James Le Fanu: Why Us? (The limitations of science)

by John Clinch , Friday, August 07, 2009, 10:31 (5586 days ago) @ dhw

Sorry I've been away so long ... busy, busy. - There are an awful lot of points in your final paragraph. As you know, I am confident that science will one day fully explain the origins of life. I think, though can't prove of course, that the universe is full of life though it may in fact be so unlikely an event that we are life's only home. I just don't get any of the reasons offered as to why this determines the theistic question. - No, I don't find your representation of my position fair. I don't think (that is a metaphysical "think") that God "can't" exist. Anyway, we should define God before going any further. I just don't think there is any evidence, any reason, to believe that we live in a Universe with an interventionist God. That much is preposterous, in my humble opinion. - As for NDEs/OBEs and such, I'm very confident that there is no good evidence for supposing that whatever phenomenon is taking place, that it points to a life outside the body. And besides, if it did, all of science is false and that is somewhat unlikely. Good science flows forward ... Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein. So, yes, I'm pretty sure that, as evidence for the existence of life beyond the grave, it is unscientific wish-fulfilment. It is a testable claim and the science is simply found wanting. A serious problem is the lack of any plausible mechanism by which the claims made for NDEs/ OBEs could work. - God, by contrast, is not a testable claim and as a claim to metaphysical truth, I can't disprove the existence of a transcendent being designing it all. Not at all, just as I can't disprove a host of metaphysical claims. My hunch is that it's very unlikely that humans, with their known fears, their desire for powerful father-figures to follow, their yen for ritual and for certainty would happen to have hit upon the real solution to the conundrum of existence in the form of the Judeo-Christian concept God. And remember His writ only runs over half of humanity ... the rest are total heathens by the church I was born into. We being overly western-centric: what about eastern religion which is godless? - You misunderstand science and, if I may say, not for the first time. To all intents and purposes, in constructing our view of reality, "best guess" is the only guess because it follows that, if a model is not the best one, then it should be abandoned. Positing another model ... in this case, a metaphysical one which is not falsifiable - as our best guess, if in contradistinction to a better one, it must be inferior. I say this not to disparage but to ask you to accept that science just says "this is what we think happens." And, that essential humility makes it the powerful engine for understanding that it is. It learned a long time ago to leave the metaphysics to others. - But you continue to wish to confuse the two. I still say your basic position contains the two logical fallacies I have referred to: the argument from personal incredulity combined with the argument that says because something is unexplained, it is inexplicable. But you are right here: the latter would negate the entire scientific endeavour. Anything that is objectively explicable in principle is the province of science: that includes a description of how life arose. - You then attempt to trump this by adding "that even if eventually scientists do unravel the code that gave rise to life and evolution, they still won't be able to say whether it came about by chance or by design". This won't do. Once scientists have unravelled such a code, that's it. Game over. The entire underpinning of your argument falls away and there is nothing left to explain. Except, of course, the mystery of mysteries - that the universe is. Then we talk of God. - I'm off on a two-week break now where there are no computers.