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Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
#91
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 17, 2022 at 10:44 am)polymath257 Wrote: And I think that is as it should be. There *should* be skepticism of the new ideas as well as skepticism of the old. If the old ideas have worked well (and that is usually the case), there *should* be some inertia in transitioning to new ideas. At the very least, an evaluation of what can be salvaged from the old ideas and how the translation process to the new ideas works needs to be done.

Quote:And that is also how it should be. At the very least, the experiment has to be repeated under a variety of circumstances to see whether it is valid and how it holds up. There was an example with neutrino experiments recently where the observed speed of the neutrinos was faster than that of light. The scientists themselves didn't believe their results, which if true would have been revolutionary. It was found that a coil of wires slightly increased the distance that the light traveled, leading to a false speed for the light.

This sort of thing happens *all the time*. People, being human, make mistakes. Sometimes experiments are not done with sufficient care. Sometimes a hidden magnet can mess things up. The first thing that most scientists say when they get an anomalous result is ask where they made a mistake. And, if you actually read papers announcing discoveries, a good deal of the time is looking at various alternative explanations of the results.

Again, this is as it should be..

But there is more. The way a scientist can make their name is by proposing a new set of ideas that is testable *and passes the tests*. So while there may well be inertia on the part of the older scientists, there is most definitely not on the part of the younger ones. I would also claim that the older ones are as interested in figuring out what is actually going on and are, perhaps, more open to new ideas than you might suspect.

So, accepting the results years or decades later is *precisely* what should be expected from a subject that is self-critical at every stage. new ideas are considered. if there is not enough evidence, they are still discussed, even if not accepted, and once new evidence or a better formulation comes along, the shift is often quite fast. I can give multiple examples.

Regarding the aspects we do disagree on, we're going to have to agree to disagree. I tend to have a somewhat cynical view of scientists as an institution. And because science is very "human-operated", and humans are flawed and suffer from various biases, then necessarily science is going to be flawed in more ways than some of us may be thinking.

So if we go back to the Novella quote posted before by FM, and the other stuff FM posted later about how science is objective and such, the general point I'm making about science was in response to those.

Now that I think about it, the irony in Novella's quote was that it isn't really an adequate description of science. You could almost replace the word "science" there with something like "natural theology" and the description would be apt for that as well.

All that said, I still trust science as the best (and perhaps only) way to attain conclusive knowledge about various aspects of the world and how it works and such. But "best" is not "perfect", and I am always conscious of its limitations.

Quote:Oh, I agree that there is a *soft* problem of consciousness: determining the neural correlates of experiences. But, I don't see a 'hard' problem. Once we find those correlates between neural activity and reported experiences, I think we have solved the problem of consciousness.

I feel like you're misunderstanding what the hard problem is about.

The experiences being reported (as some phenomenological or, if you're an illusionist, "pseudo-phenomenological" thing/property) require an explanation for their appearance as phenomenological or "pseudo-phenomenological". But how do you get from neurons firing in the CNS to such a bizarre, seemingly "unscientific" appearance that is "out there in your face", so to speak?

When you report feeling toothache, for example, you're not just reporting, you're having what appears to be a feeling of being in pain, an intolerable sort of "ringing" that you wish would just end.

Going with another example, when you point your head towards the screen of your computer, you are vividly identifying words on the screen. Or at least you have what appears to be a vivid experience. You're not just "detecting in the dark". It all appears as flashy to you.

How do you explain the seemingness of vividness, the intensity of the feeling, and such?

Quote:Scientists have found that the philosophical issues tend to not give testable predictions. Instead, they tend to say how things 'must be' when actual evidence says otherwise. In general, it isn't blindness as much as the realization that the philosophy goes nowhere.

But again, something you glazed over here, is that science is rooted in philosophical assumptions. These philosophical assumptions (such as empiricism and the reality of the external world and uniformity) may be "common sense" reasonable, but they are not something you can scientifically justify. You have to assume certain epistemological and metaphysical positions (even if you do so subconsciously) before you can accept the validity and legitimacy of science.

But then the question is, what is special about those positions that underpin science? If we can't justify those via science, but we think they are very reasonable positions to hold, then what does this really say about our worldview?

Quote:A good example is QM, where the actual theory is probabilistic and not deterministic or causal (in the classical sense). Most of the interpretations come from attempting to reconcile classical metaphysics with modern physics. But that is a problem: we *know* that classical metaphysics is wrong *because* we have actual experiments showing that QM works. What we need is a new metaphysics that isn't based on classical realism or idealism. but instead takes into account the discoveries of physics over the last century,

Your first statement is true only if particular interpretations are true. You can't establish in a purely scientific way (in the sense you appear to speak of) that QM is indeterministic as opposed to deterministic. In fact, someone like Sean Carroll would argue that wavefunction collapse would require extra reasoning that isn't warranted, and that the MWI is a more elegant and qualitatively more parsimonious account of QM.

Yeah, I know, here we go with the philosophy BS, but scientists have to deal with that as well.
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#92
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
@GrandizerII The average theist makes those exact same philosophical assumptions about reality. Then they go and add a few more on top.
Nay_Sayer: “Nothing is impossible if you dream big enough, or in this case, nothing is impossible if you use a barrel of KY Jelly and a miniature horse.”

Wiser words were never spoken. 
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#93
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 17, 2022 at 1:15 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: @GrandizerII The average theist makes those exact same philosophical assumptions about reality. Then they go and add a few more on top.
And that's a bad thing, how?
"Imagination, life is your creation"
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#94
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 17, 2022 at 1:15 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: @GrandizerII The average theist makes those exact same philosophical assumptions about reality. Then they go and add a few more on top.

By average theist, I'm assuming you mean the theist that respects science and goes along with what the scientific consensuses say and still sees room for God's existence?

Well, yeah, they go beyond what the science says and ... via reasoning not sufficiently backed by science, conclude that God exists, that God is such-and-such. But many of us atheists do the same anyway, in terms of going beyond the science. So it's not exclusive to theist. And there's nothing irrational about that (well, perse). After all, we have to adopt philosophical views not backed by science in order to accept the legitimacy of science. So even those who say they are strictly about science are guilty of adopting scientifically unjustified views.
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#95
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 17, 2022 at 11:27 am)GrandizerII Wrote: But again, something you glazed over here, is that science is rooted in philosophical assumptions. These philosophical assumptions (such as empiricism and the reality of the external world and uniformity) may be "common sense" reasonable, but they are not something you can scientifically justify. You have to assume certain epistemological and metaphysical positions (even if you do so subconsciously) before you can accept the validity and legitimacy of science.

But then the question is, what is special about those positions that underpin science? If we can't justify those via science, but we think they are very reasonable positions to hold, then what does this really say about our worldview?

Wait, I thought that empiricism and uniformity can be scientifically justified.
If person 1 can observe a piece of mineral and collect data on it and person 2 makes the same observations, what does this tell us? It looks like observation is functional which means that empiricism is functional.

You can keep making the same observations on the piece of mineral day after day. This suggests that there is a uniformity. So, it looks like uniformity is functional.

So, statistically speaking, empiricism and uniformity are functional. I say statistically since we keep on observing and keep on adding data and 100% of the time, the data matches the data of the previous day.
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#96
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 17, 2022 at 2:10 pm)Ferrocyanide Wrote:
(January 17, 2022 at 11:27 am)GrandizerII Wrote: But again, something you glazed over here, is that science is rooted in philosophical assumptions. These philosophical assumptions (such as empiricism and the reality of the external world and uniformity) may be "common sense" reasonable, but they are not something you can scientifically justify. You have to assume certain epistemological and metaphysical positions (even if you do so subconsciously) before you can accept the validity and legitimacy of science.

But then the question is, what is special about those positions that underpin science? If we can't justify those via science, but we think they are very reasonable positions to hold, then what does this really say about our worldview?

Wait, I thought that empiricism and uniformity can be scientifically justified.
If person 1 can observe a piece of mineral and collect data on it and person 2 makes the same observations, what does this tell us? It looks like observation is functional which means that empiricism is functional.

You can keep making the same observations on the piece of mineral day after day. This suggests that there is a uniformity. So, it looks like uniformity is functional.

So, statistically speaking, empiricism and uniformity are functional. I say statistically since we keep on observing and keep on adding data and 100% of the time, the data matches the data of the previous day.

I can give you that one can do a post hoc justification of some of those assumptions via science. But nevertheless, they are assumptions that must first be held before you get science.

And anyway, now that I think about, this is circular. It's like the Bible being used to demonstrate what God says or something.
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#97
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
Science with modified tools would still exist in a world inhabited by gods and magic. Science has chosen a certain methodology because of pragmatism, and the theories created by science are pragmatic theories.

Magic and gods would have their own patterns that we would pragmatically be able to discern the rules of. It just wouldn't be as clean or simple as a universe with fixed laws.
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#98
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 17, 2022 at 11:27 am)GrandizerII Wrote:
Quote:Oh, I agree that there is a *soft* problem of consciousness: determining the neural correlates of experiences. But, I don't see a 'hard' problem. Once we find those correlates between neural activity and reported experiences, I think we have solved the problem of consciousness.

I feel like you're misunderstanding what the hard problem is about.

The experiences being reported (as some phenomenological or, if you're an illusionist, "pseudo-phenomenological" thing/property) require an explanation for their appearance as phenomenological or "pseudo-phenomenological". But how do you get from neurons firing in the CNS to such a bizarre, seemingly "unscientific" appearance that is "out there in your face", so to speak?

When you report feeling toothache, for example, you're not just reporting, you're having what appears to be a feeling of being in pain, an intolerable sort of "ringing" that you wish would just end.

Going with another example, when you point your head towards the screen of your computer, you are vividly identifying words on the screen. Or at least you have what appears to be a vivid experience. You're not just "detecting in the dark". It all appears as flashy to you.

How do you explain the seemingness of vividness, the intensity of the feeling, and such?

And, once again, suppose that we manage to find the neural correlates to all of these experiences. We can look at the neural activity and say 'this person is experiencing a vivid experience of red'. And, suppose we can do this across the board, for all experiences. Clearly we are quire far from this. But suppose we can. is that not sufficient to explain consciousness? We have the correlates and we know how those correlate to experiences (qualia, if you will). What else is required?

In your example, the explanation would be that certain neurons are firing in a particular pattern that corresponds to having a certain experience. That *is* the explanation.

Quote:
Quote:Scientists have found that the philosophical issues tend to not give testable predictions. Instead, they tend to say how things 'must be' when actual evidence says otherwise. In general, it isn't blindness as much as the realization that the philosophy goes nowhere.

But again, something you glazed over here, is that science is rooted in philosophical assumptions. These philosophical assumptions (such as empiricism and the reality of the external world and uniformity) may be "common sense" reasonable, but they are not something you can scientifically justify. You have to assume certain epistemological and metaphysical positions (even if you do so subconsciously) before you can accept the validity and legitimacy of science.

But then the question is, what is special about those positions that underpin science? If we can't justify those via science, but we think they are very reasonable positions to hold, then what does this really say about our worldview?

Those that underpin science take our experiences seriously but not literally. We understand that our senses don't give the entire picture, probably not even a good representation. but they do give us information. And that information, by testing our ideas, can lead to more trustworthy ideas about what we can and cannot detect by our senses.

Quote:A good example is QM, where the actual theory is probabilistic and not deterministic or causal (in the classical sense). Most of the interpretations come from attempting to reconcile classical metaphysics with modern physics. But that is a problem: we *know* that classical metaphysics is wrong *because* we have actual experiments showing that QM works. What we need is a new metaphysics that isn't based on classical realism or idealism. but instead takes into account the discoveries of physics over the last century,

Your first statement is true only if particular interpretations are true. You can't establish in a purely scientific way (in the sense you appear to speak of) that QM is indeterministic as opposed to deterministic. In fact, someone like Sean Carroll would argue that wavefunction collapse would require extra reasoning that isn't warranted, and that the MWI is a more elegant and qualitatively more parsimonious account of QM.

Yeah, I know, here we go with the philosophy BS, but scientists have to deal with that as well.[/quote]

No, it does NOT depend on the interpretation. The actual theory allows for the computation of probabilities. it usually does NOT predict individual events. The basic theory that is taught in introductory graduate classes in QM is not deterministic. It shows how to compute wave functions and evaluate probabilities for observables and that is it.

Anything above that is philosophy and probably not productive of any actual science.

The various interpretations are, generally, extensions of that basic theory that provide no observable differences. And because they produce no observable differences they are identical to each other scientifically.

But this is nothing new. Classical mechanics had the Newtonian formalism that encompassed forces acting via F=ma. And the Lagrange formalism had 'action' that was maximized or minimized in any given situation. In a sense, Lagrangian mechanics was more teleological. But and this is crucial, they are the same theory at base: they predict exactly the same observations. The philosophical differences are irrelevant. Some problems are easier to solve using Newtonian ideas and some are easier with Lagrangian ideas. Since they *always agree on observations*, their differences are irrelevant to science.

the same is true for the different 'interpretations' of QM. They *all* give exactly the same observable predictions. They all give, ultimately, a probability for what will be detected. And that is all that is important.
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#99
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 17, 2022 at 3:06 pm)polymath257 Wrote:
(January 17, 2022 at 11:27 am)GrandizerII Wrote: I feel like you're misunderstanding what the hard problem is about.

The experiences being reported (as some phenomenological or, if you're an illusionist, "pseudo-phenomenological" thing/property) require an explanation for their appearance as phenomenological or "pseudo-phenomenological". But how do you get from neurons firing in the CNS to such a bizarre, seemingly "unscientific" appearance that is "out there in your face", so to speak?

When you report feeling toothache, for example, you're not just reporting, you're having what appears to be a feeling of being in pain, an intolerable sort of "ringing" that you wish would just end.

Going with another example, when you point your head towards the screen of your computer, you are vividly identifying words on the screen. Or at least you have what appears to be a vivid experience. You're not just "detecting in the dark". It all appears as flashy to you.

How do you explain the seemingness of vividness, the intensity of the feeling, and such?

And, once again, suppose that we manage to find the neural correlates to all of these experiences. We can look at the neural activity and say 'this person is experiencing a vivid experience of red'. And, suppose we can do this across the board, for all experiences. Clearly we are quire far from this. But suppose we can. is that not sufficient to explain consciousness? We have the correlates and we know how those correlate to experiences (qualia, if you will). What else is required?

In your example, the explanation would be that certain neurons are firing in a particular pattern that corresponds to having a certain experience. That *is* the explanation.

Scientific theories do more than simply find correlations, they need to explain the behavior. Correlations don't imply causation. Otherwise, the hypothesis that ice cream trucks cause drownings would be a confirmed scientific theory.
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RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 17, 2022 at 2:29 pm)HappySkeptic Wrote: Science with modified tools would still exist in a world inhabited by gods and magic.  Science has chosen a certain methodology because of pragmatism, and the theories created by science are pragmatic theories.

That's what magic and ritual systems are.  A pragmatic theory of how to use forces believed to exist as causal agents in our world with respect to things that matter to us.
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