Methodological Naturalism: What it is (and how to make it a vital part of your love life)!

[Ponder This]

I'm not at all clear what you're getting at. To me, you are both saying and not saying that "the presence of other people is not required" to do science.

If individuals can do science, then so can groups of people. Validating each other's experiments is what leads to a body of knowledge accepted by the larger community. A body of knowledge accepted by the larger community is also referred to as a 'science'.

Do you know of any science that in practice is conducted outside of a community of scientists? If so, please point to it.

Anyone can practice science without submitting their results to peer review. Their results simply aren't accepted or rejected by the community. Generally speaking, science experiments are done by individuals and groups first and then submitted for the community for review and validation. That is how science is done. The community isn't necessary to do science; the community is necessary for validation by peers.

What do you think makes a science a science? I mean ultimately.

It is not my intention to commit a fallacy of equivocation. The word 'science' has multiple meanings.

Does your definition of a science exclude pseudo-sciences from being sciences without making any reference at all to a community of scientists -- such as, for instance, without making any reference to peer review, etc.

Pseudo-science is anything mistakenly regarded as being based on the scientific method. The Scientific Method is what defines science.

What do you mean by "The Scientific Method"? Who determines what is "The Scientific Method" and what is not "The Scientific Method"? What criteria is used to determine it?

Scientific Method
Scientific Method
Scientific Method

The main point that differs in how I understand the Scientific Method is that I accept information not gathered from the five physical senses. I accept that 'experiments' are 'controlled experiences' and, therefore, not limited to information from the five physical senses. The scientific method is applicable to non-physical experiences as well as physical experiences. By this I do not mean to infer that there is a duality, but rather that science limited to the five senses is 'physical science' (which is what we often take to mean 'science'). I do not mean to create an equivocation fallacy about what 'science' is. I merely point out that the Scientific Method has a broader scope of applicability than the five physical senses and what is collectively known as 'physical science'.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Good OP, @Sunstone.
I've been referring to myself as both an agnostic atheist and a methodological naturalist for years now.

Apart from confusion, one comment I occasionally get is that it seems a wishy-washy position.

Personally, I see it more in terms of a willingness to change in line with evidence. Interestingly despite this deliberate acknowledgement of that, it doesn't feel weak or temporary at all, in philosophical terms.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Ok, let's try a new tact here. Let's assume for the moment that you are right and that there is only one scientific method. We don't need to get into all the specifics of what that method is in order to point out that one specific it must include if it is to at least resemble modern scientific inquiry is RISV (reliable inter-subjective verification).

Now, there are at least half a dozen reasons why that's so. But to keep this brief, let's just focus on one reason alone. Suppose the following exchanged occurred between two scientists:

PAULA: "If you combine sodium and chlorine according to a certain procedure, you will get salt."

QUINCY: "Great! Let me see if I can reliably inter-subjectively verify that!"

PAULA: "No."

QUINCY: "What do you mean 'no'. We've always RISVed things -- at least in principle."

PAULA: "But RISV is not a necessary part of the scientific method. Therefore, you don't need to RISV my discovery that sodium and chlorine combine to produce salt in order for my discovery to be science. All you need do is take it on my authority that I proceeded according to the scientific method."

QUINCY: "Jolly Good! That certainly streamlines things. By the way, I scientifically proved god exists last night."

PAULA: "Oh? And how did you do that?"

QUINCY: "I had another mystical experience that I'm interpreting as an experience of god. I proceeded according to the same logic as used by field biologists when studying wolves in the wild. No need for you to verify that I experienced god. Inter-subjective verification never was a crucial part of the sciences anyway. Just take it on my word that I employed the scientific method, and thus demonstrated via it the existence of god."

PAULA: "Excellent! Later on today, I aim to scientifically demonstrate that turkey tastes better than beef."

Remove RISV from the method or methods of the sciences and you render the whole enterprise unrecognizable.

The first claim - the one about salt - unless it's a lucky guess, probably derives from a scientific effort.

There need be no second person around to call it science if the idea was derived empirically by consulting nature, and if the idea allows one to predict or determine outcomes. With that idea, that sole person can make table salt from sodium and chlorine.

The statement about turkey may be a subjective truth for the taster, but it is not an objective truth about turkeys in general like the table salt idea. One can say empirically that turkey tastes good to him, and we can call that science if you like inasmuch as it is exploring reality and deriving useful generalization from it that can be used to control outcomes, albeit not necessarily for everybody. It should be recognized as being a different kind of knowledge.

Here's where intersubjective verification is needed to make a scientific statement about the taste of turkey. If there were a second person, intersubjective verification might not be forthcoming. The other person might taste the turkey and retch. Now I can make a more objective statement about our common reality : Some people like turkey, and some say that they don't.

The god claim is not useful unless you consider comforting useful.

I'm not sure why we're not connecting here. Intersubjective verification is very useful in science to help eliminate error - isn't that what peer review and experiment reproduction is?

But my claim is that it's not necessary for examining physical reality and determining its properties. We all do it all of the time without consulting others.

I live five blocks north and three blocks east of the pier. That's an idea that I discerned from observing my local reality. I have never discussed it with anybody else, and nobody needed to tell me. I would know that even if there were no other people here.

That idea is one that can be used to predict and control outcomes about physical reality, and I needed no intersubljective verification to arrive at it, confirm it, or put it to good use. I know that if I walk five blocks south and three blocks west from my home, I will end up at the pier, and that if I walk three blocks south and five blocks west, I won't.

Isn't that dong science alone?

 

[blü 2]

In regards to a 'hard' definition of God:
I think that to conduct the experiment you do not need a complete description of God, but rather a sufficient description of God.

Yes, the question is sufficiency. We're looking for a real god, but all we have are outlines of imaginary gods, with ill-defined properties like 'omniscience' and 'omnipotence'. The definition must be sufficient to distinguish a god from a superscientist, for example, so it must pin down godness as a quality existing outside of imagination, and distinct from knowledge and power.

Then we could start by testing real things for this quality, starting, I dare say, with humans, since they're the only known species who truck with gods. (I trust it won't be necessary to accelerate them to close to c and collide them with each other to determine the question.)

The notion that dreams 'only exist in mentation' isn't important. The 'Higg's Boson' existed 'only in mentation' before it was discovered. There is no problem with conducting scientific inquiry into things that do not immediately and apparently admit of a 'physical' or 'material' existence.

But the theoretical origins of the Higgs notion gave a sufficient definition of the concept, that is, a clear checklist of the real properties we had to look for.

On what basis are you going to select the qualities you're looking for in imaginings? What test of relevance is there?

Arguably, if you have an experience, then it means that something 'real' has occurred even if you do not fully understand what has happened.

All imaginings, all concepts and memories, have physical existence in the form of brain states. But that doesn't make the contents of any concept real. The unicorn is the usual example, but at least the unicorn is sufficiently defined, and we'd know one if we found one. But god doesn't even have that.

I'm not sure how the fact of our subjectivity or the existence of other religions (and views of religions) matters.

It's the heart of the matter. To be real, God must have objective existence, independently of any concept of him in anyone's brain. That's why the Higgs boson wasn't real till we found it in reality. And why God still isn't real; and why the search for God is in a hopeless intellectual position relative to the Higgs, lacking even a definition.

Are you asking why we would regard god and devils and their friends as having 'physical' existence?

If we accept that they're imaginary, they don't need physical existence. That's their present condition.

If we want to advance gods to having objective existence, that can only mean real, somewhere in nature, the realm of the physical sciences.

our inability to see hydrogen atoms our naked eye is not sufficient to say that hydrogen atoms lack physical existence.

But they're defined, we know them when we find them, we have instruments for just that purpose, not just spectrometers or chemical reaction tests but scanning devices.

Real gods, the 'godness' quality that exists in reality and which distinguishes real gods from superscientists, is undefined.

Indeed the apophatic trend in theology is anti-definition, anti-specific, the better to make god wholly, utterly imaginary, scarcely with properties at all.

Meanwhile, of course, God [him]self is no help in the search, since as it was in the beginning it continues to be, God neither saying nor doing.

 

[Ponder This]

I think I just need to clarify what I mean.

Yes, the question is sufficiency. We're looking for a real god, but all we have are outlines of imaginary gods, with ill-defined properties like 'omniscience' and 'omnipotence'. The definition must be sufficient to distinguish a god from a superscientist, for example, so it must pin down godness as a quality existing outside of imagination, and distinct from knowledge and power.

Then we could start by testing real things for this quality, starting, I dare say, with humans, since they're the only known species who truck with gods. (I trust it won't be necessary to accelerate them to close to c and collide them with each other to determine the question.)

We agree about sufficiency. The point I was making is that 'omnipotence', and 'omniscience' may not be necessary to a definition of God even if God has those properties.

A 'hard' definition means a sufficient 'physical' definition, not necessarily a complete one.

But the theoretical origins of the Higgs notion gave a sufficient definition of the concept, that is, a clear checklist of the real properties we had to look for.

On what basis are you going to select the qualities you're looking for in imaginings? What test of relevance is there?

The point I was trying to make is that dreams can be examined scientifically in the absence of a physical counterpart. Dreams are perceived directly. That dreams appear to exist 'only in mentation' is not actually an obstacle to the scientific examination of them, merely an obstacle to the physical examination of them.

If we accept that they're imaginary, they don't need physical existence. That's their present condition.

If we want to advance gods to having objective existence, that can only mean real, somewhere in nature, the realm of the physical sciences.

If they are imaginary, it does not mean that they do not have physical existence, but if we want to apply physical science to them, then we do require a sufficient physical description. We might still be able to apply science if they admit of a sufficient non-physical description (just not 'physical' science).

But they're defined, we know them when we find them, we have instruments for just that purpose, not just spectrometers or chemical reaction tests but scanning devices.

Real gods, the 'godness' quality that exists in reality and which distinguishes real gods from superscientists, is undefined.

Indeed the apophatic trend in theology is anti-definition, anti-specific, the better to make god wholly, utterly imaginary, scarcely with properties at all.

Meanwhile, of course, God [him]self is no help in the search, since as it was in the beginning it continues to be, God neither saying nor doing.

What I mean is: why should we allow the existence of religions to invalidate our perceptions? And since perceptions, by their nature, require an observer, why should we disregard them on the basis of subjectivity?

 

[blü 2]

dreams can be examined scientifically in the absence of a physical counterpart. Dreams are perceived directly. That dreams appear to exist 'only in mentation' is not actually an obstacle to the scientific examination of them, merely an obstacle to the physical examination of them.

The processes of the brain are all physical. They include concepts that have no physical (ie no real) counterpart, like unicorns and magic and Spiderman, and also abstractions like '2', 'justice', 'evolution', 'economic realism', 'dancing', 'a chair', and so on, which are only found by their real instantiations ─ and even there they require human judgment to be instantiations.

So it boils down to this, I suggest: what's the question we're trying to answer here. For me, it's, What's true in reality?

If they are imaginary, it does not mean that they do not have physical existence, but if we want to apply physical science to them, then we do require a sufficient physical description.

Concepts, dreams, imaginings, hallucinations, all have physical existence as brain states, and brain states are indeed already the subject of a great deal of study.

I'm point to the distinction between the concept / brain state, and the subject of the concept, like 'unicorn' or 'god'. The concept might loosely be likened to a box, and the contents of the box can be anything, real or imaginary. Another loose analogy might be to a sheet of paper (the brain state that's the concept) and the drawing on the sheet of paper (the contents of the concept) again like 'unicorn' or 'god'.

It will be illuminating to find the relationship between the two, box and content, page and drawing. But unless the content / drawing has a counterpart in reality, a counterpart with objective existence, it won't be of something real.

What I mean is: why should we allow the existence of religions to invalidate our perceptions?

Whether religions exist or not, we know that our perceptions are not necessarily reliable. A speed camera will beat your perceptions of your driving any day.

 

[Ponder This]

I think that for the most part we agree.

So it boils down to this, I suggest: what's the question we're trying to answer here. For me, it's, What's true in reality?

IMO, this includes things those things that you experience ('mental states' in addition to the five physical senses), but I understand that we esteem physical science.

Concepts, dreams, imaginings, hallucinations, all have physical existence as brain states, and brain states are indeed already the subject of a great deal of study.

I'm point to the distinction between the concept / brain state, and the subject of the concept, like 'unicorn' or 'god'. The concept might loosely be likened to a box, and the contents of the box can be anything, real or imaginary. Another loose analogy might be to a sheet of paper (the brain state that's the concept) and the drawing on the sheet of paper (the contents of the concept) again like 'unicorn' or 'god'.

It will be illuminating to find the relationship between the two, box and content, page and drawing. But unless the content / drawing has a counterpart in reality, a counterpart with objective existence, it won't be of something real.

We agree. However, the contents of the boxes and the forms of the boxes coincide. We can know the contents of the box by looking at the box. So it may be that the contents of the boxes matter even if they aren't 'real' (have physical existence).

Whether religions exist or not, we know that our perceptions are not necessarily reliable. A speed camera will beat your perceptions of your driving any day.

I suppose that this is why the OP mentions RISV (reliable inter-subjective verification). Science when conducted is subjective and not necessarily reliable.

 

[blü 2]

I suppose that this is why the OP mentions RISV (reliable inter-subjective verification). Science when conducted is subjective and not necessarily reliable.

Only more reliable, and demonstrably so, than any other approach so far.

After all, science doesn't claim to be right in any absolute sense. As Brian Cox put it, a law of physics is a statement by physicists that hasn't been refuted. All conclusions of science are tentative; but they're good enough to put rovers on Mars, and do all kinds of astonishing things, like this computer I'm using.