Why I believe science is true and spirituality is false

[Blackhawk]

@trenton So what do you think is the solution to the "hard problem of consciousness"? 

That dead matter creates consciousness?

Like this?: 

[Boethius]

1 hour ago, trenton said:

I would like to know how the materialist paradigm effects people outside of spirituality.  I can see that it is creating a limitation on spiritual growth, but how else does it affect people?

It prevents people from seeing the world in more holistic ways. I'm thinking about seeing the world organized at various different levels of complexity or being able to see various systems at operation in the world. People who are hardcore materialists tend to simply experience the world as consisting of a series of different physical objects (smartphones, toothbrushes, trees, pets, humans) without there being any deeper order to the objects.

For instance, could such a person think of Friendship as a special type of relationship that comes with its own joys and responsibilities? This would be a more Platonic way of understanding friendship. Or imagine trying to talk with a rationalist about something like systems of oppression. Such a person would likely refuse to believe that such a thing exists absent a bunch of evidence (even though, philosophically speaking, no amount of evidence would likely suffice to convince the most committed rationalist that systems of oppression exist).

So what I'm really talking about here is ontology. This is what is meant when we speak of rationalists as being committed to an unexamined and unconscious set of metaphysics. That is, a rationalist only recognizes a restricted categories of "things" as having existence, as being real. And when someone (from a spiritual background, for instance) starts talking about things that go beyond the rationalist's ontological committments, the very predictable response from the rationalist is that the "thing" in question is not "real" and hence is of no interest to anything (and it is here that the rationalist's ego comes into clear view). Anyways, I hope that helps.

[Carl-Richard]

4 hours ago, trenton said:

One of the challenges I have that is limiting me is the constant background that doubts efforts like these.  Without this background paradigm nagging at me, I could ground myself in direct experience.

Without sounding like an ass, that is also a thought. So is the thought about a door. The solution is just to catch that.

You're having thoughts about why you think you can't catch your thoughts. It's circular. You need a different method to break the spell.

[Rajneeshpuram]

science is a model of knowledge for comprehensing the rules of the 3dimensional world, only a fool would apply this man-made model to the entire multiverse.

[trenton]

@Adamq8  I like how you pointed out that materialism can't be falsified of it is assumed that all perception is false even though it is the only thing experienced.

I started reading into the hard problem of consciousness.  The problem is that consciousness is greater than the sum of the parts.  Reductionism assumes that things can be taken apart and reverse engineered to be understood.  I did not watch the episodes on holons and holistic thinking yet.  That might help.

[lmfao]

@trenton Good thread man, can definitely relate to some of themes you put here. For context, I'm someone who's naturally "logical". In the sense that I was instantly attracted to maths and philosophy at a young age, and then later on loved physics and science (but the love for math and physics has disappeared now). 

I was raised with Islam. But later on I became extremely atheistic and materialistic. And I was obsessed with math and physics, learning different topics in my spare time a lot. Listening to people like Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins.

What got me to question my dismissal of all spirituality and faith in science were two things. One thing was finding out about meditation. From meditation I had mystical experiences where I had a feeling I had no language to describe. I felt like my self didn't exist, that everything was happening of it's own volition. Breathing, turning my head, thinking, blinking, "I" wasn't doing any of it.

I was atheistic, and had only been exposed to western religion which I categorically rejected. I was confused and didn't know how to describe my experience. But in eastern religion, I found language and entire philosophies describing what I had experienced, and I knew it was the way. And ofc I questioned my metaphysics about reality due to it all. 

--
Now there is also the metaphysical and philosophical aspect. The task here is openness. You can read around plenty of criticisms of materialism, hard problem of consciousness (Seriously, how the fuck hadn't you ever heard of that one? It's so mainstream haha).

Many people also reference quantum mechanics. "Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser" experiment [ Essentially, "knowledge alone" of the number of different paths light could have taken to reach a location determine if light acts like a wave or if it acts like a particle. It makes no fucking sense with causality as we intuitively know it, where the human can't "stand apart" objectively and independently of what he's observing. It loses the 3rd person and objective quality].

^However, you're not going to find me referencing quantum mechanics a lot to criticise materialism or science. I think it's indirect, and at most is just a potential mind opener which works for some people.

Science is quite literally just a subset of philosophy my dude. It has axioms, assumptions and tenants which are held onto. It has it's own metaphysics and epistemology about what "truth" is. I'm sure there will be 100's of wise philosophers out there with books showing you limitations. Some woke Greek philosophers out there for example "radical skepticism".  
____
Another angle to consider is this. It also has it's own human culture, "collective ego" and dogma in the world. With implications on things like money & business, physical health, mental health and sociology. "Science" has a collective ego and culture, it has its own "survival agenda" in the world, the same way christians or different countries have their own survival agenda. 

^Peer review systems, the collective ego aspect of it means that essentially, scientists are allowed to by group consensus ostracise and invalidate people who operate outside of their world view or people who disagree with them. 
_____
Another angle is this. "Science" like any other ideology seeks to dogmatise and take over all domains of life and knowledge ( many non dogmatic scientists ofc, and the scientific geniuses in history were non-dogmatic ones who were mystically sensitive often) with a particular brand and style of thinking. 

It omits wholistic thinking in favour of "sum of the parts" thinking. Reductionism. "Sum of the parts" thinking quite literally how the logical mind and intellect operate. Mathematics, physics, logical mind, is invariably sum of the parts. It's the "principle of superposition" but hyper generalised.

Having gotten into abstract math and physics deeply, and "foundations of math" as a subject, I eventually came to understand this. But you can understand it anyway.

There is no reason to presume the logical mind and intellect is the ultimate guide or indicator of truth. That's just a belief system and dogma. 
___
One good tool for understanding a lot of this is Spiral Dynamics. Stage Orange, you'll see the totality of materialism and that style of cognition as just  one relative point of view out of many. 

You can also take the "postmodernism" angle, by reading some of these guys or grasping it. Ignore the political narratives from Left and Right about what postmodernism means in abstract/actuality. 
__

So yeah, I just info dumped onto you a bunch of shit. The crux of it is seeing the limitation of "The Intellect", however that comes about, whether only one of these angles lets you break through or all of these angles start to feed off of each other. For me the mysticism element and enlightenment experiences really broke my old metaphysics for me. 

Edited April 11, 2021 by lmfao

[Reciprocality]

''How could I take intellectualizing seriously if questioning the obvious was only to make me look cool?''

Well, i presume you live in a society, in which this desire of seeming cool for your intellect must have been deppresingly badly answered. In my experience it's deemed uncool to question pretty much anything. 

So your two ideals are essentialy like Harry and Voldemort, as neither can live while the other survives.

[wwhy]

23 hours ago, Consilience said:

Notice that the only thing you actually KNOW with 100% certainty is your direct, perceptive experience.

How can I prove I know?

[Leo Gura]

“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you." -- Werner Heisenberg

@trenton Maybe you should actually study the greatest scientists

There is nothing scientific about atheism, rationalism, materialism, or realism. It's all pure fantasy.

If you actually start questioning reality you will see that 50% of sicence is bullshit.

[Adamq8]

31 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you." -- Werner Heisenberg

@trenton Maybe you should actually study the greatest scientists

There is nothing scientific about atheism, rationalism, materialism, or realism. It's all pure fantasy.

If you actually start questioning reality you will see that 50% of sicence is bullshit.

Atheism- materialism - realism is a metaphysical position, science does not need to have an understanding if the world is for example conciousness, it can create and do science without it, it is scientist who interpret according to there paradigm, and as we know materialism is extremely common in the world today, unfortuneatly people dont question this absurd paradigm..

I suggest @trenton you look up Bernardo Kastrup and Donald Hoffman if you are into science but different than the materialism paradigm

Edited April 12, 2021 by Adamq8

[Leo Gura]

11 minutes ago, Adamq8 said:

science does not need to have an understanding if the world is for example conciousness, it can create and do science without it

Except it does, to do good science.

Science cannot be done with blinders on forever. That way of doing science is reaching its end.

What got us here is not to get us to the next level.

[Blackhawk]

43 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you." -- Werner Heisenberg

Unfortunately, that quote seems to be a fake one. But there's other real quotes from other scientists..

Always need to do some fact checking on quotes..

Edited April 12, 2021 by Blackhawk

[RendHeaven]

You should read the academic paper I'm working on ;D