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WBraun
climber
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Nov 12, 2009 - 09:58pm PT
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Yes master F
I will do everything you say.
Yes master F ....
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:02pm PT
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The innings about to start where my crackerjacks!
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:03pm PT
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Never underestimate what you're really up against ........
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4damages
climber
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:04pm PT
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Gobie,
I just got back and I did grin. I'm still wondering if Werner knows
something about Jesus I don't?
bluering,
2. somebody quoted as Einstein, though I saw it elsewhere quoted
differently and allegedly also by Einstein.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:07pm PT
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:11pm PT
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Didn't you just argue against it yourself? Maybe everything you 'understand' is false or distorted. What was that conclusion that great physicist came to about the existence of a higher intelligence?
no, I don't believe I did argue against myself... the key to the scientific method is to obtain empirical confirmation through experiment or observation. You hypothesize, then you test...
it is possible that everything I understand is distorted, but I am aware that that could happen, so I test to make sure that my experiments are providing consistent information. It is possible that they are self-consistent in a way that excludes an important factor or phenomena, however it what is excluded is measurable, then we will eventually get around to addressing it as it becomes an important part of our understanding.
If you posit that God, god, mystical experience, etc are not measurable, that is, have no physical effect on the universe, then you take them beyond anything I am doing. However, you've just excluded them altogether in having any affect on the universe we live in. If you try to sneak them in somehow, say quantum fluctuations, we can test for that, we can measure it... and I can say that it is not there.
On the other hand, if you admit that all those things are a product of human thought, perhaps even inherited from pre-human thought, genetically & epi-genetically, you can have the thought without having to worry if it is physical or not. As a thought it doesn't have to interact with the universe except through the action of a person.
I can think of a winged elephant flying, or of faster-than-light travel, or of starship battles in deep space.. but they may not be thoughts that could ever be realized. The thoughts themselves are real, the content of the thoughts may not be.
I do not believe everything I think (so my bumper sticker says)... but if I can formulate a testable hypothesis and then perform the test and find the hypothesis consistent with the outcome of the test, well, I've made progress... and if I show the hypothesis to be false I've really made progress. But those tests are tests of physical, measurable reality.
That's really all that I do, and really all that I need.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:12pm PT
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bluering-
# 13 and 23 are definitely from Einstein.
I'm guessing the others are from various Nobel prize winners? A number of them have written comments to that effect.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:13pm PT
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Jan, we know baseball!
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:17pm PT
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Dr. F, It was Albert Einstein who said those things.
Ed, I understand. I'm just saying that you are operating in your research in a confined, maybe designed, system. One that appears somewhat perfect, no?
Maybe it was designed to be that way. Maybe God is impossible to define because everything is His. As C.S. Lewis pondered, if God revealed himself there would be no reason for humankind to develop as it does, to question and ponder. It would stagnate.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:17pm PT
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What a game!
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:17pm PT
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:18pm PT
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Ed
I've already explained many times the God is both material and spiritual.
On the absolute platform there is only spiritual since God is both material [external energy, material nature, his inferior energy] and spiritual [his superior energy].
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:20pm PT
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Jan, you may be correct. I was looking for the quote from Al as he relected that after all he had studied and proven, he concluded there had to be some intelligent design behind it.
Dr. F, even when you get facts you deny....
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 12, 2009 - 10:20pm PT
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I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
(Albert Einstein, 1954)
I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.
(Albert Einstein, Obituary in New York Times, 19 April 1955)
The idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I am unable to take seriously. (Albert Einstein, Letter to Hoffman and Dukas, 1946)
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TripL7
Trad climber
'dago'
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:21pm PT
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del cross- "an eye is an eye in the simplest sense"
That was the point I was attempting to make initially to Norton. And (if you have something good hand/eye.....why change..." I was simply illustrating the similarities between, lets say ape and man.
May be their is something we don't understand in regards to function. The octopus has always fascinated me. I have spent many hours watching the ones that got trapped in the tied pools were I use to surf as a youth.
Maybe it isn't necessarily inferior in that it is unique by not requiring more energy on a cellular level. I would have to know more about both.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:24pm PT
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you've stated it, but there is no material evidence of god... unless you'd like to define god as the entire universe which is an interesting concept... but not very useful.
I'll give you spiritual, but not in the way you'd want it I suspect.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 12, 2009 - 10:25pm PT
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"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
 Albert Einstein in Albert Einstein: The Human Side,
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:25pm PT
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Ed-
I'm understanding your point much better with your last two posts. As always in interdisciplinary discussions, the main problem is finding some kind of common vocabulary. I think there are more thoughts in the universe than just those of human beings, but at least we can agree on human thoughts.
Practically speaking, the question is how to encourage as you say, bad people to do good and good people not to do bad in the name of faith or religion.
The new evolutionary spirituality that is emerging does see God as embedded within the universe by the way.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:25pm PT
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Strike your out!
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Nov 12, 2009 - 10:28pm PT
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YAH YAH YAH!
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