The Vital Question: Why Is Life the Way It Is?

The best estimate we have is that we are biological robots and to think anything objectively spiritual exists, let alone spiritual beings (whatever that means...), is the assumption, Johnny.

Don't forget to wake up.
Whose best estimate? Suddenly there's one single voice in science, and materialists speak for all of science? You speak for all scientists? LOL

What have you been smoking?

My Best,
Bertha
 
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The best estimate we have is that we are biological robots and to think anything objectively spiritual exists, let alone spiritual beings (whatever that means...), is the assumption, Johnny.

Don't forget to wake up.[/quote


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The best estimate we have is that we are biological robots and to think anything objectively spiritual exists, let alone spiritual beings (whatever that means...), is the assumption, Johnny.

Don't forget to wake up.



The best estimate we have is that we are biological robots and to think anything objectively spiritual exists, let alone spiritual beings (whatever that means...), is the assumption, Johnny.

Don't forget to wake up.


We, lol, you mean materialists. That as much as they would love to prove life is a combination of chemicals, they unable to demonstrate this, or prove it, despite having the backing of the vast majority of funds going towards materialism. Talk about beating a dead donkey. Life is not material,
 
There is no independently functioning piece of the cell. Before biological evolution can take place a thing must be able to encode it's own form in a one dimensional representation. It's genome. Evolution relies on translation. This is formalised by way of a code. A code is not physics but abstract rules.

There is a gap between the actual physical arrangement and what it actually represents. There is no physical law between them. It is precisely this gap that allows the endless variety of evolution. A fixed arrangement constricted purely by physical law is just that, fixed. This is why a chemical system will not get beyond the bounds imposed on them by physical law. Whatever arrangement, it requires another arrangement to translate and interpret it.

In every system of communication this gap must be there to allow the input of information. This gap is bridged by mental abstraction as far as we know, a code. In the cell the gap is physically bridged by specific enzymes that themselves of course are encoded in one dimensional form. Irreducible. As all semiotic systems are.
 
I'm not sure how many times or ways I can say this; Our gods are safe, there are still plenty of gaps to inhabit.

These studies are looking for clues to the origins of organic chemistry, nothing more, and the science should be judged in that light.
Yes, but people have been doing this for a very long time! Saying that energy is key is sort of beside the point - I mean suppose you went on a course to learn how computers worked. You would be pretty fed up if the instructor spent much time reiterating that energy (i.e. electricity) was the key to computation!

As I said before, if you read the book, you want to try to extract a list of the actual experiments that back his theory up, and exactly in what way his theory differs from previous theories.

David
 
Haha, oh my people were sore at my posting...

Actually by "we" I meant the majority of thinking human beings. Established universities with funding programs that are dedicated to weeding out theories put forward by people who can't be bothered to put aside the magical thinking after childhood and by advancing strong ones put forward by the kind of people who devote their lives to trying to answer said questions instead of sitting on a forum piggybacking off of other's research and then ridiculing it. The best estimate is by actual scientists working towards something that is... not immaterial and people who can't even attain a doctorate that just sit on Skeptiko in their spare time aren't going to answer the questions they seek, but.. enjoy your spiritual journey, right? Get back to your science books and learn, stop repeating the statements made by other's, ie. "wake up to the fact we're spiritual beings" then wake yourself up and get off a subpar, dying, forum about "intelligent discussion on science and spirituality" and go and find evidence for it. Or, spend the rest of your days relying on other's life's goals.

Johnny you say life is not material then show me your immaterial soul, or whatever crack you believe in LOL and I'll show you a material world right in front of your eyes. You realize that, as one example, information transfer is physical, right? Just because our senses (which are in the brain not the immaterial ethereal woo-void) cannot detect something doesn't mean it is immaterial. Even the empty space between atoms, or perhaps universes, is physical. There may be no immaterial.

Provide me with an example of something immaterial, please.
 
Actually, I'm a skeptic about many things but many of the subjects here I am not. Your assumptions display your ignorance. Also, I have a bachelor's in QED from Calgary U so, enjoy my assumption you have a dead-end low paying job. ;) You can even check my credentials on their edu website under my real, very similar, name :) even you could figure out my "genius" pseudonym.
 
Actually, I'm a skeptic about many things but many of the subjects here I am not. Your assumptions display your ignorance. Also, I have a bachelor's in QED from Calgary U so, enjoy my assumption you have a dead-end low paying job. ;) You can even check my credentials on their edu website under my real, very similar, name :) even you could figure out my "genius" pseudonym.
Your assumption would be wrong.

My Best,
Bertha
 
Okay, my next magical assumption is that you have less than college level educational knowledge about the quantum mechanics you so want other's to learn about.
 
Come now, Bertha, if you're so certain other's should "learn quantum mechanics" you should be able to name two lines? Just two little lines...

But go back to watching Spirit Science ;)
 
Haha, oh my people were sore at my posting...

Actually by "we" I meant the majority of thinking human beings. Established universities with funding programs that are dedicated to weeding out theories put forward by people who can't be bothered to put aside the magical thinking after childhood and by advancing strong ones put forward by the kind of people who devote their lives to trying to answer said questions instead of sitting on a forum piggybacking off of other's research and then ridiculing it. The best estimate is by actual scientists working towards something that is... not immaterial and people who can't even attain a doctorate that just sit on Skeptiko in their spare time aren't going to answer the questions they seek, but.. enjoy your spiritual journey, right? Get back to your science books and learn, stop repeating the statements made by other's, ie. "wake up to the fact we're spiritual beings" then wake yourself up and get off a subpar, dying, forum about "intelligent discussion on science and spirituality" and go and find evidence for it. Or, spend the rest of your days relying on other's life's goals.

Johnny you say life is not material then show me your immaterial soul, or whatever crack you believe in LOL and I'll show you a material world right in front of your eyes. You realize that, as one example, information transfer is physical, right? Just because our senses (which are in the brain not the immaterial ethereal woo-void) cannot detect something doesn't mean it is immaterial. Even the empty space between atoms, or perhaps universes, is physical. There may be no immaterial.

Provide me with an example of something immaterial, please.

Actually, I'm a skeptic about many things but many of the subjects here I am not. Your assumptions display your ignorance. Also, I have a bachelor's in QED from Calgary U so, enjoy my assumption you have a dead-end low paying job. ;) You can even check my credentials on their edu website under my real, very similar, name :) even you could figure out my "genius" pseudonym.

So, since you are stating quite a lot here, tell me, what do you believe in? I mean, stating that everything is monistic doesnt answer the question of what you believe about the subjects discussed here since a lot of things like psi or the afterlife or whatever would be still possible (since material is a pretty broad word), and since you state that you are not a skeptic about many subjects here i'd like to know what you are talking about. It'll make it easier to understand your pov. Atleast for me. Btw, honest question. Im not trying to get into that discussion full of arrogance and prejudices here.
 
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Provide me with an example of something immaterial, please.
To some extent we need to beware of questions like this. It might be argued that as soon as something is detectable, it automatically means either that it is brought within the scope of current materialism, or if it is not detectable it is declared null and void, not acceptable. There is also the possibility of moving goalposts, something which was outside the scope at one point in time may later, after a re-adjustment of the boundaries of materialism be defined as within the scope.

However, I'll try to ignore such complexities for the sake of providing a simple example.

During the arduous 1916 journey across the island of South Georgia, Shackleton and his men each independently felt the presence of a fourth. From chapter two of The Third Man Factor by John Geiger:
He revealed in the narrative that he had a pervasive sense, during that last and worst of his struggles, that something out of the ordinary had accompanied them:

When I look back at those days I have no doubt that Providence guided us, not only across those snow-fields, but across the storm-white sea that separated Elephant Island from our landing-place on South Georgia. I know that during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia it seemed to me often that we were four, not three.

He had said nothing to the others, but then, three weeks later, Worsley offered without prompting: “Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us.” Crean later confessed to the same strange sensation. Each of the three men had come to the same conclusion independently of the others: that they had been in company with another being.

I chose that example simply because it was experienced independently by more than one person.

One can find other examples from an unrelated subject area in the book on ‘Shared Death Experiences’, Glimpses of Eternity by Raymond Moody. Again, there are examples where the experience is reported independently by more than one person.
 
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The best estimate we have is that we are biological robots and to think anything objectively spiritual exists, let alone spiritual beings (whatever that means...), is the assumption, Johnny.
There are problems with the use of "we" and "best" in that pronouncement. Perhaps it might be more accurate to simply state that it is your own current preferred worldview. Naturally if you prefer it, it is "best", but that is circular thinking.
 
Even the empty space between atoms, or perhaps universes, is physical. There may be no immaterial. Provide me with an example of something immaterial, please.

Feeling good about yourself and your rant? It has nothing to do with your classroom learning, but about a misguided metaphysics.

Materials science divides into substances that can be detected by instrumentation and forces that can be detected by instrumentation. Virtual particles are a logical place holder for effects, whose causes are not detected by instrumentation. You can define them as not being immaterial (using a double negative), but good old fashion physical science defines them as abstractions. You look at the natural world and see your own treasured concepts, instead of what is empirical and testable.

You believe in magic properties of matter manifesting as these indirectly discovered and math modeled structures of reality. When in fact, science has tools in information science to address them correctly.

Let me ask you - is logic a substance or a force? Are probability waves a substance or a force?
 
Haha, oh my people were sore at my posting...

Actually by "we" I meant the majority of thinking human beings. Established universities with funding programs that are dedicated to weeding out theories put forward by people who can't be bothered to put aside the magical thinking after childhood and by advancing strong ones put forward by the kind of people who devote their lives to trying to answer said questions instead of sitting on a forum piggybacking off of other's research and then ridiculing it. The best estimate is by actual scientists working towards something that is... not immaterial and people who can't even attain a doctorate that just sit on Skeptiko in their spare time aren't going to answer the questions they seek, but.. enjoy your spiritual journey, right? Get back to your science books and learn, stop repeating the statements made by other's, ie. "wake up to the fact we're spiritual beings" then wake yourself up and get off a subpar, dying, forum about "intelligent discussion on science and spirituality" and go and find evidence for it. Or, spend the rest of your days relying on other's life's goals.

Johnny you say life is not material then show me your immaterial soul, or whatever crack you believe in LOL and I'll show you a material world right in front of your eyes. You realize that, as one example, information transfer is physical, right? Just because our senses (which are in the brain not the immaterial ethereal woo-void) cannot detect something doesn't mean it is immaterial. Even the empty space between atoms, or perhaps universes, is physical. There may be no immaterial.

Provide me with an example of something immaterial, please.


Hi Travis Montgomery, I can sense a really foul tone developing between us, And perhaps I am to blame, I shouldn't have said that "people should wake up to the fact that we are spiritual beings' that was a bit rash of me, I meant that 'I wish' people would wake up to the fact we are spiritual beings, because that is my firm belief..

But to begin with, I am not whimsically stating we are spiritual beings, just because I heard someone else say that, I have dedicated a vast portion of my life in the search to this answer, and I am convinced that I am not solely my material body, in fact, I don't think I am my temporary body at all, but that the very life force within me, The self, my true identity. is not material. but immaterial, it is also not a subject I can convey in a post or two, or perhaps I can offer a few examples, as to how I come to conclude this, And therefore validate my reasoning for holding such beliefs.

Firstly

In my last post I asked you a question, are the thoughts in my mind physical, I didn't get an answer to this response.



Moving on,

I am not this material body,

My body is constantly changing from birth, like changing clothes, taking of one garment and wearing another,
All the atoms that make up my body are constantly being renewed. and the body I had as a baby, is no longer, it has been replaced with an entirely new body, and the body I have in the present will also not be the same body I posses in ten years or so, So, all the physical elements that make up my body are nothing but temporary, Yet, 'I' the self ( Soul ) am still existing as the same self, In the search for identity, The conclusion is, I am not this material body. If the body is changing, in this lifetime, like changing garments, yet I am still existing.

So where does my mind reside, In my brain? My research say's no.

Another challenging phenomenon is the presence of normal or
even high intelligence in people who have very little brain tissue. There
are again rare, but surprising, cases of people who seem to function
normally in life, with normal intelligence and normal social function,
despite having virtually no brain at all.

Bruce Greyson M.D Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences

How is it possible to conclude that the 'life force' within me is an emergent of my brain, when my brain itself doesn't begin to emerge until about three weeks into my material life, Each one of us begins life as a single celled organism, about the size of a grain of salt, The cell starts to divide and multiply, into two then four and so on, It is able to develop due to the life within it, and about three weeks into conception we start developing a brain, then limbs organs and so on. Without the life energy within the material body, there is no question of development. the conclusion is that life is not an emergent of the brain, the brain is an emergent of life.


Also, the brain you had last week, is not the same brain you will have next week.


, "Your brain is being disassembled and reassembled every day. "One week from today, your brain will be made up of completely different proteins than it is today. This video shows the process. We've known that it was happening, but now we can watch it happen."- Don Arnold, associate professor of molecular and computational biology at the USC


http://www.sciencespacerobots.com/video-shows-the-traffic-inside-a-brain-cell-82220123

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...-video-reveals-just-happens-inside-brain.html

So in conclusion, I am constantly changing my material body, yet I am still existing.
My brain is an emergent of the life force within my material body, not the other way round.

I could probably continue, but as I said, I am not really keen on putting years of study, and having to remember knowledge on demand, over a forum, It's time consuming and requires a lot of energy, I prefer more lighthearted interactions nowadays, But if they do manage to prove life is an emergent of matter, 'll be all ears, I'm just sick of these close calls, by all means,,if one can prove it, then do so. But I ain't holding my breath, and further, it's my firm belief, that life animates matter, not the other way round. But in no way am I lazy in this aspect, I apologize I never dedicated my life to science, I am more of a spiritualist.

John
 
Hey Johnny, perhaps it was my fault I didn't emoticon properly to provide the type of feeling I wanted from my posting and I will follow up with a response shortly, I am just on lunch at work and catching up on some reading.

Looking forward to discussing/answering the posts and continuing the discussion soon. I will try to answer some shortly.
 
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So, since you are stating quite a lot here, tell me, what do you believe in? I mean, stating that everything is monistic doesnt answer the question of what you believe about the subjects discussed here since a lot of things like psi or the afterlife or whatever would be still possible (since material is a pretty broad word), and since you state that you are not a skeptic about many subjects here i'd like to know what you are talking about. It'll make it easier to understand your pov. Atleast for me. Btw, honest question. Im not trying to get into that discussion full of arrogance and prejudices here.


Hey DasMurmeltier, I actually believe in nothing at the moment but an inclination towards a spiritual perspective, all though it may not seem like that from my last posting lol I often play the Devil's advocate in that even if I am reading an article, or a thread on a forum, and I agree with what is said I will often try to ask the question to undermine the reading/view I am agreeing with. It is just how I operate, I don't want to leave it up to other's to ask questions I find fundamental about a belief I have. But, I am rude as hell and I apologize that it is harder to gain a tone on an internet forum than I would like it to be, and I don't want to be adding smiley faces and angry faces at the end of every sentence lol

Also, did I imply an only monistic approach in what I said? I wasn't aware so let me know please. Thanks! (implied smiley face)
 
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