Confusing ontological materialism and methodological materialism complicates discussions here
Confusing ontological materialism and methodological materialism probably complicates discussions here.
At least that is what I suspect as I read certain threads.
Anyway:
[b]"Accusations of materialism in science tend to confuse two differing meanings of the word:
Ontological materialism is the belief, or assumption, that only material matter and energy exist. For the ontological materialist anything immaterial must be the product of the material. In principle all immaterial phenomena must be reducible to (explicable by) natural laws.
Methodological materialism is neither a belief nor an assumption but a restriction on method. Briefly stated, it holds that a non-material assumption is not to be made. Science, for example, is necessarily methodologically materialist. Science aims to describe and explain nature. Diversion into the "supernatural" or into the preternatural begins to address matters that are not natural and to obfuscate the natural.
Methodological materialism is a defining characteristic of science in the same way that "methodological woodism" is a defining characteristic of carpentry. Science seeks to construct natural explanations for natural phenomena in the same way that carpentry seeks to construct objects out of wood. In operating in this manner neither discipline denies the existence of supernatural forces or sheet plastics, their usefulness or validity. The use of either supernatural forces or sheet plastics is simply distinguished as belonging to separate disciplines."[/b] -- Materialism
At least that is what I suspect as I read certain threads.
Anyway:
[b]"Accusations of materialism in science tend to confuse two differing meanings of the word:
Ontological materialism is the belief, or assumption, that only material matter and energy exist. For the ontological materialist anything immaterial must be the product of the material. In principle all immaterial phenomena must be reducible to (explicable by) natural laws.
Methodological materialism is neither a belief nor an assumption but a restriction on method. Briefly stated, it holds that a non-material assumption is not to be made. Science, for example, is necessarily methodologically materialist. Science aims to describe and explain nature. Diversion into the "supernatural" or into the preternatural begins to address matters that are not natural and to obfuscate the natural.
Methodological materialism is a defining characteristic of science in the same way that "methodological woodism" is a defining characteristic of carpentry. Science seeks to construct natural explanations for natural phenomena in the same way that carpentry seeks to construct objects out of wood. In operating in this manner neither discipline denies the existence of supernatural forces or sheet plastics, their usefulness or validity. The use of either supernatural forces or sheet plastics is simply distinguished as belonging to separate disciplines."[/b] -- Materialism
Comments (50)
No matter what one calls them, I sense that there is often no cognizance of the distinction between them and that that contributes to the confusion in discussions about materialism, physicalism, consciousness, etc.
What is an immaterial phenomenon, given that only mater and energy exist?
Quoting filipeffv
I've never been convinced of this. It is possible social behavior is determined by the chemical and physical processes in the brain and that would indicate they are just as much a part of natural law as processes like gravity and the movement of planets. I imagine these processes are just far too complex for us to fully understand yet and therefore seem random or unpredictable.
I don't think "hard science" is a very useful term. Science is science.
Big Pharma would certainly like you to think so.
Wow. Didn't know what Big Pharma was. Interesting reading
Do you believe it?
The point of my whole thread (Physical vs. Non-Physical) was to question this distinction between what science can explain and what some other method can explain. The fact is that they both need to be consistent and compliment each other, because the natural, and the supernatural/prenatural have causal relationships with each other. To explain one is to explain the other, as they both interact with each other. Both methods cannot contradict each other, like they do now. All knowledge must be integrated into a consistent whole.
This is why I also call into question the distinction between the natural and the supernatural in my other thread (Artificial vs. Natural vs. Supernatural).
It remembers me Espinoza. But you would have to assume that free will doesn't exist; the problem is that, since everything is a successive and progressive process of causes, it necessarily assumes a free first cause -- one of the kant's antinomies. If you reject the first cause as an exception, why wouldn't human action be possibly, potentially, an exception as well?
Furthermore, the problem of free will is deeper. First, the chemical process of mind are not causes, but effects. Second, and that is the big problem, it is concerned to the core of normativity; pragmatology is clear about it. EVERYTHING has rules: language, semantics, social interaction, etc; a rule has to be necessarily passable of violation, id est, if it is nomologically impossible to violate what is presumed to be a rule, this rule is not what we think it is: it is not a rule, but actually a mere fact, a mere description of things. Well, if a rule supposes the existence of this possibility, therefore the knowledge of free will is accessible by a transcendental deduction of the existence of necessary attributes of a normative conception, and so, as language is fraught of ought, by a transcendental deduction of the necessity of singular terms and predicates' existence interchangeable, in conditions of coextensinality and referentiality through the pragmatic verification of the material inferential rules existence.
Science *can't* prove and demonstrate itself; a system is just proved by an external system.
Not necessarily. Free will could be a manifestation of the infinite possible outcomes of the reactions within the brain and that our "consciousness" is the brains method of controlling/reducing the number of outcomes. Or, it could be what we experience as our brains navigate the higher dimensions of time and attempt to interpret that information. Free will would be our ability to choose which possible path we take through higher dimensions.
Quoting filipeffv
I agree that there should be a first cause, just not necessarily a "free" one. In order to determine the nature of "the first cause" we must understand what came before. As the Big Bang Model suggests, nothing came before the first cause, which is perfectly plausible since nothingness is both unstable and infinite. Therefore, if the first cause is within what is possible, then it must be a part of nature.
Quoting filipeffv
As you said above, they as a successive process of cause and effects. Each cause creates an effect, and each effect is a cause that creates another effect. The distinction is redundant.
As for the next section, i have to admit i don't really understand what you mean and will concede your point with a smile and slightly glazed look in my eye.
Quoting Harry Hindu
There are many explanations to what is and what is not and science is the best method we have so far come up with to find them regardless of whether the subject is physical, not physical, natural or super natural. This is because science is merely a method of analysis and can be applied to anything.
No. Science is defined by the Principle of Demarcation. Not everything we are interested in is falsifiable or testable.
Of course, but if you want to determine which claims are more useful than others, and therefore more accurate, then they need to be testable and falsifiable, or else every claim has just as much validity as every other claim, which includes contradictory claims. When two claims contradict each other, how do you go about getting at which one is more accurate?
OK, so let's examine two claims, which are actually competing theories, which utilise identical equations:
1. Underlying reality does not exist. The equations are purely epistemic.
2. Underlying reality does exist. The equations correspond to elements of reality.
Here we have a genuine situation where your criterion of accuracy is both philosophically and scientifically useless.
And of course we have the age-old ideas:
1. Only my mind exists.
2. There exists a Reality independent of my mind.
Science can't help you with that one.
This defines good science, i.e. a way science can produce the best possible results. However, you can still use the same scientific method regardless of what you are observing.
Quoting tom
Actually it can, we just don't know how to apply it yet. (Edit: how to make the necessary observations)
To answer it, all we need do is define a mind as a point in a system. Then, if we can define another mind we have two points and can build a model of the system to one dimension. All we need do then is define what properties differentiates the two minds based on the possible values of that dimension.
You can use religion, speculation or the scientific model to do this, but only one of those things will produce accurate results. The only thing we are missing is an observed second mind.
Nor need it. The rock one throws at your head, when you're looking the other way, really hurts when it strikes you. If that isn't enough evidence that that rock is/was independent of your mind, then nothing could be.
Most social scientists would agree with this.
"These processes are just far too complex for us to fully understand yet and therefore seem random or unpredictable."
That may be, but even with the development of more satisfying theories of psychological processes, would a complete reduction of phenomena at this level to the language of physics and chemistry really give us a useful way to predict and understand them?
Does attempting to explain the software programs of a computer via a description of its hardware allow us to understand the content of the software?
There are at least two ways of thinking about the relationship between hard science level descriptions and social science type descriptions.
One can argue that while in principle social science phenomena must emerge out of the functioning of physical systems, one can not reduce one to the other without losing what is valuable from a predictive
vantage in the higher level description.
On the other hand, one could claim that the reason we cannot reduce the higher order descriptions to physical ones is because the lower order description is incomplete. For instance, physicist Lee Smolen
suggests that the reason the meta-framework of physics and evolutionary biology are so different is not because the latter is 'just far too complex for us to fully understand yet and therefore seem random or unpredictable", but because physics is in need of a paradigm shift in the direction of an evolutionary discipllne.
Actually, that is false. That "only my mind exists" is logically coherent and unfalsifiable, in principle.
No, it's not evidence of anything. My mind creates all phenomena.
Id argue yes, to an extent. The "hardware" can help us understand the limitations of the "software" and therefore allow us to narrow down what the software is capable of.
I think its an understatement to say that our framework for physics in incomplete. You only need to point to quantum mechanics and gravity to show that. However, all these things are undeniably part of the same system, I'll call it the omniverse, and must therefore be interlinked with one and another. I can't deny that physics needs a shift in order to begin linking the omniverse's many intertwined systems into a complete whole.
So, you throw rocks at yourself, unbeknownst to yourself?
Nice.
Currently unfalsifiable. New techniques or technologies may allow us to directly observe a mind and it will be through the scientific method that we will make an analysis.
Nope. It is logically coherent, and unfalsifiable in principle. Perhaps you might indicate how Solipsism is in principle falsifiable?
Unless you are stupid, you would know that you threw rocks at yourself. As for others, well, they are figments of your imagination.
Well...
Sure.
Get thought and belief right, in terms of it's necessary and sufficient conditions in addition to it's elemental constituency, and it becomes quite clear that solipsism is existentially contingent upon meaning. Meaning... that which becomes sign/symbol and that which becomes signified/symbolized and an agent to draw correlations between the two that result in signification/symbolism(the attribution of meaning).
I admit that with current techniques and levels of technology this is impossible but if we were able to observe more then one's own mind to exist, then Solipsism would be false.
Perhaps we might do this by digitizing a person's mind and either copying or transferring it into an artificial body. Perhaps the answer lies in the mysteries of higher dimensions. I can only speculate but it is an undeniable possibility and a very likely scenario.
I repeat, how might Solipsism be falsified in principle?
Quoting SnowyChainsaw
Higher dimension, mysteries? Probably
Thanks for clearing that up.
That is the principle of it. There is a possibility that Solipsism can be proven false and, given infinite time, any possibility becomes a certainty therefore Solipsism is falsifiable.
Any distinction you are making that claims this is not a fundamental truth is lost on me.
Quoting tom
Assuming you are not being sarcastic: if you admit this is a possibility then given the above principle you must admit Solipsism is falsifiable.
Actually, infants have already solved this problem when they acquire Object Permanence.
If 1. is true, then you are saying that you only exist as words on a screen, as that is how you appear to me. Is that what you are saying? If 1. is true, I assure you that your mind doesn't exist and only mine does as I never experience another mind, only words on a screen. You, however would argue the opposite, so it seems that 1. defeats itself. Realism doesn't seem to have that problem.
I don't think infants have a clue about quantum mechanics let alone prefer epistemic or realist interpretations.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I thought you were going to provide a test so we can falsify solipsism.
Ah, but I existed before I joined this group, so your mind did not create me.
There are no empirical consequences of Solipsism that makes it distinguishable from realism. It is logically consistent. It is therefore impossible to apply the method of science, test, or falsify it. It is a philosophical question.
Is this so hard for people to grasp?
Solipsism proves that logic is not capable of encompassing reality we experience.
But we can't know that reality.
The phenomena is the result of understanding and perception of the noumena.
Kant had a good answer to Hume, and to everyone who was almost getting crazy with epistemological problems, but Kant's view was kinda rejected by his "successors", like Fichte, Hegel, etc, while positivism was getting the consensus of scientists and logical philosophers. However, even Wittgenstein abandoned logical positivism, and Godel's theorem helped to kill, dig a hole, and push positivism into it.
Clearly, you do not understand what he is saying, and never even take a book of transcendental epistemology to read... Ah!!!
The Phenomena, not as it is in itself, but as it is to us, is a result of properties of second quality, id est, it is a process in which both the individual mind and the thing in it self (noumena) creates the Phenomena.
"Phenomena are the appearances, which constitute the our experience; noumena are the things themselves, which constitute reality"
Does Husserl count? I have taken several graduate seminars just on Husserl and have used Cartesian Meditations in my own courses.
But if he is arguing for a transcendental position, rather than for solipsism, then maybe I misunderstood him. But based on his response, I think not.
Oh, I understand. Sorry, I did wrong.
The materialism in the scientific method is just an axiom or something like that assumed for the purpose of investigating the physical world. It is not, as I understand it, the same as the materialism/physicalism of philosophical/intellectual movements that deny the existence of free will, say that consciousness is nothing more than neurological activity in the physical brain, etc.
I think that Realism underlies the scientific method. The idea that whatever is amenable to empirical testing is actually there and exists. Also that the solutions that science proposes to the problems it encounters are couched in terms of this reality.
There is, of course, a risk of descending into circularity, but I think it safe to say that now (not so during the time of Newton) science has in fact honed in on the idea of the physical, and has adopted that metaphysics.
But, as I understand it, that is not the same as the materialism/physicalism of a naturalist worldview. It is not the same thing from which determinism and similar ideas are derived. It's just a practical starting point for investigating the world, not a statement about existence, experience, reality vs. perception, etc.
Sure, science can start from anywhere. Its method tends to lead, through a series of tentative decisions towards better explanations, though there are no guarantees.
You cannot escape, however, the fact that our best theories are fully deterministic.
I don't think the notions of either determinism or randomness amounts to anything meaningful when describing 'nature in itself', because the 'necessary' truths of any physical theory are only the logical truths that defined as being true according to linguistic convention, with the convention being arbitrarily chosen and perpetually subject to revision.
Consequently it is meaningless to distinguish necessary truths from contingent truths in any absolute sense.
Our best theories are deterministic. They work equally well forwards in time as backwards.
Exactly, but it's not as much fun to criticise them if you make them sound all pragmatic and mundane, you have to make them sound like raging fundamentalists to really get the pleasure out of beating them up about it in philosophy forums.