Philosophy Forums
Forums Links Articles Gallery Chat
Style:



Register | Forgot Password
MembersCalendarNew Posts ChatHelp
Philosophy Forums » Metaphysics and Epistemology » materialism and science » materialism and science

materialism and science
how can the two be reconciled

printPrint


Page: 1 2

materialism and science
aylon
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 09, 2008
Total Topics: 1
Total Posts: 8
Posted 04/28/08 - 09:24 PM:
Subject: materialism and science 		quote post
#1
Due to the fact that this issue hasn't really been addressed in the ongoing thread about consciousness and materialism and has been raised in a paper by Adi Tzemah, I will ask it here, it is the simple obvious question in regards to reconciling materialism and empiric science. That is, if person A believes in materialism, how can person A go about justifying scientific study? science is based on the mechanism of empiric observation, so for example the scientific researcher B claims the dial has moved, the materialistic A would say this can be justified since we can observe person B's brain and thus reduce his mental claim:"I saw the dial move" which isn't compatible with materialism to:"his brain activity shows that he felt the dial moved." but then how can we observe his brain activity? well by someone else looking into it...but then again the materialist falls into the same problem. thus my question: is it possible to believe in scientific findings anymore than a fairy tale without being a dualist?
Floyd
Cool
Avatar

Usergroup: Sponsors
Joined: Dec 16, 2003
Total Topics: 31
Total Posts: 1964

Last Blog: Women’s Pay Key to Child Poverty
Posted 04/28/08 - 09:53 PM:
quote post
#2
I think it is possible to for a reasonable person to believe scientific findings because the belief in empirical observations does not require that we look observe the observer's brain. For example, the question of whether or not the sky is blue is independent of how the brain of any particular human works. Regardless of who's brain we observe or do not observe, we can observe that the sky is blue.
Short and to the point. | Online Philosophy Club | Book & Reading Forums | My Philosophy Articles

"Only the descent into the hell of self-knowledge can pave the way to godliness." ~Immanuel Kant
180 Proof
cult deprogrammer
Avatar

Usergroup: Sponsors
Joined: Apr 27, 2003
Location: reason's raggedy edge
Total Topics: 74
Total Posts: 4032
Posted 04/28/08 - 11:20 PM:
quote post
#3
aylon wrote:
... if person A believes in materialism, how can person A go about justifying scientific study? science is based on the mechanism of empiric observation ...


Really? Please elaborate.
If faith is irrational, then it is rational to dismiss "faith-based claims" out of hand.

If faith is rational, then "faith-based claims" must be testable and/or sound -- but they are neither.

If faith is a-rational, then "faith-based claims" are inexplicable and thus cannot explain anything.
perseus
Professor
Avatar

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Oct 31, 2006
Total Topics: 30
Total Posts: 535
Posted 04/28/08 - 11:57 PM:
quote post
#4
Floyd wrote:
I think it is possible to for a reasonable person to believe scientific findings because the belief in empirical observations does not require that we look observe the observer's brain. For example, the question of whether or not the sky is blue is independent of how the brain of any particular human works. Regardless of who's brain we observe or do not observe, we can observe that the sky is blue.


This is true, but how does "the sky is blue" qualify as a scientific statement? That you look and say it is, then I look and agree is not scientific since my blue could be your red, there is no way to prove these experiences are the same, and is thus deemed to be unscientific. However, consider we use an instrument that measures the wavelength of light coming from the sky and it provides a digital output expressed as a common metric. This number can be observed by all observers, and it is supposedly objective, this is judged to be scientific. Hence science is based on objective, but epistemically secondary experiences. Why epistemically secondary? Because in this example the shape and contrast of the shapes that constitute the numbers have to be interpreted phenomenally by the primary epistemic mechanism. If we define Dualism to constitute the existence of primary and secondary knowledge then must accept it.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw
quickly
Graduate
Avatar

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Oct 29, 2007
Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 135
Posted 04/29/08 - 12:48 AM:
quote post
#5
aylon: that reminds me of a joke. Two behaviorists are having sex. They finish, and the guy looks over at the girl and says: "It was good for you. How was it for me?" So, beyond my mere opinion that materialism as construed outside a monism which is strictly defined by an anthropic limit is nonsensical, it would seem that your problem merely highlights the necessity of allowing subjectivity to be a component of science outside of a dualism which would divide the mental objects and sensations from the material reality; that is, a monism which requires all scientific observations and empirical measurements, including predictive patterns, to always be methodological structures or phenomenal descriptions of events. I see no problem with guaranteeing the validity of scientific results if you ceased to think that all phenomena must be reduced to something constituted outside of subjectivity (which is not objectivity, and I'm having a hard time conceiving of what you want, right now).

Floyd: For example, the question of whether or not the sky is blue is independent of how the brain of any particular human works.


It's entirely arguable that the sky's being blue is a social construction, or a subjective phenomena, which need not coincide with the predictable patterns of its physical composition, but which has a physical component latent within the subject, or the apparatus they use to observe the sky. Can science deal in "blues" and "reds" without requiring consciousness to be taken as its object? Empiricity would allow for blues and reds; but you want to claim that the empirical sciences are independent of subjectivity. Which they aren't. "The question of…" is not independent of how “the brain of any particular human works.”


Edited by quickly on 04/29/08 - 12:52 AM
"Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'here are our monsters',
without immediately turning the monsters into pets." -Jacques Derrida
aylon
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 09, 2008
Total Topics: 1
Total Posts: 8
Posted 04/29/08 - 02:53 PM:
quote post
#6
aylon wrote:
... if person A believes in materialism, how can person A go about justifying scientific study? science is based on the mechanism of empiric observation ...


Really? Please elaborate.


well, if science is an open system, which means it isn't only a group of theories but also a mechanism to insert and inject a certain hypothesis, and thus a mechanism for doing so must be an integral part of science...now I just assumed it to be fairly instinctual that this said mechanism is empiric observation but would be happy if you could enlighten me on a different mechanism(unless science is just a fairy tale and thus it needs no defined mechanism).

It's entirely arguable that the sky's being blue is a social construction, or a subjective phenomena, which need not coincide with the predictable patterns of its physical composition, but which has a physical component latent within the subject, or the apparatus they use to observe the sky. Can science deal in "blues" and "reds" without requiring consciousness to be taken as its object? Empiricity would allow for blues and reds; but you want to claim that the empirical sciences are independent of subjectivity. Which they aren't. "The question of…" is not independent of how “the brain of any particular human works.”


I can agree with this kind of view, but saying that science is based on subjectivity is equivalent to admitting science is based on observational mental facts which as far as I understand do not constitute a material object.and thus we must conclude that to believe in science being subjective is to believe that science can't be justified on purely material objects.
180 Proof
cult deprogrammer
Avatar

Usergroup: Sponsors
Joined: Apr 27, 2003
Location: reason's raggedy edge
Total Topics: 74
Total Posts: 4032
Posted 04/29/08 - 08:14 PM:
quote post
#7
aylon wrote:
well, if science is an open system, which means it isn't only a group of theories but also a mechanism to insert and inject a certain hypothesis, and thus a mechanism for doing so must be an integral part of science...


(charitable) paraphrase: science provides a mechanism that is integral for doing science. rolling eyes

now I just assumed it to be fairly instinctual that this said mechanism is empiric observation ...


A wholly arbitrary fiat which facilitates a whole lot of question begging further along, don't you think?

... but would be happy if you could enlighten me on a different mechanism


It's a matter of some surprise to me that there is a "mechanism" in / for science. confused

(Let's loiter on your "wisdom" before we stray into some other foolishness to which I may subscribe ...)

(unless science is just a fairy tale and thus it needs no defined mechanism).


Well, according to many old school, linguistic structuralists (and functionalists), "fairytales" are semotic and narrative mechanisms. "Science" may be a mode of fairytale but what distinguishes it is how it is used (i.e. practiced).

raised eyebrow


Edited by 180 Proof on 04/30/08 - 07:56 PM. Reason: ...
If faith is irrational, then it is rational to dismiss "faith-based claims" out of hand.

If faith is rational, then "faith-based claims" must be testable and/or sound -- but they are neither.

If faith is a-rational, then "faith-based claims" are inexplicable and thus cannot explain anything.
quickly
Graduate
Avatar

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Oct 29, 2007
Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 135
Posted 04/29/08 - 10:32 PM:
quote post
#8
aylon: I can agree with this kind of view, but saying that science is based on subjectivity is equivalent to admitting science is based on observational mental facts which as far as I understand do not constitute a material object.and thus we must conclude that to believe in science being subjective is to believe that science can't be justified on purely material objects.


I don't think that science being constituted by, and contingent upon, subjectivity requires that it efface its presuppositions to empiricity - to a certain objectivity. If a finite set of observers construes some object in the same way, using a specific methodic practice, and discover the same results from the application of this method to observation, you have a falsifiable set of observations which substantiate the notion that an object does, in fact, possess some property or attribute. This isn't different from how science is conducted now, or how practical knowledge is acquired (without strict methodologies).

If science is a specifically human activity, it must generate from consciousness at some point - its methods, results, applications - and you seem to think that by reducing the scientific method and observation to subjectivity would require a dissolution of certainty. But it seems inescapable that science is always contingent upon the subject, and that even its results are models and descriptions of events, not a set of signifying systems which somehow transverse a mythic ontological plane into the heart of reality itself (like a Medieval semiotician). All I'm doing is changing your vocabulary by saying that instead of dividing observation into "mental facts" and "material objects," both are modalities of the same type of object - the physical object as constituted in the only possible manner in which it can be constituted to the subject – subjectively.
"Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'here are our monsters',
without immediately turning the monsters into pets." -Jacques Derrida
The Escapist
banned

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 26, 2008
Total Topics: 14
Total Posts: 504
Posted 04/30/08 - 02:00 PM:
quote post
#9
perseus wrote:


This is true, but how does "the sky is blue" qualify as a scientific statement? That you look and say it is, then I look and agree is not scientific since my blue could be your red, there is no way to prove these experiences are the same, and is thus deemed to be unscientific.


If my blue is your red but we both call the same sky blue, that is as scientific as looking at an instrument.
The Escapist
banned

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 26, 2008
Total Topics: 14
Total Posts: 504
Posted 04/30/08 - 02:05 PM:
quote post
#10
quickly wrote:

But it seems inescapable that science is always contingent upon the subject, and that even its results are models and descriptions of events, not a set of signifying systems which somehow transverse a mythic ontological plane into the heart of reality itself (like a Medieval semiotician).


Hi Quickly,

Do you think reality has a heart? My new theory is that there is no reality, only models and descriptions.
Download thread as

Page: 1 2



You don't have permission to post.

Please login or register.

© 2008

26 total queries
This page was created in 1.81 seconds
Memory used: 6898068 bytes
Server Status: time since last reboot is 247 days, 19:57, load average: 0.87, 1.62, 2.48