Wtf?

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

The bed they were on would rest on a precise set of scales. And sure enough {gasp!} when these people died, their weight lowered by 4 ounces over a period of a few seconds. This was the weight of their souls leaving the body!

Ever seen 21 Grams?


Personally, I'd sooner attribute this to the lack of incoming air.

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Ever seen 21 Grams? Personally, I'd sooner attribute this to the lack of incoming air.

Here's a good link:
http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp

No, even the air in lungs would be negligable weight. The "experiment" mentioned in the link was purported to have been done in 1906. I would chalk the differences up to experimental error and subjective bias (wishful thinking which affects interpretation).

[Saitia]

Hello Qfwfq,

Originally Posted by Qfwfq

In what sense would a scientific belief be based on personal experience?

In the sense that it is a personal experience in the consciousness of the individual scientist.
A scientist who makes a factually verifiable and repeatable discovery believes— in his consciousness— that what he has done is real, based on his a priori assumptions that life, matter, and motion are real to start with. Those other persons who choose to believe his experience— or not— do so on the exercise of faith; i.e., relative confidence.

Since there is a healthy dose of dogmatism running through this thread, e.g. the careless use of the word "absolutely," the distinction about who or what actually has the experience is critical. Science may be physical, but the mind of the truth-discerning scientist making the science is not. For lack of a better word, it's super-material. Ordinary matter, i.e., a brain, simply cannot "know" truth; it can't love anything, let alone take an interest in reality. But moral convictions based on spiritual insight and rooted in human experience are just as real and certain as mathematical deductions based on physical observations, but on another— and higher— level.

A key requisite for fact being accepted as scientific is objectivity. Something that only a few "special" people experience, and they can only claim to experience, aren't quite the hallmark. These people can believe it and others are free to believe or disbelieve their claim.

Objectivity is certainly a worthy goal for a scientist. But if a scientist claims to have successfully cloned a dog, er, scratch that; if a scientist posits that the origin of the universe is a result of the BB, and she predicts "the chances of a spiritual dimension of the universe are "pretty slim," has she reached your hallmark?

The truly "objective" scientist, as such, is limited to the discovery of the relatedness of material facts. Technically, she has no right to assert that she is either materialist or idealist, for in so doing she has assumed to forsake the attitude of a true scientist— since any and all such assertions of attitude are the very essence of philosophy.

Where's the fire?

—Saitia

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by Saitia

...A scientist who makes a factually verifiable and repeatable discovery believes— in his consciousness— that what he has done is real, based on his a priori assumptions that life, matter, and motion are real to start with. Those other persons who choose to believe his experience— or not— do so on the exercise of faith; i.e., relative confidence....Science may be physical, but the mind of the truth-discerning scientist making the science is not. For lack of a better word, it's super-material. Ordinary matter, i.e., a brain, simply cannot "know" truth; it can't love anything, let alone take an interest in reality. ...

Your arguments are faulty, in that (1) they are based on assumptions that are debatable, and (2) you engage in the mixing of metaphor and fact.

To repeat a previous post, you continue to rely on the phrase "believe in" in two different and somewhat incompatible senses, switching from one sense of the phrase (to accept the evidence of experiment, or of one's senses) to the other (to accept as "fact" certain hypotheses without benefit of experiment or experience, but on the basis of some authority assumed to be trustworthy) whenever it appears to support your contention. It takes a sharp eye to spot this, and I'm willing to cede that you may be doing this unintentionally.

A scientist may accept some explanation (I shall avoid saying "believe in") on the basis of, as YOU said, verifiable and repeatable experiment. Others scientists do NOT as a rule take this on faith. They repeat the experiment. You appear to assume that experiments are performed only once, and therefore agreement must be a process of "faith". This is unfounded. Other scientists repeat the repeatable and reverify the verifiable. If the hypothesis is controversial, this repetition of experiment may go on for decades, across several generations of scientists.

The scientific literature contains detailed descriptions of how these experiments were set up, how conducted, how controlled, how verified, and what conclusions were reached. As a particular experiment is verified with the same results, the willingness to accept the conclusions as fact increases.

The statement that physical matter cannot "know" or "love" is a profound assumption based on, well, nothing at all. It is a fact that we are made of matter and that we both know and love. There is no need to make the unwarranted assumption that supernatural "magic" is required to explain these observations.

[Racoon]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Ever seen 21 Grams?

yeah, but thats Felony Possesion !

WTF!!

[Qfwfq]

Originally Posted by Saitia

A scientist who makes a factually verifiable and repeatable discovery believes— in his consciousness— that what he has done is real, based on his a priori assumptions that life, matter, and motion are real to start with.

I would put this as being a totally different topic and not belonging in this thread, much discussed and certainly not lacking elsewhere on these boards.

Originally Posted by Saitia

Those other persons who choose to believe his experience— or not— do so on the exercise of faith; i.e., relative confidence.

They can choose to believe or not but, in many cases:

Originally Posted by Saitia

But if a scientist claims to have successfully cloned a dog, er, scratch that;

Publications by serious researchers of such things include everything they consider useful for enabling their peers to do the same thing: what seems to be of influence, what might be and so on. Of course, science also uses observations that cannot be repeated at will, when an event is reported by a single individual and/or has been witnessed by few, people take it into consideration with regard to plausibility of what is reported, credibility and reputation of the observers etc. Few people doubt some reports, many are highly sceptical about others.

Originally Posted by Saitia

if a scientist posits that the origin of the universe is a result of the BB, and she predicts "the chances of a spiritual dimension of the universe are "pretty slim," has she reached your hallmark?

The Big Bang proves nothing and disproves nothing about spirituality.

Originally Posted by Saitia

The truly "objective" scientist, as such, is limited to the discovery of the relatedness of material facts. Technically, she has no right to assert that she is either materialist or idealist, for in so doing she has assumed to forsake the attitude of a true scientist— since any and all such assertions of attitude are the very essence of philosophy.

I somewhat disagree with your borders between natural philosophy and other topics of philosophy.

[Saitia]

Hey 'tex,

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

Your arguments are faulty, in that (1) they are based on assumptions that are debatable, and (2) you engage in the mixing of metaphor and fact.

By that standard (1) so are everyone's; life, matter, and motion will always be assumptions that are "debatable." And since you're perfectly capable of determining fact from figure of speech, mixing metaphor and fact shouldn't be a serious handicap to discerning my point.

To repeat a previous post, you continue to rely on the phrase "believe in" in two different and somewhat incompatible senses, switching from one sense of the phrase (to accept the evidence of experiment, or of one's senses) to the other (to accept as "fact" certain hypotheses without benefit of experiment or experience, but on the basis of some authority assumed to be trustworthy) whenever it appears to support your contention. It takes a sharp eye to spot this, and I'm willing to cede that you may be doing this unintentionally.

The phrase "believe in" as you've chosen to define it is your interpretation, but I see what you're getting at. In one instance I was referring to the personal experience (in the consciousness) of the scientist who actually did the work; in the other instance, I wasn't talking about other "scientists" repeating the experiment and duplicating the experience in their own consciousness; I was talking about those outside of science who choose to take the scientist's assertions (beliefs) of his personal experience as their own. My point was and is these others do so on faith in another's experience.

A scientist may accept some explanation (I shall avoid saying "believe in") on the basis of, as YOU said, verifiable and repeatable experiment. Others scientists do NOT as a rule take this on faith. They repeat the experiment. You appear to assume that experiments are performed only once, and therefore agreement must be a process of "faith". This is unfounded. Other scientists repeat the repeatable and reverify the verifiable. If the hypothesis is controversial, this repetition of experiment may go on for decades, across several generations of scientists.

Of course. But I assume no such thing; I respect the findings and resulting (true) belief of the scientist(s) who do the experiment and discover the said facts, whatever they are. I'm not attempting to invalidate the findings of scientists; merely pointing out the rest of us do not experience their direct personal experience in our individual consciousness, so we cannot assume the facts are true in the same manner the scientist does; those facts are experiences in the personal consciousness of the scientist(s) alone; not the great unwashed who may choose to accept the scientist's experience as fact— through the exercise of faith.

The scientific literature contains detailed descriptions of how these experiments were set up, how conducted, how controlled, how verified, and what conclusions were reached. As a particular experiment is verified with the same results, the willingness to accept the conclusions as fact increases.

Certainly.

The statement that physical matter cannot "know" or "love" is a profound assumption based on, well, nothing at all.

That's "debatable." Do you know of some form of matter sans mind that "knows" or "loves"?

It is a fact that we are made of matter and that we both know and love.

There's a huge cosmic gulf between matter and thought, and that gulf is immeasurably greater between material mind and spiritual love.
Consciousness—much less self-consciousness— hasn't been explained by any theory of mechanistic electronic association or materialistic energy phenomena.

There is no need to make the unwarranted assumption that supernatural "magic" is required to explain these observations.

I made no appeal to "magic." Someone with an eye sharp enough to notice subtle distinctions in a phrase should also be sharp enough to appreciate the important difference in meaning between my use of the word super-material and your use of "magic." Unless of course it was just a superfluous expression of your personal bias on the meaning of supernatural.



Weathering The Flatus,
—Saitia

[Boerseun]

Riiiiiight...

More than two years since the last post, I'll breathe some air into the sucker:

Yesterday morning, a dumbass school pupil in the town of Krugersdorp, just a few clicks from my valley, pitched up at school with a ninja sword. He had a mask on his face, and used shoe polish to blacken his face. He got to school, and proceeded to kill another pupil with a single blow to the neck, and then stabbed three more people (two gardeners and another pupil) before calmly walking to the principal, pegging the sword into the ground and stating "Now what?"

And now, of course, Satan gets the blame. Apparently the kid dabbled in Satanism, and was a huge fan of Slipknot, who's on-stage dress he emulated with his mask and dress when he went on his killing spree.

Now I'm no particular fan of bands like Slipknot and/or Marilyn Manson, for that matter; I think they cash it in on stating in public what a whole bunch of depressed kids feel. I don't think these bands have any particular depression issues or anything, they've just found a very lucrative niche in the music market, and the more violent and explicit the lyrics, the bigger sales they'll ratchet up. The music industry, like any other business, exist solely to make money for its investors. It's got zip, zero, nothing to do with Satan - although the myths about Satan's musical abilities might be rather fitting in this context.

Any case, I digress. There's a kid in Krugersdorp who have serious mental and emotional issues. He suffered a deep depression, and found a resonance in the lyrics of Slipknot, a band who very cynically makes millions on pretending to simulate other's depressions and angst. Be that as it may, Slipknot and their ilk uses the imagery of Satanism as a selling tool - in order for them to be quickly and easily identified and classed by those shoppers in the CD shop looking for just their brand of "music". They haven't "sold their souls to Satan" to make their music, because like God, Satan is merely a figment of the human mind. If pretending to have sold their souls to the Devil will make them sell more albums, I'll give you five guesses as to whether they'll support the myth or not. Of course they will. And idiots like this kid in Krugersdorp laps this kind of bullshit up, and pretends to do the same in emulation of his heroes.

But this isn't my gripe.

My gripe is the adults who are now supposed to handle the situation in Krugersdorp. In stead of handling the issue like the crime it is, the police have now commandeered their "occults unit" to investigate the case. In stead of admitting that society failed this kid and left him to his own devices which ended in tragedy, the parents and teachers are now blaming Satan. I kid you not. This kid was probably bullied, was depressed, and attempted to garner some respect (through fear and intimidation) by pretending to be a Satanist, and then went ahead and killed a fellow pupil. Yet society doesn't see their own hand in this.

They merely blame it on the Devil.

...to which I can merely say:

WTF?

How will an "exorcism" in the town of Krugersdorp prevent another similar situation? Why, because the killer pretended to be posessed by some sort of imaginary evil, do we reciprocate by pretending to pray to some sort of imaginary good?

The little shit is a killer, make no mistake. And he should be tried and punished according to his crime. But society should not assume that all is well because they've determined that the "devil did it". A couple of priests spraying holy water around Krugersdorp will not make a dent in the root cause of the short-circuit in society that made this kid do what he did.

I can only shake my head at the utter and completely moronic idiocy of so-called adults on this rock we call home.

[Buffy]

Oh but its obvious why they do it: it absolves any of them of any responsibility.

The parents didn't want to believe the warning signs.

The teachers were afraid to say anything for fear they'd get in trouble.

The kids didn't say anything because they were too busy taunting the kid for being "different."

The church leaders want to take advantage of the opportunity to say, "see what happens when you don't go to church?"

The police want to up their success rate in "solving" crimes by picking a cause that they can identify easily and get out of their in box.

The politicians want a problem that isn't their problem to solve but they can be indignant about along with all of their constituents.

When its Satan, everyone comes out smelling like a rose, when in truth the whole town truly stinks to high heaven with responsibility.

If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever,
Buffy