RE: Proving What We Already "Know"
June 16, 2022 at 10:15 pm
(This post was last modified: June 16, 2022 at 10:19 pm by bennyboy.)
@Belacqua
Yes, I'm not so sure about the ability to pull back the veil either. So far, I've settled for "truth in context." For example, in the context of living one's day-to-day life, it could be true that Brenda in the office is an annoying bitch. It doesn't really matter if Brenda-the-bitch is a hallucination, or if the world including her is illusory, or if I'm dreaming. But if I find myself out of that context (say by waking up), then clinging to Brenda-is-a-bitch is no longer guaranteed to be true.
Right-wingers are fond of the word "Scientism." They mean it as an epithet for a kind of godless religion, where sheep blindly believe phony assertions made by Scientific grand wizards up in some tower of conspiracy.
I don't believe any of that, not even a little bit. However, I definitely would say that many who point to science as a subsitute for religion, philosophical inquiry or introspective insight are unaware that the truth of their world view is limited by the context defined by its axioms and its application.
For example, while science can help us develop new ideas about morality, for example by giving us new insights into how much agency we really do / don't have in certain situations, it cannot be the basis for a moral system. That is because "right" and "wrong" are not measurable objective properites, and science is defined by this axiom-- that it is the study of measurable objective properties.
So where does that leave people who hold that the only reality is a material monism, and the only way to navigate a material monism is through scientific inquiry? They will have real trouble describing consciousness, morality, cosmogony, and so on, but will jealously guard against other avenues for considering those things.
Yes, I'm not so sure about the ability to pull back the veil either. So far, I've settled for "truth in context." For example, in the context of living one's day-to-day life, it could be true that Brenda in the office is an annoying bitch. It doesn't really matter if Brenda-the-bitch is a hallucination, or if the world including her is illusory, or if I'm dreaming. But if I find myself out of that context (say by waking up), then clinging to Brenda-is-a-bitch is no longer guaranteed to be true.
Right-wingers are fond of the word "Scientism." They mean it as an epithet for a kind of godless religion, where sheep blindly believe phony assertions made by Scientific grand wizards up in some tower of conspiracy.
I don't believe any of that, not even a little bit. However, I definitely would say that many who point to science as a subsitute for religion, philosophical inquiry or introspective insight are unaware that the truth of their world view is limited by the context defined by its axioms and its application.
For example, while science can help us develop new ideas about morality, for example by giving us new insights into how much agency we really do / don't have in certain situations, it cannot be the basis for a moral system. That is because "right" and "wrong" are not measurable objective properites, and science is defined by this axiom-- that it is the study of measurable objective properties.
So where does that leave people who hold that the only reality is a material monism, and the only way to navigate a material monism is through scientific inquiry? They will have real trouble describing consciousness, morality, cosmogony, and so on, but will jealously guard against other avenues for considering those things.
