Thread: Science Explains Everything Challenge

Science cannot explain how Invader's avatar scares the hell out of me.

Science cannot explain Chi energy.

Originally Posted by grasshoppa

Science cannot explain Chi energy.

That's a good one, actually. There are numerous overlapping systems, ancient and modern, descriptive and prescriptive, regarding the vital energies of the earth and living beings. At least millions of humans derive insight and/or benefit from them daily.

Why are my energies redoubled through the exercise of Qi Jong? Why, at the point of exhaustion, am I repeatedly able to come to a state of mental clarity and renewed physical energy by ritually gathering Chi from the earth?

Originally Posted by Merlock

Of course it isn't an answer. That's the whole point. You won't get an answer.

No you don't get it.. I mean, you weren't really saying anything - you're just saying that I have to struggle with it myself.

As for the latter part, not quite so. "Personal revelation" and the like can be explained to others, but only those you trust and those who trust you. Good friends and the like. Again, based on the heart, mind, feelings, ideals, etc.

Where as science has "proof", which doesn't require trust, thus easily dispersed into the masses in the form of experiments caught on tape or paperwork to corroborate them, etc.

Don't forget that science is the ideal of offering others the ability to experience the results themselves. It's not just simply believing the word of other scientists - this is why peer reviewed journals exist!

Science is used for things we "need" technically. But when do you think people turn to magic and the like? When they really need something, socially, not technically. When one needs to resurrect a dying family member or best friend and science tells them, "Not going to happen", where do you think they will turn?

And in such cases, do you really think anyone will share the knowledge they really need for their own important purpose with the public at large? Never.

I agree, but I can't help but think that this is sort of an excuse for those who make these statements against science.

That's why this question came up in such a naive manner. You think you're entitled to just be told what you want to know for the sake of knowing. Just like many think they're entitled to "rights" and "freedoms", and entitled to a great deal of things, just "because".

Hang on.. I'm just after discussion, not demanding anything nor do I have any expectations. If I say something to someone, I hope for a response, but I never expect one.

But there shall always be a larger stake at play as long as society exists and doesn't become a mindless mass of apathetic cattle: purpose. True purpose. Social purpose. Not curiosity, not technical capability, but purpose revolving around things that truly matter to us as conscious self-aware beings with personalities, not beasts that just require means to an end to survive.

I hope you are not saying these things in a pejorative reference to science..

Originally Posted by Invader

Science cannot explain an imaginary set of rules for an imaginary world. They are made up, and science deals purely with factual, objective reality.

You're making a desperate leap to the imagination here. Even in an imaginary world, how are things explained in the imaginary world that cannot be explained scientifically? Even in fantasy, science can still be applied. Stop encapsulating science.

So, what can explain imaginary rules for a made up world? Why, the game's rulebook of course! The imaginary world doesn't count as personal revelation if more than one person is participating in the delusion.

Give me my award.

Those rules are still based on scientific grounds, no?

Originally Posted by grasshoppa

Science cannot explain Chi energy.

Well that is nice, you still fail to explain what else can explain Chi energy that is not scientific?

Here's the problem with Chi energy and all other energies and this challenge. The question will be utilizing a fallacy of "begging the question".

To make my point, let me use an example:

P1) Science cannot explain Klampops.

P2) Klampops are my personal colors that I do not think others can see.

C) Thus, science cannot explain Klampops but I can.

However, the problem here is that.. how can anyone know what Klampops are to disagree or argue this point? Notice that even the conclusion is reached via logic which is utilized by science!

So when you say that science cannot explain Chi energy, how can it be explained that does not still remain fallacious? Because anyone can say, "Well science cannot explain Klampops, but my friend knows what they are!"

Which.. is personal revelation.

Which.. is a nice way of saying imagination.

What do you think...?

Edit:

Originally Posted by Taosaur

That's a good one, actually. There are numerous overlapping systems, ancient and modern, descriptive and prescriptive, regarding the vital energies of the earth and living beings. At least millions of humans derive insight and/or benefit from them daily.

Why are my energies redoubled through the exercise of Qi Jong? Why, at the point of exhaustion, am I repeatedly able to come to a state of mental clarity and renewed physical energy by ritually gathering Chi from the earth?

How is this not personal revelation..?

This still falls parallel to the grounds of, "science cannot explain klampops, but I can". They are logically the same.

~

Originally Posted by O'nus

Here's the problem with Chi energy and all other energies and this challenge. The question will be utilizing a fallacy of "begging the question".

To make my point, let me use an example:

P1) Science cannot explain Klampops.

P2) Klampops are my personal colors that I do not think others can see.

C) Thus, science cannot explain Klampops but I can.

However, the problem here is that.. how can anyone know what Klampops are to disagree or argue this point? Notice that even the conclusion is reached via logic which is utilized by science!

So when you say that science cannot explain Chi energy, how can it be explained that does not still remain fallacious? Because anyone can say, "Well science cannot explain Klampops, but my friend knows what they are!"

Unless "Klampops" have been: widespread, dialogued, written about, universally true to anyone, identified, contextualized, taught about, confirmed, attained, realized, and put into practice, there is no way to compare them with Chi energy.

Originally Posted by O'nus

Which.. is personal revelation.

Which.. is a nice way of saying imagination.

What do you think...?

I thought you agreed with me earlier. Without personal revelation, or rather, "revelation", what exists? Nothing. It is naive to think it is a nice way of saying "imagination". In fact, revelation usually bypasses the imagination altogether.

Originally Posted by really

Unless "Klampops" have been: widespread, dialogued, written about, universally true to anyone, identified, contextualized, taught about, confirmed, attained, realized, and put into practice, there is no way to compare them with Chi energy.

Why not? Simply because it is spoken of a lot does not mean it is different in concept. Are you able to distinguish without begging the question?

I thought you agreed with me earlier. Without personal revelation, or rather, "revelation", what exists? Nothing. It is naive to think it is a nice way of saying "imagination". In fact, revelation usually bypasses the imagination altogether.

No, I do still agree. Simply, it is like another topic. I simply see science as the most utilized form of perceptual understanding. In order to understand things, we typically utilized scientific methods intuitively anyway. Otherwise, we end up stuck in circles constantly re-justifying our dogmatic beliefs rather than developing and integrating new information.

~

If I'm going to be more serious about this,

Originally Posted by O'nus

Please name something that science cannot explain that something else can -besides personal revelation.

For starters, science does not explain anything, nor does it give any answers in and of itself. It is not analogous to a religion that offers answers. The scientific method is no more than a tool that allows human beings to measure and observe objective reality with factual results. Theories and Laws arrived at through science are what do the explaining. Furthermore, because the scientific method encompasses all of objective reality, all other categories fall into the subjective realm, which equates to issues that are experienced via "personal revelation".

There is the scientific method, and there is personal revelation. There's nothing else. Your challenge is not actually possible, not from the way I understand it, and I'm assuming that's your point.

Originally Posted by O'nus

Why not? Simply because it is spoken of a lot does not mean it is different in concept. Are you able to distinguish without begging the question?

Chi has been widely recognized and familiar within certain practices (etc) as spiritual energy and energy flow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi

"Klampops" - you actually just made up on the spot?

Originally Posted by O'nus

No, I do still agree. Simply, it is like another topic. I simply see science as the most utilized form of perceptual understanding. In order to understand things, we typically utilized scientific methods intuitively anyway. Otherwise, we end up stuck in circles constantly re-justifying our dogmatic beliefs rather than developing and integrating new information.

~

How does "revelation" become reliant on things that are potentially false, then? Something that is not existing cannot be "revealed".

Originally Posted by O'nus

Well that is nice, you still fail to explain what else can explain Chi energy that is not scientific?

Here's the problem with Chi energy and all other energies and this challenge. The question will be utilizing a fallacy of "begging the question".

To make my point, let me use an example:

P1) Science cannot explain Klampops.

P2) Klampops are my personal colors that I do not think others can see.

C) Thus, science cannot explain Klampops but I can.

However, the problem here is that.. how can anyone know what Klampops are to disagree or argue this point? Notice that even the conclusion is reached via logic which is utilized by science!

So when you say that science cannot explain Chi energy, how can it be explained that does not still remain fallacious? Because anyone can say, "Well science cannot explain Klampops, but my friend knows what they are!"

Which.. is personal revelation.

Which.. is a nice way of saying imagination.

What do you think...?

Edit:

How is this not personal revelation..?

This still falls parallel to the grounds of, "science cannot explain klampops, but I can". They are logically the same.

~

Millions of people know and understand what Chi is. Millions of people have and can feel chi energy if they wish though various exercises or rituals.

There are numerous overlapping systems, ancient and modern, descriptive and prescriptive, regarding the vital energies of the earth and living beings. At least millions of humans derive insight and/or benefit from them daily

Like Taosaur, and many Qigong, Bagua, and Tai Chi masters say: Chi energy is not just 1 system. It includes circulation, electromagnetic energy, the muscular-skeletal system and many others. Chi energy can be scientifically explained, but it would be a four-foot-tall book that would require years and years of rigorous investigation.

Although, I agree that for now, Chi is a subjective experience. However, it is a common subjective experience. Nearly the whole population of China, and millions more across the world partake in Chi cultivating exercises. Is this imagination? I don't think something this widespread and widely known is imagination..

What, like religion? You know - those mutually contradictory stories also believed by billions of people? The numbers argument doesn't work mate.

Personally I have no reason to believe in Chi. Nor have I ever recieved a proper explanation of what Chi actually is.

Still, I think there are things which lie outside of the grasp of science... O'nus has so far ignored them though which is a bit irritating. Qualia cannot be explained by reductionist methods... neither can the existence of the universe. Science observes how things are, it does not explain why they are.

Personally I have no reason to believe in Chi. Nor have I ever recieved a proper explanation of what Chi actually is.

Go to a local qigong place and ask. It's not about believing, it's about experiencing. Everyone can experience it thought proper exercises/rituals/dances. All it takes is good instruction and practice.

Originally Posted by O'nus

Challenge:

Please name something that science cannot explain that something else can -besides personal revelation.

~

How about the cosmological constant? It's incredibly finely tuned. A lot of people consider that the smoking gun pointing to an intelligent creator.

NOTE: Just because I said intelligent creator doesn't mean the bible. I wish people would stop automatically associating the idea of an intelligent creator to Jesus and the bible.

...the cosmological constant doesn't exist.

It was a kind of force which Einstein introduced so that his theory would predict a stationary universe. However he did this without any empirical justification at all - only an ancient prejudice that the universe had existed for eternity. He later called it the greatest blunder of his life.

I agree that the universe is fine tuned though. However, that doesn't really justify an intelligent creator to me (mainly because that just shifts the question of existence onto that creator, which solves nothing). I read in the New Scientist yesterday that physicists are increasingly coming round to the conclusion that there are many universes out there with different constants. They've been trying to iron out this problem by looking for some kind of set of conditions which would ensure that our universe is the only possible one, but it just hasn't worked. It's something I've always believed to true though, the multiverse theory, based upon philosophical reasoning: if there are many different universes (the estimate is an incredible 10^500), there will be a few (most likely a tiny tiny fraction) in which conscious life spontaneously arises through some process or other; and those universes are the ones you find yourself in, because it is impossible to find yourself anywhere else.

Go to a local qigong place and ask. It's not about believing, it's about experiencing. Everyone can experience it thought proper exercises/rituals/dances. All it takes is good instruction and practice.

I don't think there's a local qigong within 100 miles from here to be honest, but thanks.

I'll cover a little more Chi below, but what about the arts? Criticism in all fields of the arts supply massive explanatory frameworks to which science is irrelevant. The same applies to philosophy, the mother of science. Sci-ence, application of the intellect, has no power to address its own origins.

Originally Posted by O'nus

How is this not personal revelation..?

There's a massive literature explaining every aspect of Chi and it has been affirmed through practice by probably billions of individuals over hundreds of generation. If you dismiss any non-scientific explanation as "personal revelation," your question begs itself.

Originally Posted by Xei

I don't think there's a local qigong within 100 miles from here to be honest, but thanks.

If you're in the US and within 100 miles of any city larger than about 15000 people, there probably is at least one teacher of Qi jong and Tai Chi Chuan.

I'm not.

Originally Posted by Xei

What, like religion? You know - those mutually contradictory stories also believed by billions of people? The numbers argument doesn't work mate.

Personally I have no reason to believe in Chi. Nor have I ever recieved a proper explanation of what Chi actually is.

Still, I think there are things which lie outside of the grasp of science... O'nus has so far ignored them though which is a bit irritating. Qualia cannot be explained by reductionist methods... neither can the existence of the universe. Science observes how things are, it does not explain why they are.

You pose a good point that I should have known..

I now realize that my creation of this thread is prepositional.

I apologize.

~

Originally Posted by Xei

...the cosmological constant doesn't exist.

It was a kind of force which Einstein introduced so that his theory would predict a stationary universe. However he did this without any empirical justification at all - only an ancient prejudice that the universe had existed for eternity. He later called it the greatest blunder of his life.

I agree that the universe is fine tuned though. However, that doesn't really justify an intelligent creator to me (mainly because that just shifts the question of existence onto that creator, which solves nothing). I read in the New Scientist yesterday that physicists are increasingly coming round to the conclusion that there are many universes out there with different constants. They've been trying to iron out this problem by looking for some kind of set of conditions which would ensure that our universe is the only possible one, but it just hasn't worked. It's something I've always believed to true though, the multiverse theory, based upon philosophical reasoning: if there are many different universes (the estimate is an incredible 10^500), there will be a few (most likely a tiny tiny fraction) in which conscious life spontaneously arises through some process or other; and those universes are the ones you find yourself in, because it is impossible to find yourself anywhere else.

I don't think there's a local qigong within 100 miles from here to be honest, but thanks.

Oh god, i can't even imagine THIS universe, let alone a friggin multiverse. How in the universes can this thing be so damn big? possibly infinite....so it would be like a balloon expanding from your air pumping it up like a "big bang".

Originally Posted by Taosaur

I'll cover a little more Chi below, but what about the arts? Criticism in all fields of the arts supply massive explanatory frameworks to which science is irrelevant. The same applies to philosophy, the mother of science. Sci-ence, application of the intellect, has no power to address its own origins.



There's a massive literature explaining every aspect of Chi and it has been affirmed through practice by probably billions of individuals over hundreds of generation. If you dismiss any non-scientific explanation as "personal revelation," your question begs itself.



If you're in the US and within 100 miles of any city larger than about 15000 people, there probably is at least one teacher of Qi jong and Tai Chi Chuan.

What do you feel when you do Chi? i wish i could not be drained all the time....

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

What do you feel when you do Chi? i wish i could not be drained all the time....

Seems like O'nus realized the error of his ways and walked away, so I don't feel too bad derailing:

The most common practice involving Chi is Tai Chi Chuan, a Korean/Chinese martial art sometimes practiced as a fighting style, but more often as an exercise regimen and/or Taoist meditation. Qi jong is essentially calisthenics for Tai Chi, warm up exercises culminating in "permeating the Chi."

I'm only a dabbler myself--I took two weeks of Tai Chi in college before having to choose between it and my night job, and I've retained a 15-minute Qi jong routine as my preferred morning exercise, though I don't do it regularly. Part of the benefit is just that it's a stretching exercise, leaving you limber for the activities of the day, but I find it also leaves me with substantial energy and a sharpened sense of my body and the space around me throughout the day. I've also found an abbreviated version of "permeating the Chi" very helpful in enduring the occasional 9am-4am restaurant shift.

It's definitely worth taking a course, though walking into anything expecting miracles is a good way to get taken for a ride.

Originally Posted by Taosaur

Part of the benefit is just that it's a stretching exercise, leaving you limber for the activities of the day, but I find it also leaves me with substantial energy and a sharpened sense of my body and the space around me throughout the day. I've also found an abbreviated version of "permeating the Chi" very helpful in enduring the occasional 9am-4am restaurant shift.

Well, I do 'normal' stretching, Steve Maxwell's joint mobility exercises and some shadow boxing in the morning.
And I feel the same way: energized, limber, increased body awareness and find it easier to concentrate during the day.
Could it be that this is a normal physiological and mental outcome of exercising in the morning, and not due to some mysterious force named Chi?

Originally Posted by SnakeCharmer

Well, I do 'normal' stretching, Steve Maxwell's joint mobility exercises and some shadow boxing in the morning.
And I feel the same way: energized, limber, increased body awareness and find it easier to concentrate during the day.
Could it be that this is a normal physiological and mental outcome of exercising in the morning, and not due to some mysterious force named Chi?

Nothing abnormal or mysterious about Chi. It's just a useful way of looking at the energies of the body and nature.

Originally Posted by O'nus

Challenge:

Please name something that science cannot explain that something else can -besides personal revelation.

~

Science can't explain the Synesthesia, which goes back to science can't explain the mind at all.

Originally Posted by Invader

Is this a riddle?!

Science cannot explain an imaginary set of rules for an imaginary world. They are made up, and science deals purely with factual, objective reality.

So, what can explain imaginary rules for a made up world? Why, the game's rulebook of course! The imaginary world doesn't count as personal revelation if more than one person is participating in the delusion.

Give me my award.



[Edit] No, there are no real world objective phenomena that I can conceive of that can be explain by something other than science, unless the explanation is theoretical.

Nah, your conjecture is wrong. Science bases on hypotheses. It gives theses which are only valid if the hypotheses are true. Nothing keeps you from setting a bunch of different basic situations (a different reality), and foreseeing the behaviour of that system. The only difference is that there would be no way to observe things physically. But still, it is logically, and therefore scientifically possible.

One clear example of this is action games. Made up systems, different physical laws; but you can also analyse, experiment, and predict. Therefore science can study it. It has been done extensively. Only difference is, it isn't really useful for humans in general as compared to real physics.

Originally Posted by HaRd_WiReD

Science can't explain the Synesthesia, which goes back to science can't explain the mind at all.

Style without substance, much? In which age were you born? Science does explain the mind. And it's much more boring and simple than you imagine. I could go all the way through a rigorous, hardcore explanation, but I will keep myself down to the following:

Synesthesia is a product of learning. You are, from young age, taught and conditioned to think that fire is warm and that fire is red. The brain tends to associate similar information, in order to ease learning, but also to provide more information in response to a specific stimulus. Therefore, as you associate fire with red, and fire with warm, you tend to associate red with warm. With enough reinforcement, you may see something red and immediately think of it as warm, without passing through the interconnecting idea, which is fire. This process is usually more intense when we're young, because we are not taught with scientific rigour - we are just taught the way it'll make us learn faster.

Schemed:

(through observation)
fire -> red
fire -> warm

(brain associates information)
red <-> fire <-> warm

(with time)
red <-> warm

We could discuss this in another thread, if you really want. In any case, my point was only to illustrate just a little bit of what neurosciences know about the mind nowadays. It is a fascinating field.

To be honest neuroscience has discovered next to nothing about the neural circuits of higher cognition.

That's directly paraphrasing Henry Markram who is pretty much the worldwide leader in these things.