No metaphysical model is more convincing than any other

afraid_of_zombies2, 10 months ago

I wrote a reply and it vanished. From memory

Your first error is substitution. You are demanding that the contextualization that other people are claiming is the thing itself. Models exist because of the facts, facts don’t exist because of the models. The idea that the scientific method depends on the assumption of materialism is a model, one that is not supported by the facts.

Humans, and really all known critters do not think first and then do. They do and then they think, sometimes. You knew how to eat long before you knew that you had to eat and long long before you learned why you have to eat. Effectively all the critters that have ever existed never once considered these two questions. We are rounding error.

The history of science is no different, just more extreme. We learned the basics of experimentation, repeatedability, measurement, peer-review whole centuries before anyone tried to put the process into context. Of course people like Kuhn and Popper failed completely but hey it’s not like philosophy learns from it’s mistakes.

You assume that materialism assumption is required to perform science is absurd as demanding that fish explain hydrodynamics before they are allowed to swim. The fish were swimming fine for billions of years before a human came around and modeled it.

Second, you are partially correct. Materialism is accepted because the data supports it. Not because it has to be prime ultimate truth. You are only partially correct because a. you do not advance a workable alternative and b. you mixup ultimate truth for tentative truth. What should humans do exactly? Not accept the best model for the data that we have until a better one comes around? And yes the belief in materialism is tentatively true. New evidence could disprove it. Which again, what would the alternative be? Everything is tentatively true, everything is subject to correction one day.

This is why Theology and Philosophy have always been stuck. It doesn’t correct old mistakes and it demands an unreasonable burden to know anything.

metic, 10 months ago

I wrote a reply and it vanished. From memory

Posting has been buggy on Lemmy.world the past few days so it’s better to compose in another program/ app and then copy it over.

Models exist because of the facts, facts don’t exist because of the models.

An epistemology must be established before something can be established as a fact. Epistemology precedes metaphysics. A given approach or model establishes first what it considers valid means of knowing. Science of necessity limits itself to empiricism and logic. This is what makes its materialism instrumental. It is focused on epistemology and methodology and sets aside metaphysical matters.

Humans, and really all known critters do not think first and then do. They do and then they think, sometimes. You knew how to eat long before you knew that you had to eat and long long before you learned why you have to eat. Effectively all the critters that have ever existed never once considered these two questions. We are rounding error.

Sure, organisms don’t need sophisticated cognition to survive. How is this relevant to the matter at hand?

You assume that materialism assumption is required to perform science is absurd as demanding that fish explain hydrodynamics before they are allowed to swim. The fish were swimming fine for billions of years before a human came around and modeled it.

First, this metaphor doesn’t work. Science proper is only a few hundred years old. That is the reverse of an organism being well-adapted to its environment.

Second, as I said before, methods can be shown to be effective regardless of the conceptual framework the person using them. An individual scientist’s metaphysical views are irrelevant to the scientific process. It is the exclusive focus on matter that I am calling “instrumental materialism”. It is this very reification of instrumental materialism into metaphysical materialism which I am critiquing.

Second, you are partially correct. Materialism is accepted because the data supports it.

This is the opposite of what I’m saying. There are no data to prove any metaphysical claim, materialist or otherwise. Science can’t make metaphysical truth claims by design.

you do not advance a workable alternative

That’s the whole point I’m trying to make here. There is no objective way to preference any particular metaphysical view. The best we can do is claim a subjective, gut or faith-based claim. I’d be very much interested if someone could refute this.

you mixup ultimate truth for tentative truth.

I’m coming from a Pyrrhonian perspective, so I tend to treat all truth claims as tentative.

Of course people like Kuhn and Popper failed completely but hey it’s not like philosophy learns from it’s mistakes.

This is why Theology and Philosophy have always been stuck. It doesn’t correct old mistakes and it demands an unreasonable burden to know anything.

Now there are some spicy takes. Seems to imply that science is separable from philosophy.