WMN: t3_35zzer_t1_cra10yg

[TITLE]

CMV: I think both religion and science suffer from dogmatic worldviews.

[n00dles__]

Background: In a nutshell, I had a Christian upbringing. Went through a few years basically as an Atheist until I had an existential crisis and turned to Buddhism. This is gonna be a tough one as it is a very sweeping statement, so I will do my best to elaborate what I mean. **Religion**: This has been talked about endlessly, but I feel like many of the issues at least with the Abrahamic religions (the Crusades, terrorism, gay rights, etc.) comes down to a belief in an objective right vs wrong. Even though I've met plenty of Christians who actively question their faith and interpretation of the Bible, the Abrahamic faiths still come down to external rules that are at odds with human nature, particularly sexuality. Just look at how intrusive Sharia Law can be. **Science**: While my teenage Atheist-leaning side of me would like to think that there is a huge gap between religion and science, science did arise out of Christianity after all, and its dogmatic leanings still show today. [Here's a banned TED talk by Rupert Sheldrake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKHUaNAxsTg) on a so-called "science delusion" (a play on the "God Delusion"). While I do not agree with him entirely, I think he poses a very important point. The materialist worldview it has come to is very limiting compared to the original intent of the scientific method. My view is that while we can be taught, it is up to us to learn through our own experiences and choose whether or not to accept the said teachings, as opposed to blind faith. However, I feel this is a dangerous view to have as it is not only is a rebellious one, but also heavily degrades my respect for the Abrahamic religions and a good chunk of the scientific community. I'd really like to see the other side of this. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

[Harper7000]

Ooh I love discussing this! It saddens me that science and religion are seen as opposite ends of a spectrum. As you said, science by and large arose from religious people. Addressing the topic, both scientists and theists are often dogmatic. Where you are wrong is the part where you said science itself and religion itself is dogmatic. The true nature of both are not dogmatic. I am using only Christianity as religion in this argument because that is what I am most familiar with and I'm sure you can find a religion that is dogmatic but Christianity I have found to also be most reasonable. The Bible says that "faith is the evidence of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." This is basically the definition of science though the word faith isn't used ever in scientific circles because over the years, the definition of faith has become "belief without evidence" (dogmatic) as opposed to the biblical definition above, which is clearly not dogmatic, it requires evidence and reason. Paul in fact once said "we are not mad, but merely speak the words of truth and reason." I'd also like to point out that having an absolute standard is not necessarily dogmatic. Saying "This is the absolute standard, follow it because fuck you." is certainly dogmatic. However, it is not dogmatic to say: "This absolute standard that I am about to give you is directly from the mouth of God who created you and who created morality itself. I will now show you proof that I am from God because *insert evidence*. To show the power of God I will now perform a miracle in front of all of you so you can tell others and document it painstakingly throughout the years. Now that you believe me, I will now lay down the standard and explain why this makes sense. This is obviously the best option but it is up to you to make the right choice, I won't make you." The Bible says and does basically this. Whether you believe the evidence in the Bible or evidence for God in general is irrelevant to this conversation. If in your opinion the evidence does not hold up, ok that's fine. But don't say that it is dogmatic because it isn't, it presented evidence and a choice. Now, science should do the same thing. Gather the evidence, make a hypothesis, gather even more evidence, make it a theory, have hundreds of to people besides you gather a crap ton of overwhelming evidence that points to one conclusion and then MAYBE make it a scientific law. And after that, never stop gathering evidence in case you are wrong. What happens sometimes is this process is not always followed and things become a theory without enough evidence because of bias or the innate lack of evidence so the option that makes the most sense is upgraded to a theory. What also happens is some individual scientists become very dogmatic and arrogant and treat flimsy hypothesis like indisputable facts and criticize anyone who does not agree. Christians can and do do the same thing, as well as setting their own traditions on the same level as the Bible. But does this mean science itself and religion itself are inherently dogmatic. No. No no no.

[SmokeyDBear]

[STA-CITE]> "faith is the evidence of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." This is basically the definition of science though the word faith isn't used ever in scientific circles [END-CITE]This is *not* the definition of science and is in fact the *opposite* of the definition of science. Science only studies things which *can* be seen (albeit not necessarily with the eye but things which can be reliably measured) not things which cannot be. You've named science as the only thing which is specifically outside the purview of science. You're demonstrating an innate bias against science to try to shoehorn this not only false but downright deceitful definition onto it and progress from there. [STA-CITE]> To show the power of God I will now perform a miracle in front of all of you so you can tell others and document it painstakingly throughout the years. [END-CITE]Thanks for providing an exact and specific example of why science is not dogmatic while religion is. Without any ability to reproduce or confirm the *actual* evidence (that is, the miracle itself), this is in fact inherently dogmatic. The actual evidence consists entirely of things that cannot be independently confirmed. Science, on the other hand, deals only with things that can be reproduced and independently confirmed. [STA-CITE]> What happens sometimes is this process is not always followed and things become a theory without enough evidence because of bias or the innate lack of evidence [END-CITE]This can and does happen but it's bad science and it happens very infrequently because of the significant danger of having your entire life's work and career crumble in front of you. Claiming that this is ubiquitous in or indicative of science in general would be like (obviously incorrectly) claiming that Christianity is immoral because some people who called themselves Christian have killed people before. I'm certainly willing to change my mind on this point if you can offer any actual evidence that this is going on in a widespread manner amongst a large population of people within the scientific community.

[Harper7000]

Sorry I should have been specific, belief based on evidence is basically the definition of science. As you said, not everything can be studied with the eye, but you can use science in both cases. As far as verifying the authenticity of the Bible as the actual word of God, there is no way to do this by physically being there and seeing it since we did not live in that time. However, this does not mean there is a lack of evidence. You may not think there is SUFFICIENT evidence but that is a different discussion. Prophecies are a big one to me personally. Parts of the old Testament have been verified to have been written during a certain time period, and there are Prophecies saying specifically in x amount of years this guy named y from Z country with do such and such. And then later it happens just as described in the same amount of time described. That's hard to argue with. The Bible is history written down by 40 something odd authors and does not contradict. Several miraculous events cross over with secular history. Even though we were not there, if a bunch of people not even just biblically record it, why not believe or at least consider that it might have happened? We could get into more depth but that's a little pointless for the purpose of this discussion. Evidence is presented and a choice is given to us whether or not we want to follow it. If you are unconvinced of religion, that's fine. You're free to draw your own conclusions. While God theoretically would have the authority to make it so you wouldn't have a choice, that is not how religion is set up. Christians who actually follow the teachings in the Bible do no present the gospel in a dogmatic way. And that's all we're talking about. As for your next section, I don't have much to say because I'm not trying to convince you that science is bad. In fact I am saying the opposite. Science is great and helpful. Science shouldn't be dogmatic, because by definition it can't be. Dogmatic science is bad science as you say. In the same way, dogmatic religion is bad religion. Now, many things that were widely held scientific beliefs even just 100 years ago have been disproven. If a bunch of religions say there is only one God and it's ours, logically they can't all be right. But, right or wrong, scientific hypothesis and religious beliefs should both be based on evidence.

[SmokeyDBear]

[STA-CITE]> belief based on evidence [END-CITE]Nope, wrong again. Science is not a belief system. Scientists don't believe in things based on evidence, they contend that certain explanations of how things work are most likely based on available evidence. It may seem like semantics but it is a very important distinction. The only thing that scientists could be said to believe in is that the universe is fundamentally explicable. However even this belief (while it is probably held by many scientists since humans are given to this sort of sentiment) is not necessary for science. It is sufficient to simply define science as the study of things which can be explained. That is, while religion fundamentally depends on belief of some sort, science does not. Want to have a third shot at misrepresenting what science is? [STA-CITE]> there are Prophecies saying specifically in x amount of years this guy named y from Z country with do such and such. [END-CITE]You mean things like [this](http://www.unityinchrist.com/ProofOfTheBible-FulfilledProphecy.htm)? It's pretty easy to say someone said something that a book you've already read said they were going to say. Everything I've ever seen in this regard is either really iffy and people bending ambiguous prophecy to match subsequent events or smacks of [self fulfilling prophecy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-fulfilling_prophecy) where the far more likely explanation is people simply fulfilled the prophecy because they had heard of it and realized they could and perhaps believed they should (but would never have done so if the prophecy hadn't been made in the first place). None of which is evidence of anything but the fact that people read the prophecies and possibly believed them. [STA-CITE]> Evidence is presented and a choice is given to us whether or not we want to follow it. [END-CITE]No it isn't. The claim that dead people were very convinced of some evidence is recorded in a book. The actual evidence is not presented. Never mind the fact that the "choice" given is be right and live eternally in heaven or be wrong and suffer through hell. It's like giving someone the choice to beat themselves or let you beat them. You're still fundamentally imposing your will on them either way. It's still dogma, it's just dogma with one level of abstraction built in (that is, it isn't believe this without evidence, it's believe this or choose to suffer unimaginable pain and believe that the evidence exists but you can't independently verify it). Furthermore, even if what you said were absolutely true the fact remains that the bible *directly praises* a dogmatic approach as idyllic over a more skeptical approach: Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. John 20:29

[Harper7000]

There is no need to be a prick about it. I am not "misrepresenting" science. What you described is literally what belief means. It's not even semantics, you are simply saying I'm wrong just for the sake of saying it. If you think something to be true, you BELIEVE it to be true. It does depend in belief, because that's the whole basis. In science, we attempt to explain something by offering an explanation based on evidence, then we find more evidence and try to determine if our hypothesis is true or not. We believe, at least at the time, that the hypothesis is true and reasonable, and if it disproven, oh well, time to find another believable explanation. It is not self fulfilling if it is proven to be written before the event happened and the circumstances were not put into place by the author. The Bible is a collection of writings, not one book written all at once. Which would actually be evidence because a Prophecy that specific would be impossible to predict 70 years in advance about a nation that hadn't risen to prominence yet. So you would need to either be a time traveler or God. But that's all I'm going to say on that, my job is not to convince you on religion. The fact that dead people wrote something does not discount the fact that it could have happened. No one alive has physically seen or met George Washington but you and I both believe he exists because there was much written down about him. Could his existence be some vast international conspiracy, and he never actually existed? That could be the case. But it almost certainly isn't. Based solely on dead people's accounts of history. If you don't think that's sufficient evidence, again, whatever, I really don't care and that's not what we're discussing. You can believe George Washington is a hoax too if you want but we won't agree. I'm not sure you understand the definition of "dogmatic". It means to assert opinions in an arrogant manner or to be heavily opinionated and not listen to reason. Threatening someone is not dogmatic. On top of that, Fire and brimstone preaching is not condoned in the Bible itself. The consequences are mentioned, but we are to believe based on evidence, not because of a threat. You cannot change the definition of dogmatic because this issue has (possible) harsher consequences than you want to think about. Because something is (possibly) important does not make it dogmatic. The verse you provided says nothing about believing without evidence and definitely nothing about arrogance being a good thing.

[SmokeyDBear]

Yes, one definition of belief can be used to describe any general acceptance of something regardless of what the basis of that acceptance is, but to claim that that sense of belief applies to science and religion in the same way is equivocating. The basis of science is *not* belief. The basis of science is repeatable, observable evidence. Speaking of definitions (hey, you brought it up) I'm not sure *you* understand the definition of "dogmatic". You're doing it right now. I'm supposed to take it on faith that you have evidence and yet you repeatedly refuse to present any. If you're making the claim that religion is not dogmatic then yes, you absolutely 100% have to convince me on religion, or at least convince me that there is some sort of evidence that is compelling and does more than pay lip service to the concept of evidence so that people can pretend religion is not dogmatic. Until then you're just being dogmatic. [STA-CITE]> It is not self fulfilling if it is proven to be written before the event happened and the circumstances were not put into place by the author. [END-CITE]Nope. Go back and read the link I already provided for you. Self fulfilling means that the prophecy causes itself to become true, it does not depend on the author doing anything directly. Anyway I haven't called anything directly a self-fulfilling prophecy so I'm not sure why you're even on this tack. Maybe you're just throwing up a bunch of vague stuff on the wall to see what sticks just like prophets do? [STA-CITE]> you would need to either be a time traveler or God. [END-CITE]Or, if you don't ignore all the possibilities you make a fairly nebulous claim and then people with a vested interest in your prophecies being true apply them to current events and decide "Oh! That's what [insert prophet] was talking about, let's write a bunch of stuff and call this thing what he called it to provide a veneer of fulfillment". For that one you don't have to be either God or a time traveller. Occam's razor pretty clearly prefers one of these three possibilities. [STA-CITE]> You can believe George Washington is a hoax too if you want but we won't agree. [END-CITE]There's no need to create false analogies. Unless you realize that you're doing a terrible job of making this claim. Then I guess maybe a desperation move is in order. Let's see why it's a bad analogy: [STA-CITE]> The fact that dead people wrote something does not discount the fact that it could have happened. [END-CITE]You're right [STA-CITE]> No one alive has physically seen or met George Washington but you and I both believe he exists because there was much written down about him. [END-CITE]Yep [STA-CITE]> Based solely on dead people's accounts of history. [END-CITE]Good so far [STA-CITE]> But it almost certainly isn't. [END-CITE]Yep, but that's only because nobody is making any extraordinary claims about George Washington. Like that he performed miracles, or is an all-powerful being. I guarantee you if anybody wrote anything claiming this and anybody currently alive believed it it would be disregarded as dogmatic fanaticism. [STA-CITE]> The verse you provided says nothing about believing without evidence and definitely nothing about arrogance being a good thing. [END-CITE]Stop lying. You have already literally described "seeing" as a type of evidence by quoting Hebrews. Taking these two verses into consideration then you could paraphrase John as "blessed are those who have believed without a certain type of evidence".

[schfourteen-teen]

And this is exactly why arguing with religious people is futile. He's not being a prick, he's pointing out exactly why what you said is incorrect. Your defense mechanism has turned on because your beliefs have been challenged. Quite frankly he's right and you are misrepresenting what science means, and you continue to do so after being corrected. You keep fighting for a position that you have no basis for maintaining. And just because I too want to add something constructive to this thread, here's this: [STA-CITE]>The Bible is a collection of writings, not one book written all at once. Which would actually be evidence because a Prophecy that specific would be impossible to predict 70 years in advance about a nation that hadn't risen to prominence yet. So you would need to either be a time traveler or God. [END-CITE]That is not evidence, and those are not the only two possible explanations. It could be evidence if we were referring to the absolute original copies of each of the documents, but we aren't. Someone after the fact has compiled all those texts together into the Bible. Someone chose which ones to keep and which ones to disregard. That person (or people) was also more than capable of editing the original documents to suit a particular result, like fulfilling prophecies. I'm not trying to say that's what happened, but your notion that the prophecy and fulfillment were written about at different times is in no way evidence of their truth. And being a time traveler or God are not the only ways to have affected that. And lastly: [STA-CITE]>I'm not sure you understand the definition of "dogmatic". It means to assert opinions in an arrogant manner or to be heavily opinionated and not listen to reason. Threatening someone is not dogmatic. [END-CITE]No, you clearly do not know what you're talking about. You obviously don't want to believe that religion is dogmatic so you have invented a more strict definition and added aspects like arrogance. Here's the real definition of dogmatic: [STA-CITE]>prescribed doctrine proclaimed as unquestionably true by a particular group [END-CITE][STA-CITE]>a settled or established opinion, belief, or principle [END-CITE]So as much as you don't want to believe religion is dogmatic, it very literally is. Every religion I'm aware of essentially says "to be a member of this religion, here are the things you believe". Science is strictly the opposite.

[SamuelColeridgeValet]

The scientific community is in a bind with regard to transcendant reality. Opinion polls (Gallup, Pew Research) have shown that a substantial percentage of scientists have religious beliefs - somewhere perhaps in the 30 to 40 percent range. One problem a scientist has in expressing religious-supernatural belief publicly, I think, is the fear that this provides poison with which the Six-Day Creationists can weaken science. In other words, they don't want their arguments for what the Gallup poll terms "evolution guided by God" twisted so as to support Adam, Eve and the snake. Also, it may be that for many scientists, belief is a matter of conviction - opinion the scientist is reluctant to voice because he or she doesn't believe that the evidence, while personally convincing, "wouldn't stand up in a court of law" as they say. The scientist might have a view of natural history that suggests intelligent design, while admitting that this view is subjective, or may have had what William James referred to as a religious experience. As I understand it, Rupert Sheldrake has been blacklisted from academia, not because he raised questions about natural selection but because he claimed to have a theory, and this "theory" was nothing more than pseudo-science. I admit that my knowledge of his work is very limited. An important thing to consider is that, although this field is controversial, parapsychology has not been attacked during the 20th and 21st centuries the way what's called creationism or intelligent design has been. In fact, one of the world's most influential medical journals, *The Lancet*, published a parapsychology study in 2001. A near-death experience study, the van Lommel paper gained worldwide attention. The fear of the religious scientist that arguments for the existence of a Higher Being other than God as depicted in Genesis is aggravated by a plethora of near-death experience You Tube videos. Christians stack the deck so that only those survivors who interpet their findings in Christian terms are shown. Links: Gallup, Pew Research http://ncse.com/rncse/18/2/do-scientists-really-reject-god http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/ [STA-CITE]>In the 2013 Journal Citation Reports, The Lancet‍ '​s impact factor was ranked second among general medical journals, (at 39.207), after The New England Journal of Medicine (54.420).[4] [END-CITE]~ "The Lancet" in Wikipedia It might be worth noting that a very popular part of our culture, science fiction, repeatedly blurs the distinction between nature and the supernatural.

[WordSalad11]

First up, Atheism is a non-scientific belief. Science is limited to testable hypotheses, and you cannot prove a negative. The mistake that both Mr. Sheldrake and you make is that science and real research is based on trying to disprove what has been proposed. Scientists and researchers make their careers by killing the theories of their peers. It is actually completely adogmatic. I'm also a little hazy on what you believe the "original" purpose of the scientific method was, and I am quite sure that it's origins predate Christianity by some time (it goes back to [at least](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales) the 6th century BCE).

[namae_nanka]

[STA-CITE]> the Abrahamic faiths still come down to external rules that are at odds with human nature, particularly sexuality. Just look at how intrusive Sharia Law can be. [END-CITE]Considering their fecundity, it's better to say they are quite considering of the human nature and work around it.

[vincemarotte]

I don't think they are competing world views. At the risk of over simplifying it, science is concerned with the question of 'how' and those who believe in a downward causation are concerned with the question of 'why'. The tools of science aren't equipped to answer the 'why' just as the tools of philosophy are inadequate to answer 'how'. They seem dogmatic when a) someone thinks they are exclusive ways to view reality and b) they try to use the methods and tools of one to answer the questions of the other. So maybe it isn't dogma so much as ignorance wrapped in fear and seasoned with past experience.

[themanp15]

Science isn't a worldview. It's a process of attempting to discover truth through observation. Do you have a source for Science being created out of Christianity? The first scientists were the ancient Greeks, who discovered astronomy and geometry and early medicine.

[vidro3]

sheldrake is just annoyed that people bother to question his findings. Accept his findings and your fine. Present alternatives or criticize how he got his data "dogma is making you say that!"

[almightySapling]

And what a quack! As he listed the "dogmas" in that video, a few of them stood out to me... I was like "yeah, sure, I could see why that wouldn't necessarily have to be true" but most of them I was like "yeah, that's not dogma, it's just a fact". He started with one of the ones I was willing to concede: that the laws/constants of the universe may not be fixed. Interesting, I kept listening. Then he started talking about "Morphic Resonance" and even claimed there was evidence to support it (which is basically nonexistent). Sheer lunacy.

[MrGiggleBiscuits]

Materialism is not dogmatic. It is necessary as without it, you can essentially assert whatever you want. Materialism is not about denying anything supernatural, but is more about realising that science can't comment on immaterial things and the supernatural because they are not observable or reproducable. So the reason scientists and those with science-based worldviews are usually against the supernatural is that it is not able to be understood by the scientific method, and as far as we are aware it is not observable. Once you can observe and test the supernatural, it is no longer supernatural, it's nature.

[debatingaccount]

Associating science with what some atheists claim isn't an accurate way to think of science. There are some people who claim that science is the only valid process, but their dogma comes not from "believing" in science, it comes from believing all others are false. Science is merely a process of using experimentation to obtain data, and scientists are just non-fiction writers who use the scientific method to conduct their research. The intent of the scientific method is simply to provide an accurate view of the observable world. I also don't know what you mean when you say science arose from Christianity, many scientists are and have been christian but scientific practices have existed in non-christian societies. Personally I am an atheist, but I am an atheist out of belief. Science can take me to a place of agnosticism, not claiming to know about god or the supernatural one way or the other. I am an atheist because it suits me to be one, science is not related to that nor what you are talking about.

[hsmith711]

Religion - Present fact. Defend fact regardless of argument. Science - Form hypothesis. Try everything possible to disprove hypothesis. ... Science isn't always done right.. but when it is.. there is no dogma.

[boredomisbliss]

But there is a dogma implicit in your characterization of science, the validity of experiments as a method of disproof. It just happens that this is an assumption that many find very reasonable and don't need convincing of. To me science and religion are both dogmas. The difference is that science isn't about preaching truth so much as it is about preaching that which is very unlikely to not be the truth. Religion claims to preach truth.

[n00dles__]

[STA-CITE]> Science isn't always done right.. but when it is.. there is no dogma. [END-CITE]Yes, I understand that, but my point is that there is a culture of materialist dogma around it that is inhibiting it going forward. While I thank science for the computer I'm typing this on right now, I do not agree with the notion that their is an objective reality outside of our own consciousness. Quantum mechanics would seem to confirm my (and many others') worldview that we, as intelligent beings, are an inseparable part of the universe and that our consciousness actively influences or even create reality.

[heyheyhey27]

[STA-CITE]> Quantum mechanics would seem to confirm my (and many others') worldview that we, as intelligent beings, are an inseparable part of the universe and that our consciousness actively influences or even create reality. [END-CITE]Only if you completely misunderstand what is meant by the term "observer" when talking about Quantum Mechanics. It has nothing to do with consciousness.

[thai_tong]

You are misled by the term "observer" really what is required is quantum entanglement, not any observation or observer

[stanthemanchan]

Quantum mechanics has to do with the particle / wave duality of matter and energy. In some instances, the act of measuring or observing a waveform can cause it to collapse and behave like a particle. However, consciousness has nothing to do with this. The agent doing the measurement could be an unconscious machine doing the task automatically and it would still observe the same effect.

[UncleMeat]

You have a gross misunderstanding of quantum mechanics. Nothing about QM suggests that consciousness is some special thing. You have been deluded by proponents of quantum woo.

[ThePsion5]

[STA-CITE]> Quantum mechanics would seem to confirm my (and many others') worldview that we, as intelligent beings, are an inseparable part of the universe and that our consciousness actively influences or even create reality. [END-CITE]To the best of my knowledge, this is based on the mistaken belief that "observation" is some mystical process only undertaken by a conscious mind. The reality is that, at the quantum scale it's almost impossible to observe something in a way that doesn't also interact with it. Fire photons at a surface to measure it's color and those photons impart energy to that surface when they bounce off, that sort of thing.

[GnosticGnome]

[STA-CITE]> there is a culture of materialist dogma around it that is inhibiting it going forward. [END-CITE]You can call that scientism, and it's not part of science. Real scientists are less likely to be part of that culture than Redditors, and are often religious or at least frank about the limitations of materialism.

[Think_Tanker]

I believe that you're misunderstanding the roll of a "conscious observer" in quantum mechanics. Think about it like this, does the rest of the universe not exist until observed by man? Of course not, that would be silly. We are not actively influencing or creating reality. > The universe presumably couldn't care less whether human beings evolved on some obscure planet to study its history; it goes on obeying the quantum mechanical laws of physics irrespective of observation by physicists. -Murray Gellmann (Nobel Prize, 1969)

[Au_Struck_Geologist]

[STA-CITE]> Quantum mechanics would seem to confirm my (and many others') worldview that we, as intelligent beings, are an inseparable part of the universe and that our consciousness actively influences or even create reality. [END-CITE]Could you please elaborate on this? A lot of times the new-age spiritual worldview invokes "Quantum (noun)" as evidence of connectedness, and I've never heard it followed up by any sort of actual understanding of quantum mechanics.

[chrisawhitmore]

Basically, there is evidence that, on a quantum level, observation of a system can alter the behaviour of that system. A notable example is the 'quantum Zeno effect' wherein continuous observation of a system prevents it from undergoing a change. (basically, as the probability of a system having decayed between measurements increases with time between measurements, as that time tends to zero, so does the probability, so that a constantly measured system will never decay, even though without measurement it would do so.)

[yiliu]

The thing is, 'observation' in a quantum sense requires _interaction_. To find the state of a particle you must somehow _interact_ with it, via other particles. When particles interact, their indeterminate states collapses to a specific, measurable ones. Intelligence is not required.

[KillerPacifist1]

This. There is no passive observation at that scale. Which I think is where the confusion comes from. People think we're just looking at these particles and the mere act of watching them alters their behavior. No. We interact with the *so we can watch them.* It's the interaction that changes them, not us observing them. It just so happens we can't observe them without interacting with them.

[Au_Struck_Geologist]

Right, but what does this effect have to do with consciousness or "creating reality?" How does this in any possible way make an argument for a connectedness between beings beyond the normal sensory input connections?

[chrisawhitmore]

The argument is that as we alter reality by the act of observing it, there can be no objective reality, or at least, objective reality is something we can by definition never observe. This does however make the mistake of attempting to apply quantum principles to situations where classical mechanics are more appropriate. Almost all observations made are too uncertain to ever be subject to quantum observer effects, so, in my opinion there's no meaningful conclusion about reality to be drawn from the quantum effect. That said, on a quantum level, with the appropriate tools, one can alter reality by observing it, which is cool.

[NeverQuiteEnough]

[STA-CITE]>The argument is that as we alter reality by the act of observing it [END-CITE]that's a miscommunication around the world "observe". We think of observing as something passive, but it actually requires a very active interaction with the subject of observation. For example, to see I first need to bombard the targets with enough photons that some randomly bounce into my retina. To hear, I need to strike the target, or else it needs to go through some sort of change that generates a vibration significant enough to traverse the atmosphere and reach my inner ear. I'm not sure exactly which experiments people are referencing when they talk about quantum observation, but generally "observing" a particle that small refers to hitting it with another particle, slamming it into a sheet, or doing something else pretty dramatic.

[almightySapling]

If I was blind and could only "see" fish in a pond by plunging both my fists in and feeling for them, then I would think some very different things about fish than I do now (like damn, there are basically no fish). Quantum effects of observation are no different. People like to interpret the word "observe" to think that there is something magical going on: like humans are all Cyclops from X-Men only instead of red beams our collective gazing causes waveform collapse. To be fair to this intuition, at normal scales, observation is totally passive: the light hits what it was already hitting, and now we just happing to be aiming our eyes at that area. On the quantum level, however, the mere act of observation is like shoving fists into a pond: any meaningful method of detecting particles exerts a force on them, adds energy to the system, and should not really be surprising that this has a severe effect on the otherwise "unseen" behavior. To conclude that our intelligence or consciousness is the cause of this behavior or somehow "creates" reality is wrong.

[Au_Struck_Geologist]

[STA-CITE]> That said, on a quantum level, with the appropriate tools, one can alter reality by observing it, which is cool. [END-CITE]I mean, yeah, quantum effects are very cool, so are classical physics effects. I still don't see how the quantum observer effect has anything to do with the standard group of metaphysical claims it is applied to. Usually about consciousness, or universal connectivity or other undefined effects. Again, I see the new agey worldview to be just as dogmatic as any other religion. The worldview desperately wants some "ether" to connect all things, and provide a mechanism for some sort of universal connection that can fulfill the predefined tenets of the faith. Whereas a scientific worldview makes observations, and *then* draws conclusions. For instance, I think it is fascinating that given the amount of water molecules on Earth, the amount in your body, and the rate that you cycle through them, it is statistically likely that you have at least a few water molecules that were inside Isaac Newton, Catherine the Great, or some dinosaur. Is this a neat fact? Of course! Does it mean that those water molecules impart some part of Newton's "essence" into you? No. At least not until we define "Essence" or any other such vaguery of a new age worldview. In general, I think you are right in thinking that at the macro level (where we live), quantum effects are essentially negligible, as our general level of existence is one where all their probabilities have already settled, and we just deal with the classical effects. The biggest difference between science and religions in this context is that if we were ever to discover some awesome, actual, observed connection between our consciousness and the outside world, we would celebrate it. We wouldn't dogmatically hold to some arbitrary position we have staked out in advance. But we can only celebrate that awesome connection *if we find it*. Not hope and wish it was there and then try and fill the gap between that wish and our observations.

[n00dles__]

[STA-CITE]>Again, I see the new agey worldview to be just as dogmatic as any other religion. The worldview desperately wants some "ether" to connect all things, and provide a mechanism for some sort of universal connection that can fulfill the predefined tenets of the faith. [END-CITE]Actually, the idea of interconectedness lines up well with Buddhist beliefs and isn't very New Age (but likely New Age incorporated it into their philosophies). Basically, the Buddhist concept of attachment is the idea that you are clinging onto something that you view as "separate" from yourself. This can be actual material things or abstract concepts. To me, adhering to dogma and/or conformity are attachments, because you see those rules as objective rules that you must follow "or else". This is kind of why I posted this, because there's obviously a lot of confirmation bias here. The current understanding of quantum physics would seem to confirm this worldview, and would seem to suggest that our universe is truly what we make of it.

[SmokeyDBear]

This is a pretty deep (yet common) misunderstanding of what quantum physics means by observation influencing a system. Starting at the beginning-ish. Systems sufficient to elicit behavior that can only be described by quantum mechanics often have features which allow for several different solutions to the Schrödinger Equation (the rough quantum mechanical equivalent of Newton's third law of motion F=ma). The Schrödinger Equation is a higher order differential equation and higher order differential equations always have multiple solutions. Quantum mechanics tells us that such systems do not exhibit the behavior of a single one of these possible solutions but probabilistically occupies all of them. This is called being in superposition. To measure anything you must perturb it. What this really means is that in order to be able to "measure" the state of a quantum system you must build something small enough and close enough to that system that the original system plus a sufficient measurement apparatus becomes a new system including both the original system and the measurement apparatus and from which neither system can be separated without destroying the ability to measure the behavior. This new system behaves differently from the original system in that when solving the Schrödinger equation for the original system plus the measurement apparatus the constraints placed on these solutions due to the addition of the measurement apparatus causes some of the original solutions to be invalid. In order to measure the particular state of the original system you *absolutely must* introduce a measurement apparatus which perturbs the original system enough to cause all but one of the many original solutions to be impossible. This is what quantum mechanics means when it says that observation alters the behavior of systems. It has nothing to do with conscious observation or sentience and it has essentially nothing to do directly with any choices we make. Any thought experiments or analogies which invoke conscious decisions (like Schrödinger's Cat) are merely that: analogies to help explain the circumstances of superposition and "observation" (i.e., not a human consciously understanding something, but the implications of measuring a quantum system: that is perturbing it enough so that the quantum mechanical "magic" goes away and it exists in a state where classical concepts of measurement actually begin to make sense again). They are not intended to be examples of how this phenomenon actually works nor should they be interpreted as suggesting that humans consciously or purposefully impact the universe at large via this phenomenon.

[RustyRook]

Could you please clarify a few points: [STA-CITE]> science did arise out of Christianity after all [END-CITE]Is there any way you could support this claim? It's my understanding that science came from various regions, religions, and peoples. Not every concept, far from it, used in science came from one religion's practitioners. [STA-CITE]> The materialist worldview it has come to is very limiting compared to the original intent of the scientific method. [END-CITE]What are the limits of a materialistic worldview? [STA-CITE]> choose whether or not to accept the said teachings [END-CITE]I hope you were paying attention to the recent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in the US, and other regions. The science clearly makes the case that there is no link b/w vaccinations and autism, though many people chose not to accept this. How do you feel about that?

[kingpatzer]

[STA-CITE]> Is there any way you could support this claim? [END-CITE]If you're really curious about this, see Stanley Jaki's "The God of Science." His thesis is that many historical cultures had great technology, far superior to what was found in Europe. But in each of these cultures while technological advances persisted for a time, science as a method of engaging knowledge never took hold. He argues it was because those cultures did not accept that the universe was rational and inherently intelligible. Jaki contends that it was within Europe that Aristotlean logic met the Judeo-Christian meta-belief that the universe must be intelligible because it was assumed to be designed by a rational God. This melding of logic with a large spread belief in the inherent rational intelligibility of the physical world gave us a culture where science could develop.

[i-need-a]

If you're talking about "science" as a culmination of concepts/discoveries/facts/etc... describing natural truths about the world then you're correct. This stuff happened all over the place- everywhere from ancient astrologers to Greek philosophers to Arab mathematicians. If you are talking about "science" as a particular method of inquiry into the nature of physical reality as conforming with certain methods and philosophical underpinnings, then the history and development of this doesn't happen without things like the invention of the university as a place to do theology, which arises out of some particularly Christian impulses.

[MPixels]

It wasn't so much the Christian beliefs that started off universities as it was the Church's monopoly on information and education, meaning that monastic schools grew up.

[i-need-a]

I may be reading into your comment a little heavily here, but I think that's a fairly prejudiced way to interpret it. I'll grant the Church didn't invent the concept of schools, but the university system takes root as a place to reconcile Christianity with the works of Aristotle as they filtered back west as the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) faded. Could the impulse towards natural theology and the natural philosophy have arisen without this specifically Christian drive? I don't know. Maybe? I only point out that it didn't, so you're stuck with the history of science being tied up with the history of the Church. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University#Medieval_universities

[MPixels]

[STA-CITE]> the university system takes root as a place to reconcile Christianity with the works of Aristotle as they filtered back west as the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) faded. [END-CITE]And those works were only preserved because certain groups (namely monks) had the time and devotion to learn and copy such texts. No on else was in a position to do this in Europe at the time, so universities grew out of these collections of classical knowledge. That's what I'm saying.

[i-need-a]

Well, sure, but then you're stuck back with the question of *why* monks had the "time and devotion" to learn and copy and extend the knowledge filtering back from the East. You say previously that it's not because of Christian beliefs, and I'm arguing that you can't just strip Christian beliefs out of monasteries. Monasteries only exist because of Christian beliefs, and the reason that they're communally supported to get heavily into 'learning' is because of particular (and genuine) beliefs about what it is [Christians are to be doing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism). It's not like all these people and buildings were sitting around idle waiting to be put to work.

[RustyRook]

Thanks for your comments; I was hoping OP would respond to my post, but that hasn't happened. I looked at the link you provided and it referred to university education in Europe. In one of the Comparative Religion classes I took, we learned of some very prominent universities throughout Asia. [This one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda), for example, or [this one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_University#History). There were many institutions of higher learning throughout the world at various times.

[i-need-a]

Sure, and maybe in time those universities and cultures would have developed something that paralleled the particular intellectual history in Europe that resulted in the regional system of institutional learning, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and then modern science. OR, maybe had Christianity not become a dominant European framework all of these things still would have happened in Europe through different means. But the fact is that it didn't, and we can't really run counterfactual histories to see what might have occurred, so we're stuck with a particular history for modernity and modern science that's heavily influenced by, and contingent upon, the particular history of the Western philosophical tradition- a tradition which for large parts of history (say, the fall of the Western Roman Empire up into the Renaissance) happens nearly exclusively within the context of the institutional Catholic church. IMHO, denying this would be like denying yoga as a thing with roots in Eastern traditions. Sure, Western monks were also doing something 'similar' in places ([Hesychasm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm)), but that doesn't prove that the practice and discipline of yoga isn't dependent on its Hindu/Buddhist genealogy. Right?

[RustyRook]

I mostly agree. Since it's impossible to access a parallel history, we're stuck with the narrative that we have. And that's fine. It's just that narratives are much smoother than the processes that make up so much of them. Is the European university system a valuable thing? Yup! But OP's and the general sentiment around this matter seems more euro-centric than it needs to be. The philosophical tradition that you're talking about was absent for a long time in Europe until the Persians translated the ancient Greek works and made them available again, setting off a second wave of European philosophy. It's not all unbroken. That's all.

[i-need-a]

Fair enough. I think I could probably try to argue that bits and pieces of the philosophical tradition were there (synods & early Church doctrinal disputes?), but I think you're right on in saying at that point I'm using narrative a little heavily to smooth things out. Plus, I know for a fact I'm euro-centric. Goddam I love me some Europe. Give me a croissant and a Carolingian.

[RustyRook]

Huge Europe-lover here too. One of my favourite vacations was to the Czech Republic some time ago. And Europeans do a lot of things very well. Thanks for the discussion; I agree w/ your POV, I just had to add in a few bits and pieces. And I did learn a few things as well. Cheers.

[i-need-a]

Cheers to you as well. I enjoyed the discussion too. I was in Prague a year or two ago, and it's definitely on my list of places to go back to.

[BreaksFull]

I'd say it's more accurate that modern Western scientific method grew out of European natural philosophy which was built on Christian beliefs and Arabic/Greek writings, sorta.

[i-need-a]

Yeah, I think that's fair. I'd agree you don't get natural philosophy without combining medieval Christianity + Aristotle. I'd just also stipulate that Church institutions (such as the university as a place to do theology) are probably required for the synthesis of the two to grow up into science.

[birjolaxew]

(Please note that I am arguing against the view expressed in the title) [STA-CITE]> My view is that while we can be taught, it is up to us to learn through our own experiences and choose whether or not to accept the said teachings, as opposed to blind faith [END-CITE]This is, in essence, the difference between science and religion. Theories and laws in science are based on reproducible experiments - this means that anyone with the right equipment should be able to reach the same results as anyone else when doing the experiment. This, in itself, makes science un-dogmatic (is that even a word?). Naturally, not everyone can complete the experiments themselves, so we trust that an experiment is good if a number of independent scientists reproduce it - this is known as peer reviewing. This introduces a *bit* of what you're talking about, as we have to trust a "higher authority" (in this case a number of scientists) that what they're saying is true. However, this is a trade off that is impossible to solve, and as such must be accepted for all knowledge. However, what I think you're talking about is how this knowledge is spread to the general public. In "popular science" shows, you'll often find that new hypothesis' or theories are presented as truths - which is wrong. These are not truths, and within the scientific community they are not considered as such. In fact, truth as an absolute does not exist as a scientific term. In other words, science is not dogmatic. However, some media can present it in a dogmatic way.

[boredomisbliss]

Science is based on the axiom that experiments are a valid proof of incorrectness of a claim. It just happens that this is an assumption that many find very reasonable and don't need convincing of. That doesn't mean science isn't dogmatic, in fact I just stated the core axiom. To me the difference is that science isn't about preaching truth so much as it is about preaching that which is very unlikely to not be the truth. Religion claims to preach truth.

[birjolaxew]

Yes, as I stated the concept of truth as an absolute does not exist in science. As for your first claim, are you saying that an experiment that falsifies a theory/hypothesis does not mean said theory/hypothesis is false? Given a hypothesis of "every swan is white", does the sight and verification of a black swan not invalidate said theory?

[boredomisbliss]

How do we know it is not a white swan that got soaked in tar? A silly question no doubt but I'm a more of a statistician than an actual scientist. The question is meant to raise the other question of who decides whether something is silly or unreasonable? Keep in mind the existence of an omniscient and omnipotent being is reasonable to a lot of people. Don't get me wrong. I think many of the things science says are truth. But the more we talk about absolute truths in terms of science the harder it is to rigorously separate science and religion.

[birjolaxew]

[STA-CITE]> How do we know it is not a white swan that got soaked in tar? [END-CITE]This is a natural problem with how observations work, and has been the cause of many false theories throughout time. I feel that this is covered pretty well by how truth is defined, however. All hypothesis', theories and laws are based on what we, as humans, have observed. Are these observations perhaps false/imperfect? Yes, but we never claimed they were not - they are simply the best we have for now. If contradicting observations, or a theory that explains the observations better, come along, we're more than ready to scrap our previous ideas. In conclusion, the swan might be white - but until observations happen that show it is, it is considered black in our view. This means that we might not have a perfect view of the world - but we never claim to have one. Science is an adaptive field - its ultimate goal is to uncover every truth about the world we live in, and it attempts to do so through proposing ideas, testing them, and then refining or scrapping them. Unfortunately, we are limited in the sense that we can only base our theories on what we experience, and what we experience is limited by our ability to correctly observe. There have been written many, many books around this concept, but I'm afraid I do not know enough about it to have in-depth discussions on the topic. [STA-CITE]> The question is meant to raise the other question of who decides whether something is silly or unreasonable? [END-CITE]Such things as "silly" or "unreasonable" generally do not exist in science. For as long as whatever you suggest is falsifiable and testable, it is science.

[boredomisbliss]

We are in agreement until the last line. I believe the difference between science and religion is all about what constitutes a reasonable assumption. A lot of science is built on the parsimonious principle, because science does concern itself with a lot of untestable things. One big example being evolution. We can create a world view which is consistent with the evidence to the point of it being very very unlikely to be false, at least in the view of those who don't believe in an omnipotent being. At least until time travel is invented.

[Klu_Klux_Cucumber]

Not to mention that trusting scientists is just an extension of scientific thought. I am essentially doing natural experiments by hypothesising that a particular organization is/isn't trustworthy, observing the results, and determining whether or not they support my hypothesis (eg. did they use shitty methods, lie, fudge data etc).

[i-need-a]

This is a pretty simplistic view of how science works. In practice, things seem to be a lot messier (see: [Thomas Kuhn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions)). Even far removed from 'popular science' it's not like you've got a bunch of dispassionate people cooly discussing 'facts' without any sort of dogmatic interpretation.

[birjolaxew]

This is all a discussion of the basic philosophy behind science, of course - the practical implementation is much messier.

[namae_nanka]

Actually your reply makes them rather similar and of course, *In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.*

[i-need-a]

I'll grant that. I'd just extend the same consideration towards religion lest we end up comparing apples and oranges.

[n00dles__]

∆ I'm giving you a delta because, unfortunately, this is yet another topic that brings in media sensationalism. I couldn't agree more.

[DeltaBot]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/birjolaxew. [^birjolaxew's ^delta ^history](/r/ChangeMyView/wiki/user/birjolaxew) ^| [^delta ^system ^explained](/r/ChangeMyView/wiki/DeltaBot)