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The Folly of Scientism

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Re: The Folly of Scientism

#111

Post by return0 »

gnosis wrote: post #84
return0 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt about that; yet postmodernists seem to be the ones most engaged in what is perceived as a pursuit to discredit or trivialize science. Unfortunately, they are loud people so it's hard to hear other, more interesting views on the philosophy of science. I would be grateful if you could suggest some good books.

On the Analytic side, take a look at Balashov's and Rosenberg's "Philosophy of Science: Contemporary Readings" On the Continental side, the classic essay is Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology". I'd also recommend Jacques Ellul's "Technological Society". And, while not dealing directly with science, I think Foucault's critiques of power in discourse are very relevant. Earlier in this thread I'd mentioned:…

Thank you

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#112

Post by MrScruff »

rohern wrote: post #88
chrisdevereux wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To give one ridiculous example, I had a graduate student in anthropology suggest to me that science needs to be democratized and taken away from the scientists and verified and decided upon by the common man. I asked by what method the common man could do such verification and make any such decisions, as the obvious answer to both is Science The irony here is that your argument against the anthropologist is very si…

> Yet when Hawking does metaphysics, the reverence for science as an institution leads people to treat it as they treat science. This simply is not true. If this sort of a priori judgement occurs, it occurs because Hawking is a famously intelligent and thoughtful person. Of course people take what he says seriously. However, he is also continually engaged in debates with other scientists, often publicly, and is in no…

I think the problem there is that just because someone has made a name for themselves in one field does not imply that they have some sort of superhuman intellect that means they will offer useful insights on a range of subjects.

You might think that to be the case but there is no evidence for it being so.

Hawking's pontificating on metaphysics are of no more interest to me than Linus Torvald's on laptop screen resolutions or Richard Dawkin's theoretical thoughts on cosmology.

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#113

Post by MrScruff »

rohern wrote: post #94
webnrrd2k wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I'm not saying that thoughts and experiences aren't physical things -- I didn't mean to imply otherwise. The question I was responding to was: "Show me something that's not science that we know". My response is that there are lots of things that we, as people, actually know but can't study scientifically.

Love and emotions are being studied scientifically. The neurotransmitters behind love and affection are extremely well studied. One could quite easily construct experiments to see if exiting fMRI technology can determine the difference between a brain experiencing love and one not. These questions are in every way within the domain of science.

While this is all true, it wouldn't tell us much about the actual experience of feeling the emotion. That would remain metaphysical.

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#114

Post by MrScruff »

thirdtruck wrote: post #29
AffableSpatula wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consciousness/experience.

How, specifically? Given the incredible variance in available descriptions of "the conscious experience", I would posit that "consciousness" itself exists only as a mental grouping and nothing distinct. As an exercise: explain what exactly constitutes a "car", including the point where such an item officially "stops being a car" during the process of disassembly. Show your work.

I don't think they are referring to the phenomenon of consciousness, rather than the experience of consciousness itself.

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#115

Post by super_mario »

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #58
super_mario wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which are now completely discredited as complete lies.

Complete? Lies? Those are strong statements.

Yes, they are. But I have spent a chunk on my life investigating the claims of major religions and when you start poking around you not only find out there is absolutely no evidence to back them up, but there is plenty of evidence that they man made.

So, religion and faith comes down to bending yourself, making yourself suspend your disbelief and accepting premises without seeking any evidence. It comes down to wishful thinking really.

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#116

Post by super_mario »

dalke wrote: post #39
super_mario wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name one question for which a scientific answer no matter how inadequate was once the best, but for which now a philosophical or religious one is the best one?

1) Should the US sterilize the mentally retarded? Quoting Wikipedia: "Eugenics became an academic discipline at many colleges and universities, and received funding from many sources. Three International Eugenics Conferences presented a global venue for eugenicists with meetings in 1912 in London, and in 1921 and 1932 in New York. Eugenic policies were first implemented in the early 1900s in the United States.[8] Lat…

You might as well have said young earth creationism. In case of either eugenics or young earth creationism you got people who are trying to use pseudo science to bend the universe to fit their preconceived notions that in one case come from feeling of racial superiority and the other literal interpretation of the Bible. And yes both have been taught at higher education institutions.

But it is getting harder and harder to do that in this day and age thanks to easy access to information and vigilance of the scientific community.

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#117

Post by super_mario »

Ygg2 wrote: post #57
super_mario wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consciousness, experience or the present moment are not a question. What about these? What in particular about them is answered better (i.e. more correctly or truthfully) by non-scientific answers. What answer can be satisfying at all if it is not tested at all? Or if it does not give correct predictions. Feeling better about something or wishing it were so are not good enough criteria in my mind. Finding consolation…

If all question are scientific question then what is a question 'What is right (in the sense of morals)?' and can that answer in any way help me? Science isn't about truth. Science is about three things. Making hypothesis, making decisions based on hypothesis and testing them. It has no singular answer and that answer changes depending on scales we operate.

Of course "what is right" is a scientific question. If science (i.e reason and evidence) has nothing to say about it, then what does?

What is right follows directly from what is true. For example, if animals are indeed sentient, if they are self-aware even, if they can suffer, are scientific questions. If scientific answers to these questions are positive, then some of us sufficiently evolved, aware humans can't ignore the fact, and we have no choice but to treat animals differently than what we do now. Some countries like Spain have gone so far as to give protection and right to life to higher primates, our closest cousin apes.

We can decide slavery is not a good idea. We can decide that fairly applied laws, rather than nepotistic favoritism, is a good idea. We can outlaw certain punishments with treaties. We can encourage accountability with the invention of writing. We can consciously expand our circle of empathy. These are all inventions, products of our minds, as much as lightbulbs and telegraphs are.

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#118

Post by thirdtruck »

MrScruff wrote: post #114
thirdtruck wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How, specifically? Given the incredible variance in available descriptions of "the conscious experience", I would posit that "consciousness" itself exists only as a mental grouping and nothing distinct. As an exercise: explain what exactly constitutes a "car", including the point where such an item officially "stops being a car" during the process of disassembly. Show your work.

I don't think they are referring to the phenomenon of consciousness, rather than the experience of consciousness itself.

Where does that demarcation line fall? Is there anything to consciousness besides the experiential phenomenon?

To illustrate: there is no such thing as the movie "It's a Wonderful Life", just a series of individual frames that our eyes and brains perceive as a whole unit only because of perceptual and cognitive limitations (basically, compression). We know far less of anything beyond the present moment - speaking of individual experience - than most believe. I posit that "consciousness" exists as nothing more than a cognitive compression artifact.

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#119

Post by maratd »

super_mario wrote: post #115
Daniel_Newby wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complete? Lies? Those are strong statements.

Yes, they are. But I have spent a chunk on my life investigating the claims of major religions and when you start poking around you not only find out there is absolutely no evidence to back them up, but there is plenty of evidence that they man made. So, religion and faith comes down to bending yourself, making yourself suspend your disbelief and accepting premises without seeking any evidence. It comes down to wishf…

> when you start poking around you not only find out there is absolutely no evidence to back them up, but there is plenty of evidence that they man made.

You have no capacity to determine if something is true without the process of trial and error. This is the founding principal of the scientific mindset and is the basis of the scientific method. Form a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, repeat.

How do you "test" a religion? Not with any feeble investigation by your primitive rational mind. You try the belief system.

If it makes you happier, if it makes you a better person, you've found a winning formula. If it gives you good results, you win. It is entirely irrelevant whether it passes some "truth" test concocted by your imagination.

It either has real, relevant results in your life or it doesn't. Religion is a way of life, a guide for living ... not merely a creation mythology.

If you bother asking, you will find the overwhelming majority of human beings on the planet get this, understand it, and will actually tell you just how it improves their lives.

Unfortunately, engineers seem to be brain-damaged in some specific way that prevents them from thinking in this manner. You need to work on that. It's not very scientific.

Re: The Folly of Scientism

#120

Post by super_mario »

maratd wrote: post #119
super_mario wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they are. But I have spent a chunk on my life investigating the claims of major religions and when you start poking around you not only find out there is absolutely no evidence to back them up, but there is plenty of evidence that they man made. So, religion and faith comes down to bending yourself, making yourself suspend your disbelief and accepting premises without seeking any evidence. It comes down to wishf…

> when you start poking around you not only find out there is absolutely no evidence to back them up, but there is plenty of evidence that they man made. You have no capacity to determine if something is true without the process of trial and error. This is the founding principal of the scientific mindset and is the basis of the scientific method. Form a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, repeat. How do you "test" a rel…

First of all I'm a mathematician, in my 40s and I can think for myself quite well, thanks. Second, it is perfectly possible to reach true statements and falsify well false ones without experiments, like we do in math all the time.

But more importantly for this discussion, religion is not some guide for moral living. If it were so, there would be no problem with religion. No, religion is all about absolutism, it is a totalitarian world view by definition. It is argument from certainty. Religion comes down to some people claiming not only they know with absolute certainty there is a god, but they also know his mind, what he wants us to do. It is about gods that care about human beings, that interfere in their lives, that tell you what you should do, what you should eat, on what days, who you may sleep with and in what position, gods who break the known laws of nature for their people, god who stops the motion of the sun around earth so certain people in the Bible can finish their work, god who takes "our" side in a war, a god that gives itself body so it can kill it to save the humanity.

And how do they know? Personal revelation of course, god told them something (often times contradictory to what he told others). Yet, no ordinary evidence is ever offered for these claims, let alone extraordinary evidence it would take to prove the claims.

Religion (and I'm referring to the three monotheistic ones, the three desert dogmas) are claiming that without this absolute divine supervision we would not know right from wrong.

So, if religion is just a way of life, and if you don't accept the required dogmas wholesale, in what way is it a guide for you? If you get to pick and choose out of all the required supernatural dogmas, does that not show that your morals in fact don't come from religion, but you already know what is good and what is right? Of course, morals and our civility to each other predate religion. We would not have gotten this far without it.

And seriously, believing something as absolute because it makes you feel good is a definition of delusion. Can you be any more dishonest with yourself? But some of us care about what is actually true.

And besides what religion you get indoctrinated into has nothing to do with the truthfulness of your particular religion, but more to do with where you were born, and the religion of your parents.

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