Dan Peterson Takes on the "No Evidence At All for The Book of Mormon" Argument

[Analytics]

23 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I reject the label "supernatural."

Provide me a better label and I'll use it.

23 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I think his claim of "no evidence" exceeds the scope of what scientific inquiry can prove or disprove.

You are ignoring the content of his arguments.

23 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I think there is no present way to prove or disprove the existence of God, spirits, etc.

You are ignoring the content of his arguments.

23 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I don't think Carroll's postulations are "evidence against the Church."

You are ignoring the content of his arguments.

23 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I don't think you have demonstrated that apologists have ignored Carroll.

Could you cite a serious LDS scholar that has engaged the content of Carroll's arguments? The closest I've seen is that biologist from the Discovery Institute. He does a superficial book review, but doesn't engage with the actual arguments.

23 minutes ago, smac97 said:

First, you really stack the deck when you speak of "false beliefs."  You presume that which is yet to be demonstrated.

You are ignoring the content of Carroll's arguments.

23 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Second, this rationalization thing could include . . . Carroll, right?  He can be using his intelligence to rationalize his atheism?  His hostility towards religion?

In principal, of course. We all have our biases. In theory, the way to cut through your biases is to have a skeptical attitude and to actively try to disprove that which you want to believe.

Carroll said the particle physicists were "hoping with all their hearts to find new particles; discovering new particles, especially unexpected ones, is what keeps particle physics exciting. But they didn’t see any. Just the known particles of the Core Theory, produced in great numbers. The same has been done for protons smashing into antiprotons, and various other combinations. The verdict is unambiguous: we’ve found all of the particles that our best current technology enables us to find." (p. 182)

When you compare that attitude the the attitude of religionists who try to have faith and build their testimonies, it's clear which group is cultivating confirmation bias and which one is not. 

23 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I really think they do.  Paul Nelson's critique (which I cited/quoted here) sure seems to "deal with Carroll's arguments," as indicated by your massively re-arranging his "gold" analogy so as to once again stack the deck.

Are you claiming that in all of Christiandom you couldn't find a single physicist who could respond to Carroll, and that the best you could come up with is a biologist? In any case, he did NOT deal with Carroll's argument. Instead he ignored it and came up with a weird, off-point analogy about gold. The point of his analogy, as far as I could tell, was that Carroll's arguments are true but unfulfilling because they merely tell us that mind emerges from brain but doesn't know all of the details of how. Fixing his analogy so that it addresses Carroll's actual point isn't stacking the deck. Rather, it is illustrating how it doesn't address his actual point.

23 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Latter-day Saint apologists critique evidence and arguments presented all the time.  FARMS did it.  FAIR does it.  Interpreter does it.  Jeff Lindsay does it.  Book of Mormon Central does it.  And on and on and on.  

So it's a bit absurd for you to pluck a book out of the millions available on Amazon, quote it, and then say "There.  Mormon apologists have not responded to this book.  I rest my case.  The Mormons are addressing the evidence against their beliefs."  That is patently and wildly inaccurate and misleading.

The fact that they try to control the conversation by cherry picking the evidence they deal with doesn't change the fact that there are massive amounts of evidence that they ignore. I've presented evidence from mainstream physics that shows basic truth claims of Mormonism, such as the existence of spirits and revelation, are flatly disproven by mainstream physics. You ignore the actual arguments and say that in principle they can't be made. You are totally illustrating my point. 

23 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I don't ignore scientific principles when they are relevant and within their proper sphere.  To the contrary, I think scientific advancements are a wonderful thing.  But there are all sorts of things that "scientific argument" can neither prove nor disprove.  Among these are the things you "don't like," namely, the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, such as the existence of God, spirits, and so on.  

Here is the ironic part. I do like the teachings of your church--most of them, anyway. I'd love for there to be a God. I'd love there to be spirits. I'm not an atheist because I hate the concept of God. I'm an atheist because I took the Mormon value of finding and embracing the truth seriously and this is where it led me.

The fact of the matter is that in principle, anything that interacts with the real world is in the purview of science. The "God hypothesis" isn't even wrong and there really isn't anything to say about it. But things like spirits, revelation, and priesthood power are within the purview of science because they make concrete claims about the real world. As I've shown on this thread, the strongest, most robust, most well-tested theory of all of science, the theory that is as strong as a child of the Hulk and Godzilla, proves that spirits and revelation don't exist. And you ignore it and declare that it is incapable of doing any such thing. And that is the impasse we are at. You say you "think scientific advancements are a wonderful thing", yet you completely ignore and deny the existence of the ones that threaten your religious views.

23 minutes ago, smac97 said:

"Scientific arguments" about the existence of God, spirits, etc. is not a thing.  You are preaching scientism, not science.

I'm not preaching anything. I'm relaying the specific details of what 50 years of intense scientific research has taught us about the Effective Quantum Field Theory. This is science, and calling me names won't cause it to go away.

23 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Oh, nonsense.  Nobody is "ignor{ing} scientific arguments."  We are all fine with science within its sphere and element.  But science, in its present form, can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God, or the existence of spirits.

 

Do you know how silly that sounds? In the words of Sean Carroll:

There’s nothing in the practice of science that excludes the supernatural from the start. Science tries to find the best explanations for what we observe, and if the best explanation is a non-natural one, that’s the one science would lead us to. We can easily imagine situations in which the best explanation scientists could find would reach beyond the natural world. The Second Coming could occur; Jesus could return to Earth, the dead could be resurrected, and judgment could be passed. It would be a pretty dense set of scientists indeed who, faced with the evidence of their senses in such a situation, would stubbornly insist on considering only natural explanations. The relationship between science and naturalism is not that science presumes naturalism; it’s that science has provisionally concluded that naturalism is the best picture of the world we have available.

Carroll, Sean. The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (p. 134). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

23 minutes ago, smac97 said:

And I utterly refute the imputation that Latter-day Saint apologists are somehow afraid or reluctant to engage and and evaluate and respond to arguments and evidences as to what we believe.  Apologists have been doing just that for a very long time.

They respond to some issues that they cherry pick. But as I've demonstrated on this thread with one example, there are detailed, specific scientific arguments that use the strongest results of all of science that prove core Mormon beliefs are implausible.  And for whatever reason, apologists don't engage with these arguments. We can speculate why. Perhaps they don't know enough about science to know these issues are out there. Maybe they don't want to draw attention to issues for which they don't have answers. Regardless of why, you "utterly refuting" my point doesn't cause a body of apologetics that engage with these issues to appear.

As I said at the very beginning, I don't expect you to agree with me. But from my seat, science is continuously gaining further light and knowledge, and all branches of science are pointing to the same conclusion. And this trend is ignored by apologists in its entirety. I've been talking about what quantum physics has to say about the likelihood that spirits are real. To conclude, I'll shake things up and quote what Yuval Noah Harari explains what the fields of neuroscience and evolutionary biology have to say about the question.

The belief that humans have eternal souls whereas animals are just evanescent bodies is a central pillar of our legal, political and economic system. It explains why, for example, it is perfectly okay for humans to kill animals for food, or even just for the fun of it.

However, our latest scientific discoveries flatly contradict this monotheist myth. True, laboratory experiments confirm the accuracy of one part of the myth: just as monotheist religions say, animals have no souls. All the careful studies and painstaking examinations have failed to discover any trace of a soul in pigs, rats or rhesus monkeys. Alas, the same laboratory experiments undermine the second and far more important part of the monotheist myth, namely, that humans do have a soul. Scientists have subjected Homo sapiens to tens of thousands of bizarre experiments, and looked into every nook in our hearts and every cranny in our brains. But they have so far discovered no magical spark. There is zero scientific evidence that in contrast to pigs, Sapiens have souls.

If that were all, we could well argue that scientists just need to keep looking. If they haven’t found the soul yet, it is because they haven’t looked carefully enough. Yet the life sciences doubt the existence of soul not just due to lack of evidence, but rather because the very idea of soul contradicts the most fundamental principles of evolution. This contradiction is responsible for the unbridled hatred that the theory of evolution inspires among devout monotheists.

Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (pp. 101-102). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. 

[Analytics]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

There are "scientific findings" based on "testable observations and evidence" that empirically and objectively disprove the existence of God, spirits, etc.?

Are you sure?

Thanks,

-Smac

Sean Carroll sure thinks so. But he's just a scientist, so what does he know?

[ttribe]

8 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Here is the ironic part. I do like the teachings of your church--most of them, anyway. I'd love for there to be a God. I'd love there to be spirits. I'm not an atheist because I hate the concept of God. I'm an atheist because I took the Mormon value of finding and embracing the truth seriously and this is where it led me.

I don't self-identify as an atheist (more of an agnostic), but otherwise this captures my feelings quite well.  I very much wish it was all true.  I very much mourned the loss of my testimony; it was a horrible experience.

[rongo]

3 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Sean Carroll sure thinks so. But he's just a scientist, so what does he know?

But other equally qualified scientists disagree (some, even strongly) with him. Sean Carroll is not the end all and be all of what quantum physics proves or doesn't prove, especially when it comes to things like "spirit." This is especially true because it is a rapidly moving field dealing with mysterious particles that don't appear obey our known laws of physics, and a lot is deduction and conjecture (since we can't probe at the Planck length and Planck energy levels). And the string theorists disagree with the supersymmetry theorists, and the traditional Standard Model people disagree with both.

We're talking about WIMPS (weakly interacting massive particles), and neutrinos, which we can't really measure (they are essentially undetectable), and which we have to make inferences about based on assumed and theoretical indirect effects on bosons. And all of the discussion about what, exactly dark matter entails (there's a lot of it, but it doesn't interact with gravity or the EM or strong/weak forces). 

Good for Sean Carroll for thinking that science has definitively ruled out spirit. But people who don't agree with him are not knuckle-dragging, uni-browed hayseed rubes. 

[Analytics]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

If he can present "scientific findings" based on "testable observations and evidence" that empirically and objectively disprove the existence of God, spirits, etc., then I'm all ears.  But I don't think he's done that.  At all.  Instead, what I am seeing from him, from Analytics (and, it seems, from you also to an extent) is scientism.  

Could you go into more detail on this? Are you claiming that Effective Quantum Field Theory is scientism and not science? That crossing symmetry is scientism and not science? That when you have a vibrating field you really can't break it down into different frequencies?  That Feynman diagrams that show the Quantum Mechanical relationship between particles and forces are scientism and not science? That the experiments performed in particle accelerators don't test anything testable, don't result in any empirical evidence, and don't prove anything at all? That Quantum Field Theory is intrinsically non-testable and doesn't say anything at all about the world?

I'm a little bit frustrated here. First you criticized me for citing the arguments in a book and referring you to them. You called that an appeal to authority. I've now made pages of quotes and laid out many of the components of the argument and show that according to quantum physics, the idea of a "spirit" that interacts with the human brain is testable. I've gone to lengths to explain why these are robust tests. I've quoted top-notch physicists who explained the results of the tests.

And now you are completely ignoring it. That is your prerogative. But don't pretend you are a fan of science when you brush off its conclusions so casually. 

[Ryan Dahle]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Quote

I don't think you have demonstrated that apologists have ignored Carroll.

Could you cite a serious LDS scholar that has engaged the content of Carroll's arguments? The closest I've seen is that biologist from the Discovery Institute. He does a superficial book review, but doesn't engage with the actual arguments.

I'm not Smac, but here is something I came across in just a few minutes of searching. It was written by what appears to be a graduate student who is now working in the ASU department of physics:

https://thenewatlantis.com/wp-content/uploads/legacy-pdfs/20170819_TNA52Kordahl.pdf

While he shows much respect for Carroll's writing style and many of his ideas, Kordahl takes exception with the same arguments and assumptions presented by Carroll that many on this thread have expressed concern about. I'm not sure why theists or specifically Latter-day Saints are obligated to refute Carroll's applications of his expertise into realms where he is less of an expert. It seems that others, even some who share Carroll's atheistic/agnostic leanings, are probably going to do that task for us.

Here are some relevant quotes:

Quote

The most obvious case of a fish tearing the net is in the chapter “Abducting God.” This is a case where I agree with Carroll on his conclusion even while I find his arguments rather weak.

 

Quote

But the farther Carroll wanders off his expert turf, the weaker the book becomes.

It’s probably unfair to blame him for this. No one is equally comfortable in every context. But where a traditional journalist might slip comfortably into novice mode, shading in thin arguments with a telling anecdote about an eccentric genius or some gee-whiz details of an afternoon at the lab, Carroll is locked in as an expert—an expert, in this case, self-tasked with writing about the origins of life and meaning, and not just the big old universe.

 

Quote

You see the problem. Carroll posits a “God” whose attributes—and the attributes of whose world—can be enumerated in absentia, more or less like a scientific model: We can imagine the model is correct, then make predictions about outcomes. But this isn’t the way most people approach religion. Just as God’s existence can’t be proven through argument (even if many have tried), one can’t very well discount religious experience by reasoning probabilistically that God is unlikely. Experience is the one thing, in the end, that can’t be denied. Much as we might like to imagine ourselves chilly Bayesian rationalists, I suspect that most of us are led to our fundamental beliefs via methods that are much less austere. We go around sniffing the world, rooting through rubble, turning over dirt. After all our searching, many of us find a world that smells like God. Many others (including me) don’t.

 

Quote

Regardless of your convictions, there is a point here that many would-be Bayesians might overlook. Bayes’s theorem allows well-defined models—mathematically well-defined models—to be tested against observations. Now turn that around, and realize that without a well-defined model, Bayes’s theorem is nearly useless. This has important consequences. It means that Carroll’s faith in his probabilistic approach is overblown, like when he says that even though it is “enormously problematic” to apply Bayesian reasoning to the question of God, “we don’t have any choice.”

 

Quote

The way Carroll bats away experience as mere vocabulary seems deeply wrong. It doesn’t matter whether one considers the experience of red or the experience of God. For individuals, these experiences constitute the most direct form of knowledge available. I don’t mean, by this, to suggest that most experiences can’t be explained, or, in some cases, explained away. But experiences are—always are—our primary data. Theories, no matter how sophisticated, will always be secondary to them. Which is why the redness of red is more undeniably real to me than legal code. My knowledge of redness may be sharpened by my identifying it as a perceptual category, but unlike legal code it is still a raw sensation, pre-linguistic and inescapable. Granted, consciousness may one day be understood so well that my insistence on the redness of red as mysterious might scan as parochial and naïve. But for the time being, my first-person experience of it is real to me in a way that can’t be easily dissolved.

By missing this qualitative distinctiveness of subjective experience, Carroll fails to appreciate how consciousness might be anything other than a peculiar way of talking about physical stuff. He may not indulge in the worst fallacies of this sort— subjective experience, he grants us, is not something that happens “in the brain.” Rather, it is a concept “within a way of talking about things happening in the brain.” But in saying this, Carroll ignores that Chalmers and others mean something quite different when they talk about consciousness. Carroll wants the terms of our language to correspond neatly to facts of physics, such that all descriptions of phenomena are about those facts, while our language continually refers to things at once more direct and less explicable than the familiar fluctuations of the void.

 

Edited March 17, 2021 by Ryan Dahle

[Analytics]

35 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I'm not Smac, but here is something I came across in just a few minutes of searching. It was written by what appears to be an atheist graduate student who is now working in the ASU department of physics:

https://thenewatlantis.com/wp-content/uploads/legacy-pdfs/20170819_TNA52Kordahl.pdf

While he shows much respect for Carroll's writing style and many of his ideas, Kordahl takes exception with the same arguments and assumptions presented by Carroll that many on this thread have expressed concern about.

If I may clarify something, I’m not a member of a Sean Carroll cult (I don’t believe there even is one). I’m certainly not saying that Big Picture is infallible nor that it says everything that there is to say about everything. It is an ambitious book, and I find it compelling in many respects but it’s not, and I don’t expect it to be, the last word on everything.

That said, it does make some specific arguments that I find compelling. When I’ve referred to Big Picture, I’m not referring to a cherry-picked authority, I’m referring to specific compelling arguments within this particular book. In this thread, I’ve specifically been referring to Carroll’s explanation of the “Core Theory” and what it, and the experimental evidence supporting it, imply about the plausibility of spirits and revelation (Effective Quantum Field Theory is a major component of the Core Theory).

According to the book review you shared, with emphasis added,

In the best parts of The Big Picture, Carroll communicates science at a level of sophistication that rarely makes it into popular books. I especially admire his treatment of what, following Frank Wilczek, he calls the “Core Theory”: the Standard Model of particle physics, plus general relativity for gravity. Like every other science writer, Carroll mentions the tension between the two—the Standard Model is a quantum theory, with all the indeterminism that implies, while general relativity is entirely deterministic—but he also explains why these theories won’t ever be simply thrown out. The Core Theory, he writes, “includes everything going on within you, and me, and everything you see around you right this minute. And it will continue to be accurate.” Moreover, within its domain of applicability it will always be correct, which should allow us to draw certain broad conclusions. When Carroll goes through these conclusions, he is never less than thoughtful.

I appreciate you sharing a book review written by a a physicist who agrees with the parts of the book that I've found compelling.

Quote

I'm not sure why theists or specifically Latter-day Saints or obligated to refute Carroll's applications of his expertise into realms where he is less of an expert.

You are not obligated to refute Carroll. I merely pointed out that this is an example of extremely strong evidence against the church that apologists ignore. Smac97 is the one who insists that apologists are doing a great job of defending the Church, not me.

Quote

It seems that others, even some who share Carroll's atheistic/agnostic leanings, are probably going to do that task for us.

Or not. As I quoted above, Kordahl calls the specific arguments I've been referring to as "the best parts" of the book, and agrees with them.

 

Edited March 17, 2021 by Analytics

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, rongo said:

But other equally qualified scientists disagree (some, even strongly) with him. Sean Carroll is not the end all and be all of what quantum physics proves or doesn't prove, especially when it comes to things like "spirit."

Yes, a feature of the human brain is to simultaneously believe contradictory things. But just because a physicist believes in this or that doesn't mean it is compatible with physics, much less that it is true. What matters are strength of the arguments they make. That is why I've gone to such pains on this thread to explain the actual arguments, including how they are testable. A physicist can use his intelligence to ignore Carroll's arguments, but that isn't the same thing as refuting them.  

1 hour ago, rongo said:

This is especially true because it is a rapidly moving field dealing with mysterious particles that don't appear obey our known laws of physics, and a lot is deduction and conjecture (since we can't probe at the Planck length and Planck energy levels). And the string theorists disagree with the supersymmetry theorists, and the traditional Standard Model people disagree with both.

We're talking about WIMPS (weakly interacting massive particles), and neutrinos, which we can't really measure (they are essentially undetectable), and which we have to make inferences about based on assumed and theoretical indirect effects on bosons. And all of the discussion about what, exactly dark matter entails (there's a lot of it, but it doesn't interact with gravity or the EM or strong/weak forces). 

Good for Sean Carroll for thinking that science has definitively ruled out spirit. But people who don't agree with him are not knuckle-dragging, uni-browed hayseed rubes. 

As I've explained above when I've talked about Effective Quantum Field Theory, these emerging mysteries have no bearing on the strength of his arguments that preclude the existence of spirits. As Ryan's book reviewer correctly noted:

The Core Theory includes everything going on within you, and me, and everything you see around you right this minute. And it will continue to be accurate. Moreover, within its domain of applicability it will always be correct, which should allow us to draw certain broad conclusions.

[Ryan Dahle]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

That said, it does make some specific arguments that I find compelling. When I’ve referred to Big Picture, I’m not referring to a cherry-picked authority, I’m referring to specific compelling arguments within this particular book. In this thread, I’ve specifically been referring to Carroll’s explanation of the “Core Theory” and what it, and the experimental evidence supporting it, imply about the plausibility of spirits and revelation (Effective Quantum Field Theory is a major component of the Core Theory).

According to the book review you shared, with emphasis added,

In the best parts of The Big Picture, Carroll communicates science at a level of sophistication that rarely makes it into popular books. I especially admire his treatment of what, following Frank Wilczek, he calls the “Core Theory”: the Standard Model of particle physics, plus general relativity for gravity. Like every other science writer, Carroll mentions the tension between the two—the Standard Model is a quantum theory, with all the indeterminism that implies, while general relativity is entirely deterministic—but he also explains why these theories won’t ever be simply thrown out. The Core Theory, he writes, “includes everything going on within you, and me, and everything you see around you right this minute. And it will continue to be accurate.” Moreover, within its domain of applicability it will always be correct, which should allow us to draw certain broad conclusions. When Carroll goes through these conclusions, he is never less than thoughtful.

I appreciate you sharing a book review written by a a physicist who agrees with the parts of the book that I've found compelling.

Quote

It seems that others, even some who share Carroll's atheistic/agnostic leanings, are probably going to do that task for us.

Or not. As I quoted above, Kordahl calls the specific arguments I've been referring to as "the best parts" of the book, and agrees with them.

As far as I could tell, Kordahl didn't mention the specific arguments you've been repeatedly citing on this board. He talks about the Core theory and it being reliable in its domain of applicability, but he doesn't ever say whether or not he thinks the Core theory can rule out spiritual entities or influence (i.e. whether those phenomena fall within the domain of applicability). Based on the rest of his review, assuming such a specific conclusion on his behalf seems questionable at best.

Kordahl's discussion about consciousness certainly doesn't favor Carroll's arguments, which is more applicable to our discussion anyway. In the end, I think Kordahl's critique is more in line with those opposing the way you have tried to use Carroll's arguments to disprove or cast overwhelming doubt on religious propositions. 

 

 

[OGHoosier]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

Are you claiming that in all of Christiandom you couldn't find a single physicist who could respond to Carroll, and that the best you could come up with is a biologist? In any case, he did NOT deal with Carroll's argument. Instead he ignored it and came up with a weird, off-point analogy about gold. The point of his analogy, as far as I could tell, was that Carroll's arguments are true but unfulfilling because they merely tell us that mind emerges from brain but doesn't know all of the details of how. Fixing his analogy so that it addresses Carroll's actual point isn't stacking the deck. Rather, it is illustrating how it doesn't address his actual point.

Well, if we want to invoke other physicists and philosophers of science, Thomas Breuer authored a 1995 paper entitled "The Impossibility of Accurate State Self-Measurements" which argues that it is impossible for observers to be aware of all present states in a system in which they are involved, be it quantum or classical, deterministic or stochastic. In other words, exhaustive theories of everything are not possible. 

In another vein, a 2013 paper by two UC-Santa Cruz physicists indicates that crossing symmetries are actually not so exhaustively straightforward and our abilities to rely on crossing symmetries to detect particles depends on experimental setup and on the nature of the particles themselves. 

Dr. Ian Durham, Department Chair of Physics at the University of St. Anselm, criticizes Carroll's concept of "complete physics" and the completeness of laws relative to our daily lives here. He argues that our lack of understanding of quantum gravity (which, I'll note, is especially significant as gravity is theorized to be the force by which non-baryonic matter interacts with ordinary matter) dooms Carroll's thesis from the start. Likewise, Carroll does not address problems in our understanding of the boundary between classical and quantum systems, as well as unresolved problems in muscle flexion and neurochemical causation. 

Let's also not forget that one of the founding fathers of quantum field theory is the Reverend Canon Sir John Polkinghorne, who is presently an Anglican priest. In his 1994 Faith of a Physicist he expounded on his theory of "dual aspect monism" which argues that all of reality is one "stuff" but which divides into the mental and the physical, which do not interact with matter in the same way. 

Dr. Aron Wall, currently a Lecturer in Theoretical Physics at Cambridge, criticizes Carroll's argument for the exclusion of the soul here. He doesn't take issue with Carroll's conception of QFT, only its ability to exclude other theories. His solution to the problem is admittedly not one which Latter-day Saints need endorse, but he raises a trenchant point.

Quote

This of course requires us to believe that, contrary to what Carroll said, sometimes things outside of our current understanding of physics do affect the human world.  But that's not as implausible as he makes out, since it often happens in Science that a theory is very accurate in certain circumstances, except in rare situations where it completely fails due to interaction with new kinds of things.  If the new thing was just new kinds of QFT particles, then it couldn't really work (for all the reasons Carroll mentioned), but if it is something like God, that would not fall under the purview of QFT!

Given that human beings are slices of the Divine, it follows that we would be able to interact with our bodies (our limited stewardship) in the same fashion that God interacts with matter. Christ didn't exercise some sort of sub-molecular mechanism to calm the winds, He ordered and they obeyed, as if they had a mind to understand. That actually pairs reasonably well with current philosophy of mind in which panpsychism is achieving new heights of credibility as a response to the Hard Problem - which Carroll dismisses, and which dismissal has been criticized. A universe saturated with intelligence would theoretically be capable of responding to an influence which commands its obedience, an influence which coheres well with scriptural descriptions of the light of Christ. Spirits would not need to manifest as baryonic matter at all. 

Another question for you, please correct me if I am wrong. We obviously cannot subject the human brain to the environment of a superconductor, no? So the argument that Core Theory as presently understood describes events in the human brain is based on the principle of Universality. However, when David Bohm argued against indeterministic QM he argued that:

Quote

 ...the assumption that any particular kind of fluctuations are arbitrary and lawless relative to all possible contexts, like the similar assumption that there exists an absolute and final determinate law, is therefore evidently not capable of being based on any experimental or theoretical developments arising out of specific scientific problems, but it is instead a purely philosophical assumption. - Causality and Chance in Modern Physics, 1957, pg. 44

Which brings us back around to philosophy again. Why should we assume that these principles are universal to the point of excluding a priori any forms of matter which interact with the world at discrete points which we have not had the capacity to test? Aka spirit matter which manifests in living bodies. You can argue that there is no evidence for such, and speaking from the viewpoint of only physics you would be right. But I don't think that Carroll's claim to absolute exclusion really holds water unless the assumption of Universality is upheld, which cannot be upheld based on scientific experimentation alone. 

As an aside, I actually think you're right regarding gaps in coverage in Latter-day Saint apologetics. I've found for myself that there are some things which have not been addressed by people inside my own faith tradition, though my explorations have been more along the lines of analytical philosophy. I've often bemoaned that my rather young faith doesn't have the same academic establishment and tradition as other, older faiths. So, you're right that we don't cover everything and we need to increase our efforts. 

[Ahab]

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

...according to quantum physics, the idea of a "spirit" that interacts with the human brain is testable. I've gone to lengths to explain why these are robust tests. I've quoted top-notch physicists who explained the results of the tests.

And now you are completely ignoring it. That is your prerogative. But don't pretend you are a fan of science when you brush off its conclusions so casually. 

Based on what or whose idea of what "spirit" is?  How do you test to see if "spirit" is properly understood?  You first need to define what you and your buddies are talking about before you can determine whether or not it exists.

Reminds me of people who say they don't believe that such a thing or person called "God" exists.  Well first you need to define or figure out what you are referring to as God, Einstein.  What some people call "God" isn't what everyone means.

...and the same is true for the words spirit and supernatural and every other word in existence.

[OGHoosier]

7 hours ago, ttribe said:

I'm doing no such thing.  I've not criticized your engaging in a reasoning exercise; simply your wholesale dismissal of scientific findings based on your preconceived notions requiring you to reconcile testable observations and evidence with intangibles that you insist must exist to support your faith.

One thing that always amuses me is the boilerplate assertion conveyed by the bolded words. It always comes across to me as a betrayal of the accuser's barely-veiled incredulity that someone could possibly disagree with the evidence they find convincing in - no pun intended - good faith. I've heard this accusation time and time again - "you're just arguing against this because you need to in order to maintain your beliefs!" - and each time I marvel at how my counterpart appears so disinclined to accept that maybe, just maybe...I don't find the counterevidence convincing enough to overthrow what I already believe. 

In the end, however, it makes no difference. That isn't my problem. 

And by the way, in case you want me to bend over backwards at the word of an expert, I have to ask about what you recommend that I do when experts disagree. It would seem that I would have to weigh the competing arguments of the experts myself, no? If I am not permitted to do that now, why would I be permitted to do it then? 

[rodheadlee]

9 hours ago, Analytics said:

I understand that, but by the same token, you can't see out the window if you don't have eyes. In principle it is conceivable that a spirit could leave your body and be floating in another realm. It is inconceivable that a spirit can read what's written on the side of a van in this realm--doing so requires a mechanism to gather, focus, and intercept light. 

It's more likely that your experience is the result of imagination and misremembering.

I knew you would go there. It's cool well all find out the truth of having a soul in the end.

Not to change the subject but am I to understand that Newtonian gravity is back in favor? I thought they decided that gravity was the geography of the universe rather than a force?

Edited March 18, 2021 by rodheadlee

[mfbukowski]

6 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I'm not Smac, but here is something I came across in just a few minutes of searching. It was written by what appears to be a graduate student who is now working in the ASU department of physics:

https://thenewatlantis.com/wp-content/uploads/legacy-pdfs/20170819_TNA52Kordahl.pdf

While he shows much respect for Carroll's writing style and many of his ideas, Kordahl takes exception with the same arguments and assumptions presented by Carroll that many on this thread have expressed concern about. I'm not sure why theists or specifically Latter-day Saints are obligated to refute Carroll's applications of his expertise into realms where he is less of an expert. It seems that others, even some who share Carroll's atheistic/agnostic leanings, are probably going to do that task for us.

Here are some relevant quotes:

 

And those, pardon my modesty,   are exactly the points for both science and the historical approach to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon that I have been raising hereabouts for years.

One cannot rule out "subjective" religious experience when one is looking to verify religion any more than one can rule out scientific, "objective" evidence in science OR history.  The quest for "Mormon pottery" is the same as looking for God in physics.  Belief in God can only be justified through experience.  We can make up the metaphysics of angels as much as Aquinas did figuring out how spirits could occupy the same space, but surprise surprise- he already went there in the 13th century.  And it didn't work then and won't work now.

And I did not even mention category mistakes in this entire post. 

Well until then anyway. 

This is exactly the point Kordahl is making.   

Anyway, thanks very much for that quote.  You, sir are an honorable man to bring it up.

 

Edited March 18, 2021 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, Analytics said:

A physicist can use his intelligence to ignore Carroll's arguments, but that isn't the same thing as refuting them.  

True enough, because he presents HIS paradigm- HIS truth.  His paradigm cannot be "refuted" because from his POINT OF VIEW he presents a reasonable argument to justify his religion of "no religion".   It is his testimony that God does not exist.  Of course it cannot be refuted because even theists are aware that their position rests on faith, not science.

Unfortunately in his life- though of course I do not know the man- in his quest for meaning in his own life, he has written this book.  He has picked the area of physics for his studies based purely on his abilities/talents/ and interests as a subject for his study.

He has picked a neighborhood and a home, and a loved one, presumably,  based on emotional judgments and beliefs which have nothing to do with physics and in fact DO use his own emotional experiences to arrive at his conclusions.  He has picked everything "important" in his life for subjective reasons, his values, his politics, even the motivation to write the book for a REASON none of which were about physics.

When we are talking about humans and not particles, one cannot rule out emotions in the attempt to understand real human beings.  Even if "free will" is an illusion, it sure FEELS like it isn't and pragmatically that is the way we live our lives- by picking out our preferences, values and morals, and believing them and acting on them, no matter what they may be.

Of course his position cannot be "refuted" any more than ours can

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

In the end, I think Kordahl's critique is more in line with those opposing the way you have tried to use Carroll's arguments to disprove or cast overwhelming doubt on religious propositions. 

I agree- but isn't that also the basis for the quest for historical evidence of the BOM?  One is trying to find, presumably, objective evidence which either verifies on one side or disproves, on the other side, religious belief

[Analytics]

12 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

As far as I could tell, Kordahl didn't mention the specific arguments you've been repeatedly citing on this board. He talks about the Core theory and it being reliable in its domain of applicability, but he doesn't ever say whether or not he thinks the Core theory can rule out spiritual entities or influence (i.e. whether those phenomena fall within the domain of applicability). Based on the rest of his review, assuming such a specific conclusion on his behalf seems questionable at best.

Kordahl's discussion about consciousness certainly doesn't favor Carroll's arguments, which is more applicable to our discussion anyway. In the end, I think Kordahl's critique is more in line with those opposing the way you have tried to use Carroll's arguments to disprove or cast overwhelming doubt on religious propositions. 

If you look at the table of contents of Big Picture, you'll see that "Part Three" of the book is called "Essence."  In this section, chapters 19-21 build up on Quantum Mechanics. Chapter 22 is about "The Core Theory." Chapters 23-27 are about what the Core Theory Implies, and you'll notice that every single thing I've quoted from in this thread are from those chapters. Every. Single. Thing. In other parts of the book Carroll waxes on about philosophy, and I find that just as boring as what other say about philosophy. Even if I personally agree with Carroll on this point or that I certainly wouldn't quote him as an authority.

In contrast, chapters 23-27 are about what we know about the world from the "Core Theory", including Effective Field Theory, the confidence we can have that it is correct within its domain of applicability, and what that implies about the plausibility of spirits and revelation (as well as bending spoons with your mind).

Even though he doesn't go into detail about it in the book review, that is what Kordahl is referring to when he says:

The Core Theory includes everything going on within you, and me, and everything you see around you right this minute. And it will continue to be accurate. Moreover, within its domain of applicability it will always be correct, which should allow us to draw certain broad conclusions.

Kordahl doesn't detail the "certain broad conclusions" in his book review. I'm doing that here.

[Analytics]

11 hours ago, Ahab said:

Based on what or whose idea of what "spirit" is?  How do you test to see if "spirit" is properly understood?  You first need to define what you and your buddies are talking about before you can determine whether or not it exists.

His definition of a spirit is broad. If a spirit is something in another realm that doesn't interact in any way with the world of space, time, protons, neutrons, and electrons in which we live in and which compose our bodies and our brains, then physics has nothing to say about that. But if a spirit somehow interfaces with the human brain--that it somehow sends signals to and/or receives signals from the brain, then that is within the purview of science and is what he is talking about.

According to the massive experimental evidence supporting it, quantum field theory is true, within its domain of applicability. And if quantum field theory is true, we know there is not a mysterious thing made out of "more fine and pure matter" that connects with the brain in a way that has enough energy to have any effect on how the brain functions.

[Analytics]

12 hours ago, OGHoosier said:

Well, if we want to invoke other physicists and philosophers of science, Thomas Breuer authored a 1995 paper entitled "The Impossibility of Accurate State Self-Measurements" which argues that it is impossible for observers to be aware of all present states in a system in which they are involved, be it quantum or classical, deterministic or stochastic. In other words, exhaustive theories of everything are not possible. 

In another vein, a 2013 paper by two UC-Santa Cruz physicists indicates that crossing symmetries are actually not so exhaustively straightforward and our abilities to rely on crossing symmetries to detect particles depends on experimental setup and on the nature of the particles themselves. 

Interesting.

Quote

Dr. Ian Durham, Department Chair of Physics at the University of St. Anselm, criticizes Carroll's concept of "complete physics" and the completeness of laws relative to our daily lives here. He argues that our lack of understanding of quantum gravity (which, I'll note, is especially significant as gravity is theorized to be the force by which non-baryonic matter interacts with ordinary matter) dooms Carroll's thesis from the start. Likewise, Carroll does not address problems in our understanding of the boundary between classical and quantum systems, as well as unresolved problems in muscle flexion and neurochemical causation. 

This one will take some time for me to digest, but on the face of it, it doesn't seem relevant to the specific arguments about spirits that I've relayed here. I'll read it again more carefully and will think about it some more.

Quote

Let's also not forget that one of the founding fathers of quantum field theory is the Reverend Canon Sir John Polkinghorne, who is presently an Anglican priest. In his 1994 Faith of a Physicist he expounded on his theory of "dual aspect monism" which argues that all of reality is one "stuff" but which divides into the mental and the physical, which do not interact with matter in the same way. 

Yes, physicists are human too, and are subject to the same spiritual impulses as anybody else. 

Quote

Dr. Aron Wall, currently a Lecturer in Theoretical Physics at Cambridge, criticizes Carroll's argument for the exclusion of the soul here. He doesn't take issue with Carroll's conception of QFT, only its ability to exclude other theories. His solution to the problem is admittedly not one which Latter-day Saints need endorse, but he raises a trenchant point.

Dr. Wall says, "I think the reason we will live forever is that God loves us and that he's promised to do it.  So at the end of time, when Jesus comes back, God will raise us from the dead in new physical bodies, and if that violates the current laws of physics that's okay by him." I'm not blown away Wall's arguments in this blog post.

Quote

Given that human beings are slices of the Divine, it follows that we would be able to interact with our bodies (our limited stewardship) in the same fashion that God interacts with matter. Christ didn't exercise some sort of sub-molecular mechanism to calm the winds, He ordered and they obeyed, as if they had a mind to understand. That actually pairs reasonably well with current philosophy of mind in which panpsychism is achieving new heights of credibility as a response to the Hard Problem - which Carroll dismisses, and which dismissal has been criticized. A universe saturated with intelligence would theoretically be capable of responding to an influence which commands its obedience, an influence which coheres well with scriptural descriptions of the light of Christ. Spirits would not need to manifest as baryonic matter at all. 

This seems to discard Carroll's arguments in favor of a different paradigm. You can do that, but it isn't dealing with his arguments.

Quote

Another question for you, please correct me if I am wrong. We obviously cannot subject the human brain to the environment of a superconductor, no? So the argument that Core Theory as presently understood describes events in the human brain is based on the principle of Universality. However, when David Bohm argued against indeterministic QM he argued that:

Which brings us back around to philosophy again. Why should we assume that these principles are universal to the point of excluding a priori any forms of matter which interact with the world at discrete points which we have not had the capacity to test? Aka spirit matter which manifests in living bodies. You can argue that there is no evidence for such, and speaking from the viewpoint of only physics you would be right. But I don't think that Carroll's claim to absolute exclusion really holds water unless the assumption of Universality is upheld, which cannot be upheld based on scientific experimentation alone. 

I'm not sure I understand what "Universality" means. Carroll's argument is that if Quantum Field Theory describes reality within its domain of applicability, then we know how to test for the existence of any force or particle, known or unknown, that could interact with the atoms of which we are made. We also know about the limits of any given test regarding how diminutive of particles and forces it can find. And Quantum Field Theory is as well established as anything in science. Given all that, we know from the experiments that we've made that if there were a particle or force big enough to effect the brain, we would have discovered it by now. So does "Universality" mean that from a philosophical perspective, we simply can't know that Quantum Field Theory describes reality within its domain of applicability, regardless of how much evidence we collect that it works?

Quote

As an aside, I actually think you're right regarding gaps in coverage in Latter-day Saint apologetics. I've found for myself that there are some things which have not been addressed by people inside my own faith tradition, though my explorations have been more along the lines of analytical philosophy. I've often bemoaned that my rather young faith doesn't have the same academic establishment and tradition as other, older faiths. So, you're right that we don't cover everything and we need to increase our efforts. 

I appreciate you sharing this, and for engaging with my thoughts on this.

Edited March 18, 2021 by Analytics

[Analytics]

8 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

True enough, because he presents HIS paradigm- HIS truth.  His paradigm cannot be "refuted" because from his POINT OF VIEW he presents a reasonable argument to justify his religion of "no religion".   It is his testimony that God does not exist.  Of course it cannot be refuted because even theists are aware that their position rests on faith, not science.

I think you are projecting. Fundamentally, Carroll is an empiricist. If the empirical evidence led elsewhere, that is where he would go. It's true that he might not recognize the empirical evidence because of a cognitive bias. And yes, because his paradigm comes from science and not religion, the evidence he looks at is in particle accelerators and not his own emotional reactions to reading a book. But in principle, his paradigm is to look at the empirical evidence and follow where it leads.

[Ryan Dahle]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Even though he doesn't go into detail about it in the book review, that is what Kordahl is referring to when he says:

The Core Theory includes everything going on within you, and me, and everything you see around you right this minute. And it will continue to be accurate. Moreover, within its domain of applicability it will always be correct, which should allow us to draw certain broad conclusions.

Kordahl doesn't detail the "certain broad conclusions" in his book review. I'm doing that here.

I don't share your confidence that Kordahl's conclusions about this section of the book extend as far as you seem to think. And without further elaboration on his part, we will never know.

Either way it doesn't matter. I think it has already been established that Carroll's argument about the soul isn't reliable for the same types of reasons that Kordahl himself brought up in other chapters before and after this one. Carroll's conception of the soul isn't necessitated by Latter-day Saint theology. So he ends up tilting at windmills.

[Analytics]

28 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I don't share your confidence that Kordahl's conclusions about this section of the book extend as far as you seem to think. And without further elaboration on his part, we will never know.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. We do know what Kordahl was talking about because he said what he's talking about. He is talking about what Sean Carroll claims about the Core Theory, its robustness, its domain of applicability, and its implications. That is what Kordahl clearly said he is talking about, and that is exactly what I've been talking about and quoting. For those of us who have read the book, there is no ambiguity here.

28 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Either way it doesn't matter. I think it has already been established that Carroll's argument about the soul isn't reliable for the same types of reasons that Kordahl himself brought up in other chapters before and after this one.

It's ironic that Kordahl thinks the sections I've been quoting are the best parts of the book, are admirable exposition of the science, and that he agrees with the conclusions. In his words: The Core Theory, he writes, “includes everything going on within you, and me, and everything you see around you right this minute. And it will continue to be accurate.” Moreover, within its domain of applicability it will always be correct, which should allow us to draw certain broad conclusions. When Carroll goes through these conclusions, he is never less than thoughtful. Those are Kordhal's words. In context, it is clear what he is talking about. 

28 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Carroll's conception of the soul isn't necessitated by Latter-day Saint theology. So he ends up tilting at windmills.

Carroll doesn't have a conception of the soul. He is broadly talking about the plausibility of any unknown force or particle interfacing with the human brain. According to my understanding of LDS theology, this is exactly what is believed--that you have a preexisting spirit that came down to earth, inhabits a body, and then leaves the body until death, until the resurrection when the spirit and body are united. When the spirit inhabits the body, they have some sort of a connection, do they not? Whether that connection (or any other connection with any other unknown force or matter) is plausible is precisely what Carroll is talking about.

[Ahab]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

His definition of a spirit is broad. If a spirit is something in another realm that doesn't interact in any way with the world of space, time, protons, neutrons, and electrons in which we live in and which compose our bodies and our brains, then physics has nothing to say about that. But if a spirit somehow interfaces with the human brain--that it somehow sends signals to and/or receives signals from the brain, then that is within the purview of science and is what he is talking about.

According to the massive experimental evidence supporting it, quantum field theory is true, within its domain of applicability. And if quantum field theory is true, we know there is not a mysterious thing made out of "more fine and pure matter" that connects with the brain in a way that has enough energy to have any effect on how the brain functions.

Surely you jest.  More fine or pure matter than what?  Have you guys considered the idea that "spirit" may simply refer to the most fine and pure particles of matter that you know to exist? ...atoms and/or atomic particles?  Or at least the "living" ones?

Have you guys figured out what happens at death, exactly?  Why a body that was alive and apparently doing fine while talking and breathing just up and suddenly dies ?  Have you determined what is missing at the moment of death when what was there just a moment go is suddenly gone, the thing that distinguishes a living body from a dead body?  It was there one moment and then it was suddenly gone.  Life. Have you determined what the particles of life actually are?  Once you figure that out then we can start to task some medical companies to make more of that stuff and then people won't have to die anymore.

[smac97]

17 hours ago, Analytics said:

Quote

If he can present "scientific findings" based on "testable observations and evidence" that empirically and objectively disprove the existence of God, spirits, etc., then I'm all ears.  But I don't think he's done that.  At all.  Instead, what I am seeing from him, from Analytics (and, it seems, from you also to an extent) is scientism.  

Could you go into more detail on this?

I'll try to post some further thoughts later today.

17 hours ago, Analytics said:

Are you claiming that Effective Quantum Field Theory is scientism and not science?

No.  I'm suggesting A) a "scientism"-esque misuse of it by you and Caroll and B) a disconnect between the field of study and the subject matter at hand.

I'm not on board with the notion that the existence of God, spirits, etc. is empirically testable.

17 hours ago, Analytics said:

I'm a little bit frustrated here.

Well, that's probably my fault.  I've been viewing your commentary as primarily a provocateur schtick, not as a good faith effort to have a serious conversation.

I get that our beliefs are neither sacred nor important to you, but surely your long presence on this board has helped you perceive that they are important to us.  And notwithstanding that long presence, your comments in this thread have been filled with contempt and ridicule for those beliefs.  So when you, in the name of "science" or whatever, started trotting out wholly conclusory assertions ("given how thoroughly anachronistic the actual text of the Book of Mormon is...") including some astonishingly ignorant claims (the one about Sidney Rigdon really caught me off guard - I thought more of you) and those calculated and intended not to advance the discussion, but to ridicule and profane and offend ("the angel was really an alien doing an anthropology experiment on Joseph Smith" ... "the devil conjured up the plates"), I concluded you were largely unserious in your approach and remarks, and have been treating them as unserious since then.

17 hours ago, Analytics said:

First you criticized me for citing the arguments in a book and referring you to them. You called that an appeal to authority.

Actually, my main characterization of your remarks were that they are appeals to ridicule. 

Scientism is, nevertheless, a counterargument to appeals to scientific authority (a point referenced in the Wikipedia link I provided).  To some extent, my thinking on "expert" opinions about religious claims and beliefs has been influenced by my legal training.  For example, consider Rule 702 of the Utah Rules of Evidence, which governs expert witness testimony in state court legal proceedings:

Quote

Rule 702.  Testimony by Experts.

(a)       Subject to the limitations in paragraph (b), a witness who is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may testify in the form of an opinion or otherwise if the expert’s scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.

(b)       Scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge may serve as the basis for expert testimony only if there is a threshold showing that the principles or methods that are underlying in the testimony 

(b)(1) are reliable,

(b)(2) are based upon sufficient facts or data, and

(b)(3) have been reliably applied to the facts.

(c)       The threshold showing required by paragraph (b) is satisfied if the underlying principles or methods, including the sufficiency of facts or data and the manner of their application to the facts of the case, are generally accepted by the relevant expert community.

Is Carroll "qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education" as to the subject matter at hand?  Namely, the existence of God, spirits, etc.?

Is Carroll's "scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge" something that will help "the trier of fact" (me, or anyone else interesting in the existence of God, spirits, etc.) "understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue?"

Are the "principles or methods that are underlying" in Carroll's book "reliable" in terms of helping someone like me ascertain the existence of God, spirits, etc.?

Are the "principles or methods that are underlying" in Carroll's book "based upon sufficient facts or data" regarding "the existence of God, spirits, etc."?

Has Carroll "reliably applied" the "principles or methods that are underlying" his book "to the facts?"

Another evidentiary rule is Rule 402, which states that "irrelevant evidence is not admissible."  See also Rule 403 ("The court may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence.").

Your repeated appeals to ridicule have made you come across as unserious, as a mere provocateur.

17 hours ago, Analytics said:

I've now made pages of quotes and laid out many of the components of the argument and show that according to quantum physics, the idea of a "spirit" that interacts with the human brain is testable.

Meh.  I'm not buying it.  

17 hours ago, Analytics said:

I've gone to lengths to explain why these are robust tests. I've quoted top-notch physicists who explained the results of the tests.

Again, I've been treating you as an unserious provocateur.  But I'll go back and give your posts some further consideration.

17 hours ago, Analytics said:

And now you are completely ignoring it. That is your prerogative. But don't pretend you are a fan of science when you brush off its conclusions so casually. 

I'm not pretending to be a "fan of science."  I really am.  I'm just not persuaded that "science" can empirically prove or disprove the existence of God, spirits, etc.

I have not been ignoring you.  I'm just not investing much time or interest in your remarks.  Your remarks have been repeatedly and emphatically loaded with contempt and ridicule for things that are important, even sacred, to us.  You've said things that come across as unserious.  As designed to offend and provoke, not to advance a serious and meaningful discussion.  And you haven't backed off those things one inch.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding your provocateur schtick, I'll go back and give things another look.

Thanks,

-Smac

[OGHoosier]

38 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Surely you jest.  More fine or pure matter than what?  Have you guys considered the idea that "spirit" may simply refer to the most fine and pure particles of matter that you know to exist? ...atoms and/or atomic particles?  Or at least the "living" ones?

That is a good question, it's possible that we don't need additional "soul particles" at all. 

One of my principal objections to the QFT exclusionary argument against souls is the fact that we haven't been able to observe quantum-level interactions inside a living human being, which is where we would expect to see "soulstuff." If these particles/organizations of matter can be expected to float around freely than not seeing them in a collider or superconductor would be a surprise, but if they are confined to discrete points in space, where we have not looked, then I think the lack of discovery is actually to be expected and the argument loses its force. @Analytics, this is what I meant by Universality. I apologize for not clarifying before. Universality is a philosophical assumption which basically assumes that the laws are the same everywhere. In this case it would mean that the "quantum environment" (my made-up term, apologies) is the same everywhere - there are no distinct points in space at the present time where the varieties of possible particles might be different than anywhere else. For obvious reasons we go with this assumption and it seems to serve us well, but it can't be demonstrated to be true by any specific experimental or theoretical finding. That, at least, is how I interpret Bohm, and Breuer's thoughts about self-state measurements indicate that we can't have a universal theory which adequately describes all states of a system at the present time when we are a part of that system. If I were to frame it philosophically, Universality is a necessary premise in the argument that current findings in QFT indicate there is no soulstuff, but that premise can be questioned or at least established as uncertain, so the argument's force is weakened or simply fails.

For what it's worth, I didn't understand Carroll's thought as well before as I thought I did, so you've taught me something. Thank you. 

This is, of course, assuming that I have not gravely misunderstood the nature of particle physics. Regrettably, such a misunderstanding is quite possible. If I'm guilty of it, I apologize to any readers who are better-informed and are currently cringing. 

Edited March 18, 2021 by OGHoosier