Something rather than Nothing

[Opsa]

I'm with Aggie and Mero, but you knew that anyway.

That we are here is a miracle. It's not always a wonderful miracle, but it is a fact, as far as our brain chemistry allows us to recognize it. This miracle, or accident, or what-have-you, is Something. The question then becomes- is there a Nothing?

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I agree with this (and the rest of the post), except the three words I've bolded. Evidence of the divine aside, if having an experience of any type, however induced, has a profound impact on your mental state and induces positive change, I say roll with it.  I'm a pragmatist, so writing off a profound mental event simply because it can be explained in terms of biochemistry seems to be counterproductive.  Hey, we can largely explain the neurochemistry behind love.... should we therefore conclude that love does not exist?

_{for the record, AFAIK we apparently cannot yet fully and accurately explain how cats purr, but that doesn't mean you should become a Meyahoo}


Oh, and just to be a troll.... what if the structures in the human brain that produce experiences of the divine when stimulated, damaged or diseased are actually vestigal organs meant to perceive gods that are no longer present?  

I have nothing against profound mental experiences-- just so long as you don't try to make a religion out of yours, that I have to participate in.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Unless perhaps you were trolling?  

I started the thread, remember?
---
Don't take me wrong, I'm not attacking your beliefs, your methods or your experiences, what I'm attacking is the idea that Something rather than Nothing is that good of an argument in favor of a deity or the absolute. More to the point, it bothers me in the way it tries to go for a fundamental truth, which at the same time is unknowable by the rational mind, it is almost the same kind of unassailable circular argument that theists frequently use to justify their beliefs, and going further it bothers me that it deals with an absolute which starts from an abstraction, it is almost as if I made a temple to honor the number zero and proceeded with religious zeal to preach the Cult of Zero, the One and Only Absolute!

I've said this before regarding my own beliefs, I'm agnostic in many aspects, I don't discard the possibility of higher powers, different planes or levels of existence, but, also as I have said before, I abhor the absolute as such thing cannot be perceived in nature, and Something instead of Nothing is a huge arrow pointing to the absolute, an absolute from a nice mental exercise, an abstraction for which there is no evidence, and while it may be useful to some (like the zero or the square root of -1)* it is an abstraction and nothing more.

Yes, some atheists use the same religious zeal that theists use, and yes, rationality alone hasn't solved our issues yet (although I do believe that it has the potential to do so as we understand more), but the apparent failure of rationality** doesn't excuse what to me is the clear failure of religiosity over all our history. 

*and those have a clear and testable use BTW.

**some have claimed to use rationality as a tool of governance but the same pressures of power seem to have more effect, yet isn't nice to know that rationality tells us that we are all the same making prejudice obsolete, or that gay parents aren't harming their children, etc, etc? Isn't reason a better moral compass than religion at this point?

Oh, and just to be a troll.... what if the structures in the human brain that produce experiences of the divine when stimulated, damaged or diseased are actually vestigal organs meant to perceive gods that are no longer present?  

I have the hypothesis that our brains have the ability to tap into the virtual particle continuum that permeates the universe and that many supernatural experiences are really natural experiences that we still don't understand. That could be perceived as 'divine' but it may be simply another (natural) plane of existence.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I have the hypothesis that our brains have the ability to tap into the virtual particle continuum that permeates the universe and that many supernatural experiences are really natural experiences that we still don't understand. That could be perceived as 'divine' but it may be simply another (natural) plane of existence.

To paraphrase an old saying? 

"You can't fool me: It's natural[ism] all the way down."

[Griffin NoName]

I have the hypothesis that our brains have the ability to tap into the virtual particle continuum that permeates the universe and that many supernatural experiences are really natural experiences that we still don't understand.

I have that hypothesis too. I've also had some interesting group experiences.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I have the hypothesis that our brains have the ability to tap into the virtual particle continuum that permeates the universe and that many supernatural experiences are really natural experiences that we still don't understand.

I have that hypothesis too. I've also had some interesting group experiences.

I wonder how big a role human pheromones play in such things?  We know these chemicals exist.  What we don't know, is how big a role they play in our subconscious minds.

[The Meromorph]

I have the hypothesis that our brains have the ability to tap into the virtual particle continuum that permeates the universe and that many supernatural experiences are really natural experiences that we still don't understand.

I have that hypothesis too. I've also had some interesting group experiences.

I wonder how big a role human pheromones play in such things?  We know these chemicals exist.  What we don't know, is how big a role they play in our subconscious minds.

My initial reaction is 'Zero', because we appear to have lost our nasovomeral organ, in the course of our evolution... 

[Swatopluk]

There have been studies indicating that women living at close quarters start to synchronise their menstrual cycles and that this can be stimulated by exposition to (odorless) substances won from the genitalia of female primates.
Also sympathy and antipathy between persons of different sex can be influenced (not controlled) by masking/substituting certain components of 'body odor' (not all of them consciously smellable). The reception of body odor also varies with the menstrual cycle, i.e. a smell considered pleasant at one point may not be so at another and iirc some smells even cross the perception border.
What seems clear is that there is no 'magic essence' that will make one person attractive and the other receptive (as a 'primitive' pheromone would). But gaseous emissions from the body give, it seems, certain infos and signals that influence on the subliminal level and give subtle hints, whether two persons would be a good fit (from a genetical point of view) or not.This would have at least two components. One would signal genetic relationship and have influence on non-sexual attraction (we are of the same root and should support each other but not have sex), the other would be the opposite (we are not of the same root, so let's have sex to enrich the gene pool).
No serious scholar will claim though that human behaviour is primarily driven by that and that we are mere slaves to the gases we emit. Alcohol is far more potent there, I think (maybe not on a strictly chemical level since hormones/pheromones work at far lower doses than ethanol ).

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Another disproof [that we are robot-like slaves to this], is rampant and sometimes flagrant incest among certain populations down through the ages, clearly an example of individuals who would either ignore, or actually find alluring those persons who's chemical "signature" registers as taboo.

[Swatopluk]

Or simply that the barrier between those two functions of bonding can be rather weak.
It's definitely more complicated than simple chemical on/off switches

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Besides chemical signals don't need to be sensed in an olfactory way exclusively, a simple touch may transmit enough of a chemical signal and that in itself can create push in a particular direction, it may not be determinant but with an statistical advantage to the particular behavior in question.

[Aggie]

Oh, and just to be a troll.... what if the structures in the human brain that produce experiences of the divine when stimulated, damaged or diseased are actually vestigal organs meant to perceive gods that are no longer present?  

I have the hypothesis that our brains have the ability to tap into the virtual particle continuum that permeates the universe and that many supernatural experiences are really natural experiences that we still don't understand. That could be perceived as 'divine' but it may be simply another (natural) plane of existence.

Hmmm....  I think we may be on exactly the same page here, although I'm very reluctant to phrase it that way. To me, that virtual particle continuum is the rubber-to-the-road physical expression of what I refer to as 'God'.
_{(unsupported pseudoscientific hypotheses get my back up much more than subjective fantasizing about the divine )}
Watch from about 17:30 - 20:00 in that Lawrence Krauss video; it implies that Nothing is Something and indeed is inherently creative. Take that however you will...

I actually don't really understand why it's so necessary to draw a firm dividing line between 'natural' and 'supernatural'. Given the current state of scientific knowledge, it's more a matter of sorting out what we know correctly, what we know incorrectly, what we know we don't know, what we don't know we don't know, and what is fantasy. Science can largely take care of the first three and make inroads on the fourth, given time, but drawing a firm line between what we don't know we don't know and pure fantasy is another matter.

If there can be concrete knowledge of what we currently consider to be the 'divine', then it's a natural phenomenon and only regarded as supernatural because we lack explanation at this point.  I fully expect everything to have a natural explanation; I also consider it likely that the scope of what we consider 'natural' will continue to expand greatly as our species continues to seek natural explanations.

[Swatopluk]

Supernatural - anything that cannot be included in a continuous cause-and-effect-chain
This definition is based on the assumption that the principle of cause and effect rules supreme in nature and thus has to be seen as an if not the essential part of it.
A divine being cannot be totally bound by this, otherwise it cannot be considered divine. This does not mean it has necessarily to be fully free and not constrained at all but that it has the ability to violate it at least in parts (and in the open).

[Bluenose]

Yes but causality breaks down at the quantum level.  In the end all we can do is make statistical analysis of large numbers of quantum events but in a very real sense we cannot predict exactly what will happen at the most basic level.    Combine that with the non linear response of most real world systems and long term prediction of even macro systems becomes somewhat problematic. Give enough iterations of the system and it's behavior is un predictable.  Cause and effect is in a very real sense an illusion.

[Swatopluk]

That was the reason I included the 'in the open'. The fact that we cannot always reconstruct the chain of events does not affect the definition.
As for the quantum level, iirc there is consent that causality cannot be violated in the open even there. To be precise: violations cannot occur where they can be observed and they cannot affect the macro level, i.e. the 'censor'* has to hide all violations and has to take care that they even each other out in a way that above the quantum level the system acts in strict accordance with cause and effect.

So a being that wants to lay claim to the title of divine must be able to observably meddle. G#d may cheat by doing all action behind the quantum curtain but that is an unprovable hypothesis by definition.

*the same one that hides all singularities and bans white holes for that very reason.