On Wednesday, August 21, 2013 6:11:05 PM UTC+1, Christopher A. Lee wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Aug 2013 14:00:45 -0700, Jeanne Douglas
<snip>
>
> >> > > Arguably, you could prove that there is no god by proving metaphysical
> > >> > > > naturalism as a scientific theory.
>
>
>
> It not up to anybody to disprove it any more that to disprove
> > Russell's tea pot in Pluto's orbit.
> >
> It is up to its claimants.
it might not be "up to" anybody, in the sense of a
duty to do this.
This however does not mean that people can't make the
decision to try it, out of interest or to increase the sum
of human knowledge.
as many have done, from antiquity (Demokritus
and Epicurus to modernity (Dennet, Sam harris,
probably Richard Dawkins etc). They did not
ask your permission to spend their time on this?
Well, tough.
> >
> >> > Do you have any actual evidence for this "metaphysical naturalism"?
> >> Well, depends what you mean with "evidence".
>
> Standard intellectually dishonest dodge ball.
Nope, a request for necessary precision.
>
> >Evidence is objective and verifiable. Verifiable by ANYone.
> If they actually had any they wouldn't need this kind of weaseling.
No weaseling involved. Just a recognition that in different fields
of activity, standards of what counts as "evidence" may differ
Some people believe for instance that we can rationally
debate ethical issues even though we don;t have
the type of evidence for or against a position that we would
get in physics.
>
>
> >> It is a philosophical
> > >> position, so you get mainly arguments that appeal to plausibility,
> > >
>
> >Plausibility ain't evidence.
>
> >
> Hiding behind philosophy proves nothing - they need to back it up in
> > the real world.
>
> > But it's only intended for those who already believe, and then only a
> > rationalisation.
>
"Metaphysical naturalism" implies atheism, so a pretty ..
strange..statement.
>
> >> though the philosophers who expose it tend to be of the more "sciencey"
> > >> variety - Dennet, Churchland,Susan Blackmore (and earlier
> > >> Rudolf Carnap, Bertrand Russel, and generally the Vienna circle)
> > >> Daniel Dennet's Darwin's Dangerous ideas
> > >> is often seen as the most recent manifesto, with is notion that
> >
> Emotionally loaded to the point of falsehood.
>
What is "emotionalyl loaded" about this? Dennet's book
is highly influential and cited widely by people
who advocate that position A simple, verifiable fact
>
> >> the theory of evolution has acted as "universal acid" that
> > >> could not be contained within biology, or even science
> > >> (that would be methodological naturalism)
>
> Bullshit.
Do you mean Dennet's position, or my rendition of it?
If it is the former, I would agree, I think his
position is not convincing.
If the latter, well, we can let him speak for himself:
"This book is about why Darwin's idea is so powerful,
and why it promises -- not threatens -- to put our
most cherished visions of life on a new foundation."
Darwin's Dangerous Idea p.11
Universal acid is a liquid so corrosive that it will eat
through anything! The problem is: what do you keep it in?
It dissolves glass bottles and stainless-steel canisters as
readily as paper bags. What would happen if you some how
came upon or created a dollop of universal acid? [...]
Little did I realize that in a few years I would encounter
an idea -- Darwin's idea -- bearing an unmistakable likeness
to universal acid: it eats through just about every traditional
concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world-view,
with most of the old landmarks still recognizable, but transformed
in fundamental ways.
Darwin's idea had been born as an answer to questions in
biology, but it threatened to leak out, offering answers
-- welcome or not -- to question in cosmology
(going in one direction) and psychology (going in the other
direction). If redesign could be a mindless, algorithmic
process of evolution, why couldn't that whole process
itself be the product of evolution, and so forth,
all the way down? And if mindless evolution could account
for the breathtakingly clever artifacts of the biosphere,
how could the products of our own "real" minds be exempt
from an evolutionary explanation? Darwin's idea thus also
threatened to spread all the way up, dissolving the illusion
of our own authorship, our own divine spark of creativity
and understanding. Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995) p.63
>
> Evolution and our understanding of it are simply part of the global
> > knowledge base, It is one of the cornerstones of modern scientific
> > understanding but for some reason people don't like things being
> > explained using it.
Ehh, and who here disagreed with this?
>
> Which would be like explaining tides, pendulum clocks, etc without
> mentioning another cornerstone, namely gravity.
>
> >> but "spilled over" into all other fields, including ethics
> > >> (though he warns from "greedy reductionism" in that respect.
> > >> Older and slightly less reputable examples would be certain
> > >> forms of Marxism, and Ayn Rand's objectvism
>
> ?????????
Yes? Ayn Rand's objectivism is a form of metaphysical
realism, as is Mraxism-Leninism. both argue that only
physical ("material") objects exist
Because they were both aligned to specific political
philosophies that are far form universally accepted,
philosophers interested in metaphysical naturalism tend
not to use them as reference points
> >> What they have in common is that they read Occam's razor as an
> > >> ontological criterion - the simpler theory is the one that is also
> > >> more true (and not just more elegant, or easier to handle, or
> > >> more productive etc)
> >
>
> No.
Why, yes. thta is what they argue. Now you might
disagree with teir conclusion, but that does not make teh fact
go away that these are the positions that you find
> There is less to prove.
> When you multiply the logical entities every one of then has a
> probability less than one otherwise it is already a certainty.
>
> It doesn't matter what their probabilities are, but multiplying them
> always produces a smaller probability because they're all fractional.
Yes, you tried that before. nice attempt, but no cigar
(which we know since the work of Harold Jeffreys in the 50s)
It works only if you impose quite a number of ad hoc assumptions,
and restrict the field of application heavily.
I think I gave you a simple counter example.
If on an island where there are only Bob, Bill and Jo, Jo is
killed, then the theory "It was Bob or Bill who killed
Jo" is more likely true than the simple theory 2It was Bob who
killed jo"
You can exclude this type of counterexample by tweaking
the razor, but there similar problems pop up.
>
> And the more you introduce the smaller the probability of the end
> > result.
>
>
>
> Try multiplying a tenth by itself a few times and the result gets very
> > small, very quickly.
>
>
> >> The standard formulation comes from Paul Draper:
> > >> [MN is] "the hypothesis that the natural world is a closed
> > >> system","nothing that is not a part of the natural world affects
> > >> it."
> > >
>
> >The natural world is NOT a closed system.
>
> It was an argument from an authority who got it wrong.
Really? What authority, and why do you think the claim is wrong?
> Understanding the world is about practical realism (is that really an
>> -ism?).
>
>
> What philosophers, theists and others imagine is an -ism called
>> "methodological naturalism" is simply being realistic.
>
> Any naturalism is incidental and consequential, not foundational.
No idea what you mean by the above. Methodological naturalism is
indeed a form of realism, just a rather strong one.
>
>
> If anything pointed to the supernatural then science, scientists and
> > others who simply follow where the evidence takes them would have gone
> > down that route and incorporated what was discovered into the global
> > knowledge base.
>
> They don't seem to understand this so they rationalise why science etc
>> hasn't done that.
no idea what that is supposed to mean, and I somehow doubt
you do. Metaphysical naturalists argue that scientific theories
are true precisely because they do not incorporate
supernatural entities.
Note: they argue that science is _true_ because it does this.
Not just "efficient" or "pragmatic". That is the only
difference they have with methodological naturalists
>
>
> Don't forget that Burkhard has said that atheists shouldn't use
> > Occam's razor because he was a theologian and we use it as an argument
> > from authority.
Nope, that was just your misunderstanding of what I said.
I corrected you several times, that you continue to
misrepresent me makes you dishonest.
> When it's just a shorthand for something we'd all realised long before
>> heard of William of Occam.
> I killfiled him as a troll not long after that.
>
>
>
> >> Since science always presupposes as a methodological choice
>
> Bullshit.
>
> It simply follows where the evidence takes it with no such
> > presupposition.
Sigh.. That is the same thing.
Have you ever read the Dover vs Kitzmiller
decision that ruled that creationism does not belong in
classrooms? he judge, quite correctly, described science
thus:
"Expert testimony reveals that since the scientific revolution
of the 16th and 17th centuries, science has been limited to
the search for natural causes to explain natural phenomena....
While supernatural explanations may be important and have merit,
they are not part of science." Methodological naturalism is thus
"a self-imposed convention of science." It is a "ground rule"
that "requires scientists to seek explanations in the world
around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate,
and verify.
>
> >> naturalism, it is at the very least problematic, as the OP
> > >> requests, to have a scientific prove of metaphysical naturalism
> >
> Good thing that's just a dishonest straw man then, isn't it?
>
So you say. and I suppose we simply take your word
for it.
> >> - that would be in the words of the Popper student Alberts
> > >> to be like "Muenchausen pulling himself out of the swamp by
> > >> pulling at his hair" cf "Muenchausen trilemma"
>
>
> Science works, bitches.
>
> That's all there is to it.
> It is up to those who insist on other methodologies like metaphysics,
>> to demonstrate they are equally valid before invoking them.
Metaphysical naturalism is the theory that science works,
and that therefore we have good reasons to believe it
it is true.
That is not itself a physical statement, and neither is yours.
That makes them "meta" physical.
you are vigorously arguing here against your own position.
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