How to prove that GOD exists from a scientific point of view?

[AV1611VET]

'The real world' is a descriptive model ...

Who's doing the posing?

 

[SelfSim]

Who's doing the posing?

'Posing'?
Elaborate please.

 

[AV1611VET]

'Posing'?
Elaborate please.

If just the physical world is doing the posing, that makes scientists smile.

But if someone suggests there's another world, much larger and much more populous, that makes scientists scowl.

And where the two worlds interface -- like on courthouse lawns, or in churches, or car bumpers -- that throws scientists into denial.

 

[SelfSim]

If just the physical world is doing the posing, that makes scientists smile.

But if someone suggests there's another world, much larger and much more populous, that makes scientists scowl.

Let me give an example of how your (& @Mountainmike's) idea of the existence of 'another world beyond' is really just an article of faith in a believed-in model:

Imagine two electricians. They both have to make the lights go on in a house.
One relies on the existence of a 'world beyond science's electricity models' because they have faith in that: "its true".
The other uses the same model because it has proven to make lights come on, but is well aware it is a model and does not think it 'refers to a something' beyond a model.

Do you really think there's any demonstrable difference there, in how they get the lights on?

So if you think there is a difference, it is purely because of some article of faith of yours in the belief of the existence of a 'world beyond science's electricity models'. I see no difference, other than that one person likes to believe in that, (because they can't demonstrate it exists), and the other does not add that article of faith, knowing that it has no evidence-based effect on getting the lights on.

Nope .. but they both end up smiling .. because they got the lights on.

 

[AV1611VET]

Imagine two electricians. They both have to make the lights go on in a house.
One relies on the existence of a 'world beyond science's electricity models' because they have faith in that: "its true".
The other uses the same model because it has proven to make lights come on, but is well aware it is a model and does not think it 'refers to a something' beyond a model.

Lights?

QV please:

In 1920, Edison spoke to American Magazine, saying that he had been working on a device for some time to see if it was possible to communicate with the dead. Edison said the device would work on scientific principles not by an occult means. The announcement caused a press heyday, though the actual nature of this invention remained a mystery, as there were no details for some time. Until In 2015, Philippe Baudouin, a French journalist, found a copy of Edison's Diary in a thrift store with a chapter not found in the previously published editions. The new chapter details Edison's theories of the afterlife and the scientific basis by which communication with them might be achieved.

SOURCE

Thomas Edison failed to establish communication with the dead by scientific means, but his belief in the spirit world DID NOT PREVENT him from inventing the light bulb, did it?

 

[Kylie]

I disagree.

Academia would find a way to dispute it, if not only on paper.

How could it?

The Bible says that is a person with even the smallest amount of faith pray for a mountain to move from one place to another, then it will happen. If pray actually moved Mount Everest from Nepal to outback Australia, how is academia going to say it didn't happen?

Have you ever seen my Apple Challenge?

That thread, which no longer is accessible, is my magnum opus here; with my Raisin Bread Challenge a close second.

You mean THIS inaccessible thread?

And, since you claim that creation ex nihilo leaves no evidence, and yet I distinctly remember reading a response to that claim in which someone pointed out that it would increase the energy in the universe, I thin k it's safe to say that the challenge failed.

Only on paper.

Please then, show me a case where it succeeded in reality.

They'd be firewalled.

Don't believe me?

Let's hear the academic technobabble as to how a miracle didn't occur in 1948 with Israel becoming a nation again in fulfillment of a major prophecy.

Oh, don't get me started on prophecies. I hereby make a prophecy that my husband will go to work tomorrow. Will you call me a prophet if my prophecy comes to pass? I doubt it. If you won't accept my prophecy as valid, why should I accept yours?

 

[Kylie]

As mentioned there is no scientific test you can do at the moment. But the questions I asked you were like a test, just a different kind of test to determine things and help understand what I was saying.

So if there are no studies, you are completely unjustified in calling them "FACTS", aren't you?

 

[stevevw]

So if there are no studies, you are completely unjustified in calling them "FACTS", aren't you?

Ok then another simple question that may help. How do you scientifically test say 'love', 'pain' or maybe 'happiness'.

 

[stevevw]

And, since you claim that creation ex nihilo leaves no evidence, and yet I distinctly remember reading a response to that claim in which someone pointed out that it would increase the energy in the universe, I thin k it's safe to say that the challenge failed.

Sorry just had to jump in here as a thought struck me. The creation of the universe would only be an increase in energy if there was some energy already in existence because creation from nothing 'if we really mean nothing' will also create the energy. There is no comparison of measure to determine any increase.

As far as I understand all the energy of the universe was contained in the singularity. Which according to the materialist view was the result of a multiverse or some other unknown source of energy. But then this leads to an infinite regress where at some point new energy had to be introduced from nothing.

 

[stevevw]

Since the first goal in science goal is to understand, and the simplest theory that agrees with data is the best path to understanding, then that's clearly the best theory.

If that's the case then the idea that correlations between the brain activity and consciousness fail because they don't give us any understanding of consciousness at all just a description of how the brain acts during consciousness.

Saying that certain brain states create consciousness don't work either. That's like suggesting that when material process reach a certain configuration they magically create some extra non material aspect of reality.

At least in the case of some of the ideas posed such as Mind is fundamental or consciousness is some sort of force or field beyond brain in the universe are trying to increase understanding. But they also offer a simple solution to the problems faced by the materialist explanations such as with QM.

 

[stevevw]

If we are the product of mindless and inanimate matter then somewhere along the line the spark of life had to occur. Somewhere along the line consciousness had to come about from mindless matter. The simplest and most elegant explanation is that this spark of life and Mind/consciousness has always been there as a fundamental part of reality.

You can't scientifically test that but then science is not meant to test this aspect of life for which we all know is real. So the simplest and most elegant explanation is that there are real things in life that are beyond what science can tell us. That's if you want to say that our intuitive sense that our conscious state says something real is an illusion. But then that's just a rejection of ones own Mind.

 

[Astrid]

If we are the product of mindless and inanimate matter then somewhere along the line the spark of life had to occur. Somewhere along the line consciousness had to come about from mindless matter. The simplest and most elegant explanation is that this spark of life and Mind/consciousness has always been there as a fundamental part of reality.

You can't scientifically test that but then science is not meant to test this aspect of life for which we all know is real. So the simplest and most elegant explanation is that there are real things in life that are beyond what science can tell us. That's if you want to say that our intuitive sense that our conscious state says something real is an illusion. But then that's just a rejection of ones own Mind.

The Spark of life?
The Grim Spectre of Vitalism
rises yet again like some shameful
electrified corpse?

That's Medieval stuff.

Yet you say it has to be.

 

[Astrid]

If that's the case then the idea that correlations between the brain activity and consciousness fail because they don't give us any understanding of consciousness at all just a description of how the brain acts during consciousness.

Saying that certain brain states create consciousness don't work either. That's like suggesting that when material process reach a certain configuration they magically create some extra non material aspect of reality.

At least in the case of some of the ideas posed such as Mind is fundamental or consciousness is some sort of force or field beyond brain in the universe are trying to increase understanding. But they also offer a simple solution to the problems faced by the materialist explanations such as with QM.

It increases " understanding" to assume things that cannot
in any way demonstrated or studied. Really?

It is, btw, hardly a revelation that much has always
been beyond human understanding. Cave men noticed that.
It's still the case.
Prophesy about what will always be beyond grasp are
frivolous and unhelpful.
Heavier than air flight used to be impossible.

 

[stevevw]

There isn't yet an evolutionary explanation for precisely how consciousness is achieved, but there are plausible explanations for why it has evolved, and a fairly clear evolutionary sequence of its development - that can be traced in extant life, e.g. mammals & birds.

The problem is to identify the adaptive benefit of consciousness the relationship between the brain, behavior and consciousness has to be understood. This is tightly linked to the mind-body problem. To explain the evolution of consciousness we would need to solve the 'Hard problem'. So any claims about the evolution of consciousness at this stage are falsifiable.
The Mind-Evolution Problem: The Difficulty of Fitting Consciousness in an Evolutionary Framework

By that view anything we do, from bricklaying to accountancy, is inseparable from philosophy and has a philosophical position - because philosophy is about what we do and the world we do it in.

Also our beliefs our assumptions about the fundamental nature of the world we do things in.

But generally, we don't treat a subject as philosophical unless it requires some philosophical thought (probably most common in the medical, social, and biological sciences, where ethics is an important consideration), but bricklayers don't need to ponder the material reality and solidity of bricks and mortar, and accountants don't need to ponder whether numbers exist or were invented or discovered. Likewise, most scientists don't need to ponder the metaphysics of their work.

As mentioned it involves our beliefs and assumptions about the world. We cannot separate ourselves from the equation and we cannot get outside our minds to know reality.

Science takes the naturalistic and materialist view of the world/reality without scientific justification which makes it a metaphysical belief and therefore a philosophy of life.

No, it's a semantic distinction - the phantom pain of an amputated leg is real pain experientially, but one can say that it's an illusion because it isn't what it seems to be.

But its the experience of pain itself that we need to address. That is real and it seems to show if anything that our Minds are not reducible to the brain mechanisms as we can override them to create phantom pain.

We can experience things without actually being in a physical/objective state and we can change and create physical states with our mind. That our conscious/mind states exist prior to physical states and are the filter or gateway for everything that happens. Therefore are fundamental.

We don't see the world as objects first. We see the mental concept we place on them according to our experience of them. So we don't see the block of metal moving around the streets. We see a bus, what that represents to mental meaning. We map the world this way.

Material naturalism is an attempt to quantify the world where as our conscious experience of the world is direct to as as it happens without introducing material mechanisms which are beyond Mind therefore more fundamental.

Of course, but unless you can derive a plausible hypothesis from existing knowledge (e.g. scientific theories) or, better still, you have reliable evidence supporting such a hypothesis, what that more fundamental reality might be is pure speculation.

We already have this evidence with quantum physics. We know at the fundamental level that the world we see is not actually how things work in the classical sense.

Any understanding about fundamental reality need to include the subject. Interpretations that include the observer participating in understanding reality seem to offer the best explanations.

What 'other aspect'?

The aspect from the subjects conscious experience of the objective world. The bus represents the material world, an object moving in time and space. But the subjects experience of these objects reveals a deeper level to the world where objects become concepts which have meaning and value as far as how the world works from a qualitative value.

This is as important if no more in understanding reality as the subjects Mind can actually change the physical world as well in that its not just about the objective outer world but the subjective inner world. Science can only tell us about the outer world. We still have to include the inner world if we want a complete understanding.

Again you're begging the question by assuming that consciousness is outside or beyond a 'material schema of reality'. I suggest you material schema of reality is too simple.

The same can be said for the materialist view. But I think as far as subjective experience itself and not the material natural mechanisms a immaterial or supernatural explanation seems to fit as the Mind concepts for the metal objects cannot be reduced to brain mechanisms.

I don't think science even knows itself where the line is for material and immaterial or natural and supernatural. But if methodological naturalism isolates the supernatural from the natural then how can it claim that reality is fundamentally matter and there are no immaterial or supernatural influences.

 

[Astrid]

The problem is to identify the adaptive benefit of consciousness the relationship between the brain, behavior and consciousness has to be understood. This is tightly linked to the mind-body problem. To explain the evolution of consciousness we would need to solve the 'Hard problem'. So any claims about the evolution of consciousness at this stage are falsifiable.
The Mind-Evolution Problem: The Difficulty of Fitting Consciousness in an Evolutionary Framework
Also our beliefs our assumptions about the fundamental nature of the world we do things in. As mentioned it involves our beliefs and assumptions about the world. We cannot separate ourselves from the equation and we cannot get outside our minds to know reality.

Science takes the naturalistic and materialist view of the world/reality without scientific justification which makes it a metaphysical belief and therefore a philosophy of life.

But its the experience of pain itself that we need to address. That is real and it seems to show if anything that our Minds are not reducible to the brain mechanisms as we can override them to create phantom pain.

We can experience things without actually being in a physical/objective state and we can change and create physical states with our mind. That our conscious/mind states exist prior to physical states and are the filter or gateway for everything that happens. Therefore are fundamental.

We don't see the world as objects first. We see the mental concept we place on them according to our experience of them. So we don't see the block of metal moving around the streets. We see a bus, what that represents to mental meaning. We map the world this way.

Material naturalism is an attempt to quantify the world where as our conscious experience of the world is direct to as as it happens without introducing material mechanisms which are beyond Mind therefore more fundamental.

We already have this evidence with quantum physics. We know at the fundamental level that the world we see is not actually how things work in the classical sense.

Any understanding about fundamental reality need to include the subject. Interpretations that include the observer participating in understanding reality seem to offer the best explanations.

The aspect from the subjects conscious experience of the objective world. The bus represents the material world, an object moving in time and space. But the subjects experience of these objects reveals a deeper level to the world where objects become concepts which have meaning and value as far as how the world works from a qualitative value.

This is as important if no more in understanding reality as the subjects Mind can actually change the physical world as well in that its not just about the objective outer world but the subjective inner world. Science can only tell us about the outer world. We still have to include the inner world if we want a complete understanding.

The same can be said for the materialist view. But I think as far as subjective experience itself and not the material natural mechanisms a immaterial or supernatural explanation seems to fit as the Mind concepts for the metal objects cannot be reduced to brain mechanisms.

I don't think science even knows itself where the line is for material and immaterial or natural and supernatural. But if methodological naturalism isolates the supernatural from the natural then how can it claim that reality is fundamentally matter and there are no immaterial or supernatural influences.

So tell us what "consciousness" is, if
you know these things.

And be sure to say if frogs and flatworms
are conscious.

And speak for yourself about " assumptions",
and what " we" do.

But speaking of " we", we have heard ad nauseum about
your thoughts on "material ( sic) naturalism.
It deletes enthusiasm for wading thro the post for
something sensible and not more of the same old same.

Your " consciousness" is a lot like yours
"Spark of life", being quasi- religious
notions sans any evidence of their existence.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Ok then another simple question that may help. How do you scientifically test say 'love', 'pain' or maybe 'happiness'.

Why don't you try a search engine yourself instead of relying on us? Some, if not all, of those things are measured by psychology using standard methods.

 

[dlamberth]

Why don't you try a search engine yourself instead of relying on us? Some, if not all, of those things are measured by psychology using standard methods.

I think he asked a great question. I'd like to see it answered.

 

[dlamberth]

Your " consciousness" is a lot like yours
"Spark of life", being quasi- religious
notions sans any evidence of their existence.

It's only quasi-religious in the sense that it's a mystery.

 

[AV1611VET]

I think he asked a great question. I'd like to see it answered.

If it can't be tested in a lab, it is to be treated as blab.

 

[Hans Blaster]

I think he asked a great question. I'd like to see it answered.

The you should look forward (like I do) to Steve looking these things up and reporting back to us. I might have had some clue about them, but it has been more than 30 years since I took psychology in HS.