Questions for Critics of Methodological Naturalism

_{Jonathan Bartlett

August 18, 2016

Creationism, Evolutionary biology, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Philosophy}

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The question of whether methodological naturalism is an idea worth holding onto in science has been one that the ID camp, as a whole, is not unified on. Some think that methodological naturalism is a perfectly valid way to define science, and that ID fits nicely within that scope. Others think that methodological naturalism is just philosophical baggage hitching a free ride and should be discarded.

To those who are critics of methodological naturalism, Dr. Joshua Swamidass, a biologist at Washington University in St. Louis, offers a defense of methodological naturalism as well as a series of questions for those who are critical of methodological naturalism to consider (update – my answers to these questions are here and here).

Since the launch of the Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism conference, Dr. Swamidass and I have been discussing methodological naturalism’s role in science, and we were both interested in how the ID community would respond to his questions. I will give my own responses in another post, but thought that this would be a good forum for thoughtful discussion from the community. Please read Dr. Swamidass’s article before commenting.

UPDATE – For those following this thread, I posted a followup story on my questions for the proponents of Methodological Naturalism.

Comments

For those following this thread, I posted a followup story on my questions for the proponents of Methodological Naturalism.johnnyb_{August 21, 2016
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Folks, in a recent OP, I discussed the implications of inductive reasoning, and how it is normal for explanatory frameworks in science to have explanatory gaps. This then raises the issue of an armour-belt protecting core commitments in the theory (and making falsifiability far more difficult than is commonly recognised). Clipping:
https://uncommondescent.com/global-warming/btb-induction-falsificationism-scientific-paradigms-and-id-vs-evo-mat/ The next “logical” question is how inductive reasoning (modern sense) applies to scientific theories and — HT Lakatos and Kuhn, Feyerabend and Putnam — research programmes. First, we need to examine the structure of scientific predictions, where: we have theory T + auxiliary hypotheses (and “calibration”) about observation and required instruments etc AI + auxiliary statements framing and modelling initial, intervening and boundary conditions [in a world model], AM, to yield predicted or explained observations, P/E: T + AI + AM –> P/E We compare observations, O (with AI again acting), to yield explanatory gap, G: P/E – (O + AI) –> G = g In an ideally successful or “progressive” theory or paradigm, G will be 0 [zero], but in almost all cases there will be anomalies; scientific theories generally live with an explanatory/predictive deficit, g for convenience. This gives meat to the bones of Lakatos’ pithy observation that theories are born, live and die refuted. However, when a new theory better explains persistent anomalies and has some significant success with otherwise unexplained phenomena, and this occurs for some time, this allows its champions to advance. {Let us insert an infographic:} [sci_abduction graphic] We then see dominant and perhaps minor schools of thought, with research programmes that coalesce about the key successes. Where also scope of explanation counts, i.e. a theory T1 may have wider scope of generally regarded success, but has its deficit g1 greater than g2, that of a theory T2 of narrower scope. Where investigatory methods are more linked by family resemblance than by any global, one size fits all and only Science method. This picture instantly means that Popper’s criterion of falsification is very hard to test, as, first, observations are themselves coloured by instrumental issues (including eyeball, mark 1 etc). Second, key theoretical claims of a given theory Tk, are usually not directly predictive/ explanatory of observations, they are associated with a world state model AMk, that is generally far less tightly held than Tk. In Lakatos’ terms, we have an armour-belt that protects the core theory.
Methodological naturalism is obviously intended to be a core commitment. It also a priori locks out entire classes of otherwise reasonable and responsible alternatives. Indeed, on FSCO/I as a well substantiated and tested, reliable sign of intelligently directed configuration as key causal factor, it may be ideologically locking out the best current explanation of certain traces of the past of origins for OOL and origin of body plans. And that, by ideological intent. On the principle that science should seek as true and fair a view of the world as can be currently empirically warranted, that is a very important -- and telling -- concern. This has been pointed out here at UD and elsewhere for years on end now. With very little effect among champions or fellow travellers of the dominant evolutionary materialistic scientism paradigm. If that does not trip warning flags, that failure is itself a deeper level of warning. It is not for nothing that there is an observation out there that new paradigms often advance one funeral at a time. KFkairosfocus_{August 21, 2016
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SB
"I would add that Methodological Naturalism is appropriate for discerning how things in nature operate (gravity), but it is totally inappropriate for discerning how things in nature come to be (Big Bang Cosmology, SETI, ID, etc.)"
Actually, there is nothing particularly 'natural' about the way gravity operates. Might I suggest that familiarity with gravity has dulled our senses to just how 'miraculous' gravity actually is. In fact, gravity is actually more 'miraculous' than agent causality is
A Professor's Journey out of Nihilism: Why I am not an Atheist - University of Wyoming - J. Budziszewski Excerpt page12: "There were two great holes in the argument about the irrelevance of God. The first is that in order to attack free will, I supposed that I understood cause and effect; I supposed causation to be less mysterious than volition. If anything, it is the other way around. I can perceive a logical connection between premises and valid conclusions. I can perceive at least a rational connection between my willing to do something and my doing it. But between the apple and the earth, I can perceive no connection at all. Why does the apple fall? We don't know. "But there is gravity," you say. No, "gravity" is merely the name of the phenomenon, not its explanation. "But there are laws of gravity," you say. No, the "laws" are not its explanation either; they are merely a more precise description of the thing to be explained, which remains as mysterious as before. For just this reason, philosophers of science are shy of the term "laws"; they prefer "lawlike regularities." To call the equations of gravity "laws" and speak of the apple as "obeying" them is to speak as though, like the traffic laws, the "laws" of gravity are addressed to rational agents capable of conforming their wills to the command. This is cheating, because it makes mechanical causality (the more opaque of the two phenomena) seem like volition (the less). In my own way of thinking the cheating was even graver, because I attacked the less opaque in the name of the more. The other hole in my reasoning was cruder. If my imprisonment in a blind causality made my reasoning so unreliable that I couldn't trust my beliefs, then by the same token I shouldn't have trusted my beliefs about imprisonment in a blind causality. But in that case I had no business denying free will in the first place." http://www.undergroundthomist.org/sites/default/files/WhyIAmNotAnAtheist.pdf Agent Causality (of Theists) vs. The self refuting Blind Causality (of Atheists) – video https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1118356054843993/?type=2&theater
And when the Agent causality of Theists is rightly let ‘back’ into the picture of physics, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned, (instead of the self refuting ‘blind’ causality of atheists in which atheists themselves become illusions of persons instead of real persons), then a empirically backed unification between Quantum Theory and Relativity is readily achieved by the resurrection of Christ from death:
Resurrection of Jesus Christ as the Theory of Everything - Centrality Concerns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uHST2uFPQY&list=PLtAP1KN7ahia8hmDlCYEKifQ8n65oNpQ5&index=4
bornagain77_{August 20, 2016
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LoL. Imagine those crazy theists looking for answers to diseases in the GAPS in our understanding. *gasp*Mung_{August 20, 2016
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Oh, but if the terrifying Christians install a theocracy and demand the removal of MN from science, won't it mean a return to Uncle Bob getting cancer as punishment for the way he treated Aunt Jane? Several years ago a syndicated program was promoting an upcoming interview with one of America's gilded anti-ID propagandists (Miller I think), and in the promo the sound bite was him telling the interviewer that "it would be the end of medicine". Death and disease would rule humanity. Apparently, the insult to all the theists who study and work in medicine never occurred to him. :|Upright BiPed_{August 20, 2016
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Barry is right. The aim of science is to discover the truth about nature. I would add that Methodological Naturalism is appropriate for discerning how things in nature operate (gravity), but it is totally inappropriate for discerning how things in nature come to be (Big Bang Cosmology, SETI, ID, etc.) . Yet science may legitimately pursue both kinds of questions, from which it follow that MN cannot be a universal rule of science.StephenB_{August 20, 2016
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I have no problem with methodological naturalism as a heuristic all the way up to the point that it becomes an impediment, rather than a help, in discovering truth. Assume merely for the sake of argument that design actually occurred, i.e. it is the truth. If a researcher insists on MN to the point of ruling out design before the investigation even begins, he is doomed to error from the beginning. This is obvious. I don't see how it could even be controversial.Barry Arrington_{August 20, 2016
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Mung, by over fifty years, Darwin read Paley in uni. KFkairosfocus_{August 20, 2016
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Mung
The question is not whether God is supernatural, it is whether nature is supernatural. We all know, or should know, that things that must be created and sustained in their existence should hardly be called natural.
Great discussion point for a new op.bill cole_{August 20, 2016
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Mung, "We all know, or should know, that things that must be created and sustained in their existence should hardly be called natural." Yet crystals are created naturally, and sustained naturally.Rationalitys bane_{August 20, 2016
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As many here have kindly and gently pointed out, Prof. Swamidass is quite confused. A couple more examples:
I am a Christian. So of course, I think the answer is “yes” to the extent that I believe that God is supernatural (and He seems to be).
The question is not whether God is supernatural, it is whether nature is supernatural. We all know, or should know, that things that must be created and sustained in their existence should hardly be called natural.
The effort does not (as is sometimes portrayed by ID) simply look for deviations from natural laws as evidence of ETI.
Grossly misrepresents SETI and ID. Neither are looking for violations of natural law. When we receive signals from our space probes those signals are not violating natural laws. Sheesh.Mung_{August 20, 2016
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Pardon but circular: for Paley, the ORIGIN of the watch (including the Self-replicating watch in Ch 2 that is typically overlooked) is what is at stake.
Bingo. Over at TSZ petrushka makes the same mistake, apparently thinking that Paley was writing as an answer to Darwinian evolution. Paley came before Darwin, petrushka.Mung_{August 20, 2016
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Prof. S. Joshua Swamidass:
So ID often appears to science for the purpose of demonstrating design.
I disagree with this. Design does not need to be demonstrated, it is glaringly obvious, to everyone. It is all around us, every day. Even atheists, materialists, and methodological naturalists agree. Don't make me pull out the quote book and hit you over the head with it professor! ID is the realist position against the view that all this design we see is just illusory.Mung_{August 20, 2016
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Seversky - It is true that there are types of design ID cannot detect. But I find this strange as a criticism, as ID never claimed that it could detect every design. Every single book I've read about ID explicitly says that it cannot. The goal is to rigorously describe what we *could* detect. Your second criticism is even stranger - that the pattern-detection software in our minds are misfiring. That is the whole point of ID - to make the process of design detection rigorous and based on logical and mathematical principles rather than intuition. This is what every science does - make mathematical models that allow us to calculate rather than guess the result. Our guesses are usually good enough for daily living, but not for scientific or engineering work. That is why we make rigorous models. That is the whole point of the subject. If you are arguing that our minds might be deceiving us about the logical relationships within ID, I don't see how this could not be used as a criticism against all of science. If our brains are totally deceiving us or misfiring such to prevent working out the logical and mathematical details of a theory, for what reason would we believe the work of scientists at all?johnnyb_{August 20, 2016
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Swamidass shows himself to be confused about design detection when he states that "science recognizes design by modeling the mind that produced it". This nonsensical idea has been debunked on this forum many times. The detection of design comes first, then second-order questions (who, how, why, when) follow. Perhaps the following text by Eric Anderson will clear up this and some other misconceptions.
1. The question of how something was designed is logically separate from, and subsequent to, the question of whether it was designed. ID is not an attempt to answer all questions. It is a limited inquiry into whether something was designed. Questions about who, why, how, when are all interesting second-order questions that can be asked only after an inference to design is drawn. You may want, deeply in your heart of hearts, for ID to answer all of those questions. But that is a failure of your expectations, not ID itself. 2. Design does not have to answer a “how” in the same way that purely natural explanations need to. That is because we are dealing with two different domains. Design is not a mechanistic theory. It is a theory about choice, about intentionality, about intelligence. You don’t need to know how the ancients built the pyramids or stonehenge, or the precise design and manufacturing process for how a solid state flash drive was built, to know that such things were designed. In stark contrast, chance and natural-law-driven processes are all about the mechanism. They are purely mechanistic theories that live or die by identifying a natural physical mechanism. Many materialists (because, again, they can’t see past their materialism), want to demand that ID provide some kind of detailed mechanistic explanation for design. That demand is based on a misunderstanding, because ID is not a mechanistic theory. That is not a failure of ID. It is a failure by the materialist to understand the different domains we are dealing with.
Origenes_{August 20, 2016
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So if you do not want to consider the designer, that is without precedence in science. If not MN, what is your basis for making this arbitrary stopping point? If not MN, what is the rule you propose?
He already answered your question. The rule is available physical evidence.Upright BiPed_{August 20, 2016
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Origenes asks Professor Swamidasss:
Does SETI offer a model of the alien mind?
The professor answers back:
Yes, it is continually offering models of alien biology, technology, and minds. This is what enables SETI to make scientifically testable hypotheses. Even they have zero positive detection, in many cases they appear to following a strategy that is recognizable to us as science. For example, there are the recent dyson swarm and dyson galaxy models… http://www.scientificamerican......-galaxies/
...and from the professors example:
Unlike traditional SETI surveys, Wright and his team did not seek messages from the stars. Instead, they looked for the thermodynamic consequences of galactic-scale colonization, based on an idea put forth in 1960 by the physicist Freeman Dyson. Dyson postulated that a growing technological culture would ultimately be limited by access to energy, and that advanced, energy-hungry civilizations would be driven to harvest all the available light from their stars. To do that, they might dismantle a planet or two as feedstock for building star-enveloping swarms of solar collectors. A star’s light would fade as it was encased in such a “Dyson sphere,” but Dyson noted the constructions could be detected by the mid-infrared glow of their radiated waste heat—essentially the same phenomenon that causes your computer to warm up when it’s running. In 1963 the Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev extended these ideas by developing a tripartite classification system for a civilization’s energy use. A “type 1” civilization would harness all the energy of its home planet whereas a type 2 uses all the energy of its star, perhaps by building a Dyson sphere around it. A type 3 civilization would be capable of using all the energy of its galaxy, presumably by encasing all its stars in Dyson spheres.
Professor, is this your model of an alien mind (which was the question being asked)? Of course it isn't -- its fluff thrown up by you in order to not answer the question. By doing these things, you give yourself room to continue your irrelevant attack on ID while protecting yourself from correction. It's the kind of lazy rhetoric a professor should not deal in, and is utterly non-scientific. It begs the question, is there any real reason to consider you a serious person on this topic? A serious critic of ID?Upright BiPed_{August 20, 2016
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But we have absolutely no idea what alien design might look like.
Not true.
We have no way of knowing what might be the common properties of all designed things which could be used to reliably distinguish the designed from the not-designed under any conditions.
Firstly, why should we expect every designed object to have the same tale-tell sign in common? Who wrote that law? Do we need to know this mysterious universal indicator in order to know that the Space Shuttle was designed? Or how about a Monet? A Monet and a Space Shuttle have virtually nothing in common, yet we know instantly that both were designed. So you have the wrong question. The question is – is there something that we can infer design every time we find it? The answer is -- of course there is. Why pretend otherwise?
If life on Earth was designed some 3.8 billion years ago, it was not by us. It must have been by an intelligence possessed of a science and technology far beyond anything available to 21st century humanity. So why should we expect structures in living organisms to look like things we design today?
Again, you have the wrong question. We don't have to expect them to look like things we design, they already look exactly like things we design. In fact, the things we design (like language) and the workings of the genetic information system are both exclusively identifiable by their physical properties, and are the only two places we can find such systems anywhere in the cosmos. Why pretend otherwise?Upright BiPed_{August 20, 2016
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PS: A more detailed cite from Paley in Ch 2, during which he anticipated many of the objections commonly thought to be fatal (and yes, for 150 years, people have been tilting at a strawman caricature by focussing on the preliminary not the full form argument Paley made):
Suppose, in the next place, that the person who found the watch [in a field and stumbled on the stone in Ch 1 just past, where this is 50 years before Darwin in Ch 2 of a work Darwin full well knew about] should after some time discover that, in addition to
[--> here cf encapsulated, gated, metabolising automaton, and note, "stickiness" of molecules raises a major issue of interfering cross reactions thus very carefully controlled organised reactions are at work in life . . . ]
all the properties [= specific, organised, information-rich functionality] which he had hitherto observed in it, it possessed the unexpected property of producing in the course of its movement another watch like itself [--> i.e. self replication, cf here the code using von Neumann kinematic self replicator that is relevant to first cell based life] -- the thing is conceivable [= this is a gedankenexperiment, a thought exercise to focus relevant principles and issues]; that it contained within it a mechanism, a system of parts -- a mold, for instance, or a complex adjustment of lathes, baffles, and other tools -- evidently and separately calculated for this purpose [--> it exhibits functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information; where, in mid-late C19, cell based life was typically thought to be a simple jelly-like affair, something molecular biology has long since taken off the table but few have bothered to pay attention to Paley since Darwin] . . . . The first effect would be to increase his admiration of the contrivance, and his conviction of the consummate skill of the contriver. Whether he regarded the object of the contrivance, the distinct apparatus, the intricate, yet in many parts intelligible mechanism by which it was carried on, he would perceive in this new observation nothing but an additional reason for doing what he had already done -- for referring the construction of the watch to design and to supreme art
[--> directly echoes Plato in The Laws Bk X on the ART-ificial (as opposed to the strawman tactic "supernatural") vs the natural in the sense of blind chance and/or mechanical necessity as serious alternative causal explanatory candidates; where also the only actually observed cause of FSCO/I is intelligently configured configuration, i.e. contrivance or design]
. . . . He would reflect, that though the watch before him were, in some sense, the maker of the watch, which, was fabricated in the course of its movements, yet it was in a very different sense from that in which a carpenter, for instance, is the maker of a chair -- the author of its contrivance, the cause of the relation of its parts to their use [--> i.e. design]. . . . . We might possibly say, but with great latitude of expression, that a stream of water ground corn ; but no latitude of expression would allow us to say, no stretch cf conjecture could lead us to think, that the stream of water built the mill, though it were too ancient for us to know who the builder was. What the stream of water does in the affair is neither more nor less than this: by the application of an unintelligent impulse to a mechanism previously arranged, arranged independently of it and arranged by intelligence, an effect is produced, namely, the corn is ground. But the effect results from the arrangement. [--> points to intelligently directed configuration as the observed and reasonably inferred source of FSCO/I] The force of the stream cannot be said to be the cause or the author of the effect, still less of the arrangement. Understanding and plan in the formation of the mill were not the less necessary for any share which the water has in grinding the corn; yet is this share the same as that which the watch would have contributed to the production of the new watch . . . . Though it be now no longer probable that the individual watch which our observer had found was made immediately by the hand of an artificer, yet doth not this alteration in anywise affect the inference, that an artificer had been originally employed and concerned in the production. The argument from design remains as it was. Marks of design and contrivance are no more accounted for now than they were before. In the same thing, we may ask for the cause of different properties. We may ask for the cause of the color of a body, of its hardness, of its heat ; and these causes may be all different. We are now asking for the cause of that subserviency to a use, that relation to an end, which we have remarked in the watch before us. No answer is given to this question, by telling us that a preceding watch produced it. There cannot be design without a designer; contrivance, without a contriver; order [--> better, functionally specific organisation], without choice; arrangement, without any thing capable of arranging; subserviency and relation to a purpose, without that which could intend a purpose; means suitable to an end, and executing their office in accomplishing that end, without the end ever having been contemplated, or the means accommodated to it. Arrangement, disposition of parts, subserviency of means to an end, relation of instruments to a use, imply the presence of intelligence and mind. No one, therefore, can rationally believe that the insensible, inanimate watch, from which the watch before us issued, was the proper cause of the mechanism we so much admire m it — could be truly said to have constructed the instrument, disposed its parts, assigned their office, determined their order, action, and mutual dependency, combined their several motions into one result, and that also a result connected with the utilities of other beings. All these properties, therefore, are as much unaccounted for as they were before. Nor is any thing gained by running the difficulty farther back, that is, by supposing the watch before us to have been produced from another watch, that from a former, and so on indefinitely. Our going back ever so far brings us no nearer to the least degree of satisfaction upon the subject. Contrivance is still unaccounted for. We still want a contriver. A designing mind is neither supplied by this supposition nor dispensed with. If the difficulty were diminished the farther we went back, by going back indefinitely we might exhaust it. And this is the only case to which this sort of reasoning applies. "Where there is a tendency, or, as we increase the number of terms, a continual approach towards a limit, there, by supposing the number of terms to be what is called infinite, we may conceive the limit to be attained; but where there is no such tendency or approach, nothing is effected by lengthening the series . . . , And the question which irresistibly presses upon our thoughts is. Whence this contrivance and design ? The thing required is the intending mind, the adapted hand, the intelligence by which that hand was directed. This question, this demand, is not shaken off by increasing a number or succession of substances destitute of these properties; nor the more, by increasing that number to infinity. If it be said, that upon the supposition of one watch being produced from another in the course of that other's movements, and by means of the mechanism within it, we have a cause for the watch in my hand, namely, the watch from which it proceeded — I deny, that for the design, the contrivance, the suitableness of means to an end, the adaptation of instruments to a use, all of which we discover in the watch, we have any cause whatever. It is in vain, therefore, to assign a series of such causes, or to allege that a series may be carried back to infinity; for I do not admit that we have yet any cause at all for the phenomena, still less any series of causes either finite or infinite. Here is contrivance, but no contriver; proofs of design, but no designer. [Paley, Nat Theol, Ch 2]
kairosfocus_{August 20, 2016
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Seversky, Pardon but circular: for Paley, the ORIGIN of the watch (including the Self-replicating watch in Ch 2 that is typically overlooked) is what is at stake. So, two parallel questions:
Q1: Has a "natural" [= blind chance and mechanical necessity] origin of watches (and more particularly the FSCO/I in the watches) been reliably observed? Q2: Has a "natural" [= blind chance and mechanical necessity] origin of living cells (and more particularly the FSCO/I in the living cells) been reliably observed?
The answer to both is the same: no. Yes, we observe cells replicating from one generation of cell to the next. That is not the same as observing the origin of cell based life. We have good reason to infer that a self-replicating machine (which could include a watch fabricator) is possible and we have made initial practical steps to implement such a kinematic von Neumann self-replicating machine. However, there is a key common factor that is intricately involved in the origin of functionality of both, functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information (FSCO/I). We routinely observe how this comes to be and routinely, reliably -- per a trillion-member base of cases seen -- it comes about by the process of intelligently directed configuration, aka design. Inductively, we are entitled to accept FSCO/I as a reliable tested sign of design and infer to design for both. This is what Paley says in Ch 2, which is, as noted, typically overlooked:
Suppose, in the next place, that the person who found the watch should after some time discover that, in addition to all the properties which he had hitherto observed in it, it possessed the unexpected property of producing in the course of its movement another watch like itself -- the thing is conceivable; that it contained within it a mechanism, a system of parts -- a mold, for instance, or a complex adjustment of lathes, baffles, and other tools -- evidently and separately calculated for this purpose . . . . The first effect would be to increase his admiration of the contrivance, and his conviction of the consummate skill of the contriver. Whether he regarded the object of the contrivance, the distinct apparatus, the intricate, yet in many parts intelligible mechanism by which it was carried on, he would perceive in this new observation nothing but an additional reason for doing what he had already done -- for referring the construction of the watch to design and to supreme art . . . . He would reflect, that though the watch before him were, in some sense, the maker of the watch, which, was fabricated in the course of its movements, yet it was in a very different sense from that in which a carpenter, for instance, is the maker of a chair -- the author of its contrivance, the cause of the relation of its parts to their use.
KFkairosfocus_{August 20, 2016
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Thanks for the response, gpuccio. First, I'm aware others have speculated about a quantum interface as part of consciousness. However, I think you summarized the idea well, and I appreciated especially the remark about this not violating any laws of causality. However, its useful for people to clarify both commonalities and differences, so I'll say that my view (which is really just a speculative intuition) is that a conscious designer does not lie on the other side of the quantum curtain, but rather an impersonal creative impetus that pushes the world to innovate, so to speak. It is clear, I think, from modern science that the world is not completely determined: it is not the billiard ball, clockwork system that was envisioned starting in Newtons time. Spontaneous changes and new novel systems can arise in any part of the world. Our will, to follow this view, can be open to this underlying potential for spontaneous creativity and thus influence our actions such that our actions are not just a deterministic result of the physical world. I do agree with you, and think this is important, when you say,
we do know intuitively many things about consciousness and its ways, simply because we can perceive a lot about that in our own consciousness. So, in a sense, the mystery is not a complete mystery, and can in some way be “touched” by our cognition.
Each one of us has an experience of consciousness that no one else can share, but we can learn to examine our consciousness somewhat objectively and share our thoughts with others. The Buddhists make two points about this self-examination. First, they encourage people to take a scientific, evidence-based approach to understanding how our consciousness works in relationship to the rest of our bodily biological functioning. That is, don't attach yourself to theories about consciousness, but do the work to really explore what consciousness is separate from what one's is consciousness is about: separate the content of consciousness from the presence of consciousness. This is what yoga and meditation are ultimately all about. However, they also point out an inescapable dilemma: the "I" that we are trying to examine is the very "I" that is doing the examining, so there may be (in fact, are) limitations in knowing ourself as a self. For this reason, the Buddhists say, one has to go beyond the "I" - realize the illusion of the ego - in order to truly experience consciousness in its pure form. On the other hand, you say,
I believe that the I that perceives, and therefore explains all subjective experiences, including free will, is transcendental.
I don't agree with this, I think. The "I" that we identify with is a product of our living in a biological body: it is a construct build up from all the events and influences, internal and external, that we have experienced. We can touch the world of spontaneous creativity, and let it be a part of who we are, but there is no transcendent separate "I". I have written this before, but a statement by Alan Watts about what happens after death best captures my thought. He wrote (I paraphrase): we all contain a spark of the divine, but when we die it's like throwing a drop of water back into the ocean. The "I" is part of this world, not some other world. But it partakes of consciousness, and with that consciousness can tap into spontaneous creativity. Stephen Covey, (who was actually very interested in spiritual matters), once wrote, "Between the stimulus and the response there is a pause, and therein lie our freedom." I like this saying. It resonates with the idea that we can learn to step back from our surface reactionary self and free ourself a bit (or a lot in some cases) from all the built-in habits, perceptions, opinions, etc. of our biological self. And, FWIW, yoga has breathing exercises where one learns to "let go" of the ego at the pause between the inhale and the exhale. Letting go of the ego is one of the keys to developing true inner freedom from all the attachments we have built up throughout our life. So, in summary, there are interesting questions we can address as we look inside of ourselves and examine our own conscious, as suggested by gpuccio's quote above, one of which is whether the "I" that we identify with is really our true self.jdk_{August 19, 2016
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If we return to the example of Paley's watch, the nineteenth century walker on the heath would recognize it as designed for two reasons, even if he had never seen a watch before. First, it is not something that has ever been observed to occur naturally and, second, the materials and the component parts - the brass case, glass lens, cogs and springs - strongly resemble devices designed by human beings. A counter-example I have used before is that of the "data-crystal", a futuristic data storage device used in the TV science-fiction series Babylon 5. If the walker on the heath found one lying in the grass, he might think it was a naturally-occurring crystal or even a piece of costume jewelery but never a data storage device from several hundred years in the future. The point, obviously, is that we recognize design that looks like things we design, now or in the past. But we have absolutely no idea what alien design might look like. We have no way of knowing what might be the common properties of all designed things which could be used to reliably distinguish the designed from the not-designed under any conditions. If life on Earth was designed some 3.8 billion years ago, it was not by us. It must have been by an intelligence possessed of a science and technology far beyond anything available to 21st century humanity. So why should we expect structures in living organisms to look like things we design today? Isn't it more likely that pattern-matching "software" in our brains is getting false hits?Seversky_{August 19, 2016
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Dr. Swamidass - I don't think the issue is that there is a *rule* that prevents you from investigating the designer, but rather we don't have the data that is needed to investigate the details. For instance, if we find a heat bubble somewhere, we know that something must have generated that heat. This is true even if that mechanism has left no evidence. If we got to a heat bubble, and there was nothing around to produce it, we wouldn't say, "the energy just happened to appear there". Instead, we would say that "we can identify a heat bubble here, but we don't currently have a way to determine how it got here." Likewise, evidence for design *may* lead us to a designer. However, the evidence for design is not lessened because we don't have evidence for a specific designer any more than the absence of a source of heat would lead us to believe that it happened spontaneously. We would presume a source even if one weren't identified. It is certainly within science to *look* for such a cause, however, the point is that the method does not depend on finding the specific cause at work, any more than finding a heat bubble and identifying it as such requires knowing the source of it.johnnyb_{August 19, 2016
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Professor, please please learn something about the things you talk about. You seam to be as clueless about SETI and you are about ID.Upright BiPed_{August 19, 2016
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@28
Why do you want ID to talk about the designer(s) of the bacterial flagellum? All we have to offer are wild speculations. The designer(s) could be the teleological force as proposed by Prof. Nagel, the All Powerful God of the Bible, aliens, time-traveling future scientists or combinations of them. Clearly, these speculations are not within science. You say that science is limited, it “does not seek all Truth” as you stated, so why don’t you accept this limit?
As far as I know there is no case in science were we recognize design without then immediately (if we have not already) turn to scientifically considering the designer. This is important, because science is very concerned with the HOW, and by considering the designer we can start to answer this question. So if you do not want to consider the designer, that is without precedence in science. If not MN, what is your basis for making this arbitrary stopping point? If not MN, what is the rule you propose? I'm asking this because I'm really curious if you can come up with something that can consistently define science here. Maybe you can. I'd like to know.Prof. S. Joshua Swamidass_{August 19, 2016
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@14 I agree with a lot that you write. Science is very limited. MN makes that clear. Science cannot give us a complete view of the world.Prof. S. Joshua Swamidass_{August 19, 2016
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@27 is the supernatural part of our world? I am a Christian. So of course, I think the answer is "yes" to the extent that I believe that God is supernatural (and He seems to be). It turns out, thought, that science is not concerned with understanding all truths, just some truths. Understanding God is not the purpose of science.Prof. S. Joshua Swamidass_{August 19, 2016
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@28 Does SETI offer a model of the alien mind? Yes, it is continually offering models of alien biology, technology, and minds. This is what enables SETI to make scientifically testable hypotheses. Even they have zero positive detection, in many cases they appear to following a strategy that is recognizable to us as science. For example, there are the recent dyson swarm and dyson galaxy models... http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/alien-supercivilizations-absent-from-100-000-nearby-galaxies/ http://www.seti.org/seti-institute/news/alien-engineering-around-strange-star And of course, there are models of alien biology that are used to define biosignatures in exoplanet atomspheres... http://seagerexoplanets.mit.edu/research.htm The effort does not (as is sometimes portrayed by ID) simply look for deviations from natural laws as evidence of ETI. If that was the case, than the search for new particles in particle accelerators (which are deviations from known physical laws too) would be SETI too. Of course, that is absurd. We are looking for ETI on other planets, here on earth tinkering with high energy particles (because why would an alien care to do that?). In fact, it is impossible to imagine a true SETI detection independent of some explicit or implicit model of what aliens are. Of course, if the evidence was very obvious (e.g. a flying saucer landing at the Whitehouse) it the modeling would not be very important (and therefore implicit). I think this could be a model for ID. Instead of just focusing on the insufficiency of natural mechanisms (which leaves you vulnerable to "design of the gaps"), what if you started proposing specific (hopefully quantitative) models of HOW we are design? The ID as a whole has show little interest in this, this is a possibility that might be understood more in the scientific community. Walter ReMine tries this in the Biotic Message. Even though his theory is ultimately falsified by the data, at least was a specific claim Similar things are happening the YEC camp with barimology. And Hugh Ross's Reasons to Believe group (I hear) is working on a model too. These models are valuable, even if they are falsified, because they offer a positive explanation for why life is the way it is. Of course, I am not an ID advocate, so it is not for me to make these models. I do hope, however, that you give it a shot. I would find that interesting. Maybe you would even be right.Prof. S. Joshua Swamidass_{August 19, 2016
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@24 and @15
‘As I detailed in another O.P., the methodology of science entirely depends on the assumption of the supernatural validity of free will, teleology, laws and universal constants and forces which can have no natural cause but which are assumed universally prescriptive; assumption of fundamental correlation between what can be known and the human capacity to recognize and comprehend it; and the universal, binding nature of the abstract upon reality (logic).’
I agree. Science is very well motivated by theism. This is one reason I am a very comfortable theist in science. I hope you get a chance to read the article I linked to. I think MN has a very strong basis in theism too. As the philosopher, physicist and Christian at Princeton explains... http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/11003/1/metnat3.pdf So ID often appears to science for the purpose of demonstrating design. I do things in the opposite manner. I do science because God designed it. We have the same beliefs, in many ways, I just order them differently than you. To be clear, MN does not force naturalistic conclusions. It's actually opposite. Because of MN, any naturalistic conclusions in science come with a big asterix (*). To take naturalism as science's conclusion is to beg the question with obviously circular logic.Prof. S. Joshua Swamidass_{August 19, 2016
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Prof Swamidass, any rule that handicaps science from seeking the empirically warranted truth; without ideological blinkers . . . needs to go. Methodological naturalism should never have been let in, and needs to go out. KFkairosfocus_{August 19, 2016
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