This post is inspired by a phrase appearing in the latest Discovery Institute essay, in which they worry about the direction being taken by the new “Cosmos” TV series.
The DI quotes Cosmos producer, Seth MacFarlane, as promoting “…the advancement of knowledge over faith.”
This quote seems to come from an interview in Esquire Magazine.
There really isn’t much to the interview, but the phrase does kind of jump out and beg to be discussed.
Not if you deny you have parents.
IOW, once you abandon solipsism, my very first comment becomes relevant again:
Do you empirically test your faith in G-D? It sure sounds like you try to. If that’s the case, it is not a surprise that you seem to be a theological mutt belonging to no one, happily and on purpose.
Just for the record, WJM, were you ever professionally employed as a ‘natural scientist’? Perhaps you’ve said this already & I missed it.
(Asked in past tense b/c somehow I imagine that you are retired now, since you have so much time to write here in defense of your ‘radical subjectivist’ approach.)
William,
If your process were scientific, then you would also reject or revise your models when they were shown to be untenable. You don’t.
Ignoring criticisms and ducking questions is the antithesis of a scientific approach.
William,
Sure, as long as it makes testable predictions.
You seem to think that faith healing is evidence for a “mind-primary reality”. How does your model account for the absence of regrown limbs?
Science can explain it. Can you?
Well, considering the way you use capital letters and have issues about how people type stuff here and elsewhere, I don’t really know what you mean by G-D.
My view of god may be quite different from yours. My assumption that god exists provides an ongoing sense of relief, comfort, peace, hope & joy. By the strictest interpretation of what empiricism means, I’d say yes – I empirically test it every waking second of every day.
I have no training in science or education beyond what I learned in high school. I’m not retired – I just work from home and have to work very little to maintain our lifestyle.
That’s not necessarily scientific William. To be sure, all actual scientific investigations rely, to some extent, on empirical investigation, but not all empirical investigation is scientific. The methodological approach is far more important than whether one does empirical investigation.
No, this is definitely not scientific. Again, the methodology is what you are lacking here. A scientist does not “try out various ways of interpreting facts into models”. Rather, a scientist would attempt to apply data (collected through empirical observation from step one above) within a model to make predictions about given phenomena. The accuracy of the prediction would then lend support to the model or would demonstrate a weakness of model. Models are then adjusted accordingly or tossed out. “Interpreting facts” doesn’t make for good science.
Models will rarely “contradict empirical evidence”, since most of the time models are based upon empirical evidence and/or make predictions about empirical evidence. Rather, models either provide useful accurate predictions about the phenomenon in question or they don’t. If all a model does is tell you that a given phenomenon is “miraculously” rare, it’s not much of a model. At least not scientifically.
I don’t think it’s the methodology I’m lacking. It’s the ideology. I think the methodology is the same, but it is disconnected from the physicalist/naturalist/consensualist preconceptions many embed with their process use of the methodology.
Interpreting facts as evidence that supports or weakens a model is the very essence of science. Raw data doesn’t mean anything. It must be interpreted to mean anything.
The problem is that you don’t consider your physicalist interpretations to be interpretations. IMO, you and others here have so completely presupposed that the data will fit into a physicalist interpretive paradigm that you don’t even realize you’re doing it.
WJM, you are making unwarranted assumptions about others. This comes close to the rule that one should assume others are posting in good faith.
William,
If that were true, then we wouldn’t be able to conceive of, understand, or test non-physical hypotheses.
But we can, obviously. Hence the debate over faith healing and amputees, which you are afraid to engage.
You consistently (and conveniently) underestimate your physicalist opponents. Most of us arrived at physicalism not by assuming it, but rather by testing and rejecting non-physicalist hypotheses.
If you think you have a “mind-primary” hypothesis that can withstand scientific scrutiny, then let’s hear it, along with your evidence for it.
I have no problem at all considering such hypotheses, but I predict that you’ll have a tough time defending them.
No, I’m not. That’s my considered opinion based on what they are posting and how they answer questions.
No, it’s not even close. Pointing out and arguing about what may be unconscious presuppositions has **nothing** whatsoever to do with whether or not one is arguing in good faith.
Did you miss where your own ilk implied I was a troll a couple of pages back? Or do you only attempt to moderate certain people?
This is incorrect, William. First, data and facts are not the same things. Second, scientists do not “interpret” facts. If something is a fact – such as the square-cube law – there’s nothing to interpret. It has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with how those terms are usee in science.
Further, scientists do not interpret facts as evidence. Facts can support evidence or might just BE evidence, but there’s nothing to interpret. What do you think a “fact” is?
My critique of your comments has nothing to do with physicalism or interpretation. It has everything to do with your apparent lack of grounding in what science actually is and how it works.
THIS.
Thanks for confirming that. It was already obvious and explains why you appear to be so gullible wrt IDism. Most YECists, and now many IDists are under-educated, according to surveys in the USA. That’s a simple fact. You’ve now added your name to the list.
Your lack of respect for capitalising divine names spoils your words. Shame.
It is absurd to take your ‘radical subjectivist’ position seriously, claiming to be a theist. Definitely what you’ve said is not credible for most world religions, even though you sometimes seem to demonstrate good intentions. Please stop playing an Abrahamic (mono)theist imposter, when you’re just making things up here as you go! Wrangling countless hours with ‘skeptics’ here isn’t worth that much in the end anyway.
That is different to the Catholic Church how?
“there are too many atheists here.” – davehooke (an anti-theist atheist)
Your classes must be a joy, Greg.
More joy, curiosity, exploration and adventure than any atheist’s class I’ve ever been in. But continue with the pointless ad homs, while fellow ‘skeptic’ moderators stand by. That’s, after all, what TSZ is largely about, Dick.
I did not offer to stop being an atheist, or a skeptic, or a pointer out of hypocrisy.
What do we have? Veneration of dead saints, Mary worship (and the assumption and the immaculate conception), equality of tradition and scripture, purgatory, holy water, rosaries, confession, celibacy of the priesthood, transubstantiation, the scapular, papal infallibility (despite popes being demonstrably wrong in the past), and more.
I think the Catholic Church are more important offenders when it comes to making stuff up than William.
You might want to learn what ‘ad hominem’ means / is, Greg. Perhaps that’s not in the HPSS curriculum?
Awesomesauce! Modesty, that’s a key strength too. Don’t forget that.
WJM isn’t “playing an Abrahamic (mono)theist imposter”; I don’t think anyone here takes WJM as representing any religious tradition.
Personally, I’ve been interpreting WJM as a Berkeleyian “empirical idealist” and objecting to his views on those ground: because I think the Cartesian conception of mind (on which idealism rests) is conceptually incoherent in light of Kant’s refutation of idealism and vindication of empirical realism. (Though unlike Kant, I’m a transcendental realist. Of course, developing a version of transcendental realism that takes the full measure of Kant’s criticisms of pre-Critical transcendental realism is the hard problem of metaphysics!)
I have no serious philosophical objections to theism; my objections to WJM’s views are to his empirical idealism. Specifically, to the corollary of empiricist idealism that there is no distinction in kind between perceiving and dreaming. This strikes me as phenomenologically false, if one pays careful attention to the role of embodiment in perceiving.
William’s argument is utilitarian, and I object on utilitarian grounds. When his wife or child has appendicitis, he will go to a doctor.
I find it very difficult to pin down exactly where I disagree with Dennett. He seems to veer between eliminativism (intentionality is just a ‘stance’, with no ontological import) and emergentism (but there are ‘real patterns’ that the different stances somehow relate to).
I do think that Dennet is exactly right to distinguish between “syntactic engines” (computers, brains, and his much-beloved example of the Panamanian two-bitser) and “semantic engines” (animals and humans). The hard problem of intentionality is to explain the latter in terms of the former, without eliminating the latter in favor of the former.
You’re incorrectly inferring that I mean that the interpretation precedes the acqusiition of a fact. It follows the acquisition of the fact. Facts are interpreted into evidence.
No fact comes with a tag that says “I am evidence for X”. Such facts are just information or data. Such data doesn’t in and by itself produce a theory. The mind translate the physical data into a conceptual representation. It is obviously true that not all humans translate that information into identical conceptual representations, because humans have widely variant opinions of what even the most basic data means and what would be the proper way to translate (interpret) that data into conceptual models (thus becoming evidence for or against that model).
To claim that facts are not interpreted into evidence and into models because of how we conceptualize and frame the data is glaringly, obviously wrong. IMO, the only way you – or anyone – can not understand this is if you have reified your particular interpretation/conceptualization and are now mistakenly objectifying it as “reality”.
That would matter if I had excluded doctors as being the best method for solving certain issues. I use what I think is the best tool for any particular job. Sometimes it’s doctors. Sometimes its faith or prayer. Sometimes it’s dancing around a fire. Sometimes kindness. Sometimes a wrench.
I never claimed anyone arrived it by assuming. My point is that many (if not most) physicalists have apparently reified their metaphysics into an objectification as reality – to wit, Robin’s claim that scientists don’t interpret facts into evidence for or against theoretical models, as if a physical thing in itself and by itself demanded to be conceptualized, categorized and organized a particular way. If that were true, then all of us would be in complete agreement about these things.
William,
For the third time, being a physicalist does not prevent me from entertaining non-physical hypotheses.
If you have one, let’s hear it, along with the evidence for it.
Or have you suddenly lost interest in science, Mr. “My Process Is Scientific”?
So I looked up “two-bitser”. I think I’ve read that Dennett example before, though I had forgotten the details.
His “two-bitser”, in effect, is what J.J. Gibson would call a transducer in his theory of direct perception. Dennett should give up on his representationalism and move to direct perception.
Real science is so much better than woo.
I’m sorry, but did you say you do or do not believe ghosts existed?
If you object to a comment, say so in the thread or in the moderation thread. If it is missed, post a reminder. That applies to anyone.
One of my objections to many of your comments is that they read as if you assume to know other people’s thoughts. If someone responds by correcting you, you should take that on board. Repeating the error is implying dishonesty. That’s agin the roolz!
Once again, you’re incorrect. I am not inferring anything about where in your process interpretation falls; I’m noting that in actual science, there is no interpretation of facts at any point. It doesn’t even make any sense as a statement.
Oh my word…you really don’t know what you’re writing about.
Many facts do indeed have tags indicating they are direct evidence. I can’t imagine a more absurd statement on your part. The fact that light takes 8 minutes 17 seconds to travel from the sun’s surface to the earth’s surface is direct evidence that light moves. There is nothing to interpret that fact “into” William. It stands on it’s own. You could say that a scientist has to account for that fact in developing his or her models (theories), but there’s no interpreting the fact.
William, there’s no translating facts into conceptual representation; facts ARE the conceptual representation. That’s the whole point. They are the product of analytical translation within the mind. The catch is that the product is exactly the same for all humans – that’s why we call them facts.
You have your understanding of how information works in the mind utterly muddled, likely because you haven’t actually sat down and studied this stuff.
Sorry William, but that’s how it works. You want to interpret facts into evidence, then you are not doing science.
Of the two of us, which one has actually studied and worked in science? You know…just to clarify from where your assertion is coming…
As you are doing now – assuming you know my thoughts, assumptions and intent when I write what I write?
As you have just done? You don’t know what I’m implying – you only know what you are inferring and I have corrected you.
I believe everyone here is arguing in good faith. Pointing out what may be subconscious ideological biases and arguing that they are indicated by what people write is not the same as implying they are not arguing in good faith.
You’ve been corrected, Alan, now please STFU and stop trying to read my mind.
poor baby!
We are in “complete agreement about these things”. That’s why they are called “facts”.
I repeat my question from yesterday: what is it you think “facts” are William?
Nope, I said that is the impression I gain from your comments; I can’t read minds.
As you have just done? You don’t know what I’m implying – you only know what you are inferring and I have corrected you.
I can only go by what you write. It matters not what you think. Lizzie has remarked you only have to assume others are commenting in good faith; you don’t have to believe it.
If that is what you were doing, I’d say: physician, heal thyself.
As I said, I have no idea what goes on in your head and have lost what interest I might have once had in finding out.
To reiterate, try asking people what they think rather than telling them. Then try taking it at face value.
It may be the most effective way of sharing your thoughts clealry, William..
Pissy Murray sans big-boy pants.
THIS PLEASE.
Did you even read what you wrote here? Let’s compact it: “The fact that light travels is evidence that light moves.” Or: “The fact that light moves is evidence that light moves.” You have stated an assumed tautology.
If we conduct an experiment where we turn on a light at X point and at X time, and the light is received at Y point at Y time, does that necessarily imply that light (itself) has actually traveled (in the sense of a thing having motion through space for a duration of time)? Necessarily, meaning, there is no other possible interpretation?
Given that time stops for anything moving at light speed (including photons), and distances become zero, from the photon’s perspective, it experiences neither time or distance. In what sense then can it be said that the photon itself is “traveling”? Rather, it is only our experience as a relativistic observer that interprets the photon as “traveling” from point X to Y in Y-X time.
From the perspective of the photon, the light is simultaneously at point X and Y because there no distance and no time. The idea of a space-time continuum (as in, continuous motion and time) is an abstraction – an interpretation of experiential data. Julian Barbour (in “The End of Time”) and others have laid out models of “space-time” that organize a different abstraction of what we experience as “motion” through space and time as the illusion generated by the sequentialized collapse of discrete potentials – that “motion” and “time” are discontinuous and discrete. IOW, as per the view from the photon, there is no actual distance between points X and Y; they (and every point in-between and everywhere else) are just superimposed potentials with discrete variances.
Thus, the facts actually gathered by the experiment do not necessarily indicate that light traveled from point X to Y in Y-X amount of time, but could also be interpreted to mean that there is something about our frame of reference that is limited (in some sense) to that particular sequence of collapsed potentials.
That others interpret the data from the experiment not to mean that light actually travels the distance between X and Y in Y-X time is proof that the data does not by itself come with a “tag” that necessarily indicates your conclusion that the light has actually traveled that distance in that time.
You are apparently subconsciously interpreting the data into evidence consistent with an abstract model of what space-time is and how it works (when others disagree with that conception, and thus the basic interpretation of the experimental data concerning light). I say this because your expression of that particular space-time interpretation of the experimental data as tautologically absolute and necessary leads me to think that you are unaware that your model of what space-time “is” and how it works is what interprets the data into “motion of light” in the first place. And, that others disagree with that concept of what we experience as the physical universe “is” and how it works.
Facts are facts – turn on a light at X at X time, observe the light at Y at Y time. That doesn’t necessarily mean the light traveled from X to Y in Y-X time because that interpretation depends on one’s abstract conception of what the physical universe is and how it works (wrt “space-time continuum”.
No, we are not. Unless you tautologically mean “we” in the “everyone who agrees with these things” sense.
Making the case that someone is interpreting data according to subconscious biases is **not the same** as telling them what they think. Pointing out Robin’s tautological “light travels so light moves” statement and how it depends upon a certain abstract model of the universe that others disagree with as evidence of such subconscious reification of his particular model of reality as “truth” to the point of asserting his interpretation of data as tautologically true is not “telling Robin what he thinks”, but rather attempting to point out potential flaws in his thinking process.
IOW, it is obvious that Robin has assumed a certain concept of what reality, or the physical universe, or the space-time continuum is and how it works for him to express his interpretation of the data of the experiment as tautologically necessary – that, essentially, no one can disagree or interpret it differently, which is patently false to the point of absurdity.
Following up on my previous remark that
I found this passage from McDowell:
Consider this passage from Dennett, Consciousness Explained, p. 41: “Dualism, the idea that the brain cannot be a thinking thing so a thinking thing cannot be a brain, is tempting for a variety of reasons, but we must resist temptation . . . Somehow the brain must be the mind”. But a brain cannot be a thinking thing (it is, as Dennett himself remarks, just a syntactic engine). Dualism resides not in the perfectly correct thought that a brain is not a thinking thing, but in postulating some thing immaterial to be the thinking thing that the brain is not, instead of realizing that the thinking thing is the rational animal. Dennett can be comfortable with the thought that the brain must be the mind, in combination with his own awareness that the brain is just a syntactic engine, only because he thinks that in the sense in which the brain is not really a thinking thing, nothing is: the status of possessor of intentional states is conferred by adoption of the intentional stance towards it, and that is no more correct for animals than for brains, or indeed thermostats. But this is a gratuitous addition to the real insight embodied in the invocation of the intentional stance. Rational animals genuinely are “semantic engines”. (“Naturalism in Philosophy of Mind,” 2004).
Elsewhere McDowell has implied that non-rational animals are also semantic engines, and I think this is a view he ought to endorse more forthrightly and boldly than he has. But brains are, of course, syntactic engines.
So it seems quite clear to me that one of the following has to be the case:
(1) neurocomputational processes (‘syntax’) are necessary and sufficient for intentional content (‘semantics’) [Churchland];
(2) intentional content is a convenient fiction for re-describing what can also be described as neurocomputational processes [Dennett] (in which case there really aren’t minds at all; here one could easily push on Dennett’s views to motivate eliminativism);
(3) neurocomputational processes are necessary but not sufficient for intentional content; the brain is merely a syntactic engine, whereas the rational animal is a semantic engine; the rational animal, and not the brain, is the thinking thing; the brain of a rational animal is not the rational animal, since it is a part of the whole and not the whole [McDowell].
I find myself strongly attracted to all three views, actually, but I think that (3) is slightly preferable to (1) and (2). My worry with (1) is that I don’t find Churchland’s response to Searle entirely persuasive (even though I find Searle’s own views completely unhelpful). Is syntax necessary and sufficient for semantics? Searle takes it for granted that this is obviously and intuitively false. In response, Churchland says, “maybe it’s true! we’ll have to see how the cognitive neuroscience turns out — maybe it’s our intuition that’s false!”. Well, sure. But unless I’m missing something really important, we’re not yet at a point in our understanding of the brain where we can understand how semantics emerges from syntax.
My objection to (2) is quite different — I think that the concept of intentionality plays far too central a role in our ordinary self-understanding for us to throw it under the bus as a mere convenient fiction. Of course, our ordinary self-understanding is hardly sacrosanct; we will have to revise it in the future in light of new scientific discoveries, just as we have in the past. But there is a limit to how much revision is conceivable, because if we jettison the very concept of rational agency, we will lose our grip on our ability to understand what science itself is and why it is worth doing. Our ability to do science at all, and to make sense of what we are doing when we do science, presupposes the notion of rational agency, hence intentionality, and abandoning that concept due to modern science would effectively mean that science has shown that we do not know what science is. That would be a fascinating step in the evolution of consciousness, but I’m not sure it’s one I’m prepared to take.
So that leaves (3), or something like it, as the contender: we must on the one hand, retain the mere sanity that we (and other animals) are semantic engines, bearers of intentional content; on the other hand, we accept that our brains are syntactic engines, running parallel neurocomputational processes. This entails that the mind is not the brain after all, but also that rejecting mind-brain identity offers no succor to dualism.
Are you ready to critique Hawkins’ latest paper now, Mr Scientist? Or will you still claim it’s simply wrong but not articulate why?
William, this is a great example of why you are mistaken about science – you’re not understanding the distinction of terminology. I did not say, “the fact that light moves is evidence that light moves”…not at all. Note specifically what I said:
So, let’s unpack this: That it takes a specific amount of time for light to be detected arriving from the sun to the earth means that light does not appear instantaneously (as once thought), but actually moves at a given speed.
There you go. No tautology. No interpretation. Actual fact used as evidence.
So this brings up another question: what exactly do you think the word “evidence” means?
You are confusing terms right, left and center. The “fact”, in this case, is the specific time it takes to detect light at point A and then point B. There’s no interpretation of that. It is what it is – a fact. The “evidence”, then, is the implication that the light is doing something during this expenditure of time. So yes, it does actually imply that the light has traveled between points A and B. Does it “prove” it? No, but then that’s not what either evidence or science is about.
Yes, but that’s relative to the photons, not relative to the Earth.
In the sense that the photo is actually traversing space time relative to the sun and the Earth.
But we’re not talking about the view from the photon; the photo is not the one doing the analysis of the system or measuring the time elapsed – a scientist on Earth is. So, your digression, while quite valid and interesting as an exercise, has no relevance to the point I am addressing.
Absolute bollucks! The “data” (not the “facts”) generated by the experiment would not be from the perspective of the photon. How could they be?
William, where are you getting this supposed “data” from the experiment I presented? Clearly not from doing the experiment. So…how exactly would what you are doing be considered science? It wouldn’t, because you are not following the methodology. Which is what I noted in the first place.
No, you’re just insisting on ignoring my experimental parameters.
Well, you can say whatever you want, but of course the only actual issue is you’ve ignored the parameters as set forth.
No, it doesn’t William. It depends ONLY on the use of proper methodology, which for whatever reason, you insist on ignoring. That’s fine I suppose, but then you aren’t doing science. Have at your non-scientific approach to reality.
William, why don’t you present an example of what you think a fact is. I’m just really curious about what a fact is to you.
For example, is it a fact to you that light travels at 299,792,458 meters per second?
Hmm, maybe we should have started a new topic for this discussion.
Thanks for the quote. I mostly agree with that.
That, however, I see as completely wrong.
I disagree with all. No doubt that’s because I don’t see the brain as a syntactic engine.
I can somewhat agree with that, as long as you don’t complete the sentence.
I agree on both Searle and Churchland.
I think Searle is right about that. However, Searle has no supporting argument. His CR argument at most shows that syntactic processing can be done without reference to semantics.
And I see that as backwards. It is syntax that emerges from semantics, not the other way around.
I survived the first 50 years of my life without ever coming across the term “intentionality.” And then it took me another 5 years to grasp what philosophers mean by that term. No, I don’t see a central role there.
Well, okay, I can see why it has a central role in philosophy. But that’s because philosophy has become a theory of syntactic engines. In my opinion, this is just a mistake. It should have developed as a theory of semantic engines.
I don’t see that at all. Science fits in well with the idea of humans as semantic beings. You only need rational agency so that you can discuss science as if it were a syntactic practice. And you only need intentionality to help you maintain the fiction that there is a syntactic engine behind it all.
Not sure if I follow every part of this, but I think language (syntax) is a bag tacked onto brains.
It’s a very valuable thing, because it enables coordination of group behavior, but it’s a fairly recent thing. Any theory of what brains do needs to start at an earlier level of evolution.
William,
I repeat: