(2018-01-03, 10:25 PM)Steve001 Wrote: [ -> ]I suggest the reason this is likely true is do to that obvious state of success of the material perspective. Can any other philosophical perspective claim any success.
Obvious state of success?
At what?
Sure, for explaining much of the physical reality we see (and some we can't see) around us. That is for sure and I don't see it being debated much here. However, it has been a complete failure in terms of answering the biggest questions that human beings have been asking for ages. All materialism conjectures is a meaningless universe with no purpose, no objective morality, etc.
Through the latter lens I would argue a number of alternative philosophies have been more "successful" simply based on human experience.
(2018-01-04, 01:58 PM)Silence Wrote: [ -> ]However, it has been a complete failure in terms of answering the biggest questions that human beings have been asking for ages. All materialism conjectures is a meaningless universe with no purpose, no objective morality, etc.
It doesn't even extend so far as that. Materialism offers no possibilities for feeling, for awareness, for experience. It is unable to even
ask those questions, "
the biggest questions that human beings have been asking for ages", let alone answer them.
(2018-01-04, 04:35 PM)Typoz Wrote: [ -> ]Materialism offers no possibilities for feeling, for awareness, for experience. It is unable to even ask those questions, "the biggest questions that human beings have been asking for ages", let alone answer them.
Wait, let's not go
too far. Materialism
can come in the form of a reductionism that doesn't deny consciousness; instead it says that consciousness
reduces to matter. No matter that we might (and I do) find this to be a ridiculous assertion/proposition, it
does (however unreasonably) leave open the possibility of asking questions predicated on feeling, awareness and experience, including the biggest questions.
(2018-01-04, 04:42 PM)Laird Wrote: [ -> ]Wait, let's not go too far. Materialism can come in the form of a reductionism that doesn't deny consciousness; instead it says that consciousness reduces to matter. No matter that we might (and I do) find this to be a ridiculous assertion/proposition, it does (however unreasonably) leave open the possibility of asking questions predicated on feeling, awareness and experience, including the biggest questions.
I've heard such claims. But I never saw any explanation or evidence to substantiate such claims.
Perhaps this echoes the title of this thread?
I'm always a bit bemused by these discussions. Admittedly there's no satisfying explanation of how consciousness can arise in a materialistic world. But is there a satisfying non-materialistic explanation of how consciousness arises? Or is it just essentially a matter of saying that there's a non-material entity which is somehow intrinsically conscious?
(2018-01-04, 06:01 PM)Typoz Wrote: [ -> ]I never saw any explanation or evidence to substantiate such claims.
I've heard at least one explanation, I just don't think it makes sense.
(2018-01-04, 06:01 PM)Typoz Wrote: [ -> ]Perhaps this echoes the title of this thread?
Yes, perhaps.
(2018-01-04, 06:29 PM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]{I}s it just essentially a matter of saying that there's a non-material entity which is somehow intrinsically conscious?
For me the answer, provisionally, is "Yes", just as materialists take matter to be intrinsic - axiomatic in a sense. But without an answer to the fundamental metaphysical question, everything is provisional.
(2018-01-04, 06:01 PM)Typoz Wrote: [ -> ]I've heard such claims. But I never saw any explanation or evidence to substantiate such claims.
Perhaps this echoes the title of this thread?
I think part of the evidence is that, despite looking really hard, we’ve never found anything in biology that is outside the known physical building blocks of the universe. I’m not saying we should stop looking though.
I also wouldn’t want to underestimate the wonder and mystery of those building blocks.
I'm just encouraged that people - including academics - are at last willing to stand up and say that scientism exists and that the general public should be aware of it. The video posted above is one of a series with scientists and philosophers addressing the same issue.
To recognise that scientism is a fact is not to reject science. It is to acknowledge that science and the scientific method is limited to materialism, usually referred to as naturalism. Clearly then, science is going to show progress when dealing with the material world - with things that fall within its scope. It would be silly to argue that it hasn't. It would also be short-sighted to claim that science has been successful in explaining many of the subjects we discuss here. At best it can claim to be the tool by which we can sometimes sort the wheat from the chaff.
There were times when science was used with an open mind to investigate the paranormal. People like William James, Richard Hodgson and Oliver Lodge were unafraid to risk their reputations. Yet if one were to rely on Wikipedia, for example, then one would be unable to separate science from scientism. The entry for Oliver Lodge, for example, contains the following:
Quote:Edward Clodd criticized Lodge as being an incompetent researcher to detect fraud and claimed his Spiritualist beliefs were based on magical thinking and primitive superstition. Charles Arthur Mercier (a leading British psychiatrist) wrote in his book Spiritualism and Sir Oliver Lodge (1917) that Lodge had been duped into believing mediumship by trickery and his Spiritualist views were based on assumptions and not scientific evidence. Francis Jones in the American Journal of Psychology in a review for Lodge's The Survival of Man wrote that his psychical claims are not scientific and the book is one-sided as it does not contain research from experimental psychology.
So a man can be lauded for his scientific achievements (he was knighted in recognition of such) yet dismissed as "an incompetent researcher" when he strayed from the confines of materialism. Terms like "magical thinking" and "primitive superstition" have become part of the vocabulary of scientism. Should anyone doubt that scientism has become the religion it is accused of being, here's one of its high priests,
Michael Shermer, proclaiming its status as such.
Quote:Scientism is courageously proffering naturalistic answers that supplant supernaturalistic ones and in the process is providing spiritual sustenance for those whose needs are not being met by these ancient cultural traditions. Second, we are, at base, a socially hierarchical primate species. We show deference to our leaders, pay respect to our elders and follow the dictates of our shamans; this being the Age of Science, it is scientism’s shamans who command our veneration. Third, because of language we are also storytelling, mythmaking primates, with scientism as the foundational stratum of our story and scientists as the premier mythmakers of our time.
(2018-01-04, 07:07 PM)malf Wrote: [ -> ]I think part of the evidence is that, despite looking really hard, we’ve never found anything in biology that is outside the known physical building blocks of the universe. I’m not saying we should stop looking though.
I also wouldn’t want to underestimate the wonder and mystery of those building blocks.
Malf, when you limit the scope of your investigation to naturalistic causes then you can only expect to discover naturalistic evidence. It is a self-confirming argument. Science confines itself to the objective and the naturalistic. It is taboo to suggest that biology, to use your example, might show evidence of mind at work. That is dismissed at the outset (as we can see in the long-running Darwin thread here on this forum).
If you really don't want to underestimate the wonder, then don't restrict your thinking. Open your mind (if you can first accept that your mind exists).