John Horgan defends not knowing

[Soul_of_Shu]

As I said, science doesn't mean there are not things that are unknown. Science would be done and complete if there were not things left to explain.

And the so-called "idealist science" has no explanation either. It just makes it a given. So it does no better.

The lure of materialism emerges, it seems, from the belief that there is no more to our existence than can be accounted for in terms of flesh, blood, atoms, and molecules.

"The familiar, precisely because it is familiar, remains unknown" ~ Hegel

[Jim Cross]

As I said, science doesn't mean there are not things that are unknown. Science would be done and complete if there were not things left to explain.

And the so-called "idealist science" has no explanation either. It just makes it a given. So it does no better.

The lure of materialism emerges, it seems, from the belief that there is no more to our existence than can be accounted for in terms of flesh, blood, atoms, and molecules.

"The familiar, precisely because it is familiar, remains unknown" ~ Hegel

To repeat, science requires no metaphysics. It isn't a debate between materialism and idealism. It is a debate between science and the supernatural. The supernatural is the refuge for those who cannot live with unknowns.

[Eugene I]

I don't really think science requires a metaphysics. It just requires non-belief in the supernatural. That non-belief frequently is conflated with materialism just as belief in the supernatural sometimes is linked to idealism. Belief in the supernatural is what makes science impossible.

In addition to polar positions of having certain beliefs and denying certain beliefs, there is a third "middle way" position - openness to possibilities. Scientific method does not and can not exclude supernatural, such claim would be beyond the capacity of science. It only uses a practical approach to attempt explaining any known facts based on known scientific theories first before admitting that such explanation is impossible.

[Jim Cross]

I don't really think science requires a metaphysics. It just requires non-belief in the supernatural. That non-belief frequently is conflated with materialism just as belief in the supernatural sometimes is linked to idealism. Belief in the supernatural is what makes science impossible.

In addition to polar positions of having certain beliefs and denying certain beliefs, there is a third "middle way" position - openness to possibilities. Scientific method does not and can not exclude supernatural, such claim would be beyond the capacity of science. It only uses a practical approach to attempt explaining any known facts based on known scientific theories first before admitting that such explanation is impossible.

Your "openness to possibilities" is simply trying to sneak the supernatural in the back door. It's fine to believe in the supernatural. You just shouldn't try to pretend it is science.

Real science is always open to possibilities but it requires some evidence and theory, ideally some proof, more than simply belief.

[Soul_of_Shu]

The supernatural is the refuge for those who cannot live with unknowns.

Nonsense, science is also not just living with the unknown of how there is consciousness, in its efforts to demonstrate that it emerges from material processes. Why not just give up after hundreds of years of failing to demonstrate how?

[Jim Cross]

The supernatural is the refuge for those who cannot live with unknowns.

Nonsense, science is also not just living with the unknown of how there is consciousness, in its efforts to demonstrate that it emerges from material processes. Why not just give up after hundreds of years of failing to demonstrate how?

And again equating science and materialism.

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

[Soul_of_Shu]

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?

[Jim Cross]

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.

[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.

[Martin_]

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.

Maybe the physics would be identical, but the entire body of scientific knowledge would span a different subset if truths, because your metaphysics informs the way you think, and differnt ways of thinking makes people make differenct choices, and scientists are people, so they would choose to study different things than what they study today.

Also, some findings would be more easily accepted into the "scientific consensus". As an example, maybe the concept of non-locality would have been easier/sooner accepted , and thus, theories that assume non-locality as a fundamental aspect of the universe would have received more scrutiny and testing and thus be more evolved than in the currrent paradigm.

Although one may argue that the scientific method is objective, the people using it are not, and it has a huge implication on what we know today and what we do not know. This is not something that can be ignored.