Metaphysical-Physicalism.

[Yazata]

It seems to me that belief in inductive logic is something like an atheistic placebo.

That's a rather tendentious way of putting it. I'm not sure what inductive logic has to do with atheism.

Inductive logic isn't 'logic' in the deductive logic sense. It seems more like a heuristic, a problem solving strategy. In this case the strategy of 'learning from experience'. That depends on faith in the uniformity of nature I guess, faith in the idea that the rest of the universe of discourse will resemble our sample in relevant respects.

It allows the vast majority of human beings to use the divine spirit God gave them while treating the abilities circumscribed by that divine spirit as though they're produced inductively --- naturally.

What are you using the phrase "divine spirit" to mean? If it's some divinely granted principle of reason, how does that differ from induction? You seem to be trying to draw a distinction here and I don't quite see it.

If it can be shown that they're not, then all persons would have to rise to the level of understanding possessed by Einstein and Chomsky (Popper too), which would, if nothing else, cause severe epistemological discomfort for those who prefer to lie in the crib and watch the dangling mobile with a ga ga, and a goo goo, now and then.

I don't understand what you are saying there.

Most of humanity seems to be engulfed in something like a metaphysical-physicalism, which is, naturally, a tautological oxymoron.

I'd guess that most people aren't metaphysical physicalists. But many of the RF atheists do seem to be.

While I'm not a metaphysical physicalist myself, that's largely because I see no way to justify that kind of metaphysical belief to my satisfaction. Much the same reason why I don't believe in God or in Christianity. I simply don't possess the secret of the universe and I'm happy admitting it.

I don't think that I'd call metaphysical physicalism a "tautological oxymoron" though.

 

[Meow Mix]

It seems to me that belief in inductive logic is something like an atheistic placebo. It allows the vast majority of human beings to use the divine spirit God gave them while treating the abilities circumscribed by that divine spirit as though they're produced inductively --- naturally.

If it can be shown that they're not, then all persons would have to rise to the level of understanding possessed by Einstein and Chomsky (Popper too), which would, if nothing else, cause severe epistemological discomfort for those who prefer to lie in the crib and watch the dangling mobile with a ga ga, and a goo goo, now and then.

Most of humanity seems to be engulfed in something like a metaphysical-physicalism, which is, naturally, a tautological oxymoron.



John

Do you have any justification for the claim that when we think we’re using inductive reasoning, we’re actually using something divinely given rather than “natural?”

 

[QuestioningMind]

It seems to me that belief in inductive logic is something like an atheistic placebo. It allows the vast majority of human beings to use the divine spirit God gave them while treating the abilities circumscribed by that divine spirit as though they're produced inductively --- naturally.

If it can be shown that they're not, then all persons would have to rise to the level of understanding possessed by Einstein and Chomsky (Popper too), which would, if nothing else, cause severe epistemological discomfort for those who prefer to lie in the crib and watch the dangling mobile with a ga ga, and a goo goo, now and then.

Most of humanity seems to be engulfed in something like a metaphysical-physicalism, which is, naturally, a tautological oxymoron.



John

Seems to me that first you need to provide some verifiable evidence that this proposed divine spirit god actually exists. Until you can I'll stick with the natural explanation.

 

[RestlessSoul]

What is the belief in inductive logic? Can one not believe in it? One doesn't even need to know what it is to derive generalizations inductively from experience. My dogs do it, as they learn to associate sights and sounds with what has followed them in the past and will therefore likely expect the same relationships to persist in the future. That's how they learned what the doorbell means.

And what is an atheistic placebo? Is a sham atheistic treatment?

Other have already noted that your use of language isn't descriptive enough, and none of us seem to know what you are saying or looking for here. I can't even begin to respond to that comment except in the manner I have - what does it mean? Use more words and flesh out your ideas in paragraphs that don't skimp on description, definition, or explanation as I have just done here. There is nothing about these words that isn't clear.

Let's work on your OP, since there really isn't anything more to do until we know what you are saying.



Once again, what does this mean? How does one use a divine spirit? I'm an atheist. Are you saying I do that? If so, what are you saying I'm doing? Am I getting that divine spirit to help me?

And what is this other thing you say I might be doing at the same time. What would be an example of something a person like me might have done that could be described as, "treating the abilities circumscribed by that divine spirit as though they're produced inductively --- naturally." Did you mean innately or intuitively rather than inductively?

Have you never been in a position where it is important that you are understood clearly? How did you speak or write then? I'm a retired clinical physician, and it was very important that patients understood what was said to them. Imagine using language like atheistic placebo or abilities circumscribed. Fauci has this problem, probably because he hasn't treated a patient in decades. I listened to him on TV this week, and he used three technical words in one sentence that most listeners wouldn't understand.



Now Einstein, Chomsky, and Popper appear, seemingly gratuitously. It reminds me of the lyrics to Dylan's Desolation row, which is just as opaque:

Cinderella, she seems so easy, "It takes one to know one, " she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning. "You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says, "You're in the wrong place, my friend, you'd better leave

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood with his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago with his friend, a jealous monk"

Exactly what is Dylan saying? Nothing, really. It's poetry, and you are expected to experience it like a verbal Rorschach test, where you insert some of your own imagination to give these sentences some meaning, some relevant narrative. Likewise with your comment. I have to guess why you mentioned those names and what you think they did or do that is relavent to what came before and after those names.



It's poetry time again. I have no idea what you are trying to tell us. A tautology is not an oxymoron (they are actually kind of opposite, one using identity and the other apparent contradiction), and how does metaphysical realism relate to what has come before it?

My advice if you seek more clarity in your writing is to stick with smaller, less technical words in full sentences that you would expect children to understand, and build up from there using more vocabulary and more complicated sentences, checking to see that you have included everything necessary to understand you.

So what do you think about trying to rewrite the OP together? I'm sure that I can help once I know what you want to communicate. And you can compare the starting and ending product to see the difference.

I found the OP considerably more lucid and concise than your comment on it.

That isn't a criticism of you; it's more, I think, a manifestation of the disconnect that occurs when two parties use a common language without sharing a common perspective. A paradigm shift is required, for each to understand the other; this can only occur when there is sufficient willingness and open mindedness from both parties.

 

[viole]

It seems to me that belief in inductive logic is something like an atheistic placebo. It allows the vast majority of human beings to use the divine spirit God gave them while treating the abilities circumscribed by that divine spirit as though they're produced inductively --- naturally.

If it can be shown that they're not, then all persons would have to rise to the level of understanding possessed by Einstein and Chomsky (Popper too), which would, if nothing else, cause severe epistemological discomfort for those who prefer to lie in the crib and watch the dangling mobile with a ga ga, and a goo goo, now and then.

Most of humanity seems to be engulfed in something like a metaphysical-physicalism, which is, naturally, a tautological oxymoron.



John

Do you have evidence that metaphysical naturalism is false? How does it look like? Does it look like evidence that a spiritual world with a God in it exists, or are you going to be more specific? Are you showing us, not only that such a God exists, but that He sort of died for our sins, walked on water, turned water into wine, and all that?

And if you fail to provide convincing evidence of the latter, why are you a Christian, and not simply an unspecified theist?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It seems to me that belief in inductive logic is something like an atheistic placebo. It allows the vast majority of human beings to use the divine spirit God gave them while treating the abilities circumscribed by that divine spirit as though they're produced inductively --- naturally.

If it can be shown that they're not, then all persons would have to rise to the level of understanding possessed by Einstein and Chomsky (Popper too), which would, if nothing else, cause severe epistemological discomfort for those who prefer to lie in the crib and watch the dangling mobile with a ga ga, and a goo goo, now and then.

Most of humanity seems to be engulfed in something like a metaphysical-physicalism, which is, naturally, a tautological oxymoron.



John

Is there a speciation event associated with the rise of people to the intellectual pinnacle of Einstein, Chomsky and Popper?

Is this placebo the opiate of atheists? Does it require a prescription or can it be procured in the transcendental over-the-counter humdrum of a mindset whose epistemological understanding is repressed and stressed by chronological backwash of nontrivial statistical thought?

 

[F1fan]

My advice if you seek more clarity in your writing is to stick with smaller, less technical words in full sentences that you would expect children to understand, and build up from there using more vocabulary and more complicated sentences, checking to see that you have included everything necessary to understand you.

When I was in my 30's and doing a lot of thinking and reading philosophy and pretty sure I had a lot figured out I was writing essays on my perspectives of things. My sister was reading a few of them one day and she said it sounds like an intelligent guy using big words with complex and incomprehensible phrasing to hide how little he actually knows about anything.

Ouch. And she was correct.

 

[Magical Wand]

Is there a speciation event associated with the rise of people to the intellectual pinnacle of Einstein, Chomsky and Popper?

Is this placebo the opiate of atheists? Does it require a prescription or can it be procured in the transcendental over-the-counter humdrum of a mindset whose epistemological understanding is repressed and stressed by chronological backwash of nontrivial statistical thought?

I see what you did here.

 

[firedragon]

Physicalism in years past had a much larger gap to cross. That gap has narrowed quite a bit in the last 100 years.

Generally, this is an opinion of the evangelical atheist I see spoken of a lot. But the theists who engage in evangelism does not hold a candle to that faith statement.

Most theists in the field believe that the last 100 years has narrowed the gap.

 

[firedragon]

Is this placebo the opiate of atheists?

Maybe, and maybe other things are. But if there is a Marx Junior today he will be half quoted.

 

[John D. Brey]

Ok, lets assume, since we have no other knowledge of how the mobile dangles above us that God is holding it overhead. . . What knowledge does this assumption give us about the entity that is capable of doing so?

What Popper said about something like that, is that nothing about the mobile dangling overhead in any way requires, encourages, or even suggests, to the child admiring it from below, that they should wonder for one second if it's being dangled by a wire, or whether it just hovers there supernaturally.


John

 

[John D. Brey]

. . . is it possible to explain what you are saying in a more simple way for someone like me to understand.

For you to ask the question the way you did suggests that you're either being facetious, or that you ---better than most ---intuit that there very well could be something like the problem I'm discussing.

If the latter is the case, then you'd need to throw me a line by asking a more specific question about what you read that made you respond.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

I'm with Brian. I don't understand what you mean entirely. I'll do my best. . . By the 'divine spirit God gave them'/'abilities' do you mean simple logic and reasoning? If so, can you explain why they're supernatural?

Human reasoning and logic aren't reasonable and or logical so far as the laws of physics are concerned (the mathematicians Godel and Penrose wrote a word or two about that). But because man's natural frame, his biological body, is subject to, and circumscribed by, the laws of physics, he naturally assumes that the way he thinks must be just as natural as his biological body is natural.

But that's not the case. And even agnostic and atheist thinkers are beginning to realize that the things the human mind does have no reasonable, logical, foundation, in the way the natural world functions.

Popper and Einstein realized and talked about the fallacy of inductive logic whereby a mind does things that are impossible by the laws of physics, and then assumes that because the mind is allegedly a phenomenon of the natural, physical body, the thing, or things, it just did, have to be derived from natural cause and effect, inductive, reasoning and logic, i.e, the foundations of the physical body.

Popper and Einstein were both clear that's not the case. Popper said:

The doctrine that empirical sciences are reducible to sense perceptions, and thus to our experiences, is one which many accept as obvious beyond all question. However, this doctrine stands or falls with inductive logic, and is here rejected along with it.

Karl Popper, in David Miller’s Popper Selections, p. 152.​

Likewise, Roger Penrose said:

Among the things that Godel indisputably established was that no formal system of sound mathematical rules of proof can ever suffice, even in principle, to establish all the true propositions of ordinary arithmetic. This is certainly remarkable enough. But a powerful case can also be made that his results showed something more than this, and established that human understanding and insight cannot be reduced to any set of computational rules. For what he appears to have shown is that no such system of rules can ever be sufficient to prove even those propositions of arithmetic whose truth is accessible, in principle, to human intuition and insight – whence human intuition and insight cannot be reduced to any set of rules. It will be part of my purpose here to try to convince the reader that Godel’s theorem indeed shows this, and provides the foundation of my argument that there must be more to human thinking than can ever be achieved by a computer, in the sense that we understand the term `computer’ today.

Roger Penrose, Shadows of the Mind, (Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 64-65.​

I don't see why everyone would have to rise beyond their comfort zone if they don't want to. There are many people that don't even consider other ontological principles outside of "things exist, nothing further is needed".

There's a saying that to whom much is given, much is expected. In my opinion, man has been given divinity. That's a whole lot of something to get for nothing. So I suspect much is expected of us irregardless of the unfathomable sadness the giver must have in most cases.



John

 

[F1fan]

Human reasoning and logic aren't reasonable and or logical so far as the laws of physics are concerned (the mathematicians Godel and Penrose wrote a word or two about that). But because man's natural frame, his biological body, is subject to, and circumscribed by, the laws of physics, he naturally assumes that the way he thinks must be just as natural as his biological body is natural.

But that's not the case. And even agnostic and atheist thinkers are beginning to realize that the things the human mind does have no reasonable, logical, foundation, in the way the natural world functions.

Who says this, and what are they saying? As an atheist I've never heard anyone suggest such a thing.

 

[John D. Brey]

Most of humanity seems to be engulfed in something like a metaphysical-physicalism, which is, naturally, a tautological oxymoron.​

What do you mean by this?

Metaphysical concepts, like God, or Plato's world of perfect forms, are ideas, thoughts, that posit things that transcend our physical world and the physics and limitations that are part of the laws of physics and the natural world.

If all human thought transcends (at some level of its functioning) the very genetic frame it parasites for a home, then there's a meta-physical element to human thought that those content to believe they're merely physical phenomena --through and through ----have no means to account for such that they take it for granted that things that are impossible so far as normal physics are concerned are clearly natural since they believe they themselves are natural to the core, and they do these things.

Popper's entire problem with inductive inferences is that he realized the the human mind never functions strictly within the confines of its natural frame such that when people believe it does, they take the miraculous things the mind does, and retroactively attribute them to normal inductive, natural, logical, steps, and processes, therein clouding the reality of what the mind is actually doing.

Popper had two tremendous problems. One, trying to explain to people the fact that their mind doesn't really do the things it does through normal, cause and effect, inductive, processes. And two, trying to understand for himself, as an agnostic bordering on atheism, how it's possible that the human mind could be tethered to the physics of the natural world and yet transcend those physics since even he believed it (the mind) arose from those physics?

Popper rightly says: `Almost everything is wrong in the common sense theory of knowledge' . . . and Bryan Magee, an Oxford philosopher of immense standing stated (in his biography) that he was more sure than he's ever been that no concepts that equate with the idea that we receive knowledge from experience can ever be true: `The whole approach seems to me a sort of flat-earthism in which a large part of the human race is still enmeshed - a belief that may seem self-evidently true to insufficiently penetrating eyes, or insufficiently enquiring [sic] minds, but is hopelessly wrong'(Magee 1999).



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Inductive logic has its limitations, and anyone can use it, even if they assume gods exist.

Popper says it's impossible for the human mind to use it; that it never uses it. But that it retroactively accounts for what it does by consciously and subconsciously attributing its remarkable, unnatural, abilities, to nature, and thus retroactively assuming what it did it did inductively when it didn't.

Assuming a divine spirit exists, and assuming any sort of god exists outside of human imagination.

The primary point is that something functions outside of physics. We call that "meta-physics." And recently a slew of agnostic thinkers have been forced to concede that its now impossible to deny that the human mind is a metaphysical product tethered somehow to the physics of the human brain.

Those who don't yet realize this is the case, practice a sort of metaphysical-physicalism by retroactively cramming metaphysical powers and actions into a physical straight-jacket and grinning all the way to the bank while occasionally tripping over their own cognitive dissonance.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

So the topic is intelligence? Who has it. Who doesn't.

Absolutely not. "Intelligence" is a word faux-inductivists believe describes something of great value. But men like Popper and Einstein are clear that imagination is greater than intelligence. Intelligence is a physical measure of a person's brain capacity, when without being blinded by the fallacy of inductive logic, a brain is able to do feats that can only be called "genius"; so long as we realize that word means things that can't be measured by the puny ruler of "intelligence." People who want to be, strive to be, intelligent, will almost never be something of true value: genius. And genius isn't measured in intelligence. Most geniuses are stupid as hell on the intelligence quotient.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

One can philosophically argue about physicalism all day but to me what seals the deal against physicalism is the cumulative evidence from the so-called paranormal/spiritual. No way can so many things be explained under a physicalist paradigm.

A person like me needs physical evidence that trumps an endless philosophical debate.

I would say that the problem of physical evidence is that all evidence requires interpretation. There's no evidence that's not biased by what the person seeking the evidence is hoping to find. If the evidence they find contradicts what they're searching for, unless they're a rare breed, they merely look elsewhere till the find evidence that confirms, or seems to, to one degree or other, what they want the evidence to confirm.

Inductive logic is the poster-child for what was just said. Anyone with a modicum of effort can, and do, come to realize inductive logic can't work, doesn't work, and yet we could probably say better than 99% of humanity think they're functioning by it every day.



John

 

[F1fan]

Popper says it's impossible for the human mind to use it; that it never uses it.

And that means what to those using it? It's a simple form of reasoning and the rules work. Popper tends to over-analyze things to a degree where he concludes nothing works. Yet things still work.

But that it retroactively accounts for what it does by consciously and subconsciously attributing its remarkable, unnatural, abilities, to nature, and thus retroactively assuming what it did it did inductively when it didn't.

Thinking is quite natural. Now he might be referring to reasoning as being unnatural because it is a set of rules humans developed. But that itself is just how the human mind works in its natural environment.

The primary point is that something functions outside of physics. We call that "meta-physics." And recently a slew of agnostic thinkers have been forced to concede that its now impossible to deny that the human mind is a metaphysical product tethered somehow to the physics of the human brain.

Those who don't yet realize this is the case, practice a sort of metaphysical-physicalism by retroactively cramming metaphysical powers and actions into a physical straight-jacket and grinning all the way to the bank while occasionally tripping over their own cognitive dissonance.

Metaphysics is magic.

I notice you offer no citation to this claim. It's not convincing.

 

[John D. Brey]

What is the belief in inductive logic? Can one not believe in it? One doesn't even need to know what it is to derive generalizations inductively from experience. My dogs do it, as they learn to associate sights and sounds with what has followed them in the past and will therefore likely expect the same relationships to persist in the future. That's how they learned what the doorbell means.

There might be a fundamental difference between memorization and inductive logic. For instance, a dog might memorize the sound of the doorbell and know the food dude is home. That's like, well, Pavlov's dog. Which is instinctual.

But say for example that whenever the food dude goes on a multi-day hiatus (so that the dog must go a day or two without getting fed) he always rides his motorcycle home from work (the food dude not the dog). Memorizing this fact, when food dude open the pantry, loads up the food bowl, and starts toward the patio, the dog quickly and undetected grabs the food bag and stashes it under a chair where food dude can't see it so that while the feeder is gone, the dog can eat anyway.

At this point, memorization, and instinct, both of which are quasi-natural, get transcended by non-inductive thought. In Popper's parlance nothing whatsoever, regardless of memorization, or instinct, causes the dog to use his reasoning in a way to out-think food dude, memorization, and instinct. Nothing natural, logical, instinctual, is behind the dog taking things into his own hands, or teeth, through a fairly complex set of reasoning logic, and actions, all of which are generated, and planned, by an ability that's not instinctual, or even natural.

If a modern Westerner took his I-phone and showed it to an aborigine who'd never contacted modern man, the aborigine would think it was some kind of divine product from heaven since the aborigine mind is not only not confused about inductive logic, neither does it do anything profound that it would have to attribute to inductive logic. In other word, those Westerners who believe in inductive logic are like unfaithful aborigines. They want I-phones and the Internet though they're unaware that no such thing has ever been created by aborigines or inductive logic. Unlike their aborigine peers who simple refuse to use any mental capacity that threatens their claim to naturalism, natural-ness, physicalism, the Westernized abo uses the divine accoutrements of his mind and then paints over the metaphysical dimensions with his faux-inductivist fallacy.



John