Faith in science?

[mikkel_the_dane]

Worse 'arguing from ignorance' than the opening post. Your reference conclusions agree with me.

What is agreement in physical terms? What is the scientific physical theory of agreement?

 

[shunyadragon]

If we wait for philosophers to answer the question, we are lost. Instead, we should ignore them.

. . . while they contemplate their naval and bark at the moon.

 

[shunyadragon]

What is agreement in physical terms?

Science is descriptive of the nature of our physical existence, and the terminology is used and evolves as to what is needed to consistently communicate between scientists.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science places a large role in standardizing scientific terminology as science evolves, and the needs of terminology change.

What is the scientific physical theory of agreement?

Metaphysical Naturalism.

 

[Polymath257]

Well, that is your subjective standard for consciousness. I.e. you choose your standard for what you subjectively consider consciousness.

Yes, absolutely. Just like we choose the standard for what is considered to be 'charged' or 'green'. Once we make that choice, we have more ability to study those things classified in that way.

If it turns out that our initial classification is unhelpful, we can change definitions later. This is done quite often.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

. . . while they contemplate their naval and bark at the moon.

The quote you gave up thread was philosophy. What Hard Problem? | Issue 99 | Philosophy Now
You are contemplating your naval and barking at the moon. Just like we all do. We use philosophy to justify our world views. You have done so before and so have I. I just admit it.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Metaphysical Naturalism.

That is philosophy. Keep contemplating your navel and barking at the moon.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yes, absolutely. Just like we choose the standard for what is considered to be 'charged' or 'green'. Once we make that choice, we have more ability to study those things classified in that way.

If it turns out that our initial classification is unhelpful, we can change definitions later. This is done quite often.

So you speak for a "we" that is not there as for what is helpful to humans. How authoritarian of you.

 

[Polymath257]

So you speak for a "we" that is not there as for what is helpful to humans. How authoritarian of you.

The humans studying that phenomenon and wanting to understand it.

That's not authoritarian. It is accepting the conclusions of experts.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The humans studying that phenomenon and wanting to understand it.

That's not authoritarian. It is accepting the conclusions of experts.

That it is helpful is your opinion. And you are not the expert of what is helpful to humans. That is not science nor mathematics or logic. That is at best social science.

 

[Altfish]

Okay, does evidence have a limit?

Not sure what you mean??

Give me an example

 

[exchemist]

If we wait for philosophers to answer the question, we are lost. Instead, we should ignore them.

No, we should be open to them guiding us as to what some of these questions mean and indeed if they mean anything at all. I find Pigliucci quite refreshingly incisive on the "hard problem" for instance. It gives me faith - yes, that word again - that my own instinct to dismiss it as not a valid question - may be reasonable, or at any rate shared by some people with brains.

 

[shunyadragon]

That is philosophy. Keep contemplating your navel and barking at the moon.

No, misuse of the nature of different ways 'Philosophy.' Is used.

Yes, there is a philosophy that is the foundation of Metaphysical Naturalism with the assumption of the uniformity of the nature of or physical existence, but, unlike the rest of the subjective philosophy, this assumption is objectively tested with continuously, repeatedly confirming the uniformity of our physical existence with the falsification of theories and hypothesis.

 

[exchemist]

It is getting worse science is not demanding that it explains "experience."

Do try to keep up.

 

[Yerda]

Your lack of education in science is appalling. Get an education in basic science would help.

I'm sorry to have appalled you. What aspects or areas of a basic science education would help in your opinion?

I'll try giving you an analogy in the context of what you are saying.

Let's look at the written language of English. There's only 26 letters that's available for us to use. But by combining and rearranging those letters, what do we get? An endless amount of ways to communicate.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.

It is hard to have 'faith' in science, if you take 'faith' to mean what it does in religious references, ie Belief without evidence.

Science is about evidence, experiment, checking, re-checking, changing, refining, discarding, etc. Everything that religion isn't

What I'm asking is, is my belief that science will eventually solve this problem a kind of faith?

I'm trying to acknowledge that I, an atheist (and also an avid follower of science if you can believe it), may have a belief without evidence.

If you are saying you have faith that one day there will be a scientific explanation of consciousness, you are expressing faith in science, fairly obviously.

But the scientific explanation may be that there is, in some ways, nothing to explain. So you may not find it satisfying. It seems to me there is a lot of fuss about nothing over consciousness.

The thing is that science concerns itself with objective observation of nature - or as objective as we can make it - via observations that are reproducible. That means observations that can be repeated by different people in different places and give results that agree. At this level, consciousness can be studied objectively. We can observe how animals behave when conscious, as opposed to being asleep or in a coma, we can observe the characteristic differences in brain activity between the two states, and so on and so forth. So there is already a developing theory of consciousness, at the physical level.

But what you seem to be asking about is the experience of being conscious. I am reminded of that notorious question: "What is it like to be a bat?" Such a question is utterly meaningless in terms of science. Experience is by nature subjective, rather than objective. So to study it scientifically, one would need some means of rendering experience objective. How?

It seems to me this is non-issue as far as science is concerned. What it feels like to be conscious is, er, what it feels like.

I don't expect science to tell me what it feels like to be conscious or what it is like to be bat. What would absolutely tickle my bones would be a theory that explains the connection between matter and experience.

Maybe the world is such that we can only point to certain patterns of neural firing and say, this process is experiential and that's just how it is. That would be unsatisfying but I'm fine with it if we now know that this is just the way the world is. It might imply some strange things about the world.

I have faith in Self to determine whether science is useful or not ... I don't have faith in scientists (science), as I don't trust all scientists

Neither do I. Scientists are just people.

Maybe, but you shouldn't. And you don't need to. Science, while not perfect, is the best tool we have to investigate and explain the world around us. We can be confident that if we can't do it with science, we have no better tool to try.

Consciousness confuses almost everyone.
That is because we don't have a definition of what consciousness really is. And I think we won't have a single one soon. Each discipline researching consciousness should define it for itself. (And don't listen to the philosophers. Keeping consciousness obscure means job security for them.)

Ok. We could just define consciousness as any kind of experience and we don't have to worry about what that means because there isn't one of us who doesn't know what it is to experience.

I think that things can be easy for some people who see the universe as a purely physical realm and so science as we know it is the only way to find the answer to consciousness. This unfortunately can lead to answers that are answers simply because they are all that science can find out by studying the brain etc.

It might be the case that physical science can't answer these questions. Or alternatively that physical science is just fine but humans don't have the capacity to answer the question or understand the answer. Nobody expects chimps to understand any of our theories and this doesn't reflect poorly on the theories.

If the world isn't purely physical (which it might not be) I do hope that consciousness still is. It would be really disappointing if we found that we can't solve the riddle because the answer lies in a place that our only useful tools don't work.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Not sure what you mean??

Give me an example

What is the best methodology for being a human?

 

[exchemist]

The quote you gave does reflect a faith in science and a faith in naturalism when there seems to be no evidence for it except that faith.

I suppose one can say we have evidence of the explanatory power of the the scientific method, which proceeds on the basis of methodological naturalism, in making sense of the physical world. But it is clearly true that methodological naturalism is an axiomatic principle, employed before any evidence-gathering commences, and then justified retrospectively by the successes that science has had.

 

[Heyo]

Well, that is your subjective standard for consciousness. I.e. you choose your standard for what you subjectively consider consciousness.

Yes, but at least I have one while the rest is still bickering at which end to open an egg.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...

If the world isn't purely physical (which it might not be) I do hope that consciousness still is. It would be really disappointing if we found that we can't solve the riddle because the answer lies in a place that our only useful tools don't work.

Is the world purely physical?
No, because your understanding of this "no" has no physical properties. You can't hold or otherwise engage with it with your physical body. It has no physical scientific measurement standard and there is no scientific theory for it.

Further you can't see that the world is physical. That is a mental idea in your brain and only real, because you believe in it.

 

[Polymath257]

That it is helpful is your opinion. And you are not the expert of what is helpful to humans. That is not science nor mathematics or logic. That is at best social science.

If I am studying a subject deeply, my opinion on what is helpful for understanding it *is* relevant because I am the expert.

Of course, experts can disagree. But when they do agree, it is usually a good idea to listen to what they say.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

If I am studying a subject deeply, my opinion on what is helpful for understanding it *is* relevant because I am the expert.

Of course, experts can disagree. But when they do agree, it is usually a good idea to listen to what they say.

Yeah, start studying how you can't avoid subjectivity and learn to admit that. Your world view is in part subjective just like the rest of us.