Natural Order and Science

[Neo-Scholastic]

Admittedly, I wrote this post largely for myself to clarify my own thoughts. Based on past experience I doubt it will be well received. Make of it what you will.

Confronted with his distinctive existence, Man must tacitly or explicitly choose to adopt one of these approaches to the otherness around him. This choice determines the intellectual commitments informed by it while at the same time those commitments appear to influence initial choice. None can escape the circular relationship choice and commitment. The freedom of the personal existent rests on this circularity. For the sake of clarity, I drew a 4-square diagram of existential stances:

4-square of existential stances



“Principled” – The person who adopts this stance believes that 1) reality is essentially ordered such that things necessarily happen as they do because things happen for a reason and 2) the essential order is rational in such a way that the human intellect can gain knowledge of it. With proper application, reason can bring the human intellect to understand the actual and active agencies working to proscribe the nature and behavior of sensible bodies. The pretense of this stance is that it can speak authoritatively about any philosophical concern. Apparent paradoxes serve as signs to reconsider premises that result in incoherent or mutually exclusive conclusions.

“Paradoxical” – The person that adopts this stance believes that 1) reality is essentially ordered; however, 2) neither the evidence of the senses nor the artifices of reason can be relied upon to explain how things actually are rather than just how they appear to be. By severing the relationship between phenomena and an assumed nomena, this stance produces intractable paradoxes which its advocates generally embrace.

“Magical” – By adopting this stance a person professes that 1) reality is accidentally ordered such that things happen as they do for no reason; and yet, 2) this order can still be rationally discerned by identifying symbolic relationships between phenomena. As such, no necessary constraints exist on the power of some things to exert influence on other things; nevertheless such efficacies of affect are taken as brute facts.

“Serendipitous” – People who take this stance believe 1) that reality is accidentally ordered and 2) reason can only construct passive interpretations of subjective experience that may or may not coincide with reality as it actually is. This stance produces many of the same dilemmas of the “paradoxical” stance; however, its advocates generally ignore them.

As the above relates to the themes of Atheist Forums, each of the stances is silent with respect to the question of whether or not god(s) exist or the efficacy of the scientific method. Nevertheless, based on their existential choices people get led to different theological doctrines and conclusions about the findings of natural science. I see this all the time. Two people may each have perfectly logical positions and yet vehemently disagree based on their existential pre-commitments. I believe that recognizing these pre-commitments is necessary to foster healthy and productive discussions about the ‘big picture’ questions about human life.

[Angrboda]

If the principled stance is merely an existential choice, that would seem to undermine its claim to knowability. Unless the choice is justified, then the reasons for it are unknown. You can't escape the need for axioms. Your description of the principled stance seems to imply this, that it is self-contradictory at a foundational level. Is this correct, or am I misunderstanding you?

[Neo-Scholastic]

The relationship between choice and commitment is admittedly circular at the start when someone becomes aware of themselves as a personal existent. This start however is not the fullness of a life's journey. While the stance an individual initially selects relies entirely on "blind faith" and is made in the context of limited information,at issue is what follows from the freely made choice. Do some choices hold out the possibility to attain knowledge whereas others preclude it?

[emjay]

So which one(s) do you think I am Chad? And in layman's terms, what existential questions do you think I'm not addressing (in my world view I mean)?

[Neo-Scholastic]

So which one(s) do you think I am Chad? And in layman's terms, what existential questions do you think I'm not addressing (in my world view I mean)?

I don't know, serendipidous maybe. Which do you think you are? Sometimes people are not always consistently one or another. I catch myself sliding into paradoxical occasionally, where I think Bennyboy Jor make their homes. Rythym is completely inconsistent and takes whatever stance is most convenient at the time. Magical and paradoxical are seemingly very similar in results despite being exact opposites.

[emjay]

So which one(s) do you think I am Chad? And in layman's terms, what existential questions do you think I'm not addressing (in my world view I mean)?

I don't know. Which do you think you are? Sometimes people are not always consistently one or another. I catch myself sliding into paradoxical occasionally.

Based on our discussions in the other thread, I think I most resemble either the principled or the magical categories on that list. Forgive me if I've misunderstood anything... but based on what jumps out at me, principled because I think everything can (probably) be answered in theory and that paradoxes just lead me to think that we're asking the wrong questions, and essentially just playing self-defeating word games... so the key is to find the right questions. Vs magical... where symbolic relationships between phenomena could mean how I was talking about the mind mirroring the function of the brain... is that what you meant by that?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Sorry I was Editting on my phone while you made reply. But yes, my focus on your last couple of posts about metaphor may have scewed my appraisal.

[emjay]

Sorry I was Editting on my phone while you made reply. But yes, my focus on your last couple of posts about metaphor may have scewed my appraisal.

That's okay   Tbh I didn't really understand them all... as I said, just looking at things that jumped out but really I can see bits of me in all of them. How did my posts on metaphor change your opinion of me? They seemed pretty much the same as any other post I made about the brain in the other thread.

[Angrboda]

The relationship between choice and commitment is admittedly circular at the start when someone becomes aware of themselves as a personal existent. This start however is not the fullness of a life's journey. While the stance an individual initially selects relies entirely on "blind faith" and is made in the context of limited information,at issue is what follows from the freely made choice. Do some choices hold out the possibility to attain knowledge whereas others preclude it?

Holding out the possibility is only meaningful if knowledge can ultimately be realized. Because we are locked inside our brains/minds, the best we can hope for are models of reality. It's impossible to say whether any given model of reality is the final one. For what it's worth, I don't hold that we know this is the final level of understanding, but I don't invest in purely speculative notions either, whether string theory or final causes. It would seem to me that the principled stance is committed to the idea that the final layer of reality is knowable as the final layer of reality, and this seems unrealistic given our position in the world.

[IATIA]

“If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance assembly of its atoms, eternity will not suffice to produce one”

Sort of like the chance that any specific hydrogen and oxygen atoms will combine to form water.