Scientific Argument for God's existence

[Bungle_Bear]

The model science refers to as 'matter', is objectively testable. 'Mass' is one of the properties we can test for. The properties of matter test out well so from that, we infer that 'matter exists' (objectively).

This is priceless coming from such an ardent solipsist!

 

[SelfSim]

This is priceless coming from such an ardent solipsist!

And that accusation is akin to calling you an ardent Creationist! I'm no solipsist .. even in the slightest! I couldn't care less about Solipsism .. completely useless philosophy, IMO.
No, you (and others) mistake a scientifically formed hypothesis for solpsism .. you should therefore read this analysis and this one too.

My motivation in these discussions (and in life) stems from a personal commitment to distinguish any and all beliefs I, (or others), may hold .. then move forward regarding them with neutrality.

There is no '-ist' in that.

The bottom line is that its legitimate science to grab anything that can be made useful for the purposes of objective testing. Many folk around here are supersensitive to things they recognise .. but fail to look beyond superficiality and actually think more deeply about what is being said.

 

[Bungle_Bear]

And that accusation is akin to calling you an ardent Creationist! I'm no solipsist .. even in the slightest! I couldn't care less about Solipsism .. completely useless philosophy, IMO.
No, you (and others) mistake a scientifically formed hypothesis for solpsism .. you should therefore read this analysis and this one too.

Perhaps you're not a solipsist, but whoever has been posting using your account is most definitely an idealist with a strong tendency towards solipsism.

The bottom line is that its [sic] legitimate science to grab anything that can be made useful for the purposes of objective testing. Many folk around here are supersensitive to things they recognise .. but fail to look beyond superficiality and actually think more deeply about what is being said.

You have been arguing that everything is dependent on Mind (idealism), so you cannot now claim that science can be objective without contradicting yourself.

 

[SelfSim]

You have been arguing that everything is dependent on Mind (idealism), so you cannot now claim that science can be objective without contradicting yourself.

You just don't understand the MDR hypothesis.

I outright refute your claim that I have been arguing 'that everything is dependent on Mind'.

You need to read the MDR hypothesis here and then its implications here.

Your interpretation of my position is simply in error.

 

[Bungle_Bear]

You just don't understand the MDR hypothesis.

I outright refute your claim that I have been arguing 'that everything is dependent on Mind'.

You have refuted nothing. While you may be rejecting my claim, that does not mean I am wrong. Just a pointer for you - Mind Dependent Reality means reality is dependent on Mind.

You need to read the MDR hypothesis here and then its implications here.

It's not my fault you don't understand MDR and idealism. Perhaps you should do some more reading yourself. George Berkeley's works would be a good place to start.

Your interpretation of my position is simply in error.

The only way that's possible is if your position is not the one being espoused in your posts, which would be odd.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I consider your term "repeatible patterns" just an empty and vague rethorical term to avoid the more specific term "mathematical or rational structure".
It is always easy to use vague terms.

Repeating patterns can be described mathematically, but there need not be any explicit mathematics in their production; e.g. when a mollusc makes its shell, it lays down multiple layers, each slightly larger than the last, to accommodate its growth. In many cases, the resulting spiral can be precisely described by a very simple mathematical formula, yet the mollusc used no mathematics to create it. Similarly, water waves and sound waves are amenable to very simple mathematical description, but are simply the emergent products of the interactions of large numbers of atoms & molecules with properties in common. This kind of pattern, of simple objects with simple properties interacting to produce more complex, mathematically describable structures, is present from the sub-atomic scale upwards.

A working model must have a structure similar to the modelled entity; for example you can make a map of a town because both the town and the map have a geometrical structure. You cannot make a map of a smell, because a smell doesn't have a geometrical structure. The success of the laws of physics proves that what you call "repeatable patterns" are indeed the mathematical relations expressed by the laws of physics.

A model is a representation, in some particular regard, of something else; it doesn't require a similar structure to what is modelled unless that structure is relevant to the aspect(s) being modelled.

Patterns are just are just regular and/or repeating arrangements of stuff; it is these properties that make them amenable to mathematical description.

 

[SelfSim]

You have refuted nothing. While you may be rejecting my claim, that does not mean I am wrong.

Yet you have not shown that I have been arguing 'that everything is dependent on Mind'.

Did you even bother to read the links I posted? Its a hypothesis for starters .. its not a claim I'm making on the basis of some purely, all-knowing philosophical position.

It's not my fault you don't understand MDR and idealism. Perhaps you should do some more reading yourself. George Berkeley's works would be a good place to start.

Ha! .. (laughable)!
I'm not presenting George Berkeley's work.
I'm presenting a well-founded, objectively testable hypothesis, which produces abundant evidence supporting its conclusions (and nothing to the contrary thus far).

The only way that's possible is if your position is not the one being espoused in your posts, which would be odd.

Really? And yet you seem to think I'm presenting Berkeley's work?
Pardon me, but I don't seem to recall ever having accepted you as being my judge in a topic in which you have not yet even shown the slightest understanding or acknowledgement of, whereas I have made many postings elaborating on details you now misrepresent.

 

[mmarco]

Repeating patterns can be described mathematically, but there need not be any explicit mathematics in their production; e.g. when a mollusc makes its shell, it lays down multiple layers, each slightly larger than the last, to accommodate its growth. In many cases, the resulting spiral can be precisely described by a very simple mathematical formula, yet the mollusc used no mathematics to create it.

First of all, the spiral of the mollusc is never an exact spiral, but it can SOMETIMES be described APPROXIMATELY with a simple mathematical formula.
Besides, a different kind of mollusc would make a different kind of shell

There is no doubt that you can find by chance approximate geometrical patterns in nature. This is the key difference with the laws of physics which are a system of few equations but can predict sistematically and with great precision so many different phoenomena. As I have said, I do not believe in serial concidences.

A model is a representation, in some particular regard, of something else; it doesn't require a similar structure to what is modelled unless that structure is relevant to the aspect(s) being modelled.

Exactly, and since the laws of physics have the role to predict sistematically all natural phenomena, it is reasonable to expect that the intimate structure of nature is a relevant aspect.

 

[Speedwell]

The model science refers to as 'matter', is objectively testable. 'Mass' is one of the properties we can test for. The properties of matter test out well so from that, we infer that 'matter exists' (objectively).

So then answer mmarco's question: what's it made of?

 

[SelfSim]

So then answer mmarco's question: what's it made of?

Whatever testable properties that model is assigned. The only thing we know about it, is what is testable ..
I'm not clear what else you would expect here?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

First of all, the spiral of the mollusc is never an exact spiral, but it can SOMETIMES be described APPROXIMATELY with a simple mathematical formula.
Besides, a different kind of mollusc would make a different kind of shell

Yup, nature is often messier than maths.

... the key difference with the laws of physics which are a system of few equations but can predict sistematically and with great precision so many different phoenomena. As I have said, I do not believe in serial concidences.

Ah, I see this is just another argument from incredulity. You can't see why the mathematics we derive from observations of the world is so good at describing the observations we make of the world...

Exactly, and since the laws of physics have the role to predict sistematically all natural phenomena, it is reasonable to expect that the intimate structure of nature is a relevant aspect.

Not really. Physical laws deal with the phenomena they refer to at the scale of those phenomena. they generally make no reference at all to 'the intimate structure of nature', but describe or predict only how it behaves in the relevant regime.

btw - it's systematically.

 

[SelfSim]

A model is a representation, in some particular regard, of something else; it doesn't require a similar structure to what is modelled unless that structure is relevant to the aspect(s) being modelled.

Patterns are just are just regular and/or repeating arrangements of stuff; it is these properties that make them amenable to mathematical description.

When you say 'something else' and 'stuff' here, are you referring indirectly to the concept of objectivity?

I think of objectivity as being less like 'a thing' .. and more like a goal. By that, I mean its more like an approach that says try as hard as you can to minimize the role of the observer .. but it never says the observer plays no role. (Perhaps that's what you meant by using similar structures for 'model' and its object?)

The separation of subject and object always was an artificial separation. For example, recently, there has been recent Experimental Rejection of Observer-Independence in the Quantum World.

 

[Speedwell]

Whatever testable properties that model is assigned. The only thing we know about it, is what is testable ..
I'm not clear what else you would expect here?

A substance which takes up space and has mass. What is the substance? I am not familiar with "matter" as a fundamental concept of particle physics, as the particles are quantum entities which don't take up space in the way that the definition of matter implies. So what is it?

 

[mmarco]

Ah, I see this is just another argument from incredulity. You can't see why the mathematics we derive from observations of the world is so good at describing the observations we make of the world...

Somehow I agree with this; personally I find unbelievable the idea that the laws of physics do not describe the intimate structure of reality. I just would like to stress that the observations systematically described by the laws of physics are not the same observations used to derive the equations themselves.
Actually completely new phenomena, which had never been observed (and which had never been conceived ) have been discovered as a consequence of the study of the mathematical implications of the laws of physics (for example the existence of electromagnetic waves or the existence of antiparticles)

 

[Bungle_Bear]

Never mind.

 

[Bungle_Bear]

Yet you have not shown that I have been arguing 'that everything is dependent on Mind'.

If you want to claim that MDR doesn't link reality to Mind then I'm all ears.

Did you even bother to read the links I posted? Its a hypothesis for starters .. its not a claim I'm making on the basis of some purely, all-knowing philosophical position.

I did read them. I thought they made a hash of MDR and Idealism, but as you keep referring back to MDR I (mistakenly?) assumed that was what you were trying to argue.

Ha! .. (laughable)!
I'm not presenting George Berkeley's work.
I'm presenting a well-founded, objectively testable hypothesis, which produces abundant evidence supporting its conclusions (and nothing to the contrary thus far).

Really? And yet you seem to think I'm presenting Berkeley's work?
Pardon me, but I don't seem to recall ever having accepted you as being my judge in a topic in which you have not yet even shown the slightest understanding or acknowledgement of, whereas I have made many postings elaborating on details you now misrepresent.

I didn't say you were presenting Berkeley's work, I suggested you should read it. It appears you have misunderstood both MDR and my posts. Perhaps if you paid more attention to what others say you might learn something.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

When you say 'something else' and 'stuff' here, are you referring indirectly to the concept of objectivity?

I'm saying that if there is a model, then there's something being modelled, i.e. 'something else'. When there is a pattern, it is an arrangement of some elements; the elements may be some substrate or the interactions of some substrate, i.e. 'stuff'.

I think of objectivity as being less like 'a thing' .. and more like a goal. By that, I mean its more like an approach that says try as hard as you can to minimize the role of the observer .. but it never says the observer plays no role. (Perhaps that's what you meant by using similar structures for 'model' and its object?)

The observer clearly plays a role by choosing what to observe and how to observe it.

The separation of subject and object always was an artificial separation. For example, recently, there has been recent Experimental Rejection of Observer-Independence in the Quantum World.

The results from that paper just confirm the quantum formalism - that the Schrodinger wave function predicts the probabilities of what outcomes each observer will observe. Really it's just an extended way of showing how counterintuitive QM is.

The meaning of observer independence has changed as the measurement problem has emerged - there is something independent of the observer that is described by the wavefunction, and what you observe when you measure it is not that something, but the result of your measurement interaction with it. The classical assumption, that when you measure a system the outcome represents a property the system possessed before you measured it, no longer applies at quantum scales.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I just would like to stress that the observations systematically described by the laws of physics are not the same observations used to derive the equations themselves.
Actually completely new phenomena, which had never been observed (and which had never been conceived ) have been discovered as a consequence of the study of the mathematical implications of the laws of physics (for example the existence of electromagnetic waves or the existence of antiparticles)

Of course, making fruitful predictions is one of the abductive criteria for good hypotheses. Those that fail to make fruitful predictions are dropped in favour of those that succeed. But often, new observations or the fruitful predictions of new theories, point to flaws in previously successful theories, or constraints on what were thought to be universal laws.

There is an implicit qualifier on physical laws along the lines of, "To the best of our current knowledge, the universe behaves as if this law applies".

 

[SelfSim]

A substance which takes up space and has mass. What is the substance? I am not familiar with "matter" as a fundamental concept of particle physics, as the particles are quantum entities which don't take up space in the way that the definition of matter implies. So what is it?

Oh ok .. point taken. I was talking everday classical .. not the standard model. I'm not trying to solve the known disconnects between them .. but the overall point still remains, they are both respectively, testable models and when the context of a term is changed, the meaning of it does also.

 

[SelfSim]

If you want to claim that MDR doesn't link reality to Mind then I'm all ears.

.. and its probably a good idea that you remain that way.

The thinking presented in the MDR hypothesis is what I'll stand by, because it produces its own objective evidence ... and not someone else's interpretation of it.

There appears to be a huge dose of philosophical Realism embedded in the minds of folk attempting to grapple with religion on this forum. It is not part of science because it, itself, is not fundamentally testable.
Philosophical Realism is belief based and is thus no different from religion. I can think of no thinking more miraculous than believing in things existing independently from our minds.

I did read them. I thought they made a hash of MDR and Idealism, but as you keep referring back to MDR I (mistakenly?) assumed that was what you were trying to argue.

Ok .. no problems then .. glad we're clearer on that point (hopefully). I can live with being accused of 'hashing' Berkeley's Subjective Idealism, Idealism or any other '-ism' .. and I'll use all of 'em to make the really important point about how science is distinguished from them all .. by 'hashing' them.

The difference is huge and crucial to where I'm coming from. Science is not about believing in assumed things (such as: something untestable 'existing out there') or negating things just because that's what some personal ideologically held philosophies say: 'must be done'.

I didn't say you were presenting Berkeley's work, I suggested you should read it. It appears you have misunderstood both MDR and my posts. Perhaps if you paid more attention to what others say you might learn something.

Wanna start all over again then? .. I'm happy to start out from the MDR hypothesis basis I've outlined .. (I'm certainly not going to argue Berkeley's nonsense, though ..)