RE: The Evidence Required Is?
March 4, 2012 at 7:03 am
(This post was last modified: March 4, 2012 at 7:42 am by Whateverist.)
(March 3, 2012 at 8:38 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Stimbo, because your reductionist philosophy limits your ability to inquire only into physical events, you exclude apriori, anything not explained by physics, like the mind-body interaction. Subjective qualia are part of reality and most likely beyond the reach of the scientific method. Sure you HOPE that science with figure it out someday and have FAITH that that day will come, but c'mon. You sound like those Christians that say you'll be proven wrong in the afterlife. Try to work with the knowledge available today.
I do have faith that neuroscience will render our speculation moot before too very long regarding subjective qualia. Still, I do agree that something of the kind is what gives rise to the sense people have of being able to commune with a 'mysterious and mostly silent other' in prayer, etc.
I'm not so comfortable with the phrase "mind-body interaction". The mind is a process of the body, the part that the brain produces. We wouldn't say the "gastrointestinal-body interaction" for the process of the body that takes place in the GI tract because it just sounds redundant. "Mind-body" sounds exactly the same to my ear.
(March 4, 2012 at 7:00 am)Stimbo Wrote: Agreed, with the rider that a simple, natural explanation explanation that fits the available facts beats a complicated, non-natural one that has to be shoehorned to fit; particularly one that invokes the least plausible entities and agents to make it work.
Agreed, with the rider that natural explanations are the only kind that qualify as such. Any appeals to magic or the unknowable don't really count as explanation. They are just a sorting activity.
(March 3, 2012 at 9:57 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: "Remember science is a process of investigation." - Stimbo
Natural science is only one means of investigation. Mathematics investigates relationships of another kind. Contemplation investigates the inner life. Music investigates the power of beauty. Literature explores meaning and values. The ways of investigating the world are more rich and diverse than you are willing to admit.
A point I completely agree with. Science is a wonderful tool and the best one we have for investigating the physical world. But it will never take the measure of our humanity. In Six Non-lectures, cummings says something of the kind roughly like:
"So long as you and I have lips and tongues which are to kiss and sing with,
who cares if some one-eyed sonofabitch invents an instrument to measure spring with?"
(March 3, 2012 at 9:57 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: "...things as mind-body interaction most certainly can be investigated, though I may personally lack the knowledge to explain how."- Stimbo
Sounds like blind faith to me. You have no idea how it could be and yet you believe it to be so.
Is there another kind of faith? I share Stimbo's faith in this matter.
(March 3, 2012 at 10:30 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Mathematics produces results, and can be shown to exist. Were 1+1 is 8 in one persons equations and 42 in another, but never 2, we would discard it as useless. Clearly something is wrong.
Yet the square root of negative one produces results that have application yet clearly does not exist, hence the moniker "imaginary". Do concepts such as number exist outside of our imaginings? IDK
I'm not sure mathematics can be shown to exist, though it can be shown to have application. Whitehead and Russell thought they could underpin logic using mathematics but it is hard to say which is more basic.
(March 3, 2012 at 10:30 pm)Rhythm Wrote: The ways of investigating the world are diverse, and each and every single way of investigating the universe has turned up nothing with respect to any gods.
Joseph Campbell turned up quite a few gods in investigating the beliefs of people from all cultures all over the world. So many and so universally that it can be argued that unless you can account for why that is, you don't really understand human nature. Personally I think it is too easy to say they are just mistakes in attempting to give a natural explanation of the world which were made in our youth as a sapient species. That claim would require evidence.
(March 3, 2012 at 10:30 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Pain can be measured (and often is), so much so that you can get a degree in exactly how to prevent it, again, by demonstrable means which show results.
While drugs have been found which affect the way in which pain is experienced I don't think it is very well understood at all. You know how they ask people to rate their pain on a scale from 1 to 10? That's just to establish a relative scale for each individual because it really is that subjective. A 4 on your scale might be my 10. There is just no way of knowing. This really is a good example of a subjective reality, probably the best example.
[Interesting thread, you guys. But its time for second sleep. So I'll have to finish getting caught up later and I'll be out all day tomorrow. If it remains this interesting, I look forward to the task.]
