How to study the supernatural?

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

AV, you really do enjoy taking the Bible out of context, do you not?

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Then why is it so true?

Why does it work so well?

2PhiloVoid said:

You can study Christianity rationally; bits and pieces of it might be evaluated empirically. End of story.

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People do all the time, it is not the same as investigating the supernatural. There are whole academic fields dedicated to studying Christianity and other religions.

Christianity makes a number of supernatural claims (or implies them). The question is how to test those. Certainly tests have been made of some of them (efficacy of prayer, the mass of the soul, various miracle claims, etc.). These topics come up in specificity here with some frequency.

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

As long as your pants stay on, it's all good.

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I gotta scram. Have a Happy New Year, Warden!

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

But neither of them work well at all,

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* Paging Hans Blaster *

* Paging Jerry DeWitt *

* Paging Matt Dillahunty *

* Paging Dan Barker *

* Paging Richard Dawkins *

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

Buddy, it's been explained to you that science does not deal with a creator, be they from Christianity, Hinduism, Shintoism or any religion. Science does not deal with a creator. Full stop.

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Yes, it deals only with the natural and tries to construct a model of how the universe and man got here from that. Pitiful. It rejects all other gods equally. That sounds about like any other religion, come to think of it. They all reject other gods but their own. You have no knowledge of the supernatural at all, and admit it, and have no way (as this thread asking for ways of natural only science to study the supernatural shows) to get any knowledge of the supernatural.

Unless creation was natural only (and you don't know) then all models of science about creation are invalid and must be dismissed out of hand. Using a naturalonlydunnit model then is a statement of faith.

Science is not a statement of faith because it can test the natural. So, for things of physical nature, science is appropriate and bonifide. For things regarding the creation of God, they are the wrong tool to use.

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

I'll repeat what I said:

But neither of them work well at all, unless you twist and force the passage of the Bible to talk about things they do not say to begin with.

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truthpls said:

Yes, it deals only with the natural and tries to construct a model of how the universe and man got here from that. Pitiful. It rejects all other gods equally. That sounds about like any other religion, come to think of it. They all reject other gods but their own. You have no knowledge of the supernatural at all, and admit it, and have no way (as this thread asking for ways of natural only science to study the supernatural shows) to get any knowledge of the supernatural.

Unless creation was natural only (and you don't know) then all models of science about creation are invalid and must be dismissed out of hand. Using a naturalonlydunnit model then is a statement of faith.

Science is not a statement of faith because it can test the natural. So, for things of physical nature, science is appropriate and bonifide. For things regarding the creation of God, they are the wrong tool to use.

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It looks like you're saying that Christians have to choose between their faith and science, and if you want to be a Christian you have to reject much of science.

Is that really the message you want to give? When ministering to the lost do you also tell them they have to turn their backs on science or else Christianity isn't for them?

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

This is something that repeatedly pops up every time someone goes on a rant against science not doing what they want science to do:

SCIENCE ONLY STUDIES NATURE!

Of course science studies nature. It's what science does.

But if you want science to study the supernatural, that which is supposed to exist beyond and outside nature, you have to actually give it something to work with.

So I ask you: how exactly CAN science study the supernatural? What methods, what tests?

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An interesting excerpt from newscientist:
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Can we use quantum computers to test a radical consciousness theory?​

Hartmut Neven, who leads Google's Quantum AI lab, wants to entangle our brains with quantum processors to test the idea that consciousness involves quantum phenomena
By Thomas Lewton
30 December 2024



Marta Zafra

The suggestion that consciousness has its origins in quantum weirdness has long been viewed as a bit, well, weird. Critics argue that ideas of quantum consciousness, the most famous of which posits that moments of experience arise as quantum superpositions in the brain collapse, do little more than merge one mystery with another. Besides, where is the evidence? And yet there is a vocal minority who insist we should take the idea seriously.
Hartmut Neven, who leads Google’s Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, is among them. He originally trained as a physicist and computational neuroscientist before pioneering computer vision – a type of AI that replicates the human ability to understand visual data. Later, Neven founded Google Quantum AI, which in 2019 became the first lab to claim its quantum computers solved calculations that are impossible on a classical computer, a milestone known as quantum supremacy. In December 2024, his team announced another step forward with its new quantum processor, Willow, which it claims is more powerful and reliable than previous chips.


Nerve fibres in the brain could generate quantum entanglement
Calculations show that nerve fibres in the brain could emit pairs of entangled particles, and this quantum phenomenon might explain how different parts of the brain work together

But Neven is also interested in the relationship between mind and matter. And now, in a use case for quantum computers that no one saw coming, he reckons they could be deployed to put the idea of quantum consciousness to the test. Neven spoke to New Scientist about his belief that we live in a multiverse; why Roger Penrose’s theory of quantum consciousness is worth pursuing, albeit possibly with a new twist; and how we can test such ideas by entangling quantum computers with human brains.
Thomas Lewton: How has working at the forefront of quantum computing altered your view of what reality is?
Hartmut Neven: We recently ran a computation on our new quantum processor, named Willow, that would take the best classical supercomputer an astounding amount of time to complete: 1025 years. This mind-boggling number exceeds known timescales in physics and vastly exceeds the age of the universe. To me, this result suggests that quantum processors are tapping into something larger than just our universe, lending credence to the notion that their computation occurs in many parallel universes.
Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate that the most straightforward reading of the equations of quantum mechanics is that, indeed, we live in a multiverse: that every object, including myself or the cosmos at large, exists in many configurations simultaneously. This view of reality has profoundly shaped my everyday outlook on life.
In what way?
My general stance when describing the world is physicalism, which states that every phenomenon we witness can be explained as a manifestation of matter. But the only phenomenon that we are certain exists is conscious experience. Everything starts from experience; without mind, nothing matters.
So then the task you have as a physicalist is to identify the locus of consciousness. Here, I think, quantum mechanics has a unique advantage over classical mechanics – and it is directly related to the multiverse picture.
If the multiverse picture is correct, then there are a vast number of parallel worlds. But right now, you and I coexist in a definite, classical branch of the multiverse. So why do we witness this configuration and not the other ones? This is an opportunity to place consciousness in your physicalist theory. An attractive conjecture is that consciousness is how we experience the emergence of a unique classical reality out of the many that quantum physics tells us there are.
Consciousness seems like a very different kettle of fish to quantum physics. How can one be accommodated into the other?
I’m a disciple of Roger Penrose, who, in his 1989 book The Emperor’s New Mind, put forth the idea that consciousness involves a state of matter in quantum superposition, where a quantum object exists in multiple configurations at the same time. When the superposition collapses during a “measurement” process, one classical branch gets selected out of many possible branches and this implements a conscious moment. I always thought this was beautiful because then qualia – specific subjective experiences such as the redness of a rose or the feelings that music evokes – can naturally be encoded into the state that [the superposition] collapses into.

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

It doesn't try and create a model. It does create a model of how things got here.

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Yes, and children create models of airplanes and cars. They would use parts of the car model hopefully to make a model of a car and not add in bits from a godzilla model and ship model etc. Science can make models of natural things. That does not include supernatural things. You cannot tell us that the creation did or did not involve the supernatural. So all models of creation will be what if models. What if there were no God or supernatural component to life and the universe..

Do not make out like creation or knowing whether there is supernatural or not is a model science could make. They only put together models based on there being no god. That's what it's all about.

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

How many times does this need to be repeated before you understand it?

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I'm not sure that's a reasonable expectation.

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

Speaking of a broken record....

Yes, science doesn't include God in scientific model because God isn't something that can be quantified scientifically.

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He is quantified in other ways. He is not quantified by cereal boxes, or by Tesla manuals, or by road maps, or by airline schedules, or by ballerina or music teachers etc. Nor by natural only studies of any kind. Therefore any natural only based study cannot tell us about creation. (unless there is no supernatural or God, and since they do not know, they cannot, period)

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

There is no test for God, not hypothesis or theory for God. God answers everything and thus answers nothing.

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There are plenty of tests for God. Untold billions of people over time know that He is the answer for everything. Now, within the framework and limits and boundaries of natural only science, there is no theory or knowledge of the Almighty creator. That is what we need to clarify.

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

Science deals with what it can study, and since it is impossible to study God, then science does not deal with God in anything scientific.

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Right. So they are excused from any creation debate that involves creation by God. All their models are just dreamed up what if there was no god scenarios using only the natural. It should be taken as such. (ignorant musings of the uninformed and uninformable basically as far as creation goes)

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

How many times does this need to be repeated before you understand it?

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Why argue? Science does not know if there is a God or not. A supernatural or not. All models they produce have been and always will be based solely on the natural. Any claims about creation are literally ignorance based from them as a consequence. No need to repeat. You admit it. Game over.

Palmfever said:

An interesting excerpt from newscientist:
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Can we use quantum computers to test a radical consciousness theory?​

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Interesting or not, it doesn't fit the topic of the thread. Quantum mechanics is not supernatural, nor does this offer any tests of the supernatural.