Scientific Materialism Is NOT Intellectual Fascism-Proof Inside!

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Diana Hignutt

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There is a movement to remove "the last vestages of superstition" from modern thought.

If there are questions which science can not answer...like...what is life, what is consciousness, what is the true nature of reality (if it even has a true nature) at the most fundamental level...why must we all accept it?

What's wrong with us all believing what we like?

Is Scientific Materialism a type of intellectual fascism...which is attempting to quash dissent...and spread universally across the minds of humanity?

And, my question for those who accept the precepts of Scientific Materialism...you do wish everyone believed as you do, don't you?

Why?

I have seen things and done things, which transcend those limits which Scientific Materialists hold. I have no need to convince others of this. I accept that only I can hold my personal beliefs, they are not universal, and they have no need to be. Why is this a problem?
 
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Torgo

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Nope. Shush.

ETA:

Right - I have finished what I was doing so will respond non-facetiously!

1) It's not actually obvious to me that there are questions which science cannot answer. We have a good scientific definition of life, I think. We don't fully understand consciousness but we investigating it with scientific tools. And we may or may not be able to understand the 'most fundamental' or 'true' nature of reality, but neither you nor I could say with any certainty whether we can or not.

2) There is, of course, nothing wrong with us all believing what we like. I do, to some extent, wish that everyone believed as I do - we all do, regarding our own beliefs, I think. I wish that people did not give money to psychics, or order their lives and those of their families because of advice from mediums, because I have never seen any credible evidence that psychics and mediums are not merely charlatans, or more charitably, delusional. I have never seen a feat of ESP that cannot be reproduced by a mentalist, and I have never seen anyone who claims to be clairvoyant able to reproduce their feats under lab conditions.

I wish that people did not persecute their gay neighbours because of their metaphysical beliefs. I wish that people did not gull others with perpetual motion machines. I wish that cranks and quacks didn't appropriate the language of science in order to push scientifically dodgy ideas. All these things seem to me to have a negative impact on individuals and societies.

But I, like you, have no problem saying 'live and let live', so long as nobody harms anyone else. We disagree on metaphysics, and we post on this forum every now and then politely disagreeing, and I think that there's not so much aggressive hegemonizing as you suggest.

When a weird idea comes along, though, scientists do tend to investigate. The history of science is largely one of outsiders proving their case and being acclaimed for it - continual new discovery and new thought, not stagnation.

If there are non-material forces at work in the universe, either they are completely undetectable - in which case science has nothing to say about them, and also it doesn't seem like I need to bother believing in them - or they ought to be susceptible to some kind of investigation. We've turned up precious little that is suggestive of supernaturalism, and that which we have doesn't seem to be reproducible.

3) "Fascism"? I think that's a bit thick.

EDITED AGAIN:

(I could totally tu quoque myself, because people have been known to be persecuted for 'scientific' reasons in the past. It's a hopeful sign though that science tends to repudiate bad science like, say, physiognomy more quickly than, say, religion repudiates its bad ideas.)
 
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RichardGarfinkle

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Diana, I'm about to weird you out by partially agreeing with you.

Science as a process requires phenomena that can be
1. Externally observed.
2. Reproduced either in the lab or by multiple external observations.

While brain activity can be both 1 and 2, thoughts cannot. Until and unless there is a means of doing those thought and consciousness are not within the province of science.

I'm not saying they won't ever be. But to assert that they inherently must be would be a statement of faith not of science.

In terms of external actors not subject to scientific analysis, we run into dicier ground. They would have to lack property 1 or property 2. If they have both they are within the province of scientific study.

And we'd like to study them because you never know what's going to hold one of the secrets of the universe. If people had treated lodestones as just cool rocks that pointed north, we wouldn't have found magnetism and Maxwell wouldn't have been able to unite Electricity, Magnetism, and Light without which we wouldn't have, well, just about all the electronic hardware we do have.

You might ask why not just let people have their beliefs without examination. And to a great extent that is what is done. But there is a difference between having a belief and making an assertion about reality. The latter is different because it places the subject outside of one mind and into the realm of the world.

Science exists to, if possible, check theory against reality in order to formulate theories that conform to reality as much as possible. Therefore the more real phenomena accounted for the better the theories. By the same token this means that theories of reality need to be tested against reality to see if those theories need to be incorporated into the overall theories. Science would not be doing its job if it said, "this part of reality is off limits to us."

Unfortunately, for belief, this often leads to disproof of ideas people have. People can complain about this and feel bad, but testing things like medicines and folk remedies to see if they actually work leads to an improved quality of life.
Folk remedy: Chewing willow bark helps against pain.
Conclusion of Study: There's a chemical in willow bark that reduces pain.
Result: Aspirin.

To push the case further, asserting that a belief must be taught even if it has failed the test of reality retards human quality of life. Obvious example, evolution. People look at evolution and see some long time spanning process that doesn't impact their lives so what difference does it make.

Except evolution is happening all the time and can be reproduced in the lab, and can affect what diseases exist to endanger us.

Heck, in high school I bred bacteria in a petri dish that were immune to the most common antibiotics of the day. It was easy. I only had to take a mouth scraping, culture it with disks of various antibiotics and whatever survived and grew was immune. I then tried to breed for resistance to acid, that didn't work too well.

This kind of germ breeding goes on all the time when we overuse antibiotics. People who don't accept evolution don't have to accept that we can create dangers for ourselves just by the amount and kind of medicines we take.

For other, serious effects of treating all beliefs equally may I recommend James Randi's book The Faith Healers which is pretty heart-breaking reading.
 

veinglory

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I am not sure how a small minority of people being materialists is oppressing anyone. I do think it is intolerant to declare them ( us ) objectively wrong for having this world view.
 

Maxx

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I am not sure how a small minority of people being materialists is oppressing anyone. I do think it is intolerant to declare them ( us ) objectively wrong for having this world view.

Not only that but the whole idea that there is some monolithic thing called "science" that is sitting out there
equally available to all with a quick phone call or other singular mental event is strangely similar to the idea of
a single divine magical realm equally available to all
via a singular mental event. Both sets of imageries and characterizations are highly misleading about actual human behavior and actual cultural expectations.

That being said, I think that whatever goes on in the sciences is in no way the exact opposite of whatever goes on when somebody (admittedly more likely in 1150 AD) works on their Theology (for example) or does some Shamanistic attempt to locate somebody's wandering soul.
Both the work of the sciences and the work of Shaman(z -es plural as you will) are cultural events with some feedback from individual and social forces and some aspects of reality. In the sciences there is an ongoing attempt to optimize the feedback from reality, but even in this Shamanistic Disciplines have always tried to do the same (though with less success for various technical reasons).
 

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I am not sure how a small minority of people being materialists is oppressing anyone. I do think it is intolerant to declare them ( us ) objectively wrong for having this world view.

I think the problem is that the small minority of materialists is insisting that the laws they live under should have no basis in superstition or myth.

To the superstitious majority, that feels like oppression. They're not allowed to weave their beliefs into every aspect of their daily lives. For many religions that's the goal. They're being prevented from reaching that goal.

Personally, I'm with the materialists. Keep the superstitions out of my government. But I recognize that believers in superstition need to be handled with an extremely delicate touch or the results (and their behavior) can be unpredictable, so I'm willing to compromise and allow their beliefs into the legal system in small and symbolic ways.
 

Diana Hignutt

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I am not sure how a small minority of people being materialists is oppressing anyone. I do think it is intolerant to declare them ( us ) objectively wrong for having this world view.

I don't believe there is anything wrong with such ideas. But, would you like to see everyone share them?
 

Diana Hignutt

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I think the problem is that the small minority of materialists is insisting that the laws they live under should have no basis in superstition or myth.

To the superstitious majority, that feels like oppression. They're not allowed to weave their beliefs into every aspect of their daily lives. For many religions that's the goal. They're being prevented from reaching that goal.

Personally, I'm with the materialists. Keep the superstitions out of my government. But I recognize that believers in superstition need to be handled with an extremely delicate touch or the results (and their behavior) can be unpredictable, so I'm willing to compromise and allow their beliefs into the legal system in small and symbolic ways.

I am for political purposes, an atheist. I agree.
 

Diana Hignutt

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Diana, I'm about to weird you out by partially agreeing with you.

Science as a process requires phenomena that can be
1. Externally observed.
2. Reproduced either in the lab or by multiple external observations.

While brain activity can be both 1 and 2, thoughts cannot. Until and unless there is a means of doing those thought and consciousness are not within the province of science.

I'm not saying they won't ever be. But to assert that they inherently must be would be a statement of faith not of science.

In terms of external actors not subject to scientific analysis, we run into dicier ground. They would have to lack property 1 or property 2. If they have both they are within the province of scientific study.

And we'd like to study them because you never know what's going to hold one of the secrets of the universe. If people had treated lodestones as just cool rocks that pointed north, we wouldn't have found magnetism and Maxwell wouldn't have been able to unite Electricity, Magnetism, and Light without which we wouldn't have, well, just about all the electronic hardware we do have.

You might ask why not just let people have their beliefs without examination. And to a great extent that is what is done. But there is a difference between having a belief and making an assertion about reality. The latter is different because it places the subject outside of one mind and into the realm of the world.

Science exists to, if possible, check theory against reality in order to formulate theories that conform to reality as much as possible. Therefore the more real phenomena accounted for the better the theories. By the same token this means that theories of reality need to be tested against reality to see if those theories need to be incorporated into the overall theories. Science would not be doing its job if it said, "this part of reality is off limits to us."

Unfortunately, for belief, this often leads to disproof of ideas people have. People can complain about this and feel bad, but testing things like medicines and folk remedies to see if they actually work leads to an improved quality of life.
Folk remedy: Chewing willow bark helps against pain.
Conclusion of Study: There's a chemical in willow bark that reduces pain.
Result: Aspirin.

To push the case further, asserting that a belief must be taught even if it has failed the test of reality retards human quality of life. Obvious example, evolution. People look at evolution and see some long time spanning process that doesn't impact their lives so what difference does it make.

Except evolution is happening all the time and can be reproduced in the lab, and can affect what diseases exist to endanger us.

Heck, in high school I bred bacteria in a petri dish that were immune to the most common antibiotics of the day. It was easy. I only had to take a mouth scraping, culture it with disks of various antibiotics and whatever survived and grew was immune. I then tried to breed for resistance to acid, that didn't work too well.

This kind of germ breeding goes on all the time when we overuse antibiotics. People who don't accept evolution don't have to accept that we can create dangers for ourselves just by the amount and kind of medicines we take.

For other, serious effects of treating all beliefs equally may I recommend James Randi's book The Faith Healers which is pretty heart-breaking reading.

Great post.
 

Diana Hignutt

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Not only that but the whole idea that there is some monolithic thing called "science" that is sitting out there
equally available to all with a quick phone call or other singular mental event is strangely similar to the idea of
a single divine magical realm equally available to all
via a singular mental event. Both sets of imageries and characterizations are highly misleading about actual human behavior and actual cultural expectations.

That being said, I think that whatever goes on in the sciences is in no way the exact opposite of whatever goes on when somebody (admittedly more likely in 1150 AD) works on their Theology (for example) or does some Shamanistic attempt to locate somebody's wandering soul.
Both the work of the sciences and the work of Shaman(z -es plural as you will) are cultural events with some feedback from individual and social forces and some aspects of reality. In the sciences there is an ongoing attempt to optimize the feedback from reality, but even in this Shamanistic Disciplines have always tried to do the same (though with less success for various technical reasons).

Also a great post.
 

areteus

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It's not a new idea... they tried to eliminate superstition following the French revolution. Didn't work all that well...

It is also not facism as facism is defined as a philosophy of unity - banding together against the common threat. The Nazis unfortunately tainted the word and it has yet to recover from that but it has been in use since the time of the Romans. However, I take your interpretation of the word to mean 'forcing others to accept your ideas regardless of their personal beleifs' which is part of what the Nazi's brought to the concept...

Science as a process does not preclude individual beleifs, it merely provides a framework through which you can establish the evidence needed to support your assertions. If an idea is tested and found wanting, it will be rejected by the process. However, this is usually only after a long and painful process... I agree that the attitude of materialism is a minority view. My personal opinion regarding science and concepts such as spirituality and religion is that a true scientist needs to be open minded. This is why I am an agnostic rather than an atheist.

I am also of the opinion of 'live and let live' in that I do not disrespect another's beliefs even if I myself do not follow them. The evidence is there for anyone to see, they can make their own minds up about it.
 

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I don't believe there is anything wrong with such ideas. But, would you like to see everyone share them?

Yes.

Of course you want to everyone to believe as you do. If you didn't think your beliefs were correct, you'd change your beliefs, right?

There is a difference between thinking you are right and people should agree with you, and thinking you have a right to force people to agree with you, or being unable to consider the possibility that you might be wrong.
 

Amadan

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Also, "intellectual fascism"? Inflammatory and disingenuous much?
 

Diana Hignutt

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Yes.

Of course you want to everyone to believe as you do. If you didn't think your beliefs were correct, you'd change your beliefs, right?

There is a difference between thinking you are right and people should agree with you, and thinking you have a right to force people to agree with you, or being unable to consider the possibility that you might be wrong.

I change my beliefs like I change my underwear...
 

Diana Hignutt

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Also, "intellectual fascism"? Inflammatory and disingenuous much?

I don't think so. Fascism comes from the word Fasci--a bundle of sticks with each stick as much alike as possible. I.e. an attempt to make everyone think the same.

I think it's a legitmate question. Though, thanks to the responders here, I'm inclined to think the answer is probably no...if that makes you feel any better...
 

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I don't think so. Fascism comes from the word Fasci--a bundle of sticks with each stick as much alike as possible. I.e. an attempt to make everyone think the same.

eh, I feel there are other boxes you need to tick before you end up with something you can describe as fascism.
 

Amadan

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I don't think so. Fascism comes from the word Fasci--a bundle of sticks with each stick as much alike as possible. I.e. an attempt to make everyone think the same.


Come on. We can all use a dictionary, but the etymology of the word isn't what its use brings to mind. When you call something "fascism" (or suggest it might be) you're implying it's an attempt to violently suppress dissent. Yeah, I get my back up when religious, "spiritual" and other woo-woo people suggest that the tiny, tiny minority of scientific materialists who are actually outspoken and unapologetic about their views are somehow oppressing (or trying to) the people who run the world.
 

Diana Hignutt

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Come on. We can all use a dictionary, but the etymology of the word isn't what its use brings to mind. When you call something "fascism" (or suggest it might be) you're implying it's an attempt to violently suppress dissent. Yeah, I get my back up when religious, "spiritual" and other woo-woo people suggest that the tiny, tiny minority of scientific materialists who are actually outspoken and unapologetic about their views are somehow oppressing (or trying to) the people who run the world.

Actually, I'm very into etymology. However, I see your point and apologize for any offense.
 

Maxx

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I don't think so. Fascism comes from the word Fasci--a bundle of sticks with each stick as much alike as possible. I.e. an attempt to make everyone think the same.

I think it's a legitmate question. Though, thanks to the responders here, I'm inclined to think the answer is probably no...if that makes you feel any better...

I'm not sure fascism in this context amounts to much more than saying "scientific materialism is not just bad for you, but it makes you mean to other people as well."

Fascism is pretty much in a different ballpark, though maybe that's why its such a provocative accusation.

The best critique of materialism is implicit in the methodological advances that have occured since the mid-nineteenth century when scientific materialism could cover all the bases (as they appeared to be then -- note the baseball imagery) at least ideologically. Since then there have been some very fundamental changes the possible imagery of how the world works. First, I think most people now can accept the idea that they are built up as identities or selves or consciousnesses out of many strands of interacting historical, cultural, linguistic, biological and neurological processes. ie, our own personal materialistic basis isn't all that materialistic -- at the very least it is a lot juicier or even more juicy -- far to fluid to be accurately or at least fully or aesthetically, characterized as purely material. For example, evolution is not just driven by competition but by many other and generally much more interesting processes (regulatory genes, the shifting history of the planet, lots of asteroid impacts etc.).
 

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Not all, but some self-described rationalists and realists are exactly like this. So, like any human endeavor, it *can* be this bad, but is not automatically so.

For me, Science and Religion/Philosophy/Metaphysics, they are two endeavors that have a habit of asking the same question (in short, "Why?"). But science is driven by its own definition to seek out a process oriented answer. A led to B led to C.

Religion seeks what I'll call a "source" answer. It's a metaphysical effort to determine a purpose and a goal to our lives. Our "reason for being."

For me, the two don't overlap, and each is ill-suited to responding to the context of the other.

Those that try to use one to deny the other... They're as silly as what they claim of the other side. More so.
 

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Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

While I believe the OP has over-generalized and stated things in a confrontational way, I do have to say:

1) The Klu Klux Klan in the 1920's (I think) got passed a law in Oregon that forebade public school teachers from wearing religious garb. It was intended to prevent Catholic nuns and Orthodox Jews from teaching. Since then, it has also prevented practicing Sikhs and Muslim women from teaching too. A year or two ago, we got the rule overturned. But we wouldn't have if certain Scientific Materialist Atheists had had their way; they tried mightily to keep that rule in force. 2) I used to see a truck in Salem, Oregon, with the bumperstick Freedom FROM God.

So, I think just maybe a few Scientific Materialists DO fix that controversial bill. Just not all of them.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

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There is a movement to remove "the last vestages of superstition" from modern thought.

If there are questions which science can not answer...like...what is life, what is consciousness, what is the true nature of reality (if it even has a true nature) at the most fundamental level...why must we all accept it?
There are certainly many questions science HAS NOT answered. But I'd like to see another "method of generating or discovering a body of knowledge" that has as much as a small fraction of the success of the scientific method (or any objective success at all). I would be open to it, but I haven't seen it.

I don't know if science can answer "all questions" but if there is anything that CAN answer all questions, I'd bet on it being science.


What's wrong with us all believing what we like?

Is Scientific Materialism a type of intellectual fascism...which is attempting to quash dissent...and spread universally across the minds of humanity?

And, my question for those who accept the precepts of Scientific Materialism...you do wish everyone believed as you do, don't you?

Why?
Okay, yes, I do. But I'd rather use rhetoric and logic to convince others than use the law. I don't know that I would ever want to use the law to outlaw beliefs, but as the current laws do I would outlaw actions that are physically (and sometimes otherwise) hurtful to others.
I have seen things and done things, which transcend those limits which Scientific Materialists hold. I have no need to convince others of this.
Well, that's kind of frustrating. If you have something that can convincingly "transcend those limits which Scientific Materialists hold," I'd love to hear about it and learn about it. The idea that something "out there" (three-letter things such as UFO's, ESP and God) could be true has always been tantalizing to me. All my life I've heard people talking with conviction of these things existing, but my own investigations of these left me with empty hands and chock-full of doubt.

I did feel that God once "touched" me early in my time in Alcoholics Anonymous, and that became a faith that lasted a couple of years, but it didn't stand up to eventual questioning and investigation, and finally I concluded it was only a feeling (I had been SURROUNDED by people every evening at AA meetings who ALL gave God credit for solving the "otherwise impossible" battle against their problematic drinking). Funnily, Al-Anon has a slogan "Feelings aren't facts." But I'm digressing onto my soapbox...
I accept that only I can hold my personal beliefs, they are not universal, and they have no need to be. Why is this a problem?
I think where this might cross into a problem whether with scientific materialists or others who don't believe as you do, is if you insist others believe.

I can see where, to someone who has a different belief, scientific materialism and the insistence that (for example) governments be run based on it could be called "intellectual fascism" to cut out other beliefs, but I consider scientific materialism to be the "default" state of reality (or more accurately, our best representation and understanding of reality - as Amadan said, if I didn't believe this were true, I'd change my beliefs), and other beliefs are embellishments on it or outright changes to it.

I've posted this many times before, but the reasons for my strong leanings toward scientific materialism and how I got there is well described in Susan Blackmore's essay on giving up her decades-long investigations of parapsychology:
http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Chapters/Kurtz.htm
 

benbradley

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Not all, but some self-described rationalists and realists are exactly like this. So, like any human endeavor, it *can* be this bad, but is not automatically so.

For me, Science and Religion/Philosophy/Metaphysics, they are two endeavors that have a habit of asking the same question (in short, "Why?"). But science is driven by its own definition to seek out a process oriented answer. A led to B led to C.

Religion seeks what I'll call a "source" answer. It's a metaphysical effort to determine a purpose and a goal to our lives. Our "reason for being."

For me, the two don't overlap, and each is ill-suited to responding to the context of the other.

Those that try to use one to deny the other... They're as silly as what they claim of the other side. More so.
The idea that science and religion are "orthogonal" to (independent of) each other has, I think, been around for quite some time (as in a few centuries, since science became a serious study about the time of Galileo, Copernicus and such), but it is perhaps most famously written about by Steven Jay Gould in his essay "Nonoverlaping Magisteria" (commonly abbreviated NOMA):
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html
Wikipedia has a good article on it that's shorter than the essay itself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-overlapping_magisteria

I don't agree with that idea, but it's an interesting subtopic/peripheral topic of this thread.
 
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