Natural Order and Science

[Alex K]

But, Harris, I was going to play Socrates with you for a bit, and if you just reply by posting hour long Youtube videos, that's kind of lame and not conducive to a discussion

So, how does one detect a "real particle" in your opinion?

You are giving question which demand long technical answer and therefore instead of going through all that boring exercise I proposed you a video that gives all technical details on the tools and methods which scientists are using to detect particles.

Frankly speaking I do not understand the purpose of your question which seems to me irrelevant to the subject of this thread.

You claimed that virtual particles don't exist but real particles do, I disagree, and now you make excuses why it would be ludicrous to actually discuss this. Meh.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Did science tell you what your own subjective experiences are? Yes
Did science tell you what happens to us after we die? Yes
Did science tell you what exactly gravity is? We're getting a better idea and will eventually know
Did science tell you something about the mechanism of Natural Selection? Yes
Did science tell you what is the first living being on earth and how it came into being? We're getting a better idea and will eventually know

Did the Bible tell you correctly what your own subjective experiences are? No.
Did the Bible tell you correctly what happens to us after we die? No.
Did the Bible tell you correctly what exactly gravity is? No.
Did the Bible tell you correctly something about the mechanism of Natural Selection? No.
Did the Bible tell you correctly what is the first living being on earth and how it came into being? No.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Maybe this is why consciousness seems phenomenal to Harris. Because he doesn't really know why he acts and thinks the way he does.

I have already told you that you have no idea about philosophy. Phenomenal Consciousness is a term that is commonly used in philosophy for subjective experiences.

*sigh* When humour fails.

[I_am_not_mafia]

My favourite book at least gives some understanding in logical way to all puzzling concepts and giving guidance on how to live in harmony with others and tells us the purpose of our lives. It tells what is good for us and what is not. It threatens mischief makers and give good tidings to those who show their patience and scarify their wild desires for the goodwill of the community of which they are part of.

Most fairy tales do. Yet you do not know how to determine which fairy tale is the right one to believe.

[robvalue]

If you need a book to tell you how not to be a dicksplash, then keep on reading it.

We're doing just fine, thanks. No one is claiming science dictates morality, you completely missed the point of the false dichotomy and in fact perfectly made my point.

I wonder... do such people need to keep topping it up? I mean, if they haven't read "don't kill anyone" for a few days, do they forget and go on a rampage?

[I_am_not_mafia]

Postulating an uncaused anything is not very logical.  It's a leap of faith.

Merely taking the world as intelligible is a leap of faith. Believing that we can know anything is a leap of faith.

This is a symptom of Binary Religious Thinking.

We can enough evidence for something that the chance of being wrong is negligible.

Or a more nuanced idea is out of scope of the context in which it is being discussed. For example, I don't need to understand Einstein's theory regarding the curvature of space-time to understand that if I jump off a skyscraper then I will die.

[bennyboy]

I am only responding to your comments without adding or deleting anything from them. If you start asking me about “how can we detect particle” or giving me “fire breathing dragons,” etc. which have no relevance with the subject matter then what you think I would answer back. The kind of comments you are giving the kind of responses you are getting.

Okay. To be fair, I think you are doing a much better job trying to respond to everyone's posts than you did last year.

[Angrboda]

Postulating an uncaused anything is not very logical.  It's a leap of faith.

Merely taking the world as intelligible is a leap of faith. Believing that we can know anything is a leap of faith. There are no 'purely' rational positions.

There are leaps of faith which occur in the absence of rational support and those that occur with the presence of rational support. Just because there are no purely rational positions does not mean that we can't rank positions according to their reasonableness. Some leaps of faith are larger than others. The leap to belief in an entity unlike any that has been observed to occur in our everyday world is surely one of the largest.

[paulpablo]

Harris you're pretty good at replying to comments and you have had a lot to reply to but I just want to remind you that you forgot to reply to my comment this time.  I was talking about the laws of science.

Thank you for appreciating my responses. I always endeavour to put things in their original form without contaminating them with fancy ideas that are subject to personal desires. God is the only logical answer to all puzzling questions that people have created intentionally for the purpose to resist the idea of God.

This time I have not responded you because Chad has given a fairly decent response which in my opinion does not require further elaborations.

“You're right descriptions are after-the-fact accounts. When someone asks, why did x, y, and z happen, they are not asking for an after-the-fact description of x, y, and z. They want to know what thing made x, y, and z happen, regardless of how that thing is described.”

So how does that relate to scientific laws?

[little_monkey]

Yes, that was the point of the syllogism.



You would need to prove that.

I had depicted a general view on how logic works. It always starts from intelligible objects however it may end in other observable object or in some metaphysical concept. It all depends upon what you are trying to explore by the use of logic.

IOW, you have no evidence. With your point of view, anyone can start with logic and then develop any  metaphysical concept. But how would you decide which metaphysical concept is true, since you have no evidence to differentiate those that are true from those that false?