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> You just hand waved away the entire problem of whether materialism/physicalism is actually the correct position It's true that I don't lend credibility to su

by Udo 7y ago

> You just hand waved away the entire problem of whether materialism/physicalism is actually the correct position It's true that I don't lend credibility to supernatural hypotheses, which I'm sure isn't the most popular position to have, I understand that. However, given the fact that everything we can actually observe so far seems to follow natural laws, I posit that the burden of proof is on the dualists to show me something that cannot possibly work without supernatural intervention (or, preferrably, directly demonstrate such intervention). Which of course brings us to the reason why this article is written in this way and why it's being discussed here in the first place: because people use the Gödel argument as such a demonstration. However, the argument does not support the claims it generates. Am I right or wrong to assume a naturalistic default position on this? Whichever way you answer on this will most likely determine your position on the meaning of the Gödel thought experiment.

keiferski 7y ago
> It's true that I don't lend credibility to supernatural hypotheses, which I'm sure isn't the most popular position to have, I understand that. However, given the fact that everything we can actually observe so far seems to follow natural laws, I posit that the burden of proof is on the dualists to show me something that cannot possibly work without supernatural invention (or, preferrably, directly demonstrate such intervention). I'm not sure what you are defining as 'supernatural' but 'everything that isn't observable' seems like an exceptionally poor definition. Throughout history there have been plenty of unobservable forces which nonetheless turned out to exist. Even today, our scientific knowledge is such a minuscule fraction of the universe; the number of unknown-unknowns is perhaps infinite. Even something like dark matter is still a known-unknown. To make broad statements like "reality/cells are just machines" based on this tiny portion of information seems pretty foolish. The flaws of your position are shown quite well in the "Blind men and the elephant" proverb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant
- Udo 7y ago
  > "The flaws of your position are shown quite well in the "Blind men and the elephant" proverb." Once again, that's quite an assertion you make against me there. At no point did I argue that we understand everything about nature. My point is just that every single thing in nature has turned out to be eventually accessible to rational modeling and understanding. To carve out a niche for certain areas and argue that these will eventually turn out to not follow that pattern has been a losing strategy throughout the history of science. > To make broad statements like "reality/cells are just machines" based on this tiny portion of information seems pretty foolish. The onus is on you to show me how exactly that is foolish, given the fact that every single scientific observation we have made in this area supports the hypothesis that there is nothing more than physical law involved.
  - keiferski 7y ago
    The onus is not on me, as I am not making broad unscientific claims about the nature of reality or the human mind, simply because we have a small portion of knowledge. It is precisely the Elephant problem that I linked to; you are making assumptions about the fundamental structure of the mind based on our current narrow understanding of it. This is almost by definition unscientific. The justifiable position would be to say, "based on our current understanding of the mind, our metaphorical model X is the best model we have created, but it is merely the best answer up until now, not the ultimate solution."
    - Udo 7y ago
      > you are making assumptions about the fundamental structure of the mind based on our current narrow understanding of it I'm trying to think of a way that would not have us go in circles ad infinitum. So I'll try one last time to convince you that this is a misrepresentation. My assumptions are indeed, given the body of data we have gathered so far, that what lies ahead will fit into what we already know - as opposed to being something extraordinary that invalidates most of our current understanding. Whenever there are unknowns in our scientific understanding (and I'm sure we'll have more than enough of those for aeons to come), it has so far not been fruitful to offer magical external influences as the explanation. It has so far always turned out that natural forces were at work, forces we can reason about rationally. From my perspective, there is nothing unusualy going on with minds in particular that would warrant a different approach. Our current understanding may be narrow by your standards, but it doesn't follow that people just get to make up whatever lies outside and then insist on those doubting them being unscientific. > "based on our current understanding of the mind, our metaphorical model X is the best model we have created, but it is merely the best answer up until now, not the ultimate solution." That we can agree on. What we don't seem to agree on is the amount of credibility we should assign to claims that lie far outside of our physical expectations. Just because there are unknowns doesn't make it reasonable to assign extraordinary values to those unknowns. > The onus is not on me, as I am not making broad unscientific claims If you make a claim, especially one that falls widely outside of extrapolated scientific understanding, the burden of proof does indeed fall on you. By contrast I am making the claim that whatever gaps we have in our theory about minds will eventually turn out to be an extension of what we already know, as opposed to some revolutionary but as of yet unseen aspect of the universe. My claim is small, yours is quite large and also seems vague to me.

by Udo 7y ago

keiferski 7y ago

> It's true that I don't lend credibility to supernatural hypotheses, which I'm sure isn't the most popular position to have, I understand that. However, given the fact that everything we can actually observe so far seems to follow natural laws, I posit that the burden of proof is on the dualists to show me something that cannot possibly work without supernatural invention (or, preferrably, directly demonstrate such intervention). I'm not sure what you are defining as 'supernatural' but 'everything that isn't observable' seems like an exceptionally poor definition. Throughout history there have been plenty of unobservable forces which nonetheless turned out to exist. Even today, our scientific knowledge is such a minuscule fraction of the universe; the number of unknown-unknowns is perhaps infinite. Even something like dark matter is still a known-unknown. To make broad statements like "reality/cells are just machines" based on this tiny portion of information seems pretty foolish. The flaws of your position are shown quite well in the "Blind men and the elephant" proverb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

Udo 7y ago
> "The flaws of your position are shown quite well in the "Blind men and the elephant" proverb." Once again, that's quite an assertion you make against me there. At no point did I argue that we understand everything about nature. My point is just that every single thing in nature has turned out to be eventually accessible to rational modeling and understanding. To carve out a niche for certain areas and argue that these will eventually turn out to not follow that pattern has been a losing strategy throughout the history of science. > To make broad statements like "reality/cells are just machines" based on this tiny portion of information seems pretty foolish. The onus is on you to show me how exactly that is foolish, given the fact that every single scientific observation we have made in this area supports the hypothesis that there is nothing more than physical law involved.
- keiferski 7y ago
  The onus is not on me, as I am not making broad unscientific claims about the nature of reality or the human mind, simply because we have a small portion of knowledge. It is precisely the Elephant problem that I linked to; you are making assumptions about the fundamental structure of the mind based on our current narrow understanding of it. This is almost by definition unscientific. The justifiable position would be to say, "based on our current understanding of the mind, our metaphorical model X is the best model we have created, but it is merely the best answer up until now, not the ultimate solution."
  - Udo 7y ago
    > you are making assumptions about the fundamental structure of the mind based on our current narrow understanding of it I'm trying to think of a way that would not have us go in circles ad infinitum. So I'll try one last time to convince you that this is a misrepresentation. My assumptions are indeed, given the body of data we have gathered so far, that what lies ahead will fit into what we already know - as opposed to being something extraordinary that invalidates most of our current understanding. Whenever there are unknowns in our scientific understanding (and I'm sure we'll have more than enough of those for aeons to come), it has so far not been fruitful to offer magical external influences as the explanation. It has so far always turned out that natural forces were at work, forces we can reason about rationally. From my perspective, there is nothing unusualy going on with minds in particular that would warrant a different approach. Our current understanding may be narrow by your standards, but it doesn't follow that people just get to make up whatever lies outside and then insist on those doubting them being unscientific. > "based on our current understanding of the mind, our metaphorical model X is the best model we have created, but it is merely the best answer up until now, not the ultimate solution." That we can agree on. What we don't seem to agree on is the amount of credibility we should assign to claims that lie far outside of our physical expectations. Just because there are unknowns doesn't make it reasonable to assign extraordinary values to those unknowns. > The onus is not on me, as I am not making broad unscientific claims If you make a claim, especially one that falls widely outside of extrapolated scientific understanding, the burden of proof does indeed fall on you. By contrast I am making the claim that whatever gaps we have in our theory about minds will eventually turn out to be an extension of what we already know, as opposed to some revolutionary but as of yet unseen aspect of the universe. My claim is small, yours is quite large and also seems vague to me.