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

[AV1611VET]

So, just to clarify:

Reality is not always real.

That is correct.

 

[Kylie]

That is correct.

Reality, the thing which by its very definition is the only real thing, is sometimes wrong.

Take a moment and think about that, would you?

 

[AV1611VET]

Reality, the thing which by its very definition is the only real thing, is sometimes wrong.

Take a moment and think about that, would you?

I already did ... and rejected it in favor of looking at it from your myopic standpoint.

If you'd like me to take the stance of reality from God's point-of-view, you're going to have to do some major rethinking.

Science's [paper] reality doesn't compare to this universe as it really is.

 

[dlamberth]

Science's [paper] reality doesn't compare to this universe as it really is.

Nor does religion.

 

[stevevw]

Let me repeat myself, since you seem incapable of answering the question that I actually asked.

Then you should have no problem providing the scientific studies that were done to establish those facts.

Its not a case of scientific studies but of common sense and logic like you can't put a square peg in a round hole. Its self-evident. Let me ask you some questions that may reveal this

Do you agree or disagree that direct conscious experience can only understood from the subject that is having the experience.

Do you agree or disagree that conscious experience is subjective.

Do you agree or disagree that something subjective cannot be objectively studied or tested.

The answer to these questions should tell you whether we can even perform scientific tests but also prove or disprove my point that understanding subjective conscious experience is beyond science itself.

Galileo’s declaration that mathematics was to be the language of the new science that the new science was to have a purely quantitative vocabulary. But Galileo realized that you can’t capture consciousness in these terms, as consciousness is an essentially quality-involving phenomenon.
This is really important, because although the problem of consciousness is taken seriously, most people assume our conventional scientific approach is capable of solving it.

Yes, physical science has been incredibly successful. But it’s been successful precisely because it was designed to exclude consciousness.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-consciousness-pervade-the-universe/

 

[SelfSim]

Do you agree or disagree that direct conscious experience can only understood from the subject that is having the experience.

Disagree. Two or more people often share in-common experiences under the same or similar conditions.

Do you agree or disagree that conscious experience is subjective.

Once described using language, tests can return results upon which common agreement by subjects thinking in similar ways can be reached. This is the objective method. The end results are objective.

Do you agree or disagree that something subjective cannot be objectively studied or tested.

I obviously disagree.

The answer to these questions should tell you whether we can even perform scientific tests but also prove or disprove my point that understanding subjective conscious experience is beyond science itself.

What you're claiming there, is inconsistent with the results of the hypothesis being tested in the above responses.

 

[AV1611VET]

Nor does religion.

I gave you a chance with the Hindu religion's version of creationism, and you pleaded ignorance.

So I'm going to take this remark with a grain of salt.

 

[stevevw]

Reality, the thing which by its very definition is the only real thing, is sometimes wrong.

Take a moment and think about that, would you?

Even science tells us what we think is reality is not actually reality. Science bases reality on something called matter. Matter is a mental concept not an actual thing. We cannot get outside our mind to verify that matter is real.

 

[stevevw]

Disagree. Two or more people often share in-common experiences under the same or similar conditions.
Once described using language, tests can return results upon which common agreement by subjects thinking in similar ways can be reached. This is the objective method. The end results are objective.

That's epistemology not science. The fact that the type of questions we ask are subjective. You can ask different questions about reality and each has no factual basis. Rather they are subjectively determined.

Two people can agree but they don't agree just because they agree. They agree because each persons subjective experience tells them that. But I cannot get inside your head to really verify that is what your thinking. There;s no way to objectively tell. You could be misrepresenting things. Or it could be that though they agree they agree for different subjective reasons.

I obviously disagree.

Why.

What you're claiming there, is inconsistent with the results of the hypothesis being tested in the above responses.

But if that's not objective science then your premise is false. Epistemology doesn't = objective facts. Like methodological naturalism is an agreed method (paradigm) of how we can know reality. But the agreed method is not factually based itself. Its a matter of epistemology.

Others may use another paradigm namely psychology where some think behavior is caused by the physical conditions of body and environment whereas others believe its all in the mental concepts we hold IE what you think, the state of your mind will determine behavior.

 

[dlamberth]

I gave you a chance with the Hindu religion's version of creationism, and you pleaded ignorance.

So I'm going to take this remark with a grain of salt.

Ok.

 

[AV1611VET]

Mine tell me that "god(s)" are just reflections
of a persons own mind, that serve only to block
the view of what is really there.

And let me guess.

To get around this mental block you need science ... right?

Kinda interesting though that science has more questions about the Bible than a post-match interview, isn't it?

 

[SelfSim]

That's epistemology not science.

Nope .. its the essence of the scientific (objective method).

The fact that the type of questions we ask are subjective.

An hypothesis is not just any ol' type of question because unlike any ol' question, sciences up front purpose is to test them.

You can ask different questions about reality and each has no factual basis. Rather they are subjectively determined.

Depends entirely on what one means by 'reality' there. Science is all about 'objective reality' .. and it gives that term a very specific meaning by following its method (and uses its operational definitions in doing so).

Under your logic if 2 or more people subjectively agree that the earth is flat using the same agreed language it must be objective.

No .. they agree on the tests beforehand and thereby assign the results a kind of (almost but not quite) 'truth' value. Their agreement is not based on some going-in assumption. Their agreement is based on the results and the consistency of the inferences formed directly from them (and tosses all the beliefs).

Why.

Science uses a different process which does not assume people's going-in beliefs as being real (or true) .. eg: as in 'the world is flat'.
Science defines 'flat' so that it can be tested .. if the results aren't consistent with that definition, there won't be any agreement.

But if that's not objective science then your premise is false. Epistemology doesn't = objective facts. Like methodological naturalism is an agreed method (paradigm) of how we can know reality. But the agreed method is not factually based itself. Its a matter of epistemology.

So what? That's not the scientific method .. its philosophy.
Science's 'facts', (operational definitions, laws, or last best tested theories), don't have to be taken as being true or false .. because they've already been tested and that's basically all that matters.

Others may use another paradigm namely psychology where some think behavior is caused by the physical conditions of body and environment whereas others believe its all in the mental concepts we hold IE what you think in your heart will determine behavior.

Science doesn't care what people think or believe. Science tests.

 

[dlamberth]

What does any of that have to do with consciousness being
anything but the function of the nervous system?

I guess it's because consciousness is meaningless with out awareness.

 

[Astrid]

I guess it's because consciousness is meaningless with out awareness.

I don't see how that's an answer, or any more than a tautology.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I don't think there really is any evolutionary explanation for consciousness. Its the same for human agency. Evolution dismisses subjective experience as a product of mechanistic material processes and thus an illusion created by mechanical processes.

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.

As I mentioned you can't separate philosophy from science. Its inherent. If you take a step back you will find that the very act of measurement in science has already got metaphysics included. So its not the method but the assumptions of science before any measure is taken which is a philosophical position and not a science one.

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. 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.

I'm not sure I understand the distinction. Basically I think its about reductionism and materialism verses non-materialism. So the scientific materialist position has little choice but to explain away consciousness and agency as an illusion or epiphenomenon otherwise the materialist view is undermined.

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.

Or you could say our observations are but a slice of a more fundamental reality and thus not representational of whats really going on beyond our limited perceptions.

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.

But then there's another aspect to reality about the bus that is just as real if not more than any material version of how we see the bus.

What 'other aspect'?

Materialistically a bus is just a block of metal moving around. It has other stuff like the engine, electronics ect but its basically a mechanistic process. According to this schema the metal block has no agency or purpose to its operation. Just blind, reactionary, operations.

But humans come along and now this metal block takes on a different meaning. Getting hit by a bus should mean nothing in a material schema of reality. Just a glitch in the operation. But conscious beings take reality to a new level.

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.

So which is real , the material operation certainly can tell us to avoid a moving bus. But we only want to avoid the bus because of our conscious experience and meaning we create. But that should not happen in an material schema.

See above. All living things will take action in response to changes in their environment. The more complex the creature, the more complex its responses.

The only real thing we can know is our conscious experience of the world and it tells us there's something else going on beyond the material and its not an illusion. We just find it hard to articulate what exactly it is at the moment.

Yours may tell you that, mine doesn't. Conscious experience is an unreliable guide to the world - that's why we have science!

If we can't separate the subject/observer out of the equation then how is it objective science.

Scientific methodology is designed to minimise the undesirable influences of individuals (biases, etc) on the results. See Objectivity in Science [Wikipedia].

Its not about examples but rather an overall metaphysical position inherent in methodological naturalism. Science works to a paradigm of language, rules, assumptions which includes certain stuff and excludes other stuff prior to any measure (closure of the physical world).

As above, that applies to everything we do.

Sciences proposes and claims there are certain realities like atoms, quarks, chemicals etc. It even claims to give us new and deeper knowledge of realities like with the Higgs boson discovery. It assumes that there is such a thing as matter out there beyond our brains. But we can never verify this.

No; as I've said many times before, scientists claim these are the best models we currently have for our observations. Scientists test these models, and if the data contradict them they change the models.

Proposing there is such a thing as a fundamental thing of matter out there is an ontological and thus metaphysical claim beyond science because its not only explaining/describing something. In explaining something its also claiming what reality is and that's beyond science.

Sure - that why scientists don't make such claims (outside of pop-sci media). When a scientist says that quantum fields are 'the fundamental building blocks of reality' or some such, there's an implicit, 'to the best of our knowledge' caveat. To pretend otherwise is a straw man that denies the whole basis of science. We observe what is observable, model how it behaves and test those models.

Once again, if you have a better way of acquiring knowledge about the world, describe it and explain how it is better.

 

[SelfSim]

The only real thing we can know is our conscious experience of the world and it tells us there's something else going on beyond the material and its not an illusion. We just find it hard to articulate what exactly it is at the moment.

Yours may tell you that, mine doesn't. Conscious experience is an unreliable guide to the world - that's why we have science!

This sub-post demonstrates the distinction of purpose.

The purpose of objective science is to focus on what we can agree upon, (objectivity), without concerns of necessarily raising the anger, or indignation, of those who have differing beliefs.

Religion's purpose acts in the opposite way, ie: by focusssing on what we cannot agree upon from the outset, (subjectively), with the only way of achieving any semblance of agreement, being by one party yielding to beliefs they fundamentally don't agree with.

Science acknowledges the honest view of how dissimilar, in beliefs, humans really are.
Religion enforces its core beliefs by suppressing those dissimilarities across the total population of believing humans.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

No I'm saying if the physical brain is a receiver and transmitter of consciousness then playing around with the brain just like playing around with the physical radio box will interfere or stop the signal of consciousness in the case of the brain.

If the brain is a receiver of consciousness, then consciousness is not part of the brain, and for the brain to receive its signal, it must have physical effect, i.e. it is something physical independent of the brain.

No messing with the receiver would just affect the signal. The ability to receive or tap into the consciousness.

That's what I said - and what we find is that messing with the brain doesn't just affect the ability to receive or tap into consciousness, it changes the content, quality, and nature of consciousness. When you give someone a general anaesthetic, consciousness doesn't continue, it stops - and when it resumes, it has no sense of the passage of time. This is not what you'd expect if the brain was just a receiver - it's a falsifying test of that hypothesis.

Can you give an example of how this applies to the brain and consciousness.

Conscious awareness occurs when a wide variety of neural processes (activities) synchronise their patterns of activity across the brain as a whole.

Its the same for science in assuming its nature is material and reductive. Except from what I understand consciousness cannot be reducible to material mechanisms as fundementally it consitutes a different type of phenomena beyond material measurement.

Once more, science does not assume nature is material and reductive, and lack of knowledge is not understanding.

But I think if we follow the evidence its point to non-material abstract explanations to explain fundamental reality. Ideas like consciousness beyond the brain, Mind at large and Information seem to fit better.

What evidence? what do you mean by 'fit better'? What, exactly is 'Mind at large and Information'? It sounds like they 'fit better' if they suit your apparent need for magic & mystery.
'

I don't think anyone has shown that the idea of a 'vital force' has been falsified. If this idea is anything like consciousness then in principle it cannot be falsified because its outside science. Its like trying to falsify God.

It wasn't really a falsifiable hypothesis. It was shown to be unnecessary, much like phlogiston.

I think the idea of a 'vital force' was an attempt to explain what we call consciousness today.

Well, you'd be wrong. It was supposed to explain the difference between living and non-living, animate and inanimate.

But isn't that also begging the question in that the promissory hope of science is premised on the assumption that reality is material. As consciousness or a 'vital force' are non-material then in principle science can never explain its nature.

It's not begging the question, it's an unscientific hunch or gut feel, based on the similarities between the way people viewed animate vs inanimate and the way they view conscious vs non-conscious, given that we know that both life and consciousness are correlated with extremely complex processes.

The first thing I would say about that is the use of evidence as being the key to what is true or not. So we are starting from a biased measure to begin with. If your not open to non-material possibilities then all your going to find is material evidence.

If your approach is 'believe without evidence', then anything goes, with no way to tell what may be 'true' (a predictive model) or nonsense.

The second is that our experience of the world is the evidence. The only thin g we can know is real is our experience of it. So perhaps that's where we start to find the answers. The third is that the non-material ideas posed are not entirely outside science, at least in an indirect and circumstantial way.

As I said, personal experience is an unreliable guide - that's why we developed science. In what sense are 'the non-material ideas posed' 'not entirely outside science'?

Its just how you interpret the data and in some ways non-material ideas like Panpsychism, QBism, Mind and information being fundamental give the most elegant and simple fit explanation for fundamental reality.

What explanatory or predictive power does panpsychism have? Why isn't "It's magic" an equally elegant and simple explanation?

What are your criteria for 'the most elegant and simple fit explanation'?

These are all attempts like the 'vital force' in explaining a non-material reality. They are probably off the mark or they may have some basis but some explanation along these lines is required.

'Vital force' was intended to be a material explanation of what gave living things life.

What makes you think 'some explanation along these lines is required', other than a fallacious argument from incredulity?

But the problem with that view is there is an explanatory bridge which can never be crossed using correlations. So this will never lead to a fundamental cause or explanation alone and to based science on correlations alone is well 'unscientific'.

As I said before, all we ever have in science is correlations. The question is at what point they can be used to provide a predictive model that can be considered explanatory. We don't know what gravity is, but it correlates very well with various forms of energy, and we've got a predictive model that explains it well in those terms.

Consciousness is an awkward case because it involves the inherently subjective, so correlations are difficult to establish.

Supposing that somehow a bunch of nerve cells somehow gives birth to consciousness is like proposing magic and a ghost in the machine.

So who's being close-minded now? The argument from incredulity is fallacious.

Besides I think there is plausible explanations as mentioned above.

What are your criteria for a 'plausible explanation'? I've given my criteria for a 'good explanation' - which of them do you disagree with? How do yours compare?

But as you said science is suppose to be about verification and not belief.

Not exactly...

As there is no connection between the hypothesis of correlations and causation to claim that this explains consciousness is a belief about what reality is and not science. To claim that consciousness equals a mechanistic process of the brain goes beyond science and is a metaphysical claim.

The claim is that all the evidence points to consciousness being a process of the brain. It's a hypothesis based on the available evidence.

I thought it was a good analogy.

Not really - nuts, bolts, and wiring do not a processor make.

Somehow a qualitative phenomena must come from a quantitative cause which are totally different in their fundamental nature.

That's what they said about life.

... never has science shown that material mechanism can cause conscious experience. There is a fundamental explanatory gap that science can never get over. They are two different things and cannot be equated with each other. Because consciousness is more than the sum of material parts.

We've never encountered consciousness without a functional and active brain, and specific manipulation of the brain produces specific changes in the nature or content or quality of consciousness - the evidence is all in one direction. I suggest the onus is on you to show that it isn't.

But even if science could show this, it has just discovered another strange and exotic phenomena that still needs explaining. That's the thing about science it can keep adjusting a theory to accommodate any observations.

Sure; at the limits of knowledge are brute facts and the unexplained.

Maybe that's the point, that we the 'observer and subject' are caught up in this and we cannot remove ourselves from the equation. So I guess if that's the case then maybe what we actually experience and how we embody that gives the best insights into reality.

We already know that personal experience is an unreliable guide to the world, and introspection is an even less reliable guide to ourselves. This only makes elucidating consciousness more difficult.

Perhaps our experiences tell us something else beyond science that gives us insights into reality. But if we assume there is only a material reality that's all we will find. It will take a paradigm shift to expand our understanding of reality and it won't happen under scientific materialism.

When you have something beyond wishful thinking and woo (e.g. evidence), do let me know.

As mentioned earlier the 'vital force' has not really been falsified. Its just one way of trying to explain a non-material force, essence, abstract phenomena that is fundamental to reality. The idea hasn't gone away and in fact has come back even stronger and now seems top be the way forward.

As an explanation for the difference between living and non-living it has long been redundant - at least to anyone who knows their basic biology.

I know there are plenty of woo merchants that like to use it (along with the magic word 'quantum') to bolster their pseudoscience and mysticism, but they're mainly using it to get attention and money from those with no scientific background and the gullible. Wishful and magical thinking can be enticing, but I hope you're not wasting money on it.

 

[Kylie]

I already did ... and rejected it in favor of looking at it from your myopic standpoint.

If you'd like me to take the stance of reality from God's point-of-view, you're going to have to do some major rethinking.

Science's [paper] reality doesn't compare to this universe as it really is.

You rejected the universe as it really is the instant you said reality is not real.

 

[Kylie]

Its not a case of scientific studies but of common sense and logic like you can't put a square peg in a round hole. Its self-evident. Let me ask you some questions that may reveal this

Do you agree or disagree that direct conscious experience can only understood from the subject that is having the experience.

Do you agree or disagree that conscious experience is subjective.

Do you agree or disagree that something subjective cannot be objectively studied or tested.

The answer to these questions should tell you whether we can even perform scientific tests but also prove or disprove my point that understanding subjective conscious experience is beyond science itself.

Galileo’s declaration that mathematics was to be the language of the new science that the new science was to have a purely quantitative vocabulary. But Galileo realized that you can’t capture consciousness in these terms, as consciousness is an essentially quality-involving phenomenon.
This is really important, because although the problem of consciousness is taken seriously, most people assume our conventional scientific approach is capable of solving it.

Yes, physical science has been incredibly successful. But it’s been successful precisely because it was designed to exclude consciousness.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-consciousness-pervade-the-universe/

You claim they are facts but then can do nothing to convince me that they are facts except beg me to take your word for it.

You need a lot more than that.

 

[Kylie]

Even science tells us what we think is reality is not actually reality. Science bases reality on something called matter. Matter is a mental concept not an actual thing. We cannot get outside our mind to verify that matter is real.

Show me the study which establishes this.