Unlikely, but so is our own existence depending on who you talk to.

My point was that logic such as if a then b was not always known. George Booles algebras was invented after all. And people like the 17th and 18th century mathematicians often viewed such investigations as revealing Gods truth. Then the question is: how narrow is your definition of God?

Mathematics and logic have no assumptions. We don't assume anything, ever. There are a number of axioms that are defined to be true, and then everything else follows from those. It cannot be wrong. It is definitely true.

The application of maths to the real world (physics, science and what-not) relies on certain assumptions which we use "because it happens to work". Do not confuse this with mathematics.

Whilst it's true that we all see the world differently, we can at least agree on certain concepts - we can generally agree that when we see the colour blue that it is called "blue", whatever any of us actually percieve that as mentally. Okay, you can theorise about that all you want. The difference between science and what we call religion is it seems to me that religions make stuff up based on what "feels" right whereas science observes and experiments to ensure that its theories are correct. I can see why, for example, the good christian god exists - it's comforting to invent a father figure who cannot ever be corrupted and who genuinely has your best interests at heart and cares about you. I've been there, I've believed, really believed it.

However, that doesn't mean that everything we believe is true. In fact, one reason that the scientific method is so good at determining useful (true) beliefs about the world is because it constantly tries to disprove them - only the ones that have survived all we can throw at them are the ones we can truly say we believe. Just because I can believe there is a teapot orbitting the sun, does not make it the case. Evidence is the key, my dear Watson .

Well, I'd argue that all beliefs have been formed through observation:

"Hey, if we plant this at this time of year then the plants grow stronger, surely the forces of nature are with us".

"This universe we're in... it must have some reason to exist. I mean, that cloud exists to rain upon us, this tree exists to provide us with fruit to eat. I create things like tools and I'm the only thing I know which creates things, therefore whatever created me must have been like me!". Douglas Adams has said it far better than I.

Belief systems (including what we might casually refer to as religion) are all likely to contain similar concepts - we're all similar beings, we all think similarly (see comment about colour). Our differences are minor, thus I believe our fantastical thinking will be minor in its differences. Not to say that we cannot believe a wide variety of things, the human imagination is a marvelous thing! As far as I'm aware science has its roots in natural philosophy, which of course is trying to do the same as a lot of religion - explain the nature of the universe we're in.

I don't see where you're coming from with your "problem" - all I feel is biological in nature. I might feel that I'm hungry - that feeling has come about through millions of years of evolution. Basically, anything that didn't feel the urge to eat didn't eat and did not reproduce. Natural selection is a simple concept and easily simulated, it's not hard to see that occurring over a period of billions of years to produce us. Surely you are forming a hypothesis about the world based upon your feelings (that you've observed you have) then attempting to explain that by your further observations about the world?

The difference between this and the scientific method is that the scientific method does not claim to know what it is searching for - there's always room for improvement and it assumes nothing at the start of the search. I'd argue this is far more likely to find us the "truth", if such exists. Science is a tool, yes, but it's by far the best tool we have for finding out about who and what we are and where and why we exist .

If you can provide me consistent evidence to prove your beliefs, I'd be glad to look at it and decide for myself .

- not ALL beliefs, but some religions

That is a good example especially if nature as a whole is your "god"

Did you ever wonder why the world works the way it does.. why is there a self correcting balance. despite all humanity's efforts to make a mess out of it.

According to sience our thinking is nothing more than an electrochemical reaction.
Samewise sience tries to deny there is any intelligence or force bigger than us ruling the world. Probably because some people don't like the idea. I hope you see the analogy of this.

At some point in history the five elements where dropped by sience as being useless. The problem is .. middle-agers didn't understand their meaning.
They're not "building blocks" !

you can't live without air
you can't live without water
you can't live without earth ( all living things must eat)
you can't live without fire ( If you don't burn ( betabolise) anything you're dead)
and without your spirit you wouldn't be here at all.

A change in one of these can and will cause a change in any of the other 5.
Take away air or earth and your fire goes out

If all is just molecules then tell me what is life ?

A concept sience HAS proven .. "All is in vibration" even earht itself

@Evert our eyes are less sensitive in gradations of blue than in other colors.

That sounds reasonable, and is an interesting thought, but in a society where we have the concept of a "colour" and the concept of a colour that is "blue" (and the concepts of "concept" and "being" (is)) we can agree (I hope) that the potentially different impulses and neuron firings that consitute our sensing a given range of wavelengths of light are, indeed, within a similar general range we agree to label "blue" . Ahh, semantics.

From the all-knowing source that is Stephen Fry and the QI team, it would appear that the ancient greeks didn't percieve colour in the way we do. It's fascinating to know that our thoughts are apparently constrained by the words we use and our gramatical constructs. Here's an interesting thread on the QI forums I just found on the topic .

Frequently! Science is the only method I've found of reliably working out even a fraction of what really is.

I think all of those extinct species we've run into the ground might disagree with you. Why should there be a balance? The only reason I see for a balance in nature is that all of the species of plant, animal, bacteria and what have you have evolved in an environment containing the others. Given that natural selection and thus evolution enables new generations to contain mostly those offspring who have adapted to the environment sufficiently to have offspring of their own, I think there is a balance inherent in this method. Humanity is very successful at producing offspring and, to an unprecedented degree, we can adapt to our surroundings without requiring many new generations to do so. I think assuming that there is a balance in the world without our directly contributing to that balance is a dangerous place for all of us to be when we consider the future of our species. "Oh, launch that nuke then, nature will balance things out in our favour". What's so special about humans anyway?

Well, that would appear to be the case. Why, if we can explain the processes in our brain, even if we don't yet know, for example, exactly the processes that lead to the formation of belief and morality, do you feel the need to invoke any other explanation?

I disagree. The scientific method does not deny that there is a greater intelligence, it's just that there is no evidence for one given the simpler explanations we already have (and can test, with repeatable results). Why, if we can explain our existence through chemical processes, need we invoke a deity or "higher hand"'s involvement? God's been remarkably lazy... If you can provide me with observations and evidence for the existence of a higher power, I will gladly take it into consideration. If it turns out I'm wrong, then so be it, I'll have been wrong - your new theory will replace the old, and I will believe in your beliefs, because you have shown me, in a repeatable fashion, that it is the case. That's how science works. However, I have seen no evidence that we need to invoke a god to explain our existence and much evidence that we could be formed simply from chemical processes and the physical "laws" of the universe.

The universe is a fascinating place just as it is, why do we need to find ways to make it more complicated than it really is?

You just said it. Conciousness appears to be merely an emergent effect of billions of years of natural selection and evolution.

EDIT:

To a degree I think you're correct, however there's a difference between how we describe a concept and the fact that it exists - we use a base ten number system, so our value for pi is 3.14(etc). However, that doesn't affect the fact that there is a ratio between the circumference and the radius of a perfect circle and that its a measurable constant (at least where we are here in the universe). The number system is subjective and arbitrary, the fact that there is a ratio which exists is universally true (to the best of our efforts to disprove it ).

Everything can potentially be disproven. Our best model of the world so far consists of all of those theorums we have as yet not disproven. It might be that some of those theorums will never be disproven, but you can't rule out the fact that they might be. Some things have just survived experimentation for far long and in far wider contexts than others.

But that doesn't change the fact that the planet we live on is a globe .

I can believe I can throw lighting from my hands. That doesn't change the fact that, as hard as I might try, I cannot in my current state throw lightning from my hands .

Because the world is a dynamical and complicated system capable of dealing with minor perturbations - because in the end that's all we are: a minor perturbation. The world can cope with the impact of meteors, nothing we can do comes close.

So what?
Does that notion somehow alter the fact that you're a living, breathing, thinking human being?

Science says nothing about there being or there not being a higher intelligence. Science does, however, offer you a way to study and possibly explain, say, cloud formation and wheather patterns without needing a wheather deity.

Yes and good riddance. You're arbitrarily sticking labels on things that are needed to survive that correspond to the classical elements. This makes sense in a cluture that doesn't know better as a way to systematise empirical knowledge, but such a phenemenological classification does not teach you anything about the underlying structure or processes.

Congratulations. You completely missed the point of my message.

Matehmatics is discovered, not invented. Mathematical structures and relations exist whether we know about them or not. This is quite a different topic, however, that I've seen people debate ad nauseam and that I have no interest in getting into. Leaving that point aside, one apple plus one apple is two apples, even if you come from a completely alien world. So no, even if you're from a planet half way across the galaxy, 1+1=2.

That's just the thing: no two human beings are alike and the frequency response of different eyes are different. The interpretation of a particular response as "blue" is done in the brain, which has to be trained to make the distinction. I don't know if one can go so far as to say that seeing colour is something that has to be learned (independently of your eyes being able to do it), but I think it is.

Even more striking, perhaps: what we would call an ascending sequence of tones, the ancient Greeks would have called a descending sequence of tones - the nomenclature of "high" and "low" tones was reversed (source: a book called "Music and Mathematics" or something to that effect that I leant to a friend a while back and haven't got back yet). To me at least that's completely counter-intuitive and sounds insane.

Words taken right out my heart!

It's not only what we need to survive, you can find the five elements anywhere in nature as a system. How long did it take sience to recognize the connection between actions in one place and reactions (read disasters) in another ?
And still some are ignoring warnings from very old and "tested and true" wisdom.
using "there is no sientific evidence" as an excuse to place profit before wise decisions.

Wisdom is also knowing when not to ...
Sience often just tells we CAN do something... but it usually takes more time for sience to see that it is not wise to do it.

It's all about energy and entropy. If there's balance in energy consumption and radiation, there's only a little growth in entropy. Basically all things in universe tend to be balanced hence the balance in the world.

Regarding 1 + 1 = 2 - what if those aliens would have not decimal system but for example system based on modulo 3, then they would only know 0, 1 and 2. and therefore 1 + 2 would equal 0.

Modular arithmetic, however, is a more advanced, or at least less intuitive, technique that emerges later on for dealing with specific problems (various cryptographic applications, etc.). The more intuitive and likely method is ordinary, up-to-infinity counting in whatever base, and in base 3 that just means that 1 + 2 = 10. So, 10b3 = 3b10. No inconsistency there.

http://www.allegro.cc/files/attachment/595368

I, for one, embrace our new Allegroid overlords.