wordfailure

Hello Bede

That's about the most irony that can be packed in one post, or so it may seem to the "naive realist". When we say such things as "...but I'll take personal experience over a whole pile of science textbooks any day of the week" or "The most rational reason of all to believe something is personal experience. Science doesn't come close" aren't we just expressing personal preferences? I mean how can one support such statements without merely expressing additional preferences, even down to the level of arguing that there must be more than matter and energy because otherwise there is no meaning? I wonder if you can at all appreciate a position from which materialism is not simply an axiomatic manifestation of massive faith. Are you capable of conceptualizing it closer to its actuality just for the sake of argument? I'm not being facetious.

Bede

Wordfailure,

If the materialist was saying that all he could see was matter and energy and these were the only things he perceived at work in the world, I'd not bother arguing with him. I'd feel pretty sorry for them, but that's another matter. So he's entitled to his personal preference as far as I'm concerned.

But when, as he almost always does, the materialist starts talking about objective reality; the facts of the universe; and other metaphysical concepts that he can't justify - concepts that don't imply or follow from his materialism - and if I am supposed to see them in the same 'objective' way he does if I am to be counted as 'rational', then we have a problem.

Materialism is like Luther's view of salvation - it is justified through faith alone. I like faith but like many around here, I get fed up with people claiming their faith is actually reality.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

madmax2976

If so, it seems like much ado about nothing. To science, “God” would be irrelevant, not “dead”.

As for theism being “consistent” with science, this is one of those vague claims that says little. You haven’t even specified which theism you’re talking about, or which theistic ideas you are talking about, though you do seem to be assuming that Christian theism is the end-all, be-all of theism in general.

In such a case, science is most definitely not consistent with people rising from the dead or with a deity impregnating virgins.

Egads. Science was alive and well among the Greeks, in the Middle East, among the ancient Egyptians, and in Asia long before Europeans caught on – all without a shred of contribution from “medieval theology”.

This revisionist “Christian theism is the fountain of all our knowledge” might sell in a theological seminary, or in a revival tent meeting, but not here.

Science and theism simply do not function on the same plane. Science holds peer review, observation, falsification and experimentation as vital to its endeavors. It holds to strict guidelines for data collection and it has built in self-correcting mechanisms. In contrast, theism invokes faith, supernatural forces and entities, that are apparently beyond any verification, observation or experimentation.

You are beating up straw men here. Materialism is a philosopical view based on observations, experience, and what some consider to most likely be true. Its not an axiom.

Materialism could be right or it could be wrong. The question is whether which is most likely – that all reality is made up of material entities and forces, or that there are some immaterial entities and forces somewhere. I’ve seen lots of evidence for the former, but very little for the latter.

Let me see here – a personal being or beings, not composed of any material substance, not having a brain yet somehow able to remember facts and think, that was never created, that is able to magically control forces which themselves are not composed of any material substances - this is consistent with science and follows from it?? I have to ask: What have you been smoking Bede?

More correctly, there is no conflict between science and religion as long as one doesn’t attempt to tread on the territory of the other. When it comes to issues such as spiritual fullfillment, meaning, faith, purpose, morality, etc. – theism can have a field day. Science doesn’t concern itself with such things.

When it comes to figuring out how humans work or how the universe got here, theism can claim whatever it wants, but it can’t call any of those claims scientific if it has a supernatural being as described above – which is wholly inconsistent with the current findings of science - at the end of that explanation.

This is why theism shouldn’t trod in the arena of science. Sweeping, unsupported generalizations like “nearly all atheists” simply are not acceptable under a scientific framework. Actual data is required.

I spent most of my life around Christians. Changing positions or reinterpreting ideas that concerned their religious beliefs was one of the rarest events I have ever witnessed among them.

Shirly McClaine had the “personal experience” that she had lived a past life. Johnathan Edwards claims the “personal experience” of talking with dead people. Jean Dixon claimed the personal experiences of seeing the future. Benny Hinn claims the personal experience of the power of God as he supposedly heals people. My own brother claimed the experience of seeing Satan in a campfire. Psychic surgeons claim the experience of removing “diseased” organs without need for actual surgery. – I could go on an on and on about claimed personal experiences.

What science is, is a tool for determining whether its likely any such experiences actually have taken place. It is a tool for determining what is true or not true to the best of our ability. With theism, whatever one believes is what goes.

bd-from-kg

Bede:

Perhaps it would be helpful if you identified the posters you consider naïve realists and positivists and give your reasons.

This sort of thing might be in order as an introduction to some substantive comments backing it up, but as it is it’s just a cheap shot. Since I have no idea what you’re talking about, there’s no point in replying.

Well, I made no attempt to define “religion”, but I did have some things to say about it: Religion is based on revelation; religion inherently involves accepting things for which there is not sufficient evidence to justify rational belief; religion tends to create a deep reluctance to accept scientific conclusions that imply a fundamentally different picture of the world than the one the religion was originally based on; religious people make much of intuition; religious people find William James’s “Will to Believe” type thinking attractive. Which of these statements, if any, do you disagree with? Do you consider any or all of these to be compatible with a scientific outlook?

It’s not clear what you mean by this, but it seems clear to me that whatever you could mean by it in this context indicates a cast of mind incompatible with a scientific outlook.

Strictly speaking, none of these is an “axiom of science”.

If we interpret the third as meaning “humans are capable of thinking rationally”, it’s a fundamental axiom of rationality itself and has nothing to do with science per se. All sane persons have always assumed this; the alternative is madness.

As for the second, this is not assumed at all. Naturally any scientist worth his salt will take any regularity observed locally and test (so far as he’s able) the hypothesis that it applies over all of time and space. (Astronomers in particular are doing this all the time; they do not take this as axiomatic.) And it isn’t necessary. If it had happened that “deep space” appeared to be completely chaotic and unpredictable (or followed different laws that we couldn’t figure out because of the distance involved) we could still do science by seeking to understand any regularities in our own region. True, the results would not apply to all times and places, but that wouldn’t make them “unscientific” or the procedure something other than science.

The first may be true if we substitute “the region near Earth” for “the universe”, but only if it’s not interpreted to require deterministic laws. Science is perfectly possible in a world with some irregularities or randomness as long as there are some regularities that can be discovered.

Finally, of course the scientific endeavor would be impossible if there were no regularities that humans were capable of understanding and discovering, but it’s not necessary that all of the “laws of the universe” are accessible to us. As long as some are, we’re in business.

Once we understand what assumptions are really made by “science” it becomes clear that they are simply the assumptions necessary to be able to gain any understanding of our experiences at all. If we were not rational, or if there were no regularities to be discovered, or if we were not capable of discovering them, the universe would appear completely chaotic to us and we would be totally helpless, unable to make the most trivial predictions about the future or the effects of our actions. Thus the “axioms of science” are actually just the baseline assumptions essential to operating as a rational agent. And they can be (and were) “discovered” by simply thinking about these matters carefully. Religion is irrelevant to this process.

This is complete nonsense. These “axioms” can no doubt be found in medieval theology (Roger Bacon, for example) but they weren’t discovered or invented by it. And in any case, it’s an elementary fallacy to say “X discovered Y; X was a theist; therefore Y was derived from theism”. One might as well argue, “X discovered Y; X was a Communist; therefore Y was derived from Communism”.

There is absolutely nothing inherent in theism per se or in the Christian version of it that would lead one to these “axioms”. Certainly a theist is free to assume that God created an orderly universe, but he is just as free to assume that He created a disorderly one. The former hypothesis has historically been favored by theists for the obvious reason that they looked around them and saw a universe that looked pretty orderly. A nontheist, on the other hand, needn't assume anything at all; he can just look for regularities and hope he finds some. (Indeed, he has no choice if he hopes to function as a rational agent.)

Actually most versions of theism entail that the universe is somewhat disorderly because God is constantly meddling in it, with the result that the “laws of nature” are being repeatedly violated. It also tends to discourage serious scientific research for several reasons. For example, any phenomenon that one doesn’t understand can simply be attributed to God. And religion typically directs attention away from this world toward an imaginary “better” one. A serious, devout Christian, for example, has little reason to examine this world very closely since the overwhelmingly important thing is to see to one’s salvation and that of others. Compared to this, a detailed understanding of this world is pretty insignificant, and wasting a lot of time studying it when you could be saving souls looks downright wicked.

If Christianity were so favorable to science, why is it that little or no real science was done in the period when Christianity had the strongest hold on the imagination of most people? Why did significant scientific progress have to wait until the influence of Christianity began to wane, especially among the most well-educated?

At one time nearly everyone – theist and atheist alike – rejected the Big Bang, for the excellent reason that there was no evidence for it. As to what the division was after Hubble’s discovery of the red shift but before the discovery of the microwave background radiation, I have no idea, but obviously opinion was divided. (Do you have some data on this that you’d like to share with us?) After the discovery of the microwave background, opinion moved sharply in favor of the Big Bang. All of this is just what should have happened given the available evidence. What’s your point?

Today the only significant resistance to the Big Bang theory comes from theists who believe that the Bible is literally true and that the world was created about 4,000 years ago.

As for Carrier, it’s remarkable that you should use him to support your claims. Actually he’s a great illustration of the difference between the religious and scientific mindset. It’s true that he had doubts about the Big Bang. He laid them out fully and publicly. Eventually, based on comments from various people, he reexamined the evidence and changed his mind based on his best judgment as to what the evidence shows. This is all perfectly reasonable. The evidence for the Big Bang is far from being as overwhelming as the evidence for, say quantum mechanics or relativity, and it’s very esoteric.

A person with a scientific outlook is simply not going to refuse to accept a well-established scientific theory because he finds it incompatible with his preconceived ideas. It’s possible, of course, that you can find an atheist or two or who has done this; atheism is not synonymous with a scientific mindset.)

Of course everyone, of necessity, approaches new questions with a lot of beliefs, and ways of thinking about the world, which are more congenial to some new hypotheses than others, and this will produce a bias in the attitudes toward them. It’s natural and rational to resist changing one’s thinking in significant ways in order to accommodate the new evidence. The question is what happens when the evidence becomes strong enough so that giving up one’s preconceived ideas is the most parsimonious way to accommodate the new data.

Look at the Catholic’ Church’s response to the theory of evolution. It refused to accept it in any form for more than a century after the evidence had become overwhelming; then it insisted that only a modified version (directed evolution), for which there is no evidence whatsoever, is acceptable. And there are so many theists who are bitterly opposed to accepting evolution in any form that as a practical matter it cannot be taught in over 95% of American high schools. No conflict between religion and science, you say? Tell that to our high school science teachers.

OK, “rational” doesn’t mean “scientific”. But science is what you get when you apply rationality to the question of what external reality is like.

If the “something” is about external reality, this is mindbogglingly wrongheaded. If the last few hundred years have demonstrated anything, it’s that the scientific method is vastly superior to anything else for figuring out the nature of external reality. Personal experience is demonstrably so hopelessly unreliable and often misleading that it’s not even in the running. You might just as well believe something based on a reading of tea leaves of animal entrails, or get out your deck of Tarot cards.

Of course, if you’re talking about internal reality – the reality of what’s inside your head – that’s another matter.

[Apologies to madmax: this was practically finished when your post showed up, so there's a fair amount of overlap.]

Hugo Holbling

To take the side of the underdog, as is my want, i may say that the knowledge of the history of science on show here is poor indeed. The conflict reading of the relationship between science and religion is long dead, although its funeral appears to have been low-key and sparsely attended.

The battle metaphor came about as the result of Draper's and White's work in the late nineteenth century and their influence continued well into the mid-twentieth. Nevertheless, by that time Whitehead and Merton had begun to question it, not without dispute in the latter case. Later work by Dupree , Kocher, de Santillana and Chadwick showed that this simplistic conflict reading could not be sustained, while Moore demonstrated that many of the stories proving it were "entirely misleading, if not utterly false." Further work by Gillespie and Turner, not to mention the foremost experts today such as Lindberg, Numbers and Grant, make the idea that science and religion have been and are in opposition frankly nonsensical. We need not follow Jaki or Hooykaas to accept that far from hindering it, religion (and in particular Christianity) has had a positive influence on science from its very beginnings.

Hugo Holbling

Anyone interested in the conflict hypothesis could do worse than read Shapin's Bibliographic Essay in his The Scientific Revolution, in which he gives the above references and more besides, particularly in section 4B. Therein he notes that

I suppose this was my point.

Vorkosigan

Good review, Bede. I'll third the Amazon.com recommendation.


We then moves onto the question of freewill. This takes Barr outside his professional sphere but he remains a reliable guide. He runs through the arguments for freewill and how this cannot be a function of matter alone. Ultimately, materialism must deny freewill and rationality as neither of these are explicable as purely physical processes. Barr insists that denying these is far more irrational (and indeed must be as rationality itself is denied) than believing in a non-physical mind.

This is probably why physicists should stick to physics. "Free Will" is a theological term that pre-supposes a whole framework of supernatural, sin and redemption. I wish he had actually read something on Agency in the cognitive sciences. Frankly, Bede, I doubt he is a very reliable guide when it comes to this. The mind is material, and no evidence indicates that it is not.


Vorkosigan

sodium

This argument can be summarized as follows.

1) For every mechanical system, it is possible to construct a problem that it cannot solve.

2) Because we are not mechanical systems, this cannot be done for us.

3) Therefore, this is a way that we will always be superior to mechanical systems.

4) Since we are superior to mechanical systems, we cannot be mechanical systems ourselves.

It seems quite cogent, but I think there's a slight problem around #2.

bd-from-kg

sodium:

You bet there is. Aside from the fact that it's not exactly self-evident that there are no problems that a given human cannot solve (and remember that the Godel "problem" is unimaginably complex even for the simplest qualifying system), the theorem applies only to fixed, unchanging formal systems. Human brains, by contrast, are changing very significantly all the time. The very act of trying to solve a given problem will cause the creation of all kinds of new synapses. So if the problem in question is the Godel problem for the brain in question initially, it won't be a second later.

But there probably is no such thing as "the Godel problem" for a human brain anyway. Our brains don't work anything like computers. It's not at all obvious how to go about constructing the Godel problem for a human brain (even for a given brain at a given moment); in fact, it looks to be impossible, even in principle.