Scientific Materialism Is NOT Intellectual Fascism-Proof Inside!

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theorange

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This is the complete opposite of a materialistic model of how one finds out about how things work.

I think we may be arguing past each other.

I completely agree with you that science nowadays generates a lot from the manipulation of its theoretical and mathematical machinery.

And it's not really science per se that I have a problem with. It's about how science is regarded by many as the only method of finding truth that is the problem. That philosophy is what I call materialism.
 

Maxx

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It's just that what the new atheists say influences all the scientists and educated people. And again, Dark Energy is only accepted as a possibility because in theory certain observations will either bear it out or they won't -- that's what the materiality comes down to: observability, testability in the physical world.

You're proposing that a universal influence that only you can see "influences all the scientists and educated people."
That would seem to be a very simple model and one that only you can verify. It would seem that a single "I'm not influenced" statement would disprove this according to your falsification criteria for valid theories. It looks like in this thread you have half a dozen statements that show that there is no such universal influence.

Second, you seem to systematically confuse observatibilty and "testibility" (whatever that means) with the idea that there is a ready-made material world out there. There is no connection between making observations and the idea that there is a uniformly material and empirical world out there. The whole idea of setting up an experiment is that it excludes that supposed materiality and derives some useful observations. Falsification makes the same error in that it assumes there must be some kind of congruence between theory and an imaginary complete material world in order for theory to work as theory.
 

Maxx

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I completely agree with you that science nowadays generates a lot from the manipulation of its theoretical and mathematical machinery.

Or just take the idea of what a gene is. I just don't see how any method that works with genes can be considered materialistic. "Gene" is shorthand for an incredible number of processes and structures that are generally not observable at all.
 

Maxx

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Well Richard Dawkins believes much the same stuff, and he is an actual scientist. And that's also true no doubt of a lot of his fans.

Note the precise use of the term "Fanboy" (also "fanboi").
A fanboy is not a reliable interpreter or representer of that of which he is more than a fan. Yes, he's a fanboi. One indulges them for amusement but not for serious matters such as the status of materialism in the sciences.
 

theorange

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You're proposing that a universal influence that only you can see "influences all the scientists and educated people."

Not all but many.

Second, you seem to systematically confuse observatibilty and "testibility" (whatever that means) with the idea that there is a ready-made material world out there.

I think we are using different definitions of materiality.

I define materiality as that which can be observed by the sense organs, either unaided or through scientific instruments. That is what it means to be matter, as I use the term. And that is exactly what science observes in order to test its theories.

Even things like Dark Matter refer not to some actual visible stuff, but rather to the observable measurable phenomena (from whatever scientific instruments) that the theory of DM purports to predict. Those phenomena are material.
 

Maxx

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And again, Dark Energy is only accepted as a possibility because in theory certain observations will either bear it out or they won't -- that's what the materiality comes down to: observability, testability in the physical world.

So you would say Dark Energy has not been observed? And how might energy that cannot be seen (its dark for a reason) be observed except via a non-materialist theory?
 

theorange

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So you would say Dark Energy has not been observed? And how might energy that cannot be seen (its dark for a reason) be observed except via a non-materialist theory?

Well, it can be observed -- through its observable effects on gravitational orbits and what-not. The theory of DE is just a short-hand for a set of predicted effects. Those effects are observable.
 

Maxx

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The lab and clinical measurements are observable.

So I go to a lab and I "see" gene X. What have I seen? A blob in a gel? How do I know it is expressed anywhere?

Suppose I know (and how do I know?) it has to do with the development of eyes in Fruitflies. Is it the same gene if it has some other function in some other animal?

I really only know most of what I know about genes from catalogs of genes and their actions across different organisms. So is the catalog the material world since it is the basis of knowledge about what a particular gene is?
 

Maxx

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Well, it can be observed -- through its observable effects on gravitational orbits and what-not. The theory of DE is just a short-hand for a set of predicted effects. Those effects are observable.

So in this case the material world is "I expect to see A at Y if theory FF is the best model (assuming I have excluded all other effects of the material world)"?

The material world in this case is just an expectation.
 

theorange

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So I go to a lab and I "see" gene X. What have I seen? A blob in a gel? How do I know it is expressed anywhere?

Ha, I'm not a chemist so I don't know. I assume that DNA does look a certain way in the microscope, reacts in certain ways to chemicals, etc.

Suppose I know (and how do I know?) it has to do with the development of eyes in Fruitflies. Is it the same gene if it has some other function in some other animal?

That depends on how you want to frame the phenomena and how you want to define the word "same." There's no question that different theories can make group observable phenomena differently.

I really only know most of what I know about genes from catalogs of genes and their actions across different organisms. So is the catalog the material world since it is the basis of knowledge about what a particular gene is?

It's the material world in the same way that a map is the material world. Someone else has explored that corner and you take their word for it.
 

theorange

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So in this case the material world is "I expect to see A at Y if theory FF is the best model (assuming I have excluded all other effects of the material world)"?

The material world in this case is just an expectation.

Yes, that's correct. It's an expectation fulfilled specifically through the sense organs (everyone can objectively see A through their eyes). Whereas an expectation about what emotion I'm going to feel is not wholly material (my anger is directly observable only by me), but refers also to my inner world. That's also an expectation, just not a material one.
 

RichardGarfinkle

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Well Dawkins may be one such scientist. The "new atheists" (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens) are basically staunch materialists: they think that the only thing that exists is matter.

What that means is that personal conscious experience is nothing but matter. That means all morality, all beauty, love, everything is just matter... and just a matter of science.

They are staunch materialists, but both Dawkins and Hitchens at least were strong supporters of the value of personal experience to their personal lives. Upthread I posted some links to dialogues and debates they took part in.

Both of them resented the idea that the numinous, the personal, and the emotional required a religious view of the world. They aren't trying to steal or destroy art or personal experience. They are trying to claim a human share in it as humanists.

As to the argument about models and materialism. You seem to be defining materialism as anything that involves observation. Art involves observation. How do you distinguish between the artistic experience and the scientific?
 

Maxx

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It's the material world in the same way that a map is the material world. Someone else has explored that corner and you take their word for it.

So the material world could be any representation of anything and I just arbitrarily add the otherwise useless note that the thing represented is the material world.

Or to put it another way, I assume the usefulness of particular representations for specific things I want to do. The relation of these representations to materiality is generally not what is important about them.

Maps are an especially good case since most maps only show me what I might need for a particular circumstance. Sometimes it is enough that the locals point somewhere and use a word I think I understand. This becomes a map in my head. The people I am with who don't know the local (possibly somewhat comprehensible) lingo will know what I understood if we find what we need. So from their point of view the unknowable thing in my head is far more material than the unknowable language that builds a map in my head.
 

theorange

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Both of them resented the idea that the numinous, the personal, and the emotional required a religious view of the world. They aren't trying to steal or destroy art or personal experience. They are trying to claim a human share in it as humanists.

They might maintain that, but I just don't see how they can maintain it without contradiction. We think of the numinous as being transcendental in some way. If it's simply the result of the operation of chemicals in our brain, I don't see how it can be particularly transcendental.

As to the argument about models and materialism. You seem to be defining materialism as anything that involves observation. Art involves observation. How do you distinguish between the artistic experience and the scientific?

Well art is not about positing testable theories (though some psychologists/neuroscientists are trying to do that)... art is ultimately about creating art, and trying to convey inner experience. So art involves observation but it uses it to entirely different ends.

I'm defining materialism as the ideology that only the physically-observable exists. This means that there art and the inner experience it conveys is also just the push and pull of atoms following scientific laws, nothing more.
 

theorange

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So the material world could be any representation of anything and I just arbitrarily add the otherwise useless note that the thing represented is the material world.

Not exactly. In theory there's some way someone could go and observe what you've observed.

Maps are an especially good case since most maps only show me what I might need for a particular circumstance. Sometimes it is enough that the locals point somewhere and use a word I think I understand. This becomes a map in my head. The people I am with who don't know the local (possibly somewhat comprehensible) lingo will know what I understood if we find what we need. So from their point of view the unknowable thing in my head is far more material than the unknowable language that builds a map in my head.

I'm not sure I follow your argument here. When they speak a word to you they think you understand, yes, that is a kind of map that you can follow... that you can then test and observe by going to see if it leads to where you thought it would lead.
 

Maxx

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I'm not sure I follow your argument here. When they speak a word to you they think you understand, yes, that is a kind of map that you can follow... that you can then test and observe by going to see if it leads to where you thought it would lead.

Let's look closely at the supposed reference-to-materiality of a "map-in-the-head" based on a local term that I may or may not have understood. It seems (at first glance and according to the expectation model of a reference-to-materiality) that the map in the head is as material (in the referential expectation model) as any thing can be. The map-in-the-head claims to offer some expectation of discovering an observable. But this priviledged status of a map-in-my-head as an approach to the material world and therefore as material as any thing can be seems to disappear as soon as I describe it to somebody else. Or more precisely, as soon as I try to translate the local term and offer that as the basis of my expectation. As long as I just walk as a mute marker (or effectively a map) then the map in my head is completely material in the expectational sense. As soon as I say "I think they mean the things we need are over there beyond that ridge and up that creek" the expectational materiality of the map in my head vanishes. It seems to me that "materiality" is an artifact of the nonacceptance of imperfect translations between different areas of expectation.
 

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They might maintain that, but I just don't see how they can maintain it without contradiction. We think of the numinous as being transcendental in some way. If it's simply the result of the operation of chemicals in our brain, I don't see how it can be particularly transcendental.



Well art is not about positing testable theories (though some psychologists/neuroscientists are trying to do that)... art is ultimately about creating art, and trying to convey inner experience. So art involves observation but it uses it to entirely different ends.

I'm defining materialism as the ideology that only the physically-observable exists. This means that there art and the inner experience it conveys is also just the push and pull of atoms following scientific laws, nothing more.

Arguably quantum mechanics says that a lot of what exists, does so in states that cannot be observed since observation changes them, but Maxx might justly jump down my throat on that because it is a very outmoded way of looking at things.

So moving on. You seem to be confusing the idea of whether something has a material basis with its existence. There are a number of phenomena that exist as the results of arrangements of other phenomena but which acquire qualitative distinctions from their constituent parts. Indeed, it can be argued that the entire universe exists in this process of aggregation and arrangement.

Atoms are arrangements of particles in energy states. The arrangement acquires characteristics that do not exist in the particles themselves. Thus quantum mechanics gives rise to atomic physics.

Atoms interact with each other in complex manners to create new structures: molecules.
Thus atomic physics gives rise to chemistry.

Chemicals interact in a vast array of complex possibilities so that immensely complex structures can be created out of as few as four varieties of atoms: Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen. Thus Chemistry gives rise to Biochemistry.

These complex chemicals interact in even more complex ways, producing structures of ongoing interactions unlike the structures that they are based on thus Biochemistry gives rise to Biology.

And so on. At each level in the process new amazing phenomena come into being in a variety not necessarily predictable from the level below.

I usually say that we live in a harmonious universe, where the simple constituent parts can be arranged in enormous variety by building level upon level. Just as notes can be arranged into chords, chords into the pieces of individual instruments and the playing of individual instruments can be arranged into symphonies.

The point is that each level of phenomena has three different levels at which it can be examined:
1. What makes it up and how is it made up?
2. What does it itself do?
3. How does it interact with other things to create a higher order of harmony?

Phenomena may have a material base (for a given value of material) but that does not remove the experience of the thing itself.

Knowledge of food chemistry and nutrition do not remove the taste of food, but they can help in deciding what foods are a good idea to eat.

Knowledge of harmonics and acoustics do not destroy the experience of music, but they can help in making instruments and designing music halls.

The transcendental experience, the numinous to quote Hitchens is a matter of direct experience. It doesn't have to be connected to something beyond the human in order for it to be an elevating human moment. The mind can be opened by an experience, understanding and emotion wash over us, and we come to see and understand more then we did before. Just because the underlying events for this are neural firing and brain chemistry no more removes the experience then knowledge of organic chemistry destroys the taste of lunch.
 

Maxx

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Arguably quantum mechanics says that a lot of what exists, does so in states that cannot be observed since observation changes them, but Maxx might justly jump down my throat on that because it is a very outmoded way of looking at things.

Well, people seem to like it. I'm not sure why. BUT suppose we substitute "interaction" for "observation" and accept some sort of field model formalism. We would find that our test particle does some rather non-material things between our expectations of what it does at interactions.

Suppose we take a Feymann Diagram as a fun way of looking at these things. We would find that the "point" in space time of our supposed singular interaction can be expanded and a lot more detail can be put in (oops, I'm completely blanking on how virtual "infrared" photons tend to put a range on these details) and moreover between interactions the test particle would in fact be interacting with itself and/or the virtual particles of the vacuum. None of this makes for an unambiguous idea of what is so material about the supposed material world.

PS. Some poking around has convinced me that Wick rotation and all those photons are beyond me today.
 
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RichardGarfinkle

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Well, people seem to like it. I'm not sure why. BUT suppose we substitute "interaction" for "observation" and accept some sort of field model formalism. We would find that our test particle does some rather non-material things between our expectations of what it does at interactions.

Suppose we take a Feymann Diagram as a fun way of looking at these things. We would find that the "point" in space time of our supposed singular interaction can be expanded and a lot more detail can be put in (oops, I'm completely blanking on how virtual "infrared" photons tend to put a range on these details) and moreover between interactions the test particle would in fact be interacting with itself and/or the virtual particles of the vacuum. None of this makes for an unambiguous idea of what a is so material about the supposed material world.

Fun although I do tend to hide under the covers for some of this. Quantum Field Theory gives me a headache. I'm much more comfortable with relativity and with the probabilistic perspective on quantum mechanics. I mostly wanted to bring up the old view because of the mushy concept of observer, since it seems to be so integral to the orange's definition of materialism.
 

theorange

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As soon as I say "I think they mean the things we need are over there beyond that ridge and up that creek" the expectational materiality of the map in my head vanishes. It seems to me that "materiality" is an artifact of the nonacceptance of imperfect translations between different areas of expectation.

I don't follow. Why, when you utter those words, is that suddenly not about observable things?

If you say: " I think x is beyond the ridge," then you are referring to an observable phenomenon -- x -- that either is or is not beyond the ridge. So you go over the ridge, and either you observe x or you don't observe x.
 

Maxx

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Fun although I do tend to hide under the covers for some of this. Quantum Field Theory gives me a headache. I'm much more comfortable with relativity and with the probabilistic perspective on quantum mechanics. I mostly wanted to bring up the old view because of the mushy concept of observer, since it seems to be so integral to the orange's definition of materialism.

As I understand it, "observation" and "observable" in regular QM are not mushy, they are just misleading. In every case the term "interaction" seems to cover the same ground. Where things go off the tracks is to mistake "observer" for consciousness. And now (thanks to Orange) I can see why this might be. It is the map-in-the-head problem. Paradoxically it seems to be the insistance on the non-materiality of mental expectations that drives the need to have a consistant material world as a boundary or an explicitly alien place. If I accept that my mental expectations are material, then the problem of materiality versus immateriality disappears and in its place you find the problems of translating between different kinds of expectation or just different uses of language and/or representation.
 

Maxx

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I don't follow. Why, when you utter those words, is that suddenly not about observable things?

If you say: " I think x is beyond the ridge," then you are referring to an observable phenomenon -- x -- that either is or is not beyond the ridge. So you go over the ridge, and either you observe x or you don't observe x.

Yes, but as long as I am myself a map then observing x is irrelevent because my function is simply to be followed. So all materiality moves into my head from the point of view of those who may or may not be expecting x.
 

theorange

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And so on. At each level in the process new amazing phenomena come into being in a variety not necessarily predictable from the level below.

Well, I think what you mean is that you cannot necessarily describe biology in terms of physics (though certainly scientists are trying!), that there is some irreducible complexity there. Well I definitely agree with that, but even so -- materialists nevertheless believe that everything that is, is observable by the senses. So it simply must be the case that beauty and love are also reducible to things that can be seen with the senses.

And that must mean at some level they are matter, that at some level they do follow physical laws. That prevents them from being transcendental.

I usually say that we live in a harmonious universe, where the simple constituent parts can be arranged in enormous variety by building level upon level. Just as notes can be arranged into chords, chords into the pieces of individual instruments and the playing of individual instruments can be arranged into symphonies.

But in theory even the entire sound of the orchestra can be described in terms of the sound waves that emanate from it.

Phenomena may have a material base (for a given value of material) but that does not remove the experience of the thing itself.

That's the thing. It shouldn't negate the experience, but the materialists think the experience is itself material. They think that doesn't negate the experience, but it does. For how can experience, what is private, be material, what is public? It cannot be both.

Knowledge of food chemistry and nutrition do not remove the taste of food, but they can help in deciding what foods are a good idea to eat.

And this is correct. It's simply that a materialistic philosophy would also hold that taste itself is something that can be reduced to interactions in the brain.

Just because the underlying events for this are neural firing and brain chemistry no more removes the experience then knowledge of organic chemistry destroys the taste of lunch.

Well, it doesn't remove the experience. It simply removes any claim that experience has to refer to something beyond, something more than neurons firing, something more than the working of a machine. And that's the whole point of such experiences; that they do point beyond.
 

theorange

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Yes, but as long as I am myself a map then observing x is irrelevent because my function is simply to be followed. So all materiality moves into my head from the point of view of those who may or may not be expecting x.

I'm still not comprehending. So someone is following you. They think you know where you are going. They expect that if they follow you they will get to x. That is the expectation in their minds, and it too deals with the observable.

"If I follow you, I will find x." That's the expectation in their minds. And then they follow you and either find x or they don't. That's a material test.

I don't really see how any of this rebuts the idea that a map refers to observable things...
 
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