australopithecus
Active Member
As requested, thread split.
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What evidence would you accept?
- Thread starter twoism
- Start date
ImprobableJoe
New Member
Well then, let's start over. 
What evidence would I accept for what? The question is actually composed of two separate but equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories. Oh wait, no..
Three issues:
1) A manifestation in the real world of an empirically verifiable phenomenon.
2) The construction of a logical, evidence-based explanation for that phenomenon that requires (rather than simply allows for) the existence of a heretofore undiscovered cause.
#1 is where most claims fail before we can even start worrying about #2. For instance, if someone claims that the crazy lights in the sky are aliens from another planet, they have to start by establishing that there are actually crazy lights in the sky. If someone claims that shaken water has magical healing abilities because of molecular memory, they have to demonstrate the healing abilities first. You cannot posit the explanation for an event that hasn't yet been confirmed to exist. More importantly, you can't use #1 to prove #2 without laying out the evidence for #1 and having it be independently confirmed.
When we get to #2, you have to show positive evidence for the source of #1. It is not enough to simply eliminate other causes, although that is a fine place to start. So if you've got bright lights in the sky, it is important to start by showing that the lights happen and then eliminating things like atmospheric effects, passing aircraft, weather balloons, bad eyesight, and so on. Once you show an effect for your homeopathic water, you have to correct for spontaneous remission rates and the placebo effect. But that's not enough. You have to then demonstrate that your explanation is correct, in the case of UFOs by photographic and/or visual evidence, and in the case of homeopathy by demonstrating how molecular memory works chemically. Something empirical, or you have to admit that you don't have an explanation either.
And then we're going to get to the more vacuous claims of theists, where the rule is that their claims are almost certainly false where meaningful, and where they are even slightly possibly true they are also empty.
What evidence would I accept for what? The question is actually composed of two separate but equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories. Oh wait, no..
Three issues:
1) A manifestation in the real world of an empirically verifiable phenomenon.
2) The construction of a logical, evidence-based explanation for that phenomenon that requires (rather than simply allows for) the existence of a heretofore undiscovered cause.
#1 is where most claims fail before we can even start worrying about #2. For instance, if someone claims that the crazy lights in the sky are aliens from another planet, they have to start by establishing that there are actually crazy lights in the sky. If someone claims that shaken water has magical healing abilities because of molecular memory, they have to demonstrate the healing abilities first. You cannot posit the explanation for an event that hasn't yet been confirmed to exist. More importantly, you can't use #1 to prove #2 without laying out the evidence for #1 and having it be independently confirmed.
When we get to #2, you have to show positive evidence for the source of #1. It is not enough to simply eliminate other causes, although that is a fine place to start. So if you've got bright lights in the sky, it is important to start by showing that the lights happen and then eliminating things like atmospheric effects, passing aircraft, weather balloons, bad eyesight, and so on. Once you show an effect for your homeopathic water, you have to correct for spontaneous remission rates and the placebo effect. But that's not enough. You have to then demonstrate that your explanation is correct, in the case of UFOs by photographic and/or visual evidence, and in the case of homeopathy by demonstrating how molecular memory works chemically. Something empirical, or you have to admit that you don't have an explanation either.
And then we're going to get to the more vacuous claims of theists, where the rule is that their claims are almost certainly false where meaningful, and where they are even slightly possibly true they are also empty.
Laurens
New Member
I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this post, but I thought I'd have a ramble, now this topic is free again
For this post I shall be talking about the Judeo-Christian God, just so that's clear.
One characteristic attributed to this God is omnipresence - this means that if God is detectable by scientific means there would be evidence of 'his' presence everywhere we look. I think the problems with this are probably more apparent to a physicist, but the first thing that strikes me is how a God that is supposedly beyond space and time be everywhere in spacetime? That's like saying I'm both inside and outside a room. So if we grant that God is omnipresent, and beyond space and time, we are looking for something that contradicts itself...
But if we assume that God is omnipresent, then surely we'd have means of detecting such a being? Most theists would say not I'd imagine, by appealing to the outside of space and time cop-out, but we're not only just talking about a being that can exist everywhere at once (whilst bafflingly remaining outside of space and time), we're talking about a being that can intervene with physical matter.
I'll use the parting of the Red Sea as an example. In order to cause water to move and create a passing space for the Israelites, you'd need some kind of input of energy. So hypothetically if God exists then he either had to transfer energy from somewhere somehow, or he broke the law of conservation of energy. Either possibility we should be able to detect somehow. I'd posit that it is not possible for a being to interact with physical matter and remain completely undetectable by science. I'd say that the existence of such a God is resolutely a scientific claim, and should be detectable to science. Even if God himself remains undetectable in the process, we should hypothetically be able to detect traces of his presence...
So we'd be looking for evidence of a being that is everywhere, and can interfere with physical matter, yet exists outside of space and time (who also can take on human form, and telepathically forgive our sins etc...)
I think the whole 'outside of space and time' thing is a cop-out and most certainly contradicts the other supposed attributes of God. This cop-out is there because without it, the absence of evidence in favour of God's existence speaks volumes. However when it is employed God becomes logically contradictory. Either God exists outside of space and time, and you can be comfortable with the absence of evidence yet have to let go of a God that can exist everywhere and interact with matter, or you have to admit that God does exist within space and time, and should therefore be detectable by science, and have to deal with the overwhelming absence of positive evidence in favour of this. I'd say you can't have both.
Evidence for the Judeo-Christian God should be abundant if he exists...
For this post I shall be talking about the Judeo-Christian God, just so that's clear.
One characteristic attributed to this God is omnipresence - this means that if God is detectable by scientific means there would be evidence of 'his' presence everywhere we look. I think the problems with this are probably more apparent to a physicist, but the first thing that strikes me is how a God that is supposedly beyond space and time be everywhere in spacetime? That's like saying I'm both inside and outside a room. So if we grant that God is omnipresent, and beyond space and time, we are looking for something that contradicts itself...
But if we assume that God is omnipresent, then surely we'd have means of detecting such a being? Most theists would say not I'd imagine, by appealing to the outside of space and time cop-out, but we're not only just talking about a being that can exist everywhere at once (whilst bafflingly remaining outside of space and time), we're talking about a being that can intervene with physical matter.
I'll use the parting of the Red Sea as an example. In order to cause water to move and create a passing space for the Israelites, you'd need some kind of input of energy. So hypothetically if God exists then he either had to transfer energy from somewhere somehow, or he broke the law of conservation of energy. Either possibility we should be able to detect somehow. I'd posit that it is not possible for a being to interact with physical matter and remain completely undetectable by science. I'd say that the existence of such a God is resolutely a scientific claim, and should be detectable to science. Even if God himself remains undetectable in the process, we should hypothetically be able to detect traces of his presence...
So we'd be looking for evidence of a being that is everywhere, and can interfere with physical matter, yet exists outside of space and time (who also can take on human form, and telepathically forgive our sins etc...)
I think the whole 'outside of space and time' thing is a cop-out and most certainly contradicts the other supposed attributes of God. This cop-out is there because without it, the absence of evidence in favour of God's existence speaks volumes. However when it is employed God becomes logically contradictory. Either God exists outside of space and time, and you can be comfortable with the absence of evidence yet have to let go of a God that can exist everywhere and interact with matter, or you have to admit that God does exist within space and time, and should therefore be detectable by science, and have to deal with the overwhelming absence of positive evidence in favour of this. I'd say you can't have both.
Evidence for the Judeo-Christian God should be abundant if he exists...
The toughest imposter to work around would be some alien civilization with scientific mastery.
Still, they can't calculate faster than all the atoms in the universe used as a colossal quantum computer. But that's unnecessary since the parts light years (or even light minutes) apart would not be of any help to the being if we asked them to do some mathematical feat instantly (...I think, I might be wrong). So we need only find out how much matter that the being has less-than-light-minute access to, and calculate the greatest possible rate of mathematical calculation if they used all that matter with the most advanced computing architecture we speculate to be possible. Probably factor that rate by some large number just to be on the safe side, and then ask it to do a mathematical feat even faster and greater than that.
Provided the being isn't using something even more efficient than atoms to calculate, only a properly omniscient/potent being would exceed what all the matter available to them could possibly perform. Though the verification process would take our feeble and primitive computers a very long time, so maybe it's not practical.
Maybe more generally, even an alien race lives within physical limits (I assume). Ask it to do some feat that you "can't". We could get them to teleport between two points on Earth in a controlled and repeatable setting, and see if they exceed the speed of light. Ask them to build a magical device that has 400% energy efficient!
If my premise that the aliens couldn't exceed these limits is wrong, then that would highlight the issue of the question, since it would make "god" nothing special or relevant anyway.
Still, they can't calculate faster than all the atoms in the universe used as a colossal quantum computer. But that's unnecessary since the parts light years (or even light minutes) apart would not be of any help to the being if we asked them to do some mathematical feat instantly (...I think, I might be wrong). So we need only find out how much matter that the being has less-than-light-minute access to, and calculate the greatest possible rate of mathematical calculation if they used all that matter with the most advanced computing architecture we speculate to be possible. Probably factor that rate by some large number just to be on the safe side, and then ask it to do a mathematical feat even faster and greater than that.
Provided the being isn't using something even more efficient than atoms to calculate, only a properly omniscient/potent being would exceed what all the matter available to them could possibly perform. Though the verification process would take our feeble and primitive computers a very long time, so maybe it's not practical.
Maybe more generally, even an alien race lives within physical limits (I assume). Ask it to do some feat that you "can't". We could get them to teleport between two points on Earth in a controlled and repeatable setting, and see if they exceed the speed of light. Ask them to build a magical device that has 400% energy efficient!
If my premise that the aliens couldn't exceed these limits is wrong, then that would highlight the issue of the question, since it would make "god" nothing special or relevant anyway.