Two Plus Two Newer Archives - View Single Post - Another Subjective Experience thread (for PTB)

Subfallen · #1 03-28-2007, 10:24 AM

(TL;DR---but I've written too much not to click submit.)

I have two reasons for starting a fresh thread on this topic; both of them are self-indulgent.

First, to me PTB seems one of those rare souls who is genuinely thoughtful. Thus I wish to read more of his thoughts. They are welcome relief from the general milieu of SMP captured by Darrow's, "Most men never have but one or two ideas, anyhow, and to these they hang like grim death."

Second, I wish to highlight my argument. (Such is the arrogance of youth!) The plan of attack is simple:

0. A clarification: science's starting domain is reality, no more, no less.
1. All experience is subjective experience.
2. It's how we interpret experience that counts.
3. Every meaningful interpretation limits possible reality.
4. It's how we limit possible reality that counts.
5. Science's limiting choices are the obvious and best choices.

0. Many seem to think that science is limited to what can be empirically verified. This is a severe confusion, one that has never held sway in the field, and has only briefly muddled the minds of philosophers and their ilk. Science makes no such a priori limitation of its scope. Rather, it entertains ANY model of reality that makes testable predictions. This includes models that cannot be "checked out" to make certain the physical world really IS as the model advertises. Thus, there is nothing about gods or immortal spirits that a priori makes them non-scientific.

1. Moving to experience, it is important to note that science does not rely on a different "kind" of experience than any other endeavor. Every hypothesis ever made has been sparked by experiences felt by human senses, filtered through human biases, and, reacted to by human emotions. That is, experienced subjectively. So at this stage, there is also no distinction between the scientific and the nonscientific. "Religious" experiences may be dominantly emotional and "scientific" experiences may be dominantly rational; but the basic perceptual apparatus is the same for both. So let's look a level higher.

2. Language itself is our basic interpretive framework for reality and possible reality. When a new human inherits language, she inherits an entire modeling kit that not only has built-in patterns for the simple experiences of pain and pleasure, but can also build dizzying artifices swaying far above the mundanity of physical perception.
aaSo awesome is the modeling power of language, we rarely stop to ask whether it quite covers reality. Of course, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent." But nonetheless, it's important to realize that accepting language as our basic interpretative framework is ITSELF a implicit limitation of reality. Every discussion opens with a silent promise to stay only in the realm of words.

3. And even after we've cruelly limited reality to the word-world, we intuitively demand even further limits. We impose logical consistency: surely no tactful world would allow , anyhow! A possible reality must make sense. (As Kierkegaard put it, "Here at once is the principle of limitation, the sole saving principle in the world.")
aaBut thus it is clear that even our most basic framework for interpreting reality is not objective. Rather it is arbitrary---quite arbitrarily human. We can't describe it in words? "Not reality!" Doesn't make sense to us? "Not reality!" Of course, there is no way to debate these limitations; that would mean speaking the unspeakable and comprehending nonsense. But no reasonable person would object to our limitations, for the same reason.
aaSo arises the question, "If these limitations are necessary for THINKING of POSSIBLE reality, what new limitations are necessary for KNOWING of TRUE reality?"

4. Mankind's first, natural answer has always been, "No new limitations. Truth need only be reachable by the fingertips of my stretched imagination standing tip-toe on language's fantastic tower." Thus our pantheistic forefathers knew only an unpredictable world torn by the whims of nature's gods and goddesses. It made sense, and it came naturally to mind. So they assumed it was true.
aaThe first scientists were those thoughtful souls who saw natural patterns that did not appear to be the work of vengeful child-gods. They plotted charts of the stars, tracked seasons, invented mathematics to aid their record-keeping, etc. But always the great novelty of their pursuit was systematic: they fought their battles to EXPLAIN, not INVENT. The tangible world had the final say on what was true and what was false.
aaThus scientists do not merely require the FORM of a truth claim to make sense---the CONTENT must "make sense" as well! It's another limitation. You can say nothing about real truth until you predict an empirical impact on consciousness. That impact might be perceptible only with an electron microscope, and it might be the result of a shockingly arcane mechanism, but it must be predicted!
aaSo what of this additional limitation? Should we make it THE ultimate constraint on what can be really true? I argue yes.

5. Of course it's here that the religious believer must object, "Wait! You have nullified God and my Immortal Soul! Your sort of thinking is very well for curing diseases and sending men to the moon, but is much too LIMITED for the deep truths of religion and the supernatural!" I must ask my dissenter to do more than special plead, and explain how religious beliefs necessarily supersede science.
aa Say the dissenter is a Christian. Certainly the Christian possesses a great body of doctrine both elaborate and emotive. Nonetheless, the sum of it all lacks a tenth the imagination, subtlety, and insight born in the Greeks' representation of irrationals in 500BC. So of course religious belief's supersession of science cannot be because of some intractable complexity in its structure.
aaThen perhaps the concepts of religion are beyond science's domain? But that is impossible, because any non-scientific truth claim can be "converted" into a scientific truth claim by adding an arbitrary empirical consequence. There is no meaningful concept "beyond" the realm of science. So then religious supersession of science is not supported by any logical progression, but rather is a methodological difference: a denial of science's final interpretative limitation.
aaBut why should we deny this limitation? Obviously we cannot deny it on the basis of any predicted empirical observations corroborating religion, or religious beliefs would be scientific. So there is no reason to admit non-scientific claims as possibly true except that it comes naturally to many people to believe such "truths." Scarcely a reason at all.
aaAdditionally, there are very good reasons NOT to admit non-scientific truths about reality. Allowing such beliefs to possibly be true encourages their believers. And historically, widespread religious belief does little but prescribe tribal values and intolerance, mind-closing faith, and abject worship of authority. None of which promote the general happiness or well-being of mankind.