Dear exDemMom, I have no problem with the idea that science "is no more and no less than a description of the physical universe." I do have a problem with the idea that the entire universe reduces to the physical, or the material; that there is nothing more to it than that. Even an atheist should know better. (If he didn't, how could he explain himself?)
If I needed science to affirm my faith, then my faith wouldn't be "faith."
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. — Hebrews 11:1Setting religion aside here, I believe the universe has a metaphysical extension. I do understand that science does not and cannot address this aspect of the universe. And that's okay. We have philosophy — and theology — to do that.
To me, whose background is in philosophy, history, and culture, the two most foundational questions one can ask were originally posed by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, a great German mathematician and philosopher: (1) Why are things the way they are, and not some other way? and (2) Why is there anything at all, why not nothing? Obviously, these are not scientific questions. But this doesn't mean they do not refer to something real; that they are not worth asking. They are, of course, metaphysical questions, the answers to which seem ever elusive.
As a working scientist, such questions are, of course, irrelevant to what you do. But in a certain sense, these open-ended questions refer to the very context in which everything in the universe happens, including the conduct of science.
I don't mind that science must confine itself to the phenomenal. What alarms me is the seeming hostility of some scientists towards all things nonphenomenal. I sense this in the attitude of Nobel Laureate molecular biologist Jacques Monod, for example, who evidently believed that the universe is essentially matter + "pure, blind chance."
Or the seeming hostility of evolutionary biologist and geneticist Richard Lewontin regarding nonphenomenal aspects of reality.
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.And he seems to know the downside of this sort of thing:
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
… When faced with questions that they really don’t know how to answer — like “How does a single cell turn into a mouse?” or “How did the structure and activity of Beethoven’s brain result in Opus 131?” — the only thing that natural scientists know how to do is turn them into other questions that they do know how to answer. That is, scientists do what they already know how to do.Forgive me, but this looks like rigging the game to me.
In effect, this last quote seems to be an admission that life and consciousness cannot be directly addressed by science at all. Which may very well be true. After all, both are "intangibles," non-observables.
And yet we have biologists who insist that consciousness (mind) is "merely" an epiphenomenon of the physical brain. IOW, they are telling a "just-so story": they don't have a clue what consciousness is (or life for that matter), so they simply reduce it to emanations of brain activity. Jeepers, that doesn't strike me as even a good guess.... I doubt it is a testable one.
My concern here is the impact this sort of thing has on the culture in which we live. Science enjoys such prestige nowadays, that most of the public simply, uncritically accepts what scientists say as "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
When I asked if you understood "a single thing I wrote in my last," it was with respect to the issues of nonphenomenal reality I was trying to raise. I apologize for my rudeness to you, ExDemMom. It was both uncalled for (your essay/post at #151 was wonderfully informative) and unhelpful.
You said you didn't know who Owen Barfield was. He was a highly-influential British philosopher whose main work was devoted to the evolution of consciousness, "exploring its development through the history of language" as his Estate's website puts it. His book, Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry —
...is about the world as we see it and the world as it is; it is about God, human nature, and consciousness. The best known of numerous books by the British sage whom C.S. Lewis called the "wisest and best of my unofficial teachers," it draws on sources from mythology, philosophy, history, literature, theology, and science to chronicle the evolution of human thought from Moses and Aristotle to Galileo and Keats. Barfield urges his readers to do away with the assumption that the relationship between people and their environment is static. He dares us to end our exploitation of the natural world and to acknowledge, even revel in, our participation in the diurnal creative process.— as the book description goes.
He is dealing with a much "larger universe" (so to speak) than that accessible by means of the scientific method.
Robert Godwin is a clinical and forensic psychologist and philosopher.
Jeepers, I hope you don't disparage these outstanding thinkers simply because they're "philosophers!"
Thank you so much, ExDemMom, for your excellent essay/posts!
Thank you so much for your wonderful essay-post!
I can understand being impatient with scientists who insist that "the entire universe reduces to the physical, or the material," or that we know what we don't know. As a subscriber to some alternative health practices, I'm well aware that a lot of people refuse to accept anything they don't understand. I remember sitting at a dinner party next to a doctor who was scoffing at the idea that someone's mood could affect their health outcome. A couple of years later, headline in the paper: "Mood affects health outcome, doctors say." (Anecdote slightly edited, of course.)
But while individual scientists, like the ones you quote, might make that kind of argument, "science" doesn't, nor does "evolution." I don't think it's a bad thing to investigate whether consciousness is an epiphenomenon or emergent property of a physical brain. But the whole single-cell creatures to multicell creatures, dinosaurs to birds, proto-humans to humans edifice doesn't depend on that answer.
Robert Godwin is a clinical and forensic psychologist and philosopher. Jeepers, I hope you don't disparage these outstanding thinkers simply because they're "philosophers!"
The only reason I mentioned his background is that he's insisting on a firm dividing line between life and matter and disparaging biochemists who see a fuzzier division. I couldn't help but wonder whether if he were a biochemist himself, he might have a deeper understanding of the question. I'd wonder the same thing about a biochemist disparaging a psychologist's statement about human behavior.
As you know biologists (atheist, physicalists, darwinists) have held to their dogma of strong physicalism and MUST deny epiphenomenalism. Once they go to epiphenominalism they have crossed the breach to the metaphysical. Yet to fail to embrace, at least, epiphenomenalism, is to refuse to acknowledge their own consciousness, logic, reason and rational thought. ( and much, much more). To be on the horns of that delima must be the metaphysical equivalent of an ivory enema (if you have ever ridden bulls, you know the joke).
I don't think I've ever witnessed hostility towards the "nonphenomenal", just indifference. The kind of person who tends to be drawn to science is very focused on and fascinated with the physical world. I remember, as a small child, watching the (then new) show Star Trek and adoring Mr. Spock; I wanted to grow up and be relentlessly logical and analytical just like him. I doubt anyone will have much luck trying to turn a scientist's attention away from the tangible; our brains simply aren't wired to care about metaphysical matters.
I can't say I disagree with Dr. Monod. Chance *does* have a huge effect on the physical world. Everyone sees how meteorologists incorporate the role of chance into their work ("Today will be partially cloudy, with a 60% chance of snow or sleet.") The role of chance in other sciences may not be as visible, but it plays a huge role in everything we do. A radioactive half-life, for example, is the empirically determined time it takes for half of the atoms of a given radioisotope to undergo radioactive decay. Or, to put it another way, any specific atom of that isotope has a 50% chance of undergoing decay during a half-life. Specific decay events are random and unpredictable, yet we can use that random process to precisely measure various quantities. In fact, I have seen no method of quantitation that is as sensitive or precise as radioactive methods. That is just one example; the role of chance is ubiquitous in biology and, indeed, in our everyday lives.
I will take a moment here to point out that, unlike any of the philosophers mentioned in these discussions so far, Jacques Monod, along with his colleague Francois Jacob, has had a lasting influence in the fields of molecular and micro- biology. Their elegant work unveiling the function of the lac operon is discussed in many classes, and parts of the lac operon are used in many experimental projects. I've used it myself.
And he seems to know the downside of this sort of thing:
"… When faced with questions that they really don’t know how to answer — like “How does a single cell turn into a mouse?” or “How did the structure and activity of Beethoven’s brain result in Opus 131?” — the only thing that natural scientists know how to do is turn them into other questions that they do know how to answer. That is, scientists do what they already know how to do."
That isn't quite accurate. We address such questions by breaking them down into questions that we can answer. For example, we know that when a lethal dose of a certain poison is administered, death occurs within a few days or weeks. We don't know how. My entire graduate school career was spent looking for a stepping stone between the very well characterized initial events that occur upon exposure and the later event (death). I did not find that stepping stone, but I found hints of what it might look like. Even if I had found and characterized it, that only would have meant that someone else would be looking for the next stepping stone. The fact that the large questions in science must always be broken down into small questions does not mean that the large questions are unanswerable. It's kind of like taking a road trip. You know where you want to go, but not how to get there. So you study some maps and determine that you must first take road A, then road B, then C, etc., and by driving along a series of roads, you reach your destination. Of course, science doesn't have road maps, and we make a lot of wrong turns along the way--but the stepwise progression towards the goal is similar.