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Author Topic:   Mysterious Questions, Mysterious Answers and Supernaturalism
Phat
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Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 31 of 32 (744428)
12-11-2014 7:00 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by Jon
12-18-2010 12:57 AM


Re: "Mysterious Answers" of Today
Jon writes:
What I think would help, if Rahvin is still interested in this thread, is an example of a modern scientific theory/conclusion which might be suspect as a 'mysterious answer', and an explanation of why it might be 'mysterious'. Pointing to modern scientific theories/conclusions that fail the test of 'real answer', I think, would go a long way toward clearing up whether 'real answer' has been used synonymously with 'modern science-conforming answer'.
Any new observations four years later?

Saying, "I don't know," is the same as saying, "Maybe."~ZombieRingo
One of the major purposes of debate is to help you hone your arguments. Yours are pretty bad. They can use all the honing they can get.~Ringo
If a savage stops believing in his wooden god, it does not mean that there is no God only that God is not wooden. (Leo Tolstoy)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by Jon, posted 12-18-2010 12:57 AM Jon has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by Rahvin, posted 12-11-2014 2:32 PM Phat has not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 32 of 32 (744484)
12-11-2014 2:32 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by Phat
12-11-2014 7:00 AM


Re: "Mysterious Answers" of Today
Any new observations four years later?
New observations? No.
Mysterious answers are unlikely to pass through the peer review process unscathed. That's part of the reason peer review is necessary.
However, I've heard of (not firsthand and not documented, so take it with a grain of salt) some examples. For instance, I've heard of scientists who say that consciousness is caused by "emergent properties." Basically the idea is that the root of awareness is not a definable mechanism in and of itself, but rather emerges from the sum of the properties of the component neurons in the human brain.
That's not necessarily bad by itself, but problems arise when people then start saying that consciousness is an "emergent phenomenon" when asked "what causes consciousness."
"Emergence" is not an answer. It might be true, but only in the useless way that it's also true that the image on my computer monitor is the result of the sum total of the properties of its component parts. It's not false but it's not useful and it doesn't give me any more knowledge than what I had before the response was given. It's not an actual answer to the problem.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995...
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings
Nihil supernum

This message is a reply to:
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