Gees

Dimreepr; It doesn't happen often that you help me, but the information about Maimonides was very helpful and informative. Thank you. Gee It is NOT all the same. I have wondered for a long time what the "Phi" in your name stands for as it is very clear you are no philosopher, so the "Phi" can not be short for philosophy. Will you tell me what it stands for? Gee I am going to guess that a few hundred years ago, if a person turned a cup of water upside-down, let it drain, then turned it back upright, it would be assumed to be empty. So nothing would be in it. Right? But science knows that is not true, as there is, at least, air in it. But I suspect that Trurl was actually thinking of philosophy, rather than science. Isn't it philosophy that says one can not prove a negative? Does that mean that we can not describe a negative? Hmm. I seriously doubt that "nothing" existed before the Universe. Gee

I know why they do it. But when people often say, "what you propose is magic", or "that is supernatural", one has to wonder what those people know about magic and the supernatural, or what they are hiding about their superstitious natures. For me, I see magic as something that entertains children and the supernatural as a word that is used by some to explain the unexplained -- neither term has any real meaning for me personally. I actually worked a thread in this forum, while trying to get to the bottom of the "supernatural" dilemma. So either the people who accuse others of magic and/or the supernatural in this forum are superstitious fools, or they are being insincere, insulting, argumentative, disingenuous, and royal pains. This is off-topic, irrelevant, and it looks like misdirection. Have you been studying Trump's methodologies? You missed the point. You said, "The only other options here are: life always existed, or life was the result of magic/mysticism. " This is not true. You have oversimplified something because you do not understand it. I responded with, "So I guess the only options here are to conclude that religious people think "God" started life and the science people think that magic started life?" which is also not true, which would be why I phrased it as a question. I was mimicking your rather simplistic statement, which obviously had nothing to do with truth. iNow missed the point also. Maybe he should consider some help with his reading comprehension. It was not answered. Gee

I always thought that the self balancing of ecosystems was interesting. How does it put itself back together and maintain its self-balancing nature after we mess it up or after a natural disaster messes it up? What law or principle causes all life to work so hard to maintain itself and cause life to continue? We use math to measure these principles, but I don't see how math causes them. Gee

Yes. One could make that argument. Philosophy would talk about balance, science would talk about math, and religion would talk about the "God'" plan, but they would all be talking about the same thing. Congratulations. You finally got off the Science v Religion merry-go-round long enough to think. Think about this: Spinoza lived hundreds of years ago, so what has science learned in the meantime that would support or detract from Spinoza's work? Einstein used math to make his conclusions. Quantum theories and holographic theories built on his original ideas. So is there a personal "God" concept and a universal "God" concept? Two of them? Look to psychology for an answer to the personal "God". Jung taught us about the "God" archetypes, Blanco taught us about the logic in the unconscious by explaining that emotion ignores time, psychology tells us a lot about the personal "God". Even ordinary principles are worthy of study. Gee

Asking would be a waste of time. After 12 pages, you should realize that nobody cares. I have watched members in the religion forum abuse every idea that is presented in this religion section, whether it is good or bad -- for years. They pretend interest, then gradually change the conversation to be about science, then ridicule anyone who does not agree with them. This thread was never about abiogenesis -- it is about the "God" concept, which none of the members study or understand. The members here are reasonably intelligent and capable of reading and following a thought process, so this is a bait and switch tactic. Entertainment for the forum members. Normally I would not even respond to a thread in this forum, but when you noted that there is a difference between the spiritual and religion, and you made that comment without regard to any religion or practice, I thought that you might be worth talking to. If you google abiogenesis, you are informed that the Oxford dictionary calls abiogenesis a theory. Science can study it, but they don't. They study the brain, or they study behavior, or they study societies. They do not study the mental and barely study consciousness. I have been studying consciousness off and on for decades and have come to the conclusion that some aspects of consciousness can interact with the physical. Some aspects of consciousness may actually be physical. I have asked members in other forums if they can tell me the properties of mental aspects, and they have no answer. Some aspects of the mental do have properties. But I must tell you that I have been fighting MS (multiple sclerosis), which slows me down, for about 50 years, and now I have cancer to fight also. I start my radiation treatment next week, which I have been told will make me even more tired, so I have no desire to provide entertainment for the masses. I sent you a PM with my email address so that we could continue this conversation if you are interested. I doubt that I will respond to many more posts in this thread. It is just too hard and serves no purpose. Gee

Swansont, Do you have any idea of how many times the words "supernatural", "magic", and "mysticism" have been used in this thread? The interesting part is that the words are always used by "science" people. So I guess the only options here are to conclude that religious people think "God" started life and the science people think that magic started life? It is no wonder that Luc and I are having trouble in this thread, as we don't think either of those things happened. I didn't think this thread was about abiogenesis, but then maybe it is. Gee

I know a lot of Catholics, so if you are indeed a practicing Catholic, then you know a lot more about Catholicism than you do about the "God" concept. It is also likely that you have been trained in your beliefs since childhood, as that is a policy of the Catholic church. Thank you for going out of your way to prove my point. As far as the Pavlov's dogs comment. I would like to thank the members who went out of their way to repeatedly downvote my post and provide evidence for my guess that rep points are used to discourage opposition to the science forum's agenda. I went back and looked. I did not see where Luc Turpin misrepresented abiogenesis. I did see where he questioned it, but that is not misrepresenting. The only thing that I could find him guilty of is intelligence as he would not accept as fact something that has not been proven as factual. You, on the other hand, may have misrepresented the worth of the abiogenesis methodology? process? hypothesis? Please provide evidence of Luc Turpin's misrepresentation. So you think that he used misrepresentation in order to introduce "very ill-defined concepts"? Do you know what this thread is about? One could honestly state that the "God" concept is the big daddy of "very ill-defined concepts". Is it your intent to be humorous? You can't honestly believe that you or science have an answer to the concept of "God". There is nothing wrong with that logic. Yes, science progresses, but science can not progress beyond science because then it would stop being science. Science uses a methodology that tests the physical -- that is science!!! Science can not use that methodology on the spiritual or even on the mental. You can't slap god down on a lab table to study, so you either have to use philosophy or you have to use religion or you have to be clueless. Just like we can not use religion to study the physical as there is no way to validate and test what we think we know using the methodology of religion. The same is true for philosophy, which is why we created science in the first place. This is what is called a no-brainer. Luc Turpin was not the only one that brought up alternate hypothesis, so your complaint seems excessive. I will tell you that I bought the book, The Holographic Universe, read it, and still can't explain "WTF that means", so I don't know why you would complain that Luc can not explain it fully in a post in this thread. I can tell you that in the back of that book are hundreds of references from page 303 to page 327 -- way too much information for me to absorb. Science can't do it alone. Some of life gets kind of "wooly and vague". Years ago, I looked up the posts and comments that were made when this forum was creating, or maybe recreating, itself. A lot of the members did not want to have a philosophy section or a religion section, so why is there one here? Because it was discovered that it was needed. No matter why it was needed, it became clear that it was needed. Science can't do it all alone. Gee

Luc Turpin, I have very much enjoyed reading your posts in this thread, and find it amazing that you have managed to receive only 13 down votes in nine pages of comments. You actually seem to understand that there is a difference between spirituality and religion, and yet know that these concepts are related. You have been very tactful and very careful to try to gain information without implying that science may not have the ability to know all of the answers. I would never be able to accomplish that as I have a tendency to tell people exactly what I think. Everybody here knows that science does not study the "God" concept, so they are generally clueless about it. Mostly the science members will call it imagination or nonsense or something similar, and yet there are hundreds of posts in this thread, many of which are from science people, who are obviously relaying the information they received in childhood regarding the subject matter. Go figure! As far as people calling you "crackpot", etc., do not take it personally and use the brain in your head. This is a science forum. It's purpose is to promote science. So if member (a) comes to the Religion/Philosophy section and finds a comment that is not 100% pro science, they can make a derisive comment and down vote that person, which is quite likely to cause someone to up vote member (a). Am I saying that this is a game for the purpose of establishing reputation? Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. You are not going to learn much about the "God" concept, religion, or spirituality from these people, as they do not know and are not teaching -- this is about training, like Pavlov's dogs, only they use rep points instead of treats. A "willingness to reconsider ideas" is not fundamental to science -- it is fundamental to philosophy. Science studies the physical, philosophy studies the mental, religion studies the spiritual (emotion). We are physical, mental, and spiritual beings so we need all three disciplines to understand ourselves. Do you think I will get a downvote or two for this post? Maybe. Gee

The members of this forum are seriously biased against religion and even philosophy, so I don't know why you posted in this forum. I suppose you read that this was the philosophy forum so you thought it would be OK. No. The members of this forum believe that science is the beginning and end of knowledge. This means that if the information did not come from science, then it can not possibly be knowledge. It could be imagination, speculation, or maybe garbage, but it is not knowledge. But I found your thoughts interesting. You still need to do some work on your ideas, but I doubt that you will get any help here. Gee

Yes it is. Philosophers study truth and lies, so it is probably a bad idea to lie to a philosopher. You probably don't want to know this, but the lie is very obvious -- so I am not the only person, who caught it. I am just the only person, who said something about it. Sorry about this. I am not used to this program that combines posts. Gee

Beecee, this is a lie. Maybe you are trying to rationalize something that you don't understand, but it ends up being a lie. The truth is that religion studies the supernatural and calls it "God". You have serious problems with the idea of the supernatural and have stated it repeatedly all over this forum for years. The only conclusion that I can reach is that you are superstitious and in denial. If you are taking these beliefs of yours and seeing them as comparable to philosophy, then it is clear as to why you don't like philosophy either. This is the only conclusion that the historical facts in your years of posts can support. There is difference and there is sameness -- both are beliefs -- no matter how those beliefs are formulated. The logic of the thinking applies to both of them equally. It is the logic that flew right over your head. This is what Studiot stated: "In the case of Science outgrowing Philosophy, I suggest the scope and extent of scientific knowledge now well exceeds that of philosophic." So that would be why you earn a Ph D in the various subjects of science? That would be a Doctor of Philosophy? Right? Ooh. Maybe one day I can earn a Sc D in philosophy? That would be a Doctor of Science. Right? Beecee, if you don't understand the above, ask someone. Gee PS I don't think that I have a problem being too thin skinned; my problem is different. After a few years in this forum witnessing so much ignorance based in bias in the subjects that I knew, I began to wonder about the other subjects. If I don't know about a subject, would I be able to tell if ideas were slanted because of bias? No. So I lost my faith and trust in this forum and left. I check back once in a while, but I no longer play here.

Beecee, I can't believe that you actually wrote the above. I know that you have a serious bias against religion, and it became clear to me, while reading the other thread about science and philosophy, that you can not tell the difference between religion and philosophy. But how could you not know that your statements are almost the same thing that religion would believe? Read the following where I changed just two words: A religious theory or model, is not necessarilly after or searching for truth and/or reality. It is a useful, faith supported theory based on current evidence, that describes a certain situation. The thinking in your statement is exactly like the thinking that religion uses to promote the "God" idea. It is the same kind of thinking that validated drowning "witches", because it solved the problem of witches and made everyone else feel satisfied and self-righteous. No truth was required, no examining of the premises, no philosophy -- it just had to work. Well, Beecee, logic does not change by subject matter, so what is good for science is also good for religion, which would be why I stated that Studio's logic validated "God". Yes, I have seen this video many times and even used his examples to help me explain some aspects of consciousness. Feynman was brilliant, but had a bad attitude toward philosophy, which is kind of funny because he was very much a philosopher. Did you know that he took at least one philosophy class when he was young? He took his brilliant mind to an academic philosophy class which turned him totally against philosophy. He never got over it. I can understand his attitude because my first philosophy class gave me a similar disregard for academic philosophy, although I believe there are some classes that are worthwhile and taught well. I don't believe this for a minute. It looks like you cherry picked, adlibbed and generally corrupted what Wiki had to say. Considering the bias that I have read in your posts, this is not surprising. You can't tell the difference between religion and philosophy and talked about "absolute truth" with regard to philosophy, so I know you are clueless on this subject. Truth is subjective and is not "absolute" -- that would be either religion or maybe idealism. Gee Studiot; Because you asked me to explain what I see as the differences between truth and facts and how that relates to this topic, I wrote the following: I have spent the last week, or so, trying to verbalize how I see the difference between philosophy and science; it has not been easy. I think that a lot of the miscommunications and misunderstandings between us have been caused by very different ideas of what science and philosophy do, so I thought it would be helpful to clarify. My thoughts are that most people in science forums divide philosophy and science by the physical and the non-physical; the physical (real) being science and the non-physical (imaginings, ideas, ethics, etc.) being philosophy. Or they divide them by subject matter, such as ethics is obviously philosophy and mathematics is obviously science. Is some of this familiar to you? I think that Russell's explanation is a lot better and more accurate; science is what we do know; philosophy is what we don't know. Why is that? I am sure that some people believe that science knows what it is doing because it is superior or advanced, and philosophy does not know because it is inferior or confused -- this is nonsense. Earlier I stated that philosophy studies truth and science studies facts -- this is the biggest reason for the differences between these disciplines. Truth is subjective; facts are objective -- so truth (philosophy) is at the beginning of the process (where the observation, idea, or experience starts) and fact (science) is at the end (after confirmation or collaboration). Because truth is subjective, it can change because of perspective, time, and/or circumstance -- so truth can almost always be countered. It is rare to find a truth that is also objective, which makes it damned difficult to know anything for certain or come to any consensus in our conclusions. Hence, philosophy is what we don't know -- yet. So how can we know facts? Well, philosophy took the liberty of "establishing" certain truths to make them easier to deal with, so technically these truths are made-up. We took a one-to-one association of objects and ideas and called it counting, then we created numbers and then math, which allowed us to do all kinds of calculating. We established measures of liquid, distance, weight, volume, etc., and used numbers to measure many things. We broke down time into increments that allowed us a detailed measure of time. We established directional words like north and south, inside and outside, left and right, up and down, etc. With these objective truths that we actually created, or established, we could finally have a solid foundation for science and learn things that can be known. Hence, science is what we know. So it looks like science is an advancement of philosophy, and maybe does not need philosophy any more. Many people think this, but the problem here is that facts do NOT necessarily give us truth. For example: There was a hundred dollar bill in my hand that transferred to your hand -- that is the fact of what happened. So what happened? Did I give you money? Did we complete a contract? Did you steal it from me? What is the truth? Facts require interpretation and seldom, if ever, stand alone. Since science has become the "answer man" and philosophy has pretty much been removed from consideration, we are starting to learn just how dependent facts are on philosophy and truth. Just watch the evening news or see an advertisement; you will be inundated with facts, but will you see any truth? Facts are easy to manipulate because they do not stand alone and do not give us truth. These are some of the reasons why I think that philosophy and science are necessary to each other and interdependent. Although I can see why people think that philosophy is the beginning or base that started the process, but is no longer necessary, that is rather short sighted. Every new discovery is another beginning, every improved understanding is another beginning, every question that is answered prompts two or three new questions, which are two or three new beginnings. The only way that philosophy will ever become obsolete is when there is no new knowledge, no new discoveries, no new beginnings. By the way, it is not necessary to be a scientist in order to experiment and it is not necessary to be a philosopher in order to experience -- both disciplines use both methods. Facts can and do expose us to new truths and truths can and do uncover new facts. Gee

Bullshit. This idea of "valid" is ridiculous as it has little application to reality and none to truth. I suspect you would like to idealize reality and turn it into a model that fits your rules. (Plato is not the only one who has that problem.) The Plague is a highly contagious deadly disease -- truth. Some people when exposed to the Plague do not get it and/or do not die -- truth. Does that negate the Plague as a highly contagious deadly disease? Men grow beards -- truth. If a woman grows a beard does that invalidate her as a woman? I have no idea where your thoughts of "absolute" and counterexamples come from, but they are idealized nonsense. It is not good Philosophy and it is not good Science. It is piss poor communication, so I will apologize for my part in that very bad communication. So what you are saying is that a premise does not need to be true; it can be false as long as it works and does what we require of it. Philosophy is not therefore necessary. Congratulations studiot. Religion will be so happy, because I think you just validated "God". Gee

You ask some difficult questions, and I think the answers are that both influence our ideas of who we are. Identity is a difficult concept because it requires an understanding of "self", which is very complex because "self" is a simple thing, but not a singular thing. I don't know everything about "self" and identity, but I can share some information. Since it has already been brought up, I should clarify the idea of identity as to birth. When a person is born, they are physically separated from their mother, but retain the emotional bond and identity for a period of time. We know this because infants, who do not retain a bond (or quickly develop a bond) die of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). These babies do not possess the instincts that are necessary for life, like the ability to suckle and the need to breath. These instincts and the bonding both work through the unconscious aspect of mind and are part of Jung's collective unconscious, which could be called the larger "self" and causes us to identify with other humans. This human identity is a chemical or DNA internal concept; the bond with the mother is also internal and originated through the shared body. At about 8 months old, the infant has discovered his fingers, toes, and the extend of his physical body; it is at this time that babies start to cry whenever mom leaves the room because they now realize that she is not connected and could leave them! So prior to this time, babies have no idea that mom and baby are separate things, which leads me to believe that baby sees his identity as the same as his mom's identity. This is a good time to start playing peek-a-boo with them so they can learn that out of sight does not mean gone. At about 2 years old, the baby finally has enough of it's own identity that it can survive a break in the bond with it's mother/caregiver, which is why SIDS is no longer a threat. It is about this time that baby realizes that mom has her own mind and could possibly disagree with baby, which causes a lot of stress, so baby tests this idea in the form of the "terrible two's", where baby disagrees with everything. This is when we get signs of an individual mental self. Then around 5 years, the child realizes that other people have their own minds and points of view. At 7 years the child has a fully developed rational aspect of mind. Although more changes will happen for years to come, this is the age when the child is considered to have the ability to choose rationally and to have identity. Most people consider the rational aspect of mind to be their "self" or identity. So far we have talked about the parts of identity that come with the body. Then there is identity that is acquired by living: the school you went to, your hobbies, sports, religion, culture, family, friends, social status, race, college, work, city, country, home, or anything that you put the word "my" in front of adds to your identity. So identity comes from a lot of different sources, and "self" is like a drop that lands in still water causing an infinite number of ripples of "self". Does this part of identity affect your image of your "self"? Of course. Gee

Yes, that is a good example. Another might be the discovery of pheromones. Science thought that trees communicated along their root systems because it was obvious that communication happened, and it was not otherwise tracible. In the 1960's we discovered pheromones and realized that trees were communicating through the air, which solved that mystery. But then we learned that all multi-celled species communicate with pheromones (pheromones communicate more than just sex) and there is a whole world of communication that goes on in a forest or any ecosystem. This is probably how an ecosystem stays in balance, or at least it is part of the solution. I don't know why, but most of the people in the science forums have the general idea that philosophy does not observe, or they think that if the observation is done through technology, then it is not relevant to philosophy. This is not true. Without observation, I don't think there would be philosophy, or science. Gee

I think we are both having trouble understanding each other. It may be that I did not recognize your offer of a counter example to my absolute claim, because I did not make an absolute claim -- at least in my mind. There are very few things in reality that are absolute, so I was talking about a general understanding of how things work. If you take a hundred year old science book and a fifty year old science book, and a current science book on the same subject, you will find some differences over time in what science finds to be factual or true. Some subjects will have little or no change, others will have a lot of change. This is usually because the subjects with a lot of change found that false assumptions caused the flawed science, or you could say a false premise caused the flawed science, or you could say the flawed philosophy caused the flawed science. This is what I meant when I stated that without (good) philosophy, the science can turn to crap. It is possible that a scientist's experiment is flawed; it is also possible that the scientist is deceitful in his/her reports, but I find that mostly this is not "necessarily so". Mostly it is a false assumption or bad premise that screws up the science, which means bad or flawed philosophy. I like all of Gershwin's music. Great(er) is a word that is used comparatively. Look at your examples above to see the truth of this, so it is a word that is all about opinion. You are asking for opinions in this thread and then making the assumption that the opinion is in some way relative to the truth or fact of the matter. It is not. Whole threads have been devoted to explaining this, so I doubt that I can explain the difference, but I can tell you that truth is subjective and facts are objective. Cotton wool sandwiches? Are you serious? I don't think that I could eat something like that and hope I never have to. No. I am the one who used the word "dominant" because I see it as a problem in psychology/psychiatry. I see this as a left over problem from the monism v dualism nonsense, which causes science to treat consciousness like a problem that has to be treated with chemicals. Not a problem. I look at things a little differently, probably because of my studies of consciousness. I refuse to accept that the study is about either religion/"God" or about the human brain. But if one eliminates both of those things, what is there to study? How it works -- so that is what I study -- how things work. More facts or truths? Are we counting them? So more is better, or more is greater? Well distance, measure, numbers, and trees are of philosophical interest. I don't know a damned thing about "the production of high quality concrete", so I did not respond. Is there a point that is relative to this thread? Gee

Sorry it took me so long to respond. We had a bad storm and more than 300,000 people were without electricity for about a week. I still have pieces of a hundred year old maple tree strewn across my backyard where the electric company left it after cutting it off the power lines. No. Just what the doctor told me, but I have no reason to doubt him. I do remember that 40 or 50 years ago, Ocean Spray, cranberry juice had a note on its label that it was "partners in a kidney foundation". I always assumed that this was because of the "old wives tale", but that notice was removed a good 30 years ago. I assume that the removal of that notice coincided with the scientific testing that showed that cranberry juice did not fight bladder infections. I have no references and am not even sure if cranberry juice causing bacterial infections to slide off the walls of the bladder is a mechanical or chemical effect. You would need a scientist to figure that out -- I just keep cranberry juice in my cupboard. Generally speaking, I don't agree because physical therapy and surgery would not be part of medical science if mostly the chemical were considered. In my mind, only in psychology and psychiatry is the chemical too dominant in treatments. Not sure why you are referencing this -- the Bible is a history book(s). I have never read any history book that does not contain lies. Do you have a point? Well, whether "Great Britain", "The United Kingdom", or "The sun never sets on the British Empire", I think that it means that England thinks very well of itself. If you think that science fits the description of greater now, then you would have to agree that religion fit that description 1,000 year ago. Is that what you think? Philosophy is the study of knowledge, truth, and wisdom. Science and religion have both created methodologies to find their own knowledge and truths, which would be why they are both children of philosophy. Kind of like a teenager, who thinks he knows more than his parents? Not sure what you want here. Philosophy deals in truths, science deals in facts. Can facts exist without truths? No. Agreed. I did not state that they were doing science, what I stated was that they were working science; maybe I should have said working at science. Just as thinking is not doing philosophy, but it is a start. Gee

You are still misquoting people in order to make yourself look good and make them look bad? I thought you just did that to me. To be fair, I should note that jonnobody did use a complex sentence, so maybe you were just confused. I will underline the main parts of the sentence so that you can follow it. You see that word "haven't"? That means that Dennett did NOT use a spiritual basis. Does that clear things up? Gee Thank you. I have a starting point now. Gee

I did not know that. I have been wondering for some time now if thought is real; I know that emotion is real -- physical -- but was not sure about thought. Can you give me some reference so that I can study this? Well I don't know about the internet, but Jung's collective unconscious could be called a superconscious. Gee The integrated species-consciousness that you are referring to would be called the unconscious in us. Jung studied the collective unconscious and found there is at least one for every species and that it contains an unbelievable amount of information. You can find information on this in Wiki. No we don't have the obvious chemical perception of ants, but if you consider the riot mentality, you will find that chemicals produced through strong emotion causes a herd-like effect on our behavior. This collective unconscious does not really integrate, but instead connects us through bonding and emotion. Yes, trying to digest that much information would make anyone or anything insane. I spoke to a neurologist, who explained that just the information in a person's own unconscious mind would be too much to absorb, so trying to absorb the collective unconscious of a species would be ridiculous. Gee

Yes. It might help to remember that consciousness is not about doing anything including thinking. Consciousness is about being and feeling; thinking is an extra. Trees don't think, but they are conscious. Gee A lot of people confuse consciousness with conscience -- especially in the science forums because science insists that the brain and consciousness are the same thing. They are not. Flowers will turn their faces to the sun because they are aware (conscious) of the sun. Flowers do not have brains, so flowers have no rational aspect of mind, so they have no judgement regarding good and bad, so they have no conscience. Alive = some degree of awareness, consciousness Brain = rational aspect of mind and maybe conscience If you are going to try to understand these threads, you should know that spiritual means emotion/feeling. To get into the "spirit" of things is to get into the mood. A spirited horse is one with a lot of feeling. Although few people seem to understand this, religions actually study emotion and they name the entity that leads the emotion, "God". So you in fact are spiritual, cause you are not a psychopath. Yes, this can be done. All we have to do is observe other species and remember that consciousness is NOT thought and is NOT the brain. Consciousness is awareness. All life is sentient, so all life is aware of some things, specifically the need to eat, maintain itself, and reproduce. Any other things that they are aware of can be studied. Gee

Hello Studiot; It has been a long time. My thought is that science has always been a part of philosophy. 50,000 years ago, if someone had an idea and they did an experiment to see if the idea was valid, they were working science -- even if they did not call it science. I think science was defined as a separate discipline in the 17th century, (maybe by Galileo?) who worked out and defined the scientific method. As to which is greater, philosophy or science, it does not strike me as a valid question. It reminds me of the question, which is greater man or woman, which I always found to be kind of funny, as they are interdependent. Philosophy and science are also interdependent. Philosophy works to validate it's premise and puts faith in the beginning of a process; science works to validate it's testing and puts faith in the ending of a process; both are necessary to produce good results. For example: I was talking to my doctor just the other day and he was explaining about cranberry juice. Years ago, I had told him that I drank cranberry juice to relieve a bladder infection and he told me that it was an old wives tale and that cranberry juice had been tested and did nothing to bacteria and therefore did not help to get rid of an infection. When the subject came up again, he apologized and explained that a fortune had been dumped into the testing of cranberries with the thought being that a new medicine could be synthesized once the testing proved its validity -- but it had failed, repeatedly. Eventually it was learned that cranberries could not neutralize bacteria and could not fight bacteria, but could make the walls of the bladder slick so that the bacteria slid off and washed out, thereby disposing of the infection. If the testing is good, careful, and valid, but the premise is invalid, then the science turns into crap. If the premise is good, carefully considered, and valid, but testing shows negative results, then no matter how well thought out, the philosophy is crap. They are interdependent. Gee

Hoola; Nicola Tesla was an inventer, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and a physicist. Since the AC motor is based on science, we can rightly assume that his training in science is what enabled him to imagine the AC motor and cause it to be possible. Please note that he did not imagine "flying pigs" and enable them to be possible. This is a science forum. So it is not difficult for a clear thinking person to understand that the point of this thread is that "imagination" on it's own does not make things possible. Science is required. But I agree with you about the "advertising industry" as most people would rather imagine than think. G

Kristalris; Per the underlined above, who or what dictates which data is "relevant"? Because if you choose which data is relevant, then it is your opinion/judgment of that data that causes a circular and self-supporting evidence. Would that be imagination? Or would that be reality? G

Hello Everyone; While reviewing this thread, I came across the statement, "Well, we agree that the OP is not true." in Kristalris's last post to me, so I thought that I should clarify my position. I have no idea if YodaP's proofs of the statement, "If I can imagine it; it is possible", are accurate or not, because I do not know enough about math to evaluate the proofs. But I am in full agreement that the statement is nonsense. I have no doubt that a person can find truth using math, if they know what they are doing; on the other hand, I don't use math, because I do not understand it, so I often use emotion to find truth. Why? Because emotion is inherently honest--it does not know how to lie. So this is how I would consider the problem: You are reading a newspaper and come across an article about a man, who got high on drugs, imagined that he could fly, and jumped out of a third story window to his death. Would you think to yourself, "It is a shame that he tried that on a Tuesday, because any other day it is possible that it would have worked." or " What a waste. The man was an idiot." Better yet, we will say that the person, who imagines he can fly out the window is someone that you love or care deeply about. Would you think, "Gosh, I hope this works for him because he has always wanted to fly." or would you jump forward, grab the man and wrestle him to the ground to prevent his death? If you chose the first sentence in either or these scenarios, you are lying. We can pretend to believe anything that we can imagine, but once emotion is involved, the pretense falls away. If we consider people who are suffering from illness, people who have survived death camps, and people who lay for days on a battlefield praying for death, it is pretty clear that "If I can imagine it; it is possible" is just not true. Imagination has no causal effect on possibility. Since we have already ruled out Solipsism, the only possible argument that can be made is that imagination exists and possibility exists, and that they can happen together. Here is the problem with this argument. Per Wiki: "Superstition is a belief, not based on human reason or scientific knowledge, that future events may be influenced by one's behaviour [imagination] in some magical or mystical way." It is an argument for superstition. That is what superstition is, the idea that something can be imagined and possible with no causal relationship. The rational mind has an amazing ability to corrupt itself, as is evidenced by our history, and when one bases their considerations on imagination, then the possibilities for corruption are endless. But this is not truth--not reality. I am not sure why, but I have noted that when some people turn on their computers, log onto SFN and scroll to the Philosophy Forums, they seem to think that reality jumps on the back of a Pooka and takes a midnight ride. (chuckle) Not so. Reality is still here. While reading this thread, I came across a statement that explained that science starts out with imagination and a guess, which develops into hypothesis, testing, theory, and proofs. I have read this before, in this forum. I believe that someone was quoting Feynman, who was purported to state, "First you guess." When I read that, I was sure that it had to be a misquote, or out of context, because Feynman was a very smart man. But it is possible that science has moved so far from philosophy that it has forgotten it's roots and really believes that imagination and guessing is how truth is discovered. This might explain threads like this one, and the silly ideas that come from using imagination and guessing as a starting point for scientific exploration. To be honest, I suspect that using guesses to start scientific studies would cause one to run out of funding before they got anywhere. So I am going to share my layman's self-proclaimed version of how studies start with regard to philosophy. (chuckle) First, you observe or experience something. Then you must go through the very tedious process of stripping that something of your beliefs, projections, and perspective. This is a very important step, because if you can not accomplish this, then what you are studying is yourself, your beliefs, your projections, and your perspective, so you are not studying the actual "something". If you manage to strip away all or at least most of your biases, then you can start to analyze this "something" as you now can know the truth of it; what it is, in and of itself. As you analyze and study it, you will have questions like, "What is it? Why is it? How does it work?" At this point your imagination can come into play while attempting to answer these questions, so this is the guessing part. Imagination can work here because the parameters of imagination are limited by the truth that you have uncovered of the "something" that you are studying. Then you form a hypothesis and pass it off to science, so that science can test and prove it. Science will prove the hypothesis false and call you an idiot, or prove it true and claim the credit. Either way, philosophy rarely gets the credit. So if science forgets philosophy's truths, it can make a fool of itself and produce nonsense. If philosophy forgets science's proofs, it can make a fool of itself and produce nonsense. They are a team that works hand in hand. imo Maybe this will help someone to understand the imagination problem. Unlimited imagination belongs in Hollywood. imo G

Kristalris; After reviewing your last post, I had a lot to think about. Most of the problems with your argument are not due to bad reasoning; they are due to misinformation. This is a commmon problem in the Philosophy forums, and not your doing, as this misinformation is perpetuated by the current attitude toward philosophy. I am probably not the best person to explain this to you, but you deserve a reasoned explanation rather than ridicule or condescention, and I don't see a lot of philosophers cueing up for the job. My knowledge of philosophy has been gained informally, so you will have to accept my layman's simplified version. It is my hope that I can explain this problem without offending you or the scientists, so please consider: I think this is the crux of the problem. Philosophy has never been under scientific rules, science has always been under philosophic rules. You may have heard the statement that, "Science is a child of philosophy."? But you have never heard that philosophy is a child of science, which is because science got it's rules from philosophy. Although science and philosophy share a common root, they are very different disciplines, and this difference is what is not well understood. Consider that philosophy started out as a discipline that studied what is real and true, then early on philosophy found that some things that are real and true are "fixed", others are not. These "fixed" truths are true to all people no matter the perspective and no matter the time; such as, a book which is a "fixed" truth. A book will remain a book from one day to the next no matter how many people look at it, it will still be a book and will still be in the same place unless some cause moves or changes it. As more and more was discovered about "fixed" truths, an entire discipline evolved to study these "fixed" truths. That discipline is science, and the "fixed" truths are now called facts. Science studies the facts of reality. Philosophy continued to study truths that are not "fixed" and the unknown. A truth that is not "fixed", is a truth that is relative to perspective and/or time, as time can change truth and each different perspective can have it's own truth. The unknown is extremely difficult to study because it is just too easy to imagine what we wish the "unknown" to be and rationalize our imaginations into supposed truth. So the discipline of philosophy must adhere to much more strident rules, that science does not have to deal with. Philosophy studies the truth of reality. Although the study of probabilities is based in science, math and fact, the results of the calculations are probable--not truth. Probabilities study predictability for purposes of decision making, control, and power as regards the unknown. This is not a study of reality or truth. This may well be true, but it is also true that one can always find a solution to a problem while considering only one assumption. That assumption is that the problem fits the solution. (chuckle) Philosophers are sticklers about reality and truth, so we like the solution to fit the problem, which can sometimes complicate things, but we really do like truth, so we put up with the complications. I retired from law and would like to discuss this, but it would take us off topic. So another time. Probability does not equal truth, at most it equals "close to truth--probably". So no it does not answer my question on "if". Bayes theorem is also not fact, it is theory. Truth can be based on fact, but it can not be based on probability, and can only be considered on theory. Here you are mixing science and philosophy again. Mathmatics is a study of facts that can find more facts, but that does not mean that these facts will find a larger and unknown truth. And there is no such thing as "absolute truth". It does not exist. In order for a truth to be "absolute", it would have to be true in all times from all perspectives, so it would be a "fixed" truth, which means that it would be a fact. Try going into the science forums and telling them that you have found THE ABSOLUTE FACT. Let me know how that works out for you. (chuckle chuckle) It may be true that it is a speculation, but that does not make it a philosophical truth. This may be part of the problem that blurs the distinction between philosophy and science. When science started to speculate, it may have also started to view philosophy as speculation. Speculation is based in some facts; philosophy is based in some facts. Speculation deals with unknowns; philosophy deals with unknowns. Speculation is often pseudo-science; do people think that philosophy is pseudo-science? Maybe. This may be how the comparison got started. Philosophy holds a very high standard for truth and speculation does not meet that standard. But possible does not mean a probability in philosophy. Here you are playing a word game that destroys your logic. The sentence was, "If I can imagine it, it is possible". It was not, "If I can imagine it, it CAN be possible." This is yet another example of changing the problem to fit your solution. Philosophy studies that which is real and true, so we can not adjust reality to fit with our solutions. The original statement is not true. Maybe so, but this is still about "guesses" and probabilities, it is not about truth. This is a philosophy forum and we deal in truths. The statement, "If I can imagine it, it is possible." is not true. It is a word game. Consider: If the statement, "If I can imagine it, it is possible." were true, then I could imagine that it would be true for me and false for you; therefore, anything that you imagined would become impossible. But being the clever person that you are, you could simultaneously imagine that everything that you imagine is true, but everything that I imagine is false; then neither of us could imagine anything that would be possible. But then Harry Potter, who is more clever than both of us combined, could see this problem and immediately imagine that everything he imagines is possible, but everything that anyone else in the world imagines is not possible, so he would win. He would be King of the World, Almighty God, the beginning and the end--a solipsist. But I thought you agreed that solipsism is nonsense. What do you think Monty could make of this? G