Quote:
Originally Posted by Radical  Realising that you're not educated enough to explain things that well educated people are capable of explaining, isn't the same as realising that you're not educated enough to explain things that many well educated people consider ludicrous. Hope that makes sense. 
I just personally don't think that you can hold the belief of supernatural phenomena alongside the laws of physics, as there are too many contradictions. |
This is completely incorrect.
Physics is concerned with success and success alone. Physics explains reality, it does not define it.
Two seemingly contradictory ideas can be simultaneously true. A philosopher will tell you this is false, but a scientist who really knows what science is will tell you it's true.
In modern science there are many examples of two contradictory models which are simultaneously true.
An easy one is the geocentric vs. heliocentric debate. Both models are certainly correct because they recover the same empirical results. We use the heliocentric one because the math is easier, but both have the same results and so both are valid. It's a subjective choice which you'd like to use. The farmer might prefer geocentric just because saying, "the sun rises in the east" is easier than saying "the sun becomes visible in the east" or "my place on the earth begins to face towards the sun." They're tools in a toolbox - whatever gets your job done.
There are also multiple quantum theories that are correct at the same time. Richard Feynman's sum-over-histories model that says that when a particle moves from point A to point B it uses every path in the universe simulatenously to get there. A notable amount of professional physicists don't "believe" in despite it's accuracy.
There is only one measure of truth and that is accuracy. Or, more specifically, utility. If a belief provides you with utility it is true, and that is the exact way that science has advanced. An electron is real because it's useful for me to believe in it.
Anyway I kind of feel like I'm spinning my wheels here.
By the way - I'm a physics, math and computer science major. I've been studying physics and specifically the nature of reality since I was 12, and guess where it has led me? To StevePavlina.com.
Also, I'm sorry if my posts seem a little too high-level. I really need to find time to sit down and put together my thoughts for those who might not be familiar with the specific anecdotes I address. I don't even want to begin because I know it will spiral into a 1000 page thesis.