- Joined
- Jul 13, 2005
- Messages
- 11,130
- Reaction score
- 190
Should have been included in the OP
I'm only interested in the science, the physical explanations of phenomena. Nothing more.
There's the natural and the supernatural, and I don't believe in the supernatural.
Science is still all about the physical world.
Science is still all about the physical world.
Every post I've seen from you seems to imply that there's something beyond the physical. Are you saying now that there's nothing beyond the physical? Well then what are we arguing about?
I'm not talking about everything. I'm talking only about human experience. That can all be broken down into neurons firing.
I was taught at school, when I had done a sum, to "prove my answer." The proof or verification of my Christian answer to the cosmic sum is this. When I accept Theology I may find difficulties, at this point or that, in harmonising it with some particular truths which are embedded in the mythical cosmology derived from science. But I can get in, or allow for, science as a whole. Granted that Reason is prior to matter and that the light of that primal Reason illuminates finite minds, I can understand how men should come, by observation and inference, to know a lot about the universe they live in. If, on the other hand, I swallow the scientific cosmology as a whole, then not only can I not fit in Christianity, but I cannot even fit in science. If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees. And this is to me the final test. This is how I distinguish dreaming and waking. When I am awake I can, in some degree, account for and study my dream. The dragon that pursued me last night can be fitted into my waking world. I know that there are such things as dreams: I know that I had eaten an indigestible dinner: I know that a man of my reading might be expected to dream of dragons. But while in the nightmare I could not have fitted in my waking experience. The waking world is judged more real because it can thus contain the dreaming world: the dreaming world is judged less real because it cannot contain the waking one. For the same reason I am certain that in passing from the scientific point of view to the theological, I have passed from dream to waking. Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality, and the sub-Christian religions. The scientific point of view cannot fit in any of these things, not even science itself. I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.
I'm not talking about everything. I'm talking only about human experience. That can all be broken down into neurons firing.
You said breaking everything down into chemical compounds isn't science. I said I wasn't talking about everything. Of course not everything can be broken down into chemical compounds. But human experience can. It's all just neurotransmitters.
If something exists, it's physical. If it's not physical, it doesn't exist. There is nothing beyond the physical. Everything can be explained in physical terms, including, eventually, the hard problem of consciousness. To say that there might be anything beyond the physical is to open the door to all that god bullshit.
I had a feeling I was arguing with a couple of "believers" all this time. I put you people on ignore every time I encounter you. Like now. Bye.
There's the natural and the supernatural, and I don't believe in the supernatural.
I believe that whatever truly exists is somehow a part of the physical world and can be explained in physical, scientific terms. Anything that can't be explained scientifically doesn't actually exist, AFAIC.
I believe that whatever truly exists is somehow a part of the physical world and can be explained in physical, scientific terms. Anything that can't be explained scientifically doesn't actually exist, AFAIC.
Does the high cocaine exist, or is it just a chemical reaction
Every function of the physical universe must take place physically. It needs to be represented in that manner.
Love is just a chemical reaction in the brain like heat is just energy in transit.
If you choose not to decide, have you still made a choice?
[YT]pCofmZlC72g[/YT]