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Thank you so much for your excellent essay-post and for your encouragements!

OR both. It seems that scientific materialists cling to the idea that the only thing going on in the world is matter in its motions. Yet this seems to be a flying jump to conclusions, IMHO.

Indeed, "or both!" And sadly, I agree that scientific materialists cling to the matter-in-motions prejudice which tortures all of their conclusions.

Notwithstanding, there seem to be things in the world which are not materially-based (e.g., the "informational" -- physical laws themselves and also worldviews, which often furnish an undisclosed premise on which research and analysis are based); and then there are others that are "physical" (e.g., vacuum fields, which are presumably not "material" in any usual sense).

So very true. There is no way a conclusion can be complete if the investigators are tunnel-visioned.

I know the analogy is a tad fanciful; but the parallels are there in my view. In the end, "classical" science wants to look at "the tip of the iceberg" and at not at the vast depths that lie beneath the surface....

The impression I got from Whitehead's assessment of it is that scientific materialism is so reduced that it cannot help but produced results whereupon the investigators pronounce their reduced view is the correct because it is successful. Jeepers. It is much easier to predict the result from the toss of a single coin than it is to predict the result from tossing a pocketful of change.

It is much easier to predict the result from the toss of a single coin than it is to predict the result from tossing a pocketful of change.

Jeepers, A-G -- ain't that the truth!

You cited A. N. Whitehead: "... scientific materialism is so reduced that it cannot help but produce results whereupon the investigators pronounce their reduced view is correct because it is successful." [Itals added]

Which just begs the question: What is success? And I guess the answer to that question depends on who you ask. On the one hand, the pure theorists pursue the "open path" for the sheer love of adventure, of discovery, of the sense of being somehow married to the quest of truth. On the other, science is so brilliant in its achievements, that there are excellent scientists who think we ought to be satisfied with deriving useful, reliable "engineering solutions" to "human problems" -- which at least has the obvious benefit of practicality and utility going for it.

But it seems to me utilitarian solutions to human problems do not and can not reach to the essential problems of the human soul which, in combinatorial fashion, make the person; and the person in turn, "writ in larger letters," makes the family, the community, society, the nation, and in the final analysis the human race.

FWIW, it seems to me that science cannot provide solutions to human problems other than the "material" or physical ones. And even those to a shockingly limited degree as it turns out. (If anyone doubts this, just consider e.g., the high human poverty, morbidity, and mortality rates that persist in large parts of the world to this day. Etc.)

For the stark fact is: Science cannot defeat mortality. It cannot "cure" death. And it cannot make man "good."

All the same, man is more than his body, in the same way that the Universe is more than its material substance. JMHO FWIW.

Thanks ever so much for writing, dear Alamo-Girl!

It is much easier to predict the result from the toss of a single coin than it is to predict the result from tossing a pocketful of change.

What do you mean here? Easier or more accurate? They are both equally easy to predict.

This must mean something other than trying to predict the outcomes of a toss. In that case, it's much more accurate to predict the outcomes of many coins than of one. A short stroll along Las Vegas Blvd should be convincing.