Is Scientific Materialism a belief system?

[Doug1029]

17 hours ago, Illyrius said:

I am not so sure that oxygen deprivation is the cause of this experiences, that would take the whole topic by itself.

I agree spirit escapes the science which takes as real only what 5 senses receive. That is what this topic is about actually. However, from science itself we know our senses are limited, very limited. Only because modern scientific instruments we became aware of many things which previously were unknown to senses. So i simply say; if before this instruments were available someone said: "the only reality that exists is what our senses perceive", he would be sorely wrong.

We are able of making conclusions from thinking and clearly it is obvious that this sort of purely empirical approach to reality is false.

I would describe it as limited, not false.

I saw an article yesterday on what happens when the brain dies.  I tried to find it again, but no luck.  At any rate, when circulation ceases, the nerve cells become deprived of oxygen and glucose.  To conserve what they have, they shut down.  This happens simultaneously throughout the brain.  If the supply is restored during this, the last few seconds of life, the person can recover, having had a near death experience.  But if the supply is not restored, a total shut-down wave passes through the brain.  There is no recovering from this.  The consciousness is gone - permanently.

At this point, there are still live cells in the person's body.  They face a desperate situation, like being trapped on the Titanic.  Even after cellular death some genes continue to operate, even increasing their activities.  There are lots of different levels of "dead."

People who have "come back from the dead" have reached the nerve cell shutdown phase.  They were, in fact, only seconds from death, but fate in the form of a physician or first aider interceded to restore blood flow.

I would define "death" as the loss of consciousness that accompanies the cessation of brain activity.  As far as can be objectively determined, there is no consciouness without the brain.  At least, nobody ever stood up and said their brain went somehwere else.

Doug

[Illyrius]

1 hour ago, Doug1o29 said:

I would describe it as limited, not false.

I saw an article yesterday on what happens when the brain dies.  I tried to find it again, but no luck.  At any rate, when circulation ceases, the nerve cells become deprived of oxygen and glucose.  To conserve what they have, they shut down.  This happens simultaneously throughout the brain.  If the supply is restored during this, the last few seconds of life, the person can recover, having had a near death experience.  But if the supply is not restored, a total shut-down wave passes through the brain.  There is no recovering from this.  The consciousness is gone - permanently.

At this point, there are still live cells in the person's body.  They face a desperate situation, like being trapped on the Titanic.  Even after cellular death some genes continue to operate, even increasing their activities.  There are lots of different levels of "dead."

People who have "come back from the dead" have reached the nerve cell shutdown phase.  They were, in fact, only seconds from death, but fate in the form of a physician or first aider interceded to restore blood flow.

I would define "death" as the loss of consciousness that accompanies the cessation of brain activity.  As far as can be objectively determined, there is no consciouness without the brain.  At least, nobody ever stood up and said their brain went somehwere else.

Doug

I would also describe it as limited if it admits it is limited and confined to investigating material world and phenomena of material word. But when it turns into a creed which claims that the matter which it investigates is the only reality then we have a bit of the problem.

It wouldn't be a problem that this sort of creed is lets say of a local non-significant character, this sort of creed is world-wide and getting more stronger and prominent every day. Science gained wide recognition amongst the people because what stands behind it as fruits of its labours is a world of modern technology and modern medicine. I would call that MR. Jackyill of science, and what it turned into with all dogmas and prejudices which it holds now and tries to impose on the rest of the world - namely the Scientific Materalism - i would call that a MR. Hyde side of science.

Edited March 1, 2018 by Illyrius

[Doug1029]

39 minutes ago, Illyrius said:

I would also describe it as limited if it admits it is limited and confined to investigating material world and phenomena of material word. But when it turns into a creed which claims that the matter which it investigates is the only reality then we have a bit of the problem.

It wouldn't be a problem that this sort of creed is lets say of a local non-significant character, this sort of creed is world-wide and getting more stronger and prominent. Science gained wide recognition amongst the people because what stands behind it as fruits of its labours is a world of modern technology and modern medicine. I would call that MR. Jackyill of science, and what it turned into with all dogmas and prejudices which it holds now and tries to impose on the rest of the world - namely the Scientific Materalism - i would call that a MR. Hyde side of science.

The problem is that we can't demonstrate that spirituality exists as anything other than an idea in the mind.  That deprives science of anything to study.  It doesn't help that psychiastrists and psychologists have criticized their own profession for a lack of scientific rigor.  Remember suppressed memories?  People were being convicted of crimes on the basis of false memories implanted by clinicians in people's minds.  That's what happens when you don't follow the rules of investigation.  In this case, a Type II error, the worst kind:  rejecting truth (Type I is accepting a falsehood.).

As for following those rules:  it ain't easy.  I am now trying to prove that there is a difference in two tree planting methods.  I can see that the trees that got weed barrier treatment are bigger and healthier than those that didn't, but proving it?  Does that hold true on different sites?  How do I know the differences were caused by the treatment and not the soil?

Even published researchers have trouble with all the nuances that differences in data collection or experimental design produce.  How does one explain Ph.D. level statistics to someone who had trouble with high school math?  The fact that a scientist can't give you six years of math/stat in ten minutes makes it seem like he's being dogmatic.  The problem is that he has no way to explain how he knows his conclusion to be true.

Scientists become specialists.  They have to.  If they are going to extend knowledge, they have to know everything there is to know about their subject.  That's why they choose small subjects.  One does not want to spend a career re-inventing the wheel.  That's not a way to get grants.  Is there anyone on UM who can say they know everything there is to know about any aspect of spiritualism?  If you were going to advance the study of spiritualism, what one question would you ask first?

Each science has a central theorem:  a single statement on which the subject is based.  Is there such a statement for spiritualism?  What is it?

Rather than saying "Scientists hate spiritualism," let's get busy and advance the subject.  Ask that question, then let's pose it as a hypothesis and see if we can figure out how to test it.  That's how you apply science to a subject.

Doug

P.S.:  I suspect that spiritualists and scientists suffer from different perspectives.  A scientist studies near-death experiences in terms of what can be observed in someone else.  The spiritualist studies the experiences a person perceives from a near-death experience.

The scientist is trying to discover the common features of near-death experiences.  How many people perceive it as a positive thing?  How many as negative?  Is there a correlation between the experience and a person's psychology?  Might the psychology be determining the perception of the experience?  Etc.

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea how the spiritualist would approach the issue.

 

I am a practicing Quaker, so I have some experience with meditation and spirituality.  There are several scientists who are members of our meeting.  Science and spirituality are very compatible.  But getting the two together is like trying to mix hot and cold water:  you don't get hot water and you don't get cold water:  you get luke-warm water.  I get the best results by remembering that there is truth not accessible to reason.

Doug

Edited March 1, 2018 by Doug1029

[Illyrius]

3 hours ago, Doug1o29 said:

It doesn't help that psychiastrists and psychologists have criticized their own profession for a lack of scientific rigor.  Remember suppressed memories?  People were being convicted of crimes on the basis of false memories implanted by clinicians in people's minds.  That's what happens when you don't follow the rules of investigation.  In this case, a Type II error, the worst kind:  rejecting truth (Type I is accepting a falsehood.).

This is a good example. Since things with invisible phenomena are not clearly detectable, they are more suspectible to error, this doesn't mean all concepts of psychology are wrong. It doesn't deal with clearly detectable things but still it is acknowledged to be present as a subject of study in universities. So why close a mind to similar sciences?

Errors are possible in physical science too. One idea holds truth some time, and then gets replaced with something different. What is the real difference?

[Doug1029]

56 minutes ago, Illyrius said:

This is a good example. Since things with invisible phenomena are not clearly detectable, they are more suspectible to error, this doesn't mean all concepts of psychology are wrong. It doesn't deal with clearly detectable things but still it is acknowledged to be present as a subject of study in universities. So why close a mind to similar sciences?

Errors are possible in physical science too. One idea holds truth some time, and then gets replaced with something different. What is the real difference?

Science is how you think about things.  If you can think scientifically about spirituality, then it is amenable to scientific investigation.  As a practioner of a "hard" science, I can see the point-of-view that psychology isn't science, but at least, psychologists try to apply the scientific method.  The determining feature is that scientific conclusions can be tested.  Can you test a spiritual conclusion?

The difference is that in science, mistakes are detectable and reparable.  How do you detect a mistake in spirituality?  And if you do, how do you fix it?

"Error" is a little different from the way you are using the term.  Errors are inherrent in your measuring system because the equipment has limited sensitivity, or the computational method produces a bias, etc.  An error is not a mistake.  Errors you must live with; mistakes can be fixed.

Doug

Edited March 1, 2018 by Doug1029