Death

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
That's clearly a scientific question. "Does x object/person exist?" and "Where is object/person?" can and often is investigated by science. We don't hire philosophers to finding missing person's after all.

Now the question of "Can x object/person exist?" is arguably an issue of metaphysics.

I don't think that's the same. God is not a physical person we can run tests on or run experiments to find.

The question of God's existence is more based on logic and reasoning, rather than physical evidence.

There is no experiment we can run to determine if God exists.

Originally posted by TacDavey
I dunno all the branches of philosophy, so I can't narrow it down to which ones are important and which one's aren't.

Philosophy is trying to answer the questions science can't. Things outside of what we can touch or smell. Idea's, the mind, all those things.

But science is dealing the mind. It is a huge part of scientific endeavor.

Ideas depends, do you mean ideas as in what people have in their mind, cause then it falls under the former, or do you mean ideas as in Platos sense? Because then they are unfalsifiable again, and science can not deal with them, while philosophy only deals with them in meaningless ways (for example, pretending they exist for no good reason).

Originally posted by TacDavey
Philosophy uses logic and intellectual reasoning to tell us... well... a lot of stuff. Is there a God? That's a philosophical question. Not a scientific one. And it's probably the single most important question to answer, in my opinion.

You can't conclusively prove using logic that God exists due to his characteristics.

Originally posted by Bardock42
But science is dealing the mind. It is a huge part of scientific endeavor.

Understanding the brain is a scientific endeavor. The question as to whether we are more than a brain is a philosophical one. There are no experiments or tests you can run to tell you the answer.

Originally posted by Bardock42
Ideas depends, do you mean ideas as in what people have in their mind, cause then it falls under the former, or do you mean ideas as in Platos sense? Because then they are unfalsifiable again, and science can not deal with them, while philosophy only deals with them in meaningless ways (for example, pretending they exist for no good reason).

"For no good reason" isn't accurate. Philosophy uses logic and reasoning to come to it's conclusions.

Originally posted by Deadline
You can't conclusively prove using logic that God exists due to his characteristics.

You cannot prove 100% that God exists, but then, you can't really prove anything 100%. You can show His existence is more logical than the alternative, though.

Originally posted by TacDavey
I don't think that's the same. God is not a physical person we can run tests on or run experiments to find.

The question of God's existence is more based on logic and reasoning, rather than physical evidence.

There is no experiment we can run to determine if God exists.

If god has an effect on the physical world, even indirectly then he can be investigated scientifically. God simply being a concept, like truth or justice, seems to contradict every religion that includes a god.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Science deals in what we can witness with our physical senses, or what we can experiment and test. Philosophy deals with reasoning and logic to use what we know from science to try and answer the questions of what we can't physically interact with or test.

The latter falls squarely within most definitions of science. Science uses logic to derive things from what it has found "through experiments".

Mathematics logically derives from a few axioms complex systems.

Philosophy as it is often used (as a sort of bastardized metaphysics) does neither of those. It may or may not apply logic to certain unfalsifiable/random ideas (non Plato sense).

That is kind of unfair to philosophy of course, but that's how it is often used (based on things that people like Berkeley, Hegel or Heidegger did).

Originally posted by TacDavey
"For no good reason" isn't accurate. Philosophy uses logic and reasoning to come to it's conclusions.

Sometimes. It doesn't use any useful or sensible ways to come to its axioms though, which makes the logic usage moot.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Understanding the brain is a scientific endeavor. The question as to whether we are more than a brain is a philosophical one. There are no experiments or tests you can run to tell you the answer.

Well I don't think that's quite true, if we can explain everything that we perceive as a "mind" based on biological functions, I'd say we have pretty conclusively proven that this "mind" we perceive is an illusion rather than something spiritual.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
If god has an effect on the physical world, even indirectly then he can be investigated scientifically. God simply being a concept, like truth or justice, seems to contradict every religion that includes a god.

It depends on how one thinks God interacts with the world. Perhaps He can interact with the world outside of the physical sense, and interact with the spiritual. Something science cannot deal with.

Originally posted by TacDavey
It depends on how one thinks God interacts with the world. Perhaps He can interact with the world outside of the physical sense, and interact with the spiritual. Something science cannot deal with.

So then nothing that the Bible says God did really happened . . .

Originally posted by Bardock42
The latter falls squarely within most definitions of science. Science uses logic to derive things from what it has found "through experiments".

Mathematics logically derives from a few axioms complex systems.

Philosophy as it is often used (as a sort of bastardized metaphysics) does neither of those. It may or may not apply logic to certain unfalsifiable/random ideas (non Plato sense).

That is kind of unfair to philosophy of course, but that's how it is often used (based on things that people like Berkeley, Hegel or Heidegger did).

Then I suppose it comes down to what you consider philosophy. Are you saying the question of God's existence is a scientific one?

Originally posted by Bardock42
Well I don't think that's quite true, if we can explain everything that we perceive as a "mind" based on biological functions, I'd say we have pretty conclusively proven that this "mind" we perceive is an illusion rather than something spiritual.

But we actually haven't proven it at all. At best we have shown that our previous reasons for thinking there is a mind are incorrect. This does nothing to prove a mind doesn't exist, only remove a reason for thinking it does. That isn't the same.

Originally posted by Bardock42
Sometimes. It doesn't use any useful or sensible ways to come to its axioms though, which makes the logic usage moot.

I don't know what you mean here.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
So then nothing that the Bible says God did really happened . . .

How did you arrive at that conclusion? I never said anything like that.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Then I suppose it comes down to what you consider philosophy. Are you saying the question of God's existence is a scientific one?

I'd say that God's existence and actions within this universe are a question of science. The one outside is not, but it is also futile as we have no tools for such knowledge. All we can say is "if this and that is true outside of the realm of science and logic still applies then this and that would logically follow" but we can never know if logic applies, and we can never know if our initial statements (axioms) apply and therefore we can never know if our conclusion applies. It's unfalsifiable and futile.

Originally posted by TacDavey
But we actually haven't proven it at all. At best we have shown that our previous reasons for thinking there is a mind are incorrect. This does nothing to prove a mind doesn't exist, only remove a reason for thinking it does. That isn't the same.

But then you made in unfalsifiable again, and nothing we can talk about with any sense of ever finding out. If everything that made us think there is a separate mind is gone and we explained why we thought it, why should we even talk about it anymore, it's nothing but a pointless exercise. What would the definition of said "mind" even be, it can't be the one we had before, which has already been scientifically explained.

Originally posted by TacDavey
I don't know what you mean here.

You need axioms for logic to work, in science they are derived from the natural world and what we perceive. In philosophy they are not (or they would be science).

Originally posted by TacDavey
How did you arrive at that conclusion? I never said anything like that.

Much of what god does in the Bible has a physical effect on the world. By tautology if God does not have a physical effect in the world he does not have a physical effect on the world.

Originally posted by Deadline
What on earth are you talking about we tried that already it was a disaster. It's like you're acting like we haven't done this before.

You see thats not even the problem. In our last debate it wasn't about the scientific process it's you debating style. You invent things that don't exist. I even had to go and do further reasearch to find the information I was looking for to disprove NDEs. It's pretty reasonable to assume that you didn't know about the info or you would have made that argument.

I have thought about re-bumping thread maybe I will but as far as I'm concerned not sure it will be worth it. Hell I wasn't really going to mention it but you seem to set yourself up as an authority of science when you don't seem to know that much. Anyone coming to this forum who is interested in parasychology is going to get a misrepresentation of science if they come to this forum.

sorry it took me so long to reply to this, but I was running a subject in my experiment....

Originally posted by TacDavey
But we actually haven't proven it at all. At best we have shown that our previous reasons for thinking there is a mind are incorrect. This does nothing to prove a mind doesn't exist, only remove a reason for thinking it does. That isn't the same.

"I have a pizza"

"no you don't, you merely think you do because you have been tricked into seeing a piece of styrofoam as a pizza"

"no look, it has toppings and smells good"

"yes, but here are a series of empirical studies that show that what you really think are toppings and smell are part of an indescribably complex system of styrofoam"

"well, that doesn't mean that there isn't some definition of pizza that we don't know, and that we can't possibly know, that still makes me right"

"but everything we know about styrofoam and pizza show that what you have is styrofoam"

"I'm not debating that, I'm just saying, you can't prove its not pizza"

"yes, but I can show what it is, rather than what it isn't"

and so forth

never understood why there has to exist a dichotomy between religion and science. people would be surprised at how little we really know concerning complexity and self-organization in the universe, in fact various theories involving a sentient being exist (opponents of the theory always extrapolate this into religion)

humans are incredibly complex beings as is the mind, when you break a radio the frequencies it was locking onto still exist. who know what will happen, people shouldn't pretend that science is in stark contrast to an after-life though.

Originally posted by Deadline
Why are we assuming the soul can't be tested?

Can it, though? That was kinda his question. If it can, I'd love to hear about it. Either the soul itself, or its physical manifestations and/or influences.

Also, if you think scientific studies, truths, etc. are being misrepresented, it's an open forum. I don't really get your gripes about in's posting style. Everyone on internet forums has a problem with at least one other person's style or arguments. But the nice thing is, you can reply and rebut.

😊

Originally posted by Trackz
people shouldn't pretend that science is in stark contrast to an after-life though.

Oh, we don't pretend.

😉

Originally posted by Digi
I don't really get your gripes about in's posting style.

of course you don't:

Originally posted by Deadline
I don't know what to say but it seems certain opinions have hijacked this forum.