From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Oct 08 2004 - 19:31:20 BST
Platt,
> It may not be necessary for scientists to have faith in all the
> assumptions I listed, but I dare say most scientists do. Certainly it is
> necessary for scientists to have faith in determinism, rationalism,
> reductionism, empiricism, materialism, mechanism, and experimental
> verification.
Not in their philosophical meaning, except for experimental verification.
Quantum physics, for example, denies philosophical determinism. Rationalism
and empiricism -- yes, a scientist must believe that reason and empirical
investigation do give trustworthy results, but the sense in which Descartes
was a rationalist and :Locke was as empiricist does not apply.
Determinism, reductionism, materialism and mechanism are not necessary. The
scientist investigates patterns of events. It does not matter whether those
patterns are assumed to be at bottom mechanistic or completely material, or
whether they are assumed to have been absolutely determined, or come about
by chance (as long as there are enough events that patterns emerge), or
come about through rational choices (ditto).
> I agree with Pirsig that "might-makes-right" is a biological pattern:
>
> "What's coming out of the urban slums, where old Victorian social moral
> codes are almost completely destroyed, isn't any new paradise the
> revolutionaries hoped for, but a reversion to rule by terror, violence
and
> gang death-the old biological might-makes-right morality of prehistoric
> brigandage that primitive societies were set up to overcome." (Lila, 24)
He is referring to plain "I'm bigger than you so you must do what I say"
mentality, that of the bully, for example. A bully is a terrorist, but when
one speaks of terrorists in the news, one is speaking of a non-primitive
social group using terror tactics to achieve social ends. A suicide bomber
represses the biological survival pattern for a social end.
>
> Your use of the word "oppression" leaves much in limbo. Seems everyone
> these days, in order to engender sympathy as victims, claims to be
> oppressed. For instance, I, as a male WASP, am oppressed by feminists and
> diversity advocates, not to mention the PC crowd. That's hardly an excuse
> for me and my fellow WASPs to set off a bomb in Harvard Square, killing
> innocent civilians as "a means to a social end."
I used the formulation "if I believed that my social group was being
oppressed" and "if I decide to fight it" so as not to get into this sort of
thing. I'm not out to justify terrorism.
- Scott
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