(January 12, 2015 at 7:52 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: And what accounts for the rigidity of the rules? They could be anything, but they are actually very specific.

Isn't that what material reductionism---or rather the scientific enterprise---strives to resolve? The point is that it has the ability to bring a person further than merely sitting in a chair and thinking about it.

(January 12, 2015 at 7:57 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:

(January 12, 2015 at 7:52 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: And what accounts for the rigidity of the rules? They could be anything, but they are actually very specific.

Isn't that what material reductionism---or rather the scientific enterprise---strives to resolve?

Not really. The scientific enterprise strives to uncover the fundamental natures of things in the physical universe. It doesn't say how it is possible for fundamental things to actually have natures.

(January 12, 2015 at 8:06 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Not really. The scientific enterprise strives to uncover the fundamental natures of things in the physical universe. It doesn't say how it is possible for fundamental things to actually have natures.

...except when it does, as in discovery. Thanks to science, not ancient stories perpetuated by an individual or club insisting that an ad hoc interpretation of experience contains a metaphysical truth about the Cosmos---you can point to just as many obviously erroneous philosophies and faiths as I can---we know a lot about the nature of things and how they came to exist as they do; thanks to sense experience and an objectively veritable method for testing the probability of mutually exclusive dogmas and whether they have any bearing on our own experience of reality; teaching yourself to think objectively about the world takes practice, while you can't even put your ideas on the thief's cross with the hope that true knowledge is born, a path to progress and a larger mental map drawn in abstract by the brain. Metaphysics that can't explain anything, because they lack any reference to reality as it can be objectively tested is no different than an obscure thought in your mind trusting itself or someone else as equally ignorant about themselves and the world as it truly is. Don't forget, it made you before you made it.

Again, not all kinds of knowledge lend themselves to testing. Science takes causality for granted. It takes mathematics for granted. It takes logic for granted. It takes the recognition of universals for granted. Etc. Etc. Without metaphysical support the scientific method has no absolutes to back it up its conclusions. Where you find absolutes you will also find God.

Absolutely not!

(January 13, 2015 at 6:51 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Again, not all kinds of knowledge lend themselves to testing. Science takes causality for granted. It takes mathematics for granted. It takes logic for granted. It takes the recognition of universals for granted. Etc. Etc. Without metaphysical support the scientific method has no absolutes to back it up its conclusions. Where you find absolutes you will also find God.

Again, when you say "takes for granted," Einstein rebukes you by rightly stating that like a game, or as I might suggest anything requiring a context, "arbitrary rules" are measured by the "success" of the results they produce, apart from which you have no special privilege to knowledge about objective truth that deserves anyone else's attention or respect.

The scientific method needs no absolutes to back up anything, because it isn't in the business of absolutes to begin with. The success of science has been precisely that it does -not- take things for granted. The nature of causality, for example, is debated -from within science-. If we learn something novel about causality, it isn't going to come from your corner, it's going to come from theirs. You stopped wondering centuries ago Chad. Your claim about knowledge and what does or does not "lend itself" to testing remains disputed, not that this will give you even a moment of pause.

Mathematics is not true because it's successful; its successful because it is true. You guys have it totally backwards.

(January 13, 2015 at 9:08 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Mathematics is not true because it's successful; its successful because it is true. You guys have it totally backwards.

Mathematics are abstract formulas that our minds map onto the real world. Numbers don't exist in the world apart from our logical ordering of it. I don't know how you have it, but uh, nice try Pythagoras.

It's interesting to see how old this thread is and how recent posts have nothing to do with the OP