---

Oh? Is that so? Or just in the circles you move in?

---

---

You do?

---

Post edited at 1:17 pm on July 4, 2009 by SpM

---

Quote: from osmoticdespair at 9:06 pm on July 4, 2009

---

Oh? Is that so? Or just in the circles you move in?

---

The circles you move in are peopled by reanimated corpses clutching their severed heads? If so, I think the world at large would greatly appreciate a YouTube video documenting this phenomenon.

---

---

Do you think Islam is literally true?

---

Someone I know might do a ritual to get possessed by some god and I might not think that the thing that possesses them is God, but that doesn't mean the possession itself didn't happen.

-------
Κύριε ἐλέησον

It does mean that humans are most often wrong in identifying the causes of their experiences when they employ subjective analysis.

Post edited at 1:55 pm on July 4, 2009 by SpM

---

Quote: from Moridin at 5:19 pm on July 4, 2009

---

Quote: from osmoticdespair at 7:15 pm on July 4, 2009

---

Quote: from Moridin at 5:14 pm on July 4, 2009

---

  Also not that the rejection of miracles is not an assumption of science, but a derived and well-supported conclusion.    

  1. If miracles can occur, it is not the case that science works.    
  2. It is the case that science works.    
  3. Therefore, it is not the case that miracles can occur.

---

Nonsense. Miraculous occurances are by their very nature exceptional things that in no sense have an effect on the day to day predictability of events according to empirical principles.

---

 

 But they do. If god can stop the suns movement across the sky any time he pleases or transform water into wine at any given point of his choosing, what does it mean to say that the earth orbits the sun, or that wine is different from water?

 If god can change the settings of your scientific instrument or change the facts of reality at any point without your knowledge if he so chooses, we cannot have any reliance upon your experimental results whatsoever and science would be void.

---

Just because something could be wrong on occasion doesn't override the basic predictability. Unless you are looking for a degree of certainty from science which I indeed would not accept it can give.

Just because God can do those things doesn't mean that all predictability is gone. The sun still does rise every morning, even if God could and has stopped it on some rare miraculous occasion. God could even stop it without disrupting the overall pattern of things so great is his power (which is not to say he necessarily would).

---

You don't seem to understand. It is not that god intervenes all the time, but the fundamental lack of predictability when he does that matters. If you cannot be certain that god hasn't changed your instruments or the facts of reality, how can you know that the information you discover is valid? You immediately have a huge uncertainty in your discovery, an uncertainty that is much higher than the measurements themselves, rendering science impotent.

-------
"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

---

Quote: from osmoticdespair at 7:24 pm on July 4, 2009

---

Quote: from Moridin at 5:19 pm on July 4, 2009

---

Quote: from osmoticdespair at 7:15 pm on July 4, 2009

---

Quote: from Moridin at 5:14 pm on July 4, 2009

---

   

   Also not that the rejection of miracles is not an assumption of science, but a derived and well-supported conclusion.

   1. If miracles can occur, it is not the case that science works.
   2. It is the case that science works.
   3. Therefore, it is not the case that miracles can occur.

---

Nonsense. Miraculous occurances are by their very nature exceptional things that in no sense have an effect on the day to day predictability of events according to empirical principles.

---

  But they do. If god can stop the suns movement across the sky any time he pleases or transform water into wine at any given point of his choosing, what does it mean to say that the earth orbits the sun, or that wine is different from water?    

  If god can change the settings of your scientific instrument or change the facts of reality at any point without your knowledge if he so chooses, we cannot have any reliance upon your experimental results whatsoever and science would be void.

---

Just because something could be wrong on occasion doesn't override the basic predictability. Unless you are looking for a degree of certainty from science which I indeed would not accept it can give.  

 Just because God can do those things doesn't mean that all predictability is gone. The sun still does rise every morning, even if God could and has stopped it on some rare miraculous occasion. God could even stop it without disrupting the overall pattern of things so great is his power (which is not to say he necessarily would).

---

You don't seem to understand. It is not that god intervenes all the time, but the fundamental lack of predictability when he does that matters. If you cannot be certain that god hasn't changed your instruments or the facts of reality, how can you know that the information you discover is valid? You immediately have a huge uncertainty in your discovery, an uncertainty that is much higher than the measurements themselves, rendering science impotent.

---

Do your scientific instruments never err? How is the occasional supernatural phenomenon different to the occasional instrument error in that regard?

-------
Κύριε ἐλέησον

Yes, science can make mistakes occasionally, but we know of all the factors and insecurities that can occur. However, it is not anywhere near the massive insecurity in measurement the existence of a supernatural entity that can at any given time, according to his will, change your instruments or the facts of reality. Gods are thus Cartesian demons with infinite power. It makes science (as well as other concepts) completely void. Naturally, if we presuppose the falsehood of all things supernatural, this problem just goes away.

-------
"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

---

Yes, science can make mistakes occasionally,

---

---

It is a nice idea to take multiple readings, but you cannot determine which is the result of nature acting like nature and which is the result of god changing nature. Let us say you do 100 measurements. 1 of them becomes 0.90. the rest becomes 0.6. Presuppose that god has performed some kind of miracles that changes the results of this measurement. Which value represent reality and which represents the changed reality? Why? You can't really determine this, can you? Maybe the miracle made a single anomaly, or maybe the miracle changed nature permanently to display different properties. Who are you to decide this?

Yes, science can make mistakes occasionally, but we know of all the factors and insecurities that can occur. However, it is not anywhere near the massive insecurity in measurement the existence of a supernatural entity that can at any given time, according to his will, change your instruments or the facts of reality. Gods are thus Cartesian demons with infinite power. It makes science (as well as other concepts) completely void. Naturally, if we presuppose the falsehood of all things supernatural, this problem just goes away.

---

Suppose God can defy natural law without our (humans) knowing?

I believe your objection here relies on knowledge of a miraculous occurrence, a knowledge that would cause doubt of the reliability of the scientific method itself. If I read your position correctly, if God may intervene, defy natural law (laws science has thus dictated) and impose His direction, science qua science would fall prey to radical skepticism and therefore cease to function as it should.

There are however many phenomena that confound scientific law and the traditional understanding of the "universe" that we derive from it. We continue to count on science. Unless you're prepared to claim that science can and will "explain" every phenomena, your objection to the miraculous doesn't appear valid. The first-person ontology (the object of phenomenology) serves as an example of such a confounding phenomenon. The phenomenological world might be construed as miraculous (indeed many phenomenologists consider seriously the Mystical) in this case.  

Say miracles do exist and challenge the essential nature of science: could we not accommodate? Could we not continue to formulate natural laws, in consideration of the "God probability" (or some such factor)? Science remains, after all, a system like any other that reforms when faced with dialectical opposition.

I anticipate an objection: what if miracles become so common that divine intervention does indeed threaten the essential nature of science? I believe an answer can be found in osmoticdespair's post:

Quote: from osmoticdespair at 9:15 am on July 4, 2009

---

Miraculous occurrences are by their very nature exceptional things that in no sense have an effect on the day to day predictability of events according to empirical principles.

---

Her definition defeats this objection: miracles are by definition exceptional, rare, uncommon.

Post edited at 12:15 am on July 5, 2009 by Peregrine

-------
"You've changed." "No, I haven't." "Then why do you look so?"

---

Quote: from Moridin at 6:59 pm on July 4, 2009

---

Yes, science can make mistakes occasionally,

---

No... I don't believe it. How does "science" make mistakes?

---

Scientists could fail to take into account certain facts or insecurities, for instance. This would be a mistake done by scientists, not so much a mistake by science itself, though.

-------
"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

---

What you assume for the sake of the predictive model and objective reality are not one and the same thing.

---

Precisely and this is why we have to reject the supernatural in order to do science.

-------
"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

---

There are however many phenomena that confound scientific law and the traditional understanding of the "universe" that we derive from it.

---

Yes, but all examples in the history of science, such as the fact that planets lie in the same plane (which Newton attributed to god) have been shown to have natural explanations, not magical and certainly not unpredictable in the way god would be.

---

Unless you're prepared to claim that science can and will "explain" every phenomena, your objection to the miraculous doesn't appear valid.

---

Science could in principle explain all features of our empirical world. This is because any valid explanation of the empirical world is by definition scientific. Now, do I think that science could practically explain every phenomena? No.

---

Say miracles do exist and challenge the essential nature of science: could we not accommodate? Could we not continue to formulate natural laws, in consideration of the "God probability" (or some such factor)? Science remains, after all, a system like any other that reforms when faced with dialectical opposition.

---

Yes, you could start putting the god factor as an insecurity in all of your calculations, but god bring an all-powerful and omnipresent entity, this god factor would be a great deal many orders of magnitude above the actual result. The insecurities would be much larger than the actual result, thereby rendering science impotent. Think of it like this. If you know you are using a broken machine that has the possibility of rendering completely inaccurate data, not just slightly inaccurate, but so wildly inaccurate that it would be equivalent to nonsense, then you would not be justified in using that machine at all. Your colleagues would laugh in your face.

---

Her definition defeats this objection: miracles are by definition exceptional, rare, uncommon.

---

No it does not since my argument is based on the unpredictability of a miracle will occur, not that miracles are frequent. Furthermore, miracles are not rare. Just look at the Old Testament, there is almost a miracle on each page.

-------
"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

---

Yes, but all examples in the history of science, such as the fact that planets lie in the same plane (which Newton attributed to god) have been shown to have natural explanations, not magical and certainly not unpredictable in the way god would be.

---

---

Quote: from Moridin at 5:10 pm on July 6, 2009

---

Yes, but all examples in the history of science, such as the fact that planets lie in the same plane (which Newton attributed to god) have been shown to have natural explanations, not magical and certainly not unpredictable in the way god would be.

---

"Planet found in tilted orbit around distant star"
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/crooked-0617.html

---

Yes, we have known for quite a while that there are planets that do not necessarily lie in the same plane as the rest. This is due to factors such as collisions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto#Orbit

But this is not really relevant to the argument that the general distribution of planets that have not been hit by collisions lie in a plane is not a mystery any longer.

-------
"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

---

Quote: from Forever Angel at 1:28 am on July 7, 2009

---

Quote: from Moridin at 5:10 pm on July 6, 2009

---

Yes, but all examples in the history of science, such as the fact that planets lie in the same plane (which Newton attributed to god) have been shown to have natural explanations, not magical and certainly not unpredictable in the way god would be.

---

"Planet found in tilted orbit around distant star"  
 http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/crooked-0617.html

---

Yes, we have known for quite a while that there are planets that do not necessarily lie in the same plane as the rest. This is due to factors such as collisions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto#Orbit

But this is not really relevant to the argument that the general distribution of planets that have not been hit by collisions lie in a plane is not a mystery any longer.

---