So salyavin, thinking of the atom which has always been real and measurable
except that we didn't have the instruments to do so, is it possible that there
exists right now, something else which is real and measurable but for which we
don't yet have the instruments for measuring?
On Wednesday, April 16, 2014 7:12 AM, salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
wrote:
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <sharelong60@...> wrote :
salyavin, it stopped me in my tracks here at the end when you say "...if it
isn't measurable it isn't real." How about atoms? Were they unreal when they
weren't measurable?
No, they were always measurable, we just didn't have the technology to do it.
Did they only become real when we became able to measure them? Of course these
are rhetorical questions meant to make the point that I think one of the
functions of science is to make measurable that which has been real all along
but existing beyond the usual range of our senses. For this reason, I think
some day science will *prove* the truth of many of the spiritual and some of
the religious traditions.
You never know your luck, so far it looks like the opposite is true. But people
will always claim they have been vindicated if they can. Look at all the
quantum mystics there are. How serious to take them? Basically, if you see the
word "quantum" outside of a physics textbook, ignore it.
Meanwhile, people take it on faith. Why? Because maybe human intuition is the
best scientific instrument of all!
It's great at some things. In the occasions in my life that I've ignored my
inner voice things have gone always wrong. It's like our conscious ways of
working out what to do are woefully inadequate compared to our instinctive
selves.
I don't think it works at all beyond our own personal experiences. I would say
that the only people who ever came up with a good cosmological theory without
the ability to test it (like the Greek speculation about atoms - it's Greek for
"indivisible") got there more by luck and never knew if they were right or not.
Which is why there are so many different "revealed" versions of the truth...
On Tuesday, April 15, 2014 4:24 PM, salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
wrote:
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <authfriend@...> wrote :
P.S.: Either you just made up what you attributed to me in a malicious attempt
to make me look stupid,
Yup, malicious that's me. You made yourself look stupid - not to mention
exceptionally irritating - with your refusal to explain what you mean. See also
our oft repeated jyotish discussion.
And I notice from the Ed Fess blog that he uses the same lame argument about
having to have read all types to know that you can discount them. Nonsense. If
I was to say you
have to have ridden every type of bicycle before you can say you don't like
cycling what would you say? It's the concept dear.....
or your thinking has been going off in the wrong direction, at least where
classical theism is concerned.
Depends which version of classical theism you are talking about, there appear
to be hundreds but I've no doubt they can all be adapted to avoid having to
provide any actual evidence beyond the "I want it to be like this" variety.
I repeat my usual position that applies to all theism. It's unnecessary so why
bother? That's a fab encapsulation by the way, not as elegant as Xeno but it
sure is succinct.
There is no conflict whatsoever between classical theism and science, including
the laws of physics
You may have found a version that doesn't but I can assure you that any god
that has these qualities.....
1. Transcendence
2. Omnipotence
3. Omniscience
4. Omnipresence
5. Absolute Benevolence
....but doesn't, or never has, interfered with his creation is missing a trick.
The funny thing about the universe is that it looks exactly as one would if it
wasn't made by a god with these classical theistic qualities. Odd that.
But please don't write back with another "but you don't understand, my god is
different..." it's the concept. I'm sure Ed Fess can wriggle his way round it
with some
other version but I really don't care. I convert for evidence. And necessity
would count as a form of evidence. And there is no necessity, as well as the
other major evidential problems. And like that we have a much better
explanation.
So really, why bother? Unless you want to. and if you want to, fine.
Here's how science works. Someone has a model of how they think the world works
- an old one is that the earth is the centre of the
universe and everything else revolves round it. Looks good from a position
standing on the Earth's surface but if you measure the way planets move you
find you have a really complex set of mathematical calculations to make so you
can make predictions about where they will be in the future.
Sometime later someone thought that maybe the Earth isn't the centre of the
universe and that everything went round the sun. Voila! all of a sudden things
made more sense, and the universe had become simpler to explain. Simplicity in
explanations is good.
That's been going on for
centuries, new measurements reveal that an old model of the universe is
inadequate so a new one has to be drawn up. That process will continue until
someone puts down their electron microscope and says that's it. Finished. Until
that glorious day (if it ever happens) anyone with an idea that improves upon
an old one has to provide a superior explanation to the one they are replacing.
This will get accepted as the new paradigm. Simples.
I ask myself what contribution the many versions of classical theism (or any
sort - they are much of a muchness to me) is actually making that improves on
what we have. Seems like not much, but as it concerns a prime mover it would
have to be fundamental wouldn't it? It also seems to me that classical theism
would be one of the
early models that got superceded. If it was real it would be kind of hard for
an accurate model to function without it I would have thought. But it
determinedly refuses to be measurable except as something people want to be
true.
So the only way it isn't in conflict with science is because it isn't
measurable. And if it isn't measurable it isn't real.
It's the concept, it's wrong.
