The limitations of science (The limitations of science)

by dhw, Tuesday, February 16, 2010, 18:10 (5395 days ago) @ George Jelliss

GEORGE: My main problem with dhw's approach is that I don't recognize his distinctions between materialism and immaterialism and between science and philosophy. All phenomena are part of nature and therefore open to study by natural philosophers applying reason. It is all one wholistic project.-You switch from philosophy to natural philosophy here, and I'm not sure what you mean by the latter. Normally I'd understand it as the study of nature ... i.e. the precursor of what we now call the natural sciences ... which is not the same as philosophy, i.e. the study of such basic concepts as truth, good and evil, semantics, the nature of knowledge etc. Even though science and philosophy may overlap in certain areas, you certainly wouldn't argue that the natural sciences are concerned with, say, ethics or epistemology, so I don't know why you have trouble distinguishing between them.-I agree, though, that it's all one project in the sense that what we're investigating is life and the world around us, and I also agree with most of Matt's response to you, the two crucial points being: 1) "Your disagreement with dhw here is bounded by what is considered "natural", and 2) "where the issue bends is on what you and dhw accept as valid evidence". I'll take these extremely perceptive comments (thank you, Matt) as my starting-point, but will make one important adjustment to 2). The difference between us is what we accept not as valid evidence but as possible evidence. -I have no idea what potentially might lie within the bounds of "nature", but if there is a God, we would have to incorporate him within the great "wholeness" (though process theologians would argue that he is both within and without). To elaborate on this, it might be best to focus on the concrete areas of disagreement.-The two main ones are the origin of life, and experiences that appear to defy rational explanation. As regards the origin of life, reason makes me sceptical that chance could have assembled all the necessary components (we've been over the details ad nauseam). Reason also tells me that the alternative to chance is design, which entails intelligence. I don't know what such an intelligence might be like ... although I'm free to speculate ... but reason throws up a series of unanswerable questions which make me equally sceptical about the existence of such a being. However, I think one of these explanations must be true, and so I leave both options open. You, on the other hand, are not prepared even to contemplate the second, and this is where faith steps in. You have faith that the physical components of life could assemble themselves without guidance. I don't, but I go no further than that. I don't think this has anything to do with distinctions between material/immaterial or science/philosophy. It's purely a matter of our personal limits of credulity. On this subject, you have more cause to disagree with David than with me, because like yourself he takes the extra step of faith, but in the opposite direction.-Experiences that defy rational explanation do bring in a possible distinction between material/immaterial. We have no explanation for consciousness and the vast variety of faculties, activities, emotions associated with it, not to mention so-called "paranormal" phenomena (of which more in a moment). You're convinced that eventually all of these will be explained in terms of the physical brain, thus eliminating the possibility of there being what we call a spiritual component to our identity, by which I mean a form of life that is independent of our brain cells. I'm not convinced. For me, your anticipation of such explanations is again a matter of faith which I can't share, any more than I can share faith in an eternal power called God. Such a "spiritual" dimension will still be part of nature if nature means the universe and everything in it, and the difference between us here is that I don't know what constitutes nature, whereas you appear to be convinced that all these phenomena can be traced back to known physical sources (in this case, brain cells). -Matt identifies the "spiritual" element with emotion, but perhaps that's misleading. The ability of David's wife to locate lost objects, the information passed onto BBella's relatives about a stranger's death (sorry, I can't remember the details now), countless other such experiences, NDEs ... these are not feelings. But for me they do constitute possible evidence (nothing more) to accompany the very real experiences of emotions, ideas, art, literature, music as possible pointers (nothing more) to a "spiritual" form of life as defined above. Again, it all comes down to Matt's two categories: definitions of "nature" and of "evidence".-You were intrigued by my statement: "I could scarcely resist a cheer when I read Henk Tennekes' castigation of what he calls "hermetic jargon"." My apologies ... I should have given you the full reference. This was to an article recommended by David under "Politics and Science..." on 13 February at 14.49. Well worth reading!