Atheistic Dogma- Scientific Fundamentalism

[sswhateverlove]

So, a group hallucination/delusion is still objective reality?

Where did anyone mention group hallucination? I explored the 'thought experiment' you yourself proposed. Please don't twist my words to suit your own purpose. It's astonishingly dishonest of you and making me not want to be nice to you or respond to you anymore.

Woah... I was referring to your comment. Geez...I even quoted you before saying it.

When we have corroboration with other people's perceptions, then we can start to form a workable model of reality.

This seems to imply that if a group of people are perceiving the same thing, it is assumed to be objective reality. If it was a hallucination that the group was sharing, or all the members were part of the same interactive simulation of reality and observing the same things, does the fact that they corroborate imply they are experiencing objective reality?

[Cyberman]

"Seems to imply" is totally your own perception. I'll make it simple.

How do I know that the colour I see as red is the same as the one you see?

The best way would be to measure the wavelength of light of that colour and see if we agree. Regardless of what we think, the light itself will continue to be red.

In your Matrix scenario, if we all inhabit the same reality - however artificial - we should expect measurements of that reality to concur. That it's an artificial reality has no bearing whatsoever on our experience and perception of it and can, in fact, be discarded from consideration; since there would be no way to distinguish its artificial nature from a non-artificial one.

If you now want to switch gears and talk about hallucinations that's fine. However, that wasn't the deal when I entered this so you'd be talking on your own.

[sswhateverlove]

"Seems to imply" is totally your own perception. I'll make it simple.

How do I know that the colour I see as red is the same as the one you see?

The best way would be to measure the wavelength of light of that colour and see if we agree. Regardless of what we think, the light itself will continue to be red.

In your Matrix scenario, if we all inhabit the same reality - however artificial - we should expect measurements of that reality to concur. That it's an artificial reality has no bearing whatsoever on our experience and perception of it and can, in fact, be discarded from consideration; since there would be no way to distinguish its artificial nature from a non-artificial one.

If you now want to switch gears and talk about hallucinations that's fine. However, that wasn't the deal when I entered this so you'd be talking on your own.

I was just making a differentiation between subjective and objective reality and posing the argument that simply because people agree to labels with regard to their observations, it doesn't confirm objective reality, nor that they are actually even experiencing the same thing.

With regard to your color scenario, if you and I agree that the label of the color is "red", this does nothing to confirm that the "red" you see is the same "red" I see. To me, "red" could look like what actually looks like "blue" to you and vise versa. We both would call it by the same label, but experience it differently.

My hallucination/delusion comment was comparable to the Matrix thought experiment. Simply a shared perspective does not imply that what is perceived is actually real. I'm curious why you were interested in discussing the Matrix, but when I mentioned hallucination all of a sudden you wanted to hate me? It was simply another way of explaining the question I was posing to you.

[Cyberman]

And here I leave you to your own devices. I'm done with being misrepresented. Have fun.

[sswhateverlove]

And here I leave you to your own devices. I'm done with being misrepresented. Have fun.

I apologize if you feel I was misrepresenting you. Because I said you seem like you want to hate me for presenting that question? Is that misrepresenting? When I first mentioned it, you responded it's

"making me not want to be nice to you"

and twice you said you would end the conversation if I wanted to discuss in that direction.

Maybe assuming hatred based on you stating you don't want to be nice to me was a stretch, but really was it? It confused me, that's all... Like Whaaa... What did I say?

[Esquilax]

I think many experiments would have (and do) account for the properties of the air if it's relevant.

The key words being "if it's relevant." When it comes to dark matter, we don't know if it is relevant, and we have no indication that it's causing an issue anyway. Whence, then, comes the idea that it's a variable that needs accounting for?

Besides, even if it is interfering with the results, according to the premises of your own argument dark matter occupies the majority of the universe. Even if we could somehow determine that its absence would render a different result for a given experiment, what version of the experiment would speak most accurately to the world we inhabit: one where the dark matter variable, seemingly inescapable from our planet in your estimation (and I say this purely because you're implying that this dark matter stuff is an issue for all of science), is accounted for and present, or one where it isn't? What you're arguing for here is roughly like claiming that air is a contaminating variable, conducting an experiment in a vacuum to be rid of it, and then only using the data from the airless experiment to make conclusions about our natural world. Our world has air in it; any experiment that doesn't also take place in an air filled environment is not taking place in an accurate depiction of the environment for which you are making predictions.

In this case, we don't even know enough about the variable to conclude whether it's relevant to control for, even if we could.

So why make the assumption that it is a variable until we know more?

[sswhateverlove]

The key words being "if it's relevant." When it comes to dark matter, we don't know if it is relevant, and we have no indication that it's causing an issue anyway. Whence, then, comes the idea that it's a variable that needs accounting for?

So why make the assumption that it is a variable until we know more?

I guess the main sciences I'm concerned about are the two that have been observed to be highly susceptible to environmental influence, and that we still know very little about, epigenetics and quantum physics. With these sciences it seems it could be very negligent to form opinion without considering all potential variables including "dark matter" and "The Force"

[Esquilax]

I guess the main sciences I'm concerned about are the two that have been observed to be highly susceptible to environmental influence, and that we still know very little about, epigenetics and quantum physics. With these sciences it seems it could be very negligent to form opinion without considering all potential variables including "dark matter" and "The Force"

Yes, but if you start considering undetectable and apparently irrelevant influences on the basis that they might be having an effect we aren't seeing, where do you stop? For example, why are you just considering dark matter? What about chi, or spirit energy, or literally the Force? Once you've lowered the bar of minimum evidence for consideration to "none at all," then you have no reason for dismissing every other thing ever.

Furthermore, what do you propose we do about these supposed influences that we can't detect, and even if we could, how do we isolate our experiments from them? And if we could do that, should we? If you're right, and epigenetics is a thing that can be influenced by dark matter, then any experiment that would provide a realistic model of epigenetic behavior in the real world would include dark matter, as that's how the natural world has been developing for the entirety of biological history. The moment you isolate that variable, if it's as common as you claim, you remove a level of accuracy from the experimental result.

There's like five layers of reasons why it's pointless to wonder about dark matter in our experiments right now, but in the end you've kinda got two choices anyway: either you work with what you can control and detect right now and get some kind of data to work with, or you sit paralyzed and cowed by all the variables that might maybe be out there, and get nothing done.

Only the former path has any demonstrable history of reliable results, though.

[Tonus]

So, you're saying you do continue in pursuit of knowledge that could possibly confirm an intelligent designer/influencing variable? If you do that's good. A lot of atheists I know do not.

And I'm guessing that a lot of theists you know, do. That's just confirmation bias, which is one of the ways our minds happen to work. The scientific method is designed to deal with confirmation bias by requiring that scientists make their work (inlcuding tests and testing methods) available to other scientists, who can then put their work to additional testing.

Scientists are, generally, simply looking to learn more about how the world works. I think that a good number of them were searching for god when they made discoveries that led to alternative explanations for how certain things worked. Galileo wasn't seeking to conform to popular opinion, that much is for sure! If continued research and discovery and experimentation eventually turn up a god, then that's great! We'll all know she is (or was) out there and left sufficient evidence for her existence to be verified.

But science should not look for god or look to not find god. It just needs to continue to observe, experiment, document, test, and learn.

[Mr Greene]

You claim to be knowledgeable about all three primary scientific disciplines, could you quantify your level of knowledge for us so that we can discuss this on level terms?
Would you also be able to describe what is meant by terms 'Dark Matter' and 'Dark Energy', or at least what you understand the terms to describe.
How exactly do you think these relate to Quantum Mechanics?
Could you also tell us how you think genetic change might be affected by these items, specifically including the methodology?
How might an "intelligent agent" affect this method and results and what evidence would you expect to find if such were actually the case?