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I still don't know why the author brought religion/faith/god into the discussion; he seems like a religionist trying to come to grips with the dominance of our world by science and the scientific epistemology.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It can only predict experiments. Your "only" here makes it seem like predicting experiments is a narrow thing. It's not. All of the modern technologies we have--including the computers we're all using to post here--are based on science "predicting experiments"--but the "experiments" are things like building computers, or the Internet, or the GPS system. The fact that all those things work exactly as our science pre…
Not only that - one could argue that all observed phenomena are experiments , and the way we behave in the world is based on predicting them. A religious person - if not honest enough to simply say "existence of God is an axiom and cannot be derived from reason alone" - uses the very predictions of experiments to reason God into existence: everything that exists has a cause; universe exists; therefore universe has a…
These are also not axiomatically accepted features either (except perhaps in the sense that they are in relation to the empirical sciences, as science presupposes their existence).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not only that - one could argue that all observed phenomena are experiments , and the way we behave in the world is based on predicting them. A religious person - if not honest enough to simply say "existence of God is an axiom and cannot be derived from reason alone" - uses the very predictions of experiments to reason God into existence: everything that exists has a cause; universe exists; therefore universe has a…
Epistemically speaking, the existence of God is not axiomatic. Your second claims is more accurate, though not entirely. Knowledge of God's existence is derived from observed features of reality. However, these features are very general and not scientific per se; rather, they are presupposed by empirical science. Examples include the reality of change, causality (especially per se vs. what science is generally concer…
If it were so, God's existence would be just another scientific fact.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> scientific epistemology Science can't tell us so far what really exists. It can only predict experiments. To put it in more common terms, "is the wave function real or not?", or "do quantum fields really exist, or are just elegant mathematical abstractions for explaining experiments?" Or as others say "shut up and calculate".
> It can only predict experiments. Your "only" here makes it seem like predicting experiments is a narrow thing. It's not. All of the modern technologies we have--including the computers we're all using to post here--are based on science "predicting experiments"--but the "experiments" are things like building computers, or the Internet, or the GPS system. The fact that all those things work exactly as our science pre…
That's the popular definition of the word "real".
But this article is about the philosophical meaning of the word "real". And from that viewpoint science hasn't delivered yet, science doesn't know yet what "really exists out there", it can only predict how that thing behaves in experiments.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Epistemically speaking, the existence of God is not axiomatic. Your second claims is more accurate, though not entirely. Knowledge of God's existence is derived from observed features of reality. However, these features are very general and not scientific per se; rather, they are presupposed by empirical science. Examples include the reality of change, causality (especially per se vs. what science is generally concer…
> Knowledge of God's existence is derived from observed features of reality. If it were so, God's existence would be just another scientific fact.
Of course, the classical definition of "science" is more expansive, including what would be the most general science - metaphysics - so in that sense, yes, you can say the existence of God is a "scientific fact". (God here is self-subsisting being, not some ridiculous "sky fairy" straw man of New Atheist imagination.)
I still don't know why the author brought religion/faith/god into the discussion; he seems like a religionist trying to come to grips with the dominance of our world by science and the scientific epistemology.
> scientific epistemology Science can't tell us so far what really exists. It can only predict experiments. To put it in more common terms, "is the wave function real or not?", or "do quantum fields really exist, or are just elegant mathematical abstractions for explaining experiments?" Or as others say "shut up and calculate".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Knowledge of God's existence is derived from observed features of reality. If it were so, God's existence would be just another scientific fact.
Did you read my entire post? I already explained to you why this isn't the case. We known that, for example, change is real through general observation, but it is not something belonging to any empirical science per se. Rather, it is presupposed by each of those sciences. Of course, the classical definition of "science" is more expansive, including what would be the most general science - metaphysics - so in that sen…
If you redefine God to mean "fundamental assumptions of the universe", its existence becomes tautological. But that is not what most people mean (including the author of the article we're commenting on) when they say "God".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It can only predict experiments. Your "only" here makes it seem like predicting experiments is a narrow thing. It's not. All of the modern technologies we have--including the computers we're all using to post here--are based on science "predicting experiments"--but the "experiments" are things like building computers, or the Internet, or the GPS system. The fact that all those things work exactly as our science pre…
> It's telling us how to use real things to build real technologies that have real impacts on people's lives. That's the popular definition of the word "real". But this article is about the philosophical meaning of the word "real". And from that viewpoint science hasn't delivered yet, science doesn't know yet what "really exists out there", it can only predict how that thing behaves in experiments.
If the philosophical meaning of "real" admits that computers, the Internet, and the GPS system are real, then I don't see what grounds it has for rejecting that things like transistors and electrons and other such underlying things are real as well, since transistors and electrons and other such underlying things are what we build computers, the Internet, and the GPS system out of.
If the philosophical meaning of "real" casts doubt on whether computers, the Internet, and the GPS system are "real", then why should we care about it?
> from that viewpoint science hasn't delivered yet
If science hasn't, then neither has anything else.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not only that - one could argue that all observed phenomena are experiments , and the way we behave in the world is based on predicting them. A religious person - if not honest enough to simply say "existence of God is an axiom and cannot be derived from reason alone" - uses the very predictions of experiments to reason God into existence: everything that exists has a cause; universe exists; therefore universe has a…
Epistemically speaking, the existence of God is not axiomatic. Your second claims is more accurate, though not entirely. Knowledge of God's existence is derived from observed features of reality. However, these features are very general and not scientific per se; rather, they are presupposed by empirical science. Examples include the reality of change, causality (especially per se vs. what science is generally concer…
How do any of these things allow you to derive knowledge of God's existence?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Knowledge of God's existence is derived from observed features of reality. If it were so, God's existence would be just another scientific fact.
Did you read my entire post? I already explained to you why this isn't the case. We known that, for example, change is real through general observation, but it is not something belonging to any empirical science per se. Rather, it is presupposed by each of those sciences. Of course, the classical definition of "science" is more expansive, including what would be the most general science - metaphysics - so in that sen…
Change is not presupposed by science. Various experiences/models of change are described by science, which is not the same thing at all.
There are block universe interpretations of cosmology which do not require change.