Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Science is Good, But Not That Good

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In a comment to my last post timothya asked “Can anyone provide a brief synopsis of a reliable way of knowing that is founded on a method other than science?”

That timothya would even ask such a question suggests that he is sore tempted by the siren’s song of scientism. To which I say, “lash yourself to the mast timothya, and let me help you sail past this dangerous island.”

Before we can deal with the manifold errors of scientism we must first define what we are talking about. “Scientism” is the idea that science provides the only valid way to know any truth. Some scientists have stretched the idea even further and asserted that since we can know truth only through science, science is therefore the only competent authority on any subject. For example, the article cited in my last post refers to Peter Atkins, who wrote, “There appear to be no bounds to [science’s] competence. . . . This claim of universal competence may seem arrogant, but it appears to be justified.”

It is, of course, true that in the last 400 years science has been wildly successful within its realm of competency. In that relatively brief period through the methods of science we have expanded our knowledge about the world and increased our material comfort in ways unimaginable in the rest of recorded history combined. There is no denying that.

The problem is that the very brilliance of science’s success has blinded people like Atkins to the limitations of the scientific method. Properly understood, science is simply a method of investigating empirical claims that has not changed much since the time of Francis Bacon (ca 1600):

Ask a question about the world: How can I cure this disease?
Formulate a hypothesis: Vaccine X will cure this disease.
Test the prediction of the hypothesis: Perform a double-blind experiment on 5,000 subjects.
Analysis: Compare the prediction of the null hypothesis to the alternative hypothesis.

The first limitation I would point out is that this method does not cover even the whole realm of the “empirical.” Consider history for example. We know with a high degree of reliability that Abraham Lincoln was the president of the United States in 1863. I did not arrive at this knowledge through scientific means. I know it because someone told me, and they in turn learned it from someone else, who in turn learned it from someone else back to the actual people who witnessed first-hand a man who called himself “Abraham Lincoln” sitting in the White House in 1863 and acting for all the world like he was the president of the United States.

Consider geography. I have never been to Russia, but I am quite certain that Moscow is the capital of that country. I did not arrive at this knowledge through scientific means either.

If timothya will stop and think a moment, he will realize that practically everything he knows he knows because someone told him, not because the truth of the proposition has been confirmed by science.

Even some knowledge that is almost universally considered “scientific” was not, strictly speaking, obtained through application of the scientific method. Consider Neo-Darwinian Evolution (“NDE”), the standard model of how life diversified and spread throughout the earth. NDE is an integration of Darwin’s original theory of natural selection and Mendelian genetics. And I am here to tell you that many of the predictions of NDE – including especially its most spectacular claims – have never been (indeed cannot be) subjected to experimental verification.

For example, NDE holds that new body plans result from the accretion of random changes to the genome (whether through mutations or drift or what have you) sorted through a fitness function called “natural selection.” It might come as a surprise to many of my readers, but this prediction of NDE has NEVER been verified experimentally despite countless thousands of attempts (primarily on hapless fruit flies). Let me say that again: No scientist has EVER observed in real time a new body plan coming into existence through a process of random changes to the genome sorted by natural selection.

“What about Darwin’s finches and those white and gray moths and the rise of antibacterial resistance I’ve heard about?” you might ask. Fair question. We absolutely must give Darwin his due. These and other examples of “microevolution” have been observed countless times. But it is one thing to say, for example, that the average size of finch beaks increases in times of famine due to the processes of NDE. It is something altogether different to say that finches themselves came into being in the first place through the processes of NDE. The former statement has been confirmed experimentally. The latter has not. Rather, the latter statement is the product of an inference – i.e., NDE causes small changes to organisms; therefore NDE causes big changes to organisms too.

Note that it is not my purpose here to argue that NDE’s claims about how new body plans came into existence are necessarily wrong (though I think they are) simply because those claims have not been confirmed by direct observation through scientific experiments. My point is that evolutionary biology, as an historical science, is based not on strict application of the scientific method. Instead, it is based on inferences from the data (an extrapolation if you will) that are themselves not subject to scientific verification in the form of direct observation.

Here are some other indisputably true things (or in timothya’s parlance “things we know reliably”) that were not derived through application of the scientific method:

The principles of logic

For any given proposition X, X cannot be both true and false at the same time and under the same formal circumstances.

The law of non-contradiction cannot be proven or disproven experimentally. It is known a priori.

The principles of mathematics

7 + 2 = 9.

Like the axioms of logic, mathematics is known a priori.

The principles undergirding the scientific enterprise itself

This one might surprise someone like timothya who is tempted by scientism, but the assumptions upon which the scientific enterprise itself is built are not subject, even in principle, to scientific verification or falsification.

For example, scientists assume (they do not know) that scientific laws (e.g., gravity) operate the same way in the furthest reaches of the universe as they do here on earth. Obviously, there is no way to confirm this assumption experimentally and it will forever remain an assumption, not an experimentally verified fact.

Scientists assume the universe is always and in all places rational and therefore it can be successfully modeled. Water runs downhill today and it will run downhill tomorrow. It will not suddenly start running uphill. In other words, scientists assume that the regularities they observe (which they call “laws of science”) will hold. No scientist can say “why” water runs downhill other than to say that gravity makes water run downhill. But the law of gravity is not a causal agent. Rather, it is an observed regularity. In other words, in 100% of the experiments on earth, water has run downhill, and from that we infer a general principle that things on earth always fall down and we call that general principle “gravity.” Thus, saying that water runs downhill because of the law of gravity is at bottom saying nothing more than water runs downhill because water runs downhill. Chesterton was right. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched.

Love

I love my wife. My knowledge of my love for my wife is completely reliable; yet I did not arrive at that knowledge through the methods of science.

Ethics

It is wrong to torture infants for pleasure. The truth of this statement is utterly reliable and timothya knows this even if he refuses to admit it. Neither he nor I arrived at our utterly certain knowledge of the truth of this statement through scientific means.

I could go on, but I think the point is clear enough by now. Science is amazingly successful within its sphere. But the truth uncovered by science reveals only a portion of the truth that is out there, and the claims of the “universal competence” of science are wild exagerations pushed by scientists who want  to be high priests of a secular church.

Comments
In response Kairosfocus' (78) and (79), I don't fully agree, but I'm not unsympathetic to the criticism, either. I've studied the Churchlands' work quite closely (I say "the Churchlands" because they are a husband-and-wife team, Paul Churchland and Patricia Churchland), and I think there is a glaring flaw in their approach: on the one hand, they do not identify assertions with neuronal networks, so it's a misinterpretation to accuse them of doing so. But, on the other hand, they do not explicate, to my satisfaction, just what the relation is between assertions and neuronal activity. It can't be identity, but if not identity, then what? I have my own views about it, but whether my views are what the Churchlands would say, I don't know. To some extent, I'm more sympathetic to Dennett's approach, which is at least to acknowledge that the problem is to show how the personal level of discourse -- which is the level at which we have assertions, judgments, inferences, and so on -- is related to the sub-personal level of discourse, at which we have patterns of activation across populations of neurons. I don't find his view entirely satisfactory, either, but in my estimation, he acknowledges the problem more forthrightly than the Churchlands do. Put somewhat otherwise, Plantinga's criticisms would apply to any view which identifies assertions with neuronal patterns, but the Churchlands don't do that, and neither does Dennett.Kantian Naturalist
December 12, 2012
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PS: Let me just say that while obviously there are no foundational systems that we can access that are beyond error or possibility of error and comprehensive enough to be relevant, the issues of truth, necessary finitude of worldviews accessible by us and particularly chains of warrant lead to the issue of foundational presuppositions, axioms etc. And, truth considered as that which accurately refers, is still highly relevant; indeed it is implicit in PC's declarations, where she intends to assert what is, not what she merely perceives or believes, or should I say, what her neuronal networks trigger.kairosfocus
December 12, 2012
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KN: BTW, I think Plantinga read the issue correctly in context. Just, PC, I think did not fully recognise the implications of what she had to say, and that starts with the opening dismissals. KFkairosfocus
December 12, 2012
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KF, thank you for your excellent additions to this post.Barry Arrington
December 12, 2012
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TA: I pointed you to the linked for some time now. Kindly see. Also, you will see that above I outlines the alternative of a finitely remote basis in first plausibles and how one avoids circularity by comparative difficulties leading to a grand inference to what one accepts as best overall explanation. Please read. KFkairosfocus
December 12, 2012
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kairosfocus posted this:
You further have the challenge of infinite regress or circularity to face. For any A, why — what argument, observations, testimony, record etc — should we accept it? That leads to B, thence, C, D etc.
Yep you have pretty much captured the problem of dealing with reality. Which never goes away. What is your solution?timothya
December 12, 2012
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Now this is completely unheard of in science as far as I know. i.e. That a mathematical description of reality would advance to the point that one can actually perform a experiment showing that your current theory will not be exceeded in predictive power by another future theory is simply unprecedented in science! I'm surprised that this test has not recieved more attention than it has for it is surely a unmatched milestone in the history of science! Here are a few more interesting notes on the 'beyond space and time' world of quantum mechanics:
Looking Beyond Space and Time to Cope With Quantum Theory – (Oct. 28, 2012) Excerpt: The remaining option is to accept that (quantum) influences must be infinitely fast,,, “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” says Nicolas Gisin, Professor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland,,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121028142217.htm Wheeler's Classic Delayed Choice Experiment: Excerpt: And, indeed, the original thought experiment was not based on any analysis of how particles evolve and behave over time – it was based on the mathematics. This is what the mathematics predicted for a result, and this is exactly the result obtained in the laboratory. http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/basic_delayed_choice.htm LIVING IN A QUANTUM WORLD - Vlatko Vedral - 2011 Excerpt: Thus, the fact that quantum mechanics applies on all scales forces us to confront the theory’s deepest mysteries. We cannot simply write them off as mere details that matter only on the very smallest scales. For instance, space and time are two of the most fundamental classical concepts, but according to quantum mechanics they are secondary. The entanglements are primary. They interconnect quantum systems without reference to space and time. If there were a dividing line between the quantum and the classical worlds, we could use the space and time of the classical world to provide a framework for describing quantum processes. But without such a dividing line—and, indeed, with­out a truly classical world—we lose this framework. We must ex­plain space and time (4D space-time) as somehow emerging from fundamental­ly spaceless and timeless physics. http://phy.ntnu.edu.tw/~chchang/Notes10b/0611038.pdf
Music and Verse: Mary Mary - Shackles - Music Videos http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=K77WKWNX Isaiah 40:18 To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare with Him?bornagain77
December 12, 2012
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As to this observation from Mr. Arrington:
scientists assume (they do not know) that scientific laws (e.g., gravity) operate the same way in the furthest reaches of the universe as they do here on earth. Obviously, there is no way to confirm this assumption experimentally and it will forever remain an assumption, not an experimentally verified fact.
It is interesting to point out where the Christian founders got this presupposition:
Psalm 119:89-90 Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens. Your faithfulness endures to all generations;,, Psalm 119:89-91 Your eternal word, O Lord, stands firm in heaven. Your faithfulness extends to every generation, as enduring as the earth you created. Your regulations remain true to this day, for everything serves your plans.
That the laws of the universe should be invariant is of no great surprise to the Christian Theist, yet to the atheist this should be a great mystery. In fact, the fact that atheist a priorily expect variance in their worldview is revealed by the fact that many stringent tests have been conducted trying to find variance in the laws of the universe, none of which have been successful in finding variance, and yet I still find some atheist clinging to a hope that some small variance should be found in the universal laws (Elizabeth Liddle held this position). This 'hope' for variance in the universal laws is a very strange position for a 'scientist' to hold since if the universal laws were not invariant, but varied by some random, unpredicatable, amount, then our mathematical equations that describe the relationships of those universal laws would breakdown and be of no use to us:
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Eugene Wigner - 1960 Excerpt: The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html
Also of interest to the unchanging nature of the transcendent universal 'information' constants which govern this universe, it should be noted that the four primary forces/constants of the universe (gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces) are said to be 'mediated at the speed of light' by mass-less 'mediator bosons', yet since time, as we understand it, comes to a complete stop at the speed of light this gives these four fundamental universal constants the characteristic of being timeless, and thus unchanging, as far as the temporal mass of this universe is concerned. In other words, we should not a-prorily expect that which is timeless in nature to ever change in value. Yet contrary to what would seem to be so obvious about the a-piori stability of the universal constants (that we should expect from a 'scientific' point of view), when some 'scientists' actually measure for variance in the fundamental constants of the universe they always seem to end up being 'surprised' by the stability they find even though variance should not to be a-priorily expected. Here are a few notes on the stability of the universal constants that has been found:
Latest Test of Physical Constants Affirms Biblical Claim - Hugh Ross - September 2010 Excerpt: The team’s measurements on two quasars (Q0458- 020 and Q2337-011, at redshifts = 1.561 and 1.361, respectively) indicated that all three fundamental physical constants have varied by no more than two parts per quadrillion per year over the last ten billion years—a measurement fifteen times more precise, and thus more restrictive, than any previous determination. The team’s findings add to the list of fundamental forces in physics demonstrated to be exceptionally constant over the universe’s history. This confirmation testifies of the Bible’s capacity to predict accurately a future scientific discovery far in advance. Among the holy books that undergird the religions of the world, the Bible stands alone in proclaiming that the laws governing the universe are fixed, or constant. http://www.reasons.org/files/ezine/ezine-2010-03.pdf This following site discusses the many technical problems they had with the paper that recently (2010) tried to postulate variance within the fine structure constant: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/why-a-multiverse-proponent-should-be-open-to-young-earth-creationism-and-skeptical-of-man-made-global-warming/#comment-367471 Stability of Coulomb Systems in a Magnetic Field - Charles Fefferman Excerpt of Abstract: I study N electrons and M protons in a magnetic field. It is shown that the total energy per particle is bounded below by a constant independent of M and N, provided the fine structure constant is small. Here, the total energy includes the energy of the magnetic field. http://www.jstor.org/pss/2367659?cookieSet=1 Testing Creation Using the Proton to Electron Mass Ratio Excerpt: The bottom line is that the electron to proton mass ratio unquestionably joins the growing list of fundamental constants in physics demonstrated to be constant over the history of the universe.,,, http://www.reasons.org/TestingCreationUsingtheProtontoElectronMassRatio Finely Tuned Gravity (1 in 10^40 tolerance; which is just one inch of tolerance allowed on a imaginary ruler stretching across the diameter of the entire universe) - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/7659795/ Einstein’s General Relativity Tested Again, Much More Stringently - 2010 Excerpt: As Müller puts it, “If the time of freefall was extended to the age of the universe – 14 billion years – the time difference between the upper and lower routes would be a mere one thousandth of a second, and the accuracy of the measurement would be 60 ps, the time it takes for light to travel about a centimetre.” http://www.universetoday.com/56612/einsteins-general-relativity-tested-again-much-more-stringently/
According to the materialistic philosophy, there are no apparent reasons why the value of each transcendent universal constant could not have varied dramatically from what they actually are. In fact, the presumption of materialism expects a fairly large amount of flexibility, indeed chaos, in the underlying constants for the universe, since the constants themselves are postulated to randomly 'emerge' from some, as far as I can tell, completely undefined and unverified 'random' source. further notes: Quantum mechanics, which is even stronger than General Relativity in terms of predictive power in science, is now so solid within science that researchers were able to bring forth this following proof from quantum entanglement experiments;
An experimental test of all theories with predictive power beyond quantum theory – May 2011 Excerpt: Hence, we can immediately refute any already considered or yet-to-be-proposed alternative model with more predictive power than this. (Quantum Theory) http://arxiv.org/pdf/1105.0133.pdf Can quantum theory be improved? - July 23, 2012 Excerpt: However, in the new paper, the physicists have experimentally demonstrated that there cannot exist any alternative theory that increases the predictive probability of quantum theory by more than 0.165, with the only assumption being that measurement (observation) parameters can be chosen independently (free choice assumption) of the other parameters of the theory.,,, ,, the experimental results provide the tightest constraints yet on alternatives to quantum theory. The findings imply that quantum theory is close to optimal in terms of its predictive power, even when the predictions are completely random. http://phys.org/news/2012-07-quantum-theory.html
bornagain77
December 12, 2012
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TA: You further have the challenge of infinite regress or circularity to face. For any A, why -- what argument, observations, testimony, record etc -- should we accept it? That leads to B, thence, C, D etc. An infinite regress of warrant (especially per empirical observation, which I suspect dominates your concept of "evidence") cannot be traversed by a finite mind or a finite collection of such, not to mention that once the minds are fallible, such will fail. So, we must have a finitely remote set of first plausibles, F, which are the heart of our worldview. These are not further warranted but are accepted as the start-point for such. First principles of right reason are a classic. The issue then is that we may beg questions and fail to have an adequate start-point. The answer to that is to compare alternative sets of first plausibles, and assess them on factual adequacy, coherence and being simple without being simplistic. Those sets of first plausibles are our faith points. That is a further reason why the tendency to denigrate beliefs, is wrong-headed. The issue is not whether we take things on trust, but which, and whether we have seriously compared the alternatives. If you have not done so, you will be apt indeed to fall into worldview level question-begging, which is both blinding and a source of a sort of triumphalism that imagines it has cornered the market on the truth. (By contrast, the issue of comparative difficulties underscores that all serious worldview options have significant difficulties or outright anomalies that one has to choose to live with.) KFkairosfocus
December 12, 2012
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TA: Knowledge is a species of belief, namely warranted and credibly true. This leads to the issue of what warrant is and how it supports beliefs to that degree that we should treat such with confidence. All of which are about philosophy, not science. Our educational and cultural systems have profoundly misled us on the significance of science as the ground for knowledge; and, sadly, to a significant degree -- if we are to believe Lewontin -- that is deliberate. Ironically, just the question, what is knowledge, suffices to show the limitations of science. KFkairosfocus
December 12, 2012
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Mung posted this:
Yes, even timothya has non-scientific beliefs. He ought to discard them right now, but he won’t.
Not wishing to make this thread an interrogation of me, but. Hang about, this is not a discussion about belief. In my mind, a belief is more or less "a statement of position" and I'm happy to admit that I hold some beliefs that would not survive intelligent, critical scrutiny (my undying devotion to the artistic merit of The Pogues, for instance, or the aesthetic qualities of the game of cricket). It is a discussion about knowledge which (once again, in my perhaps idiosyncratic view) always carries a residuum of empirical utility. A piece of knowledge has to have the characteristic of retaining its Truth Value (and its utility) when communicated from one person to another. This does not mean that the item of knowledge has to be acted upon - good if it is, but its value to the receiver may simply be that it informs and supports a consistent, general worldview. But even so, knowledge has an attribute of reliability (high, low, dubious etc) that is not demanded of belief, and is independent of the strength in which a belief is held. That's why evidence matters, and why the charge of scientism is largely spurious when directed at people who use evidence as a benchmark for the validity of any opinion, on any subject.timothya
December 11, 2012
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F/N: From the OP here, it looks like the pattern being played by Mr Coyne, is the all too familiar one of red herrings led away to a strawman caricature then soaked in ad hominems and rhetorically burned to cloud, confuse, choke, poison and polarise the atmosphere. Just a note on rhetoric, pardon. The problem of scientism still needs to be addressed. KFkairosfocus
December 11, 2012
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AF: FYI, and in the context of your false accusation of dishonesty, there is a discussion of Mr Dawkins on the RNA world OOL scenario at the Jerad thread. As the earlier issue of Dawkins' gross exaggeration of warrant possible for things on the remote, unobservable remote past joined to invidious association of questioners with holocaust deniers suggested, the required warrant simply is not there. Given also the context of your false accusation of "dishonest[y]" you need to address the matter as a basic issue of civility, or stand exposed as a willful false accuser. (Folks, pardon a cross-thread, but given the polarisation tactics being used, it is necessary, on substance and to understand just what we are dealing with.) KFkairosfocus
December 11, 2012
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Alan Fox:
Reality is orthogonal to imagination.
Is there some reason you'd care to share with us here at UD why when keiths sets off on flights of imagination over at TSZ you remain totally silent?Mung
December 11, 2012
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Science = Cartesianism!
Indeed! Reality is orthogonal to imagination.Alan Fox
December 11, 2012
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We always suspected you were anti-science!
That's right! Science = Cartesianism!Kantian Naturalist
December 11, 2012
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KN:
I don’t expect you’ll agree, but hopefully at least now you can see just how deep my anti-Cartesianism runs!
We always suspected you were anti-science!Mung
December 11, 2012
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Sigh. Barry, did you meant to say, Science is god, but not that God?Mung
December 11, 2012
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Mung:
And what about those beliefs which are not beliefs about the environment? What are they instantiations of?
I don't have a really good answer for that question, but I have the beginnings of one: I don't think that pre-linguistic and non-linguistic animals, insofar as they have beliefs at all (and of course many of them do, but in a qualified sense), can so much as entertain any beliefs that are not about their environments. The capacity to have beliefs that are not about the animal's environment comes into being with the acquisition of language. Nullasalus:
It could be put as, “For those organisms that instantiate cognitive representations of their environments, reliability is adaptive.”
I don’t think that’s going to get you any further against Plantinga, and has the added effect of mostly obscuring the topic.
Well, I'm not on Plantinga's side, am I? :) Seriously, though, you now see what I'm trying to do here: I think that a good naturalistic response to Plantinga would be to reject his initial assumption, that a reliable cognitive capacity is one that produces mostly true beliefs. There is a deep connection between reliability and truth, but it's not one of identity -- I believe that's where Plantinga errs. Instead, I'd prefer to build up the account of reliable animal cognition without talking about "true belief" at all, and then show how to get "true belief" on top of that, when we've got (maybe) an acquired language. (I guess I think my cats have very simple beliefs of some sorts, but describing those kinds of beliefs is really hard.) I don't expect you'll agree, but hopefully at least now you can see just how deep my anti-Cartesianism runs!Kantian Naturalist
December 11, 2012
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PS: Case in point on abstractions: 1 + e^i*pi = 0. (I am tempted to say on beholding this astonishing result, QED, there is a God and he is a Mathematician! [And that is a seriouis concession for someone from my discipline.])kairosfocus
December 11, 2012
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KN: The onward discussion is somewhat tangential, but significant, I think I'll just make a bit of a footnote. My own first remark, then, is that we know that we can reason and know accurately, including on pretty abstract things. The problem is to explain adequate, credible cause for that. The further point is that chance plus necessity mechanisms are severely challenged starting with say linguistic ability, then moving on to abstract thought. I won't even bother with the notorious knot of hard problems connected to consciousness or conscience. Plantinga and Lewis are by no means isolated in pointing out that evolutionary materialism-based Naturalisms have a serious problem accounting for such, indeed they are self referential and self stultifying. (And if your Naturalism embraces purpose in the material world, or its kissing cousin, it sounds a lot like panentheism to me.) And, when it comes to socio-cultural relativism, let's just say I cut my eye-teeth on Marxists. We learn, think, know and are influenced in community, but at no point am I willing to concede that our thought is materially determined by such community. The self referential absurdity of such a view is patent. We really are back at comparative difficulties and I suggest that the purposeful shaping of our mental capacity to be able to apprehend truth (however partially), is about the best I can find. And, that brings us full circle to the point of worldview grounding, where I insist the worldview warranting capacity of a finite and fallible mind is finite, so our first plausibles need to be assessed on the issue of comparative difficulties on pain of circularity. KFkairosfocus
December 11, 2012
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I’m not averse to teleology as such.
Maybe you're not. Other naturalists? I gotta be honest man - you occupy an extremely niche 'naturalist' position as it stands, given our past discussions about the meaning of the word. You could flip yourself, call yourself an agnostic non-naturalist, and who would be able to argue you're not? Whether you're saying beliefs or 'accurate maps' that cash out to beliefs, you're importing serious teleology into evolution.
It could be put as, “For those organisms that instantiate cognitive representations of their environments, reliability is adaptive.”
I don't think that's going to get you any further against Plantinga, and has the added effect of mostly obscuring the topic.nullasalus
December 11, 2012
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KN:
I’m not averse to teleology as such. But I think that the teleology involved can be described slightly differently than this. It could be put as, “For those organisms that instantiate cognitive representations of their environments, reliability is adaptive.” Then the question becomes, what’s the relationship between ‘true beliefs’ and ‘reliable cognitive maps’?
And what about those beliefs which are not beliefs about the environment? What are they instantiations of?Mung
December 11, 2012
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As for the question, "isn't it natural to believe in the supernatural?", I'm not entirely sure. If there is a 'natural religion', so to speak, I conjecture that it would be animism. But I think that animism is false? On the contrary!Kantian Naturalist
December 11, 2012
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insofar as someone attempts to conceive evolutionary theory such that it has a fundamental tendency to favor true beliefs over false ones, they’re sacrificing their naturalism to secure their result. Evolution has some teleology built into it anyway that’s already problematic – but evolution as the natural process that basically is governed by a law such that true beliefs are evolutionarily favored over false ones? That’s a kind of directionality that would and should make a lot of naturalists choke.
I'm not averse to teleology as such. But I think that the teleology involved can be described slightly differently than this. It could be put as, "For those organisms that instantiate cognitive representations of their environments, reliability is adaptive." Then the question becomes, what's the relationship between 'true beliefs' and 'reliable cognitive maps'? On my view, 'true beliefs' pretty much just are more-or-less reliable cognitive maps plus the semantic resources of a public, norm-governed language, including socio-linguistic practices of detecting errors and correcting them. I don't think there needs to be some other thing that true belief consists of.Kantian Naturalist
December 11, 2012
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...but evolution as the natural process that basically is governed by a law such that true beliefs are evolutionarily favored over false ones?
But that would include belief in the supernatural. Wouldn't it? Charybdis?Mung
December 11, 2012
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well KN, I'm not asking you to trust me (I certainly don't trust you!), I'm asking you to be faithful to the empirical evidence! The empirical evidence I cited is unambiguous. i.e. there is a transcendent 'free will' component to our being! notes as to consciousness: Quantum physics says goodbye to reality - Apr 20, 2007 Excerpt: Many realizations of the thought experiment have indeed verified the violation of Bell's inequality. These have ruled out all hidden-variables theories based on joint assumptions of realism, meaning that reality exists when we are not observing it; and locality, meaning that separated events cannot influence one another instantaneously. But a violation of Bell's inequality does not tell specifically which assumption – realism, locality or both – is discordant with quantum mechanics. Markus Aspelmeyer, Anton Zeilinger and colleagues from the University of Vienna, however, have now shown that realism is more of a problem than locality in the quantum world. They devised an experiment that violates a different inequality proposed by physicist Anthony Leggett in 2003 that relies only on realism, and relaxes the reliance on locality. To do this, rather than taking measurements along just one plane of polarization, the Austrian team took measurements in additional, perpendicular planes to check for elliptical polarization. They found that, just as in the realizations of Bell's thought experiment, Leggett's inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we're not observing it. "Our study shows that 'just' giving up the concept of locality would not be enough to obtain a more complete description of quantum mechanics," Aspelmeyer told Physics Web. "You would also have to give up certain intuitive features of realism." http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640 “I’m going to talk about the Bell inequality, and more importantly a new inequality that you might not have heard of called the Leggett inequality, that was recently measured. It was actually formulated almost 30 years ago by Professor Leggett, who is a Nobel Prize winner, but it wasn’t tested until about a year and a half ago (in 2007), when an article appeared in Nature, that the measurement was made by this prominent quantum group in Vienna led by Anton Zeilinger, which they measured the Leggett inequality, which actually goes a step deeper than the Bell inequality and rules out any possible interpretation other than consciousness creates reality when the measurement is made.” – Bernard Haisch, Ph.D., Calphysics Institute, is an astrophysicist and author of over 130 scientific publications. Preceding quote taken from this following video; Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness - A New Measurement - Bernard Haisch, Ph.D (Shortened version of entire video with notes in description of video) http://vimeo.com/37517080 further notes: kant, It is interesting to point out a certain quote from a earlier article I cited on Wheeler's delayed choice experiment:
And, indeed, the original thought experiment was not based on any analysis of how particles evolve and behave over time – it was based on the mathematics. This is what the mathematics predicted for a result, and this is exactly the result obtained in the laboratory.
Now Kant, do you believe that 2+2 equals 4 'infinitely fast', or do you believe that it takes time for 2+2 to equal 4 ? If you rightly believe that it is instantaneously true that 2+2 equals 4 why do you not also believe the results of quantum mechanics, which are based purely on mathematical prediction, are infinitely fast also?bornagain77
December 11, 2012
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Needless to say, (4) is the option almost all naturalists would think is the right one, assuming they accept how Plantinga sets up the relationship between belief and behavior in the first place.
Not really. You can see as much in the responses to Plantinga. Now, maybe you mean that you think 4 is the most viable route to respond to Plantinga - that's a different story.
And then it’s just not clear how seriously naturalists ought to take this concern, because all that’s shown is that the causal connection between semantic content and adaptive behavior is not a necessary connection — but whoever thought it was?
I think it's pretty clear how serious, given what Plantinga's written. I don't think pointing out that Plantinga's argument is an a priori argument does much to undercut it - it's not like this is some kind of shocking revelation Plantinga didn't account for. Not only is it not a necessary connection, but the 'tendency' is undercut as well. So you're right on back to low or inscrutable. Now, here's a part Plantinga doesn't focus on, but I do: insofar as someone attempts to conceive evolutionary theory such that it has a fundamental tendency to favor true beliefs over false ones, they're sacrificing their naturalism to secure their result. Evolution has some teleology built into it anyway that's already problematic - but evolution as the natural process that basically is governed by a law such that true beliefs are evolutionarily favored over false ones? That's a kind of directionality that would and should make a lot of naturalists choke.nullasalus
December 11, 2012
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timothya:
It isn’t a “fact” that your deity reigns. That is a presupposition, an assumption on your part, an assertion for which you have to provide evidence. Otherwise a reasonable sceptic will say you are just blowing smoke.
lol And of course, we know all this because we applied the scientific method at each step of the way. Yes, even timothya has non-scientific beliefs. He ought to discard them right now, but he won't.Mung
December 11, 2012
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Bornagain77 -- how to put this? -- I don't know you, and I don't know much about quantum mechanics. So I can't tell if you're a competent authority about quantum mechanics or if you're just cherry-picking the articles about quantum mechanics that support your own a priori metaphysics. So here's my epistemic situation: I'm in no position to evaluate your claims, and since I don't know you, I have no reason to trust you (or distrust you). So I hope you'll understand if I take your claims with a few grains of salt.Kantian Naturalist
December 11, 2012
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