luvluv

I recently read a book called Life is a Miracle by essayist, naturalist (as in wants to preserve nature, not metaphysical naturalist), and poet Wendell Berry.

While he isn't particularly religious, the author is very critical of the naturalistic paradigm. Particularly irksome to him was the habit of the naturalist of "co-opting" the mysteries of life. He says that naturalists have a tendency to claim all mysteries as "future knowledge" thus absolving them of the need for humility or from the possibility of certain aspects of existence being beyond human understanding. He says that this tendency creates a egocentric and man-centered concept of viewing the world and that it makes people inconsiderate and disdainful of the need to respect the sanctity of life and the environment.

That is a subject in and of itself, but I was more focused on the idea concept of viewing current mysteries as "future knowledge".

If an atheist or a naturalist holds, as part of their worldview, that whatever is unknown about nature will be known, or that whatever seems to contradict naturalism will soon be given a fully naturalistic explanation, then can the philosophy of naturalism ever be falsified?

I am reminded of this by my recent posting of the article by Penrose in which Penrose argues against the hypothesis that the mind is simply a highly complex computational computer. He argues that, given our current understanding of the laws of physics, that no AI can be constructed which can emulate the human brain. However, being a naturalist, Penrose nevertheless believes that the mind must be totally explicable in terms of a fully naturalistic paradigm. Penrose therefore suggests that there must be laws of physics which we have yet to discover which will explain the "supra-computational" (my word) abilities of the mind.

Now, I am not here concerned with whether Penrose was right about the impossibility of AI matching human understanding. My point is that if the naturalist can appeal to "new laws of physics" whenever the old ones, taken together, fail to support his hypothesis, then can any naturalistic hypothesis ever be falsified? Could one not hold out the possibility of new laws of physics forever, even after unification?

So it would seem to me that naturalism as a whole cannot be falsified so long as naturalists can claim that all gaps in knowledge will eventually be filled. Even if such gaps are never filled, that would not prevent a naturalist from appealing to this possibility in defense of his or her postion.

Corey Hammer

The answer is simple...find something that can only have a supernatural explanation.

Philosoft

I wasn't aware "naturalism" was a theory.

fando

The author's definition of naturalism doesn't sound very consistent. Seems like an invented philosophy in which the primary utility is to attack science via obscure rhetoric.

eh

I would say no. Naturalism is just a philosophical viewpoint, and nothing (short of God paying us a visit and breaking the laws of phyiscs left and right) could possibly falsifiy it.

Wyz_sub10

Oddly enough, I would think that acknowledge the unknown as "future knowledge" is indeed demonstrating a degree of humility.

Saying that we do not know because it is "unknowable" seems far more arrogant. It is like saying, "If I do not know it, it can't be known."

It is the very definition of the argument from ignorance. "I don't know the explanation, therefore, the explanation is supernatural."

Further, I would add that science does acknowledge the unknowable. That is part of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

I would also contribute that "naturalism" as a philosophy where one "co-opts" the mysteries of life may indeed exist, but it has no realtionship to science.

Psycho Economist

Naturalism is a philosophy, but it does make a claim: that there is nothing supernatural.

On the one hand, you could falsify the claim on its face by presenting an event whose causation defied a complete, systematic investigation which ruled out natural explanations. Faced with such evidence, empirically-minded people would be forced to think long and hard about naturalism.

On the other hand, a fundy naturalist could very rightly say, "It happened! Therefore it had to have had some cause in nature!"

It's just a question of when you want to give up looking for an answer and say "they're heeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrree..." I say "want to" with a certain amount of hesitation, because given infinite resources to rule out a finite number of possible natural explanations to disprove, you could hypothetically be left with no other conclutions... but we do have finite resources, and so practically I don't think that naturalism is falsifiable.

Doubting Didymus

Well sure, I guess, IF what you mean by "falsified" is "100% utterly disproved beyond any doubt in anyones mind anywhere on the planet at any time now or in the infinite future". For me, naturalism would be 'falsified' simply if there were sufficient evidence to cast doubt on it, or if there were insufficient evidence to support it. By this I refer mainly to evidence of the type that counters other evidence, I.E. refutations of ghost stories so consistant as to cast doubt on all similar stories counts, in my mind, as not only evidence against supernaturalism, but also evidence for naturalism: a confirmation of the naturalistic hypothesis. It is neither a complete 100% proof of naturalism, nor is it a 100% disproof of its alternative, but it IS a support for naturalism, and a detractor from supernaturalism.

"Falsification" does not always mean "completely disproved". In a scientific sense, at least "unfalsifyable" means that any and all possible evidence could never count against it. Naturalism does not satisfy this criteria. A given piece of evidence would count against naturalism NOT when the supernatural is the ONLY explaination, but when it is the BEST explaination.

A ghostly apparition in the form of Margaret Thatcher that is constantly visiting James Randi at the JREF and demanding its million COULD be a simple coincidence of air movement, the local molecules simply chancing into a thatchery shape. Thus, a natural explaination is POSSIBLE. The question is whether it is the BEST explaination, which it clearly isn't. Therefore, naturalism is not unfalsifyable.

RichardMorey

The whole dichotomy is a false one in the first place. "Natural" is set up as the opposite of "supernatural", but in actuality "supernatural" is very ambiguously defined. In fact, no one has substantiated any "supernatural" thing!

Define "supernatural" and perhaps we can talk. We know that some things fall into what we would call "natural," and so the question becomes:

Are there non-natural (if this is what supernatural means) entities?

Before we answer this question, we have to determine what it means for something to be "supernatural". Then we have to show that there is, indeed, a supernatural entity if we are to believe in the supernatural.

The default position (in the absence of an adequate definition and substantiated entity which falls into this definition) is naturalism.

RichardMorey

Naturalism != currently understood natural laws. It could be that psychic powers are natural and we just have not discovered their cause and properties. The question of falsifiability is ill-suited to naturalism because it is an ill-defined concept.

Let us assume that there are things that exist (pretty safe, right?).
In order to break the things that exist into two categories, we must have some justification. What is the justification for the natural/supernatural dichotomy? There is none of which I am aware.

In fact, naturalism at its base turns out to be tautological. Because "nature" is everything that exists, everything that exists is part of nature. Everyone is a naturalist: we merely disagree as to what that nature contains and the laws involved. The word "supernatural" has no real meaning.