kyrolima:

Emotions stems from physical processes in the brain, most likely not from nonphysical realms. Degenerative diseases of the brain that erode personality, and cases where brain damage causes sudden change in personality are one of several things that strongly suggests this. Furthermore, mood disorders and psychoactive drugs indicates that the sources of our feelings are purely biochemical in nature. Mood disorders can also be inherited, and together with developmental diseases this links our personalities to our biology.

The evidence is fairly overwhelming, and there is no need for such ethereal concepts like a soul or similar nonphysical realms. Modern brain scanning methods, such as fMRI, PET, SPECT and EEG scans, makes it possible to discover the physical basis of important thought processes. Often we even see that the firing of specific neurons happens before the thoughts and emotions arises in awareness and conscious choices are being made!

There is lots of literature on this stuff, very interesting and worthwile to read so I can recommend it to anyone interested in how emotions arise etc.

That is an awful lot of speculation there my friend.

Brain scans have not revealed consciousness.

An X-Ray can show you that a bone is broken, but is only capable of hinting at how the bone came to be broken... and utterly incapable of revealing why bones came into being back when invertebrates were the only game in town.

Much of what you have said is completely without proof, and even what evidence there is, is inconclusive. I imagine that hormones and various synaptic activity can be accurately mapped to one's emotional state. This is pretty much a given. But saying that emotions stem from physical processes is quite a leap.

And as far as inheriting mood disorders goes? I am unaware of any studies showing specific genes responsible. There have been lots of studies showing that children learn behaivior from their parents... and this can be tweaked in a data field to suggest heredity, but that is rather poor science IMO.

Truth be told, the very concept of mood disorders is something that pharmaceutical companies and their pet psychiatrists pimp to get you to buy their dope... which doesn't even work.

It is quite probable that consciousness is not a physical process at all, IMHO.

If someone punches you in the face would you not agree that the anger you felt was caused by a cascade of physical processes?

There is actually not a lot of speculation in that post, Hyperspace Fool. Kyrolima is the one with an awful lot of speculation (no offense intended to kyrolima). I also want you to notice how I wrote in the first sentence "most likely not from nonphysical realms". Let me try to make myself even more clear; evidence, as of now, suggests emotions have physical origins in the brain and body, not nonphysical origins. Possible? Sure. Probable? Not so much in light of science and medicine. Trying to dispute this very simple fact I don't understand how one can do.


Where did I suggest this? I said that brain scans enable us to discover the physical origins of many important thought processes, nowhere did I say brain scans have revealed consciousness. See the difference? Of course brain scans have not conclusively revealed consciousness.

Give me a break. There are pretty clear correlations between emotional states and what happens in the brain. Ask any biologist or neurologist. Of course there is much more research to be done, and the answers aren't fixed, but the evidence clearly points us in the direction of vital regions in the brain being responsible for emotional states.

Take for example the feeling of fear. This is a pretty mechanical process in the brain; signaling that causes adrenaline to be produced. This is a product of evolution.

Evidence does not, however, send us in the direction of a soul or nonphysical realms. If it did, we would have been going that way. We have been searching for decades for evidence for these wild theories, and we keep on finding nothing. Furthermore we do not have a thourough and satisfying explanation for the mechanisms of these theories, and combine this with the fact that there is no evidence for them and it is a pretty good reason to dispute them unless someone can come up with something new. You know, even though no one have proven that I can't fly by waving my arms it is pretty natural to assume that I can't, don't you think?

Now you may suggest that even though the brain and emotional states are clearly correlated, this doesn't mean that the experience actually arose in the brain. Suggesting this is really just grabbing such very thin straw that it slides into the meaningless. It is coming up with a non-falsifiable theory wanting it to be seen over the falsifiable theory that chemical processes give rise to emotions.

No one has shown the existence of a soul or anything similar, no one has a good explanatory model for such phenomena and there is nothing in evolution that requires it. Why assume it is true?

We have pretty conclusive evidence that spesific regions in the brain control spesific traits of our consciousness. Concrete damages in the brain can cause one to not recognize faces, but to recognize voices. That one remembers the name of objects, but not animal species. That one remembers ones childhood, but not what happened recently. That one remembers what happened recently, but not what happened in ones childhood. This and much more. In other words, if we have a soul or something similar nonphysical this is something that doesn't have the ability to recognize objects, animals or humans, something that doesn't have memory, no personality traits, no logical, mathematical, spatial or emotional ability to resonate and so on. It requires such a minimal form that it might as well have been sitting inside a cockroach, and the eventual existence of such phenomena explains nothing.

No.

As a martial artist for 36 years, I have been punched many times and not had any anger at all.

Even when people have punched me in anger, or even attacked me with a machete... I felt no ill will or anger towards the attacker, but rather calmly disarmed the poor soul without hurting them.

The fact that I can consciously control my emotions indicates to me that mind is superior to the physical processes.

I am not denying that the body makes drugs and that the drugs have profound effects. Cortisol, Epinephrine, and Adrenaline are some badass chems. But I can quite easily override their production. Just like I can control many of the autonomic functions of my body.

My point is merely that consciousness supersedes the physical. My experience strongly suggests that the physical body is possession of mind and not its product.

Yes you have learned to control your emotions vi training. Much as meditators also learn to control their minds.

Without a doubt meditation has taught me that emotions are 100% generated by the brain...not to mention there is tons of neuroscience data backing this position. Where I potentially side with you is the fact that the part of us that can sit and observe these emotions and not allow the rest of our cortex to be effected by them could still be located outside the brain. Make no mistake though the evidence is pretty much in. Your emotions are generated by chemicals in your brain. Your response...the part of you that is really you...the voice in your head...that part has yet to be explained with neurology to date

Since you are a martial artist that has great control over his emotions and can take a punch to the face how about this:

You are walking down the street with your mother and your girl when two attackers come out. Both highly trained kung-fu master that you have no hope of overcoming. Perhaps they are world champion fighters. One of these men contains you and holds you to watch what the other attacker does to your mother and you girl. You can't do anything to escape. This man own's you. Likewise the two women that mean the most to you are at the mercy of another man and you are utterly powerless to help them. All you can do is watch in horror.

I'd be willing to bet that even reading the above sentence kicked off a cascade of emotional responses inside your brain...I could feel my blood pressure rise as I typed it...It's disturbing and an emotional response is VERY natural. My point? There is no reason to assume these emotions don't arrise from our brains. They do. Science has proven this. Go to google scholar and google this: "Neuro physiology of emotions"

Peace

I wasn't commenting about Kyrolima's speculations. Metaphysical pronouncements generally wear their speculative nature on their sleeves. It is the hard boiled materialists who tend to act as if the findings of their science fan club are infallible despite numerous examples to the contrary.

Spiritualists tend to speak from their personal feelings and experiences, while materialists generally talk about the pronouncements of others who they view as being reliable simply by virtue of their having received a degree from some school or another.



Origins have not been proven. All that the various brain scans can prove is correlation. It is rudimentary logic to recognize that correlation does not equal causation. This logical fallacy, however, appears time and time again in the analysis of supposedly scientific studies.

Since the vast majority of scientific "knowledge" is based on inductive reasoning, it is especially prone to logical leaps that are unsubstantiated.

Fact is, just because someone has letters behind their name and wears a white coat doesn't make them incapable of mistakes or misunderstanding what their instruments have shown them. The scientists who claimed faster than light particles a few weeks back are a good example. Some of the highest paid physicists on the planet forgot to calculate for relativity.



Debating an issue is not about giving breaks, and I already discussed how correlation is not causation.

It is quite possible that correlation could indicate a mechanism that goes both ways or in the opposite way from that assumed. It is quite clear that people with under functioning thyroid glands tend to suffer from depression and low energy. What is not clear, is if the depression is causing the hormone thyroxin to be under-produced, vice versa... or that it goes both ways. You can supplement your hormones and feel a modest mood elevation... but it seems that lifting one's mood via non chemical means (vacation, meditation, dancing) has been shown to elevate the bodies production of thyroxin even better.

In the end, I think you are being hasty in saying that neurologists and biologists understand the cause of emotion. I guarantee you that the amount of experts in those fields willing to go on record as saying that, will be a very very small percentage of people who fall well outside the mainstream.

The fact that you, personally, have no experience with, or belief in, nonphysical modalities of consciousness does not dismiss the fact that the human race has 10's of thousands of years of documented experience in such things. Shamans, yogis, mystics, saints and religious people of every stripe have been having experiences that call your belief system into question since time immemorial. Our literature is literally saturated with it.

Some weak studies showing correlation do not dismiss all of that... and certainly do not dismiss the direct, personal experiences of people to the contrary. I was somewhat of a materialist myself for a while in my youth. But direct experience of Astral Projection and related phenomenon forced me to accept a broader notion of reality. This was decades ago for me, but who knows... you too may come around one day.

(especially if you maintain a sincere interest in dimethyltriptamine )

Heheheh.

Actually, toss out the fact that I never put energy into such ridiculous negative visualizations... I have too much respect for the power of my mind and its power of attraction. And even still, what you have just said actually makes my point for me.

The fact that you could get emotionally worked up from an idea, puts a big dent in the theory that emotions originate purely physically. Your mind conjured an image. Then your emotion responded to the image. Then your body reacted to the emotion.

Correlation. Not causation.

So you refuse to take part in the exercise yet declare me wrong. LOL. That's equivalent to saying there is no such thing as bacteria and then refusing to look through the microscope. EXACTLY the same. BTW I don't believe you. You did read it and you did notice the emotional response...or perhaps you didn't notice it. But you did get annoyed with ME. Either way a chemical and emotional response was generated in your brain. If not you wouldn't have responded. Really is as simply as that.

I believe you have already done the internet searches I suggested and you are now trying to bend reality to your view instead of your view to reality. To continue down this path is to be like a man that has been told the truth yet still drags his heels and clenching to his faulty ideas. I implore you to chose a higher route.

Remember we aren't talking about conscious awareness.... We are talking about emotions. One should not confuse the two. Emotions are generated by the brian. Even Buddha said as much. Awareness is stil in question. But remember it could be proven to be localized in the brain as well. The burden is on us as individuals to bend our views to reality and not the other way around.

You astutely note that correlation does not imply causation and this is true. By extension I'd assume that you also realize that your opinion on this matter is irrelevant to the scientific truth...and since you haven't linked to anything other than your opinion and refuse to consider the evidence presented against you. I must respectfully bow out of this conversation.



BTW Trying to brush off all of science as inductive reasoning is essentially incorrect...and shows lack of understanding about how professional science is done..

I apologize for butting in....didn't mean to hijack the thread.

Peace.

Hyperspace Fool:

Joedirt cut me a little bit to the chase here, saying some of the things I was going to (been busy, sorry for late replies - I don't mean to escape debates), but I am going to write a post anyway.

First of all, I want to make sure that you get me clear, because nowhere have I mentioned consciousness in itself in this discussion. I have been arguing for the origins of emotions, or simply the contents of consciousness. There is a big difference I think in the contents of consciousness and consciousness itself. Consciousness in itself is a lot trickier question, and not a philosophically unproblematic one at that, and I have delibirately avoided commenting directly on these issues (and will continue to do so I think). However, no matter what your opinion or personal experience is, there is overwhelming evidence, that in all rational and intellectual honesty can't be disputed, that emotions have physical origins in the brain. They may of course be triggered by some kind of outside stimulus, but the emotions themselves are created by the physical processes of the brain. If you want to ignore this fact, be my guest, but don't expect to be in intellectual and rational honesty when taking this position.

Furthermore, I think you miss one very essential point when you keep refering to your own personal opinions and experiences, they being the only reference you've got for your claims. The problem is that humans are pretty bad observers. First of all our senses are pretty mediocre, and second we have a pretty outstanding ability to splash personal observations and memories with how we think the world ought to be. As Richard Feynman once said "The first rule is: Don't fool yourself… and you are the easiest person to fool". You seem to be doing this over and over again when we discuss these things, because you are not walking in the direction of evidence, but rather consistently walking in the direction of your own, unreliable and perhaps false personal convictions and experiences. People are good at fooling themselves, and it is no big surprise that one gets better at it by continuing. It is simply not good enough to draw conclusions about how the universe works based on anecdotes only. Your experiences are just ontologically subjective, not objective, and thus you can't with this subjective experience alone conclude what ontologically objective phenomena that causes the subjective experiences. This is because deductive logic can't give any new information that isn't already present in the premises. So if the premises in their totality are ontologically subjective, so must the conclusions be. Therefore you cannot cook up valid conlusions about whether or not there is a soul, about whether or not emotions are nonphysical, about whether or not there is a life after death or other ontologically objective phenomena based on subjective experience.

And as joedirt said, science is not based on inductive reasoning alone, and for the record I had the same beliefs as you had before, but I found that they were completely unsubstantiated and were no good in drawing conclusions about the universe we find ourselves in. In fact, they are not much different than any typical religious claim... In other words, they are pretty worthless in drawing conlusions.

I think you misunderstand me. My point is that your own exercise works against your premise. You seem not to realize that if an idea can stimulate an emotion than the CAUSE/ ORIGIN of said emotion is not physical, but mental.

I never said that hormones and neurotransmitters didn't play any role in it. We are talking causation, though.




It matters little if you believe me, but I can honestly say that your silly visualization had not emotional effect on me whatsoever. Really.

I am a lifelong lucid dreamer and psychonaut. I have seen more disturbing things than what you conjured up firsthand from 5 different perspectives, backwards and forwards in space-time without getting emotional about it.

I am not attached to the vagaries of illusions... and certainly invested in rampant improbable speculation.

But, even if your highly improbable scenario was to actually come to pass (the idea that highly advanced Kung Fu masters would want to do such a thing is ridiculous beyond comprehension, but still)... it would be my thoughts on the situation that triggered any physical response.

Again. Awareness > Conscious Understanding > Thoughts > Emotion > Physical Reactions.

Nothing you have linked to suggests that I should revise this chain.



I think you have more faith in the truth of your conjectures than I do. I humbly suggest that you have either misunderstood me, misunderstood the ramifications of the studies, or both.



I am not confusing the two.

Talking about emotions separate from conscious awareness is impossible, though. It is via conscious awareness that we know about emotions.

The fact that certain areas of the brain are activated in proximity to the experiencing of an emotion is not saying that emotions are generated in the brain. There are dozens of theories that could explain such correlation that don't lead one to the definitive and unsubstantiated claim that you are making.


You will notice that I said the vast majority... not all, as you mistakenly quote me. Maybe we can just agree on the majority and leave out the vast part, but the use of inductive reasoning in science is not a subject that anyone debates generally.

And, the leaps of logic that I speak of are well documented. The annals of science are filled with them.


Yeah, it is cool. We should probably get back to Hyperspace's "reality," or start a thread about emotions and consciousness.

I will only add that I think that we have the physical on one side and consciousness on the other. The connective processes in between, which include emotion & perception have roots on both sides of the divide. It is my opinion that impulses can travel in both directions. It is also my opinion that consciousness is not a product of the physical, and may even be the source of the physical.

I am not trying to convince you or anyone else of these opinions.

If you really think that thoughts triggers the physical Hyperspace Fool, then how do you explain the fact that we often observe physical processes happening in the brain before the thoughts arise in conscious awareness? And when you keep on saying that we misinterpretate studies, what the ****? Are you a scientist? What makes your opinion so much more valid than a whole community of professionals? You talk as if you know so much because you have been a psychonaut for many years ( "I am not attached to the vagaries of illusions" ), and that this makes your opinions somewhat more valid than evidence accumulated by years of research, by many different people, and that can be objectively confirmed by anyone. I just don't get it.

Peace.

See my comments to Joedirt above.


You just said, yourself, that they are triggered by some kind of outside stimulus. How can you say that they have their origins in the brain when they are triggered elsewhere? Perhaps you have a different definition of origins than I do?



I do refer to my subjective conceptions, but I am clear about that. I do not try and pass off my conjecture or anecdotes as objective.

The fact that you say "only reference" indicates that you have not read all of my posts.

Besides, logical arguments can be built on personal observations.



As much as I enjoyed that wordy paragraph, it applies equally to your belief system as much as it does to mine. In fact, if anything, you are ontologically one step further removed.... in that you trust in the subjective findings of other people that you have never met, have not reviewed their method of inquiry, and have no personal experience of the truth of their pronouncements.

You buy their BS wholesale simply by virtue of your respect for their titles and degrees. This is no different from listening to the Pope simply because he is the Pope.

The reasoning in this paragraph above is a tautological device, and your intent to argue from authority is baseless. Logic dictates that firsthand empirical information is more reliable than 3rd hand data... and infinitely more than the a priori and a posteriori induction that follows.


Science is a religion.

A pretty decent one no doubt. And, its saints tend to be more understandable to the modern mind. But, after all is said and done, priests and scientists are not so different after all. They both ask you to believe some rather unsubstantiated BS that tends to run counter to your own experience. They both admit to having some rather large holes in their stories.

(Where is the 95% of the missing mass in the Universe? What about the missing link in human evolution? What is a singularity? Why did the Big Bang occur? etc. etc.)

My opinions are more valuable to ME.

I am not trying to convince you of anything. I don't see why you are getting ruffled.

As for your vaunted data...

The few occasions we can document a physical process before the thought arises pale compared the amount of times we document a thought arising and then the physical process follows.

And, all of this relies on the ability of a test subject to indicate when they begin to experience the subjective experience... thus one must subtract reaction time and the time it takes to process and communicate. Thus your assumption of priority is even more sketchy.

I am not rejecting science per se... at least not out right. I am merely calling you out for cherry picking data to support your opinion.

I would still argue that when we talk about contents of consciousness that this is pretty different from talking about consciousness itself, which is not only difficult to define, but incredibly hard to figure out. Emotions however, is a different case. Imagine wanting to investigate the ocean, so huge and at times so extremely deep. What a task! But then you discover a specific species of fish, and you want to study those instead because they may perhaps lead us all deeper into the investigation of the ocean as a whole. This might be a pretty poor analogy, lol, but I feel it kinda illustrates a point.


Perhaps I do. What I am really saying is that even though emotions might by triggered by an outside stimulus just the way our perception of color is triggered by photons of spesific wavelengths, the emotions themselves are created by the brains interpretation and processing of this data it receives. Emotions, just as the experience of color, is not inherent in nature outside of your own mind - they are solely the creation of your brain. This is why I say that emotions are created by the brain, and have their origins there, even though they might be triggered by outside stimulus. Do you understand my point and line of reasoning, even though you probably disagree? I don't know how to explain it any better.

It is good you realize that you refer to your own subjective conceptions. You may have refered to other things, but very often you do refer to your own opinions and experiences. I also see that you refer to the vast number of other peoples experiences throughout history that are similar to your own. I understand this position, but it is not sufficient.

Naturally, when we search for some sort of evidence one of the first sources we look for is our own experiences, because it is from these that we most typically rely heavy upon in our everyday life and when trying to understand reality. This is not so strange, because we do after all reside inside our heads or whatever. Regardless of this the reliance upon personal experience can be too strong and thus become rather unreliable. The use of personal anecdotes to base conlusions about wide ranging phenomena (such as ones discussed here) can be considered as a type of rash generalization, an informal fallacy that generalizes from a particular, or a set of particular, examples to establish conclusions about an entire class of examples to that which the particular is a member, without regards to other factors.

It is true that we use personal anecdotes all the time, and in casual situations they are usually not much of a problem; for example in determining what restaurant might be a good one to eat dinner at, using perhaps friends and families personal experience to inform our decision making of which restaurant to visit. It makes a lot of sense to do this. I could go on and on about examples where it makes total sense to rely on personal anecdotes, either your own or the ones from others.

But when in serious discussion such as this with more debatable questions it starts lacking significance. Scientific inquiry and rational conclusions do not rely on just a few, or even many, personal anecdotes about our lives. Even though such observations often is a very good starting point for investigation, they do not constitute the necessary means to establish sound conclusions in the end. Personal anecdotes are in other words extremely limited.

When people report their personal experiences they are simply unable to control for things like self-deception, wishful thinking, confirmation bias and subjective validation. This is not at all unproblematic. All of this and things I said in the previous posts is why independent corroboration is so vital in serious scientific investigations and why the scientific method makes so good use of it — multiple accounts and multiple lines of converging evidence lend credibility to a claim, credibility that simply cannot exist when we rely upon anecdotal evidence alone.


This line of argumentation is pretty common when those who hold mystical or magical beliefs try to defend their positions. It is, however, for several reasons wrong, and not much of an argument at all. Here is why:

Science never claims absolute truth. To think so is to misunderstand one of the basic properties of the scientific method. Science just claims to have reliable and efficient methods to try to reveal truth, not to hold absolute truth. Attacking science for not having all of the answers is actually a form of straw-man argument, because science never claimed to have them in the first place. Secondly, the argument is wrongly based on the assumption that the limitations of science actually have any implications for what is being proposed. It doesn't, because even though science is limited, it does not automatically follow that these limitations have any implications for the existence or non-existence of the phenomena that is under discussion.

Thirdly, the limitations of a knowledge system do not, by default, add any credence or support to any alternative. For instance, gaps in astronomy does not mean that we should abandon it for astrology. For astrology to be a viable alternative it would need to demonstrate its own credentials for knowledge and understanding, independently of the limitations of any other system.

All of these considerations renders the argument meaningless.

The argument that science is a religion is also wrong. The argument basically tries do reduce science to a faith or religion to defend oneself from critical inquiry. Science and skepticism is evidence based approaches to beliefs, the exact opposite of faith based approaches and religion.

Faith is simply belief without proof. Science however, even where it is not completely correct, requires evidence and proof to justify its position. It is the requirement of evidence and the need for claims to be falsifiable, that disqualifies science as a faith, and renders your argument meaningless. Calling science a religion is not only a gross misunderstanding of what science is and does, but also a failure to recognize the basic characteristics of religion.

Calling science a religion is more of an idealogical attack rather than a neutral observation of facts. Modern science is successful precisely because it strives to be independent of ideology and bias when establishing its facts and theories. The scientific method is methodologically naturalistic, secular, and godless.

I actually agree with you more than you might imagine.

I think we do agree on most of this, but rather have slightly different delineations & definitions.

I see emotion as a process and a complex system which involves Mind, Body & Soul. It is not merely the release of hormones or neurotransmitters IMHO.

There are many triggers and many branching fractal effects that are generated by such triggers. And they are not one way streets... so to speak. Information travels in many paths.

Many of which are not well defined by our current scientific understanding.


It is a provocative statement, but it has some resonance in truth. What we are overly generalizing as SCIENCE has a hierarchy, a dogma, an evangelism, and other accouterments of organized religion.

I am not implying that it is a faith-based religion.

It is a brilliant and wonderful, intellectual worldview. It is a methodology... and a highly efficient 'encapsulator' and 'archiver' of information. It may very well be the most progressive force in the human noosphere.

I am a fan, and I love me some science. Scientists are among my best buds. I just try and keep them honest. Rigidity and hubris are epic stumbling blocks.

In the end, my direct mystical experiences are of more pragmatic value to me than the pronouncements of the scientific hierarchy, though. This is as it should be.

I love maps, but when I hike, I take my immediate perceptions of my environs to be more valuable than the cartography... for me.



All the best Citta.

But science, by its very definition strives to avoid dogmas, evangelism and other religious relics.
A perfect example of this is Linus Pauling, he claimed that protein, not DNA was the genetic material. This delayed the discovery of DNA because scientists respect his authority(what they shouldn't do) and wasted time looking at protein for genetic info. Lo and behold , decades later Hershey and Chase would prove it was DNA in their famous Waring Blender experiment.
The fact that modern science changed its consensus based on data and didn't continue to believe Pauling in the face of evidence proves my point.

Science is non-authoritarian, tentative, and non-dogmatic. I'm not saying it always accomplishes these things, but it strives for them.
Religion on the other hand, tries to fight evidence that proves them wrong, this can be seen throughout history(Galileo, Darwin etc.) Science will not continue to believe a faulty conclusion, especially if their is data which shows the exact opposite.

As for dogma I can continue to use DNA to explain this point, when Watson and Crick discovered DNA, Crick came up with an idea called the "Central dogma" which was that DNA is used as a template for RNA synthesis, this is known as transcription.
The problem was, he should never have called it a dogma, years later he would be proven wrong with retroviruses and reverse transcription(where RNA is the template for DNA synthesis). The point is, science strives to be non-authoritarian and non-dogmatic. I'm not saying these things are never present in science, but as a whole the community strives to avoid them.

Also you call yourself "a fan of science," but most of your posts strike me as blatantly anti-science. It seems you always go for the supernatural explanation or solution in many circumstances(not trying to generalize, just what I've seen in a few threads).
In one of your posts here you mentioned several things which critics of science, who usually don't understand the process, mention.

-"Where is the 95% missing mass in the universe"- hadn't this been explained through dark matter? I clearly remember Hawking explaining this tentatively

-"What about the missing link in human evolution?"- Here is where you lost me, this is something creationists often use to defend their ridiculous claims and fault logic, I expected better from you HyperspaceFool. The truth is there are no missing links, being evolution is an ongoing process, there is no ultimate goal to evolution. This alone makes the concept of a missing link non-applicable. Furthermore, we don't have every fossil, we have to be very lucky to find certain fossils and our goal is not to find "missing links." But to find fossils and put them in a certain place in the timeline that makes sense. We are not looking for convenient transitional fossils, but when we find them it puts a certain dent in the creationist's logic. To answer simply, there is no missing link.

-"Why did the big bang occur?"- Another classic faulty question. Science doesn't attempt to answer this question because it may not even have an answer. Couldn't it have just occurred because it DID. This is like asking why does Earth exist, even if we could explain the gravitational disc and matter accretion around the sun, people would not find this satisfactory because they want a deeper meaning behind it. Science doesn't give you a deeper meaning, we can only make observations and use these to draw conclusions. Asking "why" the big bang occurred is assuming it happened for a reason, and currently we have no evidence that it happened for any reason at all.

My point is that even though we don't have all the answers, that doesn't mean we can't look to science as a reliable tool for figuring out the universe. In fact, I think its probably the most reliable tool, unlike spirituality and religion, because we have a framework to use. Religion and spirituality are all different, they can't even agree with each other on basic things like how many gods there are and what those god(s) tell us to do.

Science on the other hand has a working frame-work that all professional scientists agree on and that is why it such a useful system to draw conclusions. I'm not saying it's perfect, and I'm sure you'll argue to that effect, I'm just saying it's been reliable so far, it works and there is no reason to abandon it in favor of other systems which may be less effective.

It is not only a provocative statement, but a flat out wrong one. There is no dogma inherent in science, there is no evangelism inherent in science and no hierarchy inherent in science. Science may share some of the virtues of religion, but none of its vices. For example, religion can provide people with benefits such as explanation, consolation and uplift. Science also has something to offer in these areas, especially in the area of explanation and uplift. But to call science a religion because of this is grabbing for straws.

Now, I have talked only about science in itself and not its practitioners. As far as its practitioners go, I can completely agree that we definitely can see some of them showing religious behaviour - for example in blind acceptance and faith in a theory, even when it is threatened by evidence. Scientists are human too, and there is a lot of feelings involved in scientific progress, no doubt. However, this does not make any of these traits inherent in science as a method in itself, but is rather a valid critique of basic human characteristics that come up when people get emotionally involved in their work, fearing for their careers and their reputations. Whatever may come out of these personal agendas, science usually sets the record straight after a while if someone for instance tampered with evidence to save their theory.

I want to sum it all up with 5 big differences:

1) Religion inherently presumes more than science, because it assumes the existence of non-physical realms, deities and other incredible things about which science remains skeptical or silent.

2) Religion has plenty articles of faith science can do without. In science, what explains with less commitments to unsubstantiated speculation or unobservables is better than what explains with more.

3) Religion has a pretty outstanding built in faith-based immunity to criticism and scrutiny which science rejects; science requires a perpetual, skeptical attitude towards articles of faith however much these articles of faith may support what one wishes to believe.

4) Religion believes blindly in what it doesn't bother to prove. Science accepts only what it can find evidence for in the end, and this is conditioned only upon the quality and quantity of the evidence available.

5) Religion never rejects or corrects its foundational beliefs, whereas science often does, being the source of its honesty and efficiency. Science is a self-correcting, revisionary, fallible process that constantly revises and altogether abandons inadequate and false hypotheses in favor of better ones. Religion fails with glory in this.

This is not the proper thread necessarily to debate this point. But while we are at it, what you have said amounts to agreeing with me whether you see it or not.

Fact is, the practitioners of science can be dogmatic, evangelical, and closed minded to evidence.

The same way the practitioners of religion can. It is intellectually self-serving to talk about science in the abstract purity of its ideal while only dealing with religion in its base outward manifestations. Neither science, nor religion actually exist in their ideal state... generally.

It is possible to have religious, non-physical, mystical, and spiritual systems of belief that are also non-dogmatic, faith-based, evangelical or any of the other so-called vices we have described.

Ben Franklin, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, Rene Descares... and nearly every great practitioner of early science were also mystics and spiritualists. Your vitriol for the supernatural can be a bit blinding. Much like the fundamentalist religious believers can be blind to the truths in scientific inquiry.

Nearly all the founding fathers, and most of the subsequent leadership of the USA, were deists and Freemasons. Even today, a majority of scientists are either religious or hold spiritual beliefs.

As much as you might hate the notion of non-physical realities and other such things, there is absolutely nothing in science to disprove such beliefs. Science is agnostic... not atheistic.



1) In your opinion. Science assumes a great many things which it can not prove. Let's start with the objective existence of a material reality in the first place.

2) Science (as well) has plenty of articles of faith that Religion can do without. The idea that consciousness is an accident of matter, for example. In Religion, what brings one to tears and makes one break down in joy is better than what makes most people yawn or fall asleep. When something truly amazing happens, even most scientists will murmur "Oh my G*d!"

3) Science has a pretty outstanding faith-based immunity to criticism and scrutiny as well. People tend to believe what scientists say simply by virtue of their being scientists. This is despite the fact that they are almost always wrong (when pronouncing fundamental truths, anyway). You see, SCIENCE is not designed to give sure answers. Even the best and most consistent theories are usually disproven eventually. Science provides useful falsehoods and approximations. Like Newtonian Physics.

Scientists tend to cloak their mystical pronouncements in language that no one else even understands... even when the concepts they are speaking of are rather simple. They do this, at least partly, to ensure that no one but their fellows can judge their work.

4) Science believes blindly in what it doesn't bother to prove. Dark Matter, Singularites, Super Strings, Higgs-Boson, that the Universe is a random accident... that things actually exist when there is no one around to observe them. Religion accepts only what it can find evidence for in the human spirit, and this is conditioned only upon the quality and quantity of the evidence available to the individuals who have experienced them for themselves (love, bliss, transcendental experiences, OOBEs, precognition, miracles, psychic phenomena etc.).

5) Reigions rejects and correct their foundational beliefs all the time. I'm no fan of Catholicism or the Pope, but Pope's regularly make pronouncements that alter the core beliefs of the Church. All religions grow and change... often splintering into endless new varieties when said beliefs no longer jibe. Jesus honored the Sabbath from Friday Night until Saturday night for instance, but most of his current followers honor it on Sunday. Science is not the only self-correcting, revisionary, fallible inquiry into truth. Shamanism beat Science to that punch millenia ago. You can not call what Religions pronounce as false hypotheses because a hypothesis must (by definition) be something that can be disproven. Religious beliefs fail with glory in making pronouncements that can be proven or disproven.

If you are so sure of yourself, go ahead and invent a way to disprove a Religious belief. You will become rich & famous if you are successful. Why? Because no one in history has been able to do that yet.

Maybe you will be the chosen one... of scientific atheism.

The point here is that science and religion are very different in their fundamental characteristics, even though either one might manifest itself differently in its practitioners. Therefore I don't really see how the fact that practitioners of science might act irrational has any impliciations for science, or the scientific method, itself. Discussing practitioners of science and religion is another debate altogether.

That practitioners, even how much of an intellectual giant they have been, have been religious in some way has nothing to do with science itself, or whether or not the phenomena they believe in actually exist. This would be equavelent to saying that the fact that your plumber is a muslim somehow implies that him fixing your toilet has any bearings on whether or not Allah exists. Clearly this is not the case...

Well, a hypotheses of the existence of something paranormal is, as you rightly point out further down in your post, an unfalsifiable hypotheses, so the lack of evidence in this area doesn't mean anything. These hypotheses are formulated in a way that makes it logically impossible to disprove them. Therefore, the lack of unambiguous evidence simply has absolutely nothing to do with the likelihood of these phenomena, and arguments like the one you're serving here are both devoid of value and meaning. You can, for example, change the semantic content of the hypotheses to something like "I turn into a pink goblin while I sleep when nobody is around to see it". This is impossible to disprove, but this impossibility doesn't say anything at all about the likelihood of me actually turning into a pink goblin while I sleep. So again, your argument is meaningless, has no value and is in argumentive terms empty.

This is a classic I have heard before. However, is this really the case? Can you supply me with more spesific cases that supports this statement? Furthermore, that science requires the objective existence of a material reality is simply not true. Science is both open to and perfectly able to handle that something might be immaterial, it's just that there is no evidence to support it. If someone for example could provide inambiguous evidence for telepathy, science would have no problem with handling this. Science goes where the evidence is, nothing more.

There is no good reason to assume that there is no objective material reality of some sort - not even appeal to the brain-in-a-vat-scenario would justify this, because the brain must exist in something and receive inputs from a source outside of itself. One should also note that this hypotheses most likely is falsifiable; if I could suddenly move mountains with my thoughts or something incredible like that, this would dramatically create holes in the original hypotheses of an objective material reality. No such evidence exists, I am afraid.

That the universe is objective just means that its existence is independent of the subjective thoughts a mind might have about it, while a claim that the universe is subjective means that there are no objective truths. This would, for example, imply that a person could walk through a brick wall because this wall wouldn't need to exist for this person, but no such thing has ever happened and is likely not to ever occur. As a last note, claiming that there are no objective truths is absurd, because this argument already presumes that there are objective truths, and thus you are serving a contradiction.

This is absurd. The two claims "consciousness creates matter" and "matter creates consciousness" does not, in isolation, require a different amount of belief. However, the last statement has a towering amount of evidence to support it, while the other has not, thus it is more reasonable to believe in the second than in the first. That consciousness is created by matter is a perfectly falsifiable hypotheses that we trust, because there is nothing there to suggest its wrong. It is also important to remember that the one that claims consciousness creates matter has the burden of proof on his/her head, not the other way around.

And again, science does not require that consciousness is created by matter at all, as it in principle could handle the opposite - it's just (again) that no evidence supports this, and science goes in the direction of evidence.

This is a gross misunderstanding of science, because science works in the opposite way. One does not believe in someone just because they are scientists, but one believes what they have to say with a certain reservation if it is based in solid research, thourough empiricism, peer review and has a broad support from other, independent scientists with knowledge of the spesific subject. This method is one of the reasons that you can sit on your computer and communicate with me, having this discussion. It is both a shame and an embarassment that while you snort at the scientific method in this manner, you are at the same time daily using the complicated technology that the scientific method made possible for you.

Science doesn't believe blindly in anything. Believing blindly means believing without evidence, often despite evidence for the contrary, and this is exactly what science is not about doing. Dark matter is not at all without evidence, it's just that we can't observe it directly (because it does not radiate light). I will not go through the evidence for the existence of dark matter, but I can point you to this thread, where I try to explain dark matter and why it must exist in the bottom post. You can also read about this at Wikipedia.

As for singularities, most scientists actually don't believe them to exist (quantum mechanics doesn't let a particle take any less space than its own wavelength). If you talk about black holes, these are observed through gravity-lensing and have a very solid theoretical foundation. Superstrings is not something serious scientists believe in blindly, it's just a possible explanation with a lot of uncertainty, while also being pretty controversial. The Higgs-Boson is also believed in with a solid foundation, as there are many reasons for why it must exist. If we believed in it blindly, billions of dollars wouldn't be put to waste in the search for it at CERN. That the universe started as a random event is also believed with solid foundation, and those who claim otherwise have the burden of proof (also, occam's razor is relevant here). Science would also be able to handle this if someone would provide solid evidence for the claim that the universe was created by something else than a random event.

That something stops existing because conscious creatures move their focus would violate the law of energy conservation and evolution for example, and would lead to absurd conclusions. There is no reason to believe that the existence of something is dependent on observation (Occam's razor is relevant here too).

In short, science does not believe blindly in any of these things, and nothing else either. It's absurd religious quackery to claim otherwise.

Yes, it is. No other knowledge system has provided its own set of credentials for approximating truth the way science has. Nature is mysterious, and science has proven itself to be the more correct and better method to approximate truths about her.