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I'm just following my own feelings on the subject, as you tell us we should. "There is no right or wrong about it" - so why do you sound upset when I follow your advice?
Like I said, this sounds good in a touchy-feely way but as you see it breaks down as soon as two people with different feelings interact. There's more to reality than "I feel it's this way so it is".
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I said a person needs to follow their own feelings period. There is no right or wrong about it. Some things we will never know the real truth about in this life.
You definitely have a point there. But the face of Physics has changed so radically in the past 100-150 years that we really can't say that we know what we know right now cause everything could change completely tomorrow with the discovery of a new property or an experiment whose results are completely different from what would have been expected.
Why assume this will happen - it hasn't happened in the last several hundred years. We still use 17th century science to send spacecraft to the far edges of the solar system with near perfect accuracy. I think you're vastly overstating the effects of a new discovery on what we know.
It's not like all of physics was overturned. The stuff we were pretty sure of we're still pretty sure of. Some stuff that was uncertain has become better understood. There's still lots of stuff we don't have any clue on. But that's just it - the unknown is unknown. You can't use it as evidence for anything other than the fact we're not omniscient. Anything else is just speculation.
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Quantum Mechanics and String Theory outline laws that are in complete contradiction to the laws of Newtonian Physics and Relativity
One or the other is incomplete at the fringes, granted. That doesn't mean that computers will suddenly stop working if we discover a way to extend QM to be consistent with GR. We'll still use our understanding of quantum effects to build them, they'll keep working, and reality as we know it won't be much different.
Yes, we have evidence that there are unknowns - some things don't quite add up. Moving from there to "everything we know might be overturned tomorrow" is a huge leap.
"The first rule of scholarship [is]: You are never playing with a full deck. You never know how much evidence you may be missing, what it is, or where it is hiding. What counters that and saves the day for scholarship is what I have called the "Gas Law of Learning," namely, that any amount of knowledge, no matter how small, will fill any vacuum of ignorance, no matter how large. He who knows one or two facts can honestly claim to know at least something about a subject, and nobody knows everything. So it is with the schoolmen who make the rules and move the goalposts." ~ Hugh Nibley ~
Yes, everyone agrees that we don't know everything. But superstitions like those listed in the OP aren't simple thought experiments from known fact. They're flights of fancy based solely on complete ignorance and/or faith that what we do know is going to be totally overturned in short order. We don't even know if there's something there to speculate about - it could be that our ignorance is because the subject isn't real. The fact that there's no evidence it is not a license to go off on wild goose chases into the shadows of myth and fable. It's a warning not to get too far ahead of reality - reality isn't always kind when it reminds you of how it works.
Comparing that approach to hypothesizing from a limited, but nevertheless real, set of scientific data is quite a stretch.
Sure, if you're talking about "grandma's spirit watches over me so I sleep better at night" it doesn't make that much difference. But it does if you think grandma's going to keep you safe when you drive drunk. Pretending that what's really real is just a matter of feelings doesn't make it so.
Yes, everyone agrees that we don't know everything. But superstitions like those listed in the OP aren't simple thought experiments from known fact. They're flights of fancy based solely on complete ignorance and/or faith that what we do know is going to be totally overturned in short order.
I disagree. I believe there are some things we simply are incapable of proving to be either true or false. The fact that something cannot be proven to be true does not make it false. As long as I don't try to impose my beliefs on someone else, or let them make me act irresponsibly, I honestly don't see why anybody would give a damn what I believe. I have never in my life tried to convince anybody that God exists. I don't see why anybody would want to try to convince me that He doesn't.
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Pretending that what's really real is just a matter of feelings doesn't make it so.
You're right, it doesn't. If God exists, His existance is 100% independent of what either you or I happen to believe.
I disagree. I believe there are some things we simply are incapable of proving to be either true or false. The fact that something cannot be proven to be true does not make it false.
Sure, but then you're left with the problem of how to pick and choose between an infinite number of mutually contradictory things which may exist but have no evidence in their favor. Or you can choose to accept none of them - at least the latter is consistent.
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As long as I don't try to impose my beliefs on someone else, or let them make me act irresponsibly, I honestly don't see why anybody would give a damn what I believe. I have never in my life tried to convince anybody that God exists. I don't see why anybody would want to try to convince me that He doesn't.
That's not what's going on in this thread. It's about epistemology rather than the applying any particular theory of knowledge towards gods.
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You're right, it doesn't. If God exists, His existance is 100% independent of what either you or I happen to believe.
True, just like the existence of everything else. If you look back in the thread, there were people who disagreed with you - they think that feelings are able to create reality or that we should just assume whatever we feel is correct. Unfortunately, believing that has consequences on a practical level.
Why assume this will happen - it hasn't happened in the last several hundred years. We still use 17th century science to send spacecraft to the far edges of the solar system with near perfect accuracy. I think you're vastly overstating the effects of a new discovery on what we know.
It's not like all of physics was overturned. The stuff we were pretty sure of we're still pretty sure of. Some stuff that was uncertain has become better understood. There's still lots of stuff we don't have any clue on. But that's just it - the unknown is unknown. You can't use it as evidence for anything other than the fact we're not omniscient. Anything else is just speculation.
One or the other is incomplete at the fringes, granted. That doesn't mean that computers will suddenly stop working if we discover a way to extend QM to be consistent with GR. We'll still use our understanding of quantum effects to build them, they'll keep working, and reality as we know it won't be much different.
Yes, we have evidence that there are unknowns - some things don't quite add up. Moving from there to "everything we know might be overturned tomorrow" is a huge leap.
I'm not using Physics changing as proof of anything. Nor am I claiming that computers will cease to work or anything of that sort. I'm just saying we can't act like we know it all--because we don't.
Quantum Mechanics did that. Scientists were baffled at what they were discovering. Just do a little research. See for yourself. Even Einstein himself had a hard time accepting QM.
We can all speculate without evidence--but we just have to realize it's only speculation. But it's speculation that also drives people to try new experiments, which leads to new theories and new evidence. If scientists didn't speculate a bit, science would never progress because they'd be doing the same experiments over and over again--reaching the same conclusions over and over, and just reconfirming what they already know, rather than delving into new territory.
True, just like the existence of everything else. If you look back in the thread, there were people who disagreed with you - they think that feelings are able to create reality or that we should just assume whatever we feel is correct. Unfortunately, believing that has consequences on a practical level.
As does not believing it. Any belief has consequences on a practical level. There's no way out of that one.
Things I don't believe in: (no creditable evidence or not logical)
A god or gods
The soul
Life after death
Ghosts
ESP of any kind
Monsters (Bigfoot, Yeti, Loch Ness monster...etc)
Aliens visiting earth
Voodoo or witchcraft
faith healing
Atlantis
If you believe in any of the above why? Use logic and reason in your statement not faith in things unseen.
Or add to the list of things that many believe in that you have issues with.
Why do I believe? Because it comforts me in hard times. Because it gives me hope that there is more to life than just the day in day out bore of average life. Because it allows me to have an active imagination, which in turn allows my brain to develop more and hold more information. It has been proven that people with active imaginations are smarter than people without.
Believing in what I believe in helps me hope that in the end, if I have lived a good life, I will be rewarded in some way. This in turn encourages me to do good deeds, more than I would normally do.
I don't believe in any traditional religion. I feel that they all have bits and pieces of knowledge that are beneficial to all mankind. I feel that losing our systems of faith would make us more likely to be violent.
Religion is not bad, faith in the unknown/unseen is not bad. Not believing in anything is also not bad. I feel that people who have something to believe in are more than likely to be good than evil.
Sure, some people take their beliefs too far, but this goes for both sides of the scale. Some non believers are just as bad as some believers.
I could care less what anyone believes in. I could care less what anyone practices as a religion as long as they leave me alone. However, If someone tries to push it down my throat I do not attack or have a problem with the whole group. My problem is with the individual(s), that is how it should be. One or a few people should not be able to speak for all other people of that religion.
To me, religion is a personal quest for truth, knowledge and betterment.
Last edited by fractured_kidult; 02-22-2011 at 02:10 PM..
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