From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Wed Aug 20 2003 - 01:31:28 BST
Matt,
[Matt:]> Okay, so we agree that we are equally dogmatic, you just think your
"dogmata" are better, or as you might say, your dogmata have "higher
rational ground" (though I think your reason is poor; just because I was
formally a Christian doesn't make me think that I'm a better atheist, even
for having studied for long periods of time the worlds religions and many
philosophies of religion).
You're certainly correct that I can't demonstrate a higher rational ground,
so I'd better not try.
What do you make of my claim (no, that's too strong -- call it an experiment
in dogmatics) that my dogmata are "better" because they are not
understandable? (Example of a non-understandable dogma: form is not other
than emptiness, emptiness not other than form.) This notion of mine derives
from pragmatism, and also Nietzsche's saying: "It is not a question of
having the courage of one's convictions, but of having the courage to
*attack* one's convictions." Now I don't think one can actually go that far,
at least not all the time, but having non-understandable dogmata seems to me
like a possible middle ground. It means that one cannot settle down with
them, but can only deal with them in a questioning manner, which leads to
self-deconstruction. They can only be approached with the logic of
contradictory identity, so one is ceaselessly kept off balance, and one's
Imagination (in Coleridge's sense) is exercised.
>
> Scott said:
> My favorite example of this is Dennett's saying that Darwinism, because it
provides an explanation of evolution without invoking purpose gives one
reason to believe in materialism. What he ignores is that it is materialism
that leads him to think that (the appearance of) purpose needs to be
explained in terms of matter. Why not the other way around?
>
> Matt:
> Yeah, Dennett doesn't always say what I think he should say. He's not
really the greatest of pragmatists. He provides great tools (so
non-reductive physicalists think), but he's sometimes an unwilling
participant in Rorty's project. I wouldn't say that Darwinism gives us a
_reason_ to believe in materialism, but I would say that before Darwin it
was much harder to be a thorough-going materialist. Darwin made it
plausible to be a materialist. But you ask, then, the question, "Why not
the other way around?" I think the answer lies in intellectual history:
teleological explanations weren't working out in some of the sectors we were
probing. Since Darwin, I think we have made some good intellectual
progress. We tried one way, now we're trying the other way.
I'm not sure what you mean by "teleological explanations weren't working
out". The problem with teleological explanations was that they weren't
scientific (and they aren't), and they give support to religion.
Materialists couldn't allow that. For non-materialists, they work just fine.
So the materialists had to create this implausible monster called Darwinism.
(I know, that is not how they see it, but as you say, intellectual history
isn't easy. Who knows what evil -- well, maybe just self-deception -- lurks
in the hearts of men -- on both sides of the aisle.)
> Scott said:
> My point above is that it prevents one from considering something that
clearly doesn't appear, but one considers real, a hidden cause of what does
appear.
>
> Matt:
> This, to me, doesn't make sense because I already eschew the
appreance/reality distinction. If you consider it to be real, then it
appears.We may not sense the mind or God, they don't appear to us, but
because people consider them real and talk about them and use them in causal
accounts of what is occuring in the world, then they "appear" in as much
sense of the word as is sufficient
But it doesn't appear. I have no experience of God (N.b., I am just using
"God" as an example). Talking about it with others is no substitute.
[Matt:] The deal for scientists who believe in God is that bringing God
into the causal explanation often doesn't work out as well. We haven't
gotten as much out of our God-explanations as we've wanted as we have out of
our material-explanations.
True, but no one but a creation scientist would argue otherwise. The
question is whether everything has a material explanation. That which
doesn't will not have a scientific explanation, but that's no problem.
[Matt:] At this point, you might say something to the effect of, "that's
because you are already assuming a materialist standpoint." Intellectual
history ain't that easy.
No, what I hear the materialist saying is that if science can't explain it,
then it is not explained (and more radically: it isn't happening)
[Matt:] Dewey suggests that we think of intellectual progress as a
means-end continuum, that its a muddy mess of our means changing and then
our ends and our ends changing and then our means. We can
> give some historical accounts of why we started to try and find
material-explanations as opposed to God ones, but there is a lot of
individual psyche and cultural zeitgeist explanations involved. We can only
retroactively explain why we went one direction rather than another. At the
time great shifts in the intellectual landscape occur, it often isn't clear
whether the shift is a good one or not. The losers certainly didn't think
so, and the winners were simply betting. It doesn't look like betting after
they've won, but that's only because our means and ends have already changed
sufficiently. I don't think you can really predict these things.
Probably not. But one reason I keep recommending Barfield's "Saving the
Appearances: A Study in Idolatry" is that he sheds a lot of light on why the
scientific revolution and the materialism that followed happened when it
did, why it did, and what's wrong with it (the science is not what's wrong,
it is the idolatry -- belief on an independently existing objective
reality).
>
> Matt said:
> The fact that I can explain his experience in different terms, like in
terms of nerves and brain activity, does nothing to his experience of God.
>
> Scott said:
> Except that you can't explain any experience in those terms -- see my post
to Ian.
>
> Matt:
> I read it again, but I still can't really see the problem. But I think I
found a way of answering in Dennett, when I was reading the first part of
his new book Freedom Evolves. I don't have it with me, so I can't really
paraphrase that well, but it has to do with moving from the "design level"
to the "intentional level." I think Dennett's argument would be that
information isn't transfered at the design level, the level where photons
hit electrons. Information is only transfered when you step farther back,
when it becomes more complex, to the intentional level. It is only these
larger units that can be seen to exchange information. The basis for
Dennett's argument comes out of his work with computers. It was really
interesting when I read it and only now that I'm having to spit it back out
do I think I'm getting it.
That sounds like what Dennett has said before. I don't disagree that
information is transferred at the intentional level. My argument points out
that given spatio-temporal separation (and given materialism, the assumption
that an intentional level has to be built on top of a material design level)
there can be no information at the intentional level, because there can be
no awareness of anything larger than the smallest unit at the design level.
Since there clearly is information at the intentional level, then it can't
be built up from the design level, unless one can transcend space and time.
- Scott
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