John Horgan defends not knowing

[AshvinP]

And again equating science and materialism.

I 'm still waiting for the idealistic science to explain consciousness.

If science is not first considering the premise of materialism, no-one would be trying to figure out how consciousness emerges from material processes. Since it is considering the premise of materialism, why not consider the premise of idealism?

Nobody even cares about the question of how consciousness emerges from matter except philosophers. It isn't a scientific question. It is akin to the "why is there something rather than nothing" question" that befuddles children and others confused by the difference between language and reality. We only know there is something because of consciousness. We could say consciousness is how matter knows it exists.

I know BK and others want to hit on this meme of materialistic science but, in fact, it would make no difference if science started with a idealistic premise. Science would be identical in either case. Just because you start from an idealistic premise doesn't suddenly make the supernatural possible or scientific.

This bolded assertion is proven false by a simple look at modern history. Goethe started from idealist assumptions, or more accurately he avoided the dualist-materialist assumptions of his contemporaries, and investigated phenomenon with scientific method in a much different way, reaching much different conclusions than, for ex., Newton reached with his color theory. It is not about "suddenly making the supernatural possible", but realizing there is no "natural vs. supernatural" division just like there is no "matter vs. mind division". That shift in perspective makes an amazing amount of difference in how every field of human activity is understood and pursued, from mythology and philosophy to aesthetics and science.

[Jim Cross]

If science is not first considering the premise of materialism, no-one would be trying to figure out how consciousness emerges from material processes. Since it is considering the premise of materialism, why not consider the premise of idealism?

Nobody even cares about the question of how consciousness emerges from matter except philosophers. It isn't a scientific question. It is akin to the "why is there something rather than nothing" question" that befuddles children and others confused by the difference between language and reality. We only know there is something because of consciousness. We could say consciousness is how matter knows it exists.

I know BK and others want to hit on this meme of materialistic science but, in fact, it would make no difference if science started with a idealistic premise. Science would be identical in either case. Just because you start from an idealistic premise doesn't suddenly make the supernatural possible or scientific.

This bolded assertion is proven false by a simple look at modern history. Goethe started from idealist assumptions, or more accurately he avoided the dualist-materialist assumptions of his contemporaries, and investigated phenomenon with scientific method in a much different way, reaching much different conclusions than, for ex., Newton reached with his color theory. It is not about "suddenly making the supernatural possible", but realizing there is no "natural vs. supernatural" division just like there is no "matter vs. mind division". That shift in perspective makes an amazing amount of difference in how every field of human activity is understood and pursued, from mythology and philosophy to aesthetics and science.

The lasting achievement of Goethe's scientific work is also his earliest in the field of natural sciences: the discovery of the intermaxillary bone in human beings.

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/ ... in-riordan

I guess there was no other way to discover it than to start with an idealistic premise. What more great discoveries await us with idealistic science?

[AshvinP]

Nobody even cares about the question of how consciousness emerges from matter except philosophers. It isn't a scientific question. It is akin to the "why is there something rather than nothing" question" that befuddles children and others confused by the difference between language and reality. We only know there is something because of consciousness. We could say consciousness is how matter knows it exists.

I know BK and others want to hit on this meme of materialistic science but, in fact, it would make no difference if science started with a idealistic premise. Science would be identical in either case. Just because you start from an idealistic premise doesn't suddenly make the supernatural possible or scientific.

This bolded assertion is proven false by a simple look at modern history. Goethe started from idealist assumptions, or more accurately he avoided the dualist-materialist assumptions of his contemporaries, and investigated phenomenon with scientific method in a much different way, reaching much different conclusions than, for ex., Newton reached with his color theory. It is not about "suddenly making the supernatural possible", but realizing there is no "natural vs. supernatural" division just like there is no "matter vs. mind division". That shift in perspective makes an amazing amount of difference in how every field of human activity is understood and pursued, from mythology and philosophy to aesthetics and science.

The lasting achievement of Goethe's scientific work is also his earliest in the field of natural sciences: the discovery of the intermaxillary bone in human beings.

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/ ... in-riordan

I guess there was no other way to discover it than to start with an idealistic premise. What more great discoveries await us with idealistic science?

Jim, you can't just take conclusions by materialist scientists and say, "see, idealist science didn't contribute anything". The whole point is that we disagree about the materialist conclusions. For ex., I hold that Goethe's color-theory is more accurate of the underlying Reality than Newton's color theory. Of course the materialist will disagree with me and say that was not a "lasting contribution", but that's the whole point - idealist assumptions lead to completely different conclusions.

[Lou Gold]

And again equating science and materialism.

I 'm still waiting for the idealistic science to explain consciousness.

If science is not first considering the premise of materialism, no-one would be trying to figure out how consciousness emerges from material processes. Since it is considering the premise of materialism, why not consider the premise of idealism?

Nobody even cares about the question of how consciousness emerges from matter except philosophers. It isn't a scientific question. It is akin to the "why is there something rather than nothing" question" that befuddles children and others confused by the difference between language and reality. We only know there is something because of consciousness. We could say consciousness is how matter knows it exists.

I know BK and others want to hit on this meme of materialistic science but, in fact, it would make no difference if science started with a idealistic premise. Science would be identical in either case. Just because you start from an idealistic premise doesn't suddenly make the supernatural possible or scientific.

Jim, You know the bolded statement is not true. Yes, the scientific method remains the same. No, what the scientific establishment defines as possibly real or plausible governs the flows of research funding and status building. To deny plausibility to consciousness as a fundamental in the definition of reality has enormous consequences well beyond the concerns of a small band of philosophers. The "non-ordinary" constituency of those whose experiences are dismissed by dominant science is much larger than the community of philosophers. I know this because I'm part of it.

[AshvinP]

This bolded assertion is proven false by a simple look at modern history. Goethe started from idealist assumptions, or more accurately he avoided the dualist-materialist assumptions of his contemporaries, and investigated phenomenon with scientific method in a much different way, reaching much different conclusions than, for ex., Newton reached with his color theory. It is not about "suddenly making the supernatural possible", but realizing there is no "natural vs. supernatural" division just like there is no "matter vs. mind division". That shift in perspective makes an amazing amount of difference in how every field of human activity is understood and pursued, from mythology and philosophy to aesthetics and science.

The lasting achievement of Goethe's scientific work is also his earliest in the field of natural sciences: the discovery of the intermaxillary bone in human beings.

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/ ... in-riordan

I guess there was no other way to discover it than to start with an idealistic premise. What more great discoveries await us with idealistic science?

Jim, you can't just take conclusions by materialist scientists and say, "see, idealist science didn't contribute anything". The whole point is that we disagree about the materialist conclusions. For ex., I hold that Goethe's color-theory is more accurate of the underlying Reality than Newton's color theory. Of course the materialist will disagree with me and say that was not a "lasting contribution", but that's the whole point - idealist assumptions lead to completely different conclusions.

I will add, though, that I agree the way idealism is mostly conceived does not make so much of a difference for science. Actually, if the "idealist" scientist is mostly asking the same questions and pursuing the same methods and arriving at similar conclusions as the materialist scientist, that is an indication they are not pursuing the implications of idealism far enough. That is a failure of the idealist and not idealism itself. In general, if there are not major practical differences in our life and vocation from these views, then they are not being understood. From idealism, a major implication is that science must be pursued without any assumptions to yield fruit. Only the assumption that we are experiencing phenomenon in some non-random manner.

[Eugene I]

Nobody even cares about the question of how consciousness emerges from matter except philosophers. It isn't a scientific question. It is akin to the "why is there something rather than nothing" question" that befuddles children and others confused by the difference between language and reality. We only know there is something because of consciousness. We could say consciousness is how matter knows it exists.

We discussed it many times before, but no, it is a scientific question for the physicalist science, because the commitment of scientific method is:
- either to develop models/theories to explain all known experimental/experiential facts
- or to claim that the fact under investigation is ontologically fundamental and therefore is beyond the competence of science.

The existence of conscious experience is an undeniable experimental fact obvious and known to every conscious being. Physicalist science claims that consciousness is NOT metaphysically fundamental but is an emergent epiphenomenon of material brain, yet it fails miserably to provide any plausible explanation for such epiphenomenal emergence. To get around such embarrassment you are attempting to claim that science should not care about that question, but that is obviously cheating for the physicalist science, and I'll explain why.

The difference here form "why is there something rather than nothing" question is that for this "why is there something rather than nothing" question physicalist science is not claiming that "something (existence)" is an epiphenomenon of matter, in other words, it agrees that the "something (existence)" is ontologically fundamental and therefore this question does not belong to science, and that is totally fair. However, that's not the case for consciousness, because physicalist science claims the emergence of consciousness from matter, but if any phenomenon is claimed to be emergent (from matter) and not ontologically fundamental, the science has to commit to explain how exactly such emergence happen.

So, physicalist science, apart from cheating, has only two options:
- Admit that consciousness is ontologically fundamental and it is NOT an emergent epiphenomenon of material brain, just like with the "why is there something rather than nothing" question. Unfortunately it can not do that because that move would be obviously suicidal for the physicalist science.
- Claim that consciousness is an emergent epiphenomenon of matter, but in this case, it has to admit that the question belongs to science and commit to providing scientific explanation for such emergence (which it obviously can't)

Also, the physicalist science can not run away from metaphysical/philosophical questions, because the very premise of the physicalist science - the ontological primacy of matter - is already a metaphysical claim which is already beyond science (being unverifiable and unfalsifiable). So, including metaphysical claims in its very foundation and then refusing to address any metaphysical problems or contradictions arising from such metaphysical claims (because they allegedly "do not belong to science") is cheating.

My take on it is that it would be a better position for the core natural sciences to be entirely metaphysically agnostic and not biased towards any ontology (be it materialism, idealism or any other). In other words, natural sciences should study that nature DOES, not what it IS. In such case your claim that natural science should not be concerned about the emergence of consciousness would be totally valid. And then in addition to that core, sciences may have "extensional" branches stretching to include certain metaphysical claims as possible hypotheses (those would be "physicalist science" or "idealist science" or whatever), and that would be fine too, but in such case these sciences can not run away from addressing metaphysical problems arising from such claims. And the very first metaphysical problem that such metaphysical physicalist science would run into would obviously be the "hard problem" with no way to run away from it. Also, both metaphysical assumptions of the physicalist and of idealist science branches could be equally termed as "beliefs", because the primacy of matter is as much a scientifically unverifiable belief as the primacy of consciousness.

[Eugene I]

My take on it is that it would be a better position for the core natural sciences to be entirely metaphysically agnostic and not biased towards any ontology (be it materialism, idealism or any other). In other words, natural sciences should study that nature DOES, not what it IS.

PS: By the way, for such metaphysically agnostic physics, in addition to the relief from the "hard problem", there would also be no QM paradoxes whatsoever. The QM paradoxes only arise in the metaphysically-biased version of QM based on the ontological hypothesis of the existence and ontological primacy of matter.

But Jim, I get your position: you are trying to define a sort of half-way-metaphysically-biased science based on two claims:
- the existence and ontological primacy of matter is claimed and included in the set of the basic scientific axioms
- but the question of the metaphysical status of consciousness is avoided, any relevant claims are not included in the set of the scientific axioms and the entire question is left for philosophers

In such case you would also have to drop the physicalist claim that consciousness is an emergent epiphenomenon of matter. But in addition to that, I still think it's cheating to commit to one metaphysical assumption and to avoid addressing another one which is immediately related to the first one. In other words what such version of materialistic science claims is:
- The hypothesis that matter and only matter is ontologically fundamental is claimed, even though the existence of matter is scientifically unverifiable hypothesis.
- The existence of consciousness is not a hypothesis but an obvious experimental fact, yet such science claims that consciousness is not ontologically fundamental, but at the same time avoids addressing the obvious logical question: "if consciousness exists but not fundamental according to the claims of such science, then how does it arise from matter that is claimed to be fundamental?", leaving such question for philosophers. To me it simply sounds like "we just don't want to answer this question just because we can't, even though it logically derives from our assumptions and the known experimental facts".

[Jim Cross]

Nobody even cares about the question of how consciousness emerges from matter except philosophers.

Sure, I just searched 'how does the brain generate consciousness?' and clearly the results show that scientists do not care.

I'm certain you are familiar with Chalmer's easy problems. Unless you are claiming these articles really are answering your question?

[Jim Cross]

My take on it is that it would be a better position for the core natural sciences to be entirely metaphysically agnostic and not biased towards any ontology (be it materialism, idealism or any other). In other words, natural sciences should study that nature DOES, not what it IS.

PS: By the way, for such metaphysically agnostic physics, in addition to the relief from the "hard problem", there would also be no QM paradoxes whatsoever. The QM paradoxes only arise in the metaphysically-biased version of QM based on the ontological hypothesis of the existence and ontological primacy of matter.

But Jim, I get your position: you are trying to define a sort of half-way-metaphysically-biased science based on two claims:
- the existence and ontological primacy of matter is claimed and included in the set of the basic scientific axioms
- but the question of the metaphysical status of consciousness is avoided, any relevant claims are not included in the set of the scientific axioms and the entire question is left for philosophers

In such case you would also have to drop the physicalist claim that consciousness is an emergent epiphenomenon of matter. But in addition to that, I still think it's cheating to commit to one metaphysical assumption and to avoid addressing another one which is immediately related to the first one. In other words what such version of materialistic science claims is:
- The hypothesis that matter and only matter is ontologically fundamental is claimed, even though the existence of matter is scientifically unverifiable hypothesis.
- The existence of consciousness is not a hypothesis but an obvious experimental fact, yet such science claims that consciousness is not ontologically fundamental, but at the same time avoids addressing the obvious logical question: "if consciousness exists but not fundamental according to the claims of such science, then how does it arise from matter that is claimed to be fundamental?", leaving such question for philosophers. To me it simply sounds like "we just don't want to answer this question just because we can't, even though it logically derives from our assumptions and the known experimental facts".

Eugene,

Sometimes you seem to grasp what I saying then other times not so much.

You don't seem to be able to let go of the metaphysics. Of course, any individual scientist can have any metaphysics they want. Many are materialists. But whatever metaphysics is irrelevant to the product or the method.

Mind and matter are abstractions not reality.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Nobody even cares about the question of how consciousness emerges from matter except philosophers.

Sure, I just searched 'how does the brain generate consciousness?' and clearly the results show that scientists do not care.

I'm certain you are familiar with Chalmer's easy problems. Unless you are claiming these articles really are answering your question?

It was actually an attempt at irony, in response to the 'nobody even cares (...) except philosophers' remark. Although you may have a point, if one allows that by virtue of being human, everyone is a 'philosopher' by default, however elementary it may be, scientists being no exception, and that indeed is what inspires them to be scientists. And like everyone else, they are born, indoctrinated and conditioned into the prevailing paradigm and ethos, that too having its roots in philosophy, from which no-one can easily extricate themselves, and just turn off on-demand—with even those who advocate idealism still being yoked to all the inherited trappings. So show me a scientist who is working free of that conditioning, and I'll show you a hound that doesn't sniff the ground.