(2019-09-14, 03:48 PM)Stan Woolley Wrote: He’s recently also completed a second PhD in Philosophy.
Yeah I think he's gone through a couple gauntlets! -> I remember him talking about his work at CERN at some point but can't recall exactly when/where that was.
=-=-=
(2019-09-14, 04:36 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: Maybe it's just that Horgan hasn't fully worked out his ideas here, so they are kind of confused or incoherent. The following quote from his article seems to clearly imply that on this particular scientific and philosophical mind-body problem a one and only true solution simply does not exist - just an array of subjective choices that scientists can freely adopt based on their subjective preferences. That sure looks like "truth is subjective" post-modernism.
Whereas you found the quote where he suggests the issue is to realize that some problems necessitate the pragmatic engineering approach, just finding the best practical solution among many, all having different tradeoffs. Implying that there in fact may be one and only one true understanding of nature with respect to the problem at hand, but that it may be forever beyond our grasp.
Which interpretation is his true opinion? Maybe he hasn't defined that yet.
I think he worded it poorly, but my understanding he's saying any solution just comes down to opinion [with some caveats].
Admittedly he is claiming there is no ultimate solution [so we can pick from a large set of acceptable options], but IMO he's going a bit far. We should be able to narrow down things just by looking at structure - for example whether quantum biology is involved or not.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell
(This post was last modified: 2019-09-14, 09:21 PM by Sciborg_S_Patel.)
- Bertrand Russell