From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Thu Apr 21 2005 - 19:34:22 BST
Ian,
Scott, you said
It is dogmatic because you have selected physis as the basis for explaining
psyche, logos, etc., without having in hand even a hint of an explanation
for psyche and logos in terms of physics.
Ian said:
I say absolutely not - I haven't offered any such explanations yet in
this thread, but I assure you "physics" has the best explantions I've
seen. Show me a better quality explanation - I'll buy it - I promise
you. (Physics doesn't stand or fall on the quality of MY explanation -
thankfully - it has plenty of its own as I've more than hinted.) I
didn't "select" physis / physics on the basis of any dogma - I have
gravitated towards it, on finding it provided the better
expolanations.
Scott:
My better explanation is that the problem of explaining consciousness is a
pseudo-problem arising from a commitment to physicalism. "Investigation",
"explanation", "description" are all activities of consciousness. To attempt
to explain consciousness is like attempting to explain reality, or
existence, as such.
Scott added:
This is fine if you are looking for a quality explanation of [old
fashioned classical "physical" things].
Ian replies
Sorry, but that's just not so Scott. "New physics" can explain far
more, better, as far as I can tell, and I am looking very hard. (I'm
getting into Dawkins territory here - not a place I want to be - I
really am not dogmatically pro-science .... EXCEPT when I'm defending
it against dogma - just like Dawkins spends his life doing bless him.
That darned catch-22 again. On a level playing field I actually
started very anti-science as I said already.)
Scott:
I had QED in mind as the explanation of electricity. What do you have in
mind that the new physics has an explanation for?
I think we are in agreement on defending scientific explanations over
dogmatic explanations where science's writ is clear, but isn't that a given
outside fundamentalist circles? That has been my point. Of course we are
debating over the extent of that writ.
Ian said:
The crux as far as this debate is concerned is here ...
(What Scott and many others seem to understand by "science")
Scott said earlier [snip]
"Scientism" as "the principle that SCIENTIFIC METHOD
can and should be applied in all fields of investigation." [..]
thinking of it as the principle that only that which science can
investigate is real [..]
[Ian is] in conflict with religion, while science itself is not.
Ian repeats - this is a very important misunderstanding.
The kind of science your are talking about is the platonic kind that
snuggled up to the establishment church for a couple of millenia (to
avoid being burned at the stake, etc.) and allowed itself to be
thought of as "scientific method" in order not to conflict with
religious dogma beyond the realms of "scientific method".
Scott:
I think this is screwed up. The kind of science I am talking about scarcely
existed until the 17th century. The Inquisition didn't get established until
the second millenium, and it was about rooting out heretical religion, not
science. (Galileo had to recant because he claimed that heliocentrism was
true, and therefore the Bible was false, which at the time was heresy. He
would have been okay if he had just said that the heliocentric model was a
better model for producing calculations.)
But your last bit I don't understand. What does scientific method have to do
with dogma? It is scientific results that conflicted with dogma.
Scott confirms his impression ...
Science works well on the repeatable and empirically testable.
Otherwise, not.
Ian repeats ...
That is a statement about "scientific method" NOT science.
Science is far more than scientific method, despite what the memes say.
(Something I've repeated many times BTW in this thread.)
On that basis I am most definitely not a "scientism-ist".
Popper was so nearly right, but misunderstood I'm beginning to
suspect, by me too.
Agree or not, am I making sense, before I go on ?
Scott:
I'm afraid you are not making sense to me. By "science" I mean physics,
chemistry, geology, astronomy, biology,... -- whatever people do to get
results that gets peer reviewed and published in scientific journals.
Scientific method is whatever those people did to get those results
(excluding plagiarism or falsifying data). One can note family resemblances
in those methods, so one can say that if similar methods are used by some
amateur in a garage, then that amateur is approaching a problem
scientifically, even if no results are obtained, or nothing gets published.
I do not consider an investigation into the literary merits of Shakespeare
to be science, or theology or philosophy. There are many borderline cases.
Is philology a science? I'm not sure. Linguistics? Partly, but when it gets
into semantics, no. Psychology? Partly, but usually turns out badly (e.g.,
behaviorism). Note that I said science "works well" in the repeatable and
empirically testable -- not that it doesn't work at all in the
non-repeatable and non-empirically testable.
So, no, I do not know what you mean in distinguishing "scientific method"
from "science". I've gone back in this thread to where you joined in in
response to my "not in conflict" statement, and don't find any indication of
what you mean by "science is far more than scientific method", so I guess
that needs clarification, or a pointer.
- Scott
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