The Credibility of Scientific Evidence: Replication and Reliability

[FZ+]

So if you still want to cling to your original definition of materialism then let's drop it and start over. We can start by you telling me what the fundamental difference is between your view and the views of Hypnagogue and Royce. I'm not interested in the differences in you're beliefs. I'm interested in the reason why you're beliefs are different. There must be some fundamental reason. These fundamental reasons are usually found in labels but since you have rendered the materialists label useless we can't use it. This request obviously applies to FZ as well.

Fair enough.

The beginning is that I like science. Hell, I love science. Science is cool, science is great, etc etc. You get the idea.

Now, we come to something like the mind. According to Hypnagogue et al, science cannot explain the mind.

I refuse to accept that. On the first level, Hypnagogue insists that the mind exists in a subjective fashion, that is (a) immune from general inquiry, and (b) somehow distinct. To me, however, this is a profoundly useless idea.

First of all, we have never found any such boundary. As far as science, and any other sort of rational inquiry is concerned, there is no tower of babel. We can continue to study, and continue to understand, and the placing of a line past which it is not possible to understand any further is simply a signal of defeat. Secondly, the insistence of a sort of distinctness "above the material plane" and thus somehow inaccessible is to me a contradiction, as somehow you must have gained an understanding of whatever entity you are talking about, and we can put that into science. Finally, there is a sense of an implicit judgement on the scientific procedure, in that it must give a certain "materialist" result, that appears to be a corruption of what science represents as an ideal.

I see no reason to pigeonhole people as being materialist, and so having to think a certain way. It is exasperating, whenever someone says: since you are a materialist, you must believe that the mind is just random electrons, or that life is just a chemical reaction. Why? What is so bad to call something "merely" what it is? And why assume that it must be reduced further? Materialists accept gravity, do they not? If anything, the expert overbelieve in chemogenesis because they are traditionalists. But the general notion of materialism is too often synonymous with a caricature, an insult to the universe is thought of as.

The universe is wierd, the universe is uncertain, the universe is largely unknown. I fail to see how accepting as an axiom that there is only one reality, and that nothing's "sacred" would limit the way you see it, only make you see from a different direction.

When someone talks of God, I make the automatic translation to enigmatic alien being. When someone talks of Ultimate Reality, I think of an undiscovered universal law. When someone talks of meditation, I think of either undiscovered sensory network, or unusual brain patterns. When someone talks of a soul, I think of a hypothetical "awareness particle." When someone talks of fate, I think of the landscape of spacetime. When someone talks of free will, I think of the uncertainty principle. In which way has anything changed? When someone poses the so called Hard Question of consciousness - why should this give rise to experience - why can't I say: because that merely physical explanation is what experience is.

Excuse the ranting. Minor (non-existent) awards available for whoever makes sense of that.

 

[Fliption]

I think this is an excellent post FZ, ranting or not. I think this type of discussion will get us much further than if we hide behind labels like "materialism" because it's obvious everyone defines that differently.

If I can paraphrase what you've said... Is it fair to say that you don't believe that anything that actually exists is beyond the realms of science? Maybe this is the direction we should go to find a distinction in views.

Hopefully people who disagree with you can specifically say why they disagree with some of your specific points and for once we can talk about this without the use of vague labels.


Now I'll comment on some of your points just to get this going.

Originally posted by FZ+
Now, we come to something like the mind. According to Hypnagogue et al, science cannot explain the mind. I refuse to accept that. On the first level, Hypnagogue insists that the mind exists in a subjective fashion, that is (a) immune from general inquiry, and (b) somehow distinct. To me, however, this is a profoundly useless idea.

Hopefully Hypnagogue will have an opportunity to comment but I'm not sure this is what Hypnagogue thinks. I think he thinks that consciousness is not reducible and ought to be accepted into science as a fundamental thing. Much like energy, spacetime etc. This view doesn't seem to be asking for any "line" to be drawn. It's merely dealing with what the fundamental, non-reducible parts to existence are. Everything reduces to a point where it can no longer be reduced. Right? Do we know what these non-reducible points are? Exactly what principal does science have for deciding when something is no longer reducible? How do we ever really know? Why should we be so convinced that something like consciousness is reducible? Actually I believe Hypnagogue has philosophical issues with consciousness being reducible;not scientific ones. All the more reason to take it seriously. And this view is an old one that has been troubling philosphers for years. It would help to understand it and understand why this is so.

Obviously, the point of this thread is for hypnagogue to discuss this with you in clear language. Not me since I'm stuck in the indecisive mode. I'm just asking the questions that come to my mind.

When someone poses the so called Hard Question of consciousness - why should this give rise to experience - why can't I say: because that merely physical explanation is what experience is.

How much scientific data would you have to give to a blind man for him to understand the color "red"? IMO, no matter how many times you give measurements of wavelength, or brain process steps etc etc, this man will never know the color red. How can this experience of red be reduced so that he understands? This I think is related to the philosophical arguments I mentioned above.

I, for one, know that there is knowledge in experience. You can read all the books you want and learn everything there is to learn about how to play tennis, but you'll never really know how to play it or what's it's like to play it until you experience playing it. It's funny how that works but it's true.

Also, Royce stated above what he thinks. Maybe he can point out whether he thinks his three aspects of reality can be under the study of science and why or why not.

 

[Royce]

Glad to, Fliption.
So long as science confines itself the material, objective reality and accepts nothing but emperical date then I don't believe that science can by definition study or learn anything about the subjective or spiritual realms of reality. It has been all but impossible to address these things with the strict materialist here in this forum. This is why I say this.
However I think that science will sooner or later begin to stray from the strict material and emperical limits that it has placed on itself.
The first steps have already been made when we look at the findings of QM and QED and Relativity. There also is as of yet no emperical evidence supporting string theory. While most would agree that psychology cannot yet be termed as a science there is no reason to believe that it will never be a science.
I think that as we delve deeper and deeper into human behaviour, psychology and consciousness as well as the hard sciences we approach the imagined boundry between the material and emperical and the nonmaterial and nonemperical. This is the main reason that I keep insisting that there is only one reality. The sudy of any facet of reality is thus the study of all of reality and any line of study will eventually lead to the revelation of all of reality. As yet science has refused to take that next step beyound materialism and empericalism. It just stops thinking that it has come to a dead end or that is cannot and must not go beyound. This I think is why so many have so much trouble with QM and consciousness colapsing the wave function. It just ain't science!

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by Royce
Glad to, Fliption.
So long as science confines itself the material, objective reality and accepts nothing but emperical date then I don't believe that science can by definition study or learn anything about the subjective or spiritual realms of reality.

However I think that science will sooner or later begin to stray from the strict material and emperical limits that it has placed on itself.

This response uses the word Materialism as the distinction a bit too much for me to truly understand why you say these things. As I've said, materialism doesn't mean much to me.

Science is only doing what it is supposed to be doing. So what is that?
Science studies patterns of behavior through emperical observations, the results of which can be verified by multiple examiners obtaining the same results.

Given this understanding, is it possible for science to study all 3 aspects of reality that you mentioned?

 

[Royce]

Material as in matter or objective physical stuff, not philosophical materialism, whatever that may be.

As I said, so long as "Science is doing what it is suppose to do" and limits itself to physical phenomena and emperical evidence then, as I said in the previous posts, science cannot study mental or spiritual phenomena.

By the same token, Science cannot and should not attempt to disprove or disclaim any such phenomena as it is outside of its realm of study and any and all evidence is outside its strict emperical rules of evidence.

I do not say or claim that that is bad. Only that it is. We cannot have it both ways. We cannot use Science to study the physical realm only and then claim that science "disproves" or "does not show" or "does not support" or that "there is no evidence" the other realms of reality that I and others maintain exists, the mental and spiritual.

You asked; "Can Science study these other realms?" No, not as it is structured and self limited by its rules of evidence as it now is.
Science does not accept anecdotal evidence. It can't. So far the only evidence of any phenomena other than physical is all anecdotal.
Even if 4 billion people testified and swore to some phenomena happening and evey testemony was exactly the same it would not be scientific evidence and as such would be outside the realm of science. This does not mean that science could or would call 4 billion people liars, frauds, deluded or fools. There are those who would, even in this forum, but they are not speaking any more scientifically than those who testify to such an event.

Change the rules of evidence and change the methods of study and science could study these phenomena but would it then still be Science? There are those, possibly myself, who would say; no, it is no longer science.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Pretty much I agree with you. However science does study energy flows, and insofar as psychic phenomena are associated with energy flows, they can be studied by science. And science is competent to refute claims that particular psychic phenomena do or do not involve particular energy flows.

Similarly if modern tMRI studies of conscious subjects show that particular phenomena of mystical experience are the products of particlular physical brain states, then the conclusion that those experiences are necessarily "beyond science" is falsified.

This is not to say any of this has happened or will happen; it's just a discussion of the capabilities of science.

 

[Royce]

Originally posted by selfAdjoint
Pretty much I agree with you. However science does study energy flows, and insofar as psychic phenomena are associated with energy flows, they can be studied by science. And science is competent to refute claims that particular psychic phenomena do or do not involve particular energy flows.

Agreed, but what of spiritual phenomena. They too may involve energy flow but I don't know that they do.

[QOUTE]
Similarly if modern tMRI studies of conscious subjects show that particular phenomena of mystical experience are the products of particlular physical brain states, then the conclusion that those experiences are necessarily "beyond science" is falsified.
[/QUOTE]

It is assumed by scientist that these mystical phenomina are a product of brain states rather than the brain state is a product of the mystical experience. Once again the direction of the arrow is assume to point one way because of their mind set that consciousness and all other states of consciousness are a product of the brain.

The fact the certain mystical experiences may be induced or simulated by stimulation of certain areas of the brain means only that our brain is capable of experiencing these states not that it produces these states. Again which way does the arrow point? It all depends on our mind set or point of view.
If I want to believe in the spiritual and mystical for whatever reason, I will say it points one way. If however I want only to believe in the objective physical world then I say that it points the opposite way. Which is the cause and which is the effect?

 

[Another God]

I skim read FZ+'s explanation of his beliefs, and I think I am essentially identical. I was labelled a materialist before I claimed to be one, and in claiming to be one, I never changed any of my actual beleifs... my beliefs essentially being what FZ+ said.

As for talk of Psychic phenomena and Mind and...auras or whatever being outside of science, then I also disagree completely. Either they have a real, tangible effect in this world, and science can (somehow) measure that effect, or THEY DO NOT EXIST.

IN fact I am about to finish 'The Field' by Lynne McTaggart. She is a journalist who has tried to connect all sorts of scientific theories and experiments together to explain basically everything that is considered Pseudoscience. A lot of the elements which she has brought in has grabbed my attention...there is a lot of scientific work done on psychic powers and remote viewing and homeopathy etc etc. A lot of these experiments are supposed to have 'Shown conclusively' that these things exist. The problem is, other scientists dispute the results. In other words, the real failing in this research, is that human bias is altering our perceptions of the research. Either the experiments are showing us this stuff (which people commonly claim can't be shown by science), or else the people doing the studies are doing poor jobs and making up the results somehow.

Either it is there, or it isn't. And whatever is there...we are yet to figure out 'how' exactly it is there, and what it means to be there...

That's reality.

 

[selfAdjoint]

There was the sad story of the "Prayer helps sick people" research where their statistics didn't show a significant effect, so they went and cherry picked cases out of the data that did show an effect and published those, which made a short hoo-hah in the press, but was quickly shown up.

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by selfAdjoint
There was the sad story of the "Prayer helps sick people" research where their statistics didn't show a significant effect, so they went and cherry picked cases out of the data that did show an effect and published those, which made a short hoo-hah in the press, but was quickly shown up.

Hmmm, shall I believe those that "cherry picked"? Or those that claim they "cherry picked"? Hmmm so many decisions.

 

[selfAdjoint]

It was pretty well established, all the data eventually got published. There was an excellent story about it in Wired, months ago now. The title was "A Prayer before Dying".

 

[FZ+]

Science does not accept anecdotal evidence. It can't. So far the only evidence of any phenomena other than physical is all anecdotal.

Just take this as an example...

I disagree that science cannot accept anecdotal evidence. Much of physics is based on anecdotes - each experiment is effectively an anecdote. We have all heard of the anecdote of Rutherford and his gold foil. Or the anecdote of Young and his twin slits. The distinction is that of the credibility of the source, their reliability, the alternatives available and so on. And in much of these cases, I'm sorry to say, this has been found wanting.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Fliption
Hmmm, shall I believe those that "cherry picked"? Or those that claim they "cherry picked"? Hmmm so many decisions.

Exactly. Although I naturally tend to side with the 'skeptics', I am not going to claim to 'know' who is telling the truth: I just see more evidence in daily life one way than I do the other. This book though, it is precisely going through every such case and claiming 'Statistical relevence'...the odds of this occurring by chances are 1 in a billion... blah blah blah. I hate statistics. They are meaningless unless put into perspective, and they never are.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by FZ+
The distinction is that of the credibility of the source, their reliability, the alternatives available and so on. And in much of these cases, I'm sorry to say, this has been found wanting.

Oh, and the fact that someone else has to be able to replicate the experiment...That is the most important fact. That is why people don't receive nobel prizes for science until 20 or 30 years after the event. They need to be certain that their piece of anecdotal evidence is real. They get other people to check it. If other people can't check it, then there is no way of ever really trusting the anecdote.