Friday, July 19, 2013

Testing the supernatural

by Massimo Pigliucci

Time to reconsider the relationship between science and the supernatural. A number of colleagues in both science and philosophy argue that the supernatural is nothing special, that god-related hypotheses can be tested by ordinary scientific methods, and that — given the repeated failure of such tests — the only rational conclusion is that science has pretty much shown that there is no such thing as the supernatural.

I am a bit skeptical of this sort of sweeping statement, on two grounds: I think the power of scientific investigation is significantly more limited than the above mentioned colleagues seem to admit; and I think the ideas about god(s) and the supernatural are so confused and borderline incoherent that to raise them to the level of a scientifically testable hypothesis grants them far too much.

Before proceeding, let me state clearly my position: I agree that specific claims made by supernaturalists can and have been shown to be false on empirical grounds. The obvious example is the idea that the earth is only a few thousand years old. But what I maintain is that even in such obvious cases this does not amount to a scientific rejection of the supernatural, for the simple reason that there is no coherent and precise enough relationship between the specific claim (the earth is young) and the general idea (there is a god) — contra, of course, the situation for actual scientific hypotheses (say, the relationship between the general theory of relativity and its prediction that gravitational fields bend light by a certain, precise, degree). For instance, a number of young earth creationists reject the empirical disproof of their claims on the grounds that god made it appear as if the earth is old, but that this is really a test of our faith. Crazy, I know, but that is exactly where such ideas belong — to the dustbin of completely ludicrous notions — quite regardless of whatever science may have to say about them.

Think of the creationist’s strategy as a comically inflated version of the Duhem-Quine thesis against falsification of ordinary scientific hypotheses: Pierre Duhem pre-empted Popper’s famous analysis of scientific progress in terms of falsifiability of theories on the grounds that scientists usually do not, in fact, discard a theory as soon as its predictions do not match the data. Rather, they look first to the ancillary hypotheses that go into the test itself, such as whether the instrumentation was working correctly, whether the data were analyzed properly, and so on. W.V.O. Quine made the same point more broadly, suggesting that our knowledge of the world depends on a complex web of notions, any one of which may need to be re-evaluated and possibly discarded, if there are sufficient reasons to do so. Quine included logic itself in the number of notions that we may be forced to modify, though not many philosophers, I think, would go that far (especially not many logicians!). The point is that the supernaturalist’s web of belief and set of ancillary “hypotheses” is much, much wider, and much, much fuzzier, than the web scientists deploy when they evaluate their ideas about the world.

So let’s examine a couple of specific examples that I hope will clearly highlight the limits of scientific investigations of the supernatural: the (alleged) virgin birth of Jesus and the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. I will argue that while the first seems to be within the realm of empirical investigation, such investigation is not only not possible in practice, but likely not even in principle. As for the second case, I simply don’t see how any scientific analysis could possibly be performed that would settle the matter. Again, I don’t think of these as limitations of science, but rather as indicative of the fuzziness and possible incoherence of the idea of the supernatural.

Richard Dawkins (pp. 82-83 of The God Delusion) asks: “Did Jesus have a human father, or was his mother a virgin at the time of his birth? Whether or not there is enough surviving evidence to decide it, this is a strictly scientific question with a definite answer in principle: yes or no.” Let us set aside the quasi sophistic use of the locution “whether or not there is enough surviving evidence” (since Dawkins damn well knows that there is no evidence at all), it would seem prima facie that he is right: either Jesus was born of a virgin mother via supernatural means or he had a much more earthly fatherly origin. How would anyone test such a claim, assuming for the sake of argument that we could go back in time and collect all the evidence we want? Easy: just sample Jesus’, Mary’s and Joseph’s DNA and compare their profiles, right? Not even close. You see, that sort of approach works excellently well to establish natural paternity, but we don’t know what a supernatural paternity entails in terms of biological traces (i.e., the concept itself is hopelessly vague). The point will be even more, painfully, I would say, clear in a moment, when we turn to transubstantiation, but it should be obvious even now. A DNA test (or whatever else Dawkins would like to do in this case) assumes a number of notions about biology and physics, which are the very notions that — by definition — are being violated when there is a miracle [1].

David Hume famously pointed out that rational-empirical investigations of any sort, including scientific ones, are possible only under a certain number of assumptions, the major one being that nature does not behave capriciously. If it did, all bets would be off and we wouldn’t even know where or what to look for. But all bets are off when we are talking about miracles, since that’s what miracles are: violations of the continuity of nature’s operations. Indeed, in his famous essay Of Miracles, Hume advanced the argument that the reason we shouldn’t believe in them is because no testimony could ever be sufficient to establish a violation of the laws of nature against the alternative hypotheses that there has been fraud or a mistake (the argument can and has been made rigorous within a Bayesian framework):
When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should have really happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of the testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.
So Dawkins is right in dismissing the possibility of a supernatural conception of Jesus, but not because the hypothesis is scientifically testable — regardless of the actual availability of evidence. It is because we have no good reason, and plenty of contrary ones, to subscribe to the very notion of miracles itself. This, needless to say, is a philosophical, not a scientific, argument [2].

Let us now turn to the idea of transubstantiation, which is an “allied dogma” to the central dogma referred to by Catholics as the Fact of the Real Presence (whatever). This is, of course, the idea that during the sacrament of the Eucharist the substance of both wine and bread are not just metaphorically, but literally, the flesh and blood of Christ, even though — and this is the clincher — all that our senses can actually approach is the appearance of things, i.e. bread and wine.

The doctrine has been around at least since the 11th century, but here is how the fourth Lateran Council put the matter in 1215: “His body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine, the bread and wine having been transubstantiated, by God’s power, into his body and blood.” Not clear enough? Well, then, how about the definition given by the Council of Trent in 1551: “that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood — the species only of the bread and wine remaining — which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation.”

What are we to make of that? The idea of transubstantiation is, I suggest, simply incoherent. But incoherent with what? Well, at the very least with the laws of physics (and biology) as we know them. One can simply not make sense of the claim that something is at the same time both blood and wine, or both flesh and bread and still talk about blood, wine, flesh and bread as made of molecules and the corresponding subatomic particles. More fundamentally, the idea seems to violate the law of identity in basic logic: A is A, and therefore A is not ~A.

Logically incoherent concepts do not need to be investigated empirically: we know that they must be false, if we wish to rely on logic at all (pace Quine). But let’s say that Dawkins wanted to prove on scientific grounds that transubstantiation does not actually happen. How on earth would he do that? He cannot simply get a piece of bread and a sample of wine during a Eucharist ceremony, analyze them chemically and then triumphantly say to the world: “See? There is no blood or flesh here! So there.” That would move precisely no fervent Catholic at all, nor should it. Indeed, the scientist who insisted in making such a move would make a fool of himself in a way very much parallel to the famous episode of Samuel Johnson “refuting” George Berkeley’s idealist doctrine: the latter maintained that matter does not exist, it only appears to exist (sounds familiar?). To which Johnson (in a conversation with James Boswell) replied by kicking a nearby stone and smugly concluding “I refute it thus!” The joke, to this day, is of course on Johnson, who simply did not understand Berkeley’s idealism, a doctrine that — much like transubstantiation — is simply immune from any conceivable empirical disproof. In neither case, however, should we conclude that this built-in resistance to falsification is a virtue: Berkeley’s idealism is conceptually possible, but not that interesting; transubstantiation is conceptually incoherent and therefore not even wrong.

Examples such as the ones above could easily be multiplied ad nauseam. Take “research” on the effectiveness of intercessory prayer, for instance. Not surprisingly, the results have been negative. But this says nothing about the existence of a god who answers prayers, for at least two obvious reasons: first, if you were that god and you saw that a bunch of earthlings had the audacity to try to “test” you in a controlled experiment, wouldn’t you simply refuse to play along to teach those mortals some respect? I mean, the hubris of putting god under the microscope! Second, as my Catholic friends often remind me: god answers all prayers, it’s just that some time (most of the times?) the answer is “no.” Talk about the ultimate unfalsifiable hypothesis!

Ah, but what if we did get positive results, say from the intercessory prayers experiments? Wouldn’t that be proof positive that the supernaturalists are right? I’m not so sure. As scientists, we would want to know how such a thing is possible within the Humean conceptual framework for science: naturalism. Accordingly, we would first check the reliability and repeatability of the results and methods deployed in the experiment; then we would double check the data analyses; then we would attempt to eliminate any possibility of fraud. And then? Well, at one point we may have to admit either that there is a strange natural phenomenon of unknown origin, or that there is some intelligence at play. But even at that point, nothing would compel us to admit to the supernatural: remember Arthur C. Clarke’s famous third law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Or watch again this beautifully on target episode of Star Trek — The Next Generation, and watch Captain Picard, in perfect Humean fashion, unmask the devil herself [3].

__________

[1] The savvy reader could reasonably ask, at this point: what about paranormal phenomena? Should we dismiss them also as being outside of the scientific purview? The answer there is: it depends. If the paranormalist claims that we are dealing with a lawful, if mysterious, natural phenomenon (say, the existence of Nessie, or the ability to read other people’s minds), then we can certainly carry out meaningful scientific studies of it. But the more said phenomenon begins to acquire supernatural connotations (ghosts come to mind), the less we can (or need to, really) say about it on scientific grounds. And yes, to make things more interesting, I have just outlined a continuum, not a sharp natural/supernatural dichotomy.

[2] When successful, philosophical arguments simply preempt — as in make unnecessary — scientific ones. Just as showing something to be logically impossible makes it superfluous to show that it is also empirically untenable.

[3] Of course, at some point Picard would have to admit that it becomes increasingly unreasonable to deny the supernatural, if the devil keeps defying his attempts at naturalistic explanations. But even at that point, there is no science that the Enterprise could deploy in order to further understand the phenomenon. Because science assumes the continuity of nature and the understandability of its laws. Hume docet, as usual.

96 comments:

  1. The idea that the existence of God can be proved or disproved (epistemologically) is both naïve and absurd, unless one finds reason to believe that there is no such thing as free will, but, at this point even the people that claim that there is no free will, acknowledge that we have a minimum of free will, even if it is illusory. Christians, and I think this is a common feature to theist religions, claim that God is a God of love (and that only by love you can access to God) and that God gave us, humans, free will (besides many other things). In this sense if it was possible to prove that God exists (epistemologically) we would be bound by reason (which was another gift from God) to acknowledge that God exists, which is the same to say that we would be forced to believe in Him (or would be His slaves, not His lovers). In a sense one Christians say that we were created at His image, one of the most important features is that he made us, with the capability of recognizing His existence (through, conscious, reason, and free will), and on the same time with the capacity of denying His existence (through, conscious, reason, and free will). We are even capable of create other gods, of imagining that other people (or groups of people) are divine and eventually to believe that we are deities (through, conscious, reason, and free will). However for the Christians, what really leads us to God is love (and this is what God requires from us). Before the ascension of Jesus, some apostles asked where could they find Him, and His reply was “among the poor and those who suffer” (that was His reply, but I have to confess that it is not a simple task to find Him where He said He would be, no matter how hard I try, but, then I am not a very good Christian I have to recognize).

    I can’t tell you much about miracles or transubstantiation (these are complicated mysteries to me), however you seem to have a very good idea about that.

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  2. Hi Massimo,

    Great post - very in accord with my own thoughts on the matter.

    As I've said in previous posts, I like to think of the natural as that which could in principle be understood as supervening on mathematical laws (i.e. the physical laws of nature).

    I think mathematics is in a way the study of precisely defined concepts, so I feel this is very much in accord with your characterisation of the supernatural as that which is too vague or fuzzy to be pinned down.

    Where I would perhaps pick something to disagree with is on how much of a distinction there is between claims like virgin birth and claims like transubstantiation. You seem to think that they are perhaps equally unfalsifiable, but I don't think this is the case. It's really only barriers of time and space that prevent us from getting the evidence of the truth of Jesus' conception, whereas transubstantiation is in principle unfalsifiable.

    The virgin conception of Jesus is unfalsifiable the way an unproven story about any long-dead historical figure is unfalsifiable. Genetics are not the only possible evidence we might find, there's also the possibility of eye-witness accounts and personal testimony.

    If we could travel back in time and witness the event, we'd have the truth of the matter. We could witness Mary having intercourse on the one hand, or we might be able to see a pregnant woman with an unbroken hymen on the other.

    I can't conceive of any corresponding scenario in which any fantastical technology could establish or refute transubstantiation.

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  3. More interesting "supernatural" claims than (young Earth) creationism, transubstantiation (which even Protestants say is bunk), and the virgin birth (some Protestants say the virgin birth is bunk, and all say the Immaculate Conception is bunk) are intelligent design (agreeing with scientists that the universe is 13.whatever billions years old) and the Resurrection (which combines Catholic and Protestant believers).

    Why does one not include supernatural entities in one's web of belief? If they are not needed, it makes life (and thinking about world) neater. Thriftier, one might say.

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  4. Berkeley's system explains dreams, hallucinations, optical illusions, phantom limb pain, blindsight, confabulation, the personalities that can appear under hypnosis?

    I recently read the Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous. What sticks in my memory most was one of his proofs that there are no qualities inherent in matter (indicating that there is no such thing.) It was his observation that a person could put one hand in cold water, put another in warm water. Then, upon putting both hands in intermediate temperature water, the different hands seem to feel different temperatures from the very same sample! QED.

    But if Berkeley, with stuff like this, is allegedly a serious philosopher, what else can ordinary people like Dr. Johnson conclude.

    A is A is a fixation of the Objectivists. I didn't know you were an Ayn Rand fan. As to transubstantiation, the essence is A and stays A and the accidents are A (another A) as well, and also stay A. The always contemptible experiential view that there is no reason to believe that there is anything that corresponds to an essence, and innumerable successful explanations incompatible with such a notion are irrelevant. Unless you hold to the equally contemptible notion of truth as that which corresponds to reality.

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  5. All this depends, once again, on an unrealistically narrow definition of science. Science is not just one hypothesis test after another while logic, parsimony and the rejection of incoherent nonsense are the sole purview of philosophy. Without these tools, science cannot do its job, so they must also be part of science.

    Science is not just a method, science is also a community of researchers and institutions, and a body of tentatively accepted knowledge, because without those it would not work either. A scientist cannot evaluate claims with a single hypothesis test but also, for example, based on whether they are plausible in the light of what we already think we know.

    Science thus construed in the way in which it is actually practiced by scientists can tentatively reject a claim even if it is not directly testable. That does not take anything away from philosophy, it merely means that science without some philosophy would not be functional.

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    1. That should have been "cannot only evaluate", obviously.

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    2. Having had a closer look at the first few comments, I feel one could add that surprisingly few things, and probably none at all in science, can ever actually be proved or disproved to the degree that would satisfy those who smugly proclaim that god cannot be disproved.

      If somebody were to claim that a certain mixture of herbs makes lost limbs regrow, and then whenever somebody tries to replicate the process and fails they always say, ah wait, here is yet another ingredient that I forgot to tell you, try again, or, that is mysterious, you will just have to trust me that it works and keep trying, we would soon conclude that perhaps this does not actually work although, and please pay attention here, we have not logically disproved that it cannot. Instead we have one of those beyond reasonable doubt situations.

      And that is all that science ever claims and all that anybody ever demands of science unless the same approach is applied to their faith, at which point suddenly beyond reasonable doubt is not good enough anymore, and using that criterion turns into scientism. Funny how that works. I think there is even a formal name for that fallacy.

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  6. >Pierre Duhem rejected Popper’s famous analysis of scientific progress in terms of falsifiability of theories on the grounds that scientists usually do not, in fact, discard a theory as soon as its predictions do not match the data...<

    Barring miracles, Pierre Duhem couldn't have rejected Popper's theory because he was dead by the time Popper worked it out. He died soon after Popper's 14th birthday.

    It always struck me as ironical that the very skeptical and science-friendly Quine was largely responsible for renewing interest in this French philosopher who (as his letters and other documents show) was motivated almost entirely by a desire to defend the Roman Catholic faith.

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    1. It's plausible to think that Massimo has forgotten to place just one word in this part of his essay: (Duhem rejected Popper) beforehand.

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  7. Flawed Lessons and Truth

    We've been taught the theories and faiths of science and religion, the laws and uncertain measures of science, and the terribly flawed inequities of the Gods and devils and heavens and hells and everything else; the lessons that question and divide us from not only ourselves, but more importantly, from Nature, our true selves.

    Someday soon truth will be taught, and the man-made divisions will devolve into the light of Oneness, the infinite, the absolute, into the true Nature of One is simply All.

    The proof:
    Einstein searched for an equation that unites everything has been found, it was hiding at the foundation of his own equation. The solution is equal and the lion as is his tail are One.
    Be One too,

    =

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  8. Great, Massimo! I'd say that you made an extensive and highly pertinent comment on Wittgenstein's last sentence in his Tractatus. One more thing: please, be kind with Berkeley next time; his system is - how can I say? - so appealing, so cute... :)

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  9. I think that 'science', which I truly love, is a hopelessly limited tool in assessing the supernatural as a whole. But I believe that philosophy is equally inadequate. I haven't had a chance to carefully compose this comment, so I'm kind of winging it here. But here are a couple of thoughts that immediately come to mind: (1) The ability to reach a correct conclusion about the nature of a given phenomenon via the use of logic is necessarily dependent on a sufficient knowledge of the relevant facts and factors. So when I read this, "I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle.".... I end up asking: How arrogant do you have to be to believe that you are truly capable of determining which 'miracle' is "greater"...? And I ask this even of those who reject, out of hand, the very possibility of the supernatural. This is purely an opinion, but I say that if there's one thing we SHOULD have come to believe in the last 500 or 600 years, it's this: There is far more that we DON'T understand about the universe than we DO understand. 'Scientific' beliefs once thought to be FACTS have been overturned, upended, disproved, and replaced how many times?? Consider that perhaps, when it comes to what is termed supernatural, we have about as much of a chance of grasping and understanding it in rational terms as an ant has of gaining an awareness of - and then making sense of - the stock market. Not because all of what is called supernatural is necessarily outside of 'naturalism'; but because our current (tentative) understanding of the universe may barely scratch the surface. I think, in our hubris, we give short shrift to the possibility that our very conception of truly objective reality may be hopelessly fucked. (2) If I cannot explain to a man who has never seen or heard of a telephone what one looks like, how one works, or when the telephone was invented and by whom, that does not mean that telephones do not exist. The man might be justified in concluding from my inept explanation that there is - and never has been - such a device. But his justifiable conclusion would not concur with objective reality. In the same way, the inability of a theist to explain, in rational or logical terms, a phenomenon like transubstantiation does not mean that it is such a nonsensical concept that we can safely reject the existence of it. By “safely” I mean reject it with a determinable degree of certainty that our rejection of it concurs with objective reality. Perhaps the concept is not incoherent at all, but just so difficult to grasp or explain that most explanations of it are incoherent. Furthermore, though I don't believe in transubstantiation, I realize that I cannot with any intellectual honesty declare that I absolutely have the tools necessary to evaluate the likelihood of its existence.

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  10. If you are searching for miracles try the pathway to truth,
    The closer One gets, the more beauty One sees.
    As for directions, go this Way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyOuahbKySA
    I'll meet you here,

    =

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  11. It seems to me that your entire post is predicated on a confusion between "deductive disproof" - which is a concept limited to deductive logic and mathematics - and "empirical rejection beyond reasonable doubt" - which is the only relevent concept in science. For instance, you say: "So Dawkins is right in dismissing the possibility of a supernatural conception of Jesus, but not because the hypothesis is scientifically testable — regardless of the actual availability of evidence. It is because we have no good reason, and plenty of contrary ones, to subscribe to the very notion of miracles itself. This, needless to say, is a philosophical, not a scientific, argument". That "empirical rejection beyond reasonable doubt" can be traced to a philosopher (Hume) does not make is "not a scientific argument"; on the contrary, it is the only argument that science can make. If you are claiming that science cannot provide absolute proof against the supernatural then this is not says much because science cannot provide absolute deductive proof for or against any argument.

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  12. Disagreeable,

    > Where I would perhaps pick something to disagree with is on how much of a distinction there is between claims like virgin birth and claims like transubstantiation. You seem to think that they are perhaps equally unfalsifiable, but I don't think this is the case. <

    Yes, my initial intent was precisely to draw the distinction you are getting to: between things that are in principle scientifically testable (but that really aren’t) and things that aren’t even approachable by science as a matter of principle. But then I realized that the idea of “testing” for the immaculate conception rests, of course, on the standard assumptions of naturalism, particularly the continuity of nature; as well as on the idea that the supernatural “hypothesis” is coherent. But why would we expect a physical trace from one miracle (the immaculate conception) and not another one (transubstantiation)? The believer could say that, sure, physically speaking Jesus has a regular set of chromosomes, but spiritually he was conceived by god. Whatever.

    > I can't conceive of any corresponding scenario in which any fantastical technology could establish or refute transubstantiation. <

    Yeah, I’d like to hear what Coyne or Dawkins would say about that one.

    S. Johnson,

    > Berkeley's system explains dreams, hallucinations, optical illusions, phantom limb pain, blindsight, confabulation, the personalities that can appear under hypnosis? <

    You’re kidding, right?

    > Then, upon putting both hands in intermediate temperature water, the different hands seem to feel different temperatures from the very same sample! QED. <

    For which standard physiology has a perfectly good, non-idealistic explanation.

    > if Berkeley, with stuff like this, is allegedly a serious philosopher, what else can ordinary people like Dr. Johnson conclude. <

    Berkeley was a serious philosopher, and Johnson simply didn’t understand his argument. But being a serious philosopher doesn’t mean you are right about the ultimate nature of the world.

    > A is A is a fixation of the Objectivists. I didn't know you were an Ayn Rand fan. <

    I’m not. It’s also a “fixation” of any logician who teaches introductory courses in his discipline.

    > As to transubstantiation, the essence is A and stays A and the accidents are A (another A) as well, and also stay A. <

    That is meaningless gibberish. If both the accidents and the essence are A, then A <> A, which is a logical contradiction. If the accidents are distinct from the essence, then they are not A.

    > Unless you hold to the equally contemptible notion of truth as that which corresponds to reality. <

    That, my friend, is a pretty good example of non sequitur.

    Mark,

    yes, yes, you are obviously correct about Popper and Duhem. Poor phrasing on my part, now corrected.

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  13. Alex,

    I thought you were going to be one of the first to respond!

    > All this depends, once again, on an unrealistically narrow definition of science. <

    Well, by now you know what I think of that. It is your definition of science that, in my view, is unrealistically broad. Look, if we were having this conversation outside of this specific context, I bet you wouldn’t argue that whatever is empirical in nature is also scientific. I’m not doing science or hypothesis testing — in any meaningful sense of the term — when I get out the door in the morning and decide which subway to take. You (and Coyns, and Dawkins, etc.) are arguing for an inflated view of science because you just don’t seem to be able to bear the thought that it has limits, particularly limits that don’t include supernaturalism. I’m content to show that supernaturalism is incoherent and unnecessary.

    > logic, parsimony and the rejection of incoherent nonsense are the sole purview of philosophy <

    Whoever said that? But be careful, because I could just as easily argue that “thinking” is not just the pursue of science, so that everything we do, including science, is actually philosophy. See how meaningless that game turns out to be?

    > science is also a community of researchers and institutions, and a body of tentatively accepted knowledge <

    That’s right. And how many scientific papers have been published, or grants funded, to test “the god hypothesis”?

    > Science thus construed in the way in which it is actually practiced by scientists can tentatively reject a claim even if it is not directly testable <

    I’ve practiced science for a quarter of a century, and I never come across that sort of case. When faced with those instances scientists simply shrug and move on, rejecting the claim as “not even wrong.”

    > If somebody were to claim that a certain mixture of herbs makes lost limbs regrow, and then whenever somebody tries to replicate the process and fails they always say, ah wait, here is yet another ingredient that I forgot to tell you, try again <

    You must have missed footnote 3 in the post... That’s why I contend that there is a continuum between pseudoscience and supernaturalism. The closer you stray toward the latter, the less science can (really, needs) to say about it.

    Incidentally, how would you disprove the notion of transubstantiation? Just curious.

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  14. N-Charley,

    > 'science', which I truly love, is a hopelessly limited tool in assessing the supernatural as a whole <

    I think that’s precisely the wrong message to get from this post. The idea I’m putting forth is that it is supernaturalism that is hopelessly incoherent, and that’s no fault of science.

    > How arrogant do you have to be to believe that you are truly capable of determining which 'miracle' is "greater"...? <

    Just as arrogant as a standard Bayesian evaluator. Here are two formal ways to translate Hume’s thinking into Bayesian terms:

    http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2220337?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102477215041
    http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2220336?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102477215041

    > There is far more that we DON'T understand about the universe than we DO understand. <

    Perhaps. From which precisely nothing concerning the supernatural logically follows.

    > Not because all of what is called supernatural is necessarily outside of 'naturalism'; but because our current (tentative) understanding of the universe may barely scratch the surface. <

    You seem to willfully ignore the other obvious alternative: because the supernatural doesn’t exist.

    > we give short shrift to the possibility that our very conception of truly objective reality may be hopelessly fucked. <

    Maybe it is. Got any positive reason to think so? I don’t.

    > If I cannot explain to a man who has never seen or heard of a telephone what one looks like, how one works, or when the telephone was invented and by whom, that does not mean that telephones do not exist <

    Sure, but the people we are talking about (theologians on one side, philosophers and scientists on the other) are not like your telephone-ignorant man. They know as much as it is currently humanly possible to know about how the universe seems to work. So your analogy, though interesting, is flawed. Unless you are positing a special sixth sense or insight that (magically) only theists have.

    Unknown,

    > It seems to me that your entire post is predicated on a confusion between "deductive disproof" - which is a concept limited to deductive logic and mathematics - and "empirical rejection beyond reasonable doubt" - which is the only relevant concept in science. <

    I assure you that I am perfectly aware of that distinction, I teach it every semester in my introductory courses.

    > That "empirical rejection beyond reasonable doubt" can be traced to a philosopher (Hume) does not make is "not a scientific argument" <

    Of course it doesn’t. You misunderstood what I wrote. I said that Hume’s argument goes through because it relies on a fundamental assumption that science has to make, what he called the continuity of nature and natural laws. Which is precisely what is being broken (allegedly) when we talk about miracles.

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  15. @Massimo:
    "since that’s what miracles are: violations of the continuity of nature’s operations."
    Well at least you recognize that this continuity exists even if you reject the idea that continuity is a reflection of intelligent order.

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  16. "I think that’s precisely the wrong message to get from this post. The idea I’m putting forth is that it is supernaturalism that is hopelessly incoherent, and that’s no fault of science."
    I didn't miss the point of your post; and in a narrow sense, I agree with part. Yes, IF supernaturalism is hopelessly incoherent (as you are saying), then it is certainly no fault of science that science can't be used to make heads or tails of it. But what I was attempting to point out is that just because science (or philosophy) can't be used to make heads or tails of supernaturalism, does not therefore mean that supernaturalism is hopelessly incoherent. You seemed to think I was arguing that supernaturalism is NOT hopelessly incoherent; but in actuality my argument is that we cannot say with certainty that there is no way to approach supernaturalism that would prove it (or aspects of it) quite coherent after all. I am in essence saying that the mistake is assuming that the tools at our disposal (science, reason, philosophy... even 'mind' itself) either are, or aren't, up to the task. So just as it is not the fault of science if supernaturalism is hopelessly incoherent, it is not the fault of coherent supernaturalism if science or philosophy are inadequate tools for grasping it. I can absolutely acknowledge the "obvious alternative" (that supernaturalism doesn't exist); but to take that alternative as the "greater miracle" requires an assumption that we know enough (and can be certain enough about what we think we know) to determine which is the "greater miracle". I posit that there is no proof that we do; and no reason to believe we don't. And there is no way to know how many possible configurations of objective reality aren't even on our radar yet. Much of what we call supernaturalism could end up being firmly within the bounds of understandable science down the road. And there IS as much good reason to believe that likely as to believe it unlikely. It comes from a good look at the history of scientific development and discovery, where things once thought mad are now so widely accepted that only mad men reject them.

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  17. But the point I was most hoping to make is this: A position that assumes supernaturalism is hopelessly incoherent requires making far too many assumptions to be tenable. As much as we as a society pride ourselves on our use of reason and science in our various (academically approved) approaches to divining what is 'real', we still have to make a great many assumptions about reality in order to function and survive. We rely more on such assumptions than on anything provable in the course of conducting our lives. What we end up with are world-views that are a hodge-podge of assumptions, lightly sprinkled with bits and pieces we believe to be facts. For instance, in saying that theologians on one side, philosophers and scientists on the other, "know as much as it is currently humanly possible to know about how the universe seems to work", you are making a HUGE assumption - one that I cannot see how you can empirically justify scientifically or philosophically. How can you POSSIBLY determine what is "currently humanly possible to know about how the universe works"...? That position assumes a type of near-omniscience, where you are not only aware of current limits of our knowledge, but are even clued into the limits of our current POTENTIAL to understand the universe. In a world containing billions of people, scores of cultures, and countless individual and collective experiences... Really? You can say with any certainty that it is likely that any given theologian, scientist, or philosopher (or collection of such people) "know(s) as much as it is currently humanly possible to know about how the universe seems to work"...? And no, my "telephone" analogy is not flawed. Whether it is via a sixth sense or some other seemingly supernatural device, I simply leave open the possibility that a person could have absolute knowledge of a phenomenon that DOES exist, yet may have gained said knowledge in a way the mechanisms of which are not currently understood; and may not be able to coherently impart that knowledge to another person. But I am neither arguing for, or against, the existence of the supernatural. Simply saying that approaching questions of the existence of the supernatural either scientifically or philosophically is likely to yield incoherence. It could be because supernaturalism itself is hopelessly incoherent; but there are other possible causes of any resulting incoherence, and there is no way to determine that those other possible causes are less likely.

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    1. No, it doesn't require us to make too many assumptions, not at all.

      Second, "ineffability" has always seemed to me to be another dodge, "incoherence" with lipstick on the lips.

      Third, a divinity who makes him/her/itself absolutely known to someone but in a way that such knowledge is ineffable is committing a psychological version of the good old "problem of evil." I've blogged about this before. http://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2005/12/problem-of-evil-bites-monotheism-with.html

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  18. Whatever the supernatural domain consists of, there are people who make a lot of money talking about things in it.

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  19. I’m not doing science or hypothesis testing — in any meaningful sense of the term — when I get out the door in the morning and decide which subway to take

    Of course not, but you are conflating decision making with generating public knowledge to make your point.

    I could just as easily argue that “thinking” is not just the pursue of science, so that everything we do, including science, is actually philosophy. See how meaningless that game turns out to be?

    Why is it meaningless to see, to give just two possible classifications, science as a sub-discipline of philosophy, or science as using certain tools of philosophical origin without which it could not work? You could just as well say that "mammal" is meaningless if all mammals are vertebrates. And if such a perspective helps to get over these silly turf wars...

    And how many scientific papers have been published, or grants funded, to test “the god hypothesis”?

    How many scientific papers have been published, or grants funded, to test the idea that unicorns exist? Not many I'd wager. Yet people would generally not complain if a scientist were to say that they don't exist because science hasn't found them and their existence is implausible even a priori. How many scientific papers etc. to test the idea that farblegarb is zotek? Fairly sure there are none. Yet people would generally not say a scientist is overstepping the bounds of their discipline if they say that this idea is incoherent while the same claim about god would generate accusations of scientism from philosophers - for the only reason that they think only they should be allowed to say that. Special pleading.

    Incidentally, how would you disprove the notion of transubstantiation? Just curious.

    Let's try this: The idea that after the use of the philosopher's stone the substance of lead is not just metaphorically, but literally, gold, even though — and this is the clincher — all that our senses can actually approach is the appearance of things, i.e. lead. Can a chemist say, "sorry brother alchemist, but this is still simply lead" or will such a declaration lead to accusations of scientism?

    I cannot see any difference whatsoever between the two situations except that you are arbitrarily handing the priest a box of stickers that says "science not allowed here" and encourage them to tack one of them onto the Eucharist.

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  20. "You’re kidding, right?"

    I was kidding about Ayn Rand and her A is A fixation, not Berkeley. That wasn't even a rhetorical question, even if it seems unfair.

    > Then, upon putting both hands in intermediate temperature water, the different hands seem to feel different temperatures from the very same sample! QED. <

    "For which standard physiology has a perfectly good, non-idealistic explanation."

    But Berkeley didn't need to wait for "standard physiology" to explain this phenomenon. But believing in spirits would make it difficult to understand.

    "If both the accidents and the essence are A, then A <> A, which is a logical contradiction. If the accidents are distinct from the essence, then they are not A." Thanks for the clarification as to what you meant. It seemed just as logical to allow the essence of A to be conceptually distinguishable from the accidents or species, if one so chooses that axiom. The notion that the concept of essence is incompatible with experience is, as you say, a non sequitur in serious philosophy.

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  21. N-Charley,

    > But what I was attempting to point out is that just because science (or philosophy) can't be used to make heads or tails of supernaturalism, does not therefore mean that supernaturalism is hopelessly incoherent. <

    Sure, but then, pray, who is supposed to make sense of it, and how? I’m going about it on the basis of what supernaturalists themselves are saying, which seems to me quite obviously incoherent. Burden of (logical, at least) proof on them, no?

    > it is not the fault of coherent supernaturalism if science or philosophy are inadequate tools for grasping it <

    This doesn’t seem to follow. It seems to implicitly assume that supernaturalism is, somehow coherent yet outside the grasp of logic. If not, then see comment above.

    > to take that alternative as the "greater miracle" requires an assumption that we know enough <

    No, it doesn’t. Like any Bayesian argument, it is based on what we know, which is the same basis for any judgment we make.

    > Much of what we call supernaturalism could end up being firmly within the bounds of understandable science down the road. <

    In which case I’ll revise my judgment accordingly. For now, it remains firmly planted in the “incoherent” camp.

    > there IS as much good reason to believe that likely as to believe it unlikely. It comes from a good look at the history of scientific development and discovery <

    That’s a flawed induction, similar to the well known Van Gogh Fallacy: Van Gogh was a genius and died penniless; I’m penniless, therefore...

    > A position that assumes supernaturalism is hopelessly incoherent requires making far too many assumptions to be tenable <

    I am not *assuming* anything, I am making a judgment based on the evidence and arguments available so far (meaning, for the past several thousand years, these aren’t exactly brand new notions from string theory we are talking about, as you know).

    > How can you POSSIBLY determine what is "currently humanly possible to know about how the universe works"...? <

    I think you’ve mistaken a trivially true statement (current philosophers and scientists represent the vanguard of human intellectual achievement) with one that I didn’t make at all (current philosophers and scientists known anything that human beings could possibly, ever, know). The latter would indeed be ridiculous, but I didn’t make it.

    > I simply leave open the possibility that a person could have absolute knowledge of a phenomenon that DOES exist, yet may have gained said knowledge in a way the mechanisms of which are not currently understood <

    Possibilities without evidence or logic knowledge do not make, even of the tentative variety.

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  22. Alex,

    > you are conflating decision making with generating public knowledge to make your point. <

    No, I’m not. I was simply pre-emptying the sort of “plumbing is a science” sort of Coyne-style argument on which I think your expanded concept of science relies.

    > Why is it meaningless to see, to give just two possible classifications, science as a sub-discipline of philosophy, or science as using certain tools of philosophical origin without which it could not work? <

    It is certainly not meaningless at all. As we know science historically originated from philosophy, so in that sense it is indeed a sub-discipline. These days, however, I see science and philosophy as part of a broader conception of knowledge (“scientia”), to which also logic (another spin-off from philosophy) and math also contribute. I think you may have gotten the idea that I take the demarcation btw science and philosophy to be sharp, I don’t. I see them more as two peaks in intellectual landscape, one centered more on conceptual/logical problems (with input from empirical fields), the other on empirical problems (with input from logical/conceptual fields). I just get annoyed — as a scientist — when people throw around the word “scientific” as a catch-all category of human worthwhile knowledge.

    > How many scientific papers have been published, or grants funded, to test the idea that unicorns exist? Not many I'd wager. Yet people would generally not complain if a scientist were to say that they don't exist because science hasn't found them and their existence is implausible even a priori. <

    Good point, but see my contention that there is a continuum btw the supernatural and the paranormal. I see the relevance of philosophy and science as inversely proportional along that continuum: philosophy more relevant where we get away from the empirical, science more relevant when the claim is supposed to stay within the bounds of lawful natural behavior.

    > Let's try this: The idea that after the use of the philosopher's stone the substance of lead is not just metaphorically, but literally, gold, even though — and this is the clincher — all that our senses can actually approach is the appearance of things, i.e. lead. Can a chemist say, "sorry brother alchemist, but this is still simply lead" or will such a declaration lead to accusations of scientism? <

    Interesting example, but I think you make my point: the alchemist, by making that statement, has stepped away from science into mysticism, and the best thing for the scientist to say is roll his eyes and better occupy his time with something else. (By the way, the analogy is only partial, because the alchemist of your case doesn’t seem to have a reason for what happened; Catholics have what they call an “explanation” — which of course is no such thing, because it is incoherent.)

    S. Johnson,

    > Berkeley didn't need to wait for "standard physiology" to explain this phenomenon. <

    Berkeley had no “explanation” for anything, not in the modern sense of a verifiable mechanism that accounts a set of phenomena. He was simply exploring a logical possibility with not contact whatsoever with the empirical — as clearly demonstrated by Johnson’s ridiculously naive challenge.

    > It seemed just as logical to allow the essence of A to be conceptually distinguishable from the accidents or species, if one so chooses that axiom. <

    If the essence of X (whatever that means) is distinct from X then you cannot coherently label it as X. A is still A and cannot be non-A.

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  23. Massimo,

    No, I’m not. I was simply pre-emptying the sort of “plumbing is a science” sort of Coyne-style argument on which I think your expanded concept of science relies.

    Although I do not see humanity learning how to implement better plumbing given the physical reality around us as different in principle from understanding how planets form given the physical realities around us, that was not even my point here.

    The point is that your argument only works if science is envisioned as being nothing more than a series of intellectually isolated hypothesis tests. The moment we realize that science also includes a state of knowledge about the world science is tasked to examine and overall inferences to the best explanation, we must conclude that a scientist is justified to tentatively reject claims that are totally at odds with that state of knowledge even if they do not have a specific experiment ready to test any one of those claims.

    I just get annoyed — as a scientist — when people throw around the word “scientific” as a catch-all category of human worthwhile knowledge.

    I hope you know that I do not do that - clearly logic, math etc are categories of human knowledge that are not science. But the claims that gods, souls, miracles and suchlike exist and do this or that in the world are not claims about abstract logic, metaethics or math but instead claims about the nature of the specific universe we find around us. And what knowledge generating endeavor deals with what happens and exists the specific universe we find around us? Well, science. By definition, because science is the tool humanity has collectively created for that job and not any other. Thus the claim that the universe was created by a god, that the universe contains souls etc are claims that falls squarely into the domain of science and nowhere else.

    As long as nobody comes up with a new approach that reliably and reproducibly generates knowledge about a previously inaccessible part of reality (souls, for example), science is justified to reject their existence. And if somebody were to produce such a new approach then that approach would merely be adopted as another method in the toolbox of science, and science would from then on study souls.

    As for the alchemist, I fail to see why "the magic of the philosopher's stone did it" is less an explanation than what the Catholic priest can come up with. The point you can make is that science is not really needed if a claim is illogical or incoherent, that invoking science would only really be necessary when a claim has jumped over that first hurdle already. But that is not the same as forbidding scientists to reject claims that are illogical or incoherent and declaring that only philosophers are allowed to do so.

    I find this essay, which you will certainly be aware of, a fairly good contribution to this whole discussion. In one neat package it provides (1) a glaring example of the double standard under which religious claims are privileged and treated with undue reverence by scientists and (2) a reasonable explanation for why that is so, i.e. why you are unlikely too see a lot of papers or grant proposals explicitly addressing claims about the Christian god even while the results of scientific studies indirectly make those claims seem ever more absurd.

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  24. The evolution of science One day will turn their theories into truth and the gods of religion into One. Mathematically or empirically, = or equal is the Way. =

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  25. @ Alex SLJ
    I can speak for myself, and I think other mathematicians, that to say "clearly logic, math etc are categories of human knowledge that are not science" is not right. I think there would be agreement to say that they are formal sciences, and physics is a natural science . But to say flatly that "math is not science" is wrong. To say "Math is a formal science, and physics is a natural science" would be OK.

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  26. Berkeley’s system tries to show us how God is benevolent by faking for us the world, without which our acquaintanceship with Him would be surely untenable. He just can't be your pal, at least not in the way you think or desire. Ultimately, let Him be and enjoy what you see.

    In general, phenomena described by supernaturalism deserve less be studied by science than who describes and believes in them.

    Supernaturalism tries to do what science does: describe the world. So, it would be erroneous, if not malevolent, not to call it knowledge. Malevolent because sometimes it is done in good faith, and erroneous because it is often faked, mistaken, misleading, but is still knowledge.

    Perhaps supernaturalism's most striking failure is to rely on improbable hypotheses before exhausting testable ones, a problem that every now and then harasses science when its practitioners lose the necessary patience to test, thus growing (or shrinking) in imagination. A good example of this is Descartes dualism, a doctrine unable to explain how the thinking substance it postulates is linked to matter. And who thinks this is just History is dead wrong.

    But no, Berkeley is not a supernaturalist. He just showed how delusions can be put so that they can't even be submitted to tests, how delusions are a remarkable feature of ours and how, however doubting what we suppose we know, we'll never be sure of any knowledge. For instance - and this observation is not mine, but an astronomer's: what if all knowledge is due to chance, a chance that even our most accurate calculations aren't able to estimate? Needless to say, you won't ever be sure if what I'm saying here is true.

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  27. Massimo, good post in general. No surprise it brought out the usual supernaturalist defenders plus at least one new one.

    That said, I think you could have tied this more directly into your line of thinking on previous posts about scientism. After all, isn't that half the problem here? If it's not practitioners of scientism getting confused, or not caring, where philosophical lines of thought would better serve the analysis of the issues at hand, we wouldn't have people like Stenger claiming to have "disproved" god's existence, would we?

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  28. Is there any reason why supernatural theories couldn't be developed? i.e. does supernatural define itself necessarily as being simply opposed what is natural, or could there be explanations that are both coherent and (in principle) testable that would nonetheless not be part of a naturalistic framework?

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  29. Alex,

    > The point is that your argument only works if science is envisioned as being nothing more than a series of intellectually isolated hypothesis tests. <

    I don’t think so at all. It works within the very broad context of naturalism (either philosophical, or at least methodological). But, like all human cognitive enterprises, it has limits, and I think it is wise to be clear on what those are.

    > a scientist is justified to tentatively reject claims that are totally at odds with that state of knowledge <

    May be so, but not in the sense that these claims have been “scientifically tested.” Only insofar they don’t fit with the general worldview that originates from science and its foundation, naturalism.

    > the claims that gods, souls, miracles and suchlike exist and do this or that in the world are not claims about abstract logic, metaethics or math but instead claims about the nature of the specific universe we find around us <

    Yes, they are. But my point is that those claims don’t come with a coherent theoretical background that could be called a “hypothesis.” As I wrote in the post, (some of) the claims themselves can be rejected empirically (6,000 years old earth), but that says nothing about the “god hypothesis” because there is no such sufficiently coherent theoretical entity.

    > I fail to see why "the magic of the philosopher's stone did it" is less an explanation than what the Catholic priest can come up with. <

    It isn’t. But notice your use of the word “magic.” That means a violation of the laws of nature, and science is out.

    > that is not the same as forbidding scientists to reject claims that are illogical or incoherent and declaring that only philosophers are allowed to do so. <

    I don’t forbid anything, but I think that if scientists qua scientists make those claims they are unwisely stepping outside of their proper epistemic boundaries. I know, they really hate the whole idea that they are subjected to epistemic boundaries, but that’s their problem.

    Philip,

    > But to say flatly that "math is not science" is wrong <

    I disagree. To me science is concerned with the empirical world, while math touches the latter only incidentally (like logic). Of course in my book there is no shame in not being a science, but perhaps in yours there is?

    Waldermar,

    > Perhaps supernaturalism's most striking failure is to rely on improbable hypotheses before exhausting testable ones <

    I think it’s worse than that: supernaturalist’ “hypotheses” simply are not such thing. They are arbitrary just-so stories capable of infinite pliability. That’s why they are not even wrong.

    > what if all knowledge is due to chance, a chance that even our most accurate calculations aren't able to estimate? <

    It would be a miracle. Indeed, this is the most convincing argument for scientific realists in philosophy of science.

    Gadfly,

    > I think you could have tied this more directly into your line of thinking on previous posts about scientism. After all, isn't that half the problem here? If it's not practitioners of scientism getting confused, or not caring, where philosophical lines of thought would better serve the analysis of the issues at hand, we wouldn't have people like Stenger claiming to have "disproved" god's existence, would we? <

    Yup.

    Kel,

    > Is there any reason why supernatural theories couldn't be developed? <

    Yes, the only reason we can develop theories about the world is because of Hume’s postulates of continuity of natural laws. The supernatural — by definition — flaunts that continuity in unpredictable ways. So no, no “theory” of the supernatural can be developed. As a matter of fact, none has been developed for thousands of years.

    > could there be explanations that are both coherent and (in principle) testable that would nonetheless not be part of a naturalistic framework? <

    If so, they wouldn’t be supernatural.

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    1. Science does not work within “a broad context of naturalism”. It is a method to deal with empirical anomalies to existing theories, or to deal with new observations. Its only “epistemic boundaries” are the demands that hypotheses about observations be empirically falsifiable, and that tests of the hypotheses be repeatable. Many scientists might add the principle of sufficient reason as an epistemic boundary, but this is questionable in the face of randomness of individual quantum events, and non-local non-time-ordered influences in entangled particles. If epistemology is “the study of knowledge”, then its boundaries cannot be closer than the frontiers of knowledge.

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  30. Massimo,

    I suppose my words weren't again accurately used by myself, as I wished. I try to explain.

    Accepting the myth as a kind of knowledge universally used by humans before the advent of philosophy, and accepting myth as a knowledge that accomplished (or accomplishes), where it was (or is) used, a function analogous to that of science and philosophy in our culture, then, how do not admit that the common mythical belief that states natural phenomena as caused by divinities isn't derived - however hastily - from hypotheses, however - again - not verified (in the way we do, rigorously speaking)? I'm sure you understand my point, although it costs not much to stress to my fellow commentators that I'm not advocating the truth of myth against philosophy or science. It is just a matter of method I'm addressing: I enjoy understanding that, notwithstanding sometimes mistaken, human ability of thinking has still the same properties since we started to call ourselves humans. We're polishing it, learning how to use it better throughout History, but it's still the same ability that hypothesizes before positing no matter what about the world.

    Perhaps we should also pay a closer attention to Christian myths, so that we can interpret their allegories in order to understand how they work and so to learn how to 'disassemble' them. Perhaps this is not you who would wish to do this work, but there are respectable researchers (and I don't say 'scientists' to not play the headstrong polemicist or whatever) who do it. Finally, myth - as its own name says - is really a collection of 'just-so' stories, but that shares with science a lot concerning its structure.

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  31. I don’t forbid anything, but I think that if scientists qua scientists make those claims they are unwisely stepping outside of their proper epistemic boundaries. I know, they really hate the whole idea that they are subjected to epistemic boundaries, but that’s their problem.

    Once again (and then I'll give up for the moment):

    Science as you describe it is not how science is done IRL; and that is good because science as you describe it could never say anything about anything; and that is because the way you allow religious claims to get off is by allowing their proponents to move goalposts and commit special pleading, and the same could also be done by those making any other claim. And of course it is routinely done but we call people out on it. Not allowing the same just because they have tacked the word "magical" onto their unproved claim is special pleading and intellectual inconsistency, end of story.

    And that is also why so many scientists resent the idea that they are thus overstepping what you consider their epistemic boundaries, because they regularly need to do so to do their job and do so without anybody complaining. It is as if you are arbitrarily deciding that an ethicist may not reject illogical claims because they are not a logician!

    We all need certain tools to do our job. If philosophers think that scientists are overstepping bounds if they need to use tools that philosophers claim as their own exclusive property then that is their problem, not the scientists'.

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  32. In science, the lack of proper epistemic foundations doesn’t dismiss the knowledge that is so obtained, but leads to natural reserves about it.

    Your claim that “science as you describe it could never say anything about anything”, is clearly nonsense as science works that way, namely in addressing complex issues (there is no other way), science tries to reduce the complexity of things in order to make the phenomena intelligible (however science is not supposed to adopt an absurd overconfidence about the assumptions it makes). In fact, when acting in this manner it exposes itself to sensible criticism (that is welcome).

    The idea that scientists resent the criticism of philosophers (or other people) regarding their work is also absurd (by the way generally they are quite dismissive of criticism outside their own peers). Then I have to say that I don’t understand your claim.

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    1. Vasco Gama,

      I am not sure how else except in the ways I have done further up I can phrase it. The point is that the scientist supposedly has to leave a claim for which there is no evidence alone once its advocate invokes a magic formula such as "this is supernatural", and that there is no justification whatsoever for this because there is literally zero difference between this claim and others that are fair game except the magic word.

      Scientists (as a whole) are the group of people humanity (as a whole) has tasked with figuring out what objects exist and what processes take place in the universe. This group and no other has this job and none other.

      If we had to invent an approach to reliably and objectively find out things about the universe we would converge again precisely on current scientific practice. Indeed that approach has to work by necessity in any universe that behaves in some regular, predictable fashion, and a universe that does not is somewhere between inconceivable and in an unstable state that will spontaneously generate regularities.

      Any god that is distinguishable from being non-existent must do something to the universe and thus falls squarely into the domain of science. Any god that is indistinguishable from being non-existent can be rejected on the same grounds as reptilian Illuminati shape-shifters or Santa Claus.

      (We will not find many papers on those either but strangely nobody complains about scientism when a scientist says they do not exist. The reason for that difference has nothing to do with epistemic boundaries and everything with the arbitrary privileging of religious beliefs.)

      If there were gods or souls, scientists would be studying them. But the former don't exist, and that is why the latter don't study them, not because some philosopher has told them not to.

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    2. To follow up on that thought, scientists themselves propose theories that turn out to be incoherent, unfalsifiable, or so flexibly that they cannot be tested. Freud's psychoanalysis comes to mind. I'll also argue that Chomsky's linguistics is another example but that judgement might be considered controversial among some linguists. These theories are rejected by scientists not by experimental results but by the observation that "we have no good reason, and plenty of contrary ones, to subscribe to [the theories]", which Massimo claims is not a scientific argument. As pointed out by Alex: If making such argument is outside the boundary of science, science cannot function. For every theory that makes precise predictions, there are 10 that are vague and slippery. Science makes progress by discarding them. But scientists can't do that, says Massimo. Well, what are you going to do? Call the epistemological police to arrest them?

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    3. Alex,

      Unlike what you seem to claim science doesn’t deal with everything, science deals with the material reality, and even material reality encompasses a variety of things that science has difficulty to address properly, even at some basic level, as space-time for instance, and space-time is the basic framework upon which our empirical reality exists. Furthermore even concerning material reality science is forced to adopt a reductionist view in order to explain a variety of things, that otherwise would be unapproachable. Then it is clearly absurd (and unreasonable) to pretend that science could address metaphysical issues (it doesn’t address metaphysics, gods, unicorns, the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, as many other things outside the physical world), but then it doesn’t address beauty, meaning, value, morals and the subjective issues in general. It doesn’t address also conscience, mind, thoughts, feelings, emotions, ethics, philosophy, economy, politics, … (and, even if sometimes tries to address any of those things, it just can produce a quite reductive and partial view, which is clearly insufficient and laughable).

      In this sense scientists, are people committed to study the material world and to find (and produce) knowledge about this reality. Expecting metaphysical (or aesthetic, or philosophical, or ethical, or…) knowledge is a preposterous delusion.

      Scientists are also people, and as people, they are entitled to hold the metaphysical and philosophical beliefs they see fit. However those beliefs are not justified by science. The beliefs of scientist (outside science) are not scientific by definition, and they are not expected to be diverse, than those of a common person, nor they deserve special credibility. In this sense their metaphysical, philosophical and theological beliefs are irrelevant (in the sense that those beliefs are not credibilized by the scientific knowledge of their holders).

      I am in no way trying to diminish the high regard you seem to have on the opinions of any particular set of scientists (I guess their opinions are respectful and worthy of consideration, but then their credibility comes out of science, not of philosophy or metaphysics).

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    4. "If there were gods or souls, scientists would be studying them." Alex SL, I'm not sure this is as easy as you put it. I understand that the objects that some people claim as being gods and souls are either undetected by science tools or sufficiently explained by them. For instance, the claim that universe was created seems to be satisfactorily explained by, for instance, the Big-Bang theory, as well as the claims about souls are by now sufficiently described by brain activity. Obviously, and I guess this is due to the infinite human capacity of questioning, there's plenty of people arguing that the Big-Bang is God's 'fiat' itself, and also that there's more in their concept of a soul than neurology can account for. Once science has the means to 'touch' these new claims, it will certainly go for their explanation, which ultimately is their description - science makes descriptions of no matter what it is able to 'touch' by means of its tools, being the most important of them a bunch of ideas, concepts without which science can't even see what it is supposed to describe: this is how understand it. In short, science deals with concepts,ideas whose objects are facts of the universe: it can't operate except these concepts. And as I stress constantly, science prays not to stumble on God himself during its inquiries, since I'm sure its practitioners, the scientists, love their job enough to be disappointed for being forced to retire that soon.

      scitation, those considerations often amuse me: what about the so excitingly expected 'theory of everything', which is supposed to be coined by the string theorists? Will it be allowed to be falsifiable? What would popperism say about a 'theory of everything'? Would a shift in what we think science is supposed to do change this panorama? I mean: if we think science doesn't explain anything, but just describes the world by attempting to emulate its facts by means of conceptual tools, does the idea of falsifiability keeps making sense?

      Just ideas...

      Delete
  33. Massimo,

    You wrote, "To me science is concerned with the empirical world, while math touches the latter only incidentally (like logic). Of course in my book there is no shame in not being a science, but perhaps in yours there is?"

    You are wrong according to most commonly opinion. See [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branches_of_science ]. Mathematics is a formal science. What you have expressed is a peculiar view.

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  34. Waldemar,

    > how do not admit that the common mythical belief that states natural phenomena as caused by divinities isn't derived - however hastily - from hypotheses, however - again - not verified <

    We must be using a different meaning of the word “hypothesis.” To me it refers to a reasonable and testable conjecture regarding the mechanisms / causes underlying a certain phenomenon. Myths simply don’t follow into that category, because they invoke non-existent “mechanisms” (gods) and provide no explanation at all, much less a testable one.

    Alex,

    > Science as you describe it is not how science is done <

    Actually, it is. At least that’s been my experience as a working scientist for a quarter century.

    > allow religious claims to get off <

    You seriously think that saying that religious claims are incoherent and nonsensical is “allowing them to get off” with something?

    > why so many scientists resent the idea that they are thus overstepping what you consider their epistemic boundaries <

    I think so many scientists resent that because of their large ego, which is a pre-selected condition for being a scientist, especially a successful one. Oh, and their sometimes willful ignorance of philosophy (not referring to you, but definitely to Hawking, Krauss and deGrass Tyson).

    Zal,

    > Science does not work within “a broad context of naturalism” <

    Yup, it does. Take naturalism away and you have no way to construct lawful hypotheses about how the world works. End of science, beginning of chaos. Hume docet.

    > It is a method to deal with empirical anomalies to existing theories <

    You couldn’t *have* existing theories if not within a certain philosophical framework. Naturalism comes to mind.

    > Its only “epistemic boundaries” are the demands that hypotheses about observations be empirically falsifiable, and that tests of the hypotheses be repeatable. <

    Would would be impossible if nature behave capriciously as the result of the will of gods who could flaunt or suspend its laws at will.

    Philip,

    > You are wrong according to most commonly opinion. See [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branches_of_science ]. Mathematics is a formal science. What you have expressed is a peculiar view. <

    Wiki sources to settle this kind of question, really? Maybe the misunderstanding lies in what you mean by “formal”: if you mean that it is down in a way similar to logic, without necessary empirical input, then we agree. But since I (and a lot of others) define science as having to do with the empirical, then math is not a science. Which, by the way, is by no means meant to be diminishing of what mathematicians do.

    scitation,

    > To follow up on that thought, scientists themselves propose theories that turn out to be incoherent, unfalsifiable, or so flexibly that they cannot be tested. Freud's psychoanalysis comes to mind. <

    Yup, which is why Popper famously classified Freudian psychoanalysis as pseudoscience. But it is still several notches of absurdity below supernaturalism, since Freud was invoking unknown but knowable (in principle), because lawful, natural processes.

    > Well, what are you going to do? Call the epistemological police to arrest them? <

    That is such a childish comment that it barely deserves a response. But I feel indulgent this morning. Imagine you were arguing with a creationist and the creationist drops the following conversation stopper: “what are you going to do? Call the scientific police and arrest me?” You play the part of the creationist, if it wasn’t clear.

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    Replies
    1. Massimo, I guess we share the same concept of 'hypothesis', in which it is embedded the notion of testability: how could it be otherwise? In view of this, how can we claim that - as Eliade does somewhere in his work - there's no testing in the universe of myth for its hypothesis? It doesn't seem a quite accurate assumption from a rigorous scientific perspective. Perhaps I must invoke that what differs from one context to the other is the kind of criterion the act of testing is able to satisfy. I also must observe that for the present day religious individual the hypothesis that his/her prayers are being answered by God is being satisfied by testings that science just hasn't the means to measure - and perhaps won't forever had, which is not, naturally, a bad sign.

      I'm sure you keep understanding my statement, although I keep stressing toward my fellow commentators that I'm not trying to equate science and supernatural beliefs, but just show that I see they share what is structural in considering both as forms of knowledge, although opposing in view of what each one considers as truth: let us keep in mind that any knowledge is true unless proven otherwise, 'proven' implying that there must be a subject that accepts this fact.

      Delete
    2. Just rephrasing: as Eliade does not everywhere in his work. Sorry, editing accidents...

      Delete
    3. On the whole issue of scientists needing philosophers in general, and sometimes philosophers of science in particular, my exhibit A is:

      David Buller vs. Pop Evolutionary Psychology.

      Delete
    4. Massimo,

      > Take naturalism away and you have no way to construct lawful hypotheses about how the world works. End of science, beginning of chaos <

      I agree that *in practice* most scientists operate under the principle of sufficient reason and the principle that nature operates according to timeless laws, but neither of these ‘principles’ are necessarily true, and we are discussing epistemic boundaries, and even if they turn out not to be true, it would not necessarily mean the “end of science”.

      The two examples I gave – unpredictability of individual quantum events, and non-local effects – raise doubts about the validity of the principle of sufficient reason, and Lee Smolin, among others, has proposed that the ‘laws’ of nature are themselves mutable, best understood as habits or adaptations to changing conditions. Science can *in practice* ignore these caveats, because locally in space and time, assuming sufficient reason and permanent law works well enough. But these assumptions cannot be made when considering the restless, ever-expanding boundaries of epistemology.

      Delete
  35. Massimo, playing the "I know how science works because I was a scientist" (your reply to Alex) card is also pretty childish. Talk about conversation stoppers.

    But I do have a sincere question and I promise I'm trying to learn something from you. You wrote: "we have no good reason, and plenty of contrary ones, to subscribe to [the theories]" is not a scientific argument but a philosophical one. Can you explain briefly why? Is it because the conclusion is not drawn from an experimental result or do you have other reasons? Or do you mean that the argument is scientific if we are talking about natural phenomena but philosophical if we are talking about supernatural ones?

    ReplyDelete
  36. AlexSL,

    > Any god that is distinguishable from being non-existent must do something to the universe and thus falls squarely into the domain of science. Any god that is indistinguishable from being non-existent can be rejected on the same grounds as reptilian Illuminati shape-shifters or Santa Claus.

    consider the following Gedankenexperiment:
    We are in a simulation. Our simulators live in a universe with a few more dimensions than ours, running lots of simple 3-5 dimensional simulations to see which produce stable physics and which don't.
    When they get stable ones, they observe a while and, if quasi-intelligences develop, do some tests. Those tests include going back to save points, changing events etc. From time to time there are glitches in the program, creating (for us) unrepeatable events.

    From their vantage point the simulators are not supernatural; from ours they are. They are also (again from our vantage point) omniscient and omnipotent, a.k.a gods. They are indistinguishable from being non-existent (to us), yet they do exist. Even though they have an impact on the natural (our) world, you cannot disprove them scientifically, even in principle, because humans cannot obverse their actions.

    You can reject the Gedankenexperiment as meaningless to us in the same way you reject religious supernaturalism. My point is: it is not impossible, and you have no empirical way of even assigning probabilities of it being true. Science doesn't help you at all here. (Though neither does philosophy, IMO, since it is not incoherent - or is it?)

    Cheers
    Chris

    ReplyDelete
  37. I have read that some mathematicians think that it's a put-down to call mathematics a science since they think they are doing a form of art. (G.H. Hardy types: "I am interested in mathematics only as a creative art.")

    I've met a couple of those, I think.


    ReplyDelete
  38. scitation,

    > playing the "I know how science works because I was a scientist" (your reply to Alex) card is also pretty childish. <

    Well, obviously I don’t think so. I understand that Alex is a scientist too (biologist, I think), so I was simply making the counterpoint that his own experience in science isn’t the only one, and that mine is quite different.

    > You wrote: "we have no good reason, and plenty of contrary ones, to subscribe to [the theories]" is not a scientific argument but a philosophical one. Can you explain briefly why? <

    That is not what I wrote. Here’s the quote from the post: “It is because we have no good reason, and plenty of contrary ones, to subscribe to the very notion of miracles itself. This, needless to say, is a philosophical, not a scientific, argument [2].” And Note 2 said: When successful, philosophical arguments simply preempt — as in make unnecessary — scientific ones. Just as showing something to be logically impossible makes it superfluous to show that it is also empirically untenable.”

    So, I was talking about the notion of miracles, not of any theory. And the arguments are philosophical as in Hume’s Of Miracles and similar treatments of the same notion.

    chbieck,

    > My point is: it is not impossible, and you have no empirical way of even assigning probabilities of it being true. Science doesn't help you at all here. (Though neither does philosophy, IMO, since it is not incoherent - or is it?) <

    No, it isn’t, and I think it’s a perfectly good example. We’ve covered the “simulation hypothesis” here in a multi-part series:

    http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2012/04/simulation-hypothesis-and-problem-of_16.html

    and there are some decent philosophical arguments in its favor. It is certainly not incoherent. Is it true? As you say, there no way even in principle to answer that question (save for the simulators themselves to come out and tell us).

    ReplyDelete
  39. The most important aspect of the "supernatural," is how it effects humans. The most mystical of states can, in theory, be shown to be physiological states of the human nervous system, and therefore, the most important aspect of the supernatural can certainly be investigated using the scientific method. E.G.:



    *"Every experience has its level of physiology, and so unbounded awareness has its own level of physiology which can be measured. Every aspect of life is integrated and connected with every other phase. When we talk of scientific measurements, it does not take away from the spiritual experience. We are not responsible for those times when spiritual experience was thought of as metaphysical. Everything is physical. Consciousness is the product of the functioning of the brain. Talking of scientific measurements is no damage to that wholeness of life which is present everywhere and which begins to be lived when the physiology is taking on a particular form. This is our understanding about spirituality: it is not on the level of faith --it is on the level of blood and bone and flesh and activity. It is measurable."* -Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

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    1. Everything is physical? You might as well just say everything is everything. And if it's been concluded that spirituality, as a physical entity, is measurable, could we use that statement as a logical hypothesis, and if so, has that measurement been scientifically attempted? I'd imagine that if a way was found to measure spirituality,
      we'd have a scientific process in the offing, but an untested if not untestable proclamation by a Maharishi mystic, since deceased, doesn't quite cut the scientific mustard.

      Delete
    2. The statement I quoted was in response to the old monk's call for scientific testing of "Transcendental Meditation," which started in this country in 1959, when (according to _Maharishi at 433_) he asked his students to create a dark room in the backyard of the house he was staying at, in order that the "gentle glow of meditators' faces" could be measured. Ironically, nearly 50 years later, it was found that meditators, especially TMers, glow in the dark LESS than non-meditators, rather than more: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18399758 presumably due to lower free radical activity in the body near the surface of their skin.

      The remarks by the old monk inspired a high schooler named Keith Wallace to eventually get a PhD in Physiology from UCLA, and his PhD thesis, hailed as the first modern study on meditation, was published in _Science_ in 1970, 11 years later: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5416544 . Wallace than moved to Harvard University as a post-doc, where he inspired his advisor, Herbert Benson, to collaborate on a number of studies on TM, usually publishing as the second author, indicating that Benson was not really that involved in teh research: http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1972-22284-001

      Benson eventually went on to publish the bestseller _The Relaxation Response_ and founded a research center at Harvard University. He never published a single head-to-head study comparing TM to the RR, as far as I know.

      Wallace went on to become Founding President of Maharishi International University (now called Maharishi University of Management). Researchers at MIU/MUM have published or collaborated in publishing several hundred studies on TM, including one seminal paper comparing TM to other forms of meditation: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2693686

      The American Heart Association just published a statement concerning alternate treatments for hypertension. In the section on meditation and relaxation, they summarized their view:

      http://hyper.ahajournals.org/content/early/2013/04/22/HYP.0b013e318293645f.full.pdf

      Beyond Medications and Diet: Alternative Approaches to Lowering Blood Pressure : A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association

      “…The writing group conferred to TM a Class IIB, Level of Evidence B recommendation in regard to BP-lowering efficacy. TM may be considered in clinical practice to lower BP. Because of many negative studies or mixed results and a paucity of available trials, all other meditation techniques (including MBSR) received a Class III, no benefit, Level of Evidence C recommendation Thus, other meditation techniques are not recommended in clinical practice to lower BP at this time.”

      The AHA calls for more research on all forms of meditation, and specifically calls for head-to-head studies on TM vs other forms of meditation.

      The lead TM researcher, Fred Travis, is currently contacting researchers who specialize in other forms of meditation to see if they are willing to collaborate in conducting larger scale versions of the Alexander and Langer study I linked to above.

      This is purely a physiological research programme, but even the most famous spiritual book in the Hindu tradition, _The Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali_ defines yoga as "subsidence of mind fluctuations." It goes on to say that such fluctuations are due to the impressions in the mind left by past experiences ["stress"] that give rise to activity inappropriate for the present moment.

      The TM model of "enlightenment" is that it is simply what a mature adult human nervous system behaves like when it is strong enough to be "Never overwhelmed" by stressful experiences.

      "Never overwhelmed" means that the presence of "pure consciousness" as a background trait outside of meditation is never lost, regardless of activity level, regardless of whether the enlightened person is awake, dreaming or in deep sleep.

      Links to follow.

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    3. Was there evidence obtained of spirituality's measurements? In any case I suppose all of that can be called science if they're still trying.
      A bit like parapsychology where they're still trying to prove that the future can informationally inform its past to cause the present..

      Delete
    4. The first undefined term I use above is "pure consciousness." Pure consciousness is claimed to be the "deepest" or "most silent" state of mind that occurs when mental activity subsides to its lowest possible level while the brain still remains in an alert mode of functioning.

      There are several studies that have been published studying the physiology of TMers who frequently report this state during meditation:

      http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/content/44/2/133.full.pdf
      http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/content/46/3/267.full.pdf
      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11451476
      http://www.totalbrain.ch/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/transcendental-consciousness.pdf

      The basic characteristic of this state is that one's brain is still showing the EEG associated with alertness, but there is no "thing" that one is aware OF or alert ABOUT.

      According to spiritual tradition, due to the nature of this state, one can never report the state itself, but only the transition out of it and in fact, that is what the above studies seem to suggest.

      In more detail, a novice meditator whose nervous system enters this state during meditation, might notice an abrupt transition from "not there (but still somehow awake) to being there." As TM, in general, tends to induce some measure of teh EEG pattern associated with this state, the EEG pattern tends to become a trait during meditation and more "advanced" meditators tend to assign some kind of quality of silent awareness or pure consciousness to the transitional period after the full-blown breath suspension state is finished.

      The alternation of TM with normal activity outside of meditation starts to establish this "pure-consciousness-like" EEG pattern as a trait outside of meditation, as well. Eventually, the meditator starts to notice some level of quiet "pure awareness" as a background to regular activity. Once this EEG trait becomes sufficiently strong, the meditator starts to notice that this "pure consciousness" exists as a silent observer-state, present during all forms of activity, in all normal states of consciousness, whether waking, dreaming or asleep. At this point, the meditator is said to have entered the beginning stages of the first of several "higher" states of consciousness, collectively called "enlightenment." Research on people who report that they are in this beginning phase of the first state of enlightenment, AKA "Cosmic Consciousness" (CC) continuously for at least a year, has been published as well.

      Delete
    5. Lawson, I'm somewhat familiar with what you're writing about, but nevertheless while you're giving this phenomena a traditionally religious explanation, if not a religiously inspired cause as well, I've found it to be explainable by the use of scientific logic - along with a touch of the philosophy that Western science has evolved from. I don't regard your Eastern religions as scientific, but that doesn't mean their philosophy doesn't serve something similar to a scientific purpose.

      However, you are looking at the different aspects of awareness as evidence of mystical religious forces at work. I prefer the more Western ways of approaching the problem, which in some ways may seem more extreme to you than Eastern mythology seems extreme to me. In fact, I "believe" that awareness is an intelligent quality of the universe that allows all entities to anticipate the universe's prevailing and evolving forces and evolve reactive strategies in turn. But I digress as usual.

      Delete
    6. I believe I broadly agree with you, Baron, and specifically with in topic "awareness is an intelligent quality of the universe that allows all entities to anticipate the universe's prevailing and evolving forces and evolve reactive strategies in turn", although I'd change some parts of this statement (which resembles in general Anaxagoras' idea of 'Nous'). My direct question to you, as I don't see how this implies 'immateriality' (an idea I think you support since we debated in the comments of Massimo's last post), is: how this statement implies the existence of immateriality as a kind of medium that directly interferes with the overall accepted material medium?

      I try to explain the background of my question: I can understand 'immateriality' as just a symbol (in the peircean acception) for our thoughts as perceived by themselves (since in thesis our thoughts are the only 'reality' we are allowed to 'directly' deal with, no matter we find them reliable or not), a name traditionally employed to this symbolic end and whose use was solidified to the point that we started believing that the representation (the symbol) became the fact it represents. This doesn't imply that the thought, as a fact, can be proved as essentially and uniquely a phenomenon in the sphere of the accepted dualist conception of matter and energy. Does it?

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    7. Baron, what religious explanation have I given? Certainly, there's a flavor of Advait Hinduism to be found in a research programme founded by an Advait Vedanta Hindu monk (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi), but you have said NOTHING about the research that I linked to. Nothing at all. That's not being scientific; that's just being blind.

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    8. Lawson, I've long been familiar with that research, and I didn't know you wanted it to be analyzed on this forum. My intent was to make a brief comment about the differences in East and West approaches to what each will feel are scientific, yet each will disagree with the other's approaches as proper science.
      And so of course I viewed your entire discourse as being essentially a religiously derived explanation. That doesn't necessarily make it wrong, but it didn't leave much room for an alternative approach, now did it.

      Delete
    9. @Waldemar, "I don't see how this implies 'immateriality' (an idea I think you support since we debated in the comments of Massimo's last post), is: how this statement implies the existence of immateriality as a kind of medium that directly interferes with the overall accepted material medium?"
      What it implies is there's more to material than the usual definition of matter. And when those such as Massimo deny that intelligence is an integral part of matter, in that material formations seem (to me at least) to have invariably been intelligently constructed, and physical laws seem to have been intelligently evolved (as may seem to Smolin and others as well), then if the intelligent strategies involved are not part of their material, then "immaterialiaty" is as good a word as any to describe the type of intelligence that Massimo would say "emerges" here and there when needed.
      But immaterial is defined as: "unimportant under the circumstances; irrelevant."
      So non-material might be a better term, or material in the context of natural substances may simply need, as you suggest, to be redefined.

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    10. Baron:

      "And so of course I viewed your entire discourse as being essentially a religiously derived explanation. That doesn't necessarily make it wrong, but it didn't leave much room for an alternative approach, now did it."

      What alternate approach would you take?

      The claim is that TM, alternated with activity, produces specific, long-term trait effects outside of meditation.

      How could you possibly explore this claim except by 1) finding out what the physiological correlates are during TM and 2) seeing which, if any, of the correlates become traits outside of meditation?

      How is that possibly an "Eastern approach?"

      Delete
    11. if you are talking about measuring spirituality, do more than talking and find some actual spirituality that's measurable by a testable process. Don't start with an hypothesis that states: Since we know that these particular neurological signals are triggering spiritual impulses, our laboratory measurements of their physical components will prove that we have measured spirituality. and determined its measurable extent, etc. We will then go on to show how these signals under what we've concluded are TM states correlate with non TM states of awakened subjects.

      Delete
    12. Baron and Lawson, I understand that so: gurus claim they experience TM, which they define in a certain way. Neurology or physiology can say, after due experiments, something like: the defined state has such neural or physiological characteristics; and even go further by comparing it with, for instance, what happens to a playing musician, an actor at stage etc and perhaps a lot more, such as correlation with diseases, production and so on. I suppose this is already done.

      But neurologists and physiologists have nothing to say about mysticism or spirituality, although these terms are possibly used by gurus to somewhat refer their TM experiences. The approach to defining what is mysticism or spirituality, if possible, must be a little different, possibly by finding some common and measurable features in different phenomena that are considered mystical or spiritual.

      Delete
  40. Well, if you accept ancient metaphysics, there's nothing all that peculiar about transubstantiation.

    I think both believers and non-believers go astray when they treat assertions about the existence of God as if they could be subject to scientific analysis or (as to believers) when they make assertions about God that can be subject to scientific analysis. Why should they be? As well expect to scientifically establish awe or wonder is appropriate or justified. Belief in God is evoked, ellicted.

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  41. It is frustrating how often this simply boils down to how we define words. In this case obviously "science".

    Massimo thinks that science means doing hypothesis testing but NOT rejecting incoherent or evidence-free claims about things that science otherwise deals with. (And yes, scientists do that all the time. When somebody says that we need to recognize paraphyletic taxa because there is no phylogenetic structure I can address that myself. I do not need to consult a philosopher to point out that this claim is incoherent because the word paraphyly does not apply any more in the absence of phylogenetic structure. Same for incoherent claims that somebody has stitched the term "supernatural" on.)

    Vasco Gama thinks that only natural science is science, and that an economist or psychologist is not a scientist even if they happily use empirical data and the scientific method. I believe that the Anglo-Saxon terminology that distinguishes sciences and humanities is responsible for a lot of potentially avoidable conceptual confusion. Many parts of the humanities are really doing empirical science.

    At the other end of the spectrum, Philip Thrift thinks that mathematics is a science although it does not actually deal with empirical reality at all but with abstract ideas that must be true or false regardless of the material universe one finds oneself in.

    No wonder this never gets anywhere.

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    1. Alex,

      You got it right. When I speak of sciences, in fact I am considering only natural sciences (or science in a narrow sense), that are supposed to share an solid naturalistic epistemology.

      I don't dismiss the other areas of human knowledge (that is possible to be call also science in a broader sense). Usually I do not say that people comitted to the study of non natural sciences are scientists (I prefer to say they are experts of a particular area of knowledge). A broader view of science however doesn't make things different, as social sciences, political sciences, psychology, and the other areas of empirical knowledge don't address metaphysical claims (astrology however seems to be incompatible with God, but I guess that most people don't give any credit to astrology, in spite its empirical basis).

      Delete
  42. Lawson,

    > The most mystical of states can, in theory, be shown to be physiological states of the human nervous system, and therefore, the most important aspect of the supernatural can certainly be investigated using the scientific method. <

    Sure, but I never understood why people get so excited about this, especially atheists. Obviously brain scans will show *something* happening when people meditate, pray, or have “mystical” experiences. So what? Since they are *experiencing* something, they *have* to do it via their brain. But that tells us precisely *nothing* about the nature of those experiences: real or illusory?

    Alex,

    > It is frustrating how often this simply boils down to how we define words. ... No wonder this never gets anywhere. <

    I found this comment both funny and indicative of your state of mind. I bet you’d like some kind of empirical data that could settle the matter once and for all... But I disagree with your assessment. These discussions are about semantics, which is the study of meaning. Meaning is crucial for understanding. At the very least I understand your position better, and hopefully you do mine. That’s progress even if we retain our original positions. During the process we come to reflect on the nature of science, pseudoscience, and the supernatural, thereby appreciating these topics in a more nuanced way. Not to mention that I can count a number of times during my now 13-yr long blogging career where I have changed my mind on stuff as a direct result of these discussions.

    Zal,

    > I agree that *in practice* most scientists operate under the principle of sufficient reason and the principle that nature operates according to timeless laws, but neither of these ‘principles’ are necessarily true <

    Of course they are not. But take away naturalism and science has no foundation, no way to proceed. Again, see Hume.

    > unpredictability of individual quantum events, and non-local effects – raise doubts about the validity of the principle of sufficient reason <

    I have no problem with that, even philosophers don’t think that the principle is actually a universal.

    > Lee Smolin, among others, has proposed that the ‘laws’ of nature are themselves mutable, best understood as habits or adaptations to changing conditions. <

    I’m actually sympathetic to that notion, but unless the laws change in a, ahem, lawful manner, Smolin is out to lunch. The point isn’t that things are immutable, but that they are regular enough for us to make progress in understanding them. With miracles, all that goes out the window.

    > Science can *in practice* ignore these caveats, because locally in space and time, assuming sufficient reason and permanent law works well enough. <

    Not if miracles happen!

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    1. Massimo,

      You mention ‘miracles’ twice in your reply to me, though I have neither used nor implied the expression. Nature may be, at the bottom, capricious, while still allowing itself to be investigated. Though individual quantum events appear to be totally undetermined, if have enough of them under the same experimental setup, a pattern emerges. The patterns that emerge at the macro level are sufficiently robust to allow scientists, in almost all domains outside the very small and very isolated, to do their work under the assumption that nature has deterministic laws. Philosophy does not have that privilege. If there is, as it seems, a degree of freedom in nature, then, for example, the (hotly debated) question arises whether consciousness partakes of that freedom. While I believe, with Kant, that practical reason only demands an assumption of freedom, it would be nice to take it out of the transcendental realm where it has languished since Kant and establish it scientifically. This would be an example of a significant advance in science based precisely on nature’s capriciousness. It would not, of course, follow that one could turn water into wine ...

      Delete
    2. Nature is capricious, made up of quantum events, emerging into totally undetermined experimental patterns at the macro level of assumed deterministic laws?
      Science sure has some issues!

      =

      Delete
    3. Massimo, I think you've missed my point:

      you can take the claim that mystical states have some definite physiological correlates and study those correlates, an I have provided numerous links to published research of this type. You can also look at the claims of what happens in the long run when people practice these kinds of techniques, and see what the long-term effects are, and if they correlate in any way with the spiritual traditions that they sprang from.

      In the case of TM and the pure consciousness research, it turns out that the EEG pattern associated with PC starts to become a trait outside of PC, and eventually outside of meditation. As this trait becomes stronger, the meditator starts to note a background of quiet, non-involved awareness being present, even in the midst of activity. Once this trait becomes strong enough, the meditator reports that this quiet, non-involved awareness becomes present at all times, in all situations, whether during waking, dreaming or sleeping.

      Parallel to this, people who show varying degrees of this trait outside of meditation respond to the interview question "Describe your self" in different ways, depending on how strong this physiological trait is.

      The degree to which the physiological trait is present outside of meditation correlates strongly with how the self described by the test subject. People who have yet to learn to meditate tend to describe "self" in very concrete terms: I am happy. I am sad. I like reading books. Etc.

      People who have been doing TM for a while, but don't report pure consciousness as a trait, tend to describe their self more abstractly: My self is that which enjoys reading. and so on.

      People who report having pure consciousness present 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for at least one year, continuously, describe "self" in even more abstract terms: My self is the "I" part of I am happy, I am sad. My self pervades all that I see. My self is, I am sure, the same self as everyone else. Not the part that is tall or happy or whatever, but the "I" part is the same for everyone.

      Here's a two part study that establishes the physiological and psychological correlates of people in those groups:

      http://www.totalbrain.ch/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/brain-integration-progress-report.pdf

      http://www.totalbrain.ch/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/eeg-of-enlightenment.pdf


      Research on world champion athletes (people who compete in the national, international, world and olympic games and consistently score in the top 10 for at least 3 years in a row) show an EEG signature that is midway between the short-term meditators and the "enlightened" meditators. Likewise, their descriptions of "self" tend to fall in the same range, while non-champion world-level athletes (those who compete in teh same games, also practice at least one thousand hours a year, etc), tend to have EEG signatures and describe their "self" the same way as the non-meditators do.

      Research on Norwegian athletes:

      http://tm-vedischewissenschaft.de/haru2009h1.pdf

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    4. As to why atheists might get excited about this research...

      When college athletes are taught TM, they start winning games more often. More importantly, they start enjoying the game more, win OR lose.

      When military cadets learn TM, they start to show higher scores on standard military tests for "leadership" and "resilience." So much higher that the president of Norwich University now tours the USA promoting TM as the next big thing in military training (which HIS school happens to be the first to implement).

      When people with PTSD learn TM, they show a drastic reduction in symptoms after only 1-3 months of practice.

      When Black Americans learn TM, they show a 48% reduction in mortality rate over a 5 year period.


      There's about 2600 studies on meditation listed through pubmed. Only a handful of head-to-head studies comparing various meditation exist and almost none of them are large enough to detect differences between groups.

      In April of this year, the American Heart Association reviewed all studies published in the last 5 years of the effects of meditation and relaxation on hypertension and concluded that only TM had sufficiently good research and/or consistent effects to them to recommend in the treatment of high blood pressure.

      The AHA called for head-to-head studies of TM and other meditation/relaxation techniques to verify their finding.

      Surely atheists with high blood pressure will want to know the results of such studies and scientists in the fields of cardiology, and other fields will want to know WHY the results, whatever they turn out to be, are the way they are.

      My own bet, as a TM true believer, is that the "pure consciousness" state will turn out to be far, FAR more important than Western scientists currently believe and that it will eventually be seen as an important field of study...

      Oh wait. The areas of activation in the brain that are most highly correlated with PC are apparently identical to those seen in the Default Mode Network of the brain, and malfunctioning of the DMN is implicated in virtually every neurological and psychological ailment known, so one could say that PC is already seen as a very important field of study. If you look on "enlightenment" as what the human nervous system is like when the DMN is operating in its most efficient way, then it all makes sense...

      ...even to atheists.

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    5. "Obviously brain scans will show *something* happening when people meditate, pray, or have “mystical” experiences. So what? Since they are *experiencing* something, they *have* to do it via their brain. But that tells us precisely *nothing* about the nature of those experiences: real or illusory?"

      Good observation, Massimo. But what if we agree that science is just a collection of propositions whose meanings (in the peircean sense of 'interpretant') point to outside them, I mean, to objects we assume that are in the universe? If so, we must admit that what's being proved, if anything, are the articulated propositions. Strictly speaking, no experimentation can cause any proposition to become true: they are just correlated facts. Am I wrong?

      I'm not playing the contumacious skeptic: just trying to establish the boundaries of our debating field.

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  43. Actually, mathematics is defined as a (natural) science: http://www.oecd.org/science/inno/38235147.pdf
    You are right, a lot of this is language and cultural tradition - in German, the term for the sciences is "Wissenschaft" which means something like "collection of knowledge", and there is no debate that it includes Math, Sociology, and even Philosophy. The English narrowing down of the term is really strange - after all, "science" also comes from the word knowledge... (which is why I like Massimo's term "scientia")

    Nevertheless, exchange scientific for empirical and Massimo's (and my) point still stands: not everything that potentially affects our universe is open to scientific inquiry. The Gedankenexperiment is unprovable/-falsifiable in principle; even if they were to come forward, we lack the physical ability - not enough dimensions, wrong physics - to test their claim. Plus they are supernatural in the very literal sense of being super-natural. (We might be able to grasp them conceptually, though - not sure about that, but here's were the GE departs from religious mysticism - but that's as far as science can go.)

    Cheers
    Chris

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    1. In modern American usage, at least when skeptics are involved, "science" refers to disciplines that use the scientific method, especially research published in mainstream peer-reviewed journals that don't push the envelope by publishing unusual research.

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  44. Definitions:
    Science: uncertainty of measure
    Nature: Universe, One, All
    Truth: infinite immeasurable absolute
    Miracle: seeing and being true
    I: =

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  45. Zal,

    I mentioned miracles because that’s what the post is about. When you say:

    > Nature may be, at the bottom, capricious, while still allowing itself to be investigated. Though individual quantum events appear to be totally undetermined, if have enough of them under the same experimental setup, a pattern emerges. <

    you may be equivocating on the term “capricious.” QM events may be random (or not, depending on your preferred interpretation of the theory), but they are most certainly not capricious. Which is why patterns “emerge.” Indeed, those patterns allow for predictions with many decimal points accuracy. Nothing of the sort happens if we bring in the supernatural.

    Lawson,

    I have not missed your point at all:

    > you can take the claim that mystical states have some definite physiological correlates and study those correlates <

    I just think that - while those studies are indeed interested - your point is irrelevant to this post, because those correlates tell us precisely nothing about whether those experiences are supernatural / mystical or not.

    > Surely atheists with high blood pressure will want to know the results of such studies and scientists in the fields of cardiology, and other fields will want to know WHY the results, whatever they turn out to be, are the way they are. <

    Again, entirely missing the point. I am aware of some of the studies you mention, and they don’t seem to pose any mystery deeper than human physiology can tackle. Nothing at all to do with evidence pro or against mysticism or supernaturalism.

    Waldemar,

    > if we agree that science is just a collection of propositions whose meanings (in the peircean sense of 'interpretant') point to outside them, I mean, to objects we assume that are in the universe? If so, we must admit that what's being proved, if anything, are the articulated propositions. Strictly speaking, no experimentation can cause any proposition to become true: they are just correlated facts. <

    I’m not at all sure where you are going with this, nor why is it germane to the post, but I’m sure I’m missing something...

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    1. Massimo, sorry for the repeat, but you seem to be ignoring my original post when you say:

      >Nothing at all to do with evidence pro or against mysticism or supernaturalism.

      The point of Vedanta is that the mysticism and supernaturalism vs physicalism are false categories, just as mental/physical, conscious/unconscious, self/not-self are:


      *"Every experience has its level of physiology, and so unbounded awareness has its own level of physiology which can be measured. Every aspect of life is integrated and connected with every other phase. When we talk of scientific measurements, it does not take away from the spiritual experience. We are not responsible for those times when spiritual experience was thought of as metaphysical. Everything is physical. Consciousness is the product of the functioning of the brain. Talking of scientific measurements is no damage to that wholeness of life which is present everywhere and which begins to be lived when the physiology is taking on a particular form. This is our understanding about spirituality: it is not on the level of faith --it is on the level of blood and bone and flesh and activity. It is measurable."* -Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

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    2. Massimo, my comment addressed precisely the final phrase of the paragraph it pointed to: "But that tells us precisely *nothing* about the nature of those experiences: real or illusory?"

      What I meant is: any experimental data make sense just inside a set of propositions - the theory - that aims to describe what is instanced by a given experiment. As an example (perhaps not the best one, although I suppose it can illustrate somehow what I mean):apples usually fall from their trees much before Newton conceive the way to describe that fact by means of a theory and just Einstein was able to notice that the phenomenon should look even more absurd (from the layman perspective), like only the idea of space deformation can be. Without a previous conception, no investigation can proceed, no fact is meaningful, science can't even 'see' a given fact.

      So, either the meditation researchers have a theoretical background in order to interpret what those brain waves - or no matter what - possibly mean, or in fact nothing can be taken from the experiment (if 'real or illusory', as you said). Perhaps the only thing an experiment (the reality) can 'cause' to a theory - a set of propositions - is its correction or its rejection (in the cases it was partially or totally wrong). But it's the theory, as a set of propositions that tries to describe reality, that must be consistent or true in itself while trying to 'emulate' - describe - the facts it refers to. Concerning the facts themselves - the ones described by or associated to a theory - they are forever 'there', forever 'true in themselves', just waiting for a good description if there's any need of it.

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    3. "I am aware of some of the studies you mention, and they don’t seem to pose any mystery deeper than human physiology can tackle. Nothing at all to do with evidence pro or against mysticism or supernaturalism."

      Aren't brain scans of several gurus in meditation, for instance, meaningful in a way that they can show that such and such areas in their brain perform similar tasks and so distinguish their brain activity from a scientist's or a virtuoso musician's doing their jobs? It's certain that those measurements would say nothing about mysticism and supernaturalism, but just because these are ways of understanding phenomena, ways perhaps claiming that such phenomena are beyond science scrutiny or - what seems to be the same - that they are caused by what science is unable to know. But these claims can't ensure us that science is indeed unable to measure at least a portion of those events and show that they haven't nothing that allows us to class them as mystical or supernatural - or beyond the reach of science. I even believe that the main task of philosophy and science, since the time they started to disassemble the myth, has been the demonstration that much from what was previously claimed as supernatural or mystical weren't in fact so. Finally, I think that there's a difference between the measurement of the effects of transcendental meditation (which can conclude that it corresponds to a very particular, definite behavior of the brain, useful - or not - in medicine or in whatever human activity) and, for instance, the measurement of the effects of a spirit or of God (although some headstrong science men claim they're able to do it).

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  46. Massimo,

    Sorry but I still cannot quite believe that you are actually saying what it looks like what you are saying, and that I don't simply misunderstand you. Is it correct that if somebody were to make the following claim,

    Unicorns exist, only unfortunately they are invisible, untouchable, and indeed completely impossible to prove or disprove by any of the tools of science. Still, I know they exist and you should believe me.

    a scientist would be well within their rights to say,

    Sorry, but as a zoologist specializing in land vertebrates I will tentatively conclude that unicorns don't exist until you can come up with some tangible evidence. Also, perhaps you should brush up on your critical thinking skills?

    But if the same person would change the claim to,

    Unicorns exist, only unfortunately they are invisible, untouchable, and indeed completely impossible to prove or disprove by any of the tools of science because they are supernatural. Still, I know they exist and you should believe me.

    then the scientist would have to answer like this if they wanted to avoid being charged with scientism,

    Sorry, but as a zoologist I cannot actually say anything about this claim or I would be overstepping the epistemic bounds of my discipline. Excuse me while I refer you to the philosopher over there who is exclusively qualified to answer you now that you have added four words to your claim, one of them, as far as I can tell, completely meaningless.

    Is that an accurate description of the situation? If not, what is the difference to the Eucharist vs philosopher's stone example above? If yes, ... well, I tried to think of some follow up question but I don't really know what to say in that case.

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    1. Alex,

      Regarding Unicorns I think one can dismiss them as they do seem irrelevant (except as legends characters and for kriptozoologists), as long as unicorns remain immaterial they are irrelevant and will not harm no one . The supernatural per si is not accessible to science and science dismisses it, as if it didn't exist (here I mean literally "as if it didn't exist", as it is not accessible to science, and science has no way of addressing it). However some supernatural or metaphysic claims address the natural world and these claims can be tested (using science or other sources of human knowledge). For instance religions (at large) besides God, address the nature of man, the purpose and meaning of man’s existence (this is not addressable by science, but can be addressed by philosophy and humanities). Or some theists such as Platinga address evolution, other people propose ID, these issues have implications in areas that concern science and can in principle be addressed by science.

      (Sorry to intrude in your dialogue with Massimo)

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  47. AlexSL,
    I'd like to take a shot in the hopes that I've understood Massimo correctly:

    For your two examples, the scientist's answer would be the same (the first one), and as a zoologist he would be qualified to make that statement.

    Both examples are equivalent to the philospher's stone example, with or without the supernatural "explanation" tacked on.

    To get the equivalent of the Eucharist example, you have to modify the Unicorn:

    Flurdlwumps exist, only unfortunately they are indefinable, invisible, untouchable, and indeed completely impossible to prove or disprove by any of the tools of science. Still, I know they exist and you should believe me.

    Whether you tack on a "because they are supernatural" or not is not relevant - the zoologist qua zoologist has nothing to say about the flurdlwump. The concept is incoherent to start with, just as transubstantiation is incoherent to start with.

    Cheers
    Chris

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    1. Okay, but why has a scientist to hide behind a philosopher when something incoherent comes up, and is considered arrogant and scientistic if they say that it is, indeed, incoherent?

      Pointing out that something is incoherent is (a) not rocket science and (b) something that a scientist, again, needs to do all the time in the course of their job as a scientist.

      See my paraphyly example above: When an "evolutionary" systematist makes a claim about phylogenetic systematics that I recognize as completely nonsensical, a claim that cannot be tested experimentally because it is not even wrong, I can and will point that out. But although the controversy is about the theory of classification we are necessarily both still acting as scientists, not as philosophers of science, while we argue.

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    2. > Okay, but why has a scientist to hide behind a philosopher when something incoherent comes up, and is considered arrogant and scientistic if they say that it is, indeed, incoherent?

      Not sure why you think you are hiding. To quote Massimo from the OP:
      "Logically incoherent concepts do not need to be investigated empirically: we know that they must be false, if we wish to rely on logic at all." The flurdlwump case is different from the phylogenetic one: you will want to respond, you are not responding as a scientist, but as a (lay) philosopher. You need neither scientific training nor method here.

      I think your misunderstanding with Massimo here is one of terminology: you have a mental image of a unicorn and can map it to real world observations. That pulls it into the realm of the empirical, and calling it supernatural doesn't change that. Doesn't work with a flurdlwump. Massimo is saying the despite the words sounding recognizable, mystical/supernatural is a flurdlwump, not a unicorn - no mapping to empirical reality possible.

      Cheers
      Chris

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  48. Philosophy 101
    Copenhagen Reinterpreted
    The foundation of science is the uncertainty of measure. Once the uncertainty is removed, truth, the absolute is all that remains. =

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  49. It seems to me that any question science can’t answer doesn’t have an answer, only opinions.

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  50. Alex,

    > Is that an accurate description of the situation? If not, what is the difference to the Eucharist vs philosopher's stone example above? <

    Chris has actually already addressed your latest rounds, but it seems to me you are hung up on the word “supernatural.” You seem to think that what I’m saying is that all one has to do to stop scientific inquiry is to *declare* something to be supernatural. Not at all. I’m talking about the concepts used to describe the alleged phenomena. That’s why I said that the difference between supernatural / mystical and paranormal may be one of degrees. If the unicorn of your example is assumed to be a missing link in the evolution of Equiids, then your science-based arguments are perfectly valid. But if it is thought of as a magical animal with no connection to biological evolution on earth then your cladistic retort is useless.

    > Okay, but why has a scientist to hide behind a philosopher when something incoherent comes up, and is considered arrogant and scientistic if they say that it is, indeed, incoherent? <

    C’mon man, this isn’t a petty turf issue. I think of it as a question both of epistemic warrant and of not projecting the very same arrogant “science does it all” attitude that the public seems to be increasingly weary of, and that in my opinion does real damage to the credibility of scientific experts when they engage in public discourse.

    Lawson,

    > The point of Vedanta is that the mysticism and supernaturalism vs physicalism are false categories <

    Maybe they are (I don’t think so), but that assertion is not empirically testable, it has nothing to do with science, because science works only within a naturalistic framework.

    Waldemar,

    > any experimental data make sense just inside a set of propositions - the theory - that aims to describe what is instanced by a given experiment. <

    No objection there, it’s a standard tenet in philosophy of science, these days.

    > So, either the meditation researchers have a theoretical background in order to interpret what those brain waves - or no matter what - possibly mean, or in fact nothing can be taken from the experiment <

    They do: the naturalistic framework of modern neuroscience. Which leaves the question of whether there really is a mystical realm unaddressed, no matter what their brain scans say.

    > Aren't brain scans of several gurus in meditation, for instance, meaningful in a way that they can show that such and such areas in their brain perform similar tasks and so distinguish their brain activity from a scientist's or a virtuoso musician's doing their jobs? <

    So? That says *nothing* about mysticism, supernaturalism and the like, as you acknowledge. What you wrote after that is not clear to me, unfortunately.

    > It seems to me that any question science can’t answer doesn’t have an answer, only opinions. <

    The Pythagorean is true. NOT an opinion, and yet not coming from science either.

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    1. Massimo,

      "That says *nothing* about mysticism, supernaturalism and the like"

      Indeed, perhaps the only rational discipline able to digress about mysticism and supernaturalism is the theory of knowledge while addressing the problem of self delusion ;)

      Finally, I believe we are agreeing (somewhat mysteriously, I have to admit :)) in the overall aspects of this matter. And two observations:

      Investigating phenomena previously claimed as mystical or supernatural:

      First, points to the possibility that - not certainly all, but - a portion of the events claimed by mysticism and supernaturalism as natural laws breakers in fact are not.

      And second, that summarily dismissing every mystical or supernatural claims as nonsensical may not be the best strategy in discovering facts that science possibly hasn't yet the means to test or even detect.

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    2. It may be that I do not understand the answer or that we are not even clear on where we disagree. The title of this post is "testing the supernatural". Of course, if we all agree immediately that the category supernatural is an empty set then science cannot test it. No problem with that as such. But saying that we cannot test something experimentally is not the same as agreeing that a scientist who uses their scientific credentials to reject a claim about something magical is arrogant, scientistic and overstepping epistemic bounds.

      While you appear to believe that the job of science is to conduct one isolated experiment after the other, most scientists believe that the job of science is to figure out what exists, what does not exist, what happens, and what does not happen in the universe.

      And really the latter is self-evident. If you ask yourself "does X exist out there?", who're you gonna call? Not the Ghost Busters. Not a mathematician. Not a logician. Not a philosopher. Not a magician (I'd hope). No, you ask a scientist. (In your attempt to box science into the smallest possible container, you may prefer to call some of the scientists one would consult about the existence of X "natural historians" but they still aren't any of the professions I listed before scientist.) And "god", "souls" and "magic" are possible values for that X.

      Again I will grant immediately that you do not need to call a scientist to collect empirical data on X if you can immediately see that X is an incoherent or self-contradictory idea; in that case, a philosopher will suffice. But if you say that a scientist may not join the discussion to say that X most probably does not exist because there is no empirical evidence for X either, or simply "je n'ai pas eu besoin de cette hypothèse", then it is not the scientist who has started a petty turf war, it is you.

      Perhaps you are too hung up about the few famous scientists who have publicly expressed their misguided disdain for philosophy to realize that that stance is unrepresentative of most scientists. Although the sentiment could grow if they are constantly told how unqualified they are to talk about the empirically unevidenced X because they did not get degrees in philosophy.

      As for the public perception of science, maybe I am moving in the wrong circles and reading the wrong sources, but it appears to me that if the public is getting weary of the supposed arrogance of scientists it has little to nothing to do with obscure demarcation problems and everything with the fact that science regularly comes up with unpleasant results: We are changing the climate. We are overusing resources. There is a lot of evidence for evolution. The previous one is simultaneously evidence against a benevolent god and a creator god. There is no evidence for immortal souls.

      I have my doubts that telling scientists to shut up about the last two items is going to make any difference to a public that does not want to hear it needs to reduce its fuel consumption or that homeopathy doesn't work, for example. And it certainly won't make a lot of difference if you, as an outspoken atheist philosopher, simply take the scientist's place to tell the public the exact same unwelcome news that they are unlikely to see their dead mother again in the afterlife, merely using different arguments.

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    3. Alex,

      we are clearly not going to see eye to eye on this one. But I am surprised that you still put it in terms of petty turf wars. I don’t care whether it is a scientist or a philosopher to say X or Y. What I care about is to acknowledge the limits of human inquiry, be it scientific or philosophical.

      > While you appear to believe that the job of science is to conduct one isolated experiment after the other, most scientists believe that the job of science is to figure out what exists, what does not exist, what happens, and what does not happen in the universe. <

      I think I have a much broader view of science than you allow. But the supernatural is supposed to be, well, outside the damn universe. Which is why science ought to be silent about it. the point is simple: there are things you can’t test, as a scientist, even in principle, so why would you invoke the name of science to reject them?

      Can scientists use logic, or is the latter reserved for philosophers? That, obviously, is a silly question. I’m sure as a scientist you deploy mathematical tools, even though you are not a mathematician. But it doesn’t follow that: a) there is no domain that pertains to math and not science; b) you can appropriate the domain of math just because it is useful to you in your research. Why would logic or philosophy be different?

      > If you ask yourself "does X exist out there?" <

      Except that the sense of “exists” here does not pertain to the physical world. It’s more akin to “do mathematical objects exist?” Would you answer the latter by deploying a telescope?

      > Perhaps you are too hung up about the few famous scientists who have publicly expressed their misguided disdain for philosophy to realize that that stance is unrepresentative of most scientists. <

      Perhaps, but since they are *prominent* they are also influential, as demonstrated by press coverage of what they say.

      > it appears to me that if the public is getting weary of the supposed arrogance of scientists it has little to nothing to do with obscure demarcation problems and everything with the fact that science regularly comes up with unpleasant results <

      You are partly right, but I actually think that Richard Dawkins has done a lot to damage public reputation of science with his scientistic insistence on testing the “god hypothesis.” I am certainly not claiming that the factors you mention aren’t important as well, perhaps even more so. But I find myself on the side of scientists on global warming and evolution, so there would be little point in discussing them further here.

      > And it certainly won't make a lot of difference if you, as an outspoken atheist philosopher, simply take the scientist's place to tell the public the exact same unwelcome news that they are unlikely to see their dead mother again in the afterlife <

      Well, at least we can share the heat... ;-)

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  51. Real

    Ah, by and by, to dust the cobwebs off the sky,
    shadows Mr. Plato, are real too! =

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  52. The supernatural isn't vague- immaterial conscious entity with agency. There is evidence for the immaculate conception, it's just of the anecdotal variety (not scientific). I am told the testing involves listening to your heart or something along that line. That remains fuzzy to me.

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  53. "Berkeley’s idealism is conceptually possible"
    What about Ajdukiewicz's argument against idealism?

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  54. I am going to speak in facts:
    I am a strong Christian
    what atheists believe is much more logical than what Christians believe.
    Its just that what Christians believe happens to be true.
    How am I sure?
    Because I have seen rock solid proof. I have seen a blind person healed. I have seen people in wheelchairs get up and walk. Most of all, I have experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit personally. I am one hundred percent sure that Christianity Is real. Its a strange world we live in.

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  55. Great article, thank you for this post! It makes me think, and what could be better? I found it because I was searching for something on the tension between science and the supernatural. I get from your article that you say science assumes continuity in nature, that miracles would have to be a breech of such continuity and that therefore science is not a tool capable of making sense of miracles. I hope I got this right, and I would agree with this notion. What bugs me about supernatural phenomena or entities etc. is that the term already makes no sense. Supernatural is above nature, outside of the universe we live in, and therefore by definition out of our intellectual grasp, isn't it? So every time we talk about something supernatural like a miracle or a god, we are talking about something we cannot talk about in any meaningful way, right? So then why talk at all about it, I suspect Wittgenstein would ask. Proponents of the supernatural need to come up with an operational terminology first and a testable hypothesis later, and I suspect that is impossible for them to do?

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