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> We already know that our science can simply not explain/understand what happened in the first 10e-33s after the Big Bang, which is just established science.

> We already know that our science can simply not explain/understand what happened in the first 10e-33s after the Big Bang, which is just established science. Yet. There's a very big difference in "I don't know," vs. "I know that no one can ever know."

MrMcCall 2y ago
Absolutely. I actually know that (know that I don't know, but that my not knowing doesn't mean that no other person can know), but modern science will not be the source of such explanations. Those explanations can only be accessed once we understand that the universe itself is queryable (that is our joint purpose here, us and our expansive environment together) and that a human being needs to undergo a process of self-evolution to become aligned with the Creator's Intent such that we gain access to it. You could say that a person must learn of the challenge, accept the challenge, and then pass all the tests, thereby gaining access.
- jfactorial 2y ago
  > once we understand that the universe itself is queryable We do understand that. "What happens when I push a rock off a cliff?" is a query to the universe. The universe's response is observable when the experiment is executed and the rock is pushed. > a human being needs to undergo a process of self-evolution to become aligned with the Creator's Intent I have no need for this hypothesis. We can query the universe at any time simply by observing it, proposing a falsifiable explanation for what is observed, and acting within it to test our explanations.
  - MrMcCall 2y ago
    There are deeper queries than "What happens when I push a rock off a height?" The science and math of Newton's laws of motion is enough for that, especially if combined with some materials science. I didn't say that you "needed" anything, but the fact remains that if you want to calculate the trajectory of something traveling at a significant percent of light speed, you will need some higher maths. Such calculations require advancing one's mind, as do other queries. But, no, none of that is necessary to find out what happens when a person's cat pushes something off the countertop. No observation was even feasible for Einstein to formulate GR or Feynman to formulate QED, so if all that matters to you is what you see, that's your choice; I wish you well.
    - jfactorial 2y ago
      I thought it would be obvious that my simple example was only illustrative. I'm not actually suggesting we discuss high school physics. > No observation was even feasible for Einstein to formulate GR Einstein made many observations about the real world to formulate his theories, e.g. Mercury's orbit, the relativity of motion, the inability to distinguish between different forms of acceleration. > if all that matters to you is what you see, that's your choice To be clear, in this discussion about what science can explain/understand, I'm advocating for the scientific method as the sole means through which objective truth can be verified, not the sense of sight. When you mentioned a Creator being whose intent could be known and aligned with, my reply was a reference to a Laplace quote I thought you'd recognize. I apologize if it seemed personal. I only meant to say that we can and do query the universe to discover explanations for how it works without ever assuming the existence of gods or their supposed intentions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace#I_had_no_need_of_that_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace#I_had_no_...
      - MrMcCall 2y ago
        I am merely explaining that there are more sublime and direct ways of querying the univere, but that is beyond our current understanding of the depths science could be developed to explain. At some point in a certain kind of seeking, the proof is accepted and no more is needed. That someone calls it a hypothesis is akin to a flat-Earther opining that my understanding of the solar system is a theory. And, yeah, flat-Earthers are also very authoritative in their manner.
        jfactorial 2y ago
        > At some point in a certain kind of seeking, the proof is accepted and no more is needed. This is part of what intrigues me about this topic, the inductivist view that if we make enough empirical observations we can eventually settle on an objective truth. E.g. by observing enough cats we can conclude that all cats have whiskers. The realm of science is falsifiable statements. "All cats have whiskers," is a falsifiable statement. We can only state it with 100% certainty by observing all cats (impossible). We can disprove the statement by experiment, however, one designed to discovering just one pathetic little whiskerless cat. I subscribe to this, Karl Popper's view, that truth is an ideal we can pursue but never quite expect to arrive at. Truth seekers aim to be less wrong, but have little hope of being 100% exhaustively right. This isn't to say we are unable to act like we believe anything. We can assume the next cat we meet will have whiskers and get by pretty well. But I wish more people could accept that statements like "God exists but is not observable in any way," or "The government is covering up aliens and anyone who says differently is part of the cover-up," are not falsifiable, and because they can't be disproven they also can't be trusted as truth. Maybe they are true, but you can't know, so it doesn't matter. If a used car salesman tells you the car you're buying has above average fuel efficiency, you can test that and you should. If he tells you that it is a magical car that only runs out of fuel when destiny ordains it, we can't test that, so we should stay skeptical of the claim. Whatever means by which someone believes they are directly querying the universe, if they are making falsifiable statements, those statements can/should be tested by the truth seeker; and if they are not making falsifiable statements, there is no compelling reason to believe them.

MrMcCall 2y ago

Absolutely. I actually know that (know that I don't know, but that my not knowing doesn't mean that no other person can know), but modern science will not be the source of such explanations. Those explanations can only be accessed once we understand that the universe itself is queryable (that is our joint purpose here, us and our expansive environment together) and that a human being needs to undergo a process of self-evolution to become aligned with the Creator's Intent such that we gain access to it. You could say that a person must learn of the challenge, accept the challenge, and then pass all the tests, thereby gaining access.

jfactorial 2y ago
> once we understand that the universe itself is queryable We do understand that. "What happens when I push a rock off a cliff?" is a query to the universe. The universe's response is observable when the experiment is executed and the rock is pushed. > a human being needs to undergo a process of self-evolution to become aligned with the Creator's Intent I have no need for this hypothesis. We can query the universe at any time simply by observing it, proposing a falsifiable explanation for what is observed, and acting within it to test our explanations.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  There are deeper queries than "What happens when I push a rock off a height?" The science and math of Newton's laws of motion is enough for that, especially if combined with some materials science. I didn't say that you "needed" anything, but the fact remains that if you want to calculate the trajectory of something traveling at a significant percent of light speed, you will need some higher maths. Such calculations require advancing one's mind, as do other queries. But, no, none of that is necessary to find out what happens when a person's cat pushes something off the countertop. No observation was even feasible for Einstein to formulate GR or Feynman to formulate QED, so if all that matters to you is what you see, that's your choice; I wish you well.
  - jfactorial 2y ago
    I thought it would be obvious that my simple example was only illustrative. I'm not actually suggesting we discuss high school physics. > No observation was even feasible for Einstein to formulate GR Einstein made many observations about the real world to formulate his theories, e.g. Mercury's orbit, the relativity of motion, the inability to distinguish between different forms of acceleration. > if all that matters to you is what you see, that's your choice To be clear, in this discussion about what science can explain/understand, I'm advocating for the scientific method as the sole means through which objective truth can be verified, not the sense of sight. When you mentioned a Creator being whose intent could be known and aligned with, my reply was a reference to a Laplace quote I thought you'd recognize. I apologize if it seemed personal. I only meant to say that we can and do query the universe to discover explanations for how it works without ever assuming the existence of gods or their supposed intentions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace#I_had_no_need_of_that_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace#I_had_no_...
    - MrMcCall 2y ago
      I am merely explaining that there are more sublime and direct ways of querying the univere, but that is beyond our current understanding of the depths science could be developed to explain. At some point in a certain kind of seeking, the proof is accepted and no more is needed. That someone calls it a hypothesis is akin to a flat-Earther opining that my understanding of the solar system is a theory. And, yeah, flat-Earthers are also very authoritative in their manner.
      - jfactorial 2y ago
        > At some point in a certain kind of seeking, the proof is accepted and no more is needed. This is part of what intrigues me about this topic, the inductivist view that if we make enough empirical observations we can eventually settle on an objective truth. E.g. by observing enough cats we can conclude that all cats have whiskers. The realm of science is falsifiable statements. "All cats have whiskers," is a falsifiable statement. We can only state it with 100% certainty by observing all cats (impossible). We can disprove the statement by experiment, however, one designed to discovering just one pathetic little whiskerless cat. I subscribe to this, Karl Popper's view, that truth is an ideal we can pursue but never quite expect to arrive at. Truth seekers aim to be less wrong, but have little hope of being 100% exhaustively right. This isn't to say we are unable to act like we believe anything. We can assume the next cat we meet will have whiskers and get by pretty well. But I wish more people could accept that statements like "God exists but is not observable in any way," or "The government is covering up aliens and anyone who says differently is part of the cover-up," are not falsifiable, and because they can't be disproven they also can't be trusted as truth. Maybe they are true, but you can't know, so it doesn't matter. If a used car salesman tells you the car you're buying has above average fuel efficiency, you can test that and you should. If he tells you that it is a magical car that only runs out of fuel when destiny ordains it, we can't test that, so we should stay skeptical of the claim. Whatever means by which someone believes they are directly querying the universe, if they are making falsifiable statements, those statements can/should be tested by the truth seeker; and if they are not making falsifiable statements, there is no compelling reason to believe them.