I am not going to argue in favor of dualism, no matter how many people post reductionist arguments. The fact that so many different arguments are being posted, but zero citations or links to an empirically proven scientific theory, continues to prove my point. Like Intooblivion says,
Since scientific theories of consciousness have yet to be empirically proven, any factual assertions of the nature of consciousness are therefore unscientific assumptions. Including dualism, including reductionism, including the existence of a “soul,” including “thoughts are electricity.”
And before that? And before that? And before that? Scientifically speaking, are linear perspective makes our understanding of the universe and any of it’s founders limited.
Forgive my ignorance, but why is it irrational to believe in the existence of a soul? I find that any intelligence is a blessing and should not be brushed off as anything less than a miracle of life.
I find comfort in my believes as well as my knowledge of natural fact. I’m not a robot and there is a lot that cannot be explained. For example, the human mind. Science can tell us so much, but can it tell us why we are moved by a piece of music? Or by a fine pint of beer? Again, we should never dismiss our beliefs, but take comfort in them.
Conversely, they have to be overridden by evidence to the contrary nor should you act in a violent nature toward those who will not confirm the same beliefs.
These are the people that give people like me a bad image. People like this make me fear for my credibility because they take too seriously the teachings of Christ (tolerance, love, acceptance etc.). I truly don’t understand how one can interpret anything anywhere that Jesus does not want one to use man made medicine to heal a child’s broken arm despite the fact that it is proven that man can do it fast an efficiently.
That’s that for now. I admit I’ve said nothing that can rationally defend my position, but it is extremely hard to since I can’t be more specific.
It is irrational, because it is based on nothing more than “I feel that it is so”.
This is the one thing that angers me the most in religious debates.
Just because I am a rational person, and believe that everything can be explained in scientific terms does not mean that I am a heartless, emotionless drone.
I find everything in the universe fantastic. I do not simply’ brush off’ intelligence, and I’m offended that you think I do. Merely because I don’t believe in the soul does not mean I think it’s any less of a miracle (though I use the word without any religious connotations). To me, the fact that everything in existence has coalesced in it’s current form due to nothing but entropy is far more beautiful than if it were made by some cosmic being.
Well then. I suppose this is where we will have to agree to disagree. It wasn’t my wish to call you heartless and if you inferred anything of the sort my apologies.
The last word goes to you, comrade and I hope you believe me when I say that I meant no offense.
Asking what was before time and space is USELESS, there was no time nor space so there was absolutely nothing.
Your question is irrelevant, you are asking me what was before the big bang which would suggest there was time - BUT THERE WASN’T.
This is the example of a question usually asked by a religious person (I do not call you one i’m not on the offensive here).
I don’t mind people being religious, just don’t bother me with it when I have no interest and I don’t want it to interfere with my daily life.
Religion has already claimed too many lives.
And yes, the discussion never ends, but I usually do not intend to win - I just like to see other non-religious people supporting science.
Actually, the question is meaningless because, if I understood A Brief History of Time correctly, there is no beginning or ending to time or space. Which doesn’t mean it’s infinite.
Time and space are curved in such a way to make that possible (again, if I understood correctly), but don’t ask me to explain how.
Well, according to somewhat recent (I think) theories anyway.
Here is a interesting Q & A about the beginning of energy:
I would like to ask what your theory is on the beginning of energy. Where did it come from? There is the theory of God, but are there any other legitimate theories?
-Emily (age 13)
Southern Georgia, United States
A: Perhaps your question is really about the beginning of there being anything at all. The beginning of " energy" itself may not be quite the issue, beause at least in some pictures of the universe (simple closed geometry) the total energy is and always was zero.
Our standard pictures can trace things back from now to a tiny fraction of a second after some dramatic ’origin’ event. That may be the sort of inflationary Big Bang most often discussed or a collision between two 3-D ’branes’ in a higher dimensional space. The consequences of those pictures for our current world would be only a bit different, so sorting out which picture is better isn’t done yet.
But you’re really asking about what got things started ’before’ that. We don’t know if the idea of ’before’ makes sense here, because in the mathematics describing this phase, there may be nothing like time which can be smoothly traced all the way through. Still, we can take the question as being “how does the universe fit into some bigger mathematical picture that all hangs together?” In other words, is there some big picture of spacetime in which the ’beginning’ of our universe obeys the most basic laws, instead of just coming from nowhere?
We don’t know the answer to that yet, because we don’t yet know the most basic laws. String theorists and others are trying to work on those laws, but until they make more progress we won’t be able to say much about the very beginning of how our universe got started. You’re young though, so you may well live to see real progress on these questions.
We know what happend for all those billions of years, but we do not know what happend 1 billionth of a second after the big bang, the moment our universe began to undergo the inflation (inflation theory) which caused it to increase in size by billions upon billions of times.
People think dark energy has something to do with it, but this energy (which makes up over 90% of our universe) is not very well known but we do know it’s there.
The only way the universe could have been created according to science would be either quantum fluctuations or a ‘primevil atom’ also known as a singularity (like black holes)
And you can’t say religion is a ‘legit’ answer on to how the universe began but yes for now all we can do really is speculate about what happend, these things are extremely complex though and I don’t know much about them, Stephen Hawking does.
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