God Says ..., Science Says ...

[TagliatelliMonster]

You want me to explain the difference between physics and metaphysics?

I want an answer to the question I asked, since that was the purpose of asking the question.

@PureX gave an example. I asked about that example so that I may understand what he meant since it wasn't clear to me.
He's saying science can address the first but not the second. First of all, it wasn't clear to me what the second actually was about. And by extension, I also can't know if I agree / see how science can't address it or if I even recognize it as a thing that requires any addressing to begin with.


I asked for an example of physicality vs metaphysicality within context of what science can and can not address to make it clearer what is being meant by it.
The example, or at least the way it was phrased, did not make it clearer for me at all. In fact, it only confused me further.
So the purpose of giving an example was missed for me.

So I ask for clarification.

It's kind of frustrating that it feels like I have to beat it out of you people who instead of just trying to clarify it right from the start, in fact just become condescending and making all kinds of assumptions about my motives and accusing me of "scientism" and what not.

I'm at post 4 now asking for clarification. Sheesh, people.................

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I want an answer to the question I asked, since that was the purpose of asking the question.

@PureX gave an example. I asked about that example so that I may understand what he meant since it wasn't clear to me.
He's saying science can address the first but not the second. First of all, it wasn't clear to me what the second actually was about. And by extension, I also can't know if I agree / see how science can't address it or if I even recognize it as a thing that requires any addressing to begin with.


I asked for an example of physicality vs metaphysicality within context of what science can and can not address to make it clearer what is being meant by it.
The example, or at least the way it was phrased, did not make it clearer for me at all. In fact, it only confused me further.
So the purpose of giving an example was missed for me.

So I ask for clarification.

It's kind of frustrating that it feels like I have to beat it out of you people who instead of just trying to clarify it right from the start, in fact just become condescending and making all kinds of assumptions about my motives and accusing me of "scientism" and what not.

I'm at post 4 now asking for clarification. Sheesh, people.................

Fun fact: the term "metaphysics" comes from the title of a book by Aristotle. People make a big deal now about the word's etymology connoting "beyond physics," but the original sense was really "after physics"... as in "the book I wrote after the book titled 'Physics.'"

 

[Quintessence]

Yeah, sure, it’s reductionism to the extreme. But even if you do reduce all of conscious experience to it’s physical correlates in areas of the brain, that still doesn’t account for either the why’s or wherefores of qualitative subjective experience. It doesn’t explain why conscious agents are watching and participating in, a movie of their lives.

Put another way, it doesn't account for qualia; the actuality of lived experience.

It does and it doesn't.

As a metaphysical pluralist I'm obviously inclined to agree with a more diverse understanding of phenomena rather than limiting myself to a single model, but the fact that metaphysical monists exist and seem to go about their lives just fine seems to indicate that their way of seeing works well enough or that perhaps the answer to these questions doesn't really matter when it comes to life and living to begin with.

That’s what both neuroscientists and philosophers of mind recognise as the Hard Problem of Consciousness. And many people just don’t see this at all, perhaps because - I’m speculating here - they are psychically blind to one dimension of awareness.

No, that's a real thing. I learned some years ago about a phenomena called aphantasia? It means that a human is straight up unable to visualize. As someone with hyperphantasia, I can't even... lol.

 

[RestlessSoul]

What is "the ideal" for us college dropouts.

That which exists only in the imagination.

 

[Niatero]

Notice that this post is entirely about the desire for control. And about dropping religion as a means of gaining that control, for the increased functionality of science, and the delusion that greater functionality = greater control over fate. And this delusion is at the heart of scientism: the new godless religion that more and more humans are turning to, to gain that false sense of their being in control of their own fate.

But science is NOT giving them increased control. Because increased functionality does NOT equate to increased control. We humans are still as profoundly ignorant as we ever were. We're just more able to inflict our ignorance on the world around us, and on each other, now, thanks to science. In fact, thanks to this increased functionality being given to us by science we humans are more in danger of annihilation now than we have ever been in the entire history of our existence. And that threat is coming from US! That's how uncontrolled we actually are! It turns out that knowing how to build a nuclear weapon taught us absolutely nothing in terms of controlling it's proliferation and use. Just as knowing how to build an internal combustion engine taught us absolutely nothing about controlling it's proliferation and use. Or how creating artificial intelligence will teach us absolutely nothing about limiting it's proliferation and use. And as a result humanity may already be "dead men waking" and just awaiting the already irreversible moment of our demise. Being able to do more in terms of manipulating the world around us doesn't seem to make us even the slightest bit more controlled or controllable.

I mostly agree with that, and I see now that at least part of what you're objecting to fits one common definition of "scientism." What I'm objecting to might be part of that or partly a consequence of it.

 

[McBell]

Then if I was wrong, I apologize.

No worries.
I am glad we got it sorted out.

 

[Niatero]

Most scientists want to get tenure and secure good research grants and publications.

It's an open question for me how much they put that ahead of honest and responsible research. I'm thinking a lot, but it may or may not be most of them, if you think of all the ones who research is only ever seen by other researchers.

 

[Niatero]

The original point was that the human obsession with wanting to be in control of our own fate, and more specifically the illusion of being in control of our own fate because we don't have any actual control over it, is what is driving both the adoption of magically inerrant religious scripture AND the adoption of the scientism fantasy. Both are delusions adopted to enable the adherent to presume his/her interpretation of these "oracles of truth" is itself, then, the truth.

Maybe, I have some other ideas about the reasons for it, for most people. Maybe mostly bandwagon effects.

 

[Valjean]

The point, though, is that science only produces knowledge of physical functionality. It does not produce knowledge about metaphysicality. Which is in many ways the more significant aspect of our experience of existence.

Also, knowledge is not truth. Nor is it wisdom. So that even the functional knowledge that science can give us is far more likely to be abused, misunderstood, and misapplied then it ever will be used to control our fate in the way we so badly want it to. And all we have to do is look around us to see how true that is.

What tools would you recommend to determine the truth, or even the reality, of "metaphysicality?"

 

[RestlessSoul]

I want an answer to the question I asked, since that was the purpose of asking the question.

@PureX gave an example. I asked about that example so that I may understand what he meant since it wasn't clear to me.
He's saying science can address the first but not the second. First of all, it wasn't clear to me what the second actually was about. And by extension, I also can't know if I agree / see how science can't address it or if I even recognize it as a thing that requires any addressing to begin with.


I asked for an example of physicality vs metaphysicality within context of what science can and can not address to make it clearer what is being meant by it.
The example, or at least the way it was phrased, did not make it clearer for me at all. In fact, it only confused me further.
So the purpose of giving an example was missed for me.

So I ask for clarification.

It's kind of frustrating that it feels like I have to beat it out of you people who instead of just trying to clarify it right from the start, in fact just become condescending and making all kinds of assumptions about my motives and accusing me of "scientism" and what not.

I'm at post 4 now asking for clarification. Sheesh, people.................

I offered you clarification. But you ignored that part of my post. So now I have to assume you are choosing not to understand.

 

[PureX]

Whenever you feel like having an actual conversation instead of throwing empty accusations around in a seeming attempt to dodge questions, I'm here.

You don't want a conversation, you want to argue. And I honestly just don't care what you believe.

 

[PureX]

I don't think it's that.

The issue is that metaphysical monism - the insistence that everything reduces down to a single substance or concept - is something of an extreme position that flattens the complexity of reality. So there can easily be an acknowledgement that the physical thing and the idea of the thing are different but it would all be reduced down to the physical even though it doesn't necessarily make any sense to do so. Scientism on the whole tends to be metaphysically monist - reducing all reality down to the physical processes that the sciences can make their subject. It rejects and denies that anything else is even a thing. And in spite of this being a philosophical position, not a scientific one, this is seen as being a scientific perspective. Which, as a scientist, drives me nuts because the philosophy of science - the philosophical assumptions that underpin the sciences whether it's physicalism or empiricism - is not science.

Very well stated, thank you.

 

[sayak83]

It's an open question for me how much they put that ahead of honest and responsible research. I'm thinking a lot, but it may or may not be most of them, if you think of all the ones who research is only ever seen by other researchers.

Usually honest and responsible research leads to tenure and grants...not saying there are unscrupulous scientists as well

 

[Niatero]

Science....
I've used it to design things to kill people.
I've used it to design things to fix people.
So it goes.

Your sins are forgiven. Rise, and walk.

 

[McBell]

Then if I was wrong, I apologize.

Since I publicly stated I had no idea how you got to the conclusion you did (which at that time was true) I only feel it right to also publicly state that after reviewing the conversation, I now understand how you could come to that conclusion.

 

[PureX]

Science can be applied to anything observable. If what you're saying is true about the disconnect between the physical and the metaphysical, how could the metaphysical be an "aspect of our experience of existence" at all?

You're trying to have it both ways: you want your opinions about the metaphysical to be both valid and shielded from scrutiny, but that doesn't work.

The physical mechanisms that generate a thought are not the thought that is being generated. What we think about the sun setting is not the sun setting, but it is "a sunset". The sun setting is a physical phenomenon. The sunset is metaphysical phenomenon. And the former is irrelevant to us without the latter.

But the philosophical materialist wants to reverse that, and claim that only the physical phenomenon is "real". And therefor only the physical phenomenon is 'the truth'. The vast majority of philosophers rejected this proposition long ago, but there is a new and growing crop of atheist-materialist-science worshiping 'cultists' that are espousing it as their new anti-religious 'gospel'.

This thread is about WHY I think they exist, and how I see them as being the a-religious counterpoint to the inerrant Bible zealots.

 

[PureX]

Maybe, I have some other ideas about the reasons for it, for most people. Maybe mostly bandwagon effects.

Even then, people follow what they want to around. What they want to be in their life. Or to believe in. And what people want more than anything in life is to be in control of their own fate. Even though as the evidence mounts, it appears this may be the death of us all. The more we try to control our own fates, the more dangerous and endangered we become.

 

[Pogo]

That which exists only in the imagination

Well I can imagine a lot of things, though how this relates to "ideal" i'm not sure.

Or is this like mental pornography that I will know it when I see(imagine) it?

 

[PureX]

Well I can imagine a lot of things, though how this relates to "ideal" i'm not sure.

Or is this like mental pornography that I will know it when I see(imagine) it?

Think of an ideal as a conceptual archetype.

 

[Pogo]

Well I can imagine a lot of things, though how this relates to "ideal" i'm not sure.

Or is this like mental pornography that I will know it when I see(imagine) it?

Or is this a discussion of whether wetness exists by itself, yes but it is also an emergent property of our sensual experience of water.