the problem with modern new age beliefs. They take science and twist it to enough of their own satisfaction that they think can back up their beliefs. That is why they love talking about Quantum Physics because at the quantum level things operate in such bizzare ways, and there are truly amazing consequences of something like String Theory with multiverse and so on. This all sounds like science fiction to most people, and is usually used to try and back up some "magical" belief they have. Twisted far enough you can make "Quantum Physics" appear to back up almost any belief you want. Almost anything seems like it could be true and now see, ithas scientific backing.

Alchemy and what goes on in a star are entirely different things. You can stretch the definition of alchemy to the point where you are not describing what any of those who believed it thought of it as, but this is trying to make beliefs fit reality rather than trying to form your beliefs based on reality. 

I assume the typo in your post above is asking "is" it rational to say that those "3 scientists" that believed in astrology is based on no logical premise. Well yes Sir, it is entirely rational. These scientists could well have had an emotionally invested interest in believing in astrology, whereas for their work we consider them great for did not. 

Consequently unless you are very honest with yourself you will have differing standards of evidence. For example there will be scientists right now working on drugs to cure and treat any number of terrible diseases. They succeed or fail based on the evidence their drug is both safe and works. If they are good at their job they will have exceedingly good attention to detail. They will devise clinical trials to minimise as much as possible their own biases, as well as the patients biases. That is the reason why double blind placebo control studies are really the gold standard. Even here your methodology could lead you astray if you don't take enough care. But even if your own biases or incompetence does lead to inaccurate data and erroneous conclusions, the benefit of science is that others will heavily criticise everything you did wrong. Maybe someone will points out a major flaw and do the test again. This is why I say it doesn't matter what you believe, it only matters if you can demonstrate a valid reason for others to believe it. Especially medically there can be many back and forth conflicting data and results on efficacy and safety of a drug or procedure. 

So is it rational to think the premise of astrology is irrational. Absolutely. Astrology was conceived when we didn't know anything about solar systems or galaxies or what stars were. We felt the cosmos was for our benefit. We can find animals and faces in clouds, and we found images in the stars if you play connect the dots. We can also find a painting of Jesus' face appear on toast sometimes. 

So yes the very premise of astrology goes against everything we know about the universe. Now this need not mean it doesnt necessarily work and if it did we'd sure have to rethink a whole lot of stuff. But there is no evidence astrology works either. The "scientists" that believed or believe in this are either poor scientists, or they have allowed their emotions to be okay with them demanding an exceedingly low level of evidence for astrology compared with a subject they are actually considered to be good at.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 27, 2015)

The ancient Greeks and Romans were proven right over and over that natural events were caused by various gods. Indians dance and it rains, therefore it's been proven that rain dances work. The gods are furious in Hawaii, and that's proven when they vomit fire from the belly of the earth.

Is my western mind, which knows better, just being religious?

Lots of unexplained things also happen, but that just means we don't know the explanation, not that it doesn't exist.


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## Ed (Mar 27, 2015)

Dave Connor @ Fri Mar 27 said:


> Ed @ Fri Mar 27 said:
> 
> 
> > Um, absolutely yes. A thousand times yes. "Brilliant minds" can and do believe stupid OR just wrong things all the time.
> ...



If I witnessed something that went against everything we know about the laws of the universe I would assume I was operating under a delusion, or I would never expect anyone else to just believe me on faith. In fact I would feel bad if someone did believe what I said I had experienced on faith.

I asked the question before: When has assuming a supernatural explanation lead to a demonstrable verifiable increase in our knowledge? When has any method other than the scientific one led to any verifiable increase in our knowledge?

There is nothing you can point to. What is left will be an unknown, and it is okay to not know. But there is still no good reason to imagine and dream up our own explanations just to fill that gap. Especially no justification to then claim doing so is being able to do something science cannot. Making things up is not increasing knowledge it is self delusion.


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## gbar (Mar 28, 2015)

I think Cicero is the first documented example of somebody calling this one :

_"What utter madness in these astrologers, in considering the effect of the vast, slow movements and change in the heavens, to assume that wind and rain have no effect at birth!" _ -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, 44 B.C.E.


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## SergeD (Mar 28, 2015)

Ed @ Sat Mar 28 said:


> That is why they love talking about Quantum Physics because at the quantum level things operate in such bizzare ways, and there are truly amazing consequences of something like String Theory with multiverse and so on.



Wow, I have to be thrown in the paddy wagon with other new age visionaries, in a quantum world tangled in the string theory.

Yet I say again that if the seasons affect human behavior, it is plausible that this influence is manifest from the child's birth, and an astrological interpretation of this cycle of seasons is nothing foolish.

My approach is perfectly honest because I offered to people on this forum to make a list of their best childhood friends and verify the occurrence of some signs. Then, it is easy to validate or invalidate my statements. This is a scientific approach, at a small scale I agree, that perfectly meets the rules of the art.

Now, say that Nostradamus and daily horoscopes are for nonsense and I will fully agree with you. But if you answer that my proposal is ridiculous, then you speak of science without understanding its meaning.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 28, 2015)

Ed @ Fri Mar 27 said:


> I asked the question before: When has assuming a supernatural explanation lead to a demonstrable verifiable increase in our knowledge?


Your question is full of assumption: i.e. the explanation is _supernatural._ Something occurring in nature is by definition _natural._ Every one is in agreement that science cannot explain everything and so it is not a religion. People keep applying it to things as if it were. We are talking about the _unexplainable_ not the supernatural. However people keep saying, _That can't be explained! So it's not scientific!_ They fail to realize that thunder and lightening were once in that category. There are still things that are a mystery to us as thunder and lightening once were. Yet we rail against them because we _assume_ they are not scientific. That is still guesswork and therefore not scientific. They assume that unexplainable things are not scientific in nature but of course they are - they exist in our world, which is scientific from top to bottom.


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## gbar (Mar 28, 2015)

What would it take to falsify a claim? Ask yourself that.

Because I can assure you the entire epistemology of various schools of Astrology have been examined in pretty much every way possible where falsification is possible and have been falsified.

It is what it is.

Rational Wiki has an article dedicated to this if you are interested:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Astrology


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## Dave Connor (Mar 28, 2015)

gbar @ Sat Mar 28 said:


> What would it take to falsify a claim? Ask yourself that.
> 
> Because I can assure you the entire epistemology of various schools of Astrology have been examined in pretty much every way possible where falsification is possible and have been falsified.
> 
> ...


Sure but I have been speaking about my own personal experience and don't belong to any school so the findings don't apply to me and who knows how many other thousands or millions of people. That's one of the limitations of science. It cannot for example go back in time and rule on this or that practice that seems to have no scientific basis.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 28, 2015)

It doesn't seem like folks are making the proper inferences in some of things I've mentioned. The Orson Wells story is a perfect example:
Why would the fellows that decided to launch into a ritual in order to kill some guy even have that in their knowledge base? How old was that teaching? What was it's success rate in the past? Like any ritual it would be very specific and carried out to the letter. Incidentally the Soviet Union which advocated atheism as far as religious belief did tons of studies in the seventies on all this stuff. What we would call psychic. It was a very dry scientific study and I couldn't tell you the results but it would be interesting to find out.

Now back to our tribesman who's aim was to curse this fellow into the ground. After they performed the ritual and the fellow died almost immediately, what would be their logical conclusion? That the ritual was successful or that it failed? We're talking pure logic here applied to a _action and result._ The answer is obvious: they set out to achieve a highly specific goal where success is one result and failure is another and succeeded exactly. No foggy compromise here, it's one or the other. More importantly, how many times have they done this before? Or their ancestry? What was the percentage of success? For a ritual to be maintained like that it's doubtful it would survive if it never worked. These boys launched into it with real intention and got their intended results - exactly.

Unless you can provide a study on these people going back centuries then you are facing something that is _unexplainable_ by Science. Not unexplainable by the practitioners because they explained it very well to their own people. If YOU conclude that it is anything but unexplainable then you have left the process of scientific method and are now waxing philosophical or religious or scientific conjecture - fine. But to use the fact that there is such a thing as science to naysay a centuries old practice of a people is not just pitiful science but reactionary in the way religious people react to things that don't line up with their thinking.


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## gbar (Mar 28, 2015)

Whatever floats you boat, but just so you know... the irrational sometimes leads to very bad social outcomes:


Examples of poor outcomes:


In China:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... Virgo.html

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Chinese_astrology

The zodiac year can have a profound effect on birth rates in Chinese communities, which soar during every Year of the Dragon, seen as the most auspicious zodiac symbol (being the only mythical animal in the sequence). Dragon children are believed to embody the best virtues and be blessed with the greatest fortune. The most recent Year of the Dragon began at Chinese New Year 2012.

Conversely, birth rates often plummet during the Year of the Tiger, since Tiger personalities are believed to be headstrong, uncooperative troublemakers. Birth rates in Taiwan hit an all-time low during the most recent Year of the Tiger, in 2010, despite government incentives.[1][2]

Due to the continuing popularity of Chinese astrology, these superstitions can be seen as a self-fulfilling prophesy. A person born in the Year of the Dragon may experience much better fortunes than one born in the Year of the Tiger, if only because of the differences in how people treat them and respond to them throughout their lives. A person born under an inauspicious zodiac sign or combination may be discriminated against in employment, and find it more difficult to find a partner.

Perhaps many of the couples who wanted children but avoided a 2010 birth may not have been influenced by any personal belief in astrology, but knew that any child born in Chinese society that year would have a somewhat tougher life than one born in a different year.
[edit] Fire Horse Women

Perhaps the worst case of the discriminatory zodiac phenomenon is that of the "Fire Horse Women", meaning women born in the Year of the Horse, when Fire is the dominant element. Horse personalities are usually believed to be independent and outgoing, but under the Fire element this turns to unruliness and arrogance. Girls born under this combination are believed to be particularly unlucky, and to bring ruin on their family, as well as their husband (if they are able to find one).[3]

During the last Fire Horse year, in 1966, birth rates dropped dramatically in China, Korea and especially Japan[4][5]. There were also increased abortions, and there is evidence indicating increased rates of female infanticide.[6] Women born in this year were often shunned.

In India:

In January 1962, Indian astrologers predicted a global catastrophe on Sunday 4 February 1962. People took refuge in hills to escape the event. The Maharajah of Sikkim, Palden Thondup Namgyal postponed his marriage to Hope Cooke to 1963 on the advice of some astrologers. Business and travel also slowed down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstiti ... ne_telling
(Note: Some universities in India actually teach Vedic Astrology believe it or not).

Examples of Falsification:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology_and_science


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## Dave Connor (Mar 28, 2015)

gbar @ Sat Mar 28 said:


> Whatever floats you boat, but just so you know... the irrational sometimes leads to very bad social outcomes:


I understand you are deft at linking to wikipedia. If you read my early posts you will see that I advocate an adherence to astrology not at all. That it is a hobby much like flying model airplanes to me (although considerably less harmful and significantly less harmful then your article may suggest.) I have only said that I have been able to discern people's birth sign with uncanny accuracy for decades. It's just silly fun really. I will assume you do not consider having a fun hobby to be irrational.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 28, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Fri Mar 27 said:


> The ancient Greeks and Romans were proven right over and over that natural events were caused by various gods. Indians dance and it rains, therefore it's been proven that rain dances work. The gods are furious in Hawaii, and that's proven when they vomit fire from the belly of the earth.
> 
> Is my western mind, which knows better, just being religious?
> 
> Lots of unexplained things also happen, but that just means we don't know the explanation, not that it doesn't exist.


Very Scholarly Nick!

I trust you understand that taking a nonscientific stance against the unexplainable is akin to religious belief? Sort of like saying,_ You don't have any scientific proof of what you're suggesting! And I don't have any scientific proof you're wrong!_

I think the hostility in people's reactions is what smacks of a belief or tenant they hold being offended. Scientists themselves are the slowest people on earth to react this way. They will immediately categorize this or that proposition as unknowable or unmeasurable with the calm of someone who understands the vast gaps and limitations of man's knowledge. 

I don't think people here realize I'm asking people here to be _more_ scientific not less. Why get all worked up when neither science nor you are able to explain certain phenomena?


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## gsilbers (Mar 28, 2015)

very deep philosophical thoughts about astrology. 

takiing to an arugment to the level of scientific research might be a bit too much. 
Or take as truth , well, same as religion might be too much as well. but taking at a guide on more mundance life ocurrences might be more like it. 

the way i see it is that its like 2 old guys in a small town sitting outside their porch. They are going to know a lot of things of whats happening in the town and with its poeple. because they perceive all thats happenign in that town. 
if you read the linda goodman's sun signs book i keep refering you will read this sort of stuff. not that i will follow what she says, but it gave me more understanding about myself and how or why i would do things i was not aware i was doing that its not common with other poeple. i read other signs and didnt find it as things i did. 

so then, astrology is like those two old men, and it will depend on wich 2 old men and which small town and whats being discussed. someone realized , from perception and reading from previous perception that some people sometimes fall in some patterns. 

nowadays psicology of course made it more sicentific but still astrology is fun. which wont give me the lucky lottery number , the answer to the choice i should make or something bad is going to happen because some star is in the way my planet. 
its just an insight on a person which , as previous persons born in a specific region and time, might follow a common pattern.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 28, 2015)

gsilbers @ Sat Mar 28 said:


> if you read the linda goodman's sun signs book i keep refering you will read this sort of stuff. not that i will follow what she says, but it gave me more understanding about myself and how or why i would do things i was not aware i was doing that its not common with other poeple. i read other signs and didnt find it as things i did.


Yes that's a great book and the one I read to be able to associate various characteristics in people to their sign. It's a lot of fun.


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## Dave Connor (Mar 28, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Fri Mar 27 said:


> Orson Welles was intelligent therefore death by drum beating and curses is repeatable?


Too unscientific a proposition Nick. I truly don't understand why you would argue science without using it's most basic criteria. That is what I mean by a religious tone and viewpoint. You can't _believe_ it and therefore consider it unscientific. Just offer proof on this tribe and their ability to repeat or not the results on this or any practice. You can't and therefore cannot apply scientific method to it. My point in all this.


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## Ed (Mar 28, 2015)

Dave Connor @ Sat Mar 28 said:


> Ed @ Fri Mar 27 said:
> 
> 
> > I asked the question before: When has assuming a supernatural explanation lead to a demonstrable verifiable increase in our knowledge?
> ...



You also skipped everything else I wrote. I should have known I'd fall into the trap of you claiming that astrology is totally natural. But many times it has been suggested that "science can't explain everything" and therefore we can use some other method to explain something. That is why I ask, when has anything other than the scientific method verifiably increased our knowledge? 

You have also been making the argument that if we don't have scientific proof some claim is false, and you have no scientific proof it is true this somehow equalises out and you are just as rational to believe it as I am to disbelieve. Not true. There are an infinite number of things that could be possible but they can't all be true. But unless you have a good reason for anyone to believe something, that's a very good reason not to believe it. Astrology fails not only for having absolutely no valid evidence it works, but because it's very premise is false. You will never be able to come up with an argument that makes astrology anything other than a faith based belief. If the premise is evidentially false and it fails all properly controlled tests we have no reason to believe it.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 28, 2015)

Dave, if drum beating and curses works, there's a cold, hard reason and scientific method would absolutely apply to it.

I've had a couple of experiences that seem "beyond science" myself. For example, one time I was walking up the driveway to my parents' house, and I sensed strongly someone had died; when I went around back, I saw my mom's face through the window and knew it for sure. It was an uncle (actually an "uncle") I'd been very close to.

To me it's obvious I have a connection to my mom that can't be explained by the five senses. But it's 100% real, and when you think about it, it makes sense that it would exist. It would be no surprise if many animals have the same thing.

So I could come up with any kind of story you want to explain what happened. My uncle was reaching out from the beyond. I shouldn't have been playing drums and swearing the night before. Whatever. Every explanation would be ludicrous!

The simple point is that unknown just means "not known," it doesn't mean "therefore every implausible explanation deserves to be taken seriously," nor does it necessarily mean "unknowable forever."


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 28, 2015)

And by the way that's why I always say that religious orientations are all just different ways of looking at the same things.

We all see the magic of it all, the human spirit, life force, and so on. Whether it's God or whether it just evolved and isn't separate from live beings (which is what I believe), it's real.


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## Hannes_F (Mar 28, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Sat Mar 28 said:


> And by the way that's why I always say that religious orientations are all just different ways of looking at the same things.
> 
> We all see the magic of it all, the human spirit, life force, and so on. Whether it's God or whether it just evolved and isn't separate from live beings (which is what I believe), it's real.



I like the spirit of this :idea: 

Ha ...


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## Dave Connor (Mar 28, 2015)

Ed @ Sat Mar 28 said:


> Dave Connor @ Sat Mar 28 said:
> 
> 
> > Ed @ Fri Mar 27 said:
> ...


You missed the essence of my remarks on astrology. I simply stated that I personally (as well as many other people I have known) have quite easily been able tell what a person's sign is. This with an uncanny accuracy for decades on end. That unless you test every person who claims that, the science by it's own criteria is incomplete. So if you go back a half a century and say,_ We have tested one hundred thousand human beings and not one has been capable of running the mile in under four minutes. We have therefore determined it is beyond the scope of human ability._ Even if that number was one billion the science would be incomplete and then proved errant by the one guy who finally came along and broke the limitation.

The premise of your question about scientific method being the only thing able to increase our knowledge seems grossly flawed to me. It leaves out imagination, intuition, the dream, the concept and whatever else. These are usually necessary before science can even be applied to them. Just because science within the construct of a highly orderly (scientific) universe is found in nearly every equation and can offer study-able properties doesn't negate the other parts of the equation. 

[/u][/i]My answer is there are huge areas of knowledge that originated from a creative impulse that cannot be measured or captured. Science may follow and analyze da Vinci's pigments and brush strokes or Bach counterpoint but the scientific method doesn't begin to penetrate or explain the knowledge being displayed. _Knowledge_ is probably not even the right word: the spirit or personality of the person. The creativity that's on display. People learn completely intangible things from others. Someone will say, _Yes he learned how to build a beautiful violin from the master but never quite had the same touch or same result. Why not if there is only scientific method?_


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## Dave Connor (Mar 28, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Sat Mar 28 said:


> Dave, if drum beating and curses works, there's a cold, hard reason and scientific method would absolutely apply to it.
> 
> I've had a couple of experiences that seem "beyond science" myself. For example, one time I was walking up the driveway to my parents' house, and I sensed strongly someone had died; when I went around back, I saw my mom's face through the window and knew it for sure. It was an uncle (actually an "uncle") I'd been very close to.
> 
> ...



Nick I appreciate that you replied with sincerity. It really added something to the discussion. I have had similar experiences. If we add up all the experience mankind has logged over millennia that cannot be explained by science it seems almost a childlike proposition to rationally conclude large areas of knowledge and experience outside of science's grasp. Presently anyway.


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