Did God create the universe??

Originally posted by Patient_Leech
I don't think being able to simulate it or replicate it is really quite the same as knowing what it is... the only way to know it is to feel it. It's subjective by it's very nature.

that argument is essentially the same as "how do I know what I see as blue is blue to you?"

which is almost entirely moot.

Sure, science will never be able to describe what anger is like for every individual person in each possible context. That is not its goal or scope or even desire. The same way that science will never be able to describe the perception of blue that makes you know what blue is like for everyone. But who cares? Why is that an important question in the first place?

Regardless of what it feels like to be angry to you, there are huge amounts of information we can say, such as what is active, how connected areas may impact your explicit feelings or behaviours, etc. I can't really think of something less interesting than whether your experience of happiness differs from mine, similarly, whether your perception of the wavelengths that comprise blue is the same as mine.

Additionally, this view I feel puts far, FAR, too much emphasis on the conscious experience of things. There are many behaviours that are of trivial difficulty to elicit from people without their conscious knowledge. You can learn, feel, perceive and even do more complex things like problem solve or become motivated using systems whose information processing never becomes conscious in the first place. Conscious experience is, in fact, a secondary epiphenomenon that arises from these systems, often completely unaware of what and why it is doing or experiencing what it is. There is far less information that could arise from studying people's moment to moment conscious experience than studying their neuronal activity compared to explicit research tasks.

Originally posted by inimalist
Additionally, this view I feel puts far, FAR, too much emphasis on the conscious experience of things. There are many behaviours that are of trivial difficulty to elicit from people without their conscious knowledge. You can learn, feel, perceive and even do more complex things like problem solve or become motivated using systems whose information processing never becomes conscious in the first place. Conscious experience is, in fact, a secondary epiphenomenon that arises from these systems, often completely unaware of what and why it is doing or experiencing what it is. There is far less information that could arise from studying people's moment to moment conscious experience than studying their neuronal activity compared to explicit research tasks.

I agree, mostly.

However, many millions of people will want to share their subjective experience with each other if technology can facilitate such a desire (it should...eventually). Humans want to share. We are extremely social. So I don't think enough emphasis can be placed on "subjective experience".

Being able to relive the thoughts and feelings someone experiences will be super duper wicked awesome (scientific terms, I swear).

Originally posted by dadudemon
Really?

So you know exactly which researchers I'm referring to? You must be psychic which indicates you have supernatural powers. Something that you would claim not to believe.

Out of curiosity, which researchers did you think I was referring to?

I suppose you are right, I don't know presciesly which research you are talking about. That being said, this isn't a topic that is altogether new to me.

I'd first fall back on the story of Sue Blackmore, who recieved the first parapsychology degree in the UK and spent years doing research in the field. She said she left it when she realized that people were more driven to find the results they wanted rather than to do good research, and the quality of the experiments and methods were terrible, hence why replication and meaningful theories that explained multiple lines of results didn't exist.

I've been through this with Deadline on numerous occasions, and in the situations where his resources do talk about methods and stats (often the "papers" are just summaries of other "papers" done years ago, themselves containing more anecdotal justifications for psi than any statistics or methodology) they are often at such a low level that even I can see them with little scrutiny. The most recent posts of his described numerous experiments where significant results were reported at a p<.05 even though the 95% confidence interval contained the null [I think you read that thread, if not, really, this is something that should be mathematically impossible].

The most recent psi research I've seen (I don't know if it had OBE stuff) was a review of thousands of trials by Bem, which after having a Baysean statistical analysis applied to it turned out to be largely insignificant.

Then there is the fact that even in social psychology and in top rated journals almost 50% of psych research has major statistical errors, 15% of which actually change insignificant results into significant ones that support the thesis of the researchers. Even when there aren't explicit errors, social psych often uses so many variables and co-variates that they are statistically more likely to find false positive results than they are actual effects. Also, there is fraud. In this regard, psi research stands out as a field where methods and statistics are atrocious but is part of a field where such problems are endemic anyways.

That being said, if you have some good work you want me to look at, I will. My expectations being what they are, I'll still try to give it a fair go.

Originally posted by dadudemon
I disagree. That type of abstract "complex" God/Spirit is the very thing that the majority of Christians believe in. It is THE primary reason many of them call Mormons "not Christians" because we don't believe God to be an abstract spiritual entity as they do.

surveys disagree with you

people believe, in iirc shocking majorities, that God is a being who is actively involved in most people's lives. This "abstract entity" thing didn't even come into the mainstream until the 60s. Evangelicals would disagree point blank, and the idea of an abstract entity is not really congruent with catholic "trinity" beliefs.

In Islam, the only sect that would be close to "abstract" in these terms would be the Sufis, a small minority in the faith. Even some Hindu followers interpret Brahma as a much more "skyfatherly" character than abstract energy.

Originally posted by dadudemon
I agree, mostly.

However, many millions of people will want to share their subjective experience with each other if technology can facilitate such a desire (it should...eventually). Humans want to share. We are extremely social. So I don't think enough emphasis can be placed on "subjective experience".

Being able to relive the thoughts and feelings someone experiences will be super duper wicked awesome (scientific terms, I swear).

yes, but so long as there are actual physical differences in the brains that people use to perceive, experience and feel through, the question of whether the same thing is experienced in different ways in either brains will still be a question.

Its like one of those questions that is designed to not ever have an answer so people can justify to themselves never having to come up with satisfactory answers yet still convince themselves how clever they are.

Originally posted by inimalist
I suppose you are right, I don't know presciesly which research you are talking about. That being said, this isn't a topic that is altogether new to me.

I'd first fall back on the story of Sue Blackmore, who recieved the first parapsychology degree in the UK and spent years doing research in the field. She said she left it when she realized that people were more driven to find the results they wanted rather than to do good research, and the quality of the experiments and methods were terrible, hence why replication and meaningful theories that explained multiple lines of results didn't exist.

I've been through this with Deadline on numerous occasions, and in the situations where his resources do talk about methods and stats (often the "papers" are just summaries of other "papers" done years ago, themselves containing more anecdotal justifications for psi than any statistics or methodology) they are often at such a low level that even I can see them with little scrutiny. The most recent posts of his described numerous experiments where significant results were reported at a p<.05 even though the 95% confidence interval contained the null [I think you read that thread, if not, really, this is something that should be mathematically impossible].

The most recent psi research I've seen (I don't know if it had OBE stuff) was a review of thousands of trials by Bem, which after having a Baysean statistical analysis applied to it turned out to be largely insignificant.

Then there is the fact that even in social psychology and in top rated journals almost 50% of psych research has major statistical errors, 15% of which actually change insignificant results into significant ones that support the thesis of the researchers. Even when there aren't explicit errors, social psych often uses so many variables and co-variates that they are statistically more likely to find false positive results than they are actual effects. Also, there is fraud. In this regard, psi research stands out as a field where methods and statistics are atrocious but is part of a field where such problems are endemic anyways.

That being said, if you have some good work you want me to look at, I will. My expectations being what they are, I'll still try to give it a fair go.

I was obviously being a smartass. I also would not consider the shitty work of the obviously bias researchers to be among those I was not talking about. For instance, my favorite (shitty) argument is "all of the memories are created when they wake up". That's such a shitty argument not supported by science. Another favorite is, "zomg! none of those memories could have formed while they were asleep for almost all of the people!" That's such a shitty argument not supported by science.

Additionally, "replicating" results is hardly the goal of some science. That's a dishonest approach to some types of research. However, there are some efforts to influence the OBE and NDE experiences which is awesome. That would be the replication. But there are those skeptics that think replication is futile from the onset.

Edit - I looked for the work of this one gent. He seemed genuine. He was the one I was referring to when I talked about "researching the afterlife" in a serious manner.

And I don't have any research for you. 🙂

If I run across his name, again, I'll put it up. He works with others. Their focus is more on explaining how shit works in the brain to cause the NDE's or OBE's but he also thinks that some of the rare examples defy our current understanding of science. He believes we can "research" the supernatural at some point. I agree. I think everything "supernatural" is only supernatural to us because we do not yet understand it. It is all "natural". It could lead to great stuff. Maybe it all IS in the head and we have different "things" going on in there even after death. Maybe it isn't and subjective experience is not localized to the brain at 100%? Maybe? Maybe?

Originally posted by inimalist
surveys disagree with you

people believe, in iirc shocking majorities, that God is a being who is actively involved in most people's lives. This "abstract entity" thing didn't even come into the mainstream until the 60s. Evangelicals would disagree point blank, and the idea of an abstract entity is not really congruent with catholic "trinity" beliefs.

In Islam, the only sect that would be close to "abstract" in these terms would be the Sufis, a small minority in the faith. Even some Hindu followers interpret Brahma as a much more "skyfatherly" character than abstract energy.

Uhhhh...you show a fundamental lack of understanding what Christian beliefs are if you think that the concept of the Trinity is not an abstract concept of God. It is literally considered a "Mystery" (capital M, lol).

You're also focusing on the very aspect that I obviously excluded: how involved or not involved such an abstract entity is in our universe. I never contended or commented on that.

But, I will allow you to define what you mean by "abstract entity": please proceed. 😄

I define it as the Trinity. The Trinity represents an abstract Spiritual entity in the most direct way possible. Just because Catholics refuse the label of "abstract spiritual entity" does not mean that it isn't abstract. It is such a muddy and absurd concept that refusing to call it for what it is, is just ridiculous. This is how I define "abstract spiritual entity". That much is obvious. You know that is how I am defining it. So why do you still contend against it with definitions that I am obviously not using? In fact, I still do not know exactly which definition you are using.

Originally posted by inimalist
Additionally, this view I feel puts far, FAR, too much emphasis on the conscious experience of things. There are many behaviours that are of trivial difficulty to elicit from people without their conscious knowledge. You can learn, feel, perceive and even do more complex things like problem solve or become motivated using systems whose information processing never becomes conscious in the first place. Conscious experience is, in fact, a secondary epiphenomenon that arises from these systems, often completely unaware of what and why it is doing or experiencing what it is. There is far less information that could arise from studying people's moment to moment conscious experience than studying their neuronal activity compared to explicit research tasks.

QFT. This is good posting people.

Originally posted by heru
I just watched a episode of Curiosity on the discovery channel. Stephen Hawkins a cosmologist, was giving his thoughts on God not existing. He based his theory on modern day science. The conclusion that he came up with was that the universe started from nothing. So everything within the universe, even down to our perfect condition planet which supports an abundance of life is all just a coincidence. He also said if there's not a god then the chances of life after death is slim to none. KMC what's your take on the matter?

Originally posted by dadudemon
I was obviously being a smartass. I also would not consider the shitty work of the obviously bias researchers to be among those I was not talking about. For instance, my favorite (shitty) argument is "all of the memories are created when they wake up". That's such a shitty argument not supported by science. Another favorite is, "zomg! none of those memories could have formed while they were asleep for almost all of the people!" That's such a shitty argument not supported by science.

Additionally, "replicating" results is hardly the goal of some science. That's a dishonest approach to some types of research. However, there are some efforts to influence the OBE and NDE experiences which is awesome. That would be the replication. But there are those skeptics that think replication is futile from the onset.

Edit - I looked for the work of this one gent. He seemed genuine. He was the one I was referring to when I talked about "researching the afterlife" in a serious manner.

And I don't have any research for you. 🙂

If I run across his name, again, I'll put it up. He works with others. Their focus is more on explaining how shit works in the brain to cause the NDE's or OBE's but he also thinks that some of the rare examples defy our current understanding of science. He believes we can "research" the supernatural at some point. I agree. I think everything "supernatural" is only supernatural to us because we do not yet understand it. It is all "natural". It could lead to great stuff. Maybe it all IS in the head and we have different "things" going on in there even after death. Maybe it isn't and subjective experience is not localized to the brain at 100%? Maybe? Maybe?

maybe? sure, it is possible, but I think almost certainly not, as even the most valid models of quantum consciousness are specious and offer no real theoretical explanatory power that isn't already covered with much more mundane understandings of how information processing in the brain works.

but ya, don't let it be said that I wouldn't look at new or challenging data. Some of the most interesting stuff I've learned has come from looking into psy results.

On replication though, I can't imagine what kind of science you are talking about that doesn't require replication... While it isn't practiced enough in most fields, and issues like being unable to publish null results do make it, in practice, less practiced than it should be, at a philosophical level, you aren't actually doing science if you don't think your experiments can be replicated. It is fundamentally one of the most important issues behind objectivity and empiricism.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Uhhhh...you show a fundamental lack of understanding what Christian beliefs are if you think that the concept of the Trinity is not an abstract concept of God. It is literally considered a "Mystery" (capital M, lol).

You're also focusing on the very aspect that I obviously excluded: how involved or not involved such an abstract entity is in our universe. I never contended or commented on that.

But, I will allow you to define what you mean by "abstract entity": please proceed. 😄

I define it as the Trinity. The Trinity represents an abstract Spiritual entity in the most direct way possible. Just because Catholics refuse the label of "abstract spiritual entity" does not mean that it isn't abstract. It is such a muddy and absurd concept that refusing to call it for what it is, is just ridiculous. This is how I define "abstract spiritual entity". That much is obvious. You know that is how I am defining it. So why do you still contend against it with definitions that I am obviously not using? In fact, I still do not know exactly which definition you are using.

I think we are getting hung up here, mainly because we are now arguing a distinction between sort of ephemeral and abstract that is not the same as the distinction that Leech made. In fact, I think you have a point, given where this is going, no, totally, these religions don't necessarily have sort of Pagan God-beings.

Leech made the distinction between God of the bible, specifically, and the type of God that might exist. I was taking this to mean the nebulous God of the "can't know" agnostics, which I think we can both agree is a different thing entirely from the "Mystery" interpretation. I might have been assuming too much, but Leech didn't disagree, when I characterized his God as being such that there would be no difference between its existence and non-existence, which I do know is not how Catholics define "Mystery", though we did get away from that...

Originally posted by inimalist
maybe? sure, it is possible, but I think almost certainly not, as even the most valid models of quantum consciousness are specious and offer no real theoretical explanatory power that isn't already covered with much more mundane understandings of how information processing in the brain works.

but ya, don't let it be said that I wouldn't look at new or challenging data. Some of the most interesting stuff I've learned has come from looking into psy results.

I should probably state where I stand on the subject: I think almost all of it can be explained by science. There might be stuff that appears to be supernatural but eventually we can know of those, too. Our "soul/spirit" has little to no direct influence on what happens in life. It functions as a perfect harddrive of our life and a transceiver for God to communicate with our brains. I'm highly skeptical of OBEs and NDEs as almost all of them seem like dreams rather than legit experiences (bear with me on the words I'm using). I just find it awesome that some scientists even approach the seeming supernatural as something else that can be studied. This goes with what Leech was saying: why do they have to be different? What IF there was a way to artificially induce "death" and then explore the Afterlife (if there is one), research it, measure it, etc? Sounds awesome. Some Christians consider this type of research to be Satanic and blasphemous (not kidding...but I'm sure at this point in your life, you're not surprised by some of the things Christians believe or say). But I don't: if God doesn't want us researching his realm, He'd put a stop to it...cause he's God, yo. 🙂

Originally posted by inimalist
On replication though, I can't imagine what kind of science you are talking about that doesn't require replication... While it isn't practiced enough in most fields, and issues like being unable to publish null results do make it, in practice, less practiced than it should be, at a philosophical level, you aren't actually doing science if you don't think your experiments can be replicated. It is fundamentally one of the most important issues behind objectivity and empiricism.

Not all research requires replication, however. We "argued" about this before. Some science is simply observation. It is every bit as scientific as anything else we do.

Originally posted by inimalist
I think we are getting hung up here, mainly because we are now arguing a distinction between sort of ephemeral and abstract that is not the same as the distinction that Leech made. In fact, I think you have a point, given where this is going, no, totally, these religions don't necessarily have sort of Pagan God-beings.

Leech made the distinction between God of the bible, specifically, and the type of God that might exist. I was taking this to mean the nebulous God of the "can't know" agnostics, which I think we can both agree is a different thing entirely from the "Mystery" interpretation. I might have been assuming too much, but Leech didn't disagree, when I characterized his God as being such that there would be no difference between its existence and non-existence, which I do know is not how Catholics define "Mystery", though we did get away from that...

Okay. In that case, my bad.

So he's arguing for an indifferent God? The "agnostic" God? A God that is apathetic towards Its creation? This God confuses me. It makes no sense. Why create it if you'll be apathetic towards it? Maybe an "anthropomorphizing" that God too much with human feelings/thoughts?

It also gets into pantheism which I also dislike/think is pushing it. I'm okay with an abstract spirit God. I can accept the Trinity or concepts like it...it just doesn't seem to be the most reasonable.

Originally posted by heru
I just watched a episode of Curiosity on the discovery channel. Stephen Hawkins a cosmologist, was giving his thoughts on God not existing. He based his theory on modern day science. The conclusion that he came up with was that the universe started from nothing. So everything within the universe, even down to our perfect condition planet which supports an abundance of life is all just a coincidence. He also said if there's not a god then the chances of life after death is slim to none. KMC what's your take on the matter?

It doesn't take a God in order to be something after death. Ask Buddhists.

Did God create the universe??

I am more inclined to say that God IS Universe rather than God creating Universe...

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
I am more inclined to say that God IS Universe rather than God creating Universe...

Pantheism is nonsensical. The universe has quantifiable properties tested by empirical methods. If God and the universe are one and the same, then calling the universe God is foolish. None of the properties we know about the universe are even remotely close to the various properties assigned to deities. Pantheism is just an attempt to try and inject nebulous spiritual nonsense into something that has no need of it.

I'm more inclined to say that God created the universe then f*cked off afterward.

Metapanentheism ftw. 😎

Originally posted by King Kandy
How could you tell the difference between a universe that is also God, and a universe that is just a universe?

Because noone really knows what God is nor is there an agreed definition of it. The closest we came to defining it is giving it human attributes, sometimes human form, sometimes animal form.
What is indeed attributed to the deities could be metaphorical, or it couldn't.

Since God is almost always understood in terms of Judeo-Christian views, which evolved from other pagan views of God(s) and such we tend to be unable to imagine God as anything other than that.

In fact, this is so engraved into our understanding that it is almost ludicrous to imagine God as something totally different and unrelated to the general understanding of God.

Totally AGREE! Well said.

Originally posted by King Kandy
How could you tell the difference between a universe that is also God, and a universe that is just a universe?

There would be no difference. 😉

I have this book that some religious group gave me on the street, its one of those mini books called, Proof about why god is real and how he created the universe and all I can remember is that one example was, look at the fruit banana, its so perfect in its shape and it opens up... basically at this point I started to laugh but you get my point.