Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Friday, November 2, 2018 at 4:54:06 PM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:

One of the unstated assumptions that leads people to say that you're the one who
is being

unscientific, of course.

John Savard

On Saturday, November 3, 2018 at 4:43:19 AM UTC, palsing wrote:
On Friday, November 2, 2018 at 3:54:06 PM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:
On Friday, November 2, 2018 at 3:35:22 PM UTC-6, Gary Harnagel wrote:

That depends on how you define "extraordinary." I find LOTS of supporting
evidence, most of it anecdotal, but one would have to be a very suspicious,
distrusting soul to write off millions of people who report such experiences
yet have NO evidence to the contrary, IMHO.

One of the unstated assumptions that leads people to say that you're the one who
is being scientific is that scientists should be more skeptical of findings that
would tend to fall in with their wisful thinking.

The assumption is that everyone's wishful thinking is that a God would exist, so
we wouldn't perish when we die, and so we don't have to consider the opposite:
that it might be wishful thinking to believe we don't have to worry about a God
watching over us.

So you have the convention backwards.

In any event, while I find MacDougall's experiments unconvincing, to say the
least, I don't need them to be convinced of the existence of the human spirit.

As I understand these terms, the "soul" is, in the Bible, supposed to be a vital
spark which allows both humans and animals to be alive, whereas the "spirit" is
the immaterial component of the human mind.

In that sense, while I don't believe in the "soul" I certainly do believe in the
"spirit". From direct observation. I see what I see, I hear what I hear, I
think, therefore I exist.

Human consciousness is something science has not even _begun_ to get to grips
with explaining. It does not have the tools to even approach the job.

So, from this, I conclude other people have feelings, how we treat them matters,
because like me, they experience life, sensations don't just rattle around in
silent dead brains the way information rattles around inside a computer or time
rattles around inside a cuckoo clock.

I don't *need* an experiment like MacDougall's to convince me of this - which is
a good thing, as his experiment isn't much help. But that there is more to
reality than mechanistic matter and energy - that is something I thought we all
knew.

John Savard

I just read this editorial in Astronomy magazine and I think it would be a good thing for everyone to read, to remind each other about just how science actually works... and reminding us that opinions or beliefs have no place in science... a small fact that often gets overlooked all too often...

http://www.astronomy.com/magazine/je...making-sausage

Enjoy.

\Paul A

Astronomical composition is like music composition, if it doesn't resonate with the observer then it will always sit awkwardly or be avoided. Anyone filtering astronomy through late 17th century experimental sciences descends into a perspective cave that has little or nothing to do with astronomy.

People here can be bullied into conformity so they are left to argue over pseudo-intellectual scraps or figments of their imagination.

On Fri, 2 Nov 2018 15:54:04 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
wrote:
In any event, while I find MacDougall's experiments unconvincing,
to say the
least, I don't need them to be convinced of the existence of the
human spirit.

As I understand these terms, the "soul" is, in the Bible, supposed
to be a vital
spark which allows both humans and animals to be alive, whereas the
"spirit" is
the immaterial component of the human mind.

In that sense, while I don't believe in the "soul" I certainly do
believe in the
"spirit". From direct observation. I see what I see, I hear what I
hear, I
think, therefore I exist.

Human consciousness is something science has not even _begun_ to
get to grips
with explaining. It does not have the tools to even approach the
job.

I fully agree with all this. We have a great mystery ahead of us to
research here, and what comes out of it we don't know in advance, of
course.

But a tentative hypothesis could be that the "spirit", I.e. our
consciousness, is the organisation of matter, which is what makes us
alive, and also conscious. We see that organisation matters a lot in
other cases. The difference between a book containing a great novel
from a very similar book (same size, same binding, same paper
quality, same number of pages, same amount of ink on the pages)
containing random gibberish is only the organisation of the ink
pattern on the pages. And the difference between a computer running
many useful programs from an identical computer waiting to have an OS
installed is the organisation of bit values in its memory. In these
cases the organisation itself has no mass, which is compatible with
the idea that the spirit also has no mass.

However, the claim that the human spirit somehow survives the
physical death of the body, to go on living forever in heaven or hell
(Christianity, Judaism, Islam), or to be transferred to another body
(Hinduism, Buddhism), is highly doubtful. There is also a strange
asymmetry in the claims by Christianity, Judaism, Islam: they claim
that the human spirit lives on in eternity after death, but not that
it already has existed in eternity before birth. Why this asymmetry?
Presumably because it reflects human fear: what happened before birth
is in the past and already has happened so we need not worry about
that. But what happens after death is in the future and we humans
worry so much about the future that whole professions can profit well
on that worry (e.g. financial forecasters, astrologers, and several
others).

Hinduism and Buddhism has more symmetry in their claims since they
say that our current incarnation is not the first one, we have many
earlier incarnation. However the claim that the spirit transfers to
other bodies but still maintains some identity is still highly
doubtful.

On Fri, 2 Nov 2018 21:43:16 -0700 (PDT), palsing
wrote:
I just read this editorial in Astronomy magazine and I think it
would be a
good thing for everyone to read, to remind each other about just
how science
actually works... and reminding us that opinions or beliefs have no
place
in science... a small fact that often gets overlooked all too
often...

http://www.astronomy.com/magazine/je...making-sausage

Beliefs and opinions do have one place in science though, when you
need to decide what to spend resources on for a scientific
investigation. Our resources are limited so we cannot investigate
everything. We must make a decision about what to investigate. And we
need beliefs and opinions to make that decision.

On Fri, 2 Nov 2018 14:35:20 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:
On Friday, November 2, 2018 at 12:47:41 PM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter
wrote:

On Fri, 2 Nov 2018 07:57:33 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

On Friday, November 2, 2018 at 8:49:31 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter
wrote:

It is not impossible for sudden changes to happen minutes
after
death...

But something very unusual happened at the time of death in all
four
cases. Two of the four had NO anomalous weight change which
happened
after that.

The anomalous weight changes of the other two afterwards must
be due to
some other phenomenon than the change that occurred
simultaneously with
death.

Maybe the weight changes at death also was due to "some other
phenomenon"? Including quirky behavior of the balances... It is
hard
to rule out that possibility without repetitions of the
experiment,
preferably using other kinds of balances.

"May be" "Could be" "might be" "quirky balances" "hard to rule out"

These are all excuses, not refutations.

These are all possibilities which must be ruled out before the
extraordinary claim "we just did weigh the human spirit" can be made
with any credibility. Otherwise you have become a victim of your own
wishful thinking. Even MacDougall himself realized that, and that's
why he wrote that the experiment would have to be repeated many times
before any conclusion could be made.


Again, extraordinary claims

But considering all the NDE evidence that supports existence after
death,
they aren't that "extraordinary."

require extraordinary evidence.

That depends on how you define "extraordinary." I find LOTS of
supporting
evidence, most of it anecdotal, but one would have to be a very
suspicious,
distrusting soul to write off millions of people who report such
experiences
yet have NO evidence to the contrary, IMHO.

OK, let me explain:

If you would say "There's a red car parked outside the house", I
would probably believe you without requiring more evidence. After
all, there are lots of red cars out in the streets, and it's not
remarkable if one of them was parked outside the house.

If you instead would say "There's a spaceship from another planet
parked outside the house, and the aliens are getting out if it now"
then I would **not** just believe your word, instead I would want to
get out to see it with my own eyes.

Likewise if you said "God has revealed himself outside the house by
climbing down from heaven on a huge ladder, accompanied by a myriad
of angels! It's truly a glorious sight - praise God!", then I would
not just believe your words, instead I would want to see it myself.

Likewise if you said "Jim is lying dead in the street outside the
house. His spirit, glowing in green, is flying to and from and
hovering over his body", then I wouldn't just believe your words
either.

I hope this clarifies the difference between ordinary claims and
extraordinary claims.

People who live in their heads and struggle with others will never find peace nor rest in this life for had they expanded their perspectives rather than narrow them, these people would be on a more expansive and vibrant track.. The terror of having made such a basic mistake on which to build an empirical agenda creeps up on people as they try to stay ahead of it until it overtakes the individual and they realise that the Lat/Long system contains the correct details of planetary rotation and not RA/Dec which tries to model both daily rotation and orbital motion.

I have seen people lately adopt more productive perspectives as video commentaries become more popular but instead of forming a solid foundation for explanations, these video commentaries run ahead of themselves and make assertions that are deficient, do not work or are plain wrong. I have seen the recent video of the direct/retrograde motion of Mercury but it lacks the principles set out here in this newsgroup and elsewhere thereby undermining the clear narrative that two separate perspectives of direct/retrogrades are necessary.

The theorists have run out of road so unless they want to make noise with pseudo-Christians then it all looks desperate and downright pathetic.

On Friday, November 2, 2018 at 4:54:06 PM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:

On Friday, November 2, 2018 at 3:35:22 PM UTC-6, Gary Harnagel wrote:

That depends on how you define "extraordinary." I find LOTS of
supporting evidence, most of it anecdotal, but one would have to be
a very suspicious, distrusting soul to write off millions of people
who report such experiences yet have NO evidence to the contrary, IMHO.

One of the unstated assumptions that leads people to say that you're the
one who is being scientific is that scientists should be more skeptical
of findings that would tend to fall in with their wisful thinking.

I don't understand. Did you leave out an important negative word there?

The assumption is that everyone's wishful thinking is that a God would
exist, so we wouldn't perish when we die, and so we don't have to consider
the opposite: that it might be wishful thinking to believe we don't have
to worry about a God watching over us.

So you have the convention backwards.

Some people hope the former, atheists hope the latter/

In any event, while I find MacDougall's experiments unconvincing, to say
the least,

I find it strange that when considering that something completely unknown
to science leaves the body at death with mass greater than 1/4 ounce with
a confidence level of 99.9% - that is, with a one in a thousand chance that
it doesn't happen - you would choose the one chance in a thousand :-)

I don't need them to be convinced of the existence of the human spirit.

Neither do atheists, apparently.

As I understand these terms, the "soul" is, in the Bible, supposed to be
a vital spark which allows both humans and animals to be alive,

According to Genesis, "soul" is a living human being:

"And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

The "breath of life" is apparently the "spirit":

"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall
return unto God who gave it." -- Ecclesiastes 12:7

whereas the "spirit" is the immaterial component of the human mind.

In that sense, while I don't believe in the "soul" I certainly do believe
in the "spirit". From direct observation. I see what I see, I hear what I
hear, I think, therefore I exist.

There certainly is a problem in communication when people's definitions
disagree :-)

Human consciousness is something science has not even _begun_ to get to
grips with explaining. It does not have the tools to even approach the job.

But perhaps MacDougall's work was a first step in that direction. Denial
of it hinders further advancement.

So, from this, I conclude other people have feelings, how we treat them
matters, because like me, they experience life, sensations don't just
rattle around in silent dead brains the way information rattles around
inside a computer or time rattles around inside a cuckoo clock.

I don't *need* an experiment like MacDougall's to convince me of this
- which is a good thing, as his experiment isn't much help.

It indicates that your idea that the essence of life ("the breath of life)
has no mass may be wrong.

But that there is more to reality than mechanistic matter and energy -
that is something I thought we all knew.

John Savard

Richard Dawkins would disagree.

On Saturday, November 3, 2018 at 3:04:08 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

But a tentative hypothesis could be that the "spirit", I.e. our
consciousness, is the organisation of matter, which is what makes us
alive, and also conscious. We see that organisation matters a lot in
other cases. The difference between a book containing a great novel
from a very similar book (same size, same binding, same paper
quality, same number of pages, same amount of ink on the pages)
containing random gibberish is only the organisation of the ink
pattern on the pages. And the difference between a computer running
many useful programs from an identical computer waiting to have an OS
installed is the organisation of bit values in its memory. In these
cases the organisation itself has no mass, which is compatible with
the idea that the spirit also has no mass.

Apparently, it is true that information has no mass, but all of our
understanding of information is that it must reside in some form of
matter. Hence, it is not unreasonable to expect that "spirit" has
some kind of mass.

However, the claim that the human spirit somehow survives the
physical death of the body, to go on living forever in heaven or hell
(Christianity, Judaism, Islam), or to be transferred to another body
(Hinduism, Buddhism), is highly doubtful.

Why is that "doubtful"? Where is your evidence for this? You have none,
of course, so you "doubt" in a vacuum.

There is also a strange asymmetry in the claims by Christianity, Judaism,
Islam: they claim that the human spirit lives on in eternity after death,
but not that it already has existed in eternity before birth. Why this
asymmetry? Presumably because it reflects human fear: what happened
before birth is in the past and already has happened so we need not worry
about that.

Yes, this bothered me once upon a time. This is another point that divides
present-day Christianity from the early form. There is one passage in the
Bible that hints of life before birth:

"Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?"
-- John 9:2

Jesus answered that neither was the case, but he didn't deny that it was
POSSIBLE to sin before birth. And then there's this:

"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest
forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet
unto the nations." -- jeremiah 1:5

It is fashionable today to treat this merely as an example of the
foreknowledge of God, but it's just as logical that Jeremiah's spirit DID
exist before he was born.

Jesus claimed that He existed before his birth, so why not us? The Lord
demanded of Job where he was when the foundations of the earth were laid
and "all the sons of God shouted for joy." It is also fashionable to
explain these as angels, but John uses "sons of God" to refer to us:

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God" -- 1 John 3:2

But what happens after death is in the future

Not for those who have had near-death experiences :-)

and we humans worry so much about the future

That's because we will spend the rest of our lives there :-)

that whole professions can profit well on that worry (e.g. financial
forecasters, astrologers, and several others).

AGW advocates, ...

Hinduism and Buddhism has more symmetry in their claims since they
say that our current incarnation is not the first one, we have many
earlier incarnation. However the claim that the spirit transfers to
other bodies but still maintains some identity is still highly
doubtful.

"Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother."
-- Khalil Gibran

In article ,
says...

On Friday, November 2, 2018 at 11:15:02 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

On Fri, 2 Nov 2018 04:38:59 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

On Friday, November 2, 2018 at 4:01:11 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

OK, let's suppose this is not his goal. But then, why would God first
obscure his existence in order to make a number of people not believe
in him,

To develop faith, of course.

Why is uncritical faith so desirable? To a dictator who wants to
enslave his supporters it is, of course. Is God a dictator?

"verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed,
ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it
shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." -- Matt. 17:20

.....and yet, no single Christian has been able to actually move a whole
mountain by merely using their will power. If someone did, it wouldn't go
unnoticed, it would be clearly visible in seismographs all over the
world.

Another example of exaggreated claims and false promises, this time from
the Bible itself.

However, you failed to answer the question: why is uncritical faith so
desireable?


and then, later, throw the non-believers in hell, to suffer and
scream and anguish, for ever and ever until the end of time?

I don't believe that.

The Bible says so. Don't you believe in the Bible? That would make
you an arrogant apostate who deserves hell...

Nope. That would make me a skeptic that the Bible survived two millenia
without without being changed by uninspired people.

Matthew 5:29-30:
And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee:
for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and
not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for
it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not
that thy whole body should be cast into hell

Mark 9:43-46:
And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter
into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire
that never shall be quenched:
Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter
halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire
that never shall be quenched:
Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Luke 12:5:
But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath
killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

Revelation 21:8:
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and
whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have
their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is
the second death.

Need I say more than this?


"in every instance in near death experiences of an encounter with the ?being of light? in all of the above studies patients reported the experience to be one of intense love."

https://www.magiscenter.com/love-and...h-experiences/

"In 69% of the cases, people who experienced Near Death (NDE) felt that
they were in the presence of an overwhelming love in the company of
family and friends or other mystical bodies."

http://godloveletters.com/near-death-experiences/

Carl Sagan, in his TV series "Cosmos" of the 1980's, gave an interesting
explanation for this. Near-death experiences often share some common
things, such as pushing yourself through a narrow tunnel and then
emerging into light were friendly beings of light are nice to you and
take care of you. Sagan suggests that this actually is a vague
recollection of an experience that all humans have - the experience of
birth!


Hmmm, I wonder what the other 31% felt. But don't worry Paul, since:

"Interestingly, 75% of people who consider themselves atheists reported
these divine figures."

If you want to read about what it's really like:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.29793228ba55

An all-powerful God could of course do such a thing, but not a God
which is both all-powerful and all-benign...

Are you claiming that God is evil?

YOU are the one who is claiming that.

FYI: something which does not exist cannot be evil. But those who
made up this "God story" certainly weren't all-benign...

You're conflating those who wrote the Bible with those who copied and translated it.

Nah ... all of them were humans, with human waknesses, weren't they?

You should be more skeptical of the models because they aren't reality.

Actual measurements are of course preferable. So what does the
measurements say? Do we have a global warming or not? What's your
opinion?

I believe that the earth is getting warmer overall, but it doesn't seem
to be mainly because of CO2 increase. And I worry that we may NEED some
extra CO2 if we head into another Little Ice Age.

We already have this extra CO2. Several scientists believe this dosn't
merely cancel any future "little ice age" but perhaps even the next major
ice age. Which of course is a good thing, if the human civilization
survives the heat wave in between.


So if you think you don't have time for Wikipedia, why do you have
time to hang around here?

It's entertainment. Besides, I learn some new things here. I wouldn't
learn anything by what you suggest.

Wrong! You'll learn more than you realize by actually looking upp
support for your claims.

Wrong! I DO look up support and I receive criticism from you and others.

GREAT!!!

Now write on Wikipedia about your findings. Don't forget to include the
references....


Who knows, you might even find good reasons for changing your mind.

And I have because of John Savard's point about temperature increase due
to CO2 feedback through water vapor. I had to figure out how to apply
that to modtran.

And your modtran results disagree significantly from empirical data...


Only someone who believes himself to be infallible would argue like you.

I never claimed to be infallible. This is just your fantasy.

If it wasn't unreliable, why did even the author himself think the
experiment needed to be repeated? Not just once, but many times...

For scientific acceptability, of course. The point is that it hasn't
been repeated and, therefore, hasn't been refuted.

Likewise, you won't find studies trying to find out if the Earth is flat
or not. Should we therefore conclude that the claim "the Earth is not
flat" is unproved?

This is sophistry, Paul. There ARE such studies every time a satellite
or astronaut takes a photo of the earth from space. This clearly refutes
flat-earth assertion. OTOH, there are no studies that refute MacDougall's
work.

I'm just mimicing your way to argue, to (hopefully) make you realize that
it is flawed.


The final numbers are 300.81 K and water vapor scale of 1.07. So
we have a temperature rise of 1.11 K for a doubling of CO2 levels.

From empirical data we've had a temperature rise of close to one degree
compared to preindustrisl levels,

Actually, reliable data from 1882 to 2015 shows temperature rise was -0.41
in 1882 to +0.98 K in 2015 (with 0 being the reference around 1950 to 1970,
or thereabouts). I don't know what you want to call "preindustrial" but
it looks more like 1.4 K to me.

Well, that's even worse for you. A rise in CO2 levels of somewhat less
than 50% (280 ppm pre-industrial to 410 ppm current) gives a temperature
increase of 1.4 degrees, while modtran says that an 100% in CO2 gives a
temperature rise of 1.11 degrees.

If modtran is as accurate as you claim, how do you explain this
discrepancy?

despite that we haven't yet had any doubling of CO2 levels but merely an
increase of less than 50%.

The CO2 level in 1959 was 316 ppm and was 401 in 2015, an increase of 31%
in POST-industrial. Furthermore, it looks like there was cherry-picking
to come up with that 50% number: there were measurements as high as the
1959 number in the 1880's.

Again, that's even worse for you: a CO2 increase of 31% yields a
temperature rise of 1.4 degrees, while modtran claims a 100% rise in CO2
gives a temperature increase of 1.11 degrees. Why this discrepancy?


Therefore modtran must be underestimating the global warming.

Modtran was developed by the U. S. Air Force and has been used by them
and climatologists and tested for decades, so that is unlikely. You are
assuming that a certain increase ratio at lower CO2 levels is equivalent
to the same ratio at higher CO2 levels. It's not. You COULD calculate
it using modtran rather than making vacuous assertions, and you might
learn something :-)

And if I did, I would probably end up with the same result as you. And we
would **still** have a big discrepancy between modtran calculations and
empirical data.


I don't think there are many non-Nicaean churches left. Virtually all
conventional churches are Nicaean, I.e. they follow dictates by people
you consider to have been apostates.

Some protestants accept it after redefining the word "Catholic." Others
don't use it because it's the "work of man" and lacks inspiration from
God. And others accept it after defining for themselves what "one
substance" means. Most people simply don't understand it and don't worry
about it. Which just supports my point that most churches are wrong.

And will God send all the members of those majority of churches which are
wrong to hell because they are wrong?

The word "catholic" really means "universal doctrine". Orthodox churches
sometimes refer to themselves as "Roman Catholic" churches. They call
themselves "Roman" because they refer to "East Rome" i.e. Constantinople
(which became the capital of the Roman Empire around AD 300, and after
the split of the Roman Empire, the East Roman Empire survived the West
Roman Empire by almost 1000 years). And they call themselves "Catholic"
because they believe that their doctrine applies universally to all
Christians.

So we have two differnet "Roman Catholic" churches. Confusing, isn't it?


Anyway, you celebrate Christmans and Easter according to dictates from
the majority of the Catholic and Protestant churches, even though you
think that a majority, perhaps all, of them are wrong. Why do yo do
that? Do you want to end up in hell, or what?

On Sat, 3 Nov 2018 05:50:30 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:
Apparently, it is true that information has no mass, but all of our
understanding of information is that it must reside in some form of
matter. Hence, it is not unreasonable to expect that "spirit" has
some kind of mass.

It is more reasonable that the spirit resides in the mass of the
body. And if the body is destroyed, so is the spirit.

Muslims believe that on Judgements Day, not only the spirit but also
the body is resurrected. And therefore they don't want the bodies of
their dead to be cremated.

However, the claim that the human spirit somehow survives the
physical death of the body, to go on living forever in heaven or
hell
(Christianity, Judaism, Islam), or to be transferred to another
body
(Hinduism, Buddhism), is highly doubtful.

Why is that "doubtful"? Where is your evidence for this? You have
none,
of course, so you "doubt" in a vacuum.

I didn't say "disproved", I said "doubtful". It is doubtful for two
reasons. First, we know of no natural process through which this
could happen. And, second, we have no reliable evidence that this
does happen.

Our worldview would become very unmanageable if we were to believe as
a fact everything which has not been disproved - for instance that
there are big green Pac-Man-like monsters living on an unknown planet
orbiting Sirius. Nobody has been able to disprove that...


But what happens after death is in the future

Not for those who have had near-death experiences :-)

Near-death is not death. Just like a nearly total solar eclipse is
not a total solar eclipse, or nearly winning the lottery is not
winning the lottery...