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Are science & spirituality one and the same?
I believe they are it’s just they use different deductive reasoning processors to evaluate to become further aware, what do you think?
Topics:
"Last frontier" (mind) A b Reasoning
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Christopher Halliwell
Science has no dogma or tenants. Instead, science has falsification. If your claim involving spirituality cannot be falsified, it is not scientific. There is no middle ground here.
Without the instruments to perform the experiments to verify quantum mechanics, scientists in the past would have been correct to disbelieve any quantum claim. Without evidence, there is no reason to believe.
Mathew Naismith 10+
http://noetic.org/discussions/open/304/ This link might interest you on the dogma's of science. You also might find the following link interesting as well http://noetic.org/noetic/issue-five-december/dawkins-darwin-and-other-dogma-how-the-tenets-of-b/
“Without evidence, there is no reason to believe”. You wouldn’t call this statement of yours dogmatic? Dogmatic means inflexible, rigid, narrow minded, authoritarian & so on, I’m lucky because I believe in both science & spiritualism thank God.
I can understand your stand on this because it’s the typical mode of thought of an inflexible science minded person which is programed into the recipient through the educational system but that sort of mind wouldn’t work too well in certain fields of quantum mechanics as you very much need to be able to see way outside the square before anything can be seen to be proven. How did we find out that the world wasn’t flat before it was proven? It might have been calculated but it couldn’t be proven until someone had the guts & the capability to prove it before it was proven, in other words it took blind faith.
Look Christopher I’m also science minded but I’m also not ignorant of other possibilities until they can be proven wrong, you’re saying their wrong that’s it because they can’t be proven, that doesn’t make logical sense to me!!
Love
Mathew
Christopher Halliwell
There is nothing authoritarian about science. If you have evidence for your claim, you are just as credible as a person with a PhD in physics. The source does not matter. Only the facts.
Science has no use for faith. You are lying if you say otherwise. I'm not discounting any possibility, I am merely unconvinced until evidence is presented. I have the most logical position.
Colleen Steen 500+
Your profile says you are an educator/teacher. Perhaps it might be helpful to realize that you could be a student as well:>)
Telling a person s/he is "lying" when s/he is expressing his/her perception, is not a very good way to further a conversation....do you think?
Good point..."I am merely unconvinced until evidence is presented".
With that in mind, could you please produce your evidence which supports your statement "Science has no use for faith"? I'm sure in YOUR mind you have the most logical position. If you opened that mind of yours, you may discover other positions?
Mathew Naismith 10+
Calling someone you don’t know a liar without proof or evidence sounds a little tooo strong in it’s response & shows a little blind faith within your judgment don’t you think. This is a typical response from people who are dogmatic as I also get this sort of reaction from dogmatic religious people as well, I find that quite interesting.
I’m one sided am I, I had a blog called the Science of Spirituality & it was mostly on vibrations & the first post mentioned Einstein in relation to physics but I now have a blog on spiritual acceptance because I’ve evolved pass the ignorance of science.
Obviously you didn’t look at the links I supplied in regards to science dogmas!!! Scientist themselves have mentioned that science can be dogmatic. Sorry if I hurt your ego, this is why I left science for spirituality it’s far less dogmatic but my new blog does still have a fair bit of science content as well as they do complement each other if one is open minded enough.
If you take a look at my new blog you will also find out that I have a shot at new & old spiritual concepts so saying I’m prejudice without evidence seems a little contradictory especially from a science minded person.
Love
Mathew
Colleen Steen 500+
I received your personal e-mail, which I copied here. There is a way to keep replies in sequence....it takes a little creativity:>)
In a personal e-mail to Colleen Steen, Christopher Halliwell wrote:
"Subject: In response to your comment
Your comment did not have a link to reply, so this will have to do:
* A teacher is a student. I hope to learn from every conversation I have.
* Science is the study of the natural world. If a scientist tried to use "faith" to prove his theories, he would be laughed out of the lecture hall. And for good reason. Faith is not a good thing. It is the excuse people give when they do not have a good reason to believe something. Your entire question makes no sense:
Science requires evidence, and faith is lack of evidence. I can't make this any simpler for you.
* Every conversation I have, I am learning about "other positions". As soon as the people that hold those positions provide evidence, I will have a reason to believe. I hope you understand the burden of proof as well."
I do indeed understand the "burden of proof" Christopher, and what you provide is simply your perception....not evidence or proof for your comments. Do you understand "burden of proof" and how it might work for ALL people?
Colleen Steen 500+
I don't know why you are having difficulty with the reply system. Do you see the word "reply" in red, in the upper right corner of comments? If a comment is already at the 3rd level (3 small arrows in the upper left corner) you simply go to the next opportunity to reply.
Your latest personal e-mail to me:
"Christopher Halliwell sent you the following message through TED.com. You can REPLY DIRECTLY to this message, without revealing your email address.
Very best,
The TED Team
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Thanks for your reply
I still don't know how to respond to your comment in the original thread, so I hope you don't mind If I keep responding in this fashion.
* I don't need evidence because I am not making a claim. Those who make claims have the burden of proof. Since you understand that I am merely unconvinced of any deity, you should understand that the burden of proof does not apply to me in this situation. If I claimed I could fly like superman, then you would have a point."
Christopher, honestly, I do not understand what you are arguing about. I don't believe in a deity either. How about reading all relevant comments in a discussion before arguing?
Colleen Steen 500+
I'm sorry you cannot figure out how to use the TED reply system. I will not receive any more of your personal e-mails. I am not confused about anything....sorry you are.
In a personal e-mail, Christopher Halliwell wrote:
"Subject: Thanks for your reply
Next opportunity?
Anyway, you said "and what you provide is simply your perception....not evidence or proof for your comments. Do you understand "burden of proof" and how it might work for ALL people? "
That is why I told you that I do not have a burden of proof.
As for how this applies to science vs spirituality, I assumed that was obvious. I have been demonstrating how faith is utterly useless in science because the scientific method requires evidence.
Can you be more specific as to what you are confused about?"
Arkady Grudzinsky 50+
Faith is not used to prove theories. Faith is used to choose what to study.
One scientist may work to create a weapon of mass destruction, another scientist may work to find the cure for cancer.
Arkady Grudzinsky 50+
This is not a fact, but an attitude. Do you say this in good faith?
Pabitra Mukhopadhyay 30+
A person was thoroughly searched and imprisoned in a cell. Another person without being searched entered the cell and left after some time. After some more time a prison guard entered the room and found the impriosned person dead with a dagger in his chest.
What is the evidence to conclude that the visitor is responsible for his death? Or do you think there can be other conclusion possible?
David Hubbard
Pabitra Mukhopadhyay 30+
Christopher Halliwell
Pabitra Mukhopadhyay 30+
I hope you will not insist that the huge enterprise that LHC is, expended astronomical sums of money and labor on disbelief about Higgs Boson.
The scientific method has four steps
1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.
Evidence comes at 4. The method depends on reasoned belief from 1 to 3.
Hence an over simplified statement such as "Without evidence, there is no reason to believe." sounds like a dogma to me.
Obey No1kinobe 50+
In your prison example there is circumstantial evidence that suggests the opportunity to commit a crime, but you need more evidence to be more certain. That's kind of the point.
There are of course other possibilities limited only by our imagination. But some have a bit more evidence than others.
An angel could have teleported into the room and killed him. Or more mundane the knife could of been hidden in the room. Or it could have been suicide.
But you can look for more information. Fingerprints, signs of a struggle, motive, DNA.
In the end a court would make a decision based on the evidence and human subjectivity.
We can not be certain of much. But some claims are better supported by evidence than others. You might say the sun rotates the earth. I might suggest the earth or its the sun. We can examine the evidence for these.
If you say an invisible magic toadstool is responsible for creating the universe this might be unverifiable. It might be correct but is there sufficient evidence to strongly believe it?
Pabitra Mukhopadhyay 30+
Actually human mind cannot function outside a belief system. That I shall not accept something without evidence is also a belief. I have no qualms accepting human nature of belief and I think rational progress can only be made based on practical grounds of human nature.
I would like to think that the lack of patience and kind of rhetorical assertion of the primacy of reason and evidence in science that I get to hear here are more momentary than realizations. I have worked with scientists half my life and it is my experience that practicing scientists consider logic, reasoning and evidence as tools of human mind, not entire human faculty itself.
The beauty of science is it's honesty, that it never claims it is eternally right. For the most profound of it's theories it leaves the avenue of falsification open. But it has definite field of application and does not take questions for examination beyond that field. It may not be wise to take the scientific values and apply them as humanistic values blindly. However, that's a choice.
The beauty of spirituality is that it cannot be learnt. Since its experiential, it grows with time in a person. Culture helps but it's a unique trait of human mind that enriches one's world view. It's not believing in super natural or tooth fairies.
I think I have nothing more to add in this debate. But I remember a funny story. In ancient Indian schools of thought a sage named Charbak was very popular. The Charback school of thought was believing in nothing other than physical realism and that too as long as it is personally experienced. When a modern day Charbak was asked about his experience when he witnessed a lion chasing a man, hunting him down and eating him up; he replied : I see an electron cloud chasing another, exchange of different forms of energies and interestingly the bigger cloud ultimately overlapping with the smaller one.
Christopher Halliwell
Being unconvinced of your claim is not the same as believing your claim is false.
You would do well to learn the difference. Regards.
Obey No1kinobe 50+
Perspective is an interesting thing.
ob
Arkady Grudzinsky 50+
Arkady Grudzinsky 50+
Your comment went well until this statement. People may have plenty of reasons to believe which have nothing to do with physical evidence.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-belief/
Again, the reason people believe in moral values (e.g. equality between men and women) does not come from physical evidence. Men and women seem to have some physical differences, so, they are not equal.
What's the evidence for this statement of yours? Isn't it a dogma?