In addition, I recommend reading into gravitational lensing.

Incomplete list of experiments underway which are attempting the observation or production of dark matter particles, off the top of my head:

Trying to produce it in a lab:
LHC of course (ATLAS and CMS to be precise)

Direct detection:
XENON
DAMA/Libra
CDMS
Cresst
LUX
ADMX

Indirect detection:
Fermi LAT

There are many more that didn't come to mind immediately. Any of them has the potential to yield an umambiguous signal that can be corroborated by independent experiments.

btw, MOND cannot satisfactorily explain the observed dark matter gravitational lensing such as bullet cluster and has no real way of producing the signatures of the cosmic microwave background.

(February 8, 2016 at 3:21 pm)Brian37 Wrote: There is evidence for dark matter, the word "spirit" cannot be compared to dark matter. Dark matter has a scientific definition. "spirit" is a gap answer word rooted in a superstitious past. I see no need to cling to old words that are really just the product of human imagination out of a fear of being finite.

The reality is, you are your brain in motion, that's all. Destroy that structure, your brain wont be in tact or in motion, you die, and stay dead. No, that is not comforting to most humans, but that is the reality.

There are si fi versions of an "afterlife" which are just as much bunk as old standard woo. Some people think atoms hold our thoughts. Certainly they do, but only as molecules as part of an in tact structure. An atom by itself is not an entire in tact brain, not even on the quantum level can a mere wave function act as an in tact human brain.

Just like if you smashed your computer into tiny unusable parts, it will not act as the in tact computer.

The only "forever" there is is that we are really made up of 14 billion year old material, stardust, but in cosmic time, no, we simply die, and our structure breaks down and what we call "I" as the individual, does not go on.

Although different parts of the brain, hemispheres, lobes, chemicals and electricity have been identifies as the cause of our thoughts, emotions and body functions, nothing in the brain has been identified and isolated as the agent/source of consciousness.

It could be said that what we now call dark matter was once known to the ancients as ether. If we throw away the concept of spirit because of its history, should we not also throw away the concept of dark matter/ either/some unseen force that holds the universe together and accounts for gravity?

If you’re going to do one and not the other, then yo need to know why. You need to be able to demonstrate that this is not just special pleading.

There isn't an isolated source of consciousness. And who's throwing the concept of the soul away? It's not going anywhere, it just has no place in science.

(February 8, 2016 at 3:58 pm)Alex K Wrote: btw, MOND cannot satisfactorily explain the observed dark matter gravitational lensing such as bullet cluster and has no real way of producing the signatures of the cosmic microwave background.

Right, that's why dark matter currently is the best available hypothesis.

(February 8, 2016 at 4:05 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote:

(February 8, 2016 at 3:21 pm)Brian37 Wrote: There is evidence for dark matter, the word "spirit" cannot be compared to dark matter. Dark matter has a scientific definition. "spirit" is a gap answer word rooted in a superstitious past. I see no need to cling to old words that are really just the product of human imagination out of a fear of being finite.

The reality is, you are your brain in motion, that's all. Destroy that structure, your brain wont be in tact or in motion, you die, and stay dead. No, that is not comforting to most humans, but that is the reality.

There are si fi versions of an "afterlife" which are just as much bunk as old standard woo. Some people think atoms hold our thoughts. Certainly they do, but only as molecules as part of an in tact structure. An atom by itself is not an entire in tact brain, not even on the quantum level can a mere wave function act as an in tact human brain.

Just like if you smashed your computer into tiny unusable parts, it will not act as the in tact computer.

The only "forever" there is is that we are really made up of 14 billion year old material, stardust, but in cosmic time, no, we simply die, and our structure breaks down and what we call "I" as the individual, does not go on.

Although different parts of the brain, hemispheres, lobes, chemicals and electricity have been identifies as the cause of our thoughts, emotions and body functions, nothing in the brain has been identified and isolated as the agent/source of consciousness.

It could be said that what we now call dark matter was once known to the ancients as ether.  If we throw away the concept of spirit because of its history, should we not also throw away the concept of dark matter/ either/some unseen force that holds the universe together and accounts for gravity?

If you’re going to do one and not the other, then yo need to know why. You need to be able to demonstrate that this is not just special pleading.

Yes our consciousness is explained by evolution. Your "thoughts" that make up you, are an abstraction due to our evolved language. 

Just like 1 is an abstraction until it is applied to an object.

1 apple
1 car
1 hamburger

I wish there was a polite way to put it, but there simply isn't. It is comforting for many to think of the prospect of our "I" being separate from our physical brains, but that is simply not true.

We are an outcome of physical processes. We are atoms, but we are not "I" by one atom alone. Those atoms have to be in an evolutionary molecular structure in a very specific way and in tact. 

I am sure you would find it absurd if someone claimed "All I have to do to build a car, is simply pump this gas out of the nozzle, and with no other material the gas will become the in tact car". 

There are lots of steps between the wave function, and an in tact brain. Atoms by themselves as individual atoms do not act as an in tact brain.

"spirit" really is simply an old word and a gap answer. No, that is not comforting, but that is reality.

I still find it awesome to thing that the atoms in my finite existence come from stars much older than me. I had no thoughts before I was born, and I see nothing special about a universe without me. I find life as it is with all it's good and bad, still wonderful to think about in natural terms without old language.

Like the fact that we really are living fractals. There is not one single atom in you now, that was in you when your sperm and egg meet. Your body constantly replaces every single atom. THAT, to me is amazing.

(February 8, 2016 at 3:37 pm)ApeNotKillApe Wrote:

(February 8, 2016 at 3:18 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote: I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I want you to think more deeply about how you explain this.

If no one can observe dark matter or say what it is how is that different from spirit?  Everybody thinks the evidence they present to support their ideas is credible. I want you to show me why yours is. It’s not hard. Is the word “postulation” a clue?

Galaxies require large amounts of matter in a cluster to generate the gravitational force that is needed to hold them together; by observing their light, it was found that galaxies contained far less visible matter than was necessary to keep them from drifting apart, meaning there was an unseen form of matter that generated gravity but didn't emit light - dark matter. We can't observe dark matter directly, but we can observe its effects.

Meanwhile, generations of ancient primitives generated the idea of the spirit as early attempts to understand the nature of consciousness, their ideas have been refuted. The end.

There you go!
The use of spirit as an explanation is basically and end of discourse. What I’m looking for is further discussion.

As CD said, dark matter is just one explanation for what we are observing. One other that occurs to me right now is, the deficiency of matter may explain our observation that the universe is expanding. What we see as the galaxies being held together is really just a blink of the eye in the vast eons of the universe. So there may indeed be enough matter for that blink.

True, dark matter is just one explanation, that's why it's a hypothesis. I'm not even attempting to defend the idea, I'm discerning the difference between an informed proposition and an uninformed presupposition.

Very very good question Rhonda!