Why do you believe?

[directorrico]

How do you assess another person's experience at all? How do you define evidence?

Perhaps I did not get my point across. The fact that a person's NDE is so unreliable makes it also an unreliable method of proof of an extreme claim (e.g. life after death as the other user proposed).

I define evidence as something that can be demonstrably true and can be peer-reviewed by anyone (that is, in the context of this thread but it does not stray far from this)

//

 

[Davian]

 

[nebulaJP]

It follows from the fundamental postulates of quantum mechanics (namely, the assignment of a wavefunction to each particle that evolves over time according to the Schrödinger equations, and which assign a probability to every point in space).

Is it all space or k-space? They don't seem to be the same thing.

Wikipedia: "and the integrals are taken over all k-space." I can't find anything that says a probability is assigned to every point in "space."

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Is it all space or k-space? They don't seem to be the same thing.

Wikipedia: "and the integrals are taken over all k-space." I can't find anything that says a probability is assigned to every point in "space."

That particular example is talking about integrating with respect to d[sup]3[/sup]k, not dr. K-space is momentum-space, which is different to, but corresponds with, real-space (see here and here). Briefly, the momentum-wavefunction is a Fourier transform of the position-waveform (and position-space has a more direct correspondence to real-space than does momentum-space).

The 'r' in the Schrödinger equation is the spacial coordinate, thus describing the wavefunction at any point. We can calculate the probability of measuring a particle at any given point in space - thus, the wavefunction extends over all space (it doesn't truncate at some arbitrary point, except in idealisations like the familiar particle-in-a-box examples).

Very roughly, the wavefunction exists over all space because 1/x is non-zero for all x.

 

[nebulaJP]

So what you mean is that you have no reason to believe in God, it just makes you feel good?

What I see here are your own conclusions that God exists for no reasonable proof whatsoever and you seem to be acknowledging that. Why bother?

From Buddhism, a belief or disbelief in God is irrelevant to becoming free of suffering. However, Buddhism is an extremely pragmatic religion and I'm not that practical. I like to have something deeper to hang it all on.

My belief in God involves panentheism and panpsychism. Every particle is God and every particle is aware. This influences my spirituality. I believe breath awareness and mindfulness are what give me peace in life. It is easier for me to use these practices and have peace when I think of it as getting in touch with the eternal part of me that never changes, which roughly translates in this life to my awareness.

Rather than being a bother, my belief in God helps me to get where I want to be: out of my head and into awareness of the present moment. I think of my identity as eternal awareness rather than as my body, personal history or the thoughts of my mind. This makes it easier to step back from my thoughts and realize they aren't me. I'm a larger space of eternal awareness in which those thoughts occur.

If on the other hand I thought of myself as this temporary human form, I think I would identify with it too much, taking every problem my mind dreams up too seriously, over identifying with thought, which I feel leads to depression.

It is not necessary to believe in God to have peace. All that it takes is stillness and mindfulness. However, my belief in God helps me to be still and mindful, if that makes sense. There is a "sacredness" to it. You know, spirituality.

 

[nebulaJP]

That presumes that QM interactions are non-physical, yet they're not.

It's not that I don't trust you but I have been trying to sort of check your facts on this and I can't find anything. Let me see if I've got what you're saying straight: entanglement is no mystery for physicalism, it's explained by physical interactions via Schrodinger's equation. If that is what you're saying please post a link to an article or paragraph that describes this, with the main focus of the article or paragraph being "how Schrodinger's equation explains entanglement via physical interactions."

 

[nebulaJP]

The word physicalism isn't working because it includes physical forces. So rather than talk about what is physical and what is nonphysical, I put it like this: Can entanglement be explained (rather than described) by processes that happen in a self existent universe or does it require something outside of our physical universe?

You are saying it doesn't require anything outside of our universe. That is what I'm interested in. How it explained in terms of physical forces within our universe?

 

[nebulaJP]

I don't know, and I can be ok with my ignorance. Making stuff up is good for deluding oneself.

What you say doesn't go against materialism, it just poses a problem. Gravity could have been questioned like that in the past. How could the Earth attract the Moon when they don't touch? There is no material touching so materialism must be wrong. But then of course Einstein solved that problem. Perhaps the change in entanglement is somehow material, but we don't know how yet.

The past should teach us not to jump to fill the gaps with highly speculative theories.



It doesn't prove anything any more than gravity in the past would have proven materialism incorrect.

It isn't 'god of the gaps' to say not to jump to conclusions. I'm not claiming knowledge. Science has worked out stuff like this in the past, so we should give it time to see if it will again. We don't have to take a firm position about things we don't know.

You're not in any rush. I can respect that. The way I see it, physics is struggling to incorporate QM because it only has 4 non contact forces to work with. But I don't think you can find the force behind entanglement without breaking out of the "self existent universe" box.

 

[LottyH]

Hi Directorrico,

Welcome to CF and thank you for your question

Why do I believe God exists?

The beautiful and amazing natural world around us points to a designer (regardless of whether it’s through evolution or creation – that is a different debate). ‘For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen….so that they are without excuse’. Rom 1:20.

The more I learn about the complexities of the natural world in subjects such as chemistry and human anatomy and physiology it provides extra confirmation to me that there is an intelligent designer.

But why the Christian God?

Faith in the Christian God is both a choice and a gift and is not easy to explain.

I was also brought up a catholic and perhaps it’s easy to be biased towards the religion of your upbringing (although not always as my brother doesn’t follow the Christian faith). So I thought it was important to consider other religions as I certainly don’t want to waste my life following a false god especially when the Christian walk can be difficult.

I am no longer a catholic or belong to a particular denomination. But I’ve concluded that there is no other book like the bible and there is no other man like Jesus. I agree with CS Lewis notion that if you read what Jesus said about Himself you will have to conclude that He was either a lunatic, a liar or Lord i.e. He cannot have been ‘just a good prophet’ as a lot of people say).

Some people think the bible is inaccurate for many reasons and if it wasn’t written by God those reasons would be true. But the bible is not just a normal book, it is the living, breathing word of God and has the remarkable ability to continuously teach me regardless of the number of times I read it. Despite the many arguments and misinterpretations of the bible I believe it contains the Truth for life, death and eternity.

 

[nebulaJP]

They could easily be explained by the brain dying or waking up. There is no need to make up magical other worlds. But I would be happy to hear why you disagree.

If it was explained by the brain dying or waking up, in THAT case it would be unreal or "made up." I don't see this as making anything up, I just believe people have seen the other side.

 

[directorrico]

Hi Directorrico,

Welcome to CF and thank you for your question

Why do I believe God exists?

The beautiful and amazing natural world around us points to a designer (regardless of whether it’s through evolution or creation – that is a different debate). ‘For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen….so that they are without excuse’. Rom 1:20.

The more I learn about the complexities of the natural world in subjects such as chemistry and human anatomy and physiology it provides extra confirmation to me that there is an intelligent designer.

But why the Christian God?

Faith in the Christian God is both a choice and a gift and is not easy to explain.

I was also brought up a catholic and perhaps it’s easy to be biased towards the religion of your upbringing (although not always as my brother doesn’t follow the Christian faith). So I thought it was important to consider other religions as I certainly don’t want to waste my life following a false god especially when the Christian walk can be difficult.

I am no longer a catholic or belong to a particular denomination. But I’ve concluded that there is no other book like the bible and there is no other man like Jesus. I agree with CS Lewis notion that if you read what Jesus said about Himself you will have to conclude that He was either a lunatic, a liar or Lord i.e. He cannot have been ‘just a good prophet’ as a lot of people say).

Some people think the bible is inaccurate for many reasons and if it wasn’t written by God those reasons would be true. But the bible is not just a normal book, it is the living, breathing word of God and has the remarkable ability to continuously teach me regardless of the number of times I read it. Despite the many arguments and misinterpretations of the bible I believe it contains the Truth for life, death and eternity.

Thanks for the welcome and the reply.

After reading this, you're only real justification for your belief is faith. It may be a tad different from other other's faith but in the basic sense you have chose to believe in the Christian God because you were raised that way, you like what you hear/d and you are convinced the book is true because the book is true.
Also, how does the natural world point to a designer? It is beautiful, I agree. It is complex and it is something for us still to discover. But how do you conclude that there is a designer?
//

 

[directorrico]

If it was explained by the brain dying or waking up, in THAT case it would be unreal or "made up." I don't see this as making anything up, I just believe people have seen the other side.

That logically does not make any sense. You believe people for their word alone on this particular case of life after death/near death experiences but when anyone would come up with a story regarding anything after they 'wake up' or are in the midst of being 'brain dead' then it is unreal or made up?
Special pleading, special pleading, special pleading.

 

[directorrico]

"popcorn.gif"

Join in on the fun ahaha

 

[Paradoxum]

From Buddhism, a belief or disbelief in God is irrelevant to becoming free of suffering. However, Buddhism is an extremely pragmatic religion and I'm not that practical. I like to have something deeper to hang it all on.

My belief in God involves panentheism and panpsychism. Every particle is God and every particle is aware. This influences my spirituality. I believe breath awareness and mindfulness are what give me peace in life. It is easier for me to use these practices and have peace when I think of it as getting in touch with the eternal part of me that never changes, which roughly translates in this life to my awareness.

Rather than being a bother, my belief in God helps me to get where I want to be: out of my head and into awareness of the present moment. I think of my identity as eternal awareness rather than as my body, personal history or the thoughts of my mind. This makes it easier to step back from my thoughts and realize they aren't me. I'm a larger space of eternal awareness in which those thoughts occur.

If on the other hand I thought of myself as this temporary human form, I think I would identify with it too much, taking every problem my mind dreams up too seriously, over identifying with thought, which I feel leads to depression.

It is not necessary to believe in God to have peace. All that it takes is stillness and mindfulness. However, my belief in God helps me to be still and mindful, if that makes sense. There is a "sacredness" to it. You know, spirituality.

Don't you feel bad lying to yourself about whether there is a God just because it makes you feel better? Just because you like to think there is something 'deeper' doesn't mean there is anything. I don't like the idea of living a false life like that.

I can see why you would like the idea of God. I guess if you don't produce any ethics based on this idea then your belief doesn't harm anyone.

You're not in any rush. I can respect that. The way I see it, physics is struggling to incorporate QM because it only has 4 non contact forces to work with. But I don't think you can find the force behind entanglement without breaking out of the "self existent universe" box.

You say you don't think we can understand it in our universe, but then people in the past might have though we would never understand lightning. I don't see why it is much different. Even if something is outside the universe (a multi-verse) it can still be considered physical.

If it was explained by the brain dying or waking up, in THAT case it would be unreal or "made up." I don't see this as making anything up, I just believe people have seen the other side.

Why do you think that explanation would be made up?

We know the mind can do strange things, such as make people dream, hallucinate, go mad, etc. It is easily possible that NDE are psychological, so there is no need to think there is a spirit or other world.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

It's not that I don't trust you but I have been trying to sort of check your facts on this and I can't find anything.

I've posted numerous links that explain what I'm saying . If you're doing a 'search' function in your browser, you won't find it; it's in the text in as small a detail as the 'r' in Ψ(r,t) in the time-independent Schrödinger equation (the Wikipedia article to which both you and I cited) - that 'r' denotes spacial coordinates, which don't arbitrarily truncate. The wavefunction - in this case, the position-space wavefunction - describes the probability that a particle exist at any given point in space. This is what is meant by Ψ(r,t).

Let me see if I've got what you're saying straight: entanglement is no mystery for physicalism, it's explained by physical interactions via Schrodinger's equation.

That depends on what you mean by 'mystery' - the stock market is a mystery to me, but I daresay it's physical.

I'd also like a definition of 'physicalism' before I commit to it. Common definitions are maddeningly incomplete, so hopefully you can be more exhaustive in your definition.

If that is what you're saying please post a link to an article or paragraph that describes this, with the main focus of the article or paragraph being "how Schrodinger's equation explains entanglement via physical interactions."

I can't help but feel you're tying arbitrary conditions onto this request - an article giving a general and exhaustive overview of the equation (such as the Wikipedia article) does contain the information you seek. Ultimately, the Schrödinger equation describes how a physical systems, mathematically described by their wavefunctions, evolve in space and time. Entanglement is an inescapable consequence of how wavefunctions behave, but it doesn't suddenly become non-physical. The wavefunctions persist over all of space, changing over time, and the two entangled particles exist as a superposition of these wavefunctions, which collapse at the point of measurement (for however you interpret wavefunction collapse).

Nevertheless, obeying your arbitrary restrictions, this article focus on the Schrödinger equation and quantum entanglement.

I recommend this textbook; I have my own copy, if you want chapter references.

The word physicalism isn't working because it includes physical forces. So rather than talk about what is physical and what is nonphysical, I put it like this: Can entanglement be explained (rather than described) by processes that happen in a self existent universe or does it require something outside of our physical universe?

Yes: observation-induced wavefunction collapse.

You are saying it doesn't require anything outside of our universe. That is what I'm interested in. How it explained in terms of physical forces within our universe?

It isn't. The physical forces aren't involved with the phenomenon of quantum entanglement.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

I agree with CS Lewis notion that if you read what Jesus said about Himself you will have to conclude that He was either a lunatic, a liar or Lord i.e. He cannot have been ‘just a good prophet’ as a lot of people say).

Why? The trilemma seems to miss some rather obvious options, thus making it a false trichotomy. It ignores the quite real possibility that Jesus was a sane Galilean Rabbi with good ideas on morality and social ethics, but who incorrectly interpreted the Messianic prophecies and incorrectly concluded he himself was the Messiah.

In this scenario, his claims to divinity are wrong (so he's not 'lord') but he doesn't know it (so he's not a 'liar') and he was merely victim to specious logic (so he's not a 'lunatic') - thus, it seems, Lewis' trilemma fails.

 

[Elioenai26]

Hi Directorrico,

Welcome to CF and thank you for your question

Why do I believe God exists?

The beautiful and amazing natural world around us points to a designer (regardless of whether it’s through evolution or creation – that is a different debate). ‘For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen….so that they are without excuse’. Rom 1:20.

The more I learn about the complexities of the natural world in subjects such as chemistry and human anatomy and physiology it provides extra confirmation to me that there is an intelligent designer.

But why the Christian God?

Faith in the Christian God is both a choice and a gift and is not easy to explain.

I was also brought up a catholic and perhaps it’s easy to be biased towards the religion of your upbringing (although not always as my brother doesn’t follow the Christian faith). So I thought it was important to consider other religions as I certainly don’t want to waste my life following a false god especially when the Christian walk can be difficult.

I am no longer a catholic or belong to a particular denomination. But I’ve concluded that there is no other book like the bible and there is no other man like Jesus. I agree with CS Lewis notion that if you read what Jesus said about Himself you will have to conclude that He was either a lunatic, a liar or Lord i.e. He cannot have been ‘just a good prophet’ as a lot of people say).

Some people think the bible is inaccurate for many reasons and if it wasn’t written by God those reasons would be true. But the bible is not just a normal book, it is the living, breathing word of God and has the remarkable ability to continuously teach me regardless of the number of times I read it. Despite the many arguments and misinterpretations of the bible I believe it contains the Truth for life, death and eternity.

My dear sister, this is the most profound and sincere defense that I believe I have ever read on this forum. You have greatly encouraged me by it.

 

[LottyH]

Thanks for the welcome and the reply.

After reading this, you're only real justification for your belief is faith. It may be a tad different from other other's faith but in the basic sense you have chose to believe in the Christian God because you were raised that way, you like what you hear/d and you are convinced the book is true because the book is true.
Also, how does the natural world point to a designer? It is beautiful, I agree. It is complex and it is something for us still to discover. But how do you conclude that there is a designer?
//

I try to imagine there is no designer but I find it impossible. It’s like finding an expensive watch in a field, pulling it apart and looking at how it works, then trying to convince myself that it was not designed and made with intelligent hands.

It’s the same when I look at the natural world and see the amazing variety (eg 18000 types of butterflies), the different colours, shapes, textures in the natural world are so beautiful and complementary. A true artist has been at work.

Then I look at things that fill me with awe such as the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly, how every person has unique fingerprints, how every snowflake is different, how a foetus develops from a couple of cells into a unique human being, how that baby ‘knows’ when to be born, how sunsets can be so different and beautiful, the complexities of a human cell – it’s like an efficiently run factory. Anyway I’ve only scratched the surface - I could go on and on but you get the picture.

You are absolutely right about it being about faith because I know others can look at these things and say they don’t see God as they think science can explain everything. God is the scientist!

 

[Elioenai26]

Why? The trilemma seems to miss some rather obvious options, thus making it a false trichotomy. It ignores the quite real possibility that Jesus was a sane Galilean Rabbi with good ideas on morality and social ethics, but who incorrectly interpreted the Messianic prophecies and incorrectly concluded he himself was the Messiah.

In this scenario, his claims to divinity are wrong (so he's not 'lord') but he doesn't know it (so he's not a 'liar') and he was merely victim to specious logic (so he's not a 'lunatic') - thus, it seems, Lewis' trilemma fails.

"If" your theory or scenario had support, then it would render Lewis trilemma a false trichotomy.

And that is being charitable to you.

In fact, aside from the fact that there is absolutely no evidence or sound argument in support of your hypothesis, it suffers from conspicuous insuperable difficulties when the data in question is given even a cursory examination.

To suggest that Jesus made a mistake about who He was, is to insinuate that at the age of twelve He was mistaken. For even then, His self-concept was evident in claiming He must be about His Father's (God's) business. In order for this theory to go through, you must also demonstrate that John the Baptist was mistaken, as well as Jesus' own disciples, all of which except one were martyred for their beliefs. You must also demonstrste that those pharisees and instructors of the Torah were all mistaken who came to believe Christ was the Messiah; all of which would have at the very least, faced ostracism and become outcasts for this belief. You must also demonstrate that the thousands who followed and believed on Christ were mistaken, for they all believed He was who He said He was, and this was not without great consequrnces, oftentimes resulting even in death.

This is just a miniscule sample of the insuperable difficulties one runs into when having to demonstrate that this theory is even plausible. That is the reason this hypothesis is not seriously entertained among NT historians. It never has and never will.

So in conclusion, although it is logically possible Jesus was mistaken, the absence of a sound argument for the hypothesis and the presence of positive evidence that He was not mistsken gives us justification for dismissing the hypothesis as tenable.

 

[Gadarene]

Yes I can imagine if you assert your claims are selfevidently true then querying that will look like 'running into a problem'.

But if NT scholars seriously think that's a problem, then they should get their degrees refunded.