From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sun Aug 24 2003 - 04:12:07 BST
Matt,
> Scott said:
> What if I had said "because it is assumed that while there can be material
explanations, there can be no valid (or useful, or something) immaterial
explanations"? where an immaterial explanation is one that explains in terms
of events that cannot be described in micro-structural terms. For example,
to say "Mozart created melodies by tuning into the music of the spheres."
There can, to be sure, be explanations that are neither material nor
immaterial.
>
> Matt:
> You've given a very odd definition of "immaterial explanations." Here's
why: if you had said, "because it is assumed that while there can be
material explanations, there can be no valid ... immaterial explanations,"
under your definition of "immaterial explanations", I have to agree, there
is no such thing as an immaterial explanation. Why? Because pragmatists
think descriptions go all the way down, that no description gets anything
Right or Correct, and that everything can be endlessly redescribed ad
infinitum, til the end of eternity. There is no such thing as an event that
cannot be described in micro-structural terms, just as there is no such
thing as an event that cannot be described in macro-structural terms. There
is no such thing as "cannot be described as...." Pragmatists think you can
describe an event any damn way you want, the thing that counts is how useful
the description is.
Scott: The "useful" was implied, and "in micro-structural terms" was to
mean -- as I
assumed Rorty meant it -- as being in conformity with physical laws, as
currently known. So telepathy and clairvoyance would be events that cannot
usefully be described in micro-structural terms. However, why didn't I make
life simple for myself and define immaterial explanations (as in
anti-material, not
non-material, like immoral as opposed to amoral) as those that
people who find them useful are not, or cease to be, materialists..
>
[Matt:]> That's why I think your definition of "immaterial explanations" to
be very
odd. If you had simply meant the opposite of material, as in non-material,
then sure, non-material explanations are valid and can be useful. But to
say that an event can only be described in immaterial terms is to say that
you've found the Correct Way to describe the event. Now, this isn't to say
that pragmatists are reductionistic. Endlessly redecribing things is not
the same as endlessly reducing them. The point of being a non-reductive
physicalist is that the mind is not _reduced_ to the brain, that "Mozart
created music by tuning into the music of the spheres" isn't _reduced_ to a
Bloomian account of Mozart's anxious relation to his predecessors, and the
table isn't _reduced_ to gluons and quarks. There are simply some instances
in which it is useful to talk about the mind, the music of the spheres, and
tables and some instances in which it is useful to talk about the brain, the
anxiety of influence, and quarks. When a way of describing something dies
off (such
as talk about the music of the spheres), this isn't to say that dead way has
been reduced to the new way, it is only to say that we find it more useful
now to talk about heliocentrism than geocentrism.
Scott:
My definition didn't refer to events that can only be described in
immaterial terms. It refers to events that -- if they happen -- cannot be
described by known physics, and if some future physics can describe them,
there would be little point in distinguishing physicalists from
non-physicalists anymore.
- Scott
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