Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

The hopeless quest of a hopeless theory

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There’s a big “evolution of religion” conference coming up in Hawaii: http://www.evolutionofreligion.org/index.php. Daniel Dennett is among the featured speakers. Here’s a brief description of another featured speaker:

On Sunday evening the Rev. Michael Dowd, who has been called “North America’s evolutionary evangelist,” will share his experience of teaching and preaching a sacred, meaningful view of cosmic, biological, and human evolution to secular and religious audiences of all ages and across the theological spectrum.

You think ID might be a welcomed perspective at this conference?

Comments
73 I’m really just trying to hone in on your conception of God and how that relates to reality.
In recent post over in the Dawkins topic, I'd suggested that God is not a concept -- and so not the sort of thing one can have a conception of -- but rather a name one uses to direct attention to the limits of our conceptual capacities. When we speak theologically -- which is very different from speaking religiously -- we conceptualize this limit. Under those circumstances we might talk about "the concept of God." But even then it's a very peculiar sort of concept -- a concept which refers to the limits of conceptuality.
Perhaps in the first few chapters of Genesis, it describes a real God. I think it’s best not to confuse the issue by using the Bible.
I wanted to use the Bible because Torah -- or, more precisely, Torah as interpreted through the lens of Talmud -- marks the beginning of a new way of thinking about what a god is. Throughout the ancient civilizations -- from Norse mythology to Sumer to the banks of the Ganges, and in Mesoamerica -- the gods are lords and rulers, kings and queens. They are sovereigns, and one had better do what they say, or else. The Hebrews began one version of the process of breaking away from this. (Buddhism and Greek philosophy were other versions.) Firstly, the Hebrew god is not identified with any particular part of the visible world. (However, I have heard it claimed that the Hebrew god was a god of the air, which is why he is not visible. It's an interesting thought.) Secondly, the Hebrew god is a substitute for an earthly sovereign. This comes out clearly in the rebellion against Pharoah in Exodus, but it's re-emphasized at the beginning of First Samuel, when God tells Samuel that the Israelites have rejected Him by wanting a king like the other peoples. I interpret this as the beginning of a transformation in how one thinks of God's relation to authority and to power -- it is the beginning of a notion of justice. In the prophets, God is not on the side of the lords and kings; He is on the side of widows, orphans, and the oppressed. Spinoza and Levinas, for all their vast difference, concur: God is not a sovereign. Like Nietzsche, I see the "slave revolution in morals" as a turning point in the development of human consciousness. But Nietzsche was ambivalent about it -- it had positive consequences, such as making people psychologically interesting, but it also had negative consequences, such as liberalism, socialism, and feminism. Since I'm a socialist and feminist, I'm less ambivalent about the slave revolution in morals than Nietzsche was -- although I do agree with him that human life would be much improved if we were less crippled by resentment and guilt.
Why do you believe in God and how do you account for existence?
Well, I suppose I want to answer "why do you believe in God?" somewhat naively -- a "second innocence," following my recovery from atheism -- by saying that I experience the numinous -- that I know what it means to say that the universe has a face and is looking at me --- and that in light of the tradition in which I've been raised and which is pivotal to my identity, I call the numinous "God" rather than "Waka Tanka" or "Vishnu." Now, as for existence: well, I think of the material world as self-supporting, in the sense that I don't rely on my religious notions in explicating the course of events from the Big Bang to now. But in my heart of hearts, I'm an ontological pluralist -- I think that there are many different kinds of existence -- there are as many different kinds of existence as there are sense of the term 'exist.'Carl Sachs
September 26, 2006
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Tom: "There is no self-effulgent message." True, perhaps, but there are degrees of certainly. On a normal, everyday, kind of level, wouldn't find such a message in the DNA constitute powerful evidence to you? Esp if the DNA came from some human 3000 years ago, and foretold all the important historical events up to now? (I know I'm adding to the original content here.) Tom: "Regarding the notion that software is less real than hardware because it depends upon the hardware, I should observe that any system implemented in software may also be implemented in hardware." Sure. A clearer analogy for my purposes would be water and the waves upon it.mike1962
September 25, 2006
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Carlos: "Mike: so you want to say that if x depends on y, then x is less real than y? That strikes me as odd. Then you’d have to say that colors are not as real as the atoms which comprise the reflective surface or the photons which are emitted by that surface." (Sidebar: there is no "color" with regards to photons emitted by surfaces. "Color" is a conscious experience.) I didn't use the terms "less" or "more". I object to your use of "just as". "Just as" implies an ontological qualitative equivalence. Water can make waves, but waves can't make water. They are both "real", but the waves are not "just as" real as the water. Carlos: "But as for me, I place my opposition elsewhere; I accept the tentative first steps made by James and Dewey in thinking that the very idea of an “absolute conception of the world” is an incoherent notion." Do you reject the very idea that the universe has a specific and real ontological nature, regardless of whether you can apprehend it? Carlos: "And with that thought in place, I find it then very easy to resist the series of moves you find inescapable which lead you to deny the reality of the phenomenological sphere, including values." I don't deny the reality of the phenomenological sphere. Carlos : "And so I do not need to ground values in anything absolute in order for them to count as real. " Like I said, I didn't say they weren't real. I despute the characterization that they are "just as" real, which I find to be patently obvious. You didn't reply to the thing I was hoping you would reply to the most: upon what basis can a value have any absolutely real "weight" outside of the brain's own "software" if it is not in resonance with the ontology of the fundamental reality, the AOIR? Why is any epiphenomenal values of any weight except to the value holder? In plain lingo, if I want to rob a guy, and he doesn't want me to rob him, why should I care? Oh, I'm sure you've dealt with all this before, but what the heck. :)mike1962
September 25, 2006
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I've fallen way behind here, and I have other things to do. Sorry not to have responded to some of you. 11. idnet, I will post the statement on ID at my web site after I submit a book chapter on ID. I have been struggling to figure out what I really want to say. 22. Carlos, I spent quite a bit of time looking into supernaturalism on the web, and I never quite figured out how to respond to your post.Tom English
September 25, 2006
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Tom English, you're probably right about Einstein--he's generally sited as a Spinozan. As for reading in your field I've so much on my plate right now I'll have to leave that to others. In my field the minimum unit of information is the proposition/function/clause, and if it turns out that science is only about "compression" a la Ockham's razor--well--science has become pretty much a bore.Rude
September 25, 2006
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Rude, I said:
I see science as a utilitarian enterprise in data compression, not a mode of truth acquisition.
You said:
Wow! I’m sure glad Newton and Einstein didn’t see it that way.
Einstein came closer to seeing it that way than you think. He indicated that he, and not nature, was the source of his theories. Sorry I don't have the quote at hand. Einsteinian mechanics, though more complex than Newtonian mechanics, reduces the prediction errors of Newtonian mechanics under all circumstances. Of course, the errors of Newtonian mechanics for bodies moving at very high speeds are huge, and thus Einsteinian mechanics, with its relatively small errors, is the better data compressor of the two.
Have you read Kuhn?
Yes. Have I forgotten some paradigm shift forced by political powerplay? I know about Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union, but Kuhn does not cover that. Have you read Jorma Rissanen's Stochastic Complexity in Statistical Inquiry? That's the book in which he describes the Minimum Description Length principle (about the same as the Minimum Message Length principle of C. S. Wallace). For explicit connection of the MDL principle to data compression, see Li and Vitanyi, An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications, section 5.5.Tom English
September 25, 2006
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Tom English, interesting take on the software-hardward distinction. Software is always--that we know of--instantiated in hardware, be it an automobile or etched in a microchip or scribbled in a book. The one is precisely what ID calls design, the other--be it silicon or iron and rubber and whatever--may also themselves be the instantiation of software, but from a different source than the designer of the software in the chip or the car.Rude
September 25, 2006
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Carlos, Don't go back to the House Divided thread, anyway. It's probbly under water by now. I'm really just trying to hone in on your conception of God and how that relates to reality. The Bible announced a new concept of what it meant to be a god, Do you mean monotheism? I don't know about that. Perhaps in the first few chapters of Genesis, it describes a real God. But for the most part, it seems the Hebrews were henotheists, as that whole meditteranian worlds seems to have been. That there is an Absolute is taught by Hinduism, and that probably predates Judaism. True monotheism was at least one of the things taught by the Egyptians. And, I think many native peoples understood that there was one ultimate God. I think it's best not to confuse the issue by using the Bible. Why do you believe in God and how do you account for existence?avocationist
September 25, 2006
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Regarding the notion that software is less real than hardware because it depends upon the hardware, I should observe that any system implemented in software may also be implemented in hardware. In fact, the way to get the best performance in a system is to make it all hardware. But in real-world engineering, we partition functionality into hardware and software components to achieve an acceptable cost-performance tradeoff. The upshot is that what is hardware and what is software is simply a matter of how you draw boxes.Tom English
September 25, 2006
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Tom English: “I see science as a utilitarian enterprise in data compression, not a mode of truth acquisition.” Wow! I’m sure glad Newton and Einstein didn’t see it that way. “A key to persuasion is to participate within the scientific community, not to stand without and engage in political action to promulgate ‘scientific’ beliefs as yet unaccepted by the community.” Have you read Kuhn?Rude
September 25, 2006
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Methodlogical naturalism is not necessary to do any science. Any one who subscribes to ID can do exactly the same science.jerry
September 25, 2006
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mike1962:
[W]hat if scientists found an unimpeachable message encoded in the DNA of all humans that said in effect, “Hello, this is Yahweh and I made you. I live outside of time as you understand it, and I created what you call spacetime. So stop wasting time arguing about it. And by the way, be good to one another.”
If we entertain the possibility of such a message, we should be equally prepared for:
What is the ape to man? A laughingstock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughingstock, a thing of shame. Let your will say: The Superman shall be the meaning of the earth!
The medium of the message does not validate the content, in my opinion. Most religions posit the existence of spiritual tricksters. And science acknowledges the existence of natural tricksters. I see no way to evaluate the content but to shine one's own light upon it. There is no self-effulgent message.
Would this not, to you, effectively falsify NDE as a complete *scientific* explanation?
First, no one regards the neo-Darwinian account as complete. Almost all of the shortcomings in neo-Darwinian theory that IDists emphasize appeared first in the mainstream scientific literature. Second, neo-Darwinian theory (mass noun) is an ever-growing collection of theories. Falsifying one of the theories does not necessarily reduce the utility of the others. For instance, Darwin originally formulated five theories, by Ernst Mayr's count, and one of them, the "theory of use and disuse" (Lamarckian inheritance), was subsequently falsified. In your scenario, I think the scientific response would not be wholesale falsification of any theory, but creation of an exception for the human species. From what I have read on falsification, Popper, in his later work, acknowledged that scientists patch up theories by adding exceptions, and that falsification is a matter of degree.
And would it not effectively demonstrate in a positive way the limitations of metholodical materialism?
I am not sure that the discovery would reduce the usefulness of assuming that the natural universe is closed. Again, I see science as a utilitarian enterprise in data compression, not a mode of truth acquisition. Furthermore, many people have become more receptive, since ID came on the scene, to the notion that extraterrestrial visitors may have intervened in terrestrial affairs. Perhaps we will find in the human genome a copyright notice and a strong warning to Wes Elsberry.
Maybe I should ask, what would it take for you and/or scientists in general to abandon MM as the guiding philosophy?
Science is driven by pragmatics. If someone can persuade scientists that they are missing out on something of practical import by assuming a closed natural universe, then they will likely let methodological naturalism go. (If physicists entertain string theory, what will scientists not consider?) A key to persuasion is to participate within the scientific community, not to stand without and engage in political action to promulgate "scientific" beliefs as yet unaccepted by the community.Tom English
September 25, 2006
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But how can you know it's a useless concept? And would you say then that the only useful concept is a "useful fiction"? It seems to me that that's a science stopper. If my aim is not an absolute conception of reality then I'll be content at some point to stop pondering. It's one thing to admit that I'll never get there, it's quit another to quit trying.Rude
September 25, 2006
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66 On second thought, I think that "incoherence" is far too strong an indictment. The concept of a square circle is incoherent. The concept of an absolute conception of the world is not incoherent. If it were, it would be impossible for there to be serious discussion about it. So I'd like to retract that indictment, if you'll let me. (After all, I'm lecturing on Descartes tomorrow, and I can hardly tell my students that the Cartesian project is incoherent!) What I would like to say instead is that the concept of the absolute conception of the world, like the concept of phlogiston, is a concept that we can dispense with without sacrificing any intelligibility or understanding. It is a useless concept.Carl Sachs
September 25, 2006
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Carlos, are you saying that “an ‘absolute conception of the world’ is an incoherent notion” is an absolute conception of the world?Rude
September 25, 2006
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Carlos, I’m sure you know Popper better than I, and I’m with you if falsification is the ONLY guide to truth, but of course it isn’t. Yes, a risky theory that proves predictive garners faith, and then—as you know—according to some beauty is the best guide to the truth, yet here again it cannot be the ONLY guide. Of course “not yet refuted” does not mean “true,” but it does indicate “possibly true” and a motive for further investigation. I remember when the big science guru at our university started having cross-disciplinary meetings (with computer sci, cog sci, philosophy, etc.) but finally had to abandon the philosophers. All they could do was play devil’s advocate—had he kept listening he’d have given up and gone home. He just couldn’t take the incessant negativity and still do his science. Science suffers because most scientists know so little of the philosophical foundations of their project, but then maybe the philosophers share some guilt in driving them away. There’s a difference between saying that we have apprehended the truth and making truth is our goal, and if truth eludes us that is no reason to throw in the towel.Rude
September 25, 2006
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Avocationist, Would you still like me to answer your questions from the previous thread from last Friday? Or have my scattered remarks here and there satisfied you?Carl Sachs
September 25, 2006
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Rude: I'm going to dig in my heels with respect to Popper. I mentioned falsificationism because I know it's a widely respected approach. But the whole point of falsificationism is just that no theory can be true. Theories are divided into two categories: those that have been refuted, and those that have not yet been refuted. But "not yet refuted" does not mean "true." Part of Popper's insight was to see that if one is willing to sacrifice truth, then one can avoid the entire problem of induction. I have no quibble with anyone's wanting to say that scientific theories are true, but that's because I don't think falsificationism is the right way to go. Mike: so you want to say that if x depends on y, then x is less real than y? That strikes me as odd. Then you'd have to say that colors are not as real as the atoms which comprise the reflective surface or the photons which are emitted by that surface. Etc. And what holds true for colors also holds true for sounds, smells, etc. Then one has quickly emptied the entire phenomenological sphere of all reality. The result is a deeply alienating philosophy. As for your "absolute ontologically independent reality" -- yes, I can certainly see what you mean by this. There's no shortage of candidates for the role of AOIR, historically or today. Some will insist that it's God; others insist that it's matter, etc. But as for me, I place my opposition elsewhere; I accept the tentative first steps made by James and Dewey in thinking that the very idea of an "absolute conception of the world" is an incoherent notion. And with that thought in place, I find it then very easy to resist the series of moves you find inescapable which lead you to deny the reality of the phenomenological sphere, including values. And so I do not need to ground values in anything absolute in order for them to count as real.Carl Sachs
September 25, 2006
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Carlos: "to insist that unless we assume that values are objective, we will be unable to explain why we were right and the Nazis were wrong" Why should we assume that? Carlos: "If so, I would continue that software is just as real in this way: yes, the hardware can be described as configurations of atoms, but the fact that software can be described as the configuration of a configuration shows that it is just as real. The fact that the same atomic configuration can take on many different digital configurations doesn’t make those digital configurations less real than the atomic one. If it did, one would also have to say that atoms are more real than cells, and that cells are more real than organisms." They are real, yes, but not *just as* real, in my view. It's the "just as" part I have trouble with because the configuration (epiphenomenon) can never be an "ontological peer" with the medium. There is a existential dependency in the relationship. When people have differing values, it means their software is different. Unless a particular value is real in the same way as the Absolute Ontologically Independent Reality (AOIR), whatever that is, what does it matter? Of course, what I'm driving at is without "God", that is, without values having some correspondence with the AOIR "itself", values cannot be real in any "univeral" way. Values would be mere subjective curiousities. Just a mere arrangement of something more fundamental. As for the Nazi's and the Allies, the Allies would have been no more "right" than a yawn or a belch. It can't be real in the same way the AOIR is real. Therefore, not "just as" real.mike1962
September 25, 2006
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Major quibble: if one thinks that Popper’s falsificationism is the right way to think about theory selection, one will NOT have to abandon the assumption that scientific theories are, or could be, true. Science is a faith project. Truth is the goal which we approach through falsification and faith (“useful fictions” are useful only in technology) . By the way, you should read Sheldon Glashow who argues that all discoveries are made by those who somehow just know deep in their bones, all evidence to the contrary, that things are good. Pessimists never discover anything. Also I must say that Popperian falsification is not the ONLY avenue to truth. In historical linguistics, for example, we cannot prove that languages are NOT genetically related—we can only prove that they are.Rude
September 25, 2006
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Minor quibble: if one thinks that Popper's falsificationism is the right way to think about theory selection, then one will have to abandon the assumption that scientific theories are, or could be, true. And then the very idea of science as a search for truth becomes questionable, at best. Re: 58
There is not one scientific finding in the history of science that is not in sync with ID.
I agree completely.Carl Sachs
September 25, 2006
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"Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein Tom English: P.S. — Mike, I personally do not think of scientific explanations in terms of truth so much as data compression. I guess that all depends on how one defines "truth". Why are we compressing data if not to find the truth, ie the reality, of the situation? Also we would have to know if the data is true. Linus Pauling, winner of 2 Nobel prizes wrote,
“Science is the search for the truth.”
“But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding.” -Albert Einstein
“A healthy science is a science that seeks the truth.” -Paul Nelson, Ph. D., philosophy of biology.
The truth need not be an absolute truth. Truth in the sense that Drs. Pauling, Einstein & Nelson are speaking is the reality in which we find ourselves. We exist. Science is to help us understand that existence and how it came to be. As I like to say- science is our search for the truth, i.e. the reality, to our existence via our never-ending quest for knowledge.Joseph
September 25, 2006
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mike1962, Methodological materialism or methodological naturalism (whatever the term used) is not necessary to do science. It never has been, never will be and any link of it to the success of failure of science is absurd. There isn't one finding or theory in science that requires it. Individuals may subscribe to it but it doesn't help them do better science. So to connect the two is bogus. There may be other philosophies that may inhibit the pursuit of science but the fact that you reject methodological materialism is not one of them. Also the idea that NDE is the paradigm that has produced the best scientific results in life sciences is also absurd. NDE by itself is a limiting philosophy because it hypothesizes a specific mechanism for all life's changes, which would inhibit findings not in sync with it. ID encompasses NDE and as such is a broader philosophy than NDE. ID would be consistent with other naturalistic methods of life changes as well as NDE. As such it is a more robust approach to science because it does not reject any specific mechanism for events in the cosmos. It just widens the range of acceptance. There is not one scientific finding in the history of science that is not in sync with ID.jerry
September 25, 2006
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The fact that there can be fundamental disagreements between values doesn't show that values are subjective or unreal. Indeed, I'd be willing -- at least as a first pass -- to insist that unless we assume that values are objective, we will be unable to explain why we were right and the Nazis were wrong, and we shall end up saying, as some of my students do say when pressed, that if the Nazis had won, they would have been right and we would have been wrong.
What you seem to be saying is software is as real as hardware. This does not smell right to me. Hardware is a configuration of atoms. Software is a configuration of a configuration. How can that be “just as real?”
I tend to think of everything biological/physical as the hardware, and everything cultural as the software. Does that track your intuitions? If so, I would continue that software is just as real in this way: yes, the hardware can be described as configurations of atoms, but the fact that software can be described as the configuration of a configuration shows that it is just as real. The fact that the same atomic configuration can take on many different digital configurations doesn't make those digital configurations less real than the atomic one. If it did, one would also have to say that atoms are more real than cells, and that cells are more real than organisms. This looks like a confusion between levels of complexity and levels of reality -- whereas I would say that levels of complexity subsist within reality. And at the highest order of complexity that we know of so far, we find cultures, forms of life, ethical practices, etc. They are no less real than the biological or the microphysical levels. The fact that different cultures of the same species can have fundamental disagreements about moral principles is an interesting fact about that species, just as it is an interesting fact about a carbon atom that it can occur in a cell or a diamond.Carl Sachs
September 25, 2006
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Carl: "A more honest defense would be to question the very assumption — that values and ideals cannot be just as real as facts are." What does it mean then when two different brains hold conflicting values? Hitler held certain values about the Jews, and the typical American held contrary values. The Jews were "facts." Values towards them cannot be facts in the same way. What you seem to be saying is software is as real as hardware. This does not smell right to me. Hardware is a configuration of atoms. Software is a configuration of a configuration. How can that be "just as real?"mike1962
September 25, 2006
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I’m asking, given the existence of God what are the implications for a theory that states mindless interactions of matter and energy are sufficient to cause this universe and this world?
In order to get any talk of "implications" off the ground, we first have to have some confidence that we're not talking about the implications of the rainy season in the Serengeti for the price of tea in China. In other words, we have to have some confidence for thinking that one has anything at all to do with the other. And I don't have that confidence -- not by a long shot. In part it's because I don't think that the concept of creation -- which appears in assertions such as "God created (or creates) the world" -- is the sort of concept that can play a role in a scientific description of things. If someone were to say that there's nothing of value in Hamlet because Hamlet never actually existed, one would say that they are missing the point. The character of Hamlet, one would respond, speaks to aspects of the human situation -- the existence of a real person by such a name is entirely besides the point. The Bible is not merely literature, but that is because there is no such thing as "mere literature." Some literature transcends its own time and creates a new cultural understanding. The Bible announced a new concept of what it meant to be a god, much as Don Quixote announced a new concept of what it meant to be an individual (alternatively: what it meant to be a work of fiction). Some people would say that meanings, values, and ideals aren't "real," that aren't part of how the world "really is" -- that they are only a subjective "projection." And in response to this, it can seem necessary to defend religion by treating religious concepts, ideals, and values by interpreting them as part of a scientific conception. But this is to betray them. A more honest defense would be to question the very assumption -- that values and ideals cannot be just as real as facts are. On the view I am trying to develop, the distinction between facts and values, and the priority of methodological naturalism in discovering what the facts are, does not detract from the objectivity or reality of values. It is not an entirely satisfactory account, but it's the best I've been able to come up with so far.Carl Sachs
September 25, 2006
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And there is no way to make empirical science (i.e., consensual interpretation of public experience) accommodate such private Truth. No, but it is possible to investigate in other ways. Suppose we eventually verify that there are indeed more dimensions in the directions of 'inward.' It seems likely based upon the trends we already see that these inward dimensions will be causal to this 'outer' reality of 3-dimensions. ( And that due to our very limited ability to perceive and intuit from within these inner dimensions, we have tended to both doubt its realness and use labels like spiritual and supernatural for the perceptions that those inner dimensions grant.) Suppose we continue to understand more about the nature of consciousness, and how it relates to matter. But I also believe that scientists should resist the introduction of unobservable causes. Who has observed atomic particles? Natural and supernatural mean nothing in my personal belief system. .. I look at the world through multiple lenses. I am pretty good at seeing the world in two ways simultaneously, but when I write I must choose one of those ways. Well THAT clears things up! (No, I'm not being sarcastic.) Carlos, What would be philosophically interesting would be if one could argue that the nature of the problem — whatever it is — is such that methodological naturalism lacks the conceptual resources with which to construct a satisfactory explanation. Yeah, that's exactly what I think. As to Johnson's theistic realism, I agree in part, but I don't think the personal nature of the creator can be inferred by logic, nor am I convinced it is so. It's alright with me if methodological naturalism has no a priori assumptions. But I think they do. So I'm not asking the question, does God exist. I'm asking, given the existence of God what are the implications for a theory that states mindless interactions of matter and energy are sufficient to cause this universe and this world? Mike, if that message were encoded in DNA, it would certainly prove design, and it would also answer my question, "Were we designed by aliens, or by God?"avocationist
September 24, 2006
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49. Just doin' my job, sir! (By the way, Carlos is the nickname; Carl is not truncated. But I prefer Carlos.)Carl Sachs
September 24, 2006
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Tom English: “It means that science is making good headway at explaining life under methodological naturalism. My acceptance of methodological naturalism in science in no way indicates that I believe in naturalism.” After digesting your food for thought, I'm led to a question: what if scientists found an unimpeachable message encoded in the DNA of all humans that said in effect, "Hello, this is Yahweh and I made you. I live outside of time as you understand it, and I created what you call spacetime. So stop wasting time arguing about it. And by the way, be good to one another." Discovering such a message would obviously be a scientific occasion, but how would the message itself (disregarding the bit about being good to each other) fit in the current scientific paradigm of methodological naturalism? Would this not, to you, effectively falsify NDE as a complete *scientific* explanation? And would it not effectively demonstrate in a positive way the limitations of metholodical materialism? (One could posit various explanations for how the message got into the DNA without the message itself being true. I can think of a few, but they are not plausible to me.) If that scenario is not strong enough, what about the appearance of a superbeing who showed up and could verifiably violate the laws of physics on a whim? And could create life at will out of constituent chemicals. Would it make sense to retain a methodological materialism at that point? Maybe I should ask, what would it take for you and/or scientists in general to abandon MM as the guiding philosophy?mike1962
September 24, 2006
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Tom, Was it not naivete which asked of the emporer's clothes?todd
September 24, 2006
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