I think Einstein discovered that mass and energy were different forms of the same thing.
Are the laws of physics based on magic?
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I think Einstein discovered that mass and energy were different forms of the same thing.
Well you're moving in the right direction by admitting that some parts of reality are not material. But I have to agree with spidergoat that I would consider photons material particles even though they also behave like waves. Photons can be counted and individually detected. I my my view, energy is material as are quarks and gluons. In contrast, the wave function that describes a quantum system cannot be proven to exist, it's existence is only inferred. In that sense, a wave-function is not material at all. While I was looking for things in nature that spirits or disembodied entities could be made of, I snatched up the wave-function because it behaves just the way I need it to. I do want to tip my hat to you for acknowledging that some parts of nature are not material.
I acknowledge that you have stated and that you believe that science will figure out how the physics constants are enforced. But there is nothing in the way of evidence to go on. I doubt very seriously if anyone beyond this forum has put much thought into this.
I agree, yes I do act like an impatient 7 year old.
A better question might be to ask, where did the Creative Power that created the universe come from. A Christian God might be how we make this creative power personal to us.gilliam said:
Mazulu
You need to read Victor Stenger's "Quantum Gods", where he explains why quantum effects are not evidence of a spiritual element to the universe.
You need to read Victor Stenger's "Quantum Gods", where he explains why quantum effects are not evidence of a spiritual element to the universe.
Summarize please.
Biological entities are made out of inanimate particles called atoms. I suspect that the same might be true of spirits which are made out of inanimate forms of wave-functions. If this were to be true, then the potential energy term of the Schrodinger equation would have to be driven by something we haven't seen yet.
There is no justification for this in physics. It's just that you don't understand it, so you put your spirits there.
That's it? I'm so dissapointed. Because you've never encountered a spirit or an entity, you assume that there is no justification for it in physics. I guess that's what the author of that brainwashing book told you.
Physics is moving in the direction of "difficult to detect" phenomena. A Higgs field is pretty ghostly in the sense that it produces an effect, but is itself enormously difficult to detect. Yet you are so brainwashed by the scientific dogma that you believe that spirits are impossible.
What a load of rubbish!
I'm not saying it's impossible, just that there is no evidence. This isn't dogma, this is logic. Who knows what is possible until we find evidence of it. But it has nothing to do with whether I encountered it. Even if people think they encounter something, who knows if what they think they saw is really something? We are subject to all sorts of illusions and delusions. And there is no justification for it in physics no matter what my personal experiences are.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
One of my favorite illusions.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q...0B9513EBB355A9A3C9CD2D708E39&selectedIndex=93
No brainwashing required. There is no objective evidence for God or spirits, only your and others personal beliefs they are real.
You confuse the three types of reality* or assume whatever is in your personal reality is objectively real.**
*Personal, Social, and Objective as defined here: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...ce-believers&p=3116183&viewfull=1#post3116183
For example Santa is P-real for many young, S-real for most merchants, but not O-real for almost all, who are not idiots.
** Actually the child with p-real Santa, has more justification for belief that Santa is O-real than you have for idea God is O-real as he can see and show you Santa in the department store or on a street ringing a bell near pot for you to put money in.
You have nothing to show as supporting the existence of god; only your wishes and P-reality reports. Given the terrible things that man has done to other men, there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence for Satan and lots of evidence for the non-existence of a loving god that has any powers on Earth. Your god was not even able to give Hitler a very natural appearing heart attack.
It will be weird, Mazulu, if you were right all along about God, and I was wrong. It's just odd for lack of a better word, that so many people believe in a god and even love him, but so many don't. Or won't. Or can't.
It'll just be weird, if you were right.
It'll just be weird, if you were right.
Spidergoat, thank you for being civil when I was getting a bit rude. You are a gentleman and a scholar; and you set a good example for others.
In terms of the existence of spirits, the best I can do is believe what I want to, what I choose to. I look at all of the non-material things in physics, everything from physics constants, to the laws of physics themselves, to wave-functions, space-time continuum, Higgs field, dark matter, I look at all of these things and I am left with the impression that many things are invisible and undetectable to science; perhaps some day science will be able to see more.
I do understand that the brain is a complex and highly dynamic neural network. I also acknowledge that some people want to see ghosts, they misidentify things that they see, they can also have hallucinations. What I saw was the same thing my mother saw, her friend saw, the doctor downstairs saw, a great aunt saw as well. My great aunt watched as this black cloaked entity took her jewelery. She asked what he was doing with her jewelery. The entity said that she wouldn't be needing it anymore. My great aunt died about a week later of natural causes. My mom and her friend were communicating with this entity via seance. I was just an observer. I had the same doubts about it and thought that they were all just weird people. That is until this entity visited me. It was extremely real, real enough to feel the adrenalin that something that wasn't supposed to exist was in my room (technically it was in the opposite asymmetric room about 15' away). It was part of a sleep paralysis experience. When I first saw this black cloaked figure, I was scared. I could feel the fear drain out of me but then I couldn't move.
Anyway, my point is that I'm not convinced that this physical universe/space-time continuum is all that exists. I am also not convinced that consciousness is the product of chemistry. If anything, chemistry is just a doorway for consciousness.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
What happened to the jewelry? Or had it disappeared? Greedy ghost?
I don't know, probably nothing. It was more about this entity telling her that she wouldn't be needing it, and then she died shortly after that.
@ Write4U
You really should go easy on Mazulu. Earlier, he admitted that he "doesn't think", and now he says he "doesn't know".
Can't you see that constantly asking questions of someone who brags that they "don't think" and "don't know" anything, could give them some sort of complex!
The next thing you know, Mazulu, may be driven to making things up as he goes along!
Exactly, which is what we understand as well. That is obvious.
No, you want to believe in stuff because of your religious beliefs, not physics. We understand that, too.
Sorry, but that is a contradiction by your own words, "invisible and undetectable"
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Furthermore, he wakes up on Christmas morning to discover the floor under the tree covered with presents--which his parents solemnly swear were not placed there by them. It's hard for a child to accept the notion that his parents might be liars. Since he doesn't understand the workings of the natural universe that strongly argue against one man being able to visit every house on earth containing "good" children in a single night, and enter their house with a bag of presents even though very few houses have chimneys anymore, he takes his parents' word for it.
My parents told me the truth when I was six and explained to me that Santa Claus is a fairytale. They explained that fairytales are very useful because they give us a simplified view of the world that's easier to understand than an actual view. And they assured me that, nonetheless, once people become old enough to understand reality, they should not be encouraged to believe that fairytales are real. A year later when I learned that many adults believe in God, they sadly explained to me that their parents had simply done a rotten job of raising them and that I, fortunately, would not have that problem.
The religionists wave this away with the belief that no matter how hard their lives are, when they die they will spend eternity in a blissful place called "Heaven." When they arrive there, they will be enlightened about the reasons for the suffering they endured here.
I'm just wondering how both my parents and I will be able to experience "bliss," since I hated them and was overjoyed when they died, whereas they always wanted a closer relationship with me. (They got points for teaching me that religion is bullshit, but it wasn't quite enough to excuse their faults.)
Sorry for both you and them. You can't hurt them now - only yourself - forgive what ever they did to you.
My father was a really good man, an MD who provided medical services to the poor in West Virginia. We were always short on cash, but never food - especially not in deer season. He was paid so many times in jars of pickles that we gave many away to others more needy and had to rent a cold storage locker for meat (rabbits, squriles, pork, and venison) to buffer the seasonal variations in supply. We had a garden too, but ate more meat than was good for us.
He was very religious. In the depth of the depression he literally put his last dollar in the collection plate. When I, as a teenager, firmly decided I did not want to join him as he hoped for a decade or so of joint medical practice, so he went to work on salary as an MD at the main mental hospital in the state (in Weston) and started to study to become one of the better paid psychiatrists. He got to be board certified a year or two before I graduated from Cornell yet despite this education that normally destroys any religious belief, he held fast to his.
He only did one thing that hurt me, and that out of love, I later understood. He was a "male chauvinist" (Biblically based POV that women should be obedient servants of their husband, etc.) and my mother was quite intelligent. I strongly suspect he knocked her up and that was why they married and later divorced as very incompatible by nature. My mother became an alcoholic; I can remember her out cold "sick" on the floor as she later explained to me. Courts in W. Va. back then always gave custody to the mother. She lived on the meager alimony as could not hold her teaching jobs even for a full year, so I never spent more than one year in same school until my father regained my custody. To help me learn to love him, he showed me a couple of inches thick stack of canceled checks he said were spent to rescue me and I knew he was poor. Later I learned they were mainly alimony checks, but the psychological damage to me was already done. I was (and still almost am) pathologically frugal* not wanting to cost him any more. I. e. I only ate a little food until both he and my stepmother finished, baby sat, cut yards, had a paper route by age 12, etc. I have no financial worries now - have given both my daughters $13,000, now $14,000, each year for more than a decade (that is the no gift tax limit) but still get irrational delight to save a few cents with a store coupon, always mentally calculate if the lager size is a better o!)r worse bargain than the "on promotion " smaller one, still read restaurant menu from right to left and never order even water to drink (only bottled is available in Brazil and the mark up is at least 300%) etc.
* I understand this and why. I have considered trying to change it but it is so deep in me that I don't try. It was reinforced all thru my undergraduate years on a full needs scholarship, washing dishes for my meals, and odd jobs, especially baby sitting, which combines well with studding, for pocket money, but one Thanksgiving I could not scrap together bus fare home - so decided to not eat that day. - That makes you really thankful you can most days. (Kitchen of fraternity house where I washed dishes was locked up tight and not eating on that day was better than an embarrassing hamburger in a "greasy spoon" restaurant, I thought. I still put a thick layer of free catsup on any I buy.)
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I think you live in desolation and in emotional poverty. Atheism is the "lay down and die" team. Atheism is just an excuse to give up, get dunk and die because life is too hard! F**K ATHEISM!!! I prefer to live a good life.
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