rub being of course, the word "belief" is not in the vocabulary of science. who the hell is this feyman anyway. ah crap never mind. can't imagine i want to know.

well here are my words. see if you can twist them to your advantage. YOU KNOW LESS ABOUT THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD THAN MY TEN YEAR OLD GRAND DAUGHTER.

Dr. Richard Feynman won the Nobel Prize for his work in Quantum Electrodynamics. He is also one of the most revered modern scientists and teachers of Quantum Physics.

You should trying reading some of his books. They say that he has a very unique gift of being able to put difficult concepts into layman's terms.




That will make things easy for you. Perhaps you can ask your granddaughter to tell you all about Richard Feynman and his work in Quantum Physics.

jrbogie wrote:

of course we don't know what you think a theory is. you just complain about science theories. give us your spiritual theory. would feyman buy it?

Gentlemen... please, act accordingly. I too, have been guilty of allowing my emotions overwhelm my consicous thoughts, so this is not a judgement of anyone personally. I want to continue this discussion on evidence...

Too many well developed threads get pulled as a result of people allowing responses to become personal in nature. I do not want this one to suffer the same 'fate'...

creative responded:

Keep looking for more evidence. Determine it's adequacy and relevance by applying it to as many situations as possible in order establish warrant to draw a conclusion. Sometimes that conclusion may be to say that the evidence at hand is insufficient to be able to draw a firm conclusion.

Sky wrote:

I appreciate your viewpoint. I really do. And in many circumstances I agree completely.

However, there are several key words you’ve used that are what I consider to be indicative of the subjectivity involved:

proper
sufficiency
aequate
reason enough
sufficient enough
relevance
warrant

These are all relative terms. That is, in order to determine any of them, they must be measurable. And therein lies the problem. Who determines what “ruler” to use for measurement? I see no reason to assume that everyone does, or must, use the same ruler. The only real reason for agreeing on a ruler is to provide for an agreement on the measurement. But if one does not desire to agree on a measurement, then there is no real reason to agree on the ruler.

Sky wrote:

Just as evidence is meaningless without being compared to something, “sufficiency”, “adequacy” “reason enough”, etc. are meaningless without a standard by which to measure them. And possibly more importantly, there must be a purpose for performing the measurement. If there is no such purpose, then “evidence” and “sufficiency” are irrelevant from the outset.

Sky wrote:

In other words, consideration and evaluation of evidence has a prerequisite, which is most easily expressed by the question “Why is the evidence being considered/evaluated?”

And that is why I think different people come to different conclusions when evaluating the same evidence. Their purpose behind evaluating it is different. And I also think that may be the source of much conflict – too often people assume that others have (or should have) the same purpose in evaluating evidence. But they simply don’t.

Creative wrote:

Using an objective method does not completely eliminate the possibility of subjective influence. It does, however, greatly reduce the chances of it. It is because of the fact that we are aware of the inherent erroneous nature of human subjectivity that we have devised objective procedures such as the scientific method and different forms of logic. That is why we created them, in order to avoid - as much as possible - the tendency for subjective error.

But you've just recognized that I do indeed have a perfect understanding of the scientific method and how to apply it.

And it's in your following words:



I simply recognize that we currently don't have the ability to apply the scientific method to something as immensely complex as the human spirit. So I don't even pretend that it could be done.

Pretending that it could be applied would be a display of someone who doesn't understand how to apply the scientific method.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scientific method is an extremely elementary and very limited reductionistic view of the world. As a professional, I'm fully aware of this. I would suggest that most of the truly credible professional scientist are indeed aware of this.

"Science is a belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman.

It really is true if you stop and think about it. The scientific method is extremely crude, and quite limited about what it can actually say. Most of what scientists think they know actually represents large leaps of intuitive conclusions that may or may not have any validity at all.

The Big Bang. A Conclusion? Or a Guess?

Take the Big Bang for example. We observed that light coming from what appears to be very distant galaxies is red-shifted and this red-shift increases as the galaxies appear to be further away. From this we conclude that the universe is expanding.

Do we have any evidence that the universe is expanding? No. All we have is evidence that light is red-shifted. We must jump to the conclusion that this is caused by an expanding universe, which seems to be reasonable. However, this assumption also assumes that the physics of the intergalactic space is the same as the physics we experience here on Earth and that it has been homogeneous and isotropic over all of time*.

*Keep this lst thought in mind because it's going to play a huge role in just a minute.

Next we devise a 'theory' based on the idea that the universe is most likely expanding due to the evidence that light is red-shifted. And that assumption was based on the above assumption that the laws of physics have been homogeneous and isotropic over all of time.

Moreover the theory crashes and cannot be made to work if we stick to our guns assuming that the laws of physics have been homogeneous and isotropic over all of time. The theory has major problems and basically fails.

So then a New Idea is proposed that the laws of physics have not been homogeneous and isotropic over all of time, and there was actually a time when the universe underwent a major period of unprecedented Inflation. Keep in mind that there is no evidence for this New Idea. On the contrary this New Idea is entirely fabricated to salvage a theory that wasn't working!

There is no evidence that any such thing as "inflation" ever took place. That is purely an idea that was created to salvage a theory that wasn't working.

Moreover, even the theory of Inflation has its own problems because there is no way to "shut down" the inflationary process evenly throughout space without also having non-local faster-than-light communication. So as ironic as it sounds, the Inflationary Theory just took the non-local problem that caused the original Big Bang theory to fail, and moved it from the first instant of explosion to the end state after Inflation.

In any case, there is no evidence for Inflation. Inflation is merely a plausibility argument to salvage a theory that wasn't working. And that theory wasn't even based on evidence that the universe was expanding, but rather it was merely based on the evidence that light is red-shifted. And that also included a need to assume that that the laws of physics have been homogeneous and isotropic over all of time. But now to save that theory we must assume that that the laws of physics have not been homogeneous and isotropic over all of time because we now need a period of Inflation that would have represented a different physical situation.

So how much of the "Big Bang" theory is actually based on "evidence" and how much is based on a biased desire to simply "save a theory"?

Now you might argue that there is also the CMBR (Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation) that also supports the "Big Bang". But this isn't necessarily true at all. The CMBR would exist in any case. It's simply a measurement of the temperature of the universe as a whole. It doesn't necessarily point to a "Big Bang". The real argument there boils down to an idea of pure logic that suggests that IF the universe were infinitely old, and also static, that it would today then be infinitely hot. However, that's an argument that's also based on many unprovable assumptions as well.

In short, the only "real evidence" that we have for a "Big Bang" is the red-shifted light and the belief that this means that the universe is expanding and has always been expanding and that the laws of physics are homogenous and isotropic over time.

In fact, if you stop and think about this, it even gets more interesting!

The most recent cosmological observations suggest (from observing red-shifted light, again) that the universe is actually accelerating in its expansion. Well this throws a whole wrench into everything!

The entire picture of the "Big Bang" was originally proposed in the belief that the expansion was fairly constant, or at best, slowing down due to gravity. But now we see that the physics of the universe is indeed changing. The universe is accelerating in it's expansion at least based on the 'evidence' of observations of red-shifted light.

Well, if this is true then why should we assume anything about the rate of expansion in the past?

Yet, we must make assumptions about the rate of expansion in the past for the Big Bang theory to hold.

So, in truth, we actually have basically no evidence that there was ever a Big Bang. All we have is some observations about red-shifted light a whole bunch of assumptions and guesses after that.

Like Richard Feynman says: "Science is a belief in the ignorance of experts."

jrbogie:

rub being of course, the word "belief" is not in the vocabulary of science. who the hell is this feyman anyway. ah crap never mind. can't imagine i want to know.

Abra wrote:

"I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it be like that?' because you will go down the drain into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that." - Dr. Richard Feynman

I have personally accepted Quantum Theory. And Quantum Theory states that there are some things that are simply unknowable. Some properties of this universe are complementary and if you know one of those properties precisely, then you can't know anything about it's complement.

For us, this is totally "illogical". And therefore many people reject the notion on intuitive grounds. Like Einstein they can't accept that some properties of the universe are necessarily in a state of limbo. "God does not play dice!"

It's too "mystical". And they can't accept that. They demand something that they can pin down and put their finger on. So they continue with various esoteric subjective interpretations.

But why? If what you say is true. If 'evidence' speaks for itself and must be accepted "objectively" then we have no choice but to accept that the universe is mystical (i.e. unknowable, forever a mystery) Because this is what the theory of Quantum Mechanics demands.

So if we accept the 'empirical evidence' objectively, then we must accept that this universe is ulimately mystical.

That's what the evidence demands.

There are levels and when you say that a question is too hard you are only saying that you do not have enough interest, time, and money to work on it.

It's not just hard to understand how you could not already know this but to understand how you could ignore it when I have placed it right in front of you.

Creative wrote:

Self contradictory, and a one-word distortion of QM.

Unknowable is not mystical. The evidence does not demand mystical as a label. Mystical presupposes purpose, reason, and intent. Unknowable is known of those.

Abra responded:

To each their own.

For me, mystical simply mean mystery. If something is unknowable, then it must forever remain a mystery. Therefore it's mystical.

That's not a distortion of anything, it's just the way I see things.

If you see things differently that's your subjective view.

Main Entry: mys·ti·cal
Pronunciation: \ˈmis-ti-kəl\
Function: adjective
Date: 15th century

1 a : having a spiritual meaning or reality that is neither apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence <the mystical food of the sacrament> b : involving or having the nature of an individual's direct subjective communion with God or ultimate reality <the mystical experience of the Inner Light

Main Entry: un·know·able
Pronunciation: \ˌən-ˈnō-ə-bəl\
Function: adjective
Date: 14th century
: not knowable; especially : lying beyond the limits of human experience or understanding

Evidence is the topic at hand. Stay on track by keeping what you present as evidence regarding the topic of evidence in that context.

Without getting into any major detail(s) concerning any specific situation or idea, I would like to attempt to discuss the importance and/or value of evidence.

The above is the context to which these responses are referring...

Sky, I have read your words here many times over. I am being reminded of earlier words by you, which I - for one reason or another - consciously chose to avoid. It is time that I no longer ignore this point of view. While I respect that people have different opinions on matters, I am more interesting in what grounds those opinions.

You are bringing all methodology into question. Stating the fact that human perception is necessarily subjective does not place all methodology on equal footing. While I have acknowledged the subjective nature of human perception in past and will now once again, I find that to be inconsequential to this topic. It has already been dealt with. That is the reason for objective methodology.

Using an objective method cannot completely eliminate the possibility of subjective influence or error. It does, however, greatly reduce the chances of it. It is because of the fact that we are aware of the inherent erroneous nature of human subjectivity that we have devised objective procedures such as the scientific method and different forms of logic. That is why we created them, in order to avoid - as much as possible - the tendency for subjective human error.

Subjectivity is known to be prone to error. It also happens to be an unavoidable factor, but because we know this, it can be circumvented to a large extent. A large part of that also depends upon agreeing on word usage and meaning. I find that that alone often acts as a stumbling block between you and I. It is possible to avoid this. The only way to determine the value of evidence is to determine it's relevance and sufficiency through logical and/or reasonable application to that which is being considered.

I find it very interesting that you have just used an objective method to build a case against objective methods.

Once again, I cannot understand your direction in thought here or your choice in analogy. It seems as though your attempting to logically build a case which places subjectivity and objectivity on equal grounds, simply because we, as humans, are necessarily subjective in perception.

True enough, even obviously so, yet why make the point? Isn't all evidence evaluated for it's truth value?

While I agree with this, it does not cover all situations. Although I can imagine cases in which this applies, I find more reason to believe that the same evidence is evaluated in different ways, because of the fact that humans are necessarily subjective. Many people, if not most, allow their emotional desires to affect their ability to assess evidence, this notion was expressed earlier by another poster with the 'lucky penny' example.

The subjective nature of human perception is prone to error, that is the very reason why we developed objective means.

That is an irrefutable fact.

Abra wrote:

In any case, when I perform ritual "magick" as it's called, I don't expect 100% results every time. That would be utterly foolish of me. It would be just as foolish of me to think that my ritual "magick" is going to work 100% of the time as it would be for a quarterback to expect to make a successful play 100% of the time in a football game. He knows what he's doing. He has an entire team working with him in sychronicity. If they work well they perform "magically". If they work poorly they fail a lot.

So spiritual magick is like playing football. It's a hit and miss type of thing. It depends on a lot of factors, some of which are beyond the control of the magi. You just have to have faith and do the best you can't.

Sky,

Everything is subjective in the sense that you are using the term. So then I propose this to you...

Because both points of view are necessarily subjective, let's compare the evidence from both sides of any specific situation. I gave an earlier proposition to Abra, you have the same invite. I would like to grow beyond semantics concerning the 'subjective' and get into the meat of the topic, even if the only way to do so is to agree with your definition, first. That truly is no problem.