Posted on 11/01/2005 6:27:26 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
A president who consults religious lunatics about who should be on the Supreme Court... Judges who want prayer in school and the "ten commandments" in the courtroom… Born-Again fanatics who bomb abortion clinics… bible thumpers who condemn homosexuality as "sin"... and all the other Christian fascists who want a U.S. theocracy….
This is the force behind the assault on evolution going on right now in a courtroom in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Last year, the Dover city school board instituted a policy that requires high school biology teachers to read a statement to students that says Darwin's theory of evolution is "not a fact" and then notes that intelligent design offers an alternative theory for the origin and evolution of life--namely, that life in all of its complexity could not have arisen without the help of an "intelligent hand." Some teachers refused to read the statement, citing the Pennsylvania teacher code of ethics, which says, "I will never knowingly present false information to a student." Eleven parents who brought this case to court contend that the directive amounted to an attempt to inject religion into the curriculum in violation of the First Amendment. Their case has been joined by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
The school board is being defended pro bono by the Thomas More Law Center, a Christian law firm in Ann Arbor, Mich. The case is being heard without a jury in Harrisburg by U.S. District Judge John Jones III, whom George W. Bush appointed to the bench in 2002.
In 1987, the Supreme Court ruled that public schools could not teach the biblical account of creation instead of evolution, because doing so would violate the constitutional ban on establishment of an official religion. Since then Intelligent Design has been promoted by Christian fundamentalists as the way to get the Bible and creationism into the schools.
"This clever tactical repackaging of creationism does not merit consideration," Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union and a lawyer for the parents, told U.S. District Judge John E. Jones in opening arguments. "Intelligent design admits that it is not science unless science is redefined to include the supernatural." This is, he added, "a 21st-century version of creationism."
This is the first time a federal court has been asked to rule on the question of whether Intelligent Design is religion or science. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, which opposes challenges to the standard model of teaching evolution in the schools, said the Pennsylvania case "is probably the most important legal situation of creation and evolution in the last 18 years," and that "it will have quite a significant impact on what happens in American public school education."
Proponents of Intelligent Design don’t say in the courtroom that they want to replace science with religion. But their strategy papers, speeches, and discussions with each other make it clear this is their agenda.
Intelligent Design (ID) is basically a re-packaged version of creationism--the view that the world can be explained, not by science, but by a strict, literal reading of the Bible. ID doesn’t bring up ridiculous biblical claims like the earth is only a few thousand years old or that the world was created in seven days. Instead it claims to be scientific--it acknowledges the complexity and diversity of life, but then says this all comes from some "intelligent" force. ID advocates don’t always openly argue this "intelligent force" is GOD--they even say it could be some alien from outer space! But Christian fundamentalists are the driving force behind the whole Intelligent Design movement and it’s clear… these people aren’t praying every night to little green men from another planet.
Phillip Johnson, considered the father and guiding light behind Intelligent Design, is the architect of the "wedge strategy" which focuses on attacking evolution and promoting intelligent design to ultimately, as Johnson says, "affirm the reality of God." Johnson has made it clear that the whole point of "shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God" is to get people "introduced to the truth of the Bible," then "the question of sin" and finally "introduced to Jesus."
Intelligent Design and its theocratic program has been openly endorsed by George W. Bush. Earlier this year W stated that Intelligent Design should be taught in the schools. When he was governor of Texas, Bush said students should be exposed to both creationism and evolution. And he has made the incredibly unscientific, untrue statement that "the jury is still out" on evolution.
For the Christian fascists, the fight around evolution and teaching Intelligent Design is part of a whole agenda that encompasses reconfiguring all kinds of cultural, social, and political "norms" in society. This is a movement that is fueled by a religious vision which varies among its members but is predicated on the shared conviction that the United States is in need of drastic changes--which can only be accomplished by instituting religion as its cultural foundation.
The Christian fascists really do want--and are working for--a society where everything is run according to the Bible. They have been working for decades to infiltrate school boards to be in a position to mandate things like school prayer. Now, in the schools, they might not be able to impose a literal reading of the Bible’s explanation for how the universe was created. But Intelligent Design, thinly disguised as some kind of "science," is getting a lot more than just a foot in the door.
The strategy for promoting intelligent design includes an aggressive and systematic agenda of promoting the whole religious worldview that is the basis for ID. And this assault on evolution is linked up with other questions in how society should be run.
Marc Looy of the creationist group Answers in Genesis has said that evolution being taught in the schools,
"creates a sense of purposelessness and hopelessness, which I think leads to things like pain, murder, and suicide."
Ken Cumming, dean of the Institute for Creation Research's (ICR) graduate school, who believes the earth is only thousands of years old, attacked a PBS special seven-part series on evolution, suggesting that the series had "much in common" with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States. He said,
"[W]hile the public now understands from President Bush that 'we're at war' with religious fanatics around the world, they don't have a clue that America is being attacked from within through its public schools by a militant religious movement called Darwinists...."
After the 1999 school shooting in Littleton, Colorado, Tom DeLay, Christian fascist representative from Texas, gave a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, blaming the incident in part on the teaching of evolution. He said,
"Our school systems teach the children that they are nothing but glorified apes who are evolutionized out of some primordial soup of mud."
The ID movement attacks the very notion of science itself and the philosophical concept of materialism--the very idea that there is a material world that human beings can examine, learn about, and change.
Johnson says in his "The Wedge Strategy" paper,
"The social consequences of materialism have been devastating…we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist world view, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."
Dr. Eugenie C. Scott, the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, points out:
"Evolution is a concept that applies to all sciences, from astronomy to chemistry to geology to biology to anthropology. Attacking evolution means attacking much of what we know of the natural world, that we have amassed through the application of scientific principles and methods. Second, creationist attacks on evolution are attacks on science itself, because the creationist approach does violence to how we conduct science: science as a way of knowing."
The Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (another Christian think tank) says that it "seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies."
Teaching Intelligent Design in the schools is part of a whole Christian Fascist movement in the United States that has power and prominence in the government, from the Bush regime on down. And if anyone isn’t clear about what "cultural legacies" the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture wants to overthrow--take a look at the larger Christian fascist agenda that the intelligent design movement is part of: asserting patriarchy in the home, condemning homosexuality, taking away the right to abortion, banning sex education, enforcing the death penalty with the biblical vengeance of an "eye for an eye," and launching a war because "God told me [Bush] to invade Iraq."
The major problem with It-reality from the analytical perspective of methodological naturalism is that it can never be an intended object of consciousness, the reason being that it is timeless, while scientific experiments are necessarily, ineluctably time-bounded. Because the future is unknown, no aspect of It-reality can be “isolated” as an object of experiment, or even of valid hypothesis (it seems to me).
There may be a expression of this in Tegmark's Level IV parallel universe which suggests that existents in four dimensional space/time are actually mathematical structures existing beyond space/time. The thing-reality lends itself to observation. The it-reality can only be inferred because we the observers are "in" space/time.
ping 503
Yes, indeed. President Jefferson chose to attend church services each Sunday held in the U.S. Capitol building, and even provided the service with paid government musicians to assist in its worship. Jefferson also began similar Christian services in his own Executive Branch, both at the Treasury Building and at the War Office.
Jefferson also praised the use of a local courthouse as a meeting place for Christian services; assured a Christian religious school that it would receive “the patronage of the government”; acted as superintendent of schools in Washington, D.C. and advised the use of the Bible as the main textbook in schools; proposed that the Great Seal of the United States depict a story from the Bible and include the word “God” in its motto; and while President, closed his presidential documents with the phrase, “In the year of our Lord Christ, by the President, Thomas Jefferson.”
Furthermore, Jefferson would especially disagree with those who believe that public prayers should be non-sectarian and omit specific references to Jesus. He believed that every individual should pray according to his own beliefs. As he explained:
"No nation has ever existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I, as Chief Magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example."
Well said, Amos! Thank you so much for your excellent post/essay!
Or, (to put on the brakes a bit) Aristotle was correct, there is an intelligible form.
Between Plato and Aristotle there is a difference of separation/abstraction.
In his Metaphysics, Aristotle takes issue with Plato and refuses to follow his inference of an IT-reality beyond space and time when things in actual existence are under consideration. He suggests that the intelligible exists immanent in matter.
A-G mentions Tegmark and mathematical structures existing beyond space/time. According to BB, this is NOT "the model of the natural sciences, generally speaking."
BB continues: “Thing-reality” refers to the picture, drawing, photograph, or any other kind of “image” or description of “pipe.” “It-reality” refers to the actual pipe in its actual context.
Now either the actual context is separable(transcendent) or not(immanent).
I'm working this through a bit and would write more but duties call.
Thanks BB for bringing Voegelin's perspective.
Indeed, Amos. But the "prisoners" chained inside Plato's cave, looking at the fleeting images projected before them on the cave wall and taking them for what is real, are not in a position to know this.
As the myth goes, one of the prisoners is able to escape his chains, and so goes up to the mouth of the cave, where he is able to see the Light -- and realizes that the images on the cave wall are merely projections, not what is actually real. And so he goes back down into the cave, to share this insight with his fellow prisoners. They are greatly dissturbed and distraught by this news, and seek to kill him by way of thanks....
You know that Plato thought of the Cosmos as a single living being:
God, purposing to make the universe most nearly like the every way perfect and fairest of intelligible beings, created one visible living being, containing within itself all living beings of the same natural order.IMHO, Plato still has a very great deal to say to us, these days.
Thanks so much, Amos, for your excellent essay/post!
Now either the actual context is separable(transcendent) or not(immanent).
If I am following correctly - not at all a given - "Its" can be known (apprehended?) only as they are in relation to the observer and all other "Its" in their field of influence. The pipe as an "It-reality" can not be said to exist. The" thing-reality" certainly does exist in the way in which the It is used (apprehended) by other elements in its environment.
Help, I think I am drowning. I have just agreed that the blind man describing the elephant is correct, an elephant is a piece of rope, or hose, or tree trunk, or whatever its relationship says it is.
So the "thing-reality" is whatever I determine it to be. Whereas the "It-reality" can only exist in a state of continuous flux, n'est-ce pas?
I sense that I am trapping myself in a solypsism in which there is no such "Thing-reality" as Not-A. If I am unaware of A it is because A and I have no relationship.
In a full blown web of existence this can not be since, according to BB's reading of Plato, all components of the universe exist as parts of an interdependent(?) whole. So, the fact that my intellect does not apperceive an entity and gives it the designation Not-A, it can not be Not-A since all A must be in relationship with other As, my aperception notwithstanding.
If I have muddied the waters please feign a doting smile on the kid with the mudpies and move on.
That phrase “when things in actual existence are under consideration” seems to be the "red flag" here. It seems quite clear that Aristotle wanted to shift his attention away from the transcendent to immanent form: He wanted to study “creature,” which he proposed possesses “intelligible form” immanently, we might say as an epiphenomenon of matter. His “shift of attention” from transcendence to immanence is what has supposedly marked him as the “father” of the natural sciences. And yet, as Voegelin points out,
“Nevertheless, we must be aware that Aristotle’s criticism of the Idea is not a criticism of Plato’s thought itself. Plato had not ‘duplicated’ immanent form; he had discovered transcendental form as a separate substance when his experiential attention had been turned in a direction opposite to the Aristotelian. Aristotle’s exploration of the field of immanent form is in itself not an argument against transcendental form. Hence the question arises: What has become of the problems that had been seen by Plato when the eye of his soul [luminous consciousness] was turned toward the Agathon [the vision of divine goodness, beauty, truth, and justice]? Has Aristotle abandoned them?”I think the answer must be: No, and for a number of reasons, which we’ll get to in a moment. But before we do, we must take note of Voegelin’s assertion that, “Curious as it may sound at first hearing, Plato is the better empiricist; Aristotle, who wants to find form in reality at all cost, can find it only at the price of losing such parts of reality as do not fit the pattern of his evolving form.” [emphasis added; the above quotes are from Voegelin’s Plato and Aristotle: Volume III, Order and History, 1957]
Assuredly, Aristotle did not even try, let alone manage to repudiate or expunge the transcendental. For had he done so, he would have fatally undercut his theory of causes, most notably his conceptions of First and Final Cause.
The First Cause is sui generis, a cause which itself is uncaused. Aristotle says that there must be a first cause, a “prime mover,” otherwise the causal chain pertaining to existents in the natural world would be infinitely regressive; i.e., there would be no first term of the causal chain with the practical effect being that nothing definite could ever come into existence; or if it did, there would be no reasonable way to know anything about it. As Aristotle wrote, Metaphysics Book XII, Part 7:
The first mover, then, exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists by necessity, its mode of being is good, and it is in this sense a first principle. For the necessary has all these senses — that which is necessary perforce because it is contrary to the natural impulse, that without which the good is impossible, and that which cannot be otherwise but can exist only in a single way.Aristotle understood the cosmos and all things in it to be eminently reasonable. I further gather that he thought reason, ratio, ever implies measurement and movement towards an end or “limit,” or peras. We are now firmly planted in teleology here.
Which is where Aristotle’s Final Cause comes into the picture:
“The final cause is an end which is not for the sake of anything else, but for the sake of which everything is. So if there is to be a last term of this kind, the process will not be infinite; and if there is no such term there will be no final cause. Those who maintain an infinite series do not realize that they are destroying the very nature of the Good, although no one would try to do anything if he were not likely to reach some limit (peras); nor would there be reason in the world (nous), for the reasonable man always acts for the sake of an end — which is a limit.”Now it’s evident that neither Aristotle’s first nor final cause is in any sense “immanent” in the world. He says so himself, speaking of “first principles.” First principles are universals; therefore they belong, not to immanent, but to transcendent reality.
So Aristotle’s supposed “breach” with Plato seems more apparent than real. For although Aristotle was framing methods of intentionalist consciousness, that didn’t mean that he himself did not have experiences of or interest in luminous consciousness. His Nicomachean Ethics is replete with examples.
Plus check out these sublime lines from his De Partibus Animalium:
“Of things constituted by nature some are ungenerated, imperishable, and eternal, while others are subject to generation and decay. The former are excellent beyond compare and divine, but less accessible to knowledge. The evidence that might throw light on them, and on the problems which we long to solve respecting them, is furnished but scantily by sensation; whereas respecting perishable plants and animals we have abundant information, living as we do in their midst, and ample data may be collected concerning all their various kinds, if only we are willing to take sufficient pains. Both departments, however, have their special charm. The scanty conceptions to which we can attain of celestial things give us, from their excellence, more pleasure than all our knowledge of the world in which we live; just as a half glimpse of persons that we love is more delightful than a leisurely view of other things, whatever their number and dimensions. On the other hand, in certitude and in completeness our knowledge of terrestrial things has the advantage. Moreover, their greater nearness and affinity to us balances somewhat the loftier interest of the heavenly things that are the objects of the higher philosophy. “Having already treated of the celestial world … we proceed to treat of animals, without omitting, to the best of our ability, any member of the kingdom, however ignoble. For if some have no graces to charm the sense, yet even these, by disclosing to intellectual perception the artistic spirit that designed them, give immense pleasure to all who can trace links of causation, and are inclined to philosophy. Indeed, it would be strange if mimic representations of them were [not?] attractive, because they disclose the mimetic skill of the painter or sculptor, and the original realities themselves were not more interesting, to all at any rate who have eyes to discern the reasons that determined their formation.As a “nature lover,” I have to tell you, dear cornelis: These lines make me weep with joy.“We therefore must not recoil with childish aversion from the examination of the humbler animals. Every realm of nature is marvellous: and as Heraclitus, when the strangers who came to visit him found him warming himself at the furnace in the kitchen and hesitated to go in, reported to have bidden them not to be afraid to enter, as even in that kitchen divinities were present, so we should venture on the study of every kind of animal without distaste; for each and all will reveal to us something natural and something beautiful. Absence of haphazard and conduciveness of everything to an end are to be found in Nature's works in the highest degree, and the resultant end of her generations and combinations is a form of the beautiful.” [Emphasis added; plus I carved the citation into three shorter paragraphs. Please forgive me, A!]
Hope anything in the foregoing might help clear up any problems people are having, struggling with these issues of “It-Reality“ and “Thing-Reality” (which definitely includes me). Obviously, we are not dealing with Boolean logic here; this is not a “true-false,” “if-then”, “yes-no” “choice” to be made. It seems to me reality is not binary, nor is it linear. It is not a question of which, it is a question of both.
Which I guess is to say we humans live inside a paradox. And we have to deal with it as best we can. I am profoundly grateful to the great masters of human reason — Plato and Aristotle and others as well from many disciplines — for shedding abundant light on these perennial human questions … and to Eric Voegelin, for keeping Plato and Aristotle on the “front burner” of relevance in and to our own times.
Thank you so very much, cornelis, for your penetrating essay/post!
It isn't dated because it is a history of the founding of the Santa Fe institute. Even if the science is superseded the history is still there.
First, Amos. He suspected muddy waters and so did I. Let's blame it on the complexity and get over that much.
And then for clarity's sake, A and not-A remains a mere logical distinction and is not meant for any special kind of difference. It doesn't need to always suggest the difference between known and unknown. The same counts for that misbehavin' word transcendence, because absolute transcendence is known only negatively, whereas platonic ideas are both transcendent and knowable.
This has an immediate application because all such distinctions have their own unique properties. A discussion about the distinction between life and non-life yields different language and problems than a discussion between a pipe in the mouth and a pipe on the canvas (leave well enough alone the Platonic pipe-in-itself).
So the coidentification of any one of these is bound to cause trouble-or so it did for me at least-when that happened. And I asked whether indeed the “Thing-reality” refers to the picture, drawing, photograph, or any other kind of “image” or description of “pipe.” and “It-reality” refers to the actual pipe in its actual context.
If it helps, we might ask whether Plato considers his ideas to be an It-reality or Thing-reality.
I regret that I am coming so late to the table, but we were gone all day today with family and when we got back our small town evidently lost a substation transformer and we were blacked out until just a little while ago. Jeepers!
At any rate, It's too late and I'm too tired to absorb all of these excellent posts - but I look forward to making some comments tomorrow!
Interesting suggestion, cornelis. I wonder how he would reply?
FWIW, I think he might describe platonic ideas as articulations of his experiences of divine-human participation in the Metaxy, Plato's model of psyche (cosmic and human, it seems to me). It appears God, for Plato, is not the It-reality; rather God is "Beyond" the It-reality as an artist is "beyond" his creation. The ideas themselves are neither instances of It-reality nor of Thing-reality, but are meant to be understood as articulations of the dynamic tension between the two, as experienced in the nous/psyche of Plato, and articulated as language.
I think Plato considered the order of the Cosmos has a divine origin from outside the Cosmos, in the Beyond. That order is the It-reality, which provides the context for Thing-reality, of things coming into existence and then passing away. Plato's knowledge of this order is the fruit of the philosopher's meditation in the Metaxy -- in which divine Nous and the philospher's nous meet. [Aristotle plays this theme, too, with his bios theoretikos and metaleptic reality.)
Plato regarded man as the microcosmos -- meaning that human beings recapitulate in themselves and participate in all the hierarchical levels of the order of the Cosmos (which is a word that actually means "order"). And that order is intelligible and thus knowable. But as It-reality, it cannot be isolated by intentionalist consciousness; thus it is ever immune from direct observation and test. Plato, however, would insist that it is absolutely real. He had to invent a new language to explicate it -- the philosopher's myth.
Anyhoot, luminous consciousness works "in" the Metaxy. It is the site and sensorium of divine-human participation, the intersection of time and timelessness, the source of true knowledge about the structure of reality.... This was Plato's abiding interest.
Although the platonic ideas are, as you note, "both transcendent and knowable," I doubt Plato regarded them has reflecting that species of transcendence that is "absolute transcendence." Being "Beyond" the Cosmos, we really cannot know much if anything about absolute transcendence directly. How can one say he knows anything by virtue of intentionalist consciousness about that which is infinite, eternal, unbounded? Still people have been known to reflect on the problem and make conjectures -- but this occurs by means of the luminous mode, not the intentionalist mode, of consciousness.
Even the Metaxy -- the greatest philosopher's myth, IMO -- has bounds; its summit is divine Nous, the Epikeina; its root is the Apeiron, the Depth or ground of the Cosmos. And man lives "In-Between" these two poles.... Man is a participant in this nonphenomenal realm which is akin to a psychic field. The order of the soul or psyche proceeds from one's participation in the Metaxy; from there, that order translates out into external social, historical, and natural contexts....
cornelis, you wrote, "I asked whether indeed the “Thing-reality” refers to the picture, drawing, photograph, or any other kind of 'image' or description of 'pipe.' and “It-reality” refers to the actual pipe in its actual context." Actually, it seems the two pipes are both species of Thing-reality, one concrete, the other abstract. Both the "pipe in my mouth" and the picture of the pipe are unified as "pipe" by Plato's form or idea of "pipe." But the two pipes are distinguishable by our experiences with them, and thus are not "the same."
I was driving at a particular bete noir of mine these days, the increasing abstraction of views of reality, which I chalk up to the increasing dependence we "moderns" seem to have on intentialist consciousness and methods. To me, such methods necessarily entail a reduction of reality to what fits our intent. We increasingly lose the sense of the wholeness and dynamic interrelatedness of all things in the natural world when we do this.
I don't know if this helps with the "muddiness" issue at all, or if I've just managed to make it worse! Tough subject to write about. Thank you so much for writing, cornelis.
The background on Plato and Aristotle is particularly helpful when we consider the identity question “A” and “non-A” vis-à-vis methodological naturalism in physics versus biology.
At least in mathematics, the Aristotlean paradigm is reduced to meaning that universals do not “exist”, that the mathematician invents the math and geometry to describe what he sees. Conversely, the Platonist mathematician avers that universals do exist, the math and geometry exists, the mathematician comes along and discovers it.
Perhaps it is because math and physics are like mirror images of each other (the unreasonable effectiveness of math) – but for whatever reasons, many physicists are also Platonist. In the Tegmark Level IV universe example, Aristotle’s immanent, observable, measurable, four dimensional “thing reality” is the shadow of what actually exists “beyond” space/time - the "it reality". This is a radical Platonist view. Aristotlean observers see two particles in fixed orbits which are actually to the Platonist a double helix of two lines with a fixed beginning and a fixed end. The observer himself is a mathematical structure.
Moreover, the observer’s act of observing is part of the “thing reality”.
It also “goes to” the subject of matter itself. The Aristotlean observer goes about making a host of observations about selections – whether images or objects - from “thing reality” which he roughly sees as “matter in all its motions”. Meanwhile, the physicists are unable to create or observe even ordinary matter (Higgs field/boson) which constitutes some 5% of the “thing reality” – in their lingo, the critical density of the universe. Even if they should find it and thus uphold the standard model, the 25% which represents dark matter – the dense gravity centers indicated by galaxy rotations – remains unexplained. Likewise the whopping 70% dark energy – which is dispersed throughout space and by inference from observations, explains the acceleration of the universe’s expansion. Thus the physicists are already in pursuit of supersymmetry and geometric explanations.
The latest thinking on the subject is that the particles we see in four dimensions may actually be massless, their “apparent masses corresponding to extra-dimensional momentum components we can’t as yet detect.” Other physicists see this extra-dimension as being time-like and thus, all 1080 particles in four dimensions may actually be multiply imaged from a single particle in the 5th dimension.
It seems to me that some disciplines of science (especially biology) have made a mess of Aristotle by presuming that universals and “non-A” do not exist, therefore the object cannot exceed the ability to observe it (scientific materialism) and therefore the method and the thing are effectively the same. I can’t quite imagine Aristotle taking it to the extreme of declaring that a tree falling in the forest makes no sound if noone hears it.
And yet that is precisely what they declare and hence the problem (IMHO). Color, for instance, is not observed at the quantum level – yet it is observed at classical levels. Moreover, there is a wavelength interval and frequency interval for particular colors, such as red – which are met whether or not an observer is around (or has eyes) to notice it. Likewise, the sound waves of the universe at some 400,000 years after the Big Bang can be observed in the cosmic microwave background radiation – even though they were made at the time “light” came into existence, long before observers existed in the “thing reality”.
To the Platonist, color (like sound) is a universal which transcends all of the “thing reality” and requires no observer to exist. It exists on its own in the “it reality”.
Color, sound, etc. are seen as “emergent properties” in physics – much like physicists and mathematicians see “intelligence” as an emergent property in autonomous biological self-organizing complexity. Thus they deal with the existence of universals as a matter of routine – whether they claim to be Platonist or Aristotlean in their philosophy. Every time they record a variable in a formula, they are recognizing the existence of a transcending universal which is detectable as immanent in observable space/time.
Therefore, IMHO, the physicists and mathematicians recognize "non A" as well - the existence of "other" universals or existents - which may or may not yet be detected directly or by inference in immanent "thing reality".
Their version of "methodological naturalism" therefore observes in retrospect that they have arrived at naturalistic answers because that is the method they used in the investigation. And conversely, the "methodological naturalism" of the biologist is actually "scientific materialism" because they presupposed their method to be equivalent to "A" and therefore, reality. The tree makes no sound when it falls, if they can't hear it – the CMB sound waves don’t exist – color doesn’t exist, etc.
Concerning Plato's view of man as the microcosmos, I wonder whether - if he were alive today - he would have used the Mandelbrot set to illustrate the point?
A number of Platonist physicists/mathematicians (Penrose comes to mind) point to the Mandelbrot set as an example of the mathematician coming along and discovering the math rather than inventing it (Platonism in math).
The Mandelbrot set is a fractal geometry based on complex numbers - self-similar at every scale. Lurkers might want to visualize the point by using the following webpage:
Been following this conversation (for awhile).. as much of it as I can understand.. I take.. The artist reference spoke to me.. in this way.. If the Universal Canvas was and is being painted by God, what are the paints? (rhetorical).. Are humans the paint that he, even IT, uses.. IT speaks to me as no gender.. Why would God have gender.?.. Gender seems to me to be "the paint" humans use to create..(i.e. man and wife one flesh) on our canvases..
If this Universe is a painting and our progeny is/are our paintings.. and "WE" are the portraits on the landscape of God(this universe).. I might be over my head here.. but that is what "I" am getting from this dialog.. That we here (in this thread) are just appreciating the Universal Canvas through dialog.... For what lasts beyond us, from a human life, but our progeny.. our words are lost, our inventions too, even sometimes our progeny is lost.. and their progeny too..
This Universe is a three dimensional painting by God, to me.. I personally paint 2 dimensional paintings(landscapes mostly), and 3 dimensional ones too in my children.. True, I get a bit wordy at times.. but in my spirit for this time for this event this Sunday, is a question.. hope its is germane to this conversation..
Is what we're taking about here the Universal Canvas of God.?... and we're savoring it, the beauty of it, even the minutia of it, and we're doing it together.?. Sorry the Universal Canvas of God.. is resonating in me and I just had to interrupt.. forgive me.. there I said it.. I'm done.. and will resume proper lurking protocols in a conversation so deep, maybe too deep, and far reaching for me.. LoL..
To see God as a painter.. creating things I can understand but not limited to things to wonderful for me to understand is a useful metaphor to me.. and very probably quite real in the sense of reality.. Being satisfied with things I can understand.. Does not make me feel limited at all.. honored actually that I can understand anything at all.. if I do..
This is the problem with "intentionalist" reductions of reality, Amos, IMHO FWIW. The reduction becomes doctrinalized, and then the doctrine becomes the standard by which to measure reality, not that from which and of which it is an abstraction -- -that is, reality itself.
You wrote: "Lots of creative, interesting people are trying to push the boundaries of our experience of nature only to be assaulted and accused by the self-righteous keepers-of-the-keys-of-the-way-nature-should-remain."
So true, Amos -- thank you for sharing your "real-life experience" of this.
Still it seems to me "doctrinalizing" truth and maintaining it gets harder and harder to do against the background of new discoveries. For instance, I was reading a great article by John Derbyshire, a self-described "simple Darwinist rightist," in National Review (7Nov05) the other day. He was writing about two "bombshell papers" published in the Sept. 9, 2005 issue of Science: "Microcephalin, a Gene Regulating Brain Size, Continues to Evolve Adaptively in Humans," and "Ongoing Adaptive Evolution of ASPM, a Brain Size Determinant in Homo sapiens."
Derbyshire points out that Microcephalin and ASPM (which stands for "Abnormal SPindle-like Microencephaly-associated") are genes that have something to do with microencephaly, "a congenital infant condition in which the brain fails to develop properly. More precisely, it is defects of these genes that lead to the condition.... The point of these two genes...in their healthy functioning, is to regulate brain size, or brain organization, in ways not yet completely understood."
Derbyshire quotes from the two articles:
We show that one genetic variant of Microcephalin in modern humans, which arose 37,000 years ago, increased in frequency too rapidly to be compatible with neutral drift. This indicates that it has spread under strong positive selection, although the exact nature of the selection is unknown."Regarding ASPM, Derbyshire quotes the second article:
"[it] arose merely about 5800 years ago and has since swept to high frequency under strong positive selection. These findings, especially the remarkably young age of the positively selected variant, suggest that the human brain is still undergoing rapid adaptive selection."What is interesting about this is that "doctrinal thinking" holds that "there are absolutely no significant genetic differences whatever between human groups defined by common ancestry." But what these two studies show is that ASPM is almost unknown among Native Americans, and both variants "seem to be scarce in sub-Saharan Africa."
If these findings stand up, then I think we are going to have to "rethink the doctrine," for reality has intruded upon it, sugguesting that there are indeed significant genetic differences between human groups defined by common ancestry....
Derbyshire concludes:
"Some of the truths now beginning to emerge from the human sciences will strike us as very unpleasant indeed. Some of them will force us to hard thinking about our nation, our ideals, and our traditional boundless optimism towards the potentialities of human beings. We have it on good authority, though, that we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free. I believe that if we hold fast to faith in that proposition, and trust science to uncover the truth, neither we nor our country will come to any harm."I.e., we must always be prepared for a "reality check." Doctrine does not seem to serve us well in this regard.
Thank you so much for your excellent post, Amos!
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