That's not correct. Scientific method also involves human inquiry which deals with verbal descriptions and definitions of mental phenomena in "real" terms. It is the so-called "spiritual" terminology that departs from the reality of this world.
Dreams, minds, souls and indeed qualia (love/hate, pain/pleasure, etc.) cannot be subjected to empirical tests. To the metaphysical naturalist, such things are not "real" because they are not physical.
You are mixing apples and oranges, dear AG. Dreams, feelings of hate or feelings of pleasure are not the same as 'mind,' or 'soul.' Dreams and emotions are observable and definable mental experiences. We can detect their occurrence and we can describe their contect. They are also every bit physical/chemical in nature.
'Mind' is a collective concept that represents an observed characteristic way a person appears to operate in the world to given situations, how he or she answers questions, reacts, etc. It falls in the same category as 'experience,' which is another general conceptual term. We can observe how someone does things and we can conclude that he or she has 'experience.'
'Soul' is none of that. In the Platonic sense, the 'spirit' or life force plus 'nous' or mind in a physical body = human being. The ancients believed that the 'breath' was the spirit, or life force (a "battery" of sorts) that moved or quickened the body. When the body 'gives up' the breath, it dies, becomes motionless, stops breathing. The ancients also used to believe that the heart contained emotions, that you think and feel with the heart (probably because the heart gets a little "busy" when we get emotional or otherwise exerted).
But the soul or spirit cannot be described in real terms, cannot be detected (it ain't the breath!), so we really don't know what the 'spirit' is; it's neither mental nor subjective, nor is there a consensus about it in terms of real life experience. Rather, it appears that the spirit is a human invention to explain some things ancients couldn't explain.
science admits to such things as massless particles which have no direct or indirect measureable affects, i.e. they cannot be said to not exist.
Sure they do. They balance out the formula. Remember that everything science does is a working model. For example, 19th century scientists postulated aether as an invisible 'medium' of space to explain propagation of light because they couldn't explain how light could move through vacuum. It was a convenient theoretical concept that balanced out the formula.
Modern science does the same thing. That's why we have new theories every several years to keep up with newly observed phenomena that cannot be explained by conventional models. Theoretical science is theory.
Practical science is a working model. It doesn't aim to reveal how the world really is, but to be of practical value for us here on earth. What do I care if Newotnian physics become meaningless in outer space?!
Save for cosmology, science deals with practical matters that make our lives more comfortable, safer, etc. by providing working models and inventions that makes use of the world as we see it, and the world we live in. That's a heck of a lot more that what the 'spiritualists' or cosmological prima donna physicists have to offer.
But that conclusion is absurd because physical laws themselves are not physical, neither is logic, nor information nor physical causation nor space/time - without which the metaphysical naturalist would have nothing to say in the first place.
LOL! Physical 'laws' are just concepts how the real world works based on our observations. Does that mean they are generally/universally true? Of course not. They are limited by the observer. Their aim is not to uncover the universal or then 'ultimate truth,' but to work. And they do work! I mentioned the Ptolemaic navigational system based on geocentric universe. It still works even thought the universe is not geocentric, and the planets do not 'dance' around in epicycles! :)
However, it seems to me . . .
you play fast and loose and quite inconsistently
with ‘scientific inquiry’ . . . strictly according to your preferences and sensibilities as convenient to such.
All the while demanding of others a strictness and narrowness you refuse to follow for yourself.
All of course . . . with negligible to 0.00000% insight into such yourself.
snip: You are mixing apples and oranges, dear AG. Dreams, feelings of hate or feelings of pleasure are not the same as ‘mind,’ or ‘soul.’ Dreams and emotions are observable and definable mental experiences. We can detect their occurrence and we can describe their contect. They are also every bit physical/chemical in nature.”
Spirited: The first question to pop into my God-given spiritual mind, as opposed to the mindless material-brain of the body-called-kosta, is: “Now how on earth can the body-called-kosta presume to speak of that of which it cannot possibly know if godless-evolutionism of any variant is true?” The simple answer is that it cannot.
If godless-evolutionism is paradoxically true, the answer is that the body-called-kosta is a nonbeing at the mercy of the forces of nature. In short, because it is ‘one with’ irrational forces of nature,it is completely ‘caused and determined’ by them in other words.
Apparently an irrational unseen entity of nature hovering close by in the vicinity of the nonbeing-called-kosta has spoken through its’ mouth.
snip: ‘Mind’ is a collective concept that represents an observed characteristic way a person appears to operate in the world to given situations, how he or she answers questions, reacts, etc.
Spirited: Considering that unseen irrational forces of nature are speaking through the mouth of the body-called-kosta, we ought not be surprised when gibberish spews forth.
The notion of ‘collective mind’ is the particular gibberish of evolutionary monism, which today has three permutations: atheist-materialism, idealist-pantheism, and the highly developed materialist pantheism known as Buddhism. At bottom, all are based on the scientifically discredited notion that life and consciousness somehow magically emerged from nonlife. All three deny ‘being’ as well.
In reality, kosta straddles two antithetical worldviews. With one foot in the Christian worldview, he uses his God-given mind to argue against his own Creator, while with the other foot in godless evolutionism-—which negates his mind— he arrogantly spouts scientistic nonsense in the belief that it must be as awe inspiring to us as it is to him.
It appears that the ‘entity’ receives perverse pleasure from speaking gibberish through the mouth of kosta.
kosta50:That's not correct. Scientific method also involves human inquiry which deals with verbal descriptions and definitions of mental phenomena in "real" terms. It is the so-called "spiritual" terminology that departs from the reality of this world.
This is evidently the extent of the “real” terms to which you claim verbal descriptions or definitions would apply, e.g. taxonomy.
In practice, methodological naturalism entails the exclusion of psyche, mind, soul and spirit. Which is to say, such things are beyond the reach of natural, material or physical explanation.
The consequence - which spirited irish keeps trying to drive home - is that such things are considered by science to be epiphenomena, secondary phenomena which cannot cause anything to happen. By this of course it means physical causation.
Being beyond the reach of the scientific method, the appeal to epiphenomena is tantamount to denying they exist - despite all of the experiential evidence they do exist.
But the soul or spirit cannot be described in real terms, cannot be detected (it ain't the breath!), so we really don't know what the 'spirit' is; it's neither mental nor subjective, nor is there a consensus about it in terms of real life experience. Rather, it appears that the spirit is a human invention to explain some things ancients couldn't explain.
Lurkers might be interested in the Hebrew delineation of the terms for life, soul, mind, spirit:
2. ruach - the self-will or free will peculiar to man (abstraction, anticipation, intention, etc.) – by Jewish tradition, the pivot wherein a man decides to be Godly minded or earthy minded (also related to Romans 8, choosing)
3. neshama - the breath of God given to Adam (Genesis 2:7) which may also be seen as the “ears to hear” (John 10) - a sense of belonging beyond space/time, a predisposition to seek God and seek answers to the deep questions such as “what is the meaning of life?"
4. ruach Elohim - the Holy Spirit (Genesis 1:2) which indwells Christians (I Cor 2, John 3) – the presently existing in the “beyond” while still in the flesh. (Col 3:3) This is the life in passage : "In him was life, and the life was the light of men..." (John 1)
kosta50: Sure they do. They balance out the formula.
Of course, you evidently exclude yourself…