Scientific Method and Assumptions about Reality

[bgbarber]

Originally Posted by loubert

http://www.vias.org/physics/bk4_02_04_04.html

http://m.smh.com.au/technology/sci-t...501-2ish9.html

What more (evidence) do you require for atoms to exist?

What's your issue with numbers?

From my understanding much of what we know about atomic theory is more about the effects atoms have on other objects rather than the atoms themselves. With acknowledgment that science is all about falsification it was perhaps a loaded question. There is a quote from this article which asserts "Heisenberg explained, physicists among themselves have long stopped thinking of atoms as things. They exist as potentialities or possibilities, not objects or facts."

Numbers are interesting as they have no physical empirical qualities or properties and are but symbolic constructs of the human mind. We cannot measure a number experimentally. The same can be said of logic and words yet they are used to describe empirical observations. So it can be said that such representations are adequate to describe observational data is perhaps an assumption made.

[Logic please]

Originally Posted by bgbarber

Surely the burden of proof is down to the positive assertion "Animals are self-aware of their consciousness"?

Not any more. I provided relevant contemporary evidence, linked and quoted in my previous posts.

ADD: here's some more:

Originally Posted by New Scientist article extract

Charles Darwin asked it when pondering the evolution of consciousness. His ideas about evolutionary continuity - that differences between species are differences in degree rather than kind - lead to a firm conclusion that if we have something, "they" (other animals) have it too.
In July of this year, the question was discussed in detail by a group of scientists gathered at the University of Cambridge for the first annual Francis Crick Memorial Conference. Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, spent the latter part of his career studying consciousness and in 1994 published a book about it, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The scientific search for the soul.
The upshot of the meeting was the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, which was publicly proclaimed by three eminent neuroscientists, David Edelman of the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, California, Philip Low of Stanford University and Christof Koch of the California Institute of Technology.
The declaration concludes that "non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates."

Your turn to do so in rebuttal, methinks.

[Loki]

Here's some symbolic potentialities and possibilities arranged in amusing ways.

Enjoy.

[Logic please]

Originally Posted by bgbarber

Not sure what you talking about in the accusations above. The initial response of my post was at stevebrooks. There was no mention of "intellectual dishonesty" I was directly responding to him and not sure how you manged to take this as a response to you.

By stating that steveb's assumptions prevented him going down your nominated investigative path, you effectively alleged intellectual dishonesty. By accusing them of not following where the (alleged) evidence leads, regardless. And by extension, anyone who shares or agrees with what steveb posted. Clear enough, now?

Originally Posted by bgbarber

You are the one who mentioned the "distressing experience". If you do not want this discussed why bring it up on the discussion board?

To highlight personal cost and gravity of the experiences of others that you are now blithely jackbooting all over. Not for you to insensitively probe for further information to use in scoring inane imagined debating points. Just my $0.02.

Originally Posted by bgbarber

Clearly the response you have made is overly emotional and contains numerous errors and statements that are interpretations rather than direct quotes.

Not sure if you had a bad day but if you did, I hope it gets better.

I strongly suggest that you address the content of what is being said, and leave off the rest of your presumptions.

@WAS: Glossowary is no longer with us, unfortunately.

[bgbarber]

Originally Posted by Logic please

By stating that steveb's assumptions prevented him going down your nominated investigative path, you effectively alleged intellectual dishonesty. By accusing them of not following where the (alleged) evidence leads, regardless. And by extension, anyone who shares or agrees with what steveb posted. Clear enough, now?

To highlight personal cost and gravity of the experiences of others that you are now blithely jackbooting all over. Not for you to insensitively probe for further information to use in scoring inane imagined debating points. Just my $0.02.

I strongly suggest that you address the content of what is being said, and leave off the rest of your presumptions.

@WAS: Glossowary is no longer with us, unfortunately.

Please be advised I am making a formal complaint re: Your response.

[Logic please]

Originally Posted by bgbarber

Please be advised I am making a formal complaint re: Your response.

Feel free to do so, if you think it is warranted.

I will naturally exempt myself from consideration of the matter by the Mod Team.

[AFA Admin]

Thread locked pending review of reported post.