The Limits of Science

[mgb]

The limits of science.

1. The primitive.

Science is primitive in that it studies only primitive things; how atoms are joined together, how energy flows through physical systems, how spacetime is shaped and so on.
Given this limitation the rationality that emerges from science remains primitive if it stays within the sphere of materialism because matter is primitive.

With respect to the assertion of primitivism, 'evolved' would pertain to the personal; the mystery of being, life, consciousness, creativity, intelligence and the reality of the person.

To argue that the mystery of being and the reality of the person can be encompassed by the primitive rationale of science is like saying literature can be encompassed by the primitive logic of Boolean algebra. It is hardly feasable.

The rationale of science has not made any progress in addressing the mystery of being and of the person and the argument that these phenomena are within the domain of science, is an article of faith, rather than a realistic reflection of the realm of science.

2. Properties and emergence.

In earlier times it was thought that the classical (physical) universe held within itself, the explanation for its own existence. This idea was shattered with the advent of quantum mechanics which shows that the classical system is an emergent property of the foundational quantum spacetime of energy. The cause of the classical universe is outside it. In this respect, science does not explain the classical universe, it describes it. A causes B is a description of what is happening. What A and B really are would constitute an explanation.

Quantum reality has not fared any better. There are mathematical descriptions of what is happening (astoundingly accurate in many cases) but what it is that is happening and what makes it happen is as opaque as ever. What energy is, and why it behaves as it does, is a mystery and until that mystery is resolved there are only relative explanations or descriptions, in scientific understanding. No doubt, a large part of this problem concerns the fact that there is no logical reason as to why the laws of nature are what they are, since they are, or seem to be, contingent. Any ultimate explanation must address the phenomena of existence and being. What are existence and being?

3. Being

Our sense of being is the most precious and evolved aspect of human experience and it is completely outside the realm of science. It is hard to see how it can be reduced to material descriptions. A neuroscientist puts his finger on a thing and says 'we are nothing more than' (meaning a collection of neurons etc). But the thing under his finger must be interpreted and this is not easy; at all times the dictum 'Correlation is not causation' must be observed. Just because A and B are found together does not automatically mean that A causes B (there may be an unknown C, such that C causes A and C causes B). Just because neural activity is associated with thought does not mean it creates thought.

An analogy would be an internet page on a computer screen. If someone, not knowing what the internet is, decides to examine the situation he may look at the various systems and sub systems in the computer and learn that these systems are, somehow, making the page appear on screen. He can get into quite a bit of detail with this and eventually come to the conclusion that the computer has created the page, as well as the meaning of the words on the page. Every thread of his rationale tells him that the page originated in the computer and, while there is some truth in this (the computer organizes the page to be displayed) he has gone too far if he becomes convinced that the computer wrote the page and produced it in its entirety. In reality the page was broadcast from a remote server and the meaning in its text was created by a human mind.

Likewise with thought and the brain. The brain organizes many things, but it does not think. At least science has not shown that it does and any 'evidence' going in this direction can be subtly misleading.

4. Intellect and intelligence

Intellect and intelligence are not the same. Intelligence is a creative understanding that is a faculty of the conscious mind and of being. Intellect is an instrument of the intelligence. For example, creative intelligence in art, music, literature and the conscious apprehension of other minds and of being, is far more than reductive intellect. Science, for the most part, is dependent on the intellect, which is primitive, because intellect is essentially reductive. (It may be that the intellect evolved to test and to organize the flow of experiences as they come to us through our senses; to examine and grasp the logic of everyday physical experience.) The best science is when the intellect is imbued with the higher creative intelligence of the mind. But it is hard to see how it can work the other way; how intellect can inform intelligence, except by the most complicated philosophical routes.

Science relies on the intellect to discern the patterns that are behind physical reality. This bringing into focus the patterns behind physical appearances, is the essence of science.

Equally, the creative intelligence discerns the patterns behind the world of conscious experience. In this respect, the intelligence, in discerning the order and patterns in the word of being, is to being what the intellect is to science.
That is, the intellect in relation to material world, is as the intelligence is in relation to the world of being and consciousness.
Both are concerned with comprehending the order of the world, on different levels.

5. Proof

Some materialists seem to argue that only things that can be proved are admissable as elements of a world view. This view has proven to be misguided, as the failure of Logical Positivism shows. Also, there are things that are true that are not proved. For example, radio waves were not part of the world of things proved during the Middle Ages. Yet they were as real then as they are now. How one would form a world view based on proved things during the Middle Ages, is hard to see. Yet we exist in a world today where things proved are seen to be sufficient as a foundation for a world view. This cannot be adaquate. Firstly, because things proved will always only be a small subset of all truth. Secondly because proof, in the absolute, or near absolue, sense is only in terms of primitive truths; material relations and mathematical relationships.

This subset of primitive proved truths is hardly sufficient to address onthological questions concerneing the nature of being and consciousness. This means that a world view that emerges from a subset must be on very shaky ground because it does not contain unproved things that are true. A dramatic example is how the finitude of facts concerning the classical universe led scientists to believe that a whole world view could be constructed from those facts. As it turns out, facts about the classical universe are, in reality, only concerned with emergent properties (matter) of the mysterious quantum world.

Equally, Hilbert's attempts to formalize all mathematics and put it on a firm footing, were destroyed by Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. Mystery leads to the appearance of certainty and certainty is undermined by the very investigations that establish it.

And still, the world of life, being, creativity, consciousness - the highest points of the evolution of the universe - remain as elusive as ever.

[mgb]

It is because you cannot have properties without substance. A property is an abstraction, that is all.

Right, but it's still not clear why not having an E would imply properties without substance.

It wouldn't, necessarily. But even an infinite/circular regression needs E. Without E, the universe would only be an abstraction.

You seem, to me, to be contradicting yourselve here. If infinite/circular regression does not necessarily imply an absence of substance, then why would it need any E? Where would E fit into ... P3 -> P1 -> P0 -> P2 ...?

E is substance. P3 -> P1 -> P0 -> P2 … is an abstraction. There must be substance underpinning everything, otherwise you have a universe of abstractions.

[mgb]

You think communism is evil. You think atheism is evil.

Where did I say atheism is evil? I said, there are examples of atheist ideologies being evil. I said that in response to your accusations of religion being evil. No point in going round in circles with this.

[TSGracchus]

[Replying to post 192 by mgb]

mgb: "Communist oppression is ideologically atheist."

That statement was not factually correct. And unless you don't think "Communist oppression" is not evil you were very obviously trying to taint both Communism and atheism with that label, else you would not have made such a false statement.

[Bust Nak]

E is substance. P3 -> P1 -> P0 -> P2 … is an abstraction. There must be substance underpinning everything, otherwise you have a universe of abstractions.

That still doesn't tell me where E fits into the picture. Why must there be an extra E underpinning everything when ... P3 -> P1 -> P0 -> P2... doesn't necessrily imply an absence of substance.

[mgb]

E is substance. P3 -> P1 -> P0 -> P2 … is an abstraction. There must be substance underpinning everything, otherwise you have a universe of abstractions.

That still doesn't tell me where E fits into the picture. Why must there be an extra E underpinning everything when ... P3 -> P1 -> P0 -> P2... doesn't necessrily imply an absence of substance.

Ok it doesn't but I can't identify any such progression. Any analysis of matter quickly leads out of the physical universe and ends with E. You might argue that there is an infinity of Ps between E and matter, but I don't see that this is the case, or why it would be. Here is a piece on E and contingency (=properties, states, forms etc.)

4.1 A Deductive Argument from Contingency
As an a posteriori argument, the cosmological argument begins with a fact known by experience, namely, that something contingent exists. We might sketch out a version of the argument as follows.
A contingent being (a being such that if it exists, it could have not-existed or could cease to exist) exists.
This contingent being has a cause of or explanation[1] for its existence.
The cause of or explanation for its existence is something other than the contingent being itself.
What causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must either be solely other contingent beings or include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
Contingent beings alone cannot provide a completely adequate causal account or explanation for the existence of a contingent being.
Therefore, what causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
Therefore, a necessary being (a being such that if it exists, it cannot not-exist) exists.
The universe is contingent.
Therefore, the necessary being is something other than the universe.
In the argument, steps 1–7 establish the existence of a necessary or non-contingent being; steps 8–9 attempt in some way to identify it.
Over the centuries philosophers have suggested various instantiations for the contingent being noted in premise 1. In his Summa Theologica (I,q.2,a.3), Aquinas argued that we need a causal explanation for things in motion, things that are caused, and contingent beings.[2] Others, such as Richard Swinburne (2004), propose that the contingent being referred to in premise 1 is the universe. The connection between the two is supplied by John Duns Scotus, who argued that even if the essentially ordered causes were infinite, “the whole series of effects would be dependent upon some prior cause� (Scotus [c. 1300] 1964: I,D.2,p.1,q.1,§53). Gale (1999) calls this the “Big Conjunctive Contingent Fact�). Whereas the contingency of particular existents is generally undisputed, not the least because of our mortality, the contingency of the universe deserves some defense (see section 4.2). Premise 2 invokes a moderate version of the Principle of Causation or the Principle of Sufficient Reason, according to which if something is contingent, there must be a cause of its existence or a reason or explanation why it exists rather than not exists. The point of 3 is simply that something cannot cause or explain its own existence, for this would require it to already exist (in a logical if not a temporal sense). Premise 4 is true by virtue of the Principle of Excluded Middle: what explains the existence of the contingent being either are solely other contingent beings or includes a non-contingent (necessary) being. Conclusions 6 and 7 follow validly from the respective premises.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosm ... -argument/

[mgb]

[Replying to post 192 by mgb]

mgb: "Communist oppression is ideologically atheist."

That statement was not factually correct. And unless you don't think "Communist oppression" is not evil you were very obviously trying to taint both Communism and atheism with that label, else you would not have made such a false statement.

It IS factually correct. In communist Russia state atheism was a driving force. I'm not saying ALL communist oppression is like this but a great part of it was. It was driven by an agenda that was essentially atheist.

[mgb]

State atheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism

[DeMotts]

[Replying to post 196 by mgb]

mgb do you think that there is any resemblance between the christian assumption of god's infallibility and the communist assumption of the infallibility of The Party and The Leader?

One could easily make a compelling argument that the nature of The Party in a Communist totalitarian dictatorship is in effect a state religion - it requires obedience and eschews critical thought, it is presented to the exclusion of any alternate theories, and the penalties for dissent are total damnation.

[Bust Nak]

Ok it doesn't but I can't identify any such progression. Any analysis of matter quickly leads out of the physical universe and ends with E. You might argue that there is an infinity of Ps between E and matter, but I don't see that this is the case, or why it would be.

Okay, I can go with everything in the universe ends with E. Instead of arguing an infinite chain after E, as that would be a definite beginning, I would fitted E around the infinite regression thus: ...P3->P1->E->P2->P4... All odd P's denote causes and effects prior to the universe, E being something like the big bang, and the even P's is what happens in the universe.

Here is a piece on E and contingency (=properties, states, forms etc.)...

Contingent beings alone cannot provide a completely adequate causal account or explanation for the existence of a contingent being.

Why not? In the set of integers not a complete set? If so then an infinite chain of contingent beings qualify as a completely adequate causal account or explanation for the existence of a contingent being.

Therefore, what causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must include a non-contingent (necessary) being.

This does not follow either, if an infinite chain does not qualify as "completely adequate," then why assume there must be a completely adequate causal account or explanation for the existence of a contingent being in the first place?

[mgb]

Therefore, what causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must include a non-contingent (necessary) being.

This does not follow either, if an infinite chain does not qualify as "completely adequate," then why assume there must be a completely adequate causal account or explanation for the existence of a contingent being in the first place?

Contingent in this respect means a contingent thing/being is a property. There cannot be properties without substance. E is necessary existence. Everything else is contingent upon it; that is, everything else is a property of it.