ZapperZ said:
My objection was the idea that any kind of philosophical discussion can only "help" the understanding of the sciences, and physics in particular. If you read back from the start of this, you will notice that I have tried several times to stress that point.
I want to try once more to get a little understanding going. One thing I’ve seen happen at forums is how easily the written word can be misinterpreted. If we were talking in person and you misinterpreted my meaning, I’d stop you immediately before you developed lengthy arguments against what you thought I meant. Words can be ambiguous, and of course none of us are perfect, so we can be less than clear. So I want to explain how this interpretation of yours “My objection was the idea that
any [my emphasis] kind of philosophical discussion can only ‘help’ the understanding of the sciences . . .” is a misunderstanding. I am not saying my communication was perfect, or that you “should” have understood what I
meant, but it is not what I meant nonetheless.
Much of what you said you dislike about philosophy is how I feel about it, so let’s not argue about that unnecessarily (part of my outrage, in fact, was feeling that I was being associated with it). I have said in my posts here at PF many times how much I like the empirical slant of the philosophy area, and I’ve tried to contribute to making it more so.
On the other hand, there are a lot of intelligent, educated people, including some scientists (and myself), who believe science can only answer the physical questions, and that there’s “something more” to existence than physicalness, and for which science is useless. Yet there are also plenty of people here who believe science
can answer all answerable questions (clarification: I am saying they believe if a question actually can be answered, science is the only certain avenue to it). Metacristi earlier spoke of that as the dogma of scientism.
I’d say there is probably a higher percentage of “something more” believers participating in the philosophy area than in the pure science areas. That is why in the philosophy area at PF there is more “brainstorming” going on than in the exact sciences areas. That’s the nature of philosophical thinking, to wonder, to question, etc. So one thing about having a philosophy area is that it is going to attract people who are not 100% lined up with physicalism. That means debate, and some of it gets pretty passionate.
Now let’s consider what the general population is doing. Just last night at my (very social) racquetball club somebody had heard about nonlocal effects and had combined that with what he’d read about uncertainty to say it meant physics is in fact an
inexact science. He tried to say that God was at work in all those places in physical processes that science cannot explain. When I tried to get him to stop merging physical and spiritual ideas, the discussion got pretty heated. It isn’t that I don’t think there is something spiritual, it’s just that sticking it into physics never seems to work for either side.
Well, when someone comes to PF and tries that, we have a lot of people ready to correct their misconceptions about the physical side. And you have someone like me who may think there’s “something more” but wants to keep from mixing up physical principles with it because I really do think they operate under different rules. Further, I also am quite empirical, in the sense that I don’t believe something is known until it is experienced, and that includes “something more.” If you read my debate in the Logic area with Rainer, you can see that I am pretty conservative about the experience-knowledge link.
So now we are at last back to what I meant by “any.” Although I don’t recall using that word, reading my posts I can see how it might seem I am implying it. But the “any” I implied doesn’t refer to talking about
any old subject
any old way. What I meant was, if someone comes here to think about things, and if we have the right staff, then we have an opportunity to reason with them about their beliefs and assumptions. In that sense, “any” way we can get them to be more careful about their science, their logic, and in general encourage them to think more empirically (i.e., based on what can be/has been experienced) would be beneficial.
Does it mean that we aren’t going to get kooks telling us they are a messenger from God? No (we’ve already got at least one, which has been affectionately tolerated so far). And I am pretty sure there are hard core physicalist types who don’t want ANY discussion of “something more,” no matter how carefully it’s done. To me that is at least part of what’s behind this debate (maybe not you, but others). As I said before, whether or not there’s going to be a philosophy area is not my decision, but if there is one, I don’t know why you wouldn’t it want to be as I’ve suggested.
