The relationship between science and materialism

[UndercoverElephant]

Since piggy never got round to starting his new thread, I thought I would. He can always start another one if this isn't what he was thinking of.

In 2002, a book was published called "The Taboo of Subjectivity: Towards a new science of consciousness." It's author was Allan Wallace, who teaches interdisciplinary courses on science and religion (he's a Buddhist). The critical section of this book, which compares and contrasts four "strands" of the scientific tradition is now available on line, in four sections:

Science and scientific realism:

http://www.metanexus.net/metanexus_online/show_article2.asp?id=3142

Scientific Materialiism:

http://www.metanexus.net/metanexus_online/show_article2.asp?id=3168

Marginalisation of the mind:

http://www.metanexus.net/metanexus_online/show_article2.asp?id=3277

The Central Totem and Taboo of Scientific Materialism (subjectivity), Scientism:

http://www.metanexus.net/metanexus_online/show_article2.asp?id=3326

concluding quote:

Religious fundamentalists regard those who reject their dogma as being victims of their own sin, especially the sin of pride. Similarly, champions of scientism condemn the dissenters from their view as having abandoned reason, for it is inconceivable to them that anyone could be rational and knowledgeable of science and yet deny their most cherished scientistic beliefs. In short, scientism is to scientific materialism what fundamentalism is to all traditional religions.

In this essay I have tried to identify the salient characteristics of scientific materialism and its taboos within the fourfold typology of science, scientific realism, scientific materialism, and scientism. Once the distinctions among these four elements of the scientific tradition have been clearly made, it becomes evident that scientific materialism, and not science as such, has taken on the role of a nature religion in the modern world. Indeed, it is hardly an exaggeration to state that it has become the state religion of the United States-in flagrant violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution-as well as many other nations throughout the world. Given the domination of this ideology in contemporary, secular academia, it is all the more important that its articles of faith are not conflated with the empirical facts of science. The very health of the sciences and the humanities may depend on making this distinction clear.

The bolded line is a one-line summation of my own position.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I'm tired of people posting huge quantities of homework in an effort to convince me that I'm some sort of evil believer in X-ism. I hereby stipulate that I am an evil believer in x-ism, for all x you care to name. Now, could we move on to the next step? What is to be done? What would you have scientists do differently?

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

No pain no gain.

Actually, you could probably read all four sections in half an hour. It's there, for anyone who is interested. You wanted a description of "the problem". That's it. If I'd known it was available online before I'd have posted it before. My attempts at a summary obviously failed.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

What I want is some suggestions for what to do about the problem, rather than some guy's rant about how some strawman materialism has become the religion of the USA. What a farce. But there won't be any suggestions, because no one has anything to suggest.

When you've got the new science of Zero, let me know.

~~ Paul

 

[Nancarrow]

I'm tired of people posting huge quantities of homework in an effort to convince me that I'm some sort of evil believer in X-ism. I hereby stipulate that I am an evil believer in x-ism, for all x you care to name. Now, could we move on to the next step? What is to be done? What would you have scientists do differently?

Hear hear.

FWIW my position is that I am an anismist. Down with isms.


ETA: Paul's custom title: heh!

 

[chriswl]

I'm getting a bit fed up of this misuse of the word scientism. It was an appropriate word to apply to Social Darwinists like Spencer who were misapplying the theory of evolution by positing Darwinian "fitness" as an ethical principle. Or behaviourists who refused to consider the existence of internal brain states merely because the science of the time could not properly examine them.

Unfortunately, there are some who want to carry on the anti-scientism project of their early twentieth century heroes even against legitimate science. Criticism of bad science has become a disdain for all scientific explanations.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I'm getting a bit fed up of this misuse of the word scientism. It was an appropriate word to apply to Social Darwinists like Spencer who were misapplying the theory of evolution by positing Darwinian "fitness" as an ethical principle. Or behaviourists who refused to consider the existence of internal brain states merely because the science of the time could not properly examine them.

Unfortunately, there are some who want to carry on the anti-scientism project of their early twentieth century heroes even against legitimate science. Criticism of bad science has become a disdain for all scientific explanations.

Do you know that it has been misused in this case or are you guessing?
Do you think there are no scientistic people here??

 

[chriswl]

Do you know that it has been misused in this case or are you guessing?
Do you think there are no scientistic people here??

Well I read the bit about scientism in the article you quoted and he is clearly labelling materialism as scientistic.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

So if I agree not to be scientistic about investigating everything, what other methods should I use?

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

So if I agree not to be scientistic about investigating everything, what other methods should I use?

~~ Paul

That was the point of the Husserl thread. Husserl is a representative of continental philosophy, rather than analytical philosophy. I personally believe that continental philosophy is more than mere the "creative writing" it has been accused of being. The point of Husserl is to try to get people to understand why there is purpose and value in non-analytical philosophy.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Well I read the bit about scientism in the article you quoted and he is clearly labelling materialism as scientistic.

He is accusing scientific materialism as being equal in status to a religion and scientism to be equal in status to the fundamentalist version of that religion. Only a minority of the people here are fundamentalists. But that's just like Christians. Most of them have just made a choice and should be allowed to get on with it. It's only a minority that cause a problem, but they make a lot of noise.

 

[chriswl]

He is accusing scientific materialism as being equal in status to a religion and scientism to be equal in status to the fundamentalist version of that religion. Only a minority of the people here are fundamentalists. But that's just like Christians. Most of them have just made a choice and should be allowed to get on with it. It's only a minority that cause a problem, but they make a lot of noise.

There is nothing wrong with fundamentalism per se. The problem arises when the thing you believe in fundamentally is wrong. Liberal Christians are less of a problem then fundamentalist ones because they don't take their strange religion quite as seriously; they exercise common sense and junk the truly ridiculous aspects of it. If what you believe in is correct then believing in it fully (fundamentally) is appropriate. Some things are true and some things are not. Lets not be vague if we can avoid it.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

There is nothing wrong with fundamentalism per se. The problem arises when the thing you believe in fundamentally is wrong.

Absolutely.

Liberal Christians are less of a problem then fundamentalist ones because they don't take their strange religion quite as seriously; they exercise common sense and junk the truly ridiculous aspects of it.

But I could say exactly the same thing of materialists. Most of them don't take it so seriously. But some of them claim that minds don't exist and that religion is the root of all evil.

If what you believe in is correct then believing in it fully (fundamentally) is appropriate.

The problem with this is what is the foundation of believing in something fully? Science itself has shaky foundations. There is no such thing as absolute truth. Personally, I try to believe as little as possible.

Some things are true and some things are not. Lets not be vague if we can avoid it.

What theory of truth to you ascribe to?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth

 

[chriswl]

But I could say exactly the same thing of materialists. Most of them don't take it so seriously. But some of them claim that minds don't exist and that religion is the root of all evil.

Religion being the root of all evil is just Dawkins indulging in hyperbole. Nothing to do with materialism. I don't think anyone claims that there are no such things as minds, the argument is over what kinds of things they are. Materialists think they can be explained as features of certain physical structures.

Anyway, why does any type of materialism lead to scientism and what does the author mean by scientism anyway. He doesn't give any clear examples but he says:

Expressions of scientism appear in science textbooks, the popular scientific press, and in professional scientific literature. It has made deep inroads into the humanities; and its unexamined assumptions have a hold within nearly every field of scholarship

Wow, that sounds like quite a problem we have, but I can't say I've ever noticed or been troubled by it. Can you give me any examples - and I don't mean disputes between philosophers. I mean the way "scientism" has supposedly infiltrated our entire culture.

What theory of truth to you ascribe to?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth

Those are just the different things people can mean by "truth". It is usually clear in any given argument what we mean by truth. If we don't share a common definition we can't really have an argument.

Fundamentalist Christians can at least explain what they mean when they say that the bible is true. Non-fundamentalists haven't really got a clue and waffle about bits of it being "allegorical" and so forth. That's what I mean by "some things are true and some things are not true". Let's not deliberately blur the issues to preserve cherished ideas that don't make sense anymore. Let's take our ideas seriously and see where they lead. Let's be fundamentalists.

 

[cyborg]

But some of them claim that minds don't exist

That's because they don't anymore than any other human abstraction for anything else exists. They certainly don't exist in the way you say they do, and you've got nothing other than some pretty poor metaphysical cruft and flawed mathematics for your point of view.

 

[Elaedith]

'There is no such thing as absolute truth'

I don't think the above statement can be absolutely true.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

'There is no such thing as absolute truth'

I don't think the above statement can be absolutely true.

Technically correct, but not very interesting. It has no noticeable effect on the meaning of the statement. The abscence of absolute truth doesn't render language ineffective.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Religion being the root of all evil is just Dawkins indulging in hyperbole.

It is rather unhelpful and uninformed hyperbole.

Nothing to do with materialism.

Apart from the fact that the reason he thinks that his position is reasonable is because he is a materialist. Some of things that Dawkins and Dennett say sound reasonable to materialists and unreasonable to other people. Which is why we end up arguing about whether materialism itself is reasonable. You obviously don't see the link. Other people do.

I don't think anyone claims that there are no such things as minds....

That is precisely what they claim. See Paul and Patricia Churchland.

, the argument is over what kinds of things they are. Materialists think they can be explained as features of certain physical structures.

No. The Churchlands believe they do not exist and that the language we use to describe "mental things" will one day be replaced by an entirely objective language of a "mature neuroscience".

Anyway, why does any type of materialism lead to scientism and what does the author mean by scientism anyway. He doesn't give any clear examples but he says.

OK...stripped from an essay on pseudoscience (= fake science), the whole of which is available here : http://esophy.com/arc1/scienceandpseudoscience.html

Throughout Churchlands 1984 book "Matter and Consciousness" there is an indiscriminate and ambiguous use of the three terms "consciousness", "intelligence" and "conscious intelligence". Most of the time Churchland uses "conscious intelligence" as a compound noun that is never clearly defined. The word "consciousness" does not refer to the same thing as "intelligence". "Intelligence" refers to a sort of behaviour and decision-making ability. Consciousness is a term encompassing many more things, the essential component of which is subjective awareness. Churchland implicitly acknowledges this by using "consciousness" and "intelligence" correctly as single nouns in many places in the book, but each time there is a critical point where he really means "intelligence" but wants to be able to say "consciousness" he uses the term "conscious intelligence". For example, on page 5 he writes: "To what extent can we recreate the features of conscious intelligence? Answer: to a very impressive extent". Here, "conscious intelligence" has to mean "intelligence" because the only elements of "conscious intelligence" we have recreated is intelligence. At this point Churchland is referring to the impressive but limited successes of computer-based artificial intelligence. Then, on page 10 he writes: "The properties of Property Dualism are described as properties of having pain, having a sensation of red, of thinking P, of desiring Q. These are the properties of conscious intelligence". This time, "conscious intelligence" can only mean "consciousness" because the properties of property dualism are specifically the properties of subjective awareness. These properties have nothing whatsoever to do with the aforementioned successes of computer-based AI. Both statements together amount to a claim by Churchland that the properties of property dualism have been recreated by AI technology, a claim which is somewhere between unsupportable and demonstrably false but which helps to support the ideologically-driven notion that consciousness does not provide any unsolvable problems to materialistic science. If pseudo-science is the ambiguous confusion of science and metaphysical/political/religious ideologies then Churchlands work looks suspiciously like pseudo-science, and it is potentially more dangerous than other forms of pseudo-science since in this case it is "inside the walls" of science. If there is confusion between science and metaphysics which has been generally accepted rather than rejected by the scientific community then it undermines the claim that we can rely on the scientific community to be a genuine arbiter between science and pseudo-science on the basis of freedom from ideological dogma.

Fundamentalist Christians can at least explain what they mean when they say that the bible is true. Non-fundamentalists haven't really got a clue and waffle about bits of it being "allegorical" and so forth.

And you, of course, couldn't concieve of there being allegorical truth in the Bible. I should have made it obvious by now that I am no Christian, but that doesn't mean there isn't deeply philosophical (meaningful, relevant) allegory in some parts of it. This is exactly the sort of thing I mean by "scientism". You clearly don't allow for any other sort of information gathering than via objective science. Attacking liberal Christians as somehow having less integrity than the fundamentalists seems to me to be a fundamentally wrong-headed thing to do. They are not your enemy - at least they shouldn't be.

That's what I mean by "some things are true and some things are not true". Let's not deliberately blur the issues to preserve cherished ideas that don't make sense anymore. Let's take our ideas seriously and see where they lead. Let's be fundamentalists.

Scientistic fundamentalists? No thankyou. I am trying to be a philosopher. Philosophy and fundamentalism don't go very well together.

 

[Darat]

...snip..

That is precisely what they claim. See Paul and Patricia Churchland.

...snip..

I thought those two were philosophers not scientists?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

That's because they don't anymore than any other human abstraction for anything else exists. They certainly don't exist in the way you say they do, and you've got nothing other than some pretty poor metaphysical cruft and flawed mathematics for your point of view.

...coming from a person who defended four different metaphysical positions in the space of half an hour and doesn't even realise that this is what he did.....

I can't argue with you, Cyborg. Trying to nail jelly to a wall is a waste of time.