Miracles 'n' Science

[dairygirl4u2c]

right, i mean i don't think the argument is necessariy circular. you'd argue, science can't allow for God, cause that is not very methodical etc. this isn't circular. i guess what im trying to say is, if you insist that "defining the system as necessarily not able to entertain God, because the system itself cannot allow for that", then that is circular if you accept the premises i was saying earlier.
it just depends on the assumptions involved

if you say you absolutely cannot include miracles under the umbrella of science, i think it's circular in a sense, cause you could include it, and to deny that is to say "we can't define it that way, cause it defies the definitions" etc. if you recognize that miracles should be entertained, but don't put it in that system, you're not circular in yoru system cause you think it keeps the integrity of science in tact better, not that it's necessarily better etc.
only in a sense, not in a definitive way, circular.
depending on the presmises of the persons involved.

i'm having a hard time trying to explain this. i think this is where scholars would break out some latin phrase to clarify a distinction or something.

Edited April 3, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]Could finding a $20 bill that I didn't really need be considered a miracle? Is the matter entirely subjective?[/quote]

to respond for him.
i don't see how this would say 'miracle'.
you find a dollar bill. that indicates someone lost it. you have population A who prays and population B who doesn't, and A asks for flesh to grow, B doesn't, and it looks like an phenomenon outside of A or B has caused something to happen to A. it's not necessarily teh case, but it looks that way.

i mean, really, step back and think about this.

jesus performs a miracle in front of your eyes. "meh, no different than me finding a 20 dollar bill on the ground".
and, on side note, jesus doesnt' do the miracle again, or such that you can quantify it etc. does that mena you deny it happened? no. does it mean you don't include it under teh auspice of science? well, depends on how you set up your systems, but you cant just throw it out in any system, just because you can't reproduce it at your own will.

you might have a point though, if this is your point, that 'miracle' would need defined better-- cause who's to say finding the 20 doesn't fall into the definition of a vaguely defined miracle? or we all know people who think everything's a miracle--- those folks would be precluded under the right definitions.

Edited April 3, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[hamflask]

My point is that divine intervention and science are fundamentally incompatible. Science must assume everything in the natural world is explainable scientifically (for reasons I have already stated), and the divine is by definition unexplainable. Therefore, science must assume there is no divine intervention.

Unless perhaps this divine intervention actually [i]is[/i] scientifically explainable, but doesn't that violate Christian belief? You shouldn't be able to predict acts of God, right? Conversely, science shouldn't allow hypotheses that incorporate things defined to be unexplainable, because hypotheses like these can't make predictions.

[hamflask]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1823165' date='Apr 2 2009, 11:38 PM']to respond for him.
i don't see how this would say 'miracle'.
you find a dollar bill. that indicates someone lost it. you have population A who prays and population B who doesn't, and A asks for flesh to grow, B doesn't, and it looks like an phenomenon outside of A or B has caused something to happen to A. it's not necessarily teh case, but it looks that way.[/quote]
If an experiment like this could be determined, then that would constitute scientific proof that prayer is effective. [i]Somehow[/i]. It doesn't actually say anything about God. Perhaps we have psychic abilities manifested through prayer. However, if the Bible (or some other religion's teachings) can reliably make predictions that science can't, a rational person must conclude that science can't actually explain everything. So far, this has not happened, which is strong evidence in favor of the validity of science.

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1823165' date='Apr 2 2009, 11:38 PM']jesus performs a miracle in front of your eyes. "meh, no different than me finding a 20 dollar bill on the ground".
and, on side note, jesus doesnt' do the miracle again, or such that you can quantify it etc. does that mena you deny it happened? no. does it mean you don't include it under teh auspice of science? well, depends on how you set up your systems, but you cant just throw it out in any system, just because you can't reproduce it at your own will.[/quote]
Well, in a case where the event isn't reproducible, science can neither prove nor disprove anything about it convincingly. The event would of course be very convincing to me, and I may be inclined to conclude that Jesus is divine and therefore a fundamental assumption of science is incorrect (that everything is explainable). But this would be less convincing the further you were from me in time and on the word-of-mouth chain. Evidence that can't convince most people who contact it is not very strong evidence.

[dairygirl4u2c]

i see nothing wrong with your reasoning.

if you think that "miracle" cannot in any system fall under "science", all properly understood as i explained earlier, then i do take issue with it.
you can insist that it's incompantiable at a very core level, in that it's just not a good idea, but not in some definitively final without a doubt level.

cause, you're excluding all those things that are true, but just can't be reproduced. this goes well beyond miracles as well. i can't htink of a good one, but if you see an alien, it doesn'tmean they don't exist just cause ya can't reproduce the alien. it just means ya can't reproduce him. the aliens come at random tmes and purposefully evade us. doesn't mean they don't exist.
i see the point in saying "we should have the system keep its integrity, and the ebst way to do that, is to say we'll wait till it's reproduceable". but, you have to account for that stuff somehow.
if someone wanted to put it under the science system, while acnowledging all the limits of the information, i don't see how one could necessarily say that's wrong in a definitive sense.
just in a "very strongly shouldn't be risking diluting science" sense.
if you know what i mean.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]If an experiment like this could be determined, then that would constitute scientific proof that prayer is effective. Somehow. It doesn't actually say anything about God. Perhaps we have psychic abilities manifested through prayer. However, if the Bible (or some other religion's teachings) can reliably make predictions that science can't, a rational person must conclude that science can't actually explain everything. So far, this has not happened, which is strong evidence in favor of the validity of science.[/quote]

right. and the fact that it looks like an outside phenomenon is occurring means that it just might be an outside phenomenon made it happened, as i said earlier (it doesn't have to be God per se but it does have to be something like that. and it could in fact be that, God.)
but, also as i said earlier, it could be something other than God, or something like hte mind etc, and nothing is proven that well.
i don't think you disagree with this, just noting.

you might disagree on the point though, that 'this has not happened'. it has happened. miracles (or at least things that look like them) happen to people man. not in controlled systems (if you thought i meant it was a controlled sytem, that's not what i meant), but they do. even dawkins etc admit it. they just have other ways of explaining it. (see my first point, where i refute all his points).

i think your ultimate points are that thesethings happen to atheists too, or that there's a decent nonGod explanation.

Edited April 3, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[philothea]

[quote name='hamflask' post='1823169' date='Apr 2 2009, 11:46 PM']My point is that divine intervention and science are fundamentally incompatible. Science must assume everything in the natural world is explainable scientifically (for reasons I have already stated), and the divine is by definition unexplainable. Therefore, science must assume there is no divine intervention.[/quote]

One of my philosophy textbooks stated that as a primary assumption: everything that happens obviously has happened, and thus is a natural event, whether we can understand the rules behind it or not. If there are miracles, they're part of the system.

However, modern science is not so absolute as you make it out. For example quantum mechanics only works with probabilities, and to the best testing we have been able to manage, this appears to be how the universe actually works. We can't predict cause -> effect precisely, only on average. (It gets even weirder than that, with observer effects and non-locality, but I'm sure you see the point. )

The idea of a clockwork universe -- where you could determine how events would unfold if only you knew the exact state of everything -- was proven wrong over a hundred years ago.

[quote name='hamflask' post='1823169' date='Apr 2 2009, 11:46 PM']Unless perhaps this divine intervention actually [i]is[/i] scientifically explainable, but doesn't that violate Christian belief? You shouldn't be able to predict acts of God, right? Conversely, science shouldn't allow hypotheses that incorporate things defined to be unexplainable, because hypotheses like these can't make predictions.[/quote]

I don't know that having divine intervention be scientifically explainable would actually violate anything. It would depend on the explanation! Would have to be pretty sophisticated given the results we see, though.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]If there are miracles, they're part of the system.[/quote]

exactly.
tho, to be more 'scientific' minded, i'd say 'if there are miracles, or things that look like miracles, they are part of the system'

[dairygirl4u2c]

yeah i fall back to what i said earlier
[quote]but again, if you're just saying you want to keep science separate, there's really no magic in how one devises the systems, or chooses to say "this is miracle territory, it don't belong with science stuff". it's all arbitrary, the distinctions of the systems, in so far as one might entertain that miracles are true yet say it doesn't belong in X science system.
ie, "this belong in science. this belongs in miracles. v. we'll create a system that includes miracles under the umbrella of "science" --- is really pretty arbitrary
now, 'miracles' is a loaded word. i can see why you'd think we'd have to stop searching cause we've proven it, cause that's what's connotated with the word etc. but, it doesn't have to be that way.[/quote]

the only way i'd take issue is if he said it's absolutely in no way or form a possibility to say that miracles could be incorporated into the system.

i mean, i don't believe in unicorns, but if someone wanted to say that their possibility should be included id say sure.
do the unicorns prove the things we see as miracles? perhaps, to a stern scientist, that is.

i think there's agreement on the issues, people are just talking past each otehr.

Edited April 3, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

faith in a unicorn is just a personal decision a scientist would make. it'd be based on facts and reason.
as is faith in God. it's based on facts and reason, and is a personal decision. things that look like miracles, and other things, compel some people to believe.
that's all.
there's no threat to science or vice versa, necessarily. (if the faith is correct

to make a point though. aliens visit us but we can't prove it. i've never seen it, but many people do and there's circumstantial evidence, good ones. if you beleive, you get taken to a land of paradise by the aliens. (i don't think God is so base, even though this is typical of a simple christian or muslim etc understanding of heaven etc, but it makes teh point). you have godo reason to believe, so why don't ya? course, this gets into thorny issues about 'faith' v. 'hope' v. 'reason to beleive' etc. but, at least, you should 'beleive' at least at some level, that aliens exist, if all the circumstantial evidence is true.

that's another example too. circumstantial evidence works in a corut of law. doesn't prove it as true, as is a good point. but.
perhaps all anyone's saying is that circumstantial evidence should be included.
a good faith beleive in that evidence should be accounted for too, somehow, etiehr in the system, or outside.
to deny the belief in that evidence is artificial, like putting your head in the sand.

[Veridicus]

[quote name='hamflask' post='1822995' date='Apr 2 2009, 07:58 PM']Would transubstantiation of bread and wine be considered miracles? That sounds like something that could be studied quite rigorously. If provided with sound evidence that transubstantiation is real, I would most certainly rethink my beliefs (but it wouldn't stop me from trying to fully understand the process of transubstantiation!). Why hasn't this been done? Is it simply sacrilege, or is it somehow impossible?[/quote]

Transubstantiation relies on a philosophical understanding of being rather than a scientific understanding and thus it would be outside the scope of analysis. Substance and Accident are philosophical terms rather than scientifically testable variables.

[Mr.Cat]

[quote][url="http://saints.sqpn.com/miracle/"][b]Miracle[/b][/url]
An effect which causes admiration because it cannot be produced by any natural agency but only by the power of God. (1) It is above the natural law, as when one dead is restored to life; (2) contrary to this law, as when Moses caused water to gush from a rock; (3) independent of the law, as when something that might be done by natural causes, e.g., the immediate cure of a dangerous malady, is effected without the aid of physician or medicine.

Granted the existence of Almighty God, since He could create the universe and establish its laws, there is no reason why He cannot alter its course and interfere with its laws. There is every reason why He should do so if He wills to conflrm some truth or fact by miraculous manifestation of His power, as did Our Lord and His Apostles when it was hopeless to expect men and women, as they were at that time, to accept the teachings of Christianity without such evidence of their Divine origin as miracles.[/quote][quote name='hamflask' post='1822995' date='Apr 2 2009, 08:58 PM']My claim that science assumes constant natural law follows from the fact that scientific theories are expected to make accurate predictions. If the natural laws that the theories model are not constant, making accurate predictions is impossible.

My claim about miracles being supernatural is simply my understanding of the difference between miracles and non-miracles. If you disagree (which it seems you may), what is the difference? Could finding a $20 bill that I didn't really need be considered a miracle? Is the matter entirely subjective?[/quote]God created and sustains all things; thus all things that exist, even that which is merely natural, must have been created by God and is currently sustained by Him. Some philosophers have suggested that we may be merely the thoughts of God. But it may be helpful to have a somewhat Catholic definition, see definition above.

Following the definition above, the discovery of currency moreover when not needed would hardly classify as a miracle, nonetheless a supernatural miracle.[quote name='hamflask' post='1822995' date='Apr 2 2009, 08:58 PM']By "explanation", I actually meant "theory". This implies that miracles would be about as predictable as gravity. Does this change your answer?[/quote]If you suggest an explanation or theory that attempts to subtract God from reality, [b]then yes it would change my answer[/b]. Supernatural miracles to be duplicated would require the duplication of their origin, Whom is God, thus I doubt this is possible.

It is possible to do that which is similar to God, for example by supernatural miracle He may heal the sick, but through the Divine gift of reason we can learn how to heal the sick ourselves.



[i]I would respond to more of what you wrote, but it would simply take too long. Needless to say I personally think many of your premises may simply be wrong concerning Catholicism (Christianity), or even more simply wrong in matter of fact.[/i] For example you may be attempting to treat God more as a “natural phenomena” than a “metaphysical entity”.

I personally think it would benefit you to focus more on the philosophy aspect of this subject at this juncture. Again welcome to Phatmass and I hope you enjoy your visit; there are educated and good intentioned people here, hopefully they can be helpful to you now and in the future.

Edited April 3, 2009 by Mr.CatholicCat

[hamflask]

[quote name='philothea' post='1823191' date='Apr 3 2009, 12:17 AM']The idea of a clockwork universe -- where you could determine how events would unfold if only you knew the exact state of everything -- was proven wrong over a hundred years ago.[/quote]
That depends on your interpretation of quantum mechanics. The many worlds interpretation is deterministic. There is certainly debate over this, and it is by no means proven either way.

[quote name='philothea' post='1823191' date='Apr 3 2009, 12:17 AM']I don't know that having divine intervention be scientifically explainable would actually violate anything. It would depend on the explanation! Would have to be pretty sophisticated given the results we see, though.[/quote]
That's very interesting. Could all of God be subject to scientific explanation?

[quote name='Veridicus']Transubstantiation relies on a philosophical understanding of being rather than a scientific understanding and thus it would be outside the scope of analysis. Substance and Accident are philosophical terms rather than scientifically testable variables.[/quote]
I was not aware of that. Thank you for clarifying. I'll have to read a bit more about substance theory, though from what I've seen so far, it doesn't seem very convincing.

[quote name='Mr.CatholicCat']I would respond to more of what you wrote, but it would simply take too long. Needless to say I personally think many of your premises may simply be wrong concerning Catholicism (Christianity), or even more simply wrong in matter of fact. I personally think it would benefit you focus more on philosophy at this juncture. Again welcome to Phatmass and I hope you enjoy your visit; there are educated and good intentioned people here, hopefully they can be helpful to you now and in the future.[/quote]
You may be right. This thread has already got me rethinking my beliefs in more detail. Thanks everyone!

[philothea]

[quote name='hamflask' post='1823255' date='Apr 3 2009, 03:01 AM']That depends on your interpretation of quantum mechanics. The many worlds interpretation is deterministic. There is certainly debate over this, and it is by no means proven either way.[/quote]
I think what you're looking for (if you want to imagine that the universe can be precisely determined) is a hidden-variables theory [[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theories"]link[/url]]. Multi-worlds interpretation doesn't really do away with the arbitrary, statistically driven nature of quantum events.

To explain very crudely -- imagine a multi-worlds scenario, and a quantum even that has four possible outcomes: A, B, C, and D, all at 25% probability. We can determine which answer we got, and test multiple times to see that the 25% probability holds up. If we assume that there are three other universes, and the answers are all evenly distributed elsewhere, with 100% certainty... that still doesn't at all predict which universe gets which result. It's still random.

Also, interpretations of theories aren't science, they're philosophy. They may drive theorists and experimenters to try out certain testable ideas, but that's all.

And finally! It was the second law of thermodynamics that undermined the clockwork universe, not QM (though QM is obviously the most dramatic refutation.)