Occams Hatchet and Is Materialism "Special"

[bennyboy]

You're too cryptic for me to make out here.  What reductionist objection are you referring to?

The interaction problem, i.e. that if material substances and mental substances have entirely different natures then they cannot interact without appealing to a third substance that in turn requires a fourth and fifth intermediating substance, and so on and so forth. Similarly, if A is considered the cause of B because B habitually follows A and if only events qualify as causes, then either B follows A for no reason at all or there is an intermediate cause C...and so on and so forth.

What's your take on that argument, because it's my reason for favoring idealism over substance dualism.

[The Grand Nudger]

WTF are you talking about?  Why even quote me?  Theres no reason for me to repeat myself a third time.  You're not going to get anything you didn't get the other two.  If you think that science is somehow in the business of providing circular reasoning...I don't have the patience to prove to you..as I keep saying, that science works and can be trusted.  But why, then, even ask to be shown any science, about anything, whatsoever?  

I've not said that science using circular reasoning.  I'm saying that YOU do.

Bcause I can;t -help- but give you a demonstration of materialism with -any- piece of science about -anything-?  That's what you think circular reasoning is?  

I've not said science is invalid, I've said that your abuse of science as an explanation, despite your complete unwillingness to attempt to use it to support your philosophical position, is invalid.

My philosophical position that stuff is made of matter...which science cannot but demonstrate, as it contains no other kind of explanation......? Whether or not you think that science demonstrates that philosophical position..is an issue of whether or not you think science works...and can be trusted.

Science is just the process of observation, categorization, experimentation, and so on.  It is the art of learning things in a particularly useful way.  But you are conflating the PROCESS of science, which is very useful, with the philosophical predilections of some (hypothetical and as-yet unquoted) scientists, which are not really any better guesses than anyone else's.  Science does not "arrive at" a material world view, nor is a particular belief about reality required-- though certainly some scientists, including many of the greats of the 20th century, held views that they were not capable of letting go when evidence showed their particular views about materiality to be incorrect.

No, Benny, I'm not.   Fundamental to science, is methodological materialism.  There is literally -nothing- in science, that -isn't- a material explanation.  If I refer to any piece of science, to demonstrate anything, it will invariably be a material demonstration of whatever that thing is...because science contains nothing else. If you want some demonstration or explanation of something "other than materialist" ...you'll have to go somewhere other than science.

If reality consists of nothing more than ideas, or fairies dancing in space, or the Mind of God, it may be that science will arrive eventually at that understanding.  So no, I disagree that science and a materialist world view are necessarily connected at the hip-- though for some scientists they are.

If if if,if what...if I'm wrong I'm wrong? No shit....another know nothing objection to everything. Let's see some evidence?  How else am I supposed to know whether or not your propositions are sound? It's not an issue of your agreement, it's not a debate, it's not down to each individual scientist to decide......... science self describes and self limits as such. Ask for science, you will get a necessarily materialist something, everytime, about everything. Why do you think that people who believe in the immaterial bunch their panties up over science in the first place? Because it doesn't -contain- any of that, it doesn't reference any of that, and it doesn't even make the assumption. What else do -you- expect to get from science, other than a materialist explanation?

[bennyboy]

Ask for science, you will get a necessarily materialist something, everytime, about everything.  Why do you think that people who believe in the immaterial bunch their panties up over science in the first place?  Because it doesn't -contain- any of that, it doesn't reference any of that, and it doesn't even make the assumption.  What else do -you- expect to get from science, other than a materialist explanation?

So. . . Newton wasn't a scientist? All the faithful Christian scientists weren't scientists? No, you have it wrong. Science is the study of an objectively shared reality, but it does not insist on a material monism, nor does it demonstrate one. It is people like you who insist on a 1:1 parity, as though science and materialism are the same thing. They are not.

Sure, you can dig up dictionaries or modern science books that describe things that way. But in actual practice, you'll have a pretty hard time finding a scientist who will make positive assertions about the ultimate nature of reality, and be willing to support those assertions scientifically.

[The Grand Nudger]

Why are you speaking as though I told you that all scientists are materialists, or even have to be?  I never said that science insists on a material monism. OFC they're not the same thing. I never said they were, and never said that any scientist had to make a positive assertion about the nature of reality (though, in truth, every assertion they make -as scientists- is a positive assertion about the nature of reality).

Who can you possibly be talking to? What are you talking about?

The only tidbit, it that entire response, that's remotely applicable, is that yes....every bit of science is a demonstration of a material monism, but -only- if you think science works, and can be trusted. Until such a time as science discovers some immaterial thing (gl working out how that's gonna happen)...that's just the way it is. / shrugs

[Angrboda]

You're too cryptic for me to make out here.  What reductionist objection are you referring to?

The interaction problem, i.e. that if material substances and mental substances have entirely different natures then they cannot interact without appealing to a third substance that in turn requires a fourth and fifth intermediating substance, and so on and so forth. Similarly, if A is considered the cause of B because B habitually follows A and if only events qualify as causes, then either B follows A for no reason at all or there is an intermediate cause C...and so on and so forth.

Thank you for the clarification. I had not looked at it in that light. I think causality is another one of those thought structuring properties that Kant discussed at length. I don't know that one can get a rational handle on the nature of causality because it is a pre-rational notion. In short, we infer causality when we can build a story of physical interaction out of local events. It is an evolutionary short cut to picking out important relationships in the environment. We don't see causal relationships so much as construct them. It's a fruitful short cut, but not without its flaws. One is that it leaves us unprepared for the causality concepts in quantum entanglement and the like. Another is that it leaves us with no insight as to what we actually mean by causality at the introspective level.

[bennyboy]

The only tidbit, it that entire response, that's remotely applicable, is that yes....every bit of science is a demonstration of a material monism, but -only- if you think science works, and can be trusted.  Until such a time as science discovers some immaterial thing (gl working out how that's gonna happen)...that's just the way it is.  / shrugs

Oh.  Okay then.

I guess, then, we can phrase it as such: science hasn't "discovered" mind yet.  So if it does, then we're off to the races?

[The Grand Nudger]

When you find yourself saying things like that, you might have found the end of your objections. Again, I can't decide for you, whether or not science works, or can be trusted.

[bennyboy]

When you find yourself saying things like that, you might have found the end of your objections.   Again, I can't decide for you, whether or not science works, or can be trusted.

Of course science works, and of course it can be trusted.  That's because science is not an institution but rather an approach to learning.

[The Grand Nudger]

Except when it comes to mind, right? That is the entirety of your objection to my statements, whether you realize it or not. Thre's no sense in saying "science works and can be trusted" and then immediately say that mind hasn;t been discovered, or that brain accounting for mind is non-science, or handwaving. If it works, and can be trusted...it's telling us that your mind, including your qualia, are material in origin, composition, and function. Sp, regardless of whether or not there is some non-materialist "x" out there, somewhere, this specific example aint it.

Or, you can immediately contradict yourself, and begin the special pleading argument once again. That you accept and subsume materialism for all other things, but balk at mind, at qualia.

[LadyForCamus]

Benny, I'm okay with looking at materialism versus idealism as a philosophical choice but my question to you is: how do you suppose one should arrive at their choice? I mean, by your own insistence we couldn't use reason to reach our conclusion because doing so would be appealing to the materialist assertion that such mental skills are a trustworthy method to arrive at truth, right? If we can't trust our own innate capacity for reasoning in the first place, then the choice is completely arbitrary based on...I guess, which ever one you happen to prefer. Yes?