YES! If I understand him correctly!
Methodological Naturalism(MN) on TSZ and everywhere comes up in origin matters all the time. Are present mechanisms/machinery for the universe always been acting as is and so negates the involvement of a creator who would need to interfere and did?
all biology and geology and cosmology researchers want common laws to be fixed in the universe and any creationism is frustrated right out of the gate. for fun and profit i recently watched the Richard Feynman lectures on physics. He is still remembered by older people as a important scientist . i’m not sure his accomplishments back this up and instead its a old prejudice about post war physics mattering greatly. possibly he just tied up some loose ends. however his true science status is not the point. The point is that the science “community’ know his name and care what he thinks about science generally. On youtube on the fifth lecture Character of physical law(The distinction of past and future) starting at 16:40-22:10 minutes on it HE brings up about geology, history, cosmology as being different then physics. He complains this is a error. physics must of evolved TOO. The present laws of physics must of been different then the past ones while it was evolving. The present is not a accurate portrayal of the past based on this idea. THE universe/world was MORE organized in the past. Outside the province of present physic laws. On another youtube show called “Take the world from another point of view” by same author. on the third video at 9:00 he says the same thing. in short m==MN does not work with present systems because they radically must of evolved from a more organized past system. SO boundaries based on present laws of nature would fail to accurately explain things. this is important idea for creationism in so much.In biology or geology or cosmology its reasonable to imagine , as options, that present laws, whether on creation week, post fall, post flood, could easily be different then present laws in these subjects. unless someone says Mr Feynman is wrong!!
Argument from “everybody builds statues”. Whatever next.
You refuse to say if these “laws” can be broken, if your deity can intervene in ways unavailable to us trapped within those laws.
You probably have some idea of the nightmare that awaits you, if you were an honest interlocutor, were you to step away from the middle of the fence.
One the one hand the “chaos of physics” is what ensues when your deity is free to intervene at will (that old divine foot in the door) and on the other, well, your idiot deity makes an imperfect universe it has to keep tweaking at. A bit of a fool.
So don’t answer. That’s fine. We all know why you refuse to turn your questions on yourself.
Thank you. Clear and concise. This helps enormously.
OMagain,
Your questions all boil down to the same thing-“Why can’t I see God…”
Infantile.
Humans have come up with and made statues of over 20,000 different Gods across the centuries. Did you have any particular ones in mind you think are real?
I agree that MN does not explain the laws of physics. MN is a description of the practices of successful communities of scientists; it does not attempt to explain why successful physics uses mathematics, some of which we describe as laws.
Physics and math can get you part way to that explanation. Math theorems based on symmetries explain laws of conservation of energy and momentum and empirical results back up the assumptions in these theorems. And multiverses plus anthropic principle explain laws of OUR universe.
But science stops somewhere. It then becomes philosophy whether you think there is any need to go beyond that and whether postulating a necessary deity helps with any philosophical problem you claim to exist. I don’t dispute that philosophy will eventually enter into the discussion after science stops.
I agree that many societies have done that, and then provided many conflicting explanations for the appearance of planning to design. But that alone tells us nothing about how the an apparently regularity-based universe or multiverse came to be; at best, it tells us something about human cognition and/or the power structures of human communities.
I see my view of the nature MN as pragmatism, not empiricism. I think we should look to the practices of successful science to understanding the meaning and nature of MN. In particular, MN is about the norms successful scientific communities follow to classify a proposed explanation as meeting their standards for science, and then to review and select the best explanation as a community.
I understand you as equating empiricism with Logical Positivism. To me, that brand of empiricism is captured by both instrumentalism about scientific theories and verificationism about meaning. I agree it is generally viewed as a failure. Even the whole idea of demarcation of science/non-science by necessary and sufficient conditions is now generally seen as a failure, I believe, whether one adopts LP or Popperian fallibility or whatever. At least, that is the view in philosophy, if not among scientists.
Instead, I think the modern empiricism in science is specifically related to the need for explanations to be testable by experiment. The controversy about whether multiverses are a scientific explanation is then seen as a controversy about changing scientific norms about whether theories must be so testable — that is, that controversy is scientific community confronting a potential change in its practices (and hence it its version of MN).
Can you explain why you think that? I don’t see how you can infer that MN is the same as metaphysical naturalism. You could argue that MN’s success justifies metaphysical naturalism, but that it a separate and difficult argument as I see it, since MN evolves with the changing standards of a community.
Now one could see my pragmatic approach as a basis for an argument for relativism, which of course it already is to eg the sociological strong program. So that possibility does motivate a separate discussion in philosophy of science and epistemology.
But that’s just another version of OMagain’s “Can’t see God so I don’t believe it” complaint.
Never the less, it did come to be. And man has, by a huge majority, viewed this and come to the conclusion that this is not just space junk thrown into chaos.
If we get beyond the infantile, and accept that, ok, when we consider a God, we are going to have to expect some limitations on our vision of that God. But we are not totally blind. We get hints. Glimpses. Inferences.
If we accept that this is the most we can expect-since we are talking about other realms after all, then what might we expect to see? How about laws? That might be one thing we might expect to see. How about intelligence? Yep, that’s another thing we might expect to see if we want glimpses at larger intelligence. Design. Consistency. Thoughts of morality. Universal feelings of the existence of good and evil…
So when one complains about being unable to get a complete users manual for the existence of God, I say, well, take the sum totality of the experience of man. Call that an abridged manual. Forget about being spoon-fed your entire life like a helpless child at a dinner table.
No it isn’t. It’s a recognition that philosophy, not science, eventually must be used to argue the issues I noted. I have not gotten much out trying that with you in the past, so I am going to stop there.
And there again with the projection. You have a sample size of precisely one, your own experience. It seems to you good and evil exist and therefore that feeling is universal.
Is leaving sickly children to die of exposure good or evil?
Eventually phoodoo will realize he’s trying to tear down scientific proposals (i.e evolution) with religion.
So, hey, phoodoo, behind our world of laws is a supernatrual world that god lives in that also follows it’s own laws? DId that god make those laws or is it subject to them just like we are the laws it made?
Is that place of supernatural laws the same place you make decisions in? If so, what’s the difference between following laws here or there? Why is it possible to make actual free will decisions there and not here?
etc etc.
The sum totality of the experience of man seems to be hunger, disease and starvation, on average. Again you project your white male entitlement onto reality. Things are fine for you, so they were fine for everybody throughout all time. Whatever privitations past people suffered were worth it, so you can stand there and spew your spoon fed and whipped cream nonsense whenever anybody points out all this makes your god a pos.
I pointed out before that all the things you think are good for us, the suffering pain, will mostly be alleviated by technology eventually. You responded “now I’m starting to get it” or similar. So it’s clear that, like others of your ilk, what happens to other people is irrelevant. As long as it’s part of the ‘plan’. A plan you yourself say you are only getting hints of.
What if you are all wrong? What if your god is a maniac, much like the one described in the OT? What if it delights in the torture of innocents and parasitic infections?
Which god or religion or other source of worldly information most represents the god you believe exists?
Given that phoodoo is continuing with his “What about laws? What about intelligence? these are things we should expect to see…” ‘argument’ as evidence for his deity, I’m fairly confident he either missed, or (more likely) did not understand, Bruce’s allusion to the anthropic principle.
I guess that is where we part company.
I learn a lot from the biologists, philosophers, and physicists who post here and at PS. But I’ve never seen any IDists or YECs be convinced that their position has to change.
Some are more polite about their disagreements than others.
Havent had time to keep up but I’d suggest it’s more performance art. Lord of Misrule, eh, phoodoo?
On the one hand, it is true that if one begins with a very specific conception of what kind of Being God is, then one might expect that there will be laws of physics. (Though it is not easy to see why one would begin with that conception rather than with some other.)
On the other hand, it does not follow, from the commitment to laws of physics, that therefore there must be a God who instituted those laws. For the laws of physics could be brute facts.
To reject the brute-fact-ness of the laws of physics, one would need to accept not only the principle of sufficient reason but also a specific version of the PSR: one that seeks not just causal explanations but also rational justifications.
It is conceivable that the multiverse could give us a causal explanation of the laws of physics in this universe (though personally I don’t see how that could work, but what do I know?), but the multiverse couldn’t give us a rational justification of those laws.
For my part, I think the far more consistent view for non-theists is to reject any demanding realism about the laws of physics and treat them as just a convenient heuristic. (Cartwright has a nice article on this called “No God, No Laws”.)
BruceS,
Observation is science.
Its just not the manual many materialist want.
BruceS,
Yes the option the laws changed would seem to be demanded unless they popped into existence with the ‘claimed” Big Bang and have been that glorious perfect since.
if they evolved it makes predictions or extrapolations back about the history of the universe very suspect or rather likely wrong. In fact the BIG BANG would be based, i think, on present rates or laws. Not open to different laws of the past.
Canada welcomes diversity, and that includes diversity in standards for logical arguments, as is illustrated by many of your posts, at least by my standards for logic.
But I can see the logic for that question. Plus it gives me an excuse to link to some useful exchanges at PS.
So, yes, it would be important to understand change in laws, which is why physicists have looked for evidence of it, but AFAIK found none that contradicts current cosmology as best explanation for what we observe.
The physicists at PS have made more detailed comments on specific examples attempted by YECists, such as changing speed of light.
https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-failure-of-jason-lisles-asc-paradigm/4175/3
In that and linked threads, I stick to comments by dga471, pdotdq, structureoftruth, who know the physics.
I am not claiming one can scientifically discount Last Thursdayism.
Phoodoo is a logical positivist! Who’d a thunk it?
No, I actually think that pretty much any method that we use to learn things is science.
Been there, done that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method
And here for your reading pleasure:
The crisis in physics is not only about physics
[start of quote]
“But theoretical physicists did not learn the lesson and still ignore the philosophy and sociology of science. I encounter this dismissive behavior personally pretty much every time I try to explain to a cosmologist or particle physicists that we need smarter ways to share information and make decisions in large, like-minded communities. If they react at all, they are insulted if I point out that social reinforcement – aka group-think – befalls us all, unless we actively take measures to prevent it.”
[end of quote]
She’s saying that physicists need to think more like philosophers and sociologists and re-assess methodology accordingly. I am not saying she is right, despite by sympathy for both those fields of study. Just that MN is not something fixed and there is plenty of room for heretics, providing they base their arguments on knowledge of the relevant science and the current methods of the relevant community of scientists.
Then what are your scientific conclusions regarding god?
How do you know those other realms exist at all? You talk about observation being science, well what have you observed that makes you believe that “other realms” are real?
The multiverse solves some specific problems in physics, hence it’s proposal. What scientific problem do these “other realms” solve?
I ask once again. Is there an existing religion or similar that you can reference phoodoo that matches up with your lifetime of observations?
I get that you are convinced that you were made for a purpose. That you are not aware of that purpose seems not to matter to you however, which is my inference from your inability to answer even the most innocuous question regarding the claims you continually make.
Are you a religious person? If so. what religion? Is your “Intelligent Designer” also the god you worship?
I just gave a whole list of hints of what one might expect to see, if we accept that we can never fully see the world of the supernatural. The best we can ask for are glimpses, inferences, shadows of what might be there-and I suggest that “laws” of physics are but one of those shadows.
The alternative position is that laws of physics just are, because, they are. I think the idea that the laws were created is a much more lucid explanation.
Why do we have to accept that? Where is it written that we can never understand it?
What parts of the supernatural world have we partially seen?
On what basis are you suggesting that? What is your evidence that leads you to that conclusion? Why have you written “laws” in quotes? Is it because you believe those “laws” can be suspended at any time (the foot in the door) if your deity so chooses?
Except it’s not an explanation at all, is it. It’s just pushing it back a level and saying “we don’t need to explain the creator, it just is”. It’s not an explanation at all, it’s just a cop out. It’s you giving up and admitting your path is unproductive.
Back in the day gods appeared to all. Bushes burnt, people turned to salt. Virgins impregnated, angels flying thick and fast all over. God making personal appearances at the drop of a hat.
And yet these days, for some reason, we are reduced to “hints” and expectations that we’ll never be able to understand it all for some as yet unspecified reason.
The funny thing is that is precisely your claim about the creator of those laws. It just is, no further explanation required or wanted.
Your double standards are showing. Your preferred “explanation” is lucid despite being exactly the same as the laws of physics being as they are because they are? Your deity can exist without a starting point and that’s lucid?
That you find that a satisfactory resolution to the question tells me nothing I did not already know about you.
Do you believe in ghosts?
You’ve already make it clear you believe people like Uri Geller have real PSI powers. Are these aspects of the supernatural you talk about related to ghosts and the powers people like Uri claim to have?
Why do we have to accept we can never fully see the world of the supernatural? How much of it can we see? What’s stopping us seeing the rest? Where do I put the donations?
Well, hiring to do a job is one thing actually doing it is another. Does Uri have a stronger access to the supernatural then everyone else phoodoo, is that why he is able to spy and analyze as you believe he can?
Or is Uri’s power a different type of supernatural to the one you are referencing?
E2fixLink(Jock)
OMagain,
Wow, now I understand why Mexico is the most powerful country in the planet and why everybody wants to migrate to Mexico in search for opportunities. Thanks phoodoo for this lucid explanation.
The FBI use psychics all the time, fool.
Hey phoodoo have you ever watched Uri Geller’s performance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson? Here is a summary of his performance:
Magic Smackdown!: When ‘Amazing’ Randi Humiliated Uri Geller
https://groovyhistory.com/amazing-randi-uri-geller-tonight-show
One other thought to ponder: Have you ever wondered why James Randi’s prize for a successful demonstration of psychic ability has never been won?
fool indeed…….
A national entity can not accept or reject diversity. its the people. They vote. Canadians reject diversity where its stuff they reject. i certainly do. Saying cANADA does is aggressive rejection of the people and thus as Uncanadian as can be.
Just a friendly correction.
if there was a evolving physics HOW would it be discovered/ a creationist does not desire a evolving physics but a fixed one. sAy for a post fall interference option.
YET for the other side whats up??
The bible , to me , implies there is no speed opf light but instead a fixed light ether/field. the moving light is only a moving energy in that field. a pebble in the pond who those aware of pond pebble physics.
However Feynman was making what he thought was a important point that physics likely evolved and so laws evolved and so the past universe can’t be deduced easily from the present. in fact everything might be skrewy.
Other than the fact that they money doesn’t exist, you mean?
I will label you another of those skeptics who knows what he knows because a skeptic told him.
James Randi is a known lair and fraud. To quote, HIM: “Oh I agree,” he said.
“And sometimes lie. Get carried away.”
Do you think anyone who wants to win Randis prize (which doesn’t exist) can just say they want to and he must accept? Who do you think decides how it will be done, what money has to be spent, when , where, and can refuse anyone he wants? Randi is a much bigger con man than Uri Geller ever was.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11270453/James-Randi-debunking-the-king-of-the-debunkers.html
He lied about Sheldrake, refused to allow Sheldrake a chance to win the prize, but that is just the tip of the iceberg of the flaws of James Randi. There is a whole movie out about his dishonesty.
But you are a skeptic, so, you don’t need to know this, you just need the Skeptics Bible. Its free to all members. Forgive them if they pursue a little friendly censorship now and again, just to keep their flock satiated.
I think James Randi deserves the top prize on Penn & Tellers- Fool Us. He could just show up on the show, doesn’t even need to do anything, and they should announce, yep, you win, you have been fooling them for 25 years. He has been fooling Penn Jillette for so many years Jillette still doesn’t know what happened.
Of course the money existed what fool told you it did not and why would you believe them?
How cute. You realize that you carry the label of ‘fool’ who beleives what other fools tell him from your anti-vaccination stance to your glimpses of ‘other realms’ the depths of your credulity know no bounds.
Of course Randi admits to being a lair and a fraud he is being honest when he does so. After all he is/was an illusionist and magicians which is nothing but deception and fraud presented to the audience as having special ‘powers’.
No of course not. there is/was a screening process that a wishful participant has to go through. Failure on the wishful participant’s part is not Randi’s fault.
The rules for participation are quite clear on what must be done for a successful applicant. Many have tried ALL have failed. Must be a hoax…right? That is the credulous viewpoint is it yours phoodoo?
Ahh Sheldrake the psychic canine fraud. Why do you think Sheldrake never released the entire tape of the dog to the Randi foundation? Perhaos because it shows the dog reacting to every sound and passerby? Students who viewed the tape came to that conclusion.
Well holy shit that must settle it then. A whole fricking movie! What more does anyone need. There are a numerous movies about aliens I suppose in your book it makes them (the aliens) as being real. Rank that right up there next to Expelled in its believeability and veracity of facts. Boundless credulity is not something you should be proud of phoodoo.
phoodoo you bring up Penn Jillette. Here is something he had to say on the subject
“Penn Jillette, a good friend of Randi’s, told me. “’Why is Randi spending all this time doing this? We all know there is no ESP. It’s just stupid people believe it, and that’s fine.’ ”
Does that capture the essence of your beleif system, phoodoo?
Haha, you are true skeptic aren’t you? A skeptic defending Randi, who would have ever guessed it!
I will give you ten million dollars if you can just write one true sentence. But I get to decide, and I have to screen you first. There is a process. If you don’t get through my process, well its not my fault.
But I can prove it, you can not even say one thing that is true. Why are you so deceptive?
And phoodoo, who believes in PSI powers, dogs that predict when their owners are coming home via PSI, who thinks that Uri Geller has real powers wants us to believe him when he talks about the ultimate nature of reality and the realms beyond this one?
phoodoo, my mission in places like this is to get people like you to say things like:
Which can now be referred to forevermore. Just as I brought up your defense of Uri Geller and that seemed to set you off, I can now bring up this new ‘fact’ that you believe, that there is literally no evidence for but yet that does not bother you.
Just as nobody can demonstrate ID supporting papers are being rejected because of the ID connection you cannot demonstrate that the FBI uses psychics all the time. You can’t demonstrate that because it’s not true. Objectively.
So, given that you can objectively be proved to be in error regarding something that can be so easily checked, what credence do your ‘other realms’ claims have?
Fuck all, is what.
I encourage readers to click through the link and read all about phoodoo’s original defense of the applicants. Applicants who cannot or simply refuse to follow the rules are championed by phoodoo as ‘evidence’ that the system was flawed. There’s actually an entire chat room archive of the challenges, what people’s responses were to the rules and so on.
Most people who understood the rules correctly dropped out once they saw their usual tricks would not work in a scientific setting.
Some who continued genuinely thought they had ability.
It’s all there in public for anybody to read.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=43
Except phoodoo, obviously, who already knows the truth of the matter – all people who are claiming PSI should be believed without question.
There are other similar tests to Randi’s designed to show the truth of PSI powers. Perhaps phoodoo could point to someone who is running such a challenge in a way that he approves of and what results that show that PSI is real should be considered?
Also, phoodoo, why are you ignoring my questions regarding people like Uri Geller and their access to the supernatural realm? Does Uri get his powers from the same supernatural realm you believe god lives in or is it a separate thing?
Can these powers be learnt? Taught?
phoodoo’s desperation for relevancy shines through with this cartoonish post of his. Perhaps phoodoo would like to go over the JREF rules for applicants to the million dollar price?
At first I thought, oh he is ignorant of what the rules of the challenge were/are, then I realized he is so desperate to defend the indefensable that he actually thought posting this poorly crafted statement would demonstrate how unfair the challenge was to the poor psychics, dowsers, and canine psychic experts around the world.
well phoodoo do yu have enough confidence in your position to go over the challenge application rules one-by-one? An exercise which would afford you ample opportunity to poiint out how unfair it is to actually hold people accountable for their claims.
I’m betting all we’ll see from phoodoo is some nonsense questions posted back as he attempts a contiinuing deflection, avoidance, and distraction away from any meaningful discussion of the challenge. After all, once a being has been sucked into a bottomless pit of credulity deflection avoidance, and distraction is all that remains as a defense of the indefensible.
PeterP,
And:
Not enough?
Still a skeptic? Oh of course you are:
You are a world class skeptic aren’t you? Do you keep your bible under your pillow?
Absolutely pathetic. The more rigorous the protocol, the less PSI can be performed. And phoodoo cites this as “evidence” that Randi is a fraud? No wonder he’s convinced by ID.
My favourite one is where when the psi claimant had his friends observing. When it was disallowed that they might tap their feet, whistle or otherwise potentially signal in any way then the claimant pulled out. Why would you pull out because of that? How very strange…
The forums are full of similar….
Nope, not enough. You do recall that the claimants never hedged their claims. They stated they could perform at a rate of 100% accuracy. Not some of the time. Not occasionally, but ALL the time. 100% accuracy.
the claimants/applicants also ALL agree to the terms, conditions, and protocols for the tests that they theselves participate in developing to document their claims.
Trying to wiggle away from the robust claims of the psychics, dowsers, and canine psychic experts doesn’t work. You know all this, of course are doing just as I predicted. Dodging, obfuscating, and attempting to misdirect in a failed endeavor to demonstrate that you know anything at all about the subject matter.
It is an attempt at the ‘if it were magic it would work all the time’ defense. Failure is success in phoodoo world. Abject failure on phoodoo’s part.
Amazing how scrutiny causes such angst and failure among the psi advocates. Does phoodoo ever consider this? Of course not. It has to be true in phoodoo world not matter what contorsions and lies must be told to bolster the claims of the psychics, mediums, dowsers, and other liars and fools that are making the claims of having any psi abilities.
I wonder if phoodoo also disavows the result of 12 yr old Emily Rosa’s published science paper debunking the therapeutic touch claims of having the ability to manipulate human energy fields (HEF) to promote healing and health?
I can hear it now how the 12 yr old tricked the TT advocates and was really mean to them by making them look like idiots and liars. FYI that was a prediction let’s see if it comes true. Survey says?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Rosa
my bad. Emily was 9 yrs old when she tested the TT claimants
Were the TT folsk smarter than a 4th grader? Apparently not since they all failed miserably. What a mean-spirited little girl!
This Loyd Auerbach?
“Auerbach performs a mentalist act as Professor Paranormal, working mainly on the college circuit. He’s served on the board of directors and as President of the Psychic Entertainers Association. He offers guided chocolate tasting presentations and chocolate under his brand Haunted By Chocolate.”