Well, sorry? "Your mannerisms, demeanor, expressions, physical form, experiences, etc. are not exactly like this person's, therefore it is logical to presume that there is a limit to the influence exerted over your being" seems pretty straightforward to me.
That's talking about how much influence they can exert, not how much capacity they can carry.
No, I've not once said that it would be available when we need it (that I can recall). That was your presumption.
You said:
Edit: Theory: What if it's a response to a situation where we need to know said information?
Maybe I misinterpreted you?
You're making it sound like you can call up Bob and say, "Hey Bob, breathe on me so I can gain your vast knowledge on the inner workings of peanut butter factories!" which is a gross mischaracterization of the machinations of the process I've explained.
What prevents that? Is it that Bob's breath might not contain his peanut butter knowledge? Or that you can't necessarily access it? Or something else?
Then why would you presume it's always available?
Because there's always some Julius Caesar floating around.
Shouldn't that be based on an individual's mind's capabilities?
Sure, but certainly you could remember some amount of stuff.
Well, sorry? "Your mannerisms, demeanor, expressions, physical form, experiences, etc. are not exactly like this person's, therefore it is logical to presume that there is a limit to the influence exerted over your being" seems pretty straightforward to me.
That's talking about how much influence they can exert, not how much capacity they can carry.
But given that that's not something we can tangibly measure, how can you be sure of the difference? Does the difference even matter in this example?
You said:
Edit: Theory: What if it's a response to a situation where we need to know said information?
Maybe I misinterpreted you?
Apparently. You asked a question and I supplied my best guess. It's by no means the be-all-end-all of what I'm professing. To expound on what I was saying, though, your entire conversation with me has only been taking into account the scope of what's directly in front of your face. You're not considering that there are a plethora of other factors at work, here, beyond "you have some of Julius Caesar's last breath in your inhalation". That's not how this works. You're oversimplifying the concept to the point of where it's unrecognizable as my original view on things and that's why (I feel) you're misunderstanding so much of what I'm saying.
What prevents that? Is it that Bob's breath might not contain his peanut butter knowledge? Or that you can't necessarily access it? Or something else?
I've tried to respond to this like 5 times and I don't even know how to begin explaining why it's not possible because there are so many flaws with your interpretation of my belief that I don't know what you actually understand about what I'm saying.
Because there's always some Julius Caesar floating around.
More Julius Caesar than anything else?
Sure, but certainly you could remember some amount of stuff.
Then sure, though certainly not 100% of the time, nor necessarily at all.
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I am of the opinion that an imprint is left on that energy and matter, at least from living, sentient beings, that leads to the influence of previous sentient existences on the current, physical form.
You later went on to cite intuition as one of the phenomena that suggests this is the case.
Perhaps if you could provide a more in-depth explanation of what the nature of the "influence" mentioned above is, and how it plays into intuition, I could understand better. Here's what my current (and apparently wrong) understanding is:
Whenever matter or energy passes through a person, some of that person's knowledge/personality/etc. is imprinted on that bit of matter of energy. Later, that bit of matter or energy will end up in another person. Then, that person is influenced by the imprint. This can lead to transfer of knowledge or personality. Intuition is explained by some of your current particles and energy having once been part of someone who knew the fact which you intuited, and that fact having been imprinted on those particles or energy.
I'm really not trying to intentionally mischaracterize your position, but whenever I think I have a grasp on a particular point, you tell me I've got it all wrong, so I'd like to get it nailed down.
You're confused. I'm referring to 2 different phenomena here. I get that you can't measure what kind of energy a type of energy was before. I'm saying that the fact that it has changed form is part of the influence.
Influence is a thing that causes a measurable force or effect -- indeed, that is definitional. If you can't measure it, it's not influence. You've said that you can't measure it, and yet it is influence. This is a problem.
We can only break down our essences but so much - once you get down to gluons and quarks, there's not much more you can do to go further. What I'm speaking of is an underlying consciousness beneath even that, which influences, well, everything.
Okay, right, so you're introducing a speculative, non-falsifiable, aphysical hypothesis to explain the soul. See, you hooked me with your teaser trailer about a soul that was empirical, yet spiritual -- but you're just doing the same old song and dance. Your hypothesis isn't materially different from classical Cartesian dualism.
I've spoken to some people who have gone on...shall we say, "mind adventures" (I'm sure it shouldn't be too difficult to pick up on what I mean) and have come to the same conclusions that I have (albeit my conclusions were without substance assistance) about universal structure.
There is nothing to be gained from immersing yourself in an echo chamber full of wrong ideas.
You're limiting the concept of the physical to what we have proven about the physical. There is more at work than that, here.
Because we don't know whether or not a thing is physical until we prove it. People thought that the aether was physical, that phlogiston was physical, that alchemy was physical, and all sorts of theories down the ages that have now been roundly rejected. We attempt to learn from our past mistakes in this regard, and we require a lot of work and repeatable proof before we believe these things.
Your sub-quark consciousness could very well be just another one of those things that goes in the pile with the phlogiston. I don't think you ought to be going around saying a thing is physical when you are simply confabulating and guessing.
More to the point, you aren't elevating the soul to the empirical or quantifiable here -- in fact, you're excluding it from that realm altogether with a "soul of the gaps" argument. I'll take even the Christian perspective over this any day; at least they admit they don't know or care a bit about physics and that the soul is independent from it.
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Ask what exactly? Can you explain in more detail the process you used to make sure it wasn't hindsight bias you were experiencing?
And--not to question your honestly but just for my own incredulity--have you actually done this with someone else to observe? Or do you normally just trust your own introspection.
Your hypothesis isn't materially different from classical Cartesian dualism.
Yeah, and I was really hoping it was But, maybe Iso can explain it better than the texts I've read on it. I never really "got" it.
I would have jumped in with you Crashing00 since--obviously--physics is nere and dear to my heart, but I did not want to hit Iso with too many arguers and redundant arguments at once, and you seemed to be doing a better job of it than I would have anyway.
Meh. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm being misunderstood, maybe I'm explaining myself insufficiently, and maybe I just don't know enough about physics to explain my concept thoroughly - though I didn't poke my head in here to be told any of that. I was merely offering my view on the matter. Sorry if I came across as condescending or ruffled some feathers. I'm gonna bow out, though, because I feel like the conversation is making no progress. I would continue to explain, but it appears we're just going in circles. Pleasure chatting with you gents.
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Meh. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm being misunderstood, maybe I'm explaining myself insufficiently, and maybe I just don't know enough about physics to explain my concept thoroughly - though I didn't poke my head in here to be told any of that. I was merely offering my view on the matter. Sorry if I came across as condescending or ruffled some feathers. I'm gonna bow out, though, because I feel like the conversation is making no progress. I would continue to explain, but it appears we're just going in circles. Pleasure chatting with you gents.
So was this:
Whenever matter or energy passes through a person, some of that person's knowledge/personality/etc. is imprinted on that bit of matter of energy. Later, that bit of matter or energy will end up in another person. Then, that person is influenced by the imprint. This can lead to transfer of knowledge or personality. Intuition is explained by some of your current particles and energy having once been part of someone who knew the fact which you intuited, and that fact having been imprinted on those particles or energy.
an accurate or inaccurate summary of what you were saying? I don't mean to incite any unwanted responses, a simple yes or no will sate my curiosity.
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I know you said you would leave, so don't feel obligated to answer, but what then allows you to reconcile this idea with the fact that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this doesn't happen and that its occurrence is impossible?
I know you said you would leave, so don't feel obligated to answer, but what then allows you to reconcile this idea with the fact that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this doesn't happen and that its occurrence is impossible?
There isn't evidence to suggest that it doesn't happen, only evidence to suggest that the ways in which we observe things are unable to prove that it does happen.
They are mostly similar, but they are not the same. You can't know for a fact that the world is round until you've circumnavigated it.
I know you said you would leave, so don't feel obligated to answer, but what then allows you to reconcile this idea with the fact that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this doesn't happen and that its occurrence is impossible?
There isn't evidence to suggest that it doesn't happen, only evidence to suggest that the ways in which we observe things are unable to prove that it does happen.
They are mostly similar, but they are not the same. You can't know for a fact that the world is round until you've circumnavigated it.
Evidence of it being impossible is the fact that fundamental particles, atoms, individual molecules, are indistinguishable from each other outside of position/velocity. If there were some method of a person's "personality" being imparted to these objects, it would have to be quantifiable (or else it would not exist) and we would observe its effects.
We have not observed such effects. That is evidence for it not happening. It's different from the following case:
1. There is a body in the woods.
2. We have no evidence that this person was murdered.
3. Therefore, this person was not murdered.
The difference here is that in testable environments we would have detected differences in the behaviors of particles and any ability for them to transfer a person's psyche onto another. When we have performed tests that would have revealed such an effect if it were to exist. In the above statement, no tests have been performed that would help us identify whether or not it was a murder.
And you are correct in saying that we aren't absolutely certain such phenomenon don't exist since we can never be absolutely certain about anything. However, we can accept or reject the hypothesis based on the probability that it is true. If there is a 99.99999% chance that your hypothesis is wrong, it is, to most people, flat out wrong.
We can make that assumption, as long as we also assume that the ways in which we observe the world are the only ways in which we can observe it.
We both know that is not true, so to say with certainty that something is not so is dishonest. We can say its unlikely, but it is not any more unlikely than anything else spiritual in nature.
After all, the atom was given it's name because it was thought to be indivisible, and then we thought that its divisions were indivisible, soon I have no doubt we'll find out more about the bosons and determine that they aren't indivisible as well.
We only know as much as we can see, and if history is anything to learn from, we are perpetually blind.
Didn't read the thread; just came from the OP straight here to say this: there are lots of places where pagan religions are villified. If you want a strong counterexample, however, come to Olympia, WA.
We just had a massive art show that features works from all manner of alternative religions including Wiccans and Norse Reconstructionists...and one Christian fellow. The Christian got booed out of his booth and had to take his art away because the crowd decided that HE was trying to 'inflict' Christianity on THEM with his calm little booth. They accused him of being a hateful bigot...completely failing to see their hypocrisy in the matter.
So I guess the answer is "not everywhere."
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We can make that assumption, as long as we also assume that the ways in which we observe the world are the only ways in which we can observe it.
What assumption?
We both know that is not true, so to say with certainty that something is not so is dishonest. We can say its unlikely, but it is not any more unlikely than anything else spiritual in nature.
Okay so if the argument is:
1. I have let go of this ball and it hit the ground 9 billion times.
2. It is possible that the 9 billion and 1th time the ball might turn into a tyrannosaur and eat everybody on earth.
3. Therefore, my belief in atomic spirituality is justified.
You may as well just not accept anything since we could be wrong about any number of things. In this scenario, you are essentially suggesting that every single experiment that involves the effects of molecular or smaller objects on macroscopic objects would have had to have been wrong for this to occur.
After all, the atom was given it's name because it was thought to be indivisible, and then we thought that its divisions were indivisible, soon I have no doubt we'll find out more about the bosons and determine that they aren't indivisible as well.
We only know as much as we can see, and if history is anything to learn from, we are perpetually blind.
You are correct that we will likely learn more about the world. But we are not likely to learn something like this. Such a phenomenon would have to be documented because it makes extremely real and easily testable claims. We may learn the means to reconcile quantum mechanics and relativity, but we are (most likely) not going to discover that quarks can randomly transform into unicorns.
after reading all these replies i kind of have to laugh....history books seem to be collecting dust on someones desk.
with that snide comment aside, i am wiccan. go ahead laugh. its fine. wiccans do often get the short end of the stick and unlike most of the religions within the upper americas we certaintily are not the most accepted branch of people, nor the most known either. in order to discriminate a party, one must have all other parties involved know such party does in face exist. I go around and do my practices and not a rock is thrown....why? because wiccans have sunken to far into the background to be discriminated.
We both know that is not true, so to say with certainty that something is not so is dishonest. We can say its unlikely, but it is not any more unlikely than anything else spiritual in nature.
Okay so if the argument is:
1. I have let go of this ball and it hit the ground 9 billion times.
2. It is possible that the 9 billion and 1th time the ball might turn into a tyrannosaur and eat everybody on earth.
3. Therefore, my belief in atomic spirituality is justified.
You may as well just not accept anything since we could be wrong about any number of things. In this scenario, you are essentially suggesting that every single experiment that involves the effects of molecular or smaller objects on macroscopic objects would have had to have been wrong for this to occur.
I have no idea where you got number 2. Its more like:
1. I have searched for evidence of spirits 9 billion times.
2. It is possible that the methods I've used are not effective in identifying something that has properties unknown to modern science.
3. Therefore, my theory of spirits isn't able to be disproved, only evidence can be shown that current scientific methods are unable to identify it.
We didn't have proof about dark matter until VERY recently, but it didn't stop theoretical physicists from talking about it, researching it, and altering their methods to identify something that was at one time thought to be unidentifyable.
After all, the atom was given it's name because it was thought to be indivisible, and then we thought that its divisions were indivisible, soon I have no doubt we'll find out more about the bosons and determine that they aren't indivisible as well.
We only know as much as we can see, and if history is anything to learn from, we are perpetually blind.
You are correct that we will likely learn more about the world. But we are not likely to learn something like this. Such a phenomenon would have to be documented because it makes extremely real and easily testable claims. We may learn the means to reconcile quantum mechanics and relativity, but we are (most likely) not going to discover that quarks can randomly transform into unicorns.
Once again, unicorns, wtf?
I see the problem here, you're close minded. Because you don't see how there is potential for discovery here, you're going to assume anything I have to say is as fantastic as unicorns and dragons.
Scientific advancement and technology is often viewed by unadvanced people as magic. If you were to grab someone from 100 years ago and drop him into our point in time, they would most likely view us as sorcerors using magic.
You are the church, and you are trying to convince Galileo that his idea for a telescope is dumb because it has been scientifically proven that the Earth is the center of the universe.
The assumption that because there has been no proof of spirits that spirits don't exist.
I did not make that assumption. In fact, I have in every instance supported the same position as you while on this board. I can give you post references if you wish.
In any case, the argument is not "There is no proof for spirits, therefore, there are no spirits", the argument is:
1. If particles/molecules/what-have-you had the properties you described, these phenomena would have been noticed.
2. We have never witnessed such phenomena.
3. Therefore, it is extremely likely these phenomena do not exist.
If you want to argue that spirits could exist, sure, I can accept that. We have no parameters to measure/know whether or not they exist. However, if you start to claim spirits possess people to start dairy farms in montana, we can very easily check to see whether spirits as defined by your constraints exist.
I have no idea where you got number 2. Its more like:
1. I have searched for evidence of spirits 9 billion times.
2. It is possible that the methods I've used are not effective in identifying something that has properties unknown to modern science.
3. Therefore, my theory of spirits isn't able to be disproved, only evidence can be shown that current scientific methods are unable to identify it.
This argument fails in 3 ways:
1. The original argument described particles as having measurable effects. Not "searching for evidence". If you say "particles would have extended this effect to people" then we can very easily test that. If your argument is "spirits exist" but don't tell us what spirits do, then there is no way anybody could prove you wrong.
2. Okay, but the claim was that the particles had very real and easily testable hypotheses; not properties that would be undetectable with modern instruments.
3. The argument is about whether or not particles/molecules can pass on somebody's personality onto another being via contact. It has nothing to do with spirits unless you want to define spirits that way.
We didn't have proof about dark matter until VERY recently, but it didn't stop theoretical physicists from talking about it, researching it, and altering their methods to identify something that was at one time thought to be unidentifyable.
And we saw discrepancies with what we expected to measure and what we actually measured. For the same reason, if you want to say "spirits do X" but we see no discrepancy between what we would expect and what we measure, then spirits don't exist.
I see the problem here, you're close minded. Because you don't see how there is potential for discovery here, you're going to assume anything I have to say is as fantastic as unicorns and dragons.
No, I am not close minded, I am realistic. In fact, I would say I am probably more open minded than you because I don't latch onto beliefs and accept all possibilities.
That having been said, I am not saying your arguments are akin to "dragons and unicorns"; I used fictional beasts because they are logical constructs that serve the exact same purpose as your "spirits". It IS possible, by the way, for a ball to spontaneously transform into a tyrannosaur and eat everybody on earth. Anybody who says they can be 100% certain that it is not true is a liar or ignorant, and that is a fact.
Scientific advancement and technology is often viewed by unadvanced people as magic. If you were to grab someone from 100 years ago and drop him into our point in time, they would most likely view us as sorcerors using magic.
You are the church, and you are trying to convince Galileo that his idea for a telescope is dumb because it has been scientifically proven that the Earth is the center of the universe.
Not at all. There is absolutely no observation, evidence, etc, to support the hypothesis. That is true. And that doesn't mean the theory is wrong. However, in this case what is claimed goes directly against presented and what we know about the observable world.
You can make whatever claims you want about stuff people could not know and be correct. You cannot make claims about stuff people DO know and pretend that it is equivalent.
ok I read through the first few pages and I feel like I have to say something. The fact is most early pagan belief is merely a metaphor for what the people didn't understand look at the myth of pershephone and Hades for an example. and eventually the metaphor became God did it so shut up and quit asking. now having said that I love my Goddess and I was raised to believe that anything in the bible that isn't an obvious metaphor or similie is the factual truth but faith is about more than that its about what you feel I never felt a connection to the Judeo-Chirstian God so the comparison is all subjective anyway. Neo pagans are treated differntly but either as fodder for ridicule or as a curiosity I have a spent a good deal of my life as an agnostic before I found the Mother and I have a number of discussions with the christain I am friends with that began and ended with "you are going to hell" and I did not care to grow in faith that faith must be challenged
tldr; you think what you want Ill think what I want
That's talking about how much influence they can exert, not how much capacity they can carry.
You said:
Maybe I misinterpreted you?
What prevents that? Is it that Bob's breath might not contain his peanut butter knowledge? Or that you can't necessarily access it? Or something else?
Because there's always some Julius Caesar floating around.
Sure, but certainly you could remember some amount of stuff.
But given that that's not something we can tangibly measure, how can you be sure of the difference? Does the difference even matter in this example?
Apparently. You asked a question and I supplied my best guess. It's by no means the be-all-end-all of what I'm professing. To expound on what I was saying, though, your entire conversation with me has only been taking into account the scope of what's directly in front of your face. You're not considering that there are a plethora of other factors at work, here, beyond "you have some of Julius Caesar's last breath in your inhalation". That's not how this works. You're oversimplifying the concept to the point of where it's unrecognizable as my original view on things and that's why (I feel) you're misunderstanding so much of what I'm saying.
I've tried to respond to this like 5 times and I don't even know how to begin explaining why it's not possible because there are so many flaws with your interpretation of my belief that I don't know what you actually understand about what I'm saying.
More Julius Caesar than anything else?
Then sure, though certainly not 100% of the time, nor necessarily at all.
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The statement that I'm trying to understand is this one:
You later went on to cite intuition as one of the phenomena that suggests this is the case.
Perhaps if you could provide a more in-depth explanation of what the nature of the "influence" mentioned above is, and how it plays into intuition, I could understand better. Here's what my current (and apparently wrong) understanding is:
Whenever matter or energy passes through a person, some of that person's knowledge/personality/etc. is imprinted on that bit of matter of energy. Later, that bit of matter or energy will end up in another person. Then, that person is influenced by the imprint. This can lead to transfer of knowledge or personality. Intuition is explained by some of your current particles and energy having once been part of someone who knew the fact which you intuited, and that fact having been imprinted on those particles or energy.
I'm really not trying to intentionally mischaracterize your position, but whenever I think I have a grasp on a particular point, you tell me I've got it all wrong, so I'd like to get it nailed down.
Influence is a thing that causes a measurable force or effect -- indeed, that is definitional. If you can't measure it, it's not influence. You've said that you can't measure it, and yet it is influence. This is a problem.
Okay, right, so you're introducing a speculative, non-falsifiable, aphysical hypothesis to explain the soul. See, you hooked me with your teaser trailer about a soul that was empirical, yet spiritual -- but you're just doing the same old song and dance. Your hypothesis isn't materially different from classical Cartesian dualism.
There is nothing to be gained from immersing yourself in an echo chamber full of wrong ideas.
Because we don't know whether or not a thing is physical until we prove it. People thought that the aether was physical, that phlogiston was physical, that alchemy was physical, and all sorts of theories down the ages that have now been roundly rejected. We attempt to learn from our past mistakes in this regard, and we require a lot of work and repeatable proof before we believe these things.
Your sub-quark consciousness could very well be just another one of those things that goes in the pile with the phlogiston. I don't think you ought to be going around saying a thing is physical when you are simply confabulating and guessing.
More to the point, you aren't elevating the soul to the empirical or quantifiable here -- in fact, you're excluding it from that realm altogether with a "soul of the gaps" argument. I'll take even the Christian perspective over this any day; at least they admit they don't know or care a bit about physics and that the soul is independent from it.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
And--not to question your honestly but just for my own incredulity--have you actually done this with someone else to observe? Or do you normally just trust your own introspection.
Yeah, and I was really hoping it was But, maybe Iso can explain it better than the texts I've read on it. I never really "got" it.
I would have jumped in with you Crashing00 since--obviously--physics is nere and dear to my heart, but I did not want to hit Iso with too many arguers and redundant arguments at once, and you seemed to be doing a better job of it than I would have anyway.
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So was this:
an accurate or inaccurate summary of what you were saying? I don't mean to incite any unwanted responses, a simple yes or no will sate my curiosity.
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There isn't evidence to suggest that it doesn't happen, only evidence to suggest that the ways in which we observe things are unable to prove that it does happen.
They are mostly similar, but they are not the same. You can't know for a fact that the world is round until you've circumnavigated it.
Evidence of it being impossible is the fact that fundamental particles, atoms, individual molecules, are indistinguishable from each other outside of position/velocity. If there were some method of a person's "personality" being imparted to these objects, it would have to be quantifiable (or else it would not exist) and we would observe its effects.
We have not observed such effects. That is evidence for it not happening. It's different from the following case:
1. There is a body in the woods.
2. We have no evidence that this person was murdered.
3. Therefore, this person was not murdered.
The difference here is that in testable environments we would have detected differences in the behaviors of particles and any ability for them to transfer a person's psyche onto another. When we have performed tests that would have revealed such an effect if it were to exist. In the above statement, no tests have been performed that would help us identify whether or not it was a murder.
And you are correct in saying that we aren't absolutely certain such phenomenon don't exist since we can never be absolutely certain about anything. However, we can accept or reject the hypothesis based on the probability that it is true. If there is a 99.99999% chance that your hypothesis is wrong, it is, to most people, flat out wrong.
We both know that is not true, so to say with certainty that something is not so is dishonest. We can say its unlikely, but it is not any more unlikely than anything else spiritual in nature.
After all, the atom was given it's name because it was thought to be indivisible, and then we thought that its divisions were indivisible, soon I have no doubt we'll find out more about the bosons and determine that they aren't indivisible as well.
We only know as much as we can see, and if history is anything to learn from, we are perpetually blind.
We just had a massive art show that features works from all manner of alternative religions including Wiccans and Norse Reconstructionists...and one Christian fellow. The Christian got booed out of his booth and had to take his art away because the crowd decided that HE was trying to 'inflict' Christianity on THEM with his calm little booth. They accused him of being a hateful bigot...completely failing to see their hypocrisy in the matter.
So I guess the answer is "not everywhere."
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What assumption?
Okay so if the argument is:
1. I have let go of this ball and it hit the ground 9 billion times.
2. It is possible that the 9 billion and 1th time the ball might turn into a tyrannosaur and eat everybody on earth.
3. Therefore, my belief in atomic spirituality is justified.
You may as well just not accept anything since we could be wrong about any number of things. In this scenario, you are essentially suggesting that every single experiment that involves the effects of molecular or smaller objects on macroscopic objects would have had to have been wrong for this to occur.
You are correct that we will likely learn more about the world. But we are not likely to learn something like this. Such a phenomenon would have to be documented because it makes extremely real and easily testable claims. We may learn the means to reconcile quantum mechanics and relativity, but we are (most likely) not going to discover that quarks can randomly transform into unicorns.
with that snide comment aside, i am wiccan. go ahead laugh. its fine. wiccans do often get the short end of the stick and unlike most of the religions within the upper americas we certaintily are not the most accepted branch of people, nor the most known either. in order to discriminate a party, one must have all other parties involved know such party does in face exist. I go around and do my practices and not a rock is thrown....why? because wiccans have sunken to far into the background to be discriminated.
We're all a little mad here:D
The assumption that because there has been no proof of spirits that spirits don't exist.
I have no idea where you got number 2. Its more like:
1. I have searched for evidence of spirits 9 billion times.
2. It is possible that the methods I've used are not effective in identifying something that has properties unknown to modern science.
3. Therefore, my theory of spirits isn't able to be disproved, only evidence can be shown that current scientific methods are unable to identify it.
We didn't have proof about dark matter until VERY recently, but it didn't stop theoretical physicists from talking about it, researching it, and altering their methods to identify something that was at one time thought to be unidentifyable.
Once again, unicorns, wtf?
I see the problem here, you're close minded. Because you don't see how there is potential for discovery here, you're going to assume anything I have to say is as fantastic as unicorns and dragons.
Scientific advancement and technology is often viewed by unadvanced people as magic. If you were to grab someone from 100 years ago and drop him into our point in time, they would most likely view us as sorcerors using magic.
You are the church, and you are trying to convince Galileo that his idea for a telescope is dumb because it has been scientifically proven that the Earth is the center of the universe.
Spam warning.
We're all a little mad here:D
I did not make that assumption. In fact, I have in every instance supported the same position as you while on this board. I can give you post references if you wish.
In any case, the argument is not "There is no proof for spirits, therefore, there are no spirits", the argument is:
1. If particles/molecules/what-have-you had the properties you described, these phenomena would have been noticed.
2. We have never witnessed such phenomena.
3. Therefore, it is extremely likely these phenomena do not exist.
If you want to argue that spirits could exist, sure, I can accept that. We have no parameters to measure/know whether or not they exist. However, if you start to claim spirits possess people to start dairy farms in montana, we can very easily check to see whether spirits as defined by your constraints exist.
This argument fails in 3 ways:
1. The original argument described particles as having measurable effects. Not "searching for evidence". If you say "particles would have extended this effect to people" then we can very easily test that. If your argument is "spirits exist" but don't tell us what spirits do, then there is no way anybody could prove you wrong.
2. Okay, but the claim was that the particles had very real and easily testable hypotheses; not properties that would be undetectable with modern instruments.
3. The argument is about whether or not particles/molecules can pass on somebody's personality onto another being via contact. It has nothing to do with spirits unless you want to define spirits that way.
And we saw discrepancies with what we expected to measure and what we actually measured. For the same reason, if you want to say "spirits do X" but we see no discrepancy between what we would expect and what we measure, then spirits don't exist.
No, I am not close minded, I am realistic. In fact, I would say I am probably more open minded than you because I don't latch onto beliefs and accept all possibilities.
That having been said, I am not saying your arguments are akin to "dragons and unicorns"; I used fictional beasts because they are logical constructs that serve the exact same purpose as your "spirits". It IS possible, by the way, for a ball to spontaneously transform into a tyrannosaur and eat everybody on earth. Anybody who says they can be 100% certain that it is not true is a liar or ignorant, and that is a fact.
Not at all. There is absolutely no observation, evidence, etc, to support the hypothesis. That is true. And that doesn't mean the theory is wrong. However, in this case what is claimed goes directly against presented and what we know about the observable world.
You can make whatever claims you want about stuff people could not know and be correct. You cannot make claims about stuff people DO know and pretend that it is equivalent.
tldr; you think what you want Ill think what I want