Can science prove that god doesn't exist ?

[Evo]

but can you prove God does not exist?

That's silly. I could list thousands of things that don't exist and ask you to disprove them. If a person believes in a god, the burden of proof is on them, I don't have to prove them wrong, they have to prove they are right. That's how it works.

 

[Noxide]

Why did a binary question turn into an evil beast?

The answer is no.

 

[Evo]

Why did a binary question turn into an evil beast?

The answer is no.

A thread that should have been solved with one post of "no" has over 100 posts. Only in Philosophy...

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Well, let's flip it around: Science has advanced far, far beyond what was imaginable 650 years ago.

Yet theists who insist upon the fact that God is showable use the exact same arguments Thomas Aquinas wrote down 650 years ago. If it really was meaningfull to attempt to PROVE God, I think we can agree that they would have advanced somewhat. Instead, it seems that it's mostly attempts to apply Aquinas' (and by extension, Aristotle's and Augustine's) arguments to modern day science - For one, Intelligent Design (which attempt to prove an intelligent creator) is just an application of Aquinas' fourth proof, the teleological argument.

I think that speaks for itself in that disproof of god is a meaningless activitiy.

 

[magpies]

The only one that can prove gods existence is god and it might be that the only one that god can prove it to is himself. Just like I can not "prove" my existence to you all. It takes being god to understand god imo.

 

[Mkorr]

If it can be demonstrated that the mind is identical to, or a function of, a material brain, and if this particular entity is defined as a brainless mind, then some trouble might emerge for this particular notion of this entity. Another formulation could be that since all known mental activity has a physical basis, there are most likely no brainless or disembodied minds. But many forms of this entity is conceived of as a disembodied mind. Therefore, such concepts as this entity are probably does not refer to anything that exists. The formalized argument might be

P1. There are probably no such things as an disembodied mind (an empirically supported premise).
P2. If X exists, X is a disembodied mind (definition, or follows from definition).
C. Therefore, probably, X does not exist (from P1 and P2 via modus tollens).

Obviously, this argument may not be perfect, but it could be one interesting perspective to take and best of all, it is at least partly empirical. It is not an absolute proof of course (very hard to get those in science), but it seems to be evidence-based.

 

[Mkorr]

Oh, and by the way, science does not deal with proving that stuff doesn't exist (proof of a universal negative). That's only something that mathematics can do, so long as the "stuff" involved is a mathematical object. So to address the thread title, science can not prove that god doesn't exists, nor can it prove that leprechauns, elves or gremlins don't exist.

http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialscien...ER_5_ARGUMENTS_EXPERIENCE/Burden-of-Proof.htm

However, we can provide evidence for a universal negative. For instance, to my knowledge, there is a lot of evidence against the existence of a perpetual motion machine (or equivalently stated, evidence for the universal nonexistence of a perpetual motion machine). This is not proof (in the sense of mathematical proof) of course, but it is empirical evidence.

 

[magpies]

Where did you get the "there are probably no such things as an disembodied mind?" part?

 

[Mkorr]

Where did you get the "there are probably no such things as an disembodied mind?" part?

It is an empirical premise supported by works done in cognitive sciences, which has, I think, showed that most of our cognitive faculties are identical to and/or depend crucially on the brain. This entity X is often conceived of as having very powerful cognitive faculties, yet no brain or equivalent structure.

There are many independent lines of evidence for mind/brain physicalism. We have mapped cognitive faculties to areas of the brain, we notice that when someone has damaged their brain, the corresponding cognitive faculty is also damaged, chemicals such as drugs disrupt the chemical balance and the brain, but also the reliability of cognitive faculties. Crucial menal functions such as reason, attention, clarity and control, decline just as certain chemicals decline in availability. Organisms with more differentiated brain tend to have more differentiated cognitive faculties. Organisms with a brain that has a larger occipital lobe, for instance, tend to have better vision.

If it is the case that destroying parts of a brain destroys parts of a mind, then destroying all the parts of a brain will destroy the whole mind. I think this is enough justification for that premise.

 

[magpies]

Well in all honesty I am not sold but that's probably because I have a different understanding for what a mind is then you seem to. It seems to me that you think mind and brain are the same thing just two different words for the same thing. To me that is not the case and the difference between mind and brain is about as different as zero and infinity imo.

 

[Mkorr]

Well in all honesty I am not sold but that's probably because I have a different understanding for what a mind is then you seem to. It seems to me that you think mind and brain are the same thing just two different words for the same thing. To me that is not the case and the difference between mind and brain is about as different as zero and infinity imo.

You are of course free to believe whatever you want, but you cannot have your own facts. As I have tried to argued, the scientific evidence seems to strongly supports mind/brain physicalism. What evidence do you feel supports dualism? What problem do you see with the evidence I have presented?

 

[magpies]

Well I think the problem is that there isn't a difference between mind and brain for you or at least that's the way it seems. If I said trains and cars are the same thing you would obviously not agree. However if I said that mind and brain are the same thing you would agree. I don't for the life of me really understand why?

 

[Mkorr]

Well I think the problem is that there isn't a difference between mind and brain for you or at least that's the way it seems. If I said trains and cars are the same thing you would obviously not agree. However if I said that mind and brain are the same thing you would agree. I don't for the life of me really understand why?

Because of the scientific evidence. I gave a short presentation of some of that evidence in a previous post.

What would convince you that the mind is identical or crucially depend on the brain?

 

[magpies]

From my understand it really can't be so I guess you would have to show that my logic in this regards is flawed. You will have to convince me that a train is a car basically. While I can see that trains are similar to cars in my mind they are not the same thing. Just as a mind has things in common with a brain they are however not the same thing to me.

 

[GeorgCantor]

I don't know how you got to the mind/brain argument in this particular thread, but let me give you my 2 cents worth...

You both assume a brain is a brain and a mind is a mind. What this seems to imply is that you both think we have a good understanding of what matter is. Look more closely and you will see that this is wrong.

First matter is 99.9999% empty space, it's made of neither particles nor waves as we imagine them. Scientists cannot unambiguously describe matter, matter is still very baffling. Molecules can pass through one slit or 2 slits, depending what question you choose to ask. Moreover, making a few widely accepted assumptions doesn't agree with the most tested theory of physics - QM. Local realism appears to be a contradiction, a cognitive dissonance and perhaps a mind trick. More to the point, some experiments strongly suggest that the observer cannot be removed from the system being measured.

Particles of matter appear to influence each other when they share a common source even when they are spatially separated. And what you call particles isn't anywhere really close to being particles at all. We have no picture and certainly no intuitive understanding of what matter really is. With that in mind, what is a brain? And what is mind? And are they different? I'd say they are not, but for the reasons i stated above - We don't know what matter is.

Getting back to the topic - we need to first conceptulize what it means to "exist", given the new knowledge that was acquired in the 20th century, and then see if we can go ahead and draw fundamental conclusions about prime causes. As it currently stands - we don't know what it means to exist either, beyond the personal experience of everyone, so this question better be asked when we at least know what matter is or what it means to exist in a reality like ours.

 

[GeorgCantor]

From my understand it really can't be so I guess you would have to show that my logic in this regards is flawed. You will have to convince me that a train is a car basically. While I can see that trains are similar to cars in my mind they are not the same thing. Just as a mind has things in common with a brain they are however not the same thing to me.

I thought you'd say that the mind is a separate emergent property that is not the brain itself. Just reading the first post on this page i thought you'd finish with something like - "every aspect of the brain is physical and determined, but it gives rise to mind as an "emergent property," and this property is neither physical nor determined". So why didn't you? This is a pretty solid way of reasoning, even without addressing the "what is matter?" question. But anyway, you have my admirations for not falling for certain scientists' agenda(belief) that the mind doesn't exist together with free will. These questions are not scientific and expressed opinions only reflect certain individual's biases.

 

[magpies]

That's not really what I believe so why would I say that? If anything the brain is an emergent property of the mind and not the other way around imo. I also don't believe its determined in any real way.

We got onto this because someone brought up the idea that minds can't exist without a body more so that it gives evidence for the non existence of god.

 

[flashprogram]

Well in all honesty I am not sold but that's probably because I have a different understanding for what a mind is then you seem to. It seems to me that you think mind and brain are the same thing just two different words for the same thing. To me that is not the case and the difference between mind and brain is about as different as zero and infinity imo.

The connection is similar to that of a book and its content. Obviously the entire story of a particular book is present and represented by a series of physical symbols inscribed on the pages of the book. But it is also obvious that the story is different from its embodiment, though obviously it is imho implausible to expect it to be instantiatable in some disembodied form. Wherever an instant of the story appears it will have some sort of embodiment.

For example in the usual example of replacing neurons one by one with some equally effective artificial thing, it is reasonable to accept that the mind would remain but its embodiment would change. Like the story that can be moved from place to place, changing the ink or the font does not the story change.

 

[magpies]

I don't agree changing the font of a text can change the story at least in the eyes of the reader. What if I changed this reply into wingdings would that not change your understanding of it? How about some really colorful font rarely used?

 

[flashprogram]

I don't agree changing the font of a text can change the story at least in the eyes of the reader. What if I changed this reply into wingdings would that not change your understanding of it? How about some really colorful font rarely used?

Those are some additional aspects independent of it. Surely, font could even affect your emotions if a particular font is associated with a nasty group you knew like say neo-nazis or kkk, etc. It might even make it difficult for you to read the story, but though the physical representation of the story is changed, the story itself is not fundamentally changed, your interpretation might change though.

To see this consider the message conveyed by a simple sentence, one of the simplest stories, such as "the boy went to his home", the message shouldn't change by a change in ink color or font. Sure understanding of it might be compromised by illegible fonts but the fundamental message itself if it got through intact should not be changed.

If I changed the "the boy went to his home", into spanish would the story really? to japanese? to mandarin? to italian or french? The native speakers can understand the story even though the sequence of roman alphabet letters has changed and sometimes been replaced by squiggly lines. The fundamental example is changing into the simplest possible language, that is changing it into binary and back again. It is possible to do so and retain all aspects to acceptable fidelity and even raise fidelity so that it exceeds what is discernible by humans in a particular sensory modality.

 

[magpies]

I would argue that thouse aspects are not as independent as you would like. Also making in japanese would probably give you a different idea of what type of home the boy went home to so it does infact change the story imo.

Basically it's the difference between walking into a bank to make a withdrawl and doing so with an AK-47 in one hand...

The story is meaningless without a reader and it is the reader that decides what it means.

 

[DaveC426913]

If anything the brain is an emergent property of the mind and not the other way around imo.

How is this possible? Are you sure you know what emergent means?

What you said is analagous to saying that soap is an emergent property of soap bubbles.

 

[flashprogram]

I would argue that thouse aspects are not as independent as you would like. Also making in japanese would probably give you a different idea of what type of home the boy went home to so it does infact change the story imo.

Basically it's the difference between walking into a bank to make a withdrawl and doing so with an AK-47 in one hand...

This depends upon the assumptions and memory of the person which affects their understanding of the message. Even if japan was an english speaking country, "the boy went to his home" in english, alone could very well mean something slightly different to them. So even with the same font, ink, language etc. the same message can convey slightly different things depending on where and when it is expressed. Context would affect it, if the sentence was within a story that described the home in detail, this ambiguity would be diminished.

In the same manner if the USA was a japanese , a french, spanish, etc. speaking country(with everything else being the same) the same message in this new language would probably be taken to mean an American style home.

When two individuals speak, the concepts the sender and receiver imagine and emotional underlining of said concepts can vary even drastically. A word like nazi can be something to be proud of to a particular person in a particular time, and yet an abomination to another person. A historian with deeper knowledge might have a subtler and more rich understanding than someone who only knows and associates it with 'hitler', 'genocide', 'evil' maybe even without knowing it refers to 'europe', 'last century', 'germany', etc.

Even the author himself might've forgotten what was originally meant and what they originally thought-of when they spoke a particular message. So even the author of a message might get a different take at a later time from the same words they uttered in the past.


But regardless, the message itself if it got through as originally intended, should not change, though this might be difficult due to the lack of specificity common in average speech. That a message failed to get through as intended, due to inadequacies of the means of conveying it, is something independent of the message itself.

 

[magpies]

How is this possible? Are you sure you know what emergent means?

What you said is analagous to saying that soap is an emergent property of soap bubbles.

Yes emergent basically means... it comes from... more or less. Yes I would agree soap is not an emergent property of soap bubbles. However I could see how someone could make the claim that it is and I would not be so quick to judge them incorrect it's really just a perspective thing in the end and not really a big deal.

 

[zoobyshoe]

From my understand it really can't be so I guess you would have to show that my logic in this regards is flawed. You will have to convince me that a train is a car basically. While I can see that trains are similar to cars in my mind they are not the same thing. Just as a mind has things in common with a brain they are however not the same thing to me.

It's roughly analagous to an EM wave, roughly. The electric component of the field is different than the magnetic component, however they are mutually dependent. Kill the changing electric field and the changing magnetic field disappears as well.

The "mind" is dependent on the functioning of the brain. Change how the brain functions and the mind instantly changes as well. Destroy part of the brain and part of the mind is destroyed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

This does, indeed, lead to the logical conclusion that a mind can't exist independently of a brain.

 

[flashprogram]

It's roughly analagous to an EM wave, roughly. The electric component of the field is different than the magnetic component, however they are mutually dependent. Kill the changing electric field and the changing magnetic field disappears as well.

The "mind" is dependent on the functioning of the brain. Change how the brain functions and the mind instantly changes as well. Destroy part of the brain and part of the mind is destroyed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

This does, indeed, lead to the logical conclusion that a mind can't exist independently of a brain.

Of a brain or possibly something functionally analogous, though that is still an open question.

Still the connection to the brain does not rule out the possibility of re-instantiation of a particular mind. We know that continuous change is possible. We know the physical structure of the brain is in constant change and the person remains despite the physical underlying matter changing and leaving nothing but a pattern. It is also known that disruptions such as sleep, and hopefully anesthesia or coma do not disrupt continuity of a self. It remains an open question to what extent continuity of a particular pattern can be disrupted while still allowing for continuity of a particular self.

 

[DaveC426913]

Yes emergent basically means... it comes from... more or less. Yes I would agree soap is not an emergent property of soap bubbles. However I could see how someone could make the claim that it is and I would not be so quick to judge them incorrect it's really just a perspective thing in the end and not really a big deal.

But it's not a perspective thing.

You can have soap without bubbles. You cannot have soap bubbles without first having soap.

A brain is a physical object. You can have a brain without having a mind first; a brain cannot emerge from a mind.

 

[magpies]

I wouldn't disagree with you on the soap part but I could. Like I could easly say you can't have soap without first having soap bubbles and then ask you to show me soap that doesn't have soap bubbles built into it.

Ok you I like that brain is a physical object you that's totally what I am talking about. Mind is the non physical aspect of the system while brain and body is the physical. I would think the non physical aspect is more the foundation then the physical.

 

[zoobyshoe]

We know the physical structure of the brain is in constant change and the person remains despite the physical underlying matter changing and leaving nothing but a pattern.

No, you missed the point of Phinneus Gage. When his brain was damaged his person has damaged. He was "...no longer Gage."

It's the same with all brain impairments. Subtractions of functions, inabilities to integrate, all change who the person is. A two second absence seizure deletes 2 seconds of the flow of history from the mind of the sufferer: there's a discontinuity, a gap. An artist suffers damage to brain area V4 and can no longer see in color. The world changes to leaden grey for him. His experience has been diminished and distorted. He becomes depressed, morose, no longer able to do, or even see, art in color. The person has changed. A man develops amnesia and cannot remember anything that happened between 12 years earlier and ten minutes ago. 12 years of his life has vanished. He's not the same person.

 

[flashprogram]

No, you missed the point of Phinneus Gage. When his brain was damaged his person has damaged. He was "...no longer Gage."

It's the same with all brain impairments. Subtractions of functions, inabilities to integrate, all change who the person is. A two second absence seizure deletes 2 seconds of the flow of history from the mind of the sufferer: there's a discontinuity, a gap. An artist suffers damage to brain area V4 and can no longer see in color. The world changes to leaden grey for him. His experience has been diminished and distorted. He becomes depressed, morose, no longer able to do, or even see, art in color. The person has changed. A man develops amnesia and cannot remember anything that happened between 12 years earlier and ten minutes ago. 12 years of his life has vanished. He's not the same person.

I should've expressed myself better by person I mean the self. That is the self remains despite changes in the underlying structure. I also meant it due to natural ever present changes due to replacement at a molecular level of components. But I believe it can also apply to changes due to brain damage, that is the self seems to remain. By self I mean it is essentially the same individual who's experiencing whatever is being experienced.

By same individual I do not mean that it is exactly the same in terms of personality, experience, mental capacity, that obviously varies through the passage of time. But that it seems that regardless of changes in character, capacity, etc... deep down it is still the same guy only with whatever changes or handicaps have been set upon him. That is there does not seem to be one guy before and another different guy after the changes. In the sense that say post-injury john, is still john john, and is not say bill a new guy who just happens to be called john and got the body of the old pre-injury john.

IOW, post injury john might have different memories, personality, etc but it is still john in the same sense that an uninjured older john would be the same despite increased experience, changes in taste, beliefs, etc and natural loss of neurons through age.

 

[GeorgCantor]

A brain is a physical object. You can have a brain without having a mind first; a brain cannot emerge from a mind.

What is 'physical'? We have a very incomplete picture of the "thing-in-itself", so i wouldn't rush to conclusions. Up to a certain point that covers more than 99% of the questions we have, things are just the way you say they are. But when you push your concepts too far, as requires the case here, the whole notion of "physical" becomes very problematic. We don't really understand what Mind is, we are just describing what we see, same goes for 'matter', which kind of reminds me of Bishop Berkeley's -

What is mind? Doesn't matter. What is matter? Never mind.


We basically know next to nothing about anything.


I find George Berkeley's line of thought about "physical" more consistent with 20th century physics than naive realism or local realism or even any kind of realism. Basically Berkeley said we can only be certain of our perceptions of the world, which to him was simply a passing experience, not a world of objects existing separately from a mind.

 

[Mkorr]

Many people in this thread seems to subscribe to some form of mind/brain physicalism. If we return to the original argument

P1. There are probably no such things as an disembodied mind (an empirically supported premise).
P2. If X exists, X is a disembodied mind (definition, or follows from definition).
C. Therefore, probably, X does not exist (from P1 and P2 via modus tollens).

This of course is not a mathematical proof, but it is evidence, so the question of the existence of X is not immune to scientific consideration.

For those that disagree with mind/brain physicalism, do you agree that the conclusion of this argument follows if the premises are true?

 

[brainstorm]

Many people in this thread seems to subscribe to some form of mind/brain physicalism. If we return to the original argument

P1. There are probably no such things as an disembodied mind (an empirically supported premise).
P2. If X exists, X is a disembodied mind (definition, or follows from definition).
C. Therefore, probably, X does not exist (from P1 and P2 via modus tollens).

This of course is not a mathematical proof, but it is evidence, so the question of the existence of X is not immune to scientific consideration.

For those that disagree with mind/brain physicalism, do you agree that the conclusion of this argument follows if the premises are true?

underlying question: if there was a form of existence besides material/physical existence, would it be recognizable or provable using the perspective of materialism or would materialism simply recognize it as something non-existent if it didn't exist materially/physically?

Once you limit your view of existence to only refer to material/physical existence, you are prevented from ever exploring the existence of anything non-material/non-physical ever again. It is the nature of perspective.

 

[DaveC426913]

I would think the non physical aspect is more the foundation then the physical.

It certainly may be more interesting, but it's not the foundation.

That would be like trying to understand stellar evolution without understanding gravity or atoms.

 

[Mkorr]

underlying question: if there was a form of existence besides material/physical existence, would it be recognizable or provable using the perspective of materialism or would materialism simply recognize it as something non-existent if it didn't exist materially/physically?

Once you limit your view of existence to only refer to material/physical existence, you are prevented from ever exploring the existence of anything non-material/non-physical ever again. It is the nature of perspective.

No, this argument is not based on a naturalistic presupposition. In fact, it is the exact opposite. The idea of "X" here makes empirically testable predictions, predictions that could in theory be confirmed or falsified with experiment.

- If X does make empirical predictions, these predictions can in theory be confirmed or refuted by science.
- If X does not make any empirical predictions; if a world where X existed is identical in every conceivable respect to a world where X did not exist, then what on Earth does it mean to say that "X exists"?

Here is what you need to provide in order to, for me, establish the existence of X.

1. Provide a coherent and meaningful definition of X.
2. Provide a system of norms for comparing a naturalistic and a supernatural explanation.
3. Provide evidence for X, that is, show that testable predictions from the existence of X conforms to reality.

Notice that no where in this does a naturalistic presupposition enter into the equation. If the above is reasonable, then "philosophical naturalism" (or "materialism") would be a conclusion not a presupposition. This method outlined above does not, in any shape or form, prevent you "from ever exploring the existence of anything non-material/non-physical ever again".