"Laws of Nature" = "Laws of God"
by JoyI notice many postings of late that draw lines of connection between atheism and neodarwinist evolution [NDE], as well as the supposed connection between theism and Intelligent Design [ID]. Yet most scientifically literate people know that appeals to science for metaphysical validation are inconsistent and illogical.
In Mike Gene's Science, Evolution, and Atheism thread, Eric Murphy posted…
"…Keep in mind that the evidence seems to demonstrate that the observable universe is only part of the entire universe. If it turns out to be true that physical constants (or physical laws) vary in regions inaccessible to observation, then one scientific tenet will definitely bite the dust."
There is a direct contradiction here. If there is "evidence" that the constants/laws are inconstant, then obviously this inconstancy has been observed. If it has not been observed (and cannot be observed), then there is no empirical evidence to support the assertion. Supporting a metaphysical projection with another metaphysical projection doesn't qualify as empirical.
It is entirely improper to make ANY positive assertions (and claim 'empirical' status to boot!) about the nature of reality based on what one imagines to be counterfactual to what we do observe about the nature of reality. In fact, if this were to be considered valid reasoning, one would be perfectly justified in claiming that the lack of evidence for omniscient deity/ies in the observable universe 'empirically' demonstrates that omniscient deity/ies DO exist in regions of the universe we can't observe!
Later in the thread ericmurphy cited Max Tegmark's article on multiverses:
"The idea of [parallel universes] seems strange and implausible, but it looks as if we wll just have to live with it, because it is supported by astronomical observations. The simplest and most popular cosmological model today predicts that you have a twin in a galaxy about 10 to the 10^28 meters from here."
Who knows; maybe Tegmark is speaking out of turn. But this sounds like he's talking about a consensus opinion to me.
Max's multiverses are a modern mathematical extrapolation on Everett's "Many Worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics. There are wilder mathematical fantasies out there, few are empirical and most aren't even potentially empirical – they can't be tested. For the practical purposes of applied physics (the work physicists do), the reality of structure and interactions is taken as a given. That's Copenhagen, not Many Worlds. If wavefunctions don't collapse to produce a classical state we can work with, there is nothing "real" for science to quantify and we're all just wasting a lot of time and money.
Ever since the Big Bang won over Steady State back in the 1960s, cosmologists have been seeking ways to extend the phenomenology of the quantum substrate of reality to the most expansive cosmological level of reality. I think this approach is misguided, even while I do understand the desire to have one scalable set of "Natural Laws" governing everything. The desire, however, isn't science. Neither are the metaphysical speculations engendered by desire. Many Worlds is in my view just a fanciful projection of denial to avoid the empirical evidence that reality's substrate is non-deterministic.
I'd like to introduce the Philosophy of Science to help sort out the physics from the metaphysics. Philosopher Nancy Cartwright has written a very interesting paper describing why it is that science can make no appeals to the so-called "Laws of Nature" without committing the scientific 'sin' of appealing to God/gods. Which, in Cartwright's view, means that science does not and cannot provide a real alternative to supernatural agents so long as it rests its denial of supernatural agency on equally metaphysical appeals to supervenient governance that cannot itself be quantified.
According to Cartwright, governance presupposes agency, and "Laws of Nature" appeal to as immaterial and all-powerful an agency as do "Laws of God." Science has no mechanisms to account for the implementation of Natural Law and no agent to enforce them. Cartwright even admits that science is stuck with "Powers" in the best of its alternative 'isms' – and "Powers" is no less metaphysical a mechanism in science than it is in religion.
For some reason, my link-language is reverting to nonexistant TT pages. The URL for Cartwright's "No God, No Laws" paper is:
personal.lse.ac.uk/cartwrig/Papers/NoGodNoLaws.pdf
Conclusion:
"None of the 4 contemporary accounts of laws that I have reported on [Empiricism; Instrumentalism; Platonism; Aristotleanism - jb] can make sense of laws of Nature without God. The last, Aristotleanism, can offer a stand-in for laws – "natural powers" – that satisfies the major requirements on laws without the need to call on God. For those who cannot abide powers, I think there are no options left. Without God there cannot be laws of Nature, nor anything else with their crucial characteristics."
November 2nd, 2005 at 1:03 pm
Joy:
Not really. Inferences can be drawn about portions of the universe which are beyond the observability horizon based on the equations that govern our universe. For a greater understanding of this, I suggest you peruse some of the articles I referenced in Mike Gene's thread.
Comment by ericmurphy — November 2, 2005 @ 1:03 pm
November 2nd, 2005 at 1:17 pm
Inferences can be drawn about portions of the universe which are beyond the observability horizon based on the equations that govern our universe.
Sounds like the "Non-Design Inference". Is this a testable theory?
Comment by Lurker — November 2, 2005 @ 1:17 pm
November 2nd, 2005 at 1:38 pm
You are right to question the idea of paralell universes. Scientific American is just above random googled anglefire webpages in credibility, and there is no reason to think that anything written there represents a consensus of any scientist at all.
Comment by Kyle — November 2, 2005 @ 1:38 pm
November 2nd, 2005 at 1:54 pm
Nancy Cartwright. [Drool. What a hottie!]
But your link is dead, Joy.
Try this
Link
Go here for more
Link
Comment by Rock — November 2, 2005 @ 1:54 pm
November 2nd, 2005 at 2:39 pm
ericmurphy said:
Yes, but the only valid inference to be drawn about physical constants in the observable universe is that those constants hold in unobservable regions as well. Why in the world would an observation of constancy lead one to assume inconstancy? Makes no sense, Eric.
Which is not to say that we haven't observed some inconstancy lately. Some anomalous data has been collected from the farthest reaches of our observational abilities that suggests alpha has changed over time. Still, the anomalous evidence is somewhat controversial and might be explained in other ways.
And while I'm at it, I would remind you that there is no theoretical limit on what we should be able to observe of this universe, from the moment light started to shine to now. Our limitations are technological.
However, we cannot observe any universes that are NOT ours, even in principle. Thus there isn't anything empirical or evidential about multiverses. It's just an escapist fantasy used to rationalize away the fact that the substrate of our universe – the only universe that counts – is non-deterministic.
Rock – thanks! I had already downloaded the pdf about a week ago, and just did a search to copy-paste the link. I agree with Cartwright on this.
Comment by Joy — November 2, 2005 @ 2:39 pm
November 2nd, 2005 at 3:09 pm
I have pusued the articles, and even though SA is suspect just for the fact of the Renine anti-Creation nonsense (should never have passed through any valid peer process), I wouldn't condemn every article it prints.
Parallel universes, multi-universes- no one would categorically deny their existence. And the data could afford an inference they exist. However that does not mean the laws can be or will be greatly varied:
"The Privileged Planet" offers the following-
IOW if there is another Joe G (or Jet Li in the movie "One") then his universe and planetary conditions would be very, very similar to mine.
Anyone else watch "Sliders"
It also seems, from those articles, that multi-verse theories are used so to get the chances/ probability/ blindwatchmaker the best possible odds. However that is not evidence for any blindwatchmaker. It just gives it a better chance.
What we are pretty sure of, scientifically speaking, is that the laws we have accounted for are the same here as they are any/ every where in our observable universe. What we should be able to do is to run the scenarios through a simulation like the Q narrative and see what happens
As for the laws:
Of Newton, Kepler, & Galileo in the book Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty by Morris Kline, Kline states that these scientist-mathematicians believed that " God had designed the universe, and it was to be expected that all phenomena of nature would follow one master plan. One mind designing a universe would almost surely have employed one set of basic principles to govern all related phenomenon. "
Comment by Joe G — November 2, 2005 @ 3:09 pm
November 2nd, 2005 at 6:28 pm
"Parallel universes, multi-universes- no one would categorically deny their existence. And the data could afford an inference they exist."
There are all kinds of things I wouldn't categorically deny existing that have absolutely no evidence for existing and shouldn't be assumed to exist. Just because there could possibly be data that might suggest something is, is absolutely no reason to suggest it is. I wouldn't even argue these things in those articles are testable, but even if they are that's a very very poor reason for suggesting there is any consensus as to their actual existence, which is what ericmurphy did.
Comment by Kyle — November 2, 2005 @ 6:28 pm
November 2nd, 2005 at 7:31 pm
Everyone:
One thing I can say with a high degree of confidence is that none of us here has the mathematical background to construct a valid criticism of what cosmologists like Andre Linde, Michio Kaku, et. al. are arguing when it comes to things like parallel universes. I guess we're free to assume these guys are making it all up, or we're free to assume that someone who can understand non-Euclidian geometries and global general relativity the way these guys can knows what they're talking about.
If you guys want to argue with mathematical physicists like these guys, be my guest. I have enough humility to understand that I probably couldn't even comprehend their arguments, let alone the evidence supporting them.
At some point, you have to go with the experts. The hard part is, as usual, figuring out which experts to trust. And even then, you usually need to rely on the opinion of other experts. Which is why a lot of science does finally come down to consensus.
I stated (I didn't "argue") that the concept of parallel universes is becoming a consensus, because that's what the articles said. If you think the articles are lying, well, there's no way I'm going to be able to convince you otherwise. You're going to have to go out there and try to figure out what the consensus is yourself. Anyone know any experts in this field of physics we can ask?
Comment by ericmurphy — November 2, 2005 @ 7:31 pm
November 2nd, 2005 at 7:48 pm
Everyone else:
I don't think that any scientist is "making it up" when it comes to parallel universes. I do think that they are "making it up" when they say the laws or the constants would/ could be greatly different or those laws just came to be without intent or purpose.
ericmurphy:
Which is why a lot of science does finally come down to consensus.
Which is the most likely reason much of science of one day is overturned by science of the next.
Comment by Joe G — November 2, 2005 @ 7:48 pm
November 2nd, 2005 at 7:57 pm
Kyle:
I wouldn't even argue these things in those articles are testable, but even if they are that's a very very poor reason for suggesting there is any consensus as to their actual existence, which is what ericmurphy did.
Max's "Parallel Universe" article didn't provide a list but to Eric's defense Max did make it sound as if there is a "gathering consensus" as to the existence of multi-verses:
Comment by Joe G — November 2, 2005 @ 7:57 pm
November 2nd, 2005 at 8:28 pm
If you guys want to argue with mathematical physicists like these guys, be my guest. I have enough humility to understand that I probably couldn't even comprehend their arguments, let alone the evidence supporting them.
If theoretical, yet untestable and unproveable, math in physics qualifies as science then it seems Dembski is doing science. Agree?
Comment by Lurker — November 2, 2005 @ 8:28 pm
November 2nd, 2005 at 10:39 pm
Lurker:
Nope. First of all, theories like many worlds and Type I and II multiverses make testable predictions. Dembski's theories, where they do make predictions, fail the tests. Guys like Michio Kaku, Andre Linde, and Lee Smolin can do math and have the answers pass muster with the scientific and mathematical community. Dembski's mathematics can't pass muster with the scientific or the mathematical community.
Comment by ericmurphy — November 2, 2005 @ 10:39 pm
November 2nd, 2005 at 11:57 pm
"First of all, theories like many worlds and Type I and II multiverses make testable predictions."
No, they don't.
"Guys like Michio Kaku, Andre Linde, and Lee Smolin can do math and have the answers pass muster with the scientific and mathematical community."
Not with the scientific community. Most scientists couldn't care less what any of those three have to say. Lots of people can do some math. That doesn't mean you should buy every idea they throw out. More importantly, you should be suspicious of ideas that have no basis in testable physical reality.
Consensus… consensus among who? Certainly not physicists. Most physicists don't work in cosmology or theoretical high energy physics, and have no use for metaphysical nonsense. I might accept that there is a consensus among science popularizers. Areas like theoretical HEP have been languishing for decades and they desparately need the public to believe in them as funding starts to waver.
Be careful how willing you are to buy what they're selling.
Comment by Kyle — November 2, 2005 @ 11:57 pm
November 3rd, 2005 at 1:12 am
First of all, theories like many worlds and Type I and II multiverses make testable predictions.
I'd like to see one of those "tests".
Comment by Lurker — November 3, 2005 @ 1:12 am
November 3rd, 2005 at 1:45 am
Kyle:
I think you need to do a little more research into who people like Kaku, Smollin, and Linde are before you start implying they're out on the lunatic fringe. You might want to look into their publishing history as compared to, say, Dembski.
Comment by ericmurphy — November 3, 2005 @ 1:45 am
November 3rd, 2005 at 3:58 am
Lurkier:
I don't know about you, but I doubt I know enough of the mathematical formalism to understand either the prediction or the verification. How's your grasp of, say, tensor math?
Comment by ericmurphy — November 3, 2005 @ 3:58 am
November 3rd, 2005 at 10:54 am
I never said they are out on the lunatic fringe, I said almost no one cares what they think. Of the three Smolin probably gets the most respect, with Kaku being well known for having contributed little or nothing to physics.
As for others knowing tensors, I probably know more than you do, having actually used them to solve problems in physics. Does that make me more qualified to judge here? On the contrary, a better qualification is just keeping up with physics literature and being aware that no journal article in a peer reviewed journal has ever shown that any multiverse theory predicts old and new observables.
Your entire argument rests on an appeal to authority fallacy coupled with a lack of enough background to know the difference between established physics and new (and unsupported) studies. Out of respect for Telic I'm going to stop debating in this post, but would be happy to take it eslewhere. In the meantime, you might want to seriously look at how much you know about the subject, and more importantly, where that knowledge came from.
Comment by Kyle — November 3, 2005 @ 10:54 am
November 3rd, 2005 at 12:37 pm
a better qualification is just keeping up with physics literature and being aware that no journal article in a peer reviewed journal has ever shown that any multiverse theory predicts old and new observables
This is why I told Eric I'd like to see the test. If we can't observe/detect another universe then all the math in the world is just more untestable theory.
Comment by Lurker — November 3, 2005 @ 12:37 pm
November 3rd, 2005 at 12:50 pm
kyle:
Hmm. Well, Kaku is probably best known for being the co-discoverer of superstring theory. Is that the kind of thing you mean when you say "having contributed little or nothing to physics?" I'll grant it's not the kind of physics that results in microwave ovens or higher transistor density in microprocessors.
Look, I've been very up-front with my lack of knowledge about advanced physics in particular and science in general. It's entirely possible that you know quite a bit more about both than I do. But I have to say I find it faintly amusing to find such abundant criticism of people like Kaku and Smollin on a site where I also see general approval of people like Behe, Dembski, and Gonzales.
Actually, my entire argument has very little to do with any of this stuff, and the only reason I'm appealing to authority is because as a layman, what else am I supposed to do? (I'm not doing any actual research.) I'm well aware of the difference between research in, say, orbital mechanics, and research into M Theory. My discussion of all this stuff about the universe being possibly infinite was merely a sideshow to my original point, which is that with time, the sum total of phenomena which are amenable to explanation without recourse to supernatural causes increases (somehow my mention of cutting-edge research seems to have gotten all the attention). That to me seems a pretty unexceptional claim. Do you disagree?
Comment by ericmurphy — November 3, 2005 @ 12:50 pm
November 3rd, 2005 at 12:54 pm
ericmurphy has argued:
What the math shows is that we can describe the strange world of QM if we grant some rather arbitrary magical powers to our numbers/symbols and juggle them so as to ostensibly describe our indirect observations of phenomena. What the math does NOT show is that all possible states in the quantum realm are "real." That particular conundrum is what multiverse theories have been designed to solve – by asserting that if the probability not realized (in our reality) must be realized in some 'other' reality.
This is entirely predicated on the refusal [of those committed to strong materialism] to accept the actual, empirical, physical evidence that reality in the quantum substrate is non-deterministic. And lately, folks like Max have extrapolated that denial even further to encompass their refusal to accept that the parameters of the only universe we'll ever know are "improbable" to the tune of 1 in 10^10^123 [Hawking, Penrose].
Because belief-in multiverses is philosophical – as all belief-in is – you will find that "consensus" only exists among those who are philosophically committed to belief-in multiverses. This is a psychological tautology that says much more about beliefs-in than it can ever say about what's real in a scientific sense. 'Experts' who are honest will tell you right up front that multiverses are counterfactually-based and non-evidential in principle. A mind-exercise in interpretation as much as a math game.
Max's Type I is just a refutation of fine-tuning by postulation that there are an infinite number of "other" universes where all the parameters that aren't real here are real. Each one situated conveniently right outside the 14by light-diameter of this universe. We'll never observe those, either. If they exist. Type II is just another version of fine-tuning counterfactuals, in this universe. It's all about what we do not observe. All of it is intelligently designed to imagine that what's not real here is real in places we'll never know.
But hey, it might very well turn out that everything we think we know is wrong. Evidence that there's something seriously wrong or incomplete with our current theoretics. We may have to start over.
No one need be a mathematician to glean the actual nature and purpose of multiverse extrapolations. Once these are seen to be philosophical, investment of belief-in based on the supposedly superior status of those making the extrapolations itself becomes a matter of philosophy. I am not a materialist. I am not discomfited by the idea of non-determinism. I have no reason to invest any faith at all in either Max or his multiverses.
Multiverses do not qualify as "Laws of Nature." They are designed as a means of denying that there are "Laws of Nature." I agree with Cartwright that "Laws of Nature" are pretty much the same thing as "Laws of God" in that we know nothing about the whys and wherefores of such things. I just do not see multiverses as an acceptably empirical means of doing away with either form of "Law."
Comment by Joy — November 3, 2005 @ 12:54 pm
November 3rd, 2005 at 1:05 pm
But I have to say I find it faintly amusing to find such abundant criticism of people like Kaku and Smollin on a site where I also see general approval of people like Behe, Dembski, and Gonzales.
My point is not to say multiverse theories are garbage, rather it's to say it's untestable/unproveable at this moment in time – yet it's considered real science. Why is that?
Comment by Lurker — November 3, 2005 @ 1:05 pm
November 3rd, 2005 at 2:48 pm
Lurker:
Because critics haven't been able to find obvious, glaring holes in the math or the assumptions? And because the predictions at least match the observations that can be made?
Comment by ericmurphy — November 3, 2005 @ 2:48 pm
November 3rd, 2005 at 3:08 pm
Joy:
I'm amazed at how much bandwidth has been sucked up discussing something that is so tangential to my original point, namely, that as time goes by, the need to appeal to supernatural causes to explain natural phenomena has declined. All I can say is, these guys are making determined and concerted attempts to come up with a useful description of experience, and the scientific community, i.e., those who really are qualified to make credibility judgments, seems to think these guys might be onto something. This seems a to me to be a more fruitful use of time then spending most of your time doing public relations. As I said before, I'm pretty sure no one on this blog is really qualified to say whether the research I referred to into the large-scale structure of the universe is solid or not. But does anyone really deny that science is actually accomplishing something, as opposed to being a complete waste of time?
And just so you know, I personally have no great love for multiverse theories that attempt to explain the collapse (or non-collapse) of the wave function, and a lot of theorists seem to feel the same way. However, multiverse theories show no sign of going away, after almost 50 years, so it does seem like there must be something to them, even though a lot of the people researching them don't seem to like them either.
A lot of quantum theorists don't like Copenhagen much, after all these years, but it works, so we just have to deal with it.
Comment by ericmurphy — November 3, 2005 @ 3:08 pm
November 3rd, 2005 at 4:25 pm
ericmurphy said:
LOL! I'm amazed at how much bandwidth has been sucked up by discussion of things so tangential to MY original point. I don't know if you've noticed the title of the blog post atop this thread, or who authored it.
That said, I also mentioned you specifically in that blog per your reliance upon multiverses to get away from the SOP appeals to "Laws of Nature" that are, according to Cartwright, the same thing as appealing to "Laws of God." The point of that being the fact that appeals to multiverses are no better, since these are non-empirical and non-evidential, and will never be anything else. Might as well shrug and just go ahead and make the appeal to "Law," as that may be the best humans can do.
No, appeals to multiverses do not qualify as useful descriptions of any human being's experience of life or science. Experience has absolutely nothing to do with it. The only thing Max is on to is a way to publicize his personal metaphysics by disguising 'fun with math' as popular science. It's all about public relations.
You should not make gratuitous assumptions here about lack of authority, any more than you should make the overt appeal to authority you've been making per the subject of multiverses. The relative validity of multiverse extrapolations can be judged entirely upon the nature of those extrapolations. By anyone who cares to examine the nature of such extrapolations.
Cartwright is clearly saying that the philosophy of science can't justify appeals to "Laws of Nature" as if those are somehow more 'scientific' than appeals to "Laws of God." I agree with her. But I do not believe counterfactuals can provide the basis of a new philosophical underpinning for science.
I'm sure that no mathematician's tricks imaginatively formalizing 'circles' of Heaven/Hell would pass muster with you as an argument against experiential, observed reality in this world (though Dante did have some luck with the literary version of this in his day). So I see absolutely no reason why any "Laws of Nature" in THIS universe should be waived away with the argument that universes we don't live in might have different "Laws of Nature."
We don't research multiverses because there is nothing about them that is evident. Without evidence (or hope of getting any evidence), there is nothing to do research on. There will never be anything to do research on.
Any quantum theorist or practitioner can believe-in any interpretation of QM they like best. But to "do science" they must presume that the phenomena they observe are real. QM is formalized to operate as if wavefunctions collapse. Again, this is because if they don't collapse, we have nothing to formalize and no reality to quantify. How people interpret the philosophical implications is philosophy, not science.
Comment by Joy — November 3, 2005 @ 4:25 pm
November 3rd, 2005 at 5:42 pm
Haha. Nice job guy. He's co discoverer of superstring field theory. It's not the same thing. Congratulations, you've been busted arguing about something you really shouldn't be!
What's he won, Bob?
Comment by Kyle — November 3, 2005 @ 5:42 pm
November 3rd, 2005 at 5:50 pm
Science doesn't need "Laws of Nature". All it needs is a heuristic.
Patterns in nature may be fixed or transient, but without such patterns, the universe would be unintelligible, and knowledge of nature would be impossible. Science's assumption of patterns (laws), even transient ones, in nature is not an unreasonable one. Without this assumption, knowledge and perception of nature would be impossible.
There certainly need not be any mechanism to guarantee fixed laws of nature. Even if we propose that there are fixed laws of nature, what would it mean to "guarantee" them? They could only be "guaranteed" by still deeper laws of nature. At some point, you must arrive at the conclusion that the laws of nature (if they even exist, per se) just "are." Cartwright's paper seems nonsensical in this respect.
Bottom line: the claim that science presupposes God is just nonsense.
Comment by doctor(logic) — November 3, 2005 @ 5:50 pm
November 3rd, 2005 at 5:52 pm
Kyle:
Sorry, shouldn't have been typing from memory. But what's your point? Or is this just a meaningless "gotcha"
Comment by ericmurphy — November 3, 2005 @ 5:52 pm
November 3rd, 2005 at 7:21 pm
doctor(logic) said:
Who claimed that science presupposes God? Cartwright says that she does not see "Laws of Nature" to be a different sort of appeal than one made to "Laws of God." Law is a supervenient, top-down imposition of order/regularity. Philosophically, supervenient agency is conceptually identical to supernatural agency per the appeal to final causes.
Of course, I don't think questions of final cause are properly scientific at all. I'd argue that a legitimate philosophy of science would formalize specific limitations on the questions science can address. That would make the philosophy of science fundamentally different from philosophies that do attempt to address final causes.
But scientists could always come up with a philosophy of scientism, and in that philosophy "Laws of Nature" and all other scientistic attempts to address final causes could happily reside. It could even be the Next Big Thing in non-theist religious philosophy, quickly overtaking Buddhism's place at the top of that heap!
Comment by Joy — November 3, 2005 @ 7:21 pm
November 3rd, 2005 at 7:53 pm
Okay. That's a fair cop.
I agree. It would draw a clear line delineating what propositions are about the world (i.e., are scientific), and which propositions are not. Metaphysical propositions merely pretend to be about the world, but they are no more than mathematics in disguise.
Comment by doctor(logic) — November 3, 2005 @ 7:53 pm
November 5th, 2005 at 12:12 pm
"Of course, I don't think questions of final cause are properly scientific at all. I'd argue that a legitimate philosophy of science would formalize specific limitations on the questions science can address. That would make the philosophy of science fundamentally different from philosophies that do attempt to address final causes."–Joy
I don't know why final causes were set aside as somehow improper. (And I'm also very suspicious of philosophers of science legitimating or limiting scientific questions. Actually, I'm not "suspicious" at all. I reject outright the very idea.)
I think both final and formal causes are constantly being appealed to in biology. I think these appeals are truly distinctive of biology, as formal and final causes are not (anymore) appealed to by physicists.
For the physicist formal and final causes are all his own and do not exist independently of him. They are not anything that is "out there" to be discovered by physical methods. The biologists accounts for that fact: The physicist is a life form and the only formal and final causes identifiable exist only in life forms"”and are truly definitive of all life forms"”that the biologist knows of.
Reason to believe that physical theory is not and cannot be complete"”Whereas biology can be, because biology requires and must admit all (true) causes, including final and formal causes"”and cannot be explained, scientifically, otherwise.
Which is one reason why I'm "suspicious."
Philosophy of science, until relatively recently, has not been so much the philosophy of science as it has been the philosophy of physics. Therefore the "physics hegemony." The common, philosophical, not scientific, idea that everything should be reducible to physics.
Biology is not redicible to physics because physics is incomplete. It is not possessed of nor does it require the full causal repertoire that biology does.
Biology subsumes physics, and not the other way round as is often (philosophically) assumed.
And, of course, design science subsumes all science. And the reason that is true is due to scientists' commonly accepted, albeit tacitly, operational understanding of what consitutes causes and how, scientifically, we determine, or attempt to determine, that some causes are laws. All our notions of true causes are agent-based, and agents don't exist except in biology. And they agent-based notions of causality are rejected in physics, only by denying the existence of the damn physicist! As long as physicists do that, they can't argue, philosophically or scientifically that physics is complete, it can't explain the existence of the physicist! Either because it is philosophically limited or its not philosophically a legitmate question. LOL
("Agents" are, of course, designed and designers.)
Comment by Rock — November 5, 2005 @ 12:12 pm
November 5th, 2005 at 12:19 pm
Sorry, just trying to keep it topical or clarify: "Philosophically, supervenient agency is conceptually identical to supernatural agency per the appeal to final causes."
Operationally, a cause is an effective procedure that an intelligent agent utilizes to create or reproduce any object of interest. Natural laws are then God's set of effective procedures. LOL
Comment by Rock — November 5, 2005 @ 12:19 pm
November 5th, 2005 at 1:31 pm
Hi, Rock. I'm not sure why you see biology as being qualified to address final causes. And I'd have to take issue with your suggestion that physics doesn't engage in that very thing, since it's quite obvious that it does. That's what multiverses, M-branes, superstrings and "bubble universes" are all about!
Deal is, none of those things qualify as evidential and there's not much hope any of 'em ever will qualify. I think biology's pretty much in the same boat, as much because of the multi-dynamic complexities of biological process as because of the indeterminacy in the bottom-line substrate. So I think there should be a clear line of separation between the physical processes science can empirically examine and the philosophical extrapolations beyond that.
Sure, metaphysics does influence individual scientists as well as the directions their research takes. But it's only the actual science that counts for science's FAPP job description. It should be common ethical practice to clearly delineate between the scientific and the metaphysical in any discussion of findings and interpretations. Interpretations, extrapolations and such can be processed differently by different people's information processors – you just can't give empirical validity to such things so as to preclude differing opinions. And science can't arbitrate the validity of such opinions.
Once causes get beyond the physical, a scientist's guess is no better than anybody else's. And I don't see it to be science's job to lend its physical and sociopolitical authority to metaphysical guesswork. But I do think science can go ahead and admit that there are causes beyond the physical. This has basically already been done, via the appeal to supervenient "Law."
I'll have a blog in the next day or so (part II) about the background work Cartwright and several colleagues did on the examination of "Law" as used in science. The conclusions of which led to the paper linked atop this thread.
Comment by Joy — November 5, 2005 @ 1:31 pm
November 5th, 2005 at 1:37 pm
Laws
Comment by Joy — November 5, 2005 @ 1:37 pm
November 5th, 2005 at 9:26 pm
I still don't understand this claim.
All things that exist (per the very definition of existence) are physical. Even the theorems of mathematics exist because they are testable and their proofs are repeatable. In contrast, metaphysics is a confusion. A collection of metaphysical propositions has no physical consequences beyond its own logical interelationships. People only think that metaphysics is about the world because it likes to use worldly symbols.
Yet, metaphysics can have no meaning in the physical world because it has no consequences for empirical observation. Metaphysics is axiomatic like mathematics, but, unlike physical theories, none of its axioms must be true in light of experience. All the axioms of metaphysical systems are arbitrarily assumed like those of mathematics. Claiming one metaphysical system is better than another is like declaring that an algebra problem in which x=5 is somehow better than a different algebra problem in which x=7, or vice versa.
As far as I (a mere mortal) can tell, Cartwright's discussion of "Law" is a purely metaphysical one, and it is therefore meaningless as far as science is concerned.
All that matters in science and engineering is the recipe for its performance. That is the only meaningful thing we can speak of, for the meaning of a proposition is found in its method of verification (or falsification). Metaphysical discussions of "Law" have no relevance to empirical fact, nor to the performance of science as a discipline.
Comment by doctor(logic) — November 5, 2005 @ 9:26 pm
November 6th, 2005 at 11:42 am
doctor(logic) said:
People believe-in philosophies of final causation based on their own experience of the world, and their directions of musing about what it all means. Such investments will be very personal, unless they're not made in full consciousness but inherited as cultural milieu. Metaphysics isn't physics, which is why I don't think physics (or any other branch of scientific endeavor) should be positioning itself to pronounce upon the validity of metaphysical beliefs.
But that's the whole point – appeals to "Law" are appeals to final cause – metaphysics in action. If philosophy determines that "Law" is a metaphysical projection, then philosophy can certainly suggest that scientists ought to explain their departure from empiricism when making appeals to final causes. Not doing so is, um… dishonest.
If not, then the paying public can itself appeal to the authority of philosophy to counter the metaphysical projections of scientists. In the perennial game of "Dueling Metaphysics," some clear parameters are useful.
But it does have significant relevance to the bill of goods the public is being sold by some outspoken scientists as if it were science. It's standard sleight of mind. Just insert a god of 'nature' in the metaphysical place traditional deities have held, and pretend the new nature god is "scientific."
Comment by Joy — November 6, 2005 @ 11:42 am
November 6th, 2005 at 2:39 pm
Metaphysics isn't physics. But that doesn't mean we cannot show clearly that metaphysics is a confusion. Indeed, I believe that has been shown quite convincingly.
So when you speak of the validity of metaphysical beliefs, are you speaking esthetically, i.e., in the same way we cannot say that the Mona Lisa is a greater work of art than an episode of Friends?
Humans have a psychological predisposal to adopt metaphysical views. They often serve to accelerate decision-making.
Now, I generally consider metaphysical propositions to be bad, but there are degrees of badness. When a scientist says "All Carbon 14 nuclei will eventually decay," she is making a metaphysical statement that cannot be experimentally tested. However, she really means that the mean lifetime of C14 is 5,500 years. And so, a quirk of language, a psychological shortcut results in a proposition that is a metaphysical confusion, but which generally results in the appropriate experimental conclusions, e.g., "this artifact is so old that it has no significant amount of C14 in it."
If we're going to have metaphysical confusions, these are the kinds we would prefer. We don't prefer metaphysical confusions that lead us to undertake provably inconsistent procedures.
When a physicist says that positrons behave like holes in an infinitely heavy, infinitely charged sea of electrons, her statement is merely "colloquially metaphysical." It is no more than a fanciful description of a recipe.
So, I reject the claim that, if scientists explain their discoveries to non-scientists in fanciful terms, we must open the doors to all forms of metaphysical claim.
This isn't to say that we couldn't do a much better job of educating people about science.
Do you have a specific person or case in mind?
I think it might help to examine this on a case-by-case basis. I don't see anything particularly metaphysical being sold to the public by mainstream scientists.
Comment by doctor(logic) — November 6, 2005 @ 2:39 pm
November 6th, 2005 at 6:15 pm
Convincingly to whom? I don't think regular people are nearly as metaphysically confused as scientists are. Your judgment here may reflect your confusion about what people believe, but that doesn't mean people are confused about what they believe.
Because metaphysical views tend to formalize a person's hierarchial valuation structure (a useful cognitive function), which is applied in decision-making situations. It doesn't matter what you (or other observer) understand about an individual's metaphysical views, and it certainly doesn't matter if you agree with them. The views will still inform that person's valuations and thus their decisions. Unless their decisions cause themselves or others direct harm, it's nobody's business what their metaphysical views are.
Last I checked, scientists do claim – with some legitimacy – that "all" radioactive isotopes will eventually decay. After 30 half-lives any that remain in a given concentration are undetectable, thus FAPP non-existent. I don't think too many physics students misunderstand the concepts of half-life and decay-chains. There were 3×6 color posters on the wall of most of my classrooms and labs, and fold-outs in the textbooks. There's not much serious controversy over radiometric dating, other than some anomalies incoming since ~1972 suggesting that alpha isn't as constant as we thought it was.
I'm not seeing metaphysical corruption in this example, apart from your described misstatement of the known facts – easily corrected. Though I do see it in multiverses and a few other areas of current, ill-framed extrapolation being marketed wholesale to the public as 'science'.
Metaphor is not the same thing as metaphysics and it doesn't count as metaphysical corruption. To liken the human brain to a computer, and neural networks to software, is metaphor. It's only when some idiot plugs himself in to try and upload an XP disc that we have strange electrocution or strangulation suicides. Which can be traced directly to aberrant cognitive processes. Most people can grok metaphor if they got through 4th grade English. To be safe, it wouldn't hurt scientists to go ahead and identify their metaphors AS metaphors when they use them. Multiverses and SuperStrings aren't metaphor.
I'm all for that. One good way NOT to do it is to use science education as a means of disabusing students of traditional metaphysical beliefs that mean a whole lot more to them and their lives than a semester of high school biology ever will. Science wishes to command not just respect and coerced funding from the public, in some areas (like biological evolution) it wants to control minds and hearts as well – a specifically metaphysical battlefield, where tradition handily outweighs any metaphysical pronouncements of erstwhile 'scientists'. This agenda is not hidden, it's very much overt. It's a gross overstepping of proper boundaries, and represents a much greater "threat" to science than ID could ever represent.
Science plays politics at its peril, always. It plays politics with metaphysical belief systems to its sociological doom. That would be a shame, but not something undeserved.
Really? You've never heard of the "New Eugenicists?" Or check out Richard Dawkins' Latest [reprint of Salon.com article] He is the Charles Simonyi Chair, "Professor of the Public Understanding of Science" at Oxford. I'm the public. What am I supposed to understand from this?
Comment by Joy — November 6, 2005 @ 6:15 pm
November 6th, 2005 at 11:21 pm
Not every grammaticaly correct statement is semantically meaningful. Most people don't know where to draw the line. That spells confusion.
Any proposition that has no physical consequence has only mathematical content. Propositions about God have no physical consequence. Ergo, people who think it is physically meaningful to speak of God are confused.
It is inevitable that people will cause harm when they are confused by metaphysical nonsense. Holy wars, burning scientists at the stake, ritual killings, ridiculous paranormal claims, opposition to science education and so on.
The very idea of metaphysics is that we might know truths with no burden of evidence. There are few more powerful formulas for violence and conflict.
FAPP. The proposition as I stated it is not falsifiable because we can't watch every radioactive nucleus in the universe decay. We can only observe a select sample in our neighborhood. So, it is more accurate to state an observed pattern of decay than to make an unverifiable statement.
(FYI, as a trained particle physicist, I do have some rudimentary knowledge of radioactivity.)
They aren't metaphysics either. Superstring theories are straightforward extrapolations of modern field theories. Multiverses are an attempt to apply quantum mechanics to cosmology. Both types of theory have real experimental consequences.
The Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics generates the correct empirical predictions, but it does not mean that these other worlds literally exist. It simply means that our world behaves as if it were one of many worlds. Likewise, quantum cosmology may claim that the structure of our universe is consistent with a scheme in which there are many other inaccesible universes. Again, there is no reason to suppose these universes are any more real than Dirac's electron sea, but the predictions speak for themselves.
I don't want to suggest that these fields of study aren't controversial. The efficiency of exploring high energy physics using these methods is hotly debated in physics departments around the world. If the methods don't consistently generate measurable experimental predictions, it's hard to call them scientific progress. Real predictions do actually get generated, but we legitimately ask whether this is the best use of limited investigative resources.
One more thing. Field theory is a complex mathematical exercise. Purely mathematical results (e.g., theories of universes with more than three non-compact spacial dimensions) and toy theories may shed light on which mathematical modeling techniques will be productive on more realistic models. Such explorations are a necessary part of modern physics, despite their obvious non-usefulness in directly predicting experimental outcomes. Not that such models make their way into the science syllabus.
This is incorrect on two counts.
First, science education does not aim to "control a metaphysical battlefield." Science class should teach science, not pseudoscience. It should be free of metaphysics. The lack of metaphysics isn't metaphysics.
Second, metaphysical tradition outweighs nothing, except the reason of those it afflicts.
I'm sorry you feel that way. When a scientific society is overrun by metaphysical nonsense, you get a Dark Age. I would call that more than just a shame, and certainly not deserved.
ID isn't science because it's not falsifiable. Even if it were science, it has no credibility in the scientific community. To add it to the curriculum would be like teaching von Daniken's ancient astronaut theory in History class. Or it would be, if there was a strong religious motivation to teach about past alien vistors.
Thus, it is the religionists who want to force their superstitions on science class. There is no metaphysical agenda in evolution. The facts of evolution just happen to dampen the metaphysical appeal of Christianity.
I have no idea what the "new eugenics" (a loaded term if ever I heard one) has to do with metaphysics.
And, I am quite familiar with Richard Dawkins. An eminently reasonable fellow. If you read the article, you'll see that he is in fact quite generous to religious claims, ranking God's existence comparable to that of a teapot in orbit around Mars. Logical positivists like myself are far less conciliatory on that point.
You seem to think that opposition to metaphysics is itself a form of metaphysics. But, opposition to metaphysics is no more a form of metaphysics than not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Comment by doctor(logic) — November 6, 2005 @ 11:21 pm
November 7th, 2005 at 12:24 pm
doctor(logic) responded:
Good morning, doctor. My statement you respond to was that people who express "confusion" at metaphysical statements do not magically make metaphysical statements confused. I can know very well what I believe, and I can make consistent statements about what I believe. You can be confused by my statements (if you pretend to know what I believe), but your confusion has no physical consequence for me, and isn't the least bit mathematical.
You yourself admitted that beliefs inform behaviors (decision-making), and behaviors are physical actions in the world – cause for myriad physical effects. If my beliefs in God are final cause for my physical action in the world, then it is physically meaningful to speak of God as my final cause. Your inability to understand what I say is your own confusion, not mine.
[Note that beliefs in God are not the subject either. I just use this figurative scenario for explanatory purposes. It may go right over your head as "confusion," but it makes sense to me. THAT is my point.]
"Inevitable?" That's a strong statement, for which you have only historically generalized evidence – now extrapolated wholesale onto 'me' (the person who admits to metaphysical beliefs). What happened hundreds of years ago doesn't make me a confused, evil person. And it doesn't threaten you one bit. You seem to be fond of projection, but I consider psychological projection to be invalid reason for personal insult or group indictment.
I've lived a long time. Been a lot of places, seen a lot of things, met a lot of people. I've never participated in a holy war and don't plan to in the future. I've never burned a scientist at the stake or sacrificed a living being either, though I have blown the whistle on some evil scientific deeds. I have experienced some decidedly 'paranormal' events, including what remains the only legally adjudicated, genuine "Miracle" on record in the US circuit court system. A legal 'finding of fact' based upon the sworn testimony of a dozen high-priced scientific "experts." THEY claimed miracle, not me. And miracle it will always remain, because I didn't have the money to appeal.
And I have often expressed my support for good science education. I had some great science teachers. Every student should be so lucky! I do not wish to discuss the relative body counts between religion and science/rationalism/atheism, as this is off-topic too. But I will say that if you appeal to history to condemn random strangers on this forum, there is a lot that could be turned around on you. Religious people aren't the only ones who view the world through selective filters.
Of course it is. That's why I said the statement is "easily corrected."
Good! That should make you truly appreciative of those ubiquitous, troublesome hps (health physicists) who so often delay projects until proper shielding can be calculated and implemented. That's what I was trained to do.
doctor(logic) expounds:
I have to ask… has anyone told you about the "Unitary Crisis" in RQFT? Then I'd ask you what "real experimental consequences" multiverse theories have. But you don't have to answer, because we already know there are none. No matter how much you personally like the interpretation, for reasons of propping your own metaphysical beliefs.
Comment by Joy — November 7, 2005 @ 12:24 pm
November 7th, 2005 at 12:29 pm
Copenhagen generates precisely the same predictions upon the presumption that the world is real. Because our world behaves as if it were real. There is nothing empirical here, there is wishful metaphysics, designed to avoid the philosophical implications of a reality that is real. Though multiverses do represent a rather drastic negation of Occam, per the FAPP situation where we'll never know if the infinite imaginary universes exist. THAT is a "metaphysical confusion."
Wiggly Higgs is still MIA, eh? I sympathize, though calling him the "God Particle" wasn't exactly the best use of PR for generating public support of Waxahatchie I've ever seen, either. Might just be karma catching up.
You know, I'm having a little trouble with your broad-brush insults, as they are both non-topical and cannot be specifically addressed. Please try to narrow your focus.
It would seem reasonable to conclude that telling a student – as presumptive statement of fact – there is no supervenience involved in the existence and evolution of life will tend to conflict with many students' traditional metaphysical belief systems. It's also not true, if any mention of natural "Law" exists in the course material. This is the subject of this thread.
It is also reasonable to predict that a presumptive metaphysically-based statement designed to challenge traditional belief systems will result in rejection of neodarwinism by a significant number of students (as is reflected in public polls on a regular basis). For such students, traditional metaphysical belief systems will play a far more important role in their lives than being able to answer a couple of standardized test questions after a semester of high school biology.
Calling them "afflicted" won't change their minds or hearts, and it won't make them embrace "Darwinian Orthodoxy." What's the point?
This explains why you can't see the culpability of scientists in this situation – you engage in the practice of public insult yourself, and apparently believe that's entirely proper. So of course you wouldn't see your own culpability if the paying public should decide you aren't worth the price they pay. That's a shame.
Nifty how you can argue out of both sides of your mouth at the same time. Did they teach you that in high school biology class?
That's odd. The fact of evolution has never dampened the metaphysical appeal of Christianity for any Christians I've ever known. Since I've known quite a few, what would make you assert such a silly proposition? The fact that you are not Christian? If so, you are once again projecting.
Do at least try to be consistent. You say there is no metaphysical battlefield in high school biology classes, then claim that high school biology classes must 'dampen' the metaphysical appeal of Christianity. That's entirely inconsistent.
Value, my dear. Value. Here are some resources:
The New Eugenics
Encouraging Acceptance of the New Eugenics [Center for Genetics and Society]
The New Eugenics Movement [Institute for Study of Academic Racism]
Ah, so. That explains a lot of your condescension and irrationally contradictory statements. It's all about YOU, isn't it? What YOU believe, what YOU think, what YOU would have the whole of humanity believe as proper homage to your superiority.
Again, that's a shame.
Comment by Joy — November 7, 2005 @ 12:29 pm
November 7th, 2005 at 12:58 pm
I'm not sure anything I have to say is apropos, but I did want to observe Joy is certainly the most original TelicThinker. Apparently agreeing with Eugenie Scott that "Final cause cannot be used in scientific explanations."
Biologists have no business talking about things, like formal and final causes, that don't exist. Maybe its just my taste in women, but I think Joy's bodacious (Even in clown face!) and Scott's a bimbo.
Usually people associate final and formal causes with "teleology." I observe that biologists are constantly appealing to final and formal causes and you question their qualifications to do so. Biologists are as qualified as anyone else, I suppose, to report the evidence of their own eyes. You'd think the TelicThinkers would welcome it. When biologists say things like "x is for y," the "purpose of x is y," and "y is obtained by means of x," they are invoking final causes.
It's self-evident (Or maybe not!) that the purpose of eyes is for seeing. I doubt many biologists would disagree. Despite all the functional, etiological, teleological, nomological, philosophical, metaphysical, or what have you, complications we can think of, that the purpose of the eye is for seeing is just as true as the obvious, self-evident, and unassailable fact that Eugenie Scott is a bimbo.
Formal causes are a little more complicated, but no less evident and no less often appealed to by biologists. (And after all, Dembski's whole thesis is really an elaboration and formalization of our notions of formal cause, isn't it?)
Often biologists "complain" that there are no "laws" in biology. That can't be correct. If biologists are constantly appealing to formal and final causes, which they do, then finality and formality are laws of biology. So what is the basis of the "complaint"? The basis appears to be wholly philosophical. Its not that philosophers have told the biologists that there are no biological laws. (With exceptions, such as Cartwright, who say there are no laws. Period.) Its that the philosophers have told the biologists that the very laws they appeal to are not and cannot be laws.
Finality and formality are biological laws. If some people find it metaphysically unsettling… Wonderful! Biologists have done their job then! If science isn't unsettling someone's metaphysical fictions then what good is it?! (LOL)
Obviously, I took something completely different away from Cartwright's essay:
It certainly is an overreaching metaphysical presumption that the supervenience of matter upon mind is not equivalent to the supervenience of mind upon matter. That's my understanding of Cartwright's essay, and if that's what she meant, I agree.
My blurb (way above somewhere) was critical of scientists accepting ("philosophically") the former, while always practicing ("scientifically") the latter.
Comment by Rock — November 7, 2005 @ 12:58 pm
November 7th, 2005 at 2:32 pm
These statements seem misguided to me. The MWI does argue that there is only one state function, but it also argues that there are (almost?) infinite numbers of sub-states that each represent what might be thought of as a "world" or "universe." This is treated under the interpretation as a very real thing. What's more, saying that MWI generates empirical predictions isn't exactly true; it is an interpretation, and it generates no predictions except those of the theory it interprets (a few wack papers on arxiv not withstanding).
Comment by Kyle — November 7, 2005 @ 2:32 pm
November 7th, 2005 at 3:09 pm
Rock comments:
Well, thank you (I think)! You're actually right that I've never been accused of sheepishness, though that very quality has landed me in trouble more than once. I usually argue that it's my genes – so it's not my fault!
I don't mind it if biologists want to extrapolate to formal and final causes, I just insist they preface their statements to the public about such things as metaphysical extrapolation. Keeps everybody honest. In the presentation of the science of evolutionary biology to conscripted schoolchildren, metaphysical extrapolations should be left out altogether. Because it's not "fair and balanced" to allow teachers to make metaphysical appeals in classrooms while students are not allowed to make such appeals. Inequality in the power distribution and all that.
I agree with you that in the practice of biology teleological thinking is quite common, since nobody really believes eyes aren't for seeing (etc.). It would help if biologists weren't so sensitive on that issue, so as to come right out and deny it – claim it's all an illusion – whenever someone suggests that teleology must then be an actual consideration in the course of evolution of things like eyes.
LOL! A man after my own heart!
The way I am interpreting Cartwright, et al. on the subject is that they have found appeals to "Law" to be essentially identical to and equally metaphysical as any appeal to any non-mechanistic supervenient agency. Including God/gods. It isn't so much that there are no "Laws," or that supervenient agency cannot be a reasonable inference of top-down causation with real effects in the world we live in. It's that science doesn't know anything more about supervenient agency than religion does – or, knows even less than religion does. Since religion goes ahead and names it.
IOW, top-down causation from a realm of apparently immaterial supervenient agency might be Absolute Truth as far as human beings are capable of surmising. But it's not proper to make science into a battleground over who's metaphysical extrapolations are "More True" than everybody else's. I think we have to concede metaphysics to the proper investigatory realm of philosophy, even though philosophers can't empirically establish Absolute Truth either. They can help sort out what's empirical and experiential from what's merely imaginary or hoped-for.
Well, you're right. Human beings are forever concerned about metaphysical things, and experience directly both final and formal causation in their journeys through life and death on planet earth. So everything to be known will naturally be filtered through a metaphysical filter. Concepts and facts will be accepted or rejected on that basis, and sometimes metaphysical filters will be tweaked to concord with new knowledge.
But science does not have reason or authority to judge the relative validity of metaphysical concepts of supervenient agency. So it has no justification for asserting that its metaphysic supersedes all others. That it does this very thing anyway is why there is open public debate on these issues.
You may be right. Lord knows I stopped trying to pry the personal metaphysics from the legitimate metaphysical work philosophers do back when I met David Chalmers! Bad as lawyers, they are, what with their ability to argue any side of any question at the drop of a hat. Philosopher Huston Smith decried the conceptual poverty of Postmodernism way back in the last century. I don't know what philosophy will end up looking like in the 21st century, but I do applaud the attempt to reclaim metaphysics by philosophers. It never should have been left to science in the first place.
That's what comes of abandoning one's post in the breach just when the Infidels decide to attack. Hope they learn something useful from the exercise.
Comment by Joy — November 7, 2005 @ 3:09 pm
November 7th, 2005 at 3:16 pm
Kyle,
MWI has an associated formalism (developed by Everett) that generates exactly the same results as other interpretations. It is no more than a mathematical paraphrasing, an alternative and equivalent recipe for prediction. There is no way to treat the other worlds as real, for there can be no evidence for their actual existence. They are merely artifacts in a model.
I think we're in agreement about predictions. It predicts what standard QM predicts, and no more. MWI doesn't add anything to standard QM, it merely paraphrases it in a way that some consider more elegant.
Comment by doctor(logic) — November 7, 2005 @ 3:16 pm
November 7th, 2005 at 4:50 pm
Joy,
So, if I believe I am Napoleon Bonaparte, and I perceive no confusion in my belief, then I am not confused?
As for mathematics, allow me to elaborate. Mathematical systems are founded on axioms (propositions assumed to be true), and mapped out by theorems using logic. Physical theories are founded by adding empirical facts (empirical axioms) and correspondence functions to mathematical systems. Unlike mathematical systems, physical theories are not completely arbitrary because we are not free to assume the truth of empirical axioms (those truth values are determined by experiment). Prediction is then a matter of asking what new empirical axioms can be added to this theory without contradiction.
Metaphysical systems may (sometimes) be logically consistent, but they are indistinguishable from mathematical systems. Though they may use symbols borrowed from physics, they are not about the world, except inasmuch as they represent the structures of mathematics. Why? Because any empirical axiom can be added to them without contradiction.
So, I ask, what differentiates mathematics from metaphysics?
Hey, I never said I was an experimentalist!
Sure. Unitarity is a question of mathematical modeling. It places restrictions on the types of field theories we can use to model particle physics at high energy, or quantum gravitational fields. What does this have to do with metaphysics?
I don't claim to be a cosmologist, but it seems to me that the physics the governs quantum universes governs more local gravitational effects like those near black holes. Surely, the physics of baby universes affects the gravitational constants in our universe, and the rules for creating baby universes are basically the same as the rules governing the multiverse. What about the topology of the universe? Might that not depend on QC? Quantum cosmologists may not be very close to making testable predictions, but we have reason to believe that they might soon do so.
I have no idea what you mean here.
At least until the Europeans find it at CERN. I do hope you're not casting aspersions on the Standard Model.
Speaking of which, I was never even taught in high school biology that science left no place for the supernatural. There was no mention of metaphysics, nor of ruling out metaphysics.
I don't see your claim has merit. You are assuming that science education is teaching some alternative metaphysics. I don't see it. Some individual scientists may write books about alternative metaphysics (some of them quite silly), but that's got nothing to do with high school science education.
When science teachers talk of "Laws," the discussion never gets as far as supervenience. It's just "the world works like this…"
Besides, if you want to be consistent, how do you reconcile your theories about institutionalized secular metaphysics with the fact that none of the Christians you have known have had any problem reconciling their religion with evolution?
Ooh! A Kristof Op-Ed. I'm sure that will be fair and balanced.
I consider myself a transhumanist. We should use whatever technologies we can to make our lives better. I do not endorse human reproductive cloning (it's pretty pointless), but I wholeheartedly support the use of genetic and cyborg enhancements to improve our intellectual and physical capacities. Indeed, I fear humanity will not survive this century without such enhancements. There are existential risks to enhancement technologies, but there are also existential risks to monkeyhood.
And value judgements require metaphysics? What we like and how we choose to live have nothing to do with, say, psychology and biochemistry? I don't buy it.
LOL!
Comment by doctor(logic) — November 7, 2005 @ 4:50 pm
November 7th, 2005 at 5:31 pm
"The way I am interpreting Cartwright, et al. on the subject is that they have found appeals to "Law" to be essentially identical to and equally metaphysical as any appeal to any non-mechanistic supervenient agency.""”Joy
Maybe God (or any other designer) is a "non-mechanistic supervenient" agent. But I don't identify "laws" with "mechanisms." To me a law is a limit or constraint upon a mechanism and a mechanism is only ever an effective procedure, scientific not philosophical, for creating or reproducing something. We identify as laws exactly those things that represent limits or constraints on mechanisms. Exactly those factors that we cannot create or reproduce, or in any other way manipulate via any mechanism. (Via any mechanism we have so far discovered. When we discover such a mechanism the law ceases to be a law and becomes a mechanism.). Following Howard Pattee, who has always impressed me as a voice of clarity and sanity in the sea of nutsy metaphysical noise
(Even if I accept the thesis that there are "no laws," in the sense of conservations, invariants, and universals, there still remain "laws" non-conserved, variable, and local. Really, since we are such things, beings, non-conserved, variable, and local, these may be the only "laws" that make sense to us. And more importantly, maybe the only "laws" discoverable by us. Huh?! Did ya think about that, Nancy! Huh! C'mon, babe, answer me that! LOL I love arguing with women! Am I sexist SOB or what?!)
A "law" is really an "anti-mechanism." So maybe the complicating metaphysic here is the identification of law with mechanism (?). And, as a computer scientist, I have no problem with "any non-mechanistic supervenient agency." LOL As a computer scientist that's exactly what I am! As a scientist that's exactly what I am!
I noticed that in the ISCID journal there is a critique of ID by Jakob Wolf: ID is not a science (and never will be) unless it proposes a "mechanism." Dembski's addressed that. Unsatisfactorily. The real issue is that science (including ID if it ever wants to be a science"”if it ever wants to be anything more than what it is now) must address, stripping away all the metaphysical bullshit, both mechanism and "anti-mechanism" and "non-mechanism." (And computer science has to deal with its notions of "effectiveness" or "effective procedures.")
Comment by Rock — November 7, 2005 @ 5:31 pm
November 7th, 2005 at 7:03 pm
doctor(logic) responded:
Other people would certainly consider you confused, though these days they wouldn't force you into involuntary incarceration for it. So long as you're not dangerous and can reasonably manage to function, nobody outside the people who have reason to miss doctor(logic) since he turned into Napoleon would really care if you think you're Napoleon. And you'd be maintaining all the while that you really are Napoleon. You wouldn't consider yourself confused about that at all.
That's a credibility issue on a matter that is objectively settled by history. Now, your mother could have named you "Napoleon Bonaparte." In which case other people would be mistaken to think you're confused about who you are. You could have developed the habit of tucking your hand in your coat as a young man and posing a lot, the sort of self-depreciating humor a guy named Napoleon Bonaparte is likely to need. So that mannerism wouldn't be confusion either. It would be your own painfully acute awareness that you indeed ARE Napoleon Bonaparte.
Even if you insisted you are that Napoleon, people who know he died in 1821 might subscribe to a New-Agey type metaphysical system and ask who you'd been regressed by. A whole starter-topic of cocktail party small-talk, entertainment for which rich people will pay triple digits by the hour!
You have indicated by your words that if someone tells you they are Christian, you consider them to be metaphysically confused. What I have said is that the confusion is your own, which you project onto the Christians you meet – and upon the billions you'll never meet. They aren't necessarily confused at all. Why can't you go ahead and admit that much room for respect in your worldview?
I've never met anyone Christian or otherwise who claimed to be Napoleon. Your analogy is, again, insulting.
Please stop.
Comment by Joy — November 7, 2005 @ 7:03 pm
November 7th, 2005 at 10:28 pm
That's the whole point, though, isn't it? Not every confused person is sufficiently confused to be dangerous. But some are. So, confusion being one of several causes of danger, it should be avoided unless it results in some tangible benefit.
If I thought metaphysics was a personal irrelevancy, like a favorite color or favorite symphony, there would be little point in debate. No?
You seem to be arguing that confusion is only in the eye of the beholder. Quite postmodern.
You get to make the claim that metaphysics is not a confusion, and that it serves some beneficial purpose, but because you happen to be a metaphysician, we may not speak of the counterclaim?
When I see philosophical claims that values are sourced from metaphysics (leaving me valueless), that to oppose metaphysics is to be somehow blind (leaving me confused), that scientists are engaged in a metaphysical crusade (making me a metaphysician), that I deserve to burn in Hell for eternity (leaving me toast, presumably), I do not mistake those claims for personal attacks against me. They are just a necessary part of the debate.
Comment by doctor(logic) — November 7, 2005 @ 10:28 pm
November 8th, 2005 at 12:39 pm
Rock said:
I don't like 'mechanism' as a substitute for "Law" either, Rock. In fact, I don't think any of the listed alternatives Cartwright & Co. have given as alternatives to law can reasonably be equated to law, as law is defined. I see mechanisms as physical processes that point beyond themselves as governing agency and obviate the necessity for appeal to "Law."
LOL… I can see it now writ large (in neon) high over the entrance to the Magic Dragon Theatre…
"We Are Law Unto Ourselves"
…which, as real-life Intelligent Designers, might be true! But I don't see how "Ordinances" (local government) are really any better as a final or formal cause of what we are or what we can become. To find out, perhaps ET will visit the White House sometime soon and we can see if he's humanoid or not, and how his gene and phene codes work.
Is there really any possibility that 'Science Proper' can escape the requirement for "Law?" I understand Cartwright's concern, because once you're recognized that ANY appeal to "Law" that governs process you've stepped into the realm of metaphysics of the uncaused cause, you'll have to cringe every time you read the appeal in scientific papers, textbooks or tomes – and hope like heck that nobody on the ID side knows it's basic blarney no better that "God Dunnit."
Physics has a long history of appeals to "Law" mostly because physics began as an endeavor specifically informed by theist metaphysics. The drive was to "know the mind of God" or to establish the "Laws of God." They may never be able to escape that appeal on this side of reality, though they do have some interesting (if patently silly) alternative metaphysical appeals. Like multiverses.
Evolutionary biology as outlined by Darwin and fine-tuned by Mendel to become "Neodarwinism" is rather a 'new' science. It goes far beyond basic physiology and phylogeny to suggest an actual existential relationship between all forms of life as being descended from common ancestry at some point in the deep past. It is purposely unattached to theist notions and biologists tend to view metaphysics in general with disdain. They think they've no reason to appeal to laws like physicists do, and take the quantum substrate's confusions as immaterial to the presence of self-governance and self-organization.
Their biggest problem is that they consider the "self" in that description to be randomly generated and entirely stupid, thus not really part of the governance system – it's the poor criminal, not the judge. Because there is great fear of the idea that organisms play an active and conscious (on some level) role in what they are and what they can do, the necessary causal agency is projected onto the environment instead. Which is said to shape life and evolution according to it's whims and fancies while life forms are just hapless blobs of accidental goo – clay sculpted by the weather into forms.
This should make Neodarwinism's RM-NS formula garbage to any conscious, aware, essentially self-governing life form. Including biologists, one could hope. The effectiveness of their self-imposed ideological blinders is often amazing. I've never figured out the useful purpose of this drastic form of psychological denial.
Why is nobody looking on the inside for governing agency? Seems that would satisfy both camps quite well, and leave the metaphysical interpretations properly metaphysical (and beyond science's ability to judge). The evangelical atheists could then claim they truly are their own creators and the masters of their own fate. The evangelical Christians could repeat their claims that "The kingdom of God is within you." Their creator and the master of their fate expresses its agency through them and their being in the world.
Just a thought…
Comment by Joy — November 8, 2005 @ 12:39 pm
November 8th, 2005 at 1:35 pm
doctor(logic) responded:
But you have in no way established that theists – or even just Christians – are either confused or dangerous. You have simply asserted your opinion that they are. I see no reason at all to accept your assumptions or your paranoia as proper in the debate about whether or not science oversteps its bounds by making metaphysical claims. You just defend science's metaphysical overreaching because its metaphysics support your personal metaphysics at this point in time.
Science, however, is notorious for changing its claims drastically almost overnight. If your faith in "logical positivism" is predicated on what biologists have to say about evolution, you've invested faith in the wrong place. RM-NS is in fact dying as new technologies reveal deeper mysteries about life and evolution that contradict what biologists themselves call the "Central Dogma" of "Darwinian Orthodoxy."
Those descriptions are religious outright, and you can't reasonably deny it. Neodarwinism styles itself AS religion. And it prosecutes heresies against itself as if it were religion. If it's religion, there's no reason other religions can't play, is there?
Are you making the claim that logical positivism isn't metaphysics? That would be unfortunate, but not very surprising. Everyone has beliefs about the world, and everyone references their beliefs about the world when integrating new knowledge. However, this thread isn't about your personal opinions about the 90% of humans who subscribe to different metaphysical beliefs than yours. It's about how Philosophers of Science are trying to address the metaphysical corruption of science, and the ways they're trying to address it.
Primary point being that Philosophers of Science recognize the presence of metaphysical corruption in science now that theists have pointed it out so glaringly by being clever enough to ride the corruption straight into the heart of the beast. Maybe they're philosophically smarter than logical positivists are. Maybe the logical positivists were fooled by their own hubris and assumed intellectual superiority into believing theists would never notice their metaphysic.
They were and are wrong. No amount of stomping, screaming, hair-pulling hissy fit behavior can undo the fact that the metaphysical corruption of science has been revealed. Your arguments are so yesterday. The 'enemy' is already inside.
Do you have anything worthwhile to contribute to the discussion of how Philosophers of Science are attempting to address the corruption now that the dreaded theists' Trojan Horse has infected (and revealed) science's metaphysical heart?
Comment by Joy — November 8, 2005 @ 1:35 pm
November 8th, 2005 at 3:38 pm
You are very far from having shown this. A law, as the term is typically used, is just a pattern in Nature. For example, the Law of Conservation of Mass is a law only of chemistry (even then, only because we don't typically have the precision to see the change in mass due to chemical bonds). Hooke's Law is a brutal oversimplification which is true only in light of the continuity of spring compression forces. So a pattern that holds locally is still a pattern, still a law. It need not hold under all conditions, everywhere in the universe. All laws are contingent. Hence, no metaphysical assumptions about laws are required to make science work.
Now, you may claim that some individual scientists have adopted metaphysical frameworks, but that is irrelevant (though sometimes unfortunate).
Suppose a Taoist baseball player (let's call him Lao Tzu) uses his Chi to guide his play. His metaphysical belief in the Tao is the foundation of his conscious understanding of how the game works. However, the physics and the umpires don't care about his metaphysics. And robot baseball player can play far better than Lao Tzu, despite having no metaphysical basis for the game.
I see no problem in Lao Tzu publishing a book entitled "The Tao of Baseball", teaching his methods of flow and form. The problem only arises when the umpires don't adhere to the rules of the game, or when the NLB insists that all players be taught Taoism along with the rules of baseball.
The rules of science are clear and pretty even-handed. The umpires (or should we say, referees) reject ID because it carries a corked bat, and keeps striking out.
Yup. Logical positivism is founded on consistency and a definition of meaning. It does not state something about the world, it merely states the limitations of language and meaning when they are subject to the constraints of self-consistency. The world may turn out to be inconsistent (and logical positivism, along with all logic, useless), but, in that case, we would face a no-win scenario anyway.
Comment by doctor(logic) — November 8, 2005 @ 3:38 pm
November 8th, 2005 at 7:20 pm
People should believe what they want to believe. If they are evoltionists fine if they are creationists fine. It is no big deal if you are either one or if you brlieve in both.
Comment by Smeester — November 8, 2005 @ 7:20 pm