Epistemology of Design (The limitations of science)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, December 10, 2009, 18:02 (5460 days ago) @ dhw

dhw,
> This leads me to our only point of disagreement. You refer to my scepticism as being "near paralyzing". I would argue the opposite. It's belief that's paralyzing, and the stronger the belief, the less movement there is. Fundamentalists (theist and atheist) have formed their pattern, and they will tie themselves in knots in order to shut out the problems arising from it. Scepticism will only lead to paralysis if you automatically reject every possibility ... and that in itself is a sort of fundamentalism. I would like to think that in my case and in yours, it's balanced by open-mindedness. While we do not believe, we do not reject. For instance, we don't rule out chance, we don't rule out design, we have respect for science, but we also have respect for certain forms of mysticism. Paralysis, in my opinion, only comes with closure.-As you will read in my response to david, I've been learning more about quantum computing, and it turns out its not as complex as I'd expected. -Essentially, if the universe has enough particles that the chances for life occuring is a number less than the number of total particles, then life is a deterministic property of the universe; meaning the argument you have for "chance" dissolves into the mist. We are still talking "ifs" here, but this is a powerful if. The demonstration for this is akin to my old discussion of probability. -When I spoke of paralysis, I meant a paralysis in terms of science: science cannot function in terms of the level of strictness that you appear to operate in, and well, I operate in when it comes to accepting/rejecting claims. In science, an explanation is accepted because of its utility. If it explains something better, it is accepted, and that is that. -You... appear to stop at that point. I get the impression that even if a model is as explanatory as possible that your skepticism prevents you from accepting it on any level--even though the nature of science itself is a chain of provisional explanations. -At this point it's a discussion of my judgment of your thinking, and lacking the ability to be in your head--I'm in lala land. -There's a point where skepticism paralyzes, and its the point where I would say idealism trumps utility. In some terms that means accepting a relative truth over something we wish to be ultimate. Though I would go so far as to assume that you're not actually as skeptical in day-to-day life as you are on this board! (As you have often pointed out--I don't scrutinize my wife the same way I scrutinize ideas on this board!) -Your comment about paralysis is downright Nietzschean and I absolutely love it!

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"