The science delusion

[LogicalFallacy]

One thing - if his ideas about the constants (or not) of the universe are true it would destroy the fine tuning argument. You can't argue fine tuning while proclaiming the laws are constantly changing.  

[mymistake]

6 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

I may have to try and find him making claims like this in debate with some intellectual atheist's like Harris. He'd mop the floor with those claims. There's no human rights in the NT any more than the OT. In fact, I heard some christian preacher recently preaching that one of the greatest evils today, completely contrary to the bible, is the concept of human rights. Sheldrake's christianity is completely synthetic, and that second video outlines that reality fully, and in detail. 

 

What ya talking about?  Christians have plenty of rights.

 

"You have the right to think whatever your pastor tells you to think.  Anything you do can and will be used against you on Judgement day.  You have the right to pay your pastor 10% of your income.  If you can afford to pay your pastor more you have the right to pay your pastor as much extra money as you want."

 

 

[mymistake]

3 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

One thing - if his ideas about the constants (or not) of the universe are true it would destroy the fine tuning argument. You can't argue fine tuning while proclaiming the laws are constantly changing.  

 

I think the average Creationist would be okay with it.  "It's a finely tuned constant change."

[Joshpantera]

4 hours ago, Ann said:

I guessed christian because of all of the christmas trees;) Anyone else notice he's barefoot and standing on grass or moss? Just an observation I thought was kinda weird but whatever....do you boo.

Wonder why he chose christianity and not some other religion? There are a lot of other religions that are less materialistic than christianity....

 

This is a good point. Christianity is such a materialistic group in comparison to eastern religions. In fact, I've argued that the concept of a resurrection of the body, basically copied from Egypt, is a materialistic oriented afterlife concept. I know churches are torn on the issue, but the original idea seems to be a materialistic one, like Egyptian bodily resurrection. The other issue the materialism involves is the "Pearly Gates," "Streets of Gold," "Jewels in your Crown," concepts of Heaven. They're obviously metaphorical language, but at the same time they're obviously taken literally by christians who read their mythology literally. And taken literally, this is another completely materialistic and ego driven concept of the afterlife. Being driven towards an eternally existing body, rewarded with materialistic jewels and precious metals, that goes on forever and ever without end. 

 

This should be altogether embarrassing for a christian to have to own up to. What shallow minded, self centered, egoic nonsense in the name of a belief system. 

 

And this, basically, is the driving force behind resisting science, indeed, producing a book like," The Science Delusion." 

 

This whole thing is extremely misguided. 

[midniterider]

4 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

This is a good point. Christianity is such a materialistic group in comparison to eastern religions. In fact, I've argued that the concept of a resurrection of the body, basically copied from Egypt, is a materialistic oriented afterlife concept. I know churches are torn on the issue, but the original idea seems to be a materialistic one, like Egyptian bodily resurrection. The other issue the materialism involves is the "Pearly Gates," "Streets of Gold," "Jewels in your Crown," concepts of Heaven. They're obviously metaphorical language, but at the same time they're obviously taken literally by christians who read their mythology literally. And taken literally, this is another completely materialistic and ego driven concept of the afterlife. Being driven towards an eternally existing body, rewarded with materialistic jewels and precious metals, that goes on forever and ever without end. 

 

This should be altogether embarrassing for a christian to have to own up to. What shallow minded, self centered, egoic nonsense in the name of a belief system. 

 

And this, basically, is the driving force behind resisting science, indeed, producing a book like," The Science Delusion." 

 

This whole thing is extremely misguided. 

 

Do you disagree with 1-10 below? Should scientific inquiry be constrained to these 10 principles? Why or why not? I dont think he's necessarily anti-science, just against dogma that stifles free inquiry. Why he doesn't wear shoes is beyond me.

 

excerpt from http://wariscrime.com/new/the-ten-dogmas-of-modern-science/

The scientific creed

Here are the ten core beliefs that most scientists take for granted.

1. Everything is essentially mechanical. Dogs, for example, are complex mechanisms, rather than living organisms with goals of their own. Even people are machines, ‘lumbering robots’, in Richard Dawkins’s vivid phrase, with brains that are like genetically programmed computers.
2. All matter is unconscious. It has no inner life or subjectivity or point of view. Even human consciousness is an illusion produced by the material activities of brains.
3. The total amount of matter and energy is always the same (with the exception of the Big Bang, when all the matter and energy of the universe suddenly appeared).
4. The laws of nature are fixed. They are the same today as they were at the beginning, and they will stay the same for ever.
5. Nature is purposeless, and evolution has no goal or direction.
6. All biological inheritance is material, carried in the genetic material, DNA, and in other material structures.
7. Minds are inside heads and are nothing but the activities of brains. When you look at a tree, the image of the tree you are seeing is not ‘out there’, where it seems to be, but inside your brain.
8. Memories are stored as material traces in brains and are wiped out at death.
9. Unexplained phenomena like telepathy are illusory.
10. Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works.

 

[mymistake]

1 hour ago, midniterider said:

 

Do you disagree with 1-10 below? Should scientific inquiry be constrained to these 10 principles? Why or why not? I dont think he's necessarily anti-science, just against dogma that stifles free inquiry. Why he doesn't wear shoes is beyond me.

 

excerpt from http://wariscrime.com/new/the-ten-dogmas-of-modern-science/

The scientific creed

Here are the ten core beliefs that most scientists take for granted. 

 

 

Yeah, I will take him seriously when he builds a magic wand that accomplishes something.  Until then I will stick to the method that created the internet, space exploration and modern medicine.

[florduh]

1 hour ago, midniterider said:

Do you disagree with 1-10 below? Should scientific inquiry be constrained to these 10 principles?

I don't think science is actually constrained by those ten statements. They are just what the majority of scientists have concluded from their education and research. Actual scientists have been studying weird phenomena for as long as I can remember; telepathy, psychokinesis, ghosts, NDE and so forth. Evidently there has been no hard evidence to conclude any of these things are real in the sense that gravity and nuclear fission are real. Don't forget, humans desperately want woo woo to be real even if we have little to no evidence produced over our entire history. Consequently, confirmation bias has played a very large role in promoting woo ideas.

[buffettphan]

16 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

You can't argue fine tuning while proclaiming the laws are constantly changing.  

 

Sure you can  Just supplement with a few little words:  "except how goddidit with his mysterious ways and all that miraculous stuff only HE can do.  Praise jeeeeeeezus. Amen. Hallelujah!"   

[mymistake]

23 minutes ago, buffettphan said:

 

Sure you can  Just supplement with a few little words:  "except how goddidit with his mysterious ways and all that miraculous stuff only HE can do.  Praise jeeeeeeezus. Amen. Hallelujah!"   

 

 

Hey you just stumbled upon the ultimate proof that God exists.  Only God could cause the always-changing rules of nature to always be finely tuned.

[LogicalFallacy]

2 hours ago, buffettphan said:

 

Sure you can  Just supplement with a few little words:  "except how goddidit with his mysterious ways and all that miraculous stuff only HE can do.  Praise jeeeeeeezus. Amen. Hallelujah!"   

 

You're a Christian in disguise aren't you?

 

[disillusioned]

I'm familiar with this guy and his ideas from a while ago. It starts out as an interesting idea, with some potentially rewarding applications. But it's straight down hill from there.

 

4 hours ago, midniterider said:

Do you disagree with 1-10 below? Should scientific inquiry be constrained to these 10 principles? Why or why not? I dont think he's necessarily anti-science, just against dogma that stifles free inquiry. Why he doesn't wear shoes is beyond me.

 

I'll take these one at a time.

 

4 hours ago, midniterider said:

The scientific creed

Here are the ten core beliefs that most scientists take for granted.

1. Everything is essentially mechanical. Dogs, for example, are complex mechanisms, rather than living organisms with goals of their own. Even people are machines, ‘lumbering robots’, in Richard Dawkins’s vivid phrase, with brains that are like genetically programmed computers.

 

This is not a necessary assumption of science. Many scientists take this view. Not all.

 

4 hours ago, midniterider said:

1. All matter is unconscious. It has no inner life or subjectivity or point of view. Even human consciousness is an illusion produced by the material activities of brains.

 

Most scientists that I know think this. It isn't a necessary assumption or result of science though.

 

4 hours ago, midniterider said:

1. The total amount of matter and energy is always the same (with the exception of the Big Bang, when all the matter and energy of the universe suddenly appeared).

 

Yes, this is fundamental to science.

 

4 hours ago, midniterider said:

1. The laws of nature are fixed. They are the same today as they were at the beginning, and they will stay the same for ever.

 

This is also a usual assumption of science.

 

4 hours ago, midniterider said:

1. Nature is purposeless, and evolution has no goal or direction.

 

These aren't really assumptions. Science does not assume that there is a specific purpose to nature. There may be, but we can't assume that there is. As for evolution, the only "goal" that it has is reproduction. But evolution is just a particular scientific theory. It shouldn't be listed in this list of "fundamental assumptions".

 

4 hours ago, midniterider said:

1. All biological inheritance is material, carried in the genetic material, DNA, and in other material structures.

 

This is how things are usually treated, to the extent of my knowledge. I don't know that it is assumed that it must be this way, but we do generally behave as if it is this way.

 

4 hours ago, midniterider said:

1. Minds are inside heads and are nothing but the activities of brains. When you look at a tree, the image of the tree you are seeing is not ‘out there’, where it seems to be, but inside your brain.

 

This is an open question.

 

4 hours ago, midniterider said:

1. Memories are stored as material traces in brains and are wiped out at death.

 

Again, most scientists that I know think this, but it isn't an assumption of science per se.

 

4 hours ago, midniterider said:

1. Unexplained phenomena like telepathy are illusory.

 

See the previous answer.

 

4 hours ago, midniterider said:

1. Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works.

 

The only kind of medicine that works is what has been shown to work. Generally, that's mechanistic. But there are lots of unexplained medical phenomena. Sometimes, alternative methods seem to work. Just not very reliably or predictably.

[Joshpantera]

9 hours ago, midniterider said:

Do you disagree with 1-10 below? Should scientific inquiry be constrained to these 10 principles? Why or why not?

 

Some of these are just straw men. As pointed out above. Some of them are legit assumptions. Should scientific inquiry be constrained to a handful of legit principles and some straw men that don't really apply, I'd say no. I say no because science shouldn't be constrained by anything. And it isn't. We've seen the forefront of testing in terms of consciousness and how it may or may not have affects on physical reality. We have that discussion in the spirituality section about meditation affecting the double slit experiment. Things that are considered woo woo are currently being tested and they are not constrained in the way that Sheldrake alleges. If any testing can turn up positive results, it will become a part of accepted science. 

 

My place is in between religionist's like Sheldrake with a preconceived motive, and what I call the old school materialist's. The Dennett's of the world are slowing dying off. The Harris's of the world are filling in the gap. Sheldrake understands that there's a new class of spiritual practice atheists rising up. He's read Harris's book on spirituality and comments on it in the second video. But we have to also place Sheldrake into a class of opposition which is opposite, but equal to the slowly dying off 19th century scientists. They're both old school, and in my opinion short sided views of each side of the equation. They're necessarily outdated. Sheldrake, for instance, speaks of panpsychism. But Hoffman's theory of consciousness, which as far as I know is the only current theory of consciousness (as a response to there not being a full theory of consciousness) is NOT panpsychism at all. It's going beyond that now outdated concept. You've read the pdf's, you know how Hoffman articulates the new theory and differentiates it against panpsychism. 

 

  http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/ConsciousRealism2.pdf

 

The big problem here is that the materialist world view is subject to change, through empirical and falsifiable scientific methods which are far beyond wishful thinking ideas like panpsychism that basically take religion and put a twist on it. Conscious Realism doesn't demonstrate any reason to believe that gods or fairies exist, any more than classical materialism does. So what we get is consciousness operating in the material world, a change of perspective of what material actually is, but not a "supernatural consciousness," over arching the whole thing, which, is the only thing Sheldrake is setting out to achieve by all of this. He's trying to get to the preconceived notion that a supernatural consciousness is behind the existence of everything. Then, to try and twist that towards christianity as the correct representation of that supernatural consciousness. And these are logically fallacious, logic leaps. 

 

You have to keep that big picture in mind when reading through his claims and the list of 10 assumptions, some of which are straw men. I'm on board with the possibility of the materialist worldview changing. And I dam near expect it at this point. Like MM said, given that we sustain and survive no doubt there'll be dramatic advancements over the conceptual horizon of right now. But there's a pattern that I see to all of this. As science gets into the quantum area where religionist's like to try and pour in jars of woo woo, they don't work out in favor of the religionist's. They accept some aspect of science and then try and shoe horn god think into it, but it fails every time. This pattern keeps repeating over and over. They resisted and then started accepting the BBT. Then tried shoe horning things like intelligent design into evolution, or fine tuned arguments into BBT. But then cosmology expanded, and went the direction of multiverse conceptions. The fine tuning argument becomes completely irrelevant in the face of inflationary theory. I don't see trying to latch on to the consciousness in matter aspect of science working out any better for them. In fact, I'd bet anything that it won't work out that way. Instead, as the science continues to unfold it will continue to contradict their assertions just as it always had, all along, the entire time that they've been trying to latch on to and shoe horn science to their own ends. 

 

And it's simple really. They begin with the assumption that this bronze age mythology somehow correctly describes reality. And it doesn't. The only contender here is something like Advaita Vedanta, by chance most likely, which is completely heretical to christianity, not complimentary to it. And even then, there will be differences between the actual science of consciousness and the literal reading of the Veda's, or something like that. Similar, close, but not exactly the same thing. 

 

And the above is just speculation based on the possibility that mechanistic materialism doesn't snuff something like conscious realism early on in the game. If I were to have a discussion with Sheldrake one on one, this where I'd want to take him. 

[midniterider]

3 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

Some of these are just straw men. As pointed out above. Some of them are legit assumptions. Should scientific inquiry be constrained to a handful of legit principles and some straw men that don't really apply, I'd say no. I say no because science shouldn't be constrained by anything. And it isn't. We've seen the forefront of testing in terms of consciousness and how it may or may not have affects on physical reality. We have that discussion in the spirituality section about meditation affecting the double slit experiment. Things that are considered woo woo are currently being tested and they are not constrained in the way that Sheldrake alleges. If any testing can turn up positive results, it will become a part of accepted science. 

 

My place is in between religionist's like Sheldrake with a preconceived motive, and what I call the old school materialist's. The Dennett's of the world are slowing dying off. The Harris's of the world are filling in the gap. Sheldrake understands that there's a new class of spiritual practice atheists rising up. He's read Harris's book on spirituality and comments on it in the second video. But we have to also place Sheldrake into a class of opposition which is opposite, but equal to the slowly dying off 19th century scientists. They're both old school, and in my opinion short sided views of each side of the equation. They're necessarily outdated. Sheldrake, for instance, speaks of panpsychism. But Hoffman's theory of consciousness, which as far as I know is the only current theory of consciousness (as a response to there not being a full theory of consciousness) is NOT panpsychism at all. It's going beyond that now outdated concept. You've read the pdf's, you know how Hoffman articulates the new theory and differentiates it against panpsychism. 

 

  http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/ConsciousRealism2.pdf

 

The big problem here is that the materialist world view is subject to change, through empirical and falsifiable scientific methods which are far beyond wishful thinking ideas like panpsychism that basically take religion and put a twist on it. Conscious Realism doesn't demonstrate any reason to believe that gods or fairies exist, any more than classical materialism does. So what we get is consciousness operating in the material world, a change of perspective of what material actually is, but not a "supernatural consciousness," over arching the whole thing, which, is the only thing Sheldrake is setting out to achieve by all of this. He's trying to get to the preconceived notion that a supernatural consciousness is behind the existence of everything. Then, to try and twist that towards christianity as the correct representation of that supernatural consciousness. And these are logically fallacious, logic leaps. 

 

You have to keep that big picture in mind when reading through his claims and the list of 10 assumptions, some of which are straw men. I'm on board with the possibility of the materialist worldview changing. And I dam near expect it at this point. Like MM said, given that we sustain and survive no doubt there'll be dramatic advancements over the conceptual horizon of right now. But there's a pattern that I see to all of this. As science gets into the quantum area where religionist's like to try and pour in jars of woo woo, they don't work out in favor of the religionist's. They accept some aspect of science and then try and shoe horn god think into it, but it fails every time. This pattern keeps repeating over and over. They resisted and then started accepting the BBT. Then tried shoe horning things like intelligent design into evolution, or fine tuned arguments into BBT. But then cosmology expanded, and went the direction of multiverse conceptions. The fine tuning argument becomes completely irrelevant in the face of inflationary theory. I don't see trying to latch on to the consciousness in matter aspect of science working out any better for them. In fact, I'd bet anything that it won't work out that way. Instead, as the science continues to unfold it will continue to contradict their assertions just as it always had, all along, the entire time that they've been trying to latch on to and shoe horn science to their own ends. 

 

And it's simple really. They begin with the assumption that this bronze age mythology somehow correctly describes reality. And it doesn't. The only contender here is something like Advaita Vedanta, by chance most likely, which is completely heretical to christianity, not complimentary to it. And even then, there will be differences between the actual science of consciousness and the literal reading of the Veda's, or something like that. Similar, close, but not exactly the same thing. 

 

And the above is just speculation based on the possibility that mechanistic materialism doesn't snuff something like conscious realism early on in the game. If I were to have a discussion with Sheldrake one on one, this where I'd want to take him. 

 

Thanks for your in-depth reply. I actually didn't watch the 52 minute video, just the shorter one. So I'll take your word that Sheldrake is a religious nut. I would rather people not try to shoehorn religion into science.

 

Consciousness is an interesting topic and I'll reread Hoffman's link you have there. It seems to me that there is a gray area between materialist science and full-blown Jesus woo. Some phenomenon might reside outside materialism but that doesn't mean God's are involved.

 

Anyway, brain is dead tonite. I'll think up more drivel tomorrow.

[pantheory]

On 6/6/2018 at 12:36 AM, Ann said:

I guessed christian because of all of the christmas trees;) Anyone else notice he's barefoot and standing on grass or moss? Just an observation I thought was kinda weird but whatever....do you boo.

Wonder why he chose christianity and not some other religion? There are a lot of other religions that are less materialistic than Christianity....

 

Shelldrake is English. The state religion of England is the Anglican church. It was likely the religion of his youth. For some people studying science, like those studying religion, the short-comings of such teachings are more obvious than to others. While being educated in science, it seems that he first turned away from the Christianity of his youth, and then away from Christianity as a whole, calling himself an atheist.

 

But in time he also found problems with science theory. IMO science theory is riddled with BS. Science theory is often just the best guess concerning how things work and can change as new observations and discoveries become available. Of course it is certainly far better than any and all supernatural religions which are 100% BS.

 

According to the subject link, Sheldrake slowly became disenchanted with at least some science theory. I came to a somewhat similar conclusion long ago but it did not turn me toward religion, instead I looked for better theories which necessitated a lifelong study of science on my part. 

 

Sheldrake is well-spoken and IMO and good spokesman against the BS that can be found in science, but not for the validity of his own or any other religion.

[pantheory]

On 6/6/2018 at 9:14 AM, midniterider said:

 

Do you disagree with 1-10 below? Should scientific inquiry be constrained to these 10 principles? Why or why not? I dont think he's necessarily anti-science, just against dogma that stifles free inquiry. Why he doesn't wear shoes is beyond me.

 

excerpt from http://wariscrime.com/new/the-ten-dogmas-of-modern-science/

The scientific creed

Here are the ten core beliefs that most scientists take for granted.

1. Everything is essentially mechanical. Dogs, for example, are complex mechanisms, rather than living organisms with goals of their own. Even people are machines, ‘lumbering robots’, in Richard Dawkins’s vivid phrase, with brains that are like genetically programmed computers.
2. All matter is unconscious. It has no inner life or subjectivity or point of view. Even human consciousness is an illusion produced by the material activities of brains.
3. The total amount of matter and energy is always the same (with the exception of the Big Bang, when all the matter and energy of the universe suddenly appeared).
4. The laws of nature are fixed. They are the same today as they were at the beginning, and they will stay the same for ever.
5. Nature is purposeless, and evolution has no goal or direction.
6. All biological inheritance is material, carried in the genetic material, DNA, and in other material structures.
7. Minds are inside heads and are nothing but the activities of brains. When you look at a tree, the image of the tree you are seeing is not ‘out there’, where it seems to be, but inside your brain.
8. Memories are stored as material traces in brains and are wiped out at death.
9. Unexplained phenomena like telepathy are illusory.
10. Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works.

 

 

This may be Sheldrake's perception as to the principles of science but none in reality are consensus principles amongst scientists in these fields. I'll go aver the list one by one.

 

1. Everything is essentially mechanical. Dogs, for example, are complex mechanisms, rather than living organisms with goals of their own. Even people are machines, ‘lumbering robots’, in Richard Dawkins’s vivid phrase, with brains that are like genetically programmed computers.

 

In science actions of nature can be mechanical, chemical, electrical, energy radiating such as electricity, light and other EM radiation, gravity waves, etc., Living organisms are mechanical, chemical, electrical, energy consuming, energy producing, self-replicating, having electro-chemical memory capabilities. This is a general view but not necessarily a consensus view.

 

2.a  All matter is unconscious. It has no inner life or subjectivity or point of view.

 

Yes, this is generally the consensus view but could be disputed with different definitions of "inner life."

 

2.b 

Even human consciousness is an illusion produced by the material activities of brains. This is not a consensus view. There is much debate in science concerning the meaning of plant, animal, and human consciousness.

 

3.a  The total amount of matter and energy is always the same. This principle is called the conservation of mass-energy which is a consensus view in physics.

 

3 b   (with the exception of the Big Bang, when all the matter and energy of the universe suddenly appeared). The Big Bang is presently the cosmoloogical consensus view but new evidence could quickly change the theory as it did when accommodating new hypothesis such as Inflation, dark matter, and dark energy. The idea of "suddenly appeared" is not a consensus part of the Big Bang model. There are many different views and versions concerning a beginning, and maybe 5% of practitioners do not believe in the Big Bang model at all.

 

4. The laws of nature are fixed. They are the same today as they were at the beginning, and they will stay the same for ever.

 

Although many such as myself believe this principle is generally valid, many or most Big Bang cosmologists believe the laws of nature have changed over time, so this is certainly not a consensus belief or assertion.

 

5. Nature is purposeless, and evolution has no goal or direction.

 

Yes, this is generally the prevailing consensus view but evolution does have a direction. The direction is toward the survival of the fittest and the most prolific breeders.

 

6. All biological inheritance is material, carried in the genetic material, DNA, and in other material structures.

 

Yes, this is the general consensus view but maybe not worded in the best way. A better wording might be:

Biological inheritance is carried by genetic cells, related chemistry involving genes, DNA, RNA, epi-genetic chemistry, gene foldings and switching, and in other material. structures.

 

7. Minds are inside heads and are nothing but the activities of brains. When you look at a tree, the image of the tree you are seeing is not ‘out there’, where it seems to be, but inside your brain.

 

Of course animal and human brains form a perspective of reality which is only a small portion of the emissions being radiated.  So this statement is generally the consensus view in science IMO.

 

8. Memories are stored as material traces in brains and are wiped out at death.

 

The wording is not very good. Memories are stored in animals and men as electo-chemical traces in nerve cells which dissipate as these cells die.

 

9) Unexplained phenomena like telepathy are illusory.

 

The consensus view in science of telepathy is that it is imaginary and not real.

 

10. Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works.

 

The consensus view of medicine is not the above. Medicine instead is the science and practice of the diagnosis, multi-faceted treatments, surgical excising,and inclusions, drug treatments, and prevention of diseases.