How are Dark Mtter and Consciousness different from Spirit?

[Alex K]

The 25% dark matter is already taken into account in the equations of cosmic expansion in most calculations, leaving it out would not only not provide an explanation for the expansion, it would also give you the wrong numbers for it.

I don't understand what you mean - you would literally have to  believe that there is no cosmic history and everything was created just now as it is including the light from the far past coming towards us looking as if all that history had played out, because without dark matter or an alternative, there is not enough gravity and galaxies and galaxy clusters would have all been torn apart by their rotation within several millions of years.

But there are enough independed lines of evidence for dark matter now anyways.They just should have called it differently. If it were called "Non-Baryonic pressureless component" or something similarly boring,  people at least wouldn't think that it must be something terribly mysterious all the time. Imagine the press had called the Higgs Boson the God Particle or something stupid like that, we wouldn't hear the end if it! ... oh wait...

What I’m saying is that after the Big Bang, the time of the galaxies’ formation was minimal compared to the entire existence of the universe. And now they are moving apart. Otherwise the whole universe would be one big galaxy with all matter being held together by gravity.

But like you and CD said, there is a balance of forces at work and dark matter is needed for both gravity and expansion.

Maybe there's a misunderstanding there. The problem we're referring to is not that far away galaxies fly away from each other, but that without dark matter, the way they are observed to be rotating now, the galaxies themselves would come apart almost instantaneously on geological time scales

[Alex K]

I guess the wind is on the same level as mystical bullshit too.

Yea, I agree. We once didn't know the atom molecular makeup of the atmosphere, but even then we certainly knew air existed because the motion of it had an affect trees and grass and our hair.

Air is translucent, but that doesn't make it magical. Once you start a proposition with a naked assertion, no matter what follows, your answer will be flawed.

The air analogy is not bad. It is conceivable that 10 years from know we make DM in the lab, detect and measure it and know most its properties. If we're lucky and it is comparatively easy to detect.

[robvalue]

I've yet to hear anyone define "spirit", or any other woo term, in a way that isn't metaphorical. So it's not just a matter of evidence for a spirit, it's that we wouldn't know what one was if it poked us in the eye. It's as poorly defined as "God". So much so as to be meaningless.

[Edwardo Piet]

Dark matter is physical. Spirit is not. Spirit is also hocus-pocus nonexistent bullshit.

Consciousness is the one thing in the world we have absolute proof exists. The lights are on.

That is all.

[robvalue]

I at least have proof of my own consciousness, even if it isn't anything like what I think it is. It is "something".

Unfortunately I don't have conclusive evidence that anyone else is conscious in the same way I am, but it is a very reasonable conclusion.

Spirits, however, can fuck right out of it.

[Edwardo Piet]

I'm barely conscious, if even conscious at all.

I am certainly not self-aware. I don't even think I am.

I mean, I assume I can't be and I'm not, because I'm a turtle.

[Alex K]

I'm barely conscious, if even conscious at all.

I am certainly not self-aware. I don't even think I am.

I mean, I assume I can't be and I'm not, because I'm a turtle.

Or, as drunk Descartes used to say, non cogito cum chelys sum

[Brian37]

What's the matter? Why so dark?

[Angrboda]

Dark matter, spirit and consciousness are all hypothetical existences that cannot be directly observed, but only inferred as explanations for that which can be observed.

Right off the bat, there is an implied parity of observational weight or volume (and nature) between the three that isn't representative of the actual situation.  

Consciousness is not hypothetical, and is directly -and- indirectly observed to such an extent that it's inclusion in this list of three seems absurd.

Dark matter is an open hypothetical, and is indirectly observed.

Spirit is a thoroughly discredited hypothetical, that has never been directly or indirectly observed - and worse, a hypothetical whose purpose for existence has long since yielded to more accurate and factual explanations.

Yes, but why is it discredited? Saying that it is discredited without giving a reason why is just an argument from consensus. And I would have to disagree with your assertion about consciousness. If by observed we mean witnessed by our perceptual systems, consciousness as a brain process has never been observed directly. That places the hypothesis that consciousness is a brain process in the same category as the explanations that involve dark matter. There is indirect evidence, but no direct observation. Which is the same situation in which the hypothesis about spirits and souls is in — there is indirect evidence but no direct observation. So your tripartite scheme collapses into itself.

[robvalue]

I don't see any indirect evidence of a spirit though, because I don't know what it's even meant to be.

We do at least have access to our own consciousness, even if we can't analyse others in exactly the same way. But what is a spirit? What hole is it plugging? What evidence is it meant to offset?