Teleology important for science

[inocente]

I don’t recall any posters talking of minds transporting between bodies. Perhaps you can enlighten us as to where you got that impression.

Your post #361 - only substance dualism allows you “as opposed to someone else” to be in another body. (Hylomorphism allows the soul to exist without a body, but does not allow a body to live without a soul, although the logic is criticized).

 

[Peter_Plato]

It isn’t, as that post wasn’t to you. To recap, I said to Peter, “First, you probably know but just to be sure, the homunculus idea is a fallacy, because it leads to an infinite regression”.

Peter replied “It is never explained, either, why a little guy in the head “can ONLY be explained by” another little guy in HIS head, as if that proposition runs smack against some necessary logical principle or other.”

But it’s a well-known fallacy - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_argument.

I suppose we can leave it to you to provide the parts of the argument (or fallacy) that work for you, but leave out the parts that don’t.

This from the same Wikipedia article you cited on the Homunculus Fallacy…

The above cited regress argument does not necessarily invalidate all forms of the homunculus argument. **The regress relies on the idea that the homunculus ‘inside’ the brain must itself have a homunculus inside it but it is not clear that this is a necessary condition. **A dualist might argue that the homunculus inside the brain is an immaterial one (such as the Cartesian soul), or a mystic might assert that the homunculus is a recharacterization of the infinite consciousness of God (or true self), and thereby does not require a homunculus (or any form, spiritual or material) to have sensory experience, since such experience is a self-aware expression of the universe requiring no end to the regress other than the present moment itself. A non-dualist may assert, similarly to the mystic, that a human life form (or any organism) is coterminous and indivisible from its environment, with this unified field of awareness (i.e., universal consciousness) mistaking itself for a homunculus (or an ego). Thus, the regress argument is only valid if there can be no other explanation of the homunculus’s cognition supplied, and the arguments of a First Cause or a transcendental, formless consciousness (i.e., awareness underlying and beyond form) are rejected.

Take note that the bold-faced exception to the fallacy working as a proper fallacy is essentially my objection to it. To wit: that for the fallacy to work requires it be shown that the “little guy in the head can only or necessarily be explained by another little guy.” If that is not taken for granted the fallacy falls apart.

You have proved once more that it isn’t armchair philosophers that are the problem, but that bad armchair philosophizing is.

 

[tonyrey]

This is precisely the problem that plagues a materialistic view of the mind. A Better explanation is a nature that has no mechanics or physical processes.

Indeed. The outstanding feature of living beings is their plasticity and versatility which is lacking in inorganic structures. In modern medicine holism has replaced a materialistic approach to disease by taking a person’s beliefs, values and emotions into account. We neglect the primacy of the mind at our peril…

 

[inocente]

I suppose we can leave it to you to provide the parts of the argument (or fallacy) that work for you, but leave out the parts that don’t.

This from the same Wikipedia article you cited on the Homunculus Fallacy…

Take note that the bold-faced exception to the fallacy working as a proper fallacy is essentially my objection to it. To wit: that for the fallacy to work requires it be shown that the “little guy in the head can only or necessarily be explained by another little guy.” If that is not taken for granted the fallacy falls apart.

You have proved once more that it isn’t armchair philosophers that are the problem, but that bad armchair philosophizing is.

I never left that out. As I said (post #381) “If YOU is explained by a little (perhaps Cartesian immaterial) guy in your head”.

You have proved once more that some souls have selective memory.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Your post #361 - only substance dualism allows you “as opposed to someone else” to be in another body. (Hylomorphism allows the soul to exist without a body, but does not allow a body to live without a soul, although the logic is criticized).

I think that at least part of your problem is assuming that your logic is impeccable, and that, therefore, whatever conclusions you draw from someone else’s argument or points are the conclusions that necessarily follow from them.

As willing as you are to saddle me with substance dualism, I hate to break it to you – not that my points will make a gram of difference to your preconceived notions – but you have completely misunderstood my position.

Let me spell it out as clearly as I can, if not to disabuse you which seems unlikely, but for other readers whom you may have confused by saddling me with the products of your thinking processes.

I don’t subscribe to the notion of “substance” in the sense you want to impose as a necessary aspect of my metaphysics. I certainly wouldn’t use the word as you or substance dualists might.

Being as succinct as I can: I believe that reality is properly all that exists. Some aspects of reality take the form of material objects, others as immaterial – which is merely shorthand for a plethora of possible forms which are NOT material in form. I also suspect that some entities exist as partly material and partly immaterial form. Humans are an example of such entities. Please note that I nowhere use the word substance, partly because it confuses the question because we have been indoctrinated – by science and poor education – into thinking we understand the reality behind the word when, if it has any reality whatsoever, we don’t.

Ergo, humans are forms of being which are partly realized in material form or mode, and partly in immaterial – which is to say NOT material, but leaving open entirely the question of what that means.

Our identity comes from both the material and immaterial aspects of our being. Which means that, no, our identities are not interchangeable. We cannot be in another body because what we are is an integral combination of material and immaterial. The material aspects provide the space-time aspects of our identity, but the immaterial provides the subjective or internal aspects.

Please be advised that I am using the word “material” in its far wider and non-reduced meaning of “informed matter” that most moderns have lost sight of completely. If the reductive meaning of matter – random agglomerations of atomic and subatomic particles – is held then my point would be that by that meaning “matter” cannot explain why I as a particular subjective identity exists in this space at this time.

There is nothing in the reductive materialist’s arsenal or depiction of matter that can possibly explain subjective personal identity, which is why I claimed earlier that reductive materialism, as commonly understood, cannot logically account for why I, as I, exist in this body at this time and place.

It is the reductive materialist who creates the problem of “substances” by separating matter – reduced to its theoretical constructs – from other aspects of reality. The reductive materialist then tries to reimpose his metaphysic upon those who don’t hold to that view and claim THEY have the problem when, in fact, it is he – AND you apparently – who do.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I never left that out. As I said (post #381) “If YOU is explained by a little (perhaps Cartesian immaterial) guy in your head”.

You have proved once more that some souls have selective memory.

So you imposed the “Cartesian immaterial guy” upon me and then claimed that I was guilty of committing a fallacy? And now you back off to “If YOU is explained…”

Recall that I never claimed to explain YOU, I only claimed that all purely materialistic explanations fail utterly, which is why YOU still requires an explanation because YOU undoubtedly exist. A fact that every sincere and rational human cannot merely sweep under the proverbial rug of “theoretical entities” as if their own subjective loci of experience can be merely explained away. Not least of all because they themselves have accepted the “explaining away” of that by which they assent to being explained away.

So, to make, hopefully, the final point: I am not claiming the YOU can only be explained by another YOU – which is the ridiculous notion you keep ascribing to me. I am claiming the YOU must be explained – and NOT merely explained away –*but it isn’t properly explained by pure reductive materialism – which is why materialism is most certainly a faulty view of reality.

To say that reductive materialism is incorrect is not to fall, by default, into substance dualism. That WOULD be a fallacy.

You really should read more of Feser on this. I think I linked to a blog post of his earlier in this thread, where he compares substance dualism to someone squeezing all the juice out of an orange and then claiming the orange is made of two “substances,” the juice and the peel.

Edit: Yes, I did… Post 105
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=14141286&postcount=105

If you had digested that article properly, you would have realized that imputing me with that view is seriously disingenuous on your part.

Let’s make this the last time you attempt to misrepresent and malign my views, shall we?

 

[inocente]

I think that at least part of your problem is assuming that your logic is impeccable, and that, therefore, whatever conclusions you draw from someone else’s argument or points are the conclusions that necessarily follow from them.

People who tell others what their problem is tend to have trouble getting a second date.

*As willing as you are to saddle me with substance dualism, I hate to break it to you – not that my points will make a gram of difference to your preconceived notions – but you have completely misunderstood my position.

Let me spell it out as clearly as I can, if not to disabuse you which seems unlikely, but for other readers whom you may have confused by saddling me with the products of your thinking processes.

I don’t subscribe to the notion of “substance” in the sense you want to impose as a necessary aspect of my metaphysics. I certainly wouldn’t use the word as you or substance dualists might.

Being as succinct as I can: I believe that reality is properly all that exists. Some aspects of reality take the form of material objects, others as immaterial – which is merely shorthand for a plethora of possible forms which are NOT material in form. I also suspect that some entities exist as partly material and partly immaterial form. Humans are an example of such entities. Please note that I nowhere use the word substance, partly because it confuses the question because we have been indoctrinated – by science and poor education – into thinking we understand the reality behind the word when, if it has any reality whatsoever, we don’t.*

Promise not to saddle you with succinct.

The word substance isn’t in my dictionary of physics, although apparently it is used in chemistry, to mean an element or compound. For instance, brine is NOT a substance, it’s two substances, salt and water. Whereas common parlance has illegal substances.

Various philosophers seem to have their own definitions, but clearly something which thinks must be composed of something, whether it’s matter or whatever else.

Ergo, humans are forms of being which are partly realized in material form or mode, and partly in immaterial – which is to say NOT material, but leaving open entirely the question of what that means.

Fence sitting stops progress though. A pragmatic alternative is to make a reasonable assumption, without speculating, then proceed with that assumption until it’s proved wrong. The physicalist assumption is “that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on the physical”. Which turned out to be a very useful assumption for investigating the human mind.

Our identity comes from both the material and immaterial aspects of our being. Which means that, no, our identities are not interchangeable. We cannot be in another body because what we are is an integral combination of material and immaterial. The material aspects provide the space-time aspects of our identity, but the immaterial provides the subjective or internal aspects.

Immaterial is another vague word. An equation isn’t material. Again, various philosophers have their own definitions, so probably best we use it in a context.

*Please be advised that I am using the word “material” in its far wider and non-reduced meaning of “informed matter” that most moderns have lost sight of completely. If the reductive meaning of matter – random agglomerations of atomic and subatomic particles – is held then my point would be that by that meaning “matter” cannot explain why I as a particular subjective identity exists in this space at this time.

There is nothing in the reductive materialist’s arsenal or depiction of matter that can possibly explain subjective personal identity, which is why I claimed earlier that reductive materialism, as commonly understood, cannot logically account for why I, as I, exist in this body at this time and place.

It is the reductive materialist who creates the problem of “substances” by separating matter – reduced to its theoretical constructs – from other aspects of reality. The reductive materialist then tries to reimpose his metaphysic upon those who don’t hold to that view and claim THEY have the problem when, in fact, it is he – AND you apparently – who do.*

Hylomorphism isn’t the only non-reductive materialism, another is emergentism.

Don’t know why you keep referring to me as if I’m the only physicalist in the world, refer back to that survey of professional philosophers. I’d guess most are not reductionists either, the 1970s are not what they were. And if evidence imposes on you, who am I to blow against the wind?.

(“Keeping things in the back of my head” as the lyrics continue. Is that reductive materialism?)

 

[inocente]

So you imposed the “Cartesian immaterial guy” upon me and then claimed that I was guilty of committing a fallacy? And now you back off to “If YOU is explained…”

Recall that I never claimed to explain YOU, I only claimed that all purely materialistic explanations fail utterly, which is why YOU still requires an explanation because YOU undoubtedly exist. A fact that every sincere and rational human cannot merely sweep under the proverbial rug of “theoretical entities” as if their own subjective loci of experience can be merely explained away. Not least of all because they themselves have accepted the “explaining away” of that by which they assent to being explained away.

So, to make, hopefully, the final point: I am not claiming the YOU can only be explained by another YOU – which is the ridiculous notion you keep ascribing to me. I am claiming the YOU must be explained – and NOT merely explained away –*but it isn’t properly explained by pure reductive materialism – which is why materialism is most certainly a faulty view of reality.

To say that reductive materialism is incorrect is not to fall, by default, into substance dualism. That WOULD be a fallacy.

You really should read more of Feser on this. I think I linked to a blog post of his earlier in this thread, where he compares substance dualism to someone squeezing all the juice out of an orange and then claiming the orange is made of two “substances,” the juice and the peel.

Edit: Yes, I did… Post 105
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=14141286&postcount=105

If you had digested that article properly, you would have realized that imputing me with that view is seriously disingenuous on your part.

Let’s make this the last time you attempt to misrepresent and malign my views, shall we?

Apologies for casting whatever aspersions I apparently cast. I shall cast them no more.

So we are as one in agreeing that substance dualism is a crock. Let us move ever forward in that light.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The anti-teleology people might want to try to explain why it is that Mozart is so universally beloved. If there is no guiding principle from above as to what is beautiful and what is not (discordant music for example), how do we explain why Mozart’s “Ave verum Corpus” (“Hail, true Body”) is so supercharged with beauty?

If the Eucharist is not true, what makes Mozart so beautiful?

youtube.com/watch?v=6KUDs8KJc_c

Something teleological is going on there.

 

[cfauster]

Some Catholic responses to nonreductive physicalism/materialism can be found at:


The Soul is Alive and Well:
Non-reductive Physicalism and Emergent Mental Properties

The Human Soul: A Catholic Theological Response to Non-Reductive Physicalism

A dialogue in which Nancey Murphy defends nonreductive physicalism is here.

A thesis on the topic, relating Murphy and Rahner, is here.

 

[goout]

Originally Posted by tonyrey View Post
…
5. Are truth, goodness, freedom, justice and love scientifically explicable? If not why not?

1. These are all emotions. Senses if you want to be picky. All concerned with the prefrontal lobes and all governed by structures and systems selected for particular purposes over millions of years.
   …
   Do not bother to ask me any more questions unless you want to specifically address any of the above points.

I’ll be careful not to ask a question, since you have likely encountered just about every one of them anyway. Let me just express shock at your answer to the above question.

 

[antunesaa]

This is actually a question instead of a statement. Why is, or is, teleology important for science? I feel like science can move along just fine without believing in God. Can someone give an example where this is not the case? The distinction between matter and form doesn’t seem to be of value for science either. We all know what a car or a tree is. That it is made up of two principles doesn’t really help understanding its biology. If articifial inntellegence was created it would be a new form because of its makeup. So is teleology and matter/form merely philosophical questions?

I think science generally presupposes the intelligibility of reality. Without that it’s a pointless enterprise. So, yes, I think science needs this fundamental teleological element of assuming that things have rational explanations.

Suppose that the scientist assumes away the intelligibility of reality. This would mean that no natural laws would be there to discover; all observed correlations in every experiment would necessarily be spurious. His task of uncovering regularities and causal relationships between natural events would lack substance. His work would be impossible.

The scientist badly needs this modicum of teleology: that reality - whatever its origin - is governed by natural laws that can be discovered by reason.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I’ll be careful not to ask a question, since you have likely encountered just about every one of them anyway. Let me just express shock at your answer to the above question.

Seems odd for Brad to call justice, truth, freedom and goodness “emotions,” or in his lapses into “picky” moments, “senses."

I am beginning to wonder if the “pack” Brad ostensibly belongs to shouldn’t just call itself the Emotional Rat Pack and be done pretending it is founded on anything “rational,” since the rational seems necessarily to devolve into the emotional by his own reckoning.

 

[goout]

Seems odd for Brad to call justice, truth, freedom and goodness “emotions,” or in his lapses into “picky” moments, “senses."

I am beginning to wonder if the “pack” Brad ostensibly belongs to shouldn’t just call itself the Emotional Rat Pack and be done pretending it is founded on anything “rational,” since the rational seems necessarily to devolve into the emotional by his own reckoning.

Trying to steer back to the topic a little:
If the end of morality is our beatitude, I fail to see how “truth, goodness, freedom, justice and love” being subject to emotions contributes to that end. Quite the opposite, emotion based values must lead to arbitrariness, power struggles, violence.

Honestly, I’ve never heard anyone say that justice and freedom are explainable by way of emotions.
I have to think the poster must have misread something.

 

[tonyrey]

Trying to steer back to the topic a little:
If the end of morality is our beatitude, I fail to see how “truth, goodness, freedom, justice and love” being subject to emotions contributes to that end. Quite the opposite, emotion based values must lead to arbitrariness, power struggles, violence.

Honestly, I’ve never heard anyone say that justice and freedom are explainable by way of emotions.
I have to think the poster must have misread something.

Irrefutable! But don’t forget truth is also an emotion because it makes us happy or sad or neither happy nor sad… :whacky:

 

[tonyrey]

I think science generally presupposes the intelligibility of reality. Without that it’s a pointless enterprise. So, yes, I think science needs this fundamental teleological element of assuming that things have rational explanations.

Suppose that the scientist assumes away the intelligibility of reality. This would mean that no natural laws would be there to discover; all observed correlations in every experiment would necessarily be spurious. His task of uncovering regularities and causal relationships between natural events would lack substance. His work would be impossible.

The scientist badly needs this modicum of teleology: that reality - whatever its origin - is governed by natural laws that can be discovered by reason.

Not necessarily because the scientist can be regarded as a biological robot which functions according to the way it has been programmed and doesn’t need anything apart from food, drink, shelter and, of course, sexual gratification…

 

[Bradski]

Seems odd for Brad to call justice, truth, freedom and goodness “emotions,” or in his lapses into “picky” moments, “senses."

Tony was asking if those concepts could be explained scientifically as they, presumably, relate to the mind. It is the mind we are talking about. And naturally they can. I didn’t say, because it would be a bizarre proposal, that they are ONLY emotions or senses (with the exception of love, which I guess you realised IS simply an emotion so thought better to leave it out).

Justice and freedom are the easy ones. It isn’t just the 5 senses we have. There are very many indeed and justice, for example, is sensed emotionally. It doesn’t have to be explained and is not taught nor is it a learned response. Very young children experience it automatically. It’s one of the things that is hard wired into all of us. Because…well, it was useful in the grand scheme of things. We feel it emotionally. Chemicals and electrical impulses when we experience it. Likewise a sense of freedom.

But truth and goodness? Well, these are slippery little terms when used on a religious forum. They are usually preceded by the indefinite article and capitalised: The Truth and The Good. What they specifically mean when used in that way is entirely dependent on who is using it.

But I’ll use them in the everyday sense and will agree that truth can come out of the list. Something is true or not totally independent of our emotional response to it. So I’ll give you that one. But good? Again, we recognise something as being good on an emotional level. We sense it. That stays.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I didn’t say, because it would be a bizarre proposal, that they are ONLY emotions or senses (with the exception of love, which I guess you realised IS simply an emotion so thought better to leave it out).

Love can refer to an emotion, but it need not.

Love is an act of will aimed at promoting the well-being or good of those loved. It may or may not be accompanied by an emotion. Ergo, love is NOT “…simply an emotion."

 

[Peter_Plato]

Justice and freedom are the easy ones. It isn’t just the 5 senses we have. There are very many indeed and justice, for example, is sensed emotionally.

I think this is incorrect, as well. Neither justice nor freedom derive from a “sense” in the way you depict.

They may be accompanied by some “sense of,” but that would only occur after some clarity about what justice or freedom entail.

A person, even a child, might feel or sense an injustice or unfairness has occurred, but that would only be the result of and after having an idea of what constitutes justice or fairness. The “sense” would arise from the understanding, not the understanding from the sense.

Admittedly, most adults have long forgotten where their sense of justice came from and how it developed from their thinking about it, so most would (wrongly) assume the sense occurred spontaneously and their understanding came later.

I think Kohlberg showed this is not true and that moral senses come about as the result of cognitive development.

 

[Bradski]

I think this is incorrect, as well. Neither justice nor freedom derive from a “sense” in the way you depict. They may be accompanied by some “sense of,” but that would only occur after some clarity about what justice or freedom entail.

A person, even a child, might feel or sense an injustice or unfairness has occurred, but that would only be the result of and after having an idea of what constitutes justice or fairness. The “sense” would arise from the understanding, not the understanding from the sense.

I think Kohlberg showed this is not true and that moral senses come about as the result of cognitive development.

I think he’s wrong. Or rather, I have read a lot of people who think he’s not entirely correct. For example:

The Manchester researchers concluded that children “from a very young age, have some sense of justice, in the sense that they’ll treat others as they expect themselves to be treated,” said study co-author Keith Jensen. Children in the study were just as concerned about puppets losing a toy as they were about themselves.

Other research has shown that babies as young as eight months old can identify, and seek to punish, wrongdoers. Babies will snatch treats away from nasty puppets they had seen previously yelling at another puppet, according to a 2011 study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/toddlers-have-innate-sense-justice-empathy-say-researchers-1507099

And read anything by Cosmides and Tooby, in particular their brick of a book: ‘The Adapted Mind’. They suggest, with a gargantuan number of references to studies that agree with them, that these type of concepts are innate. Hard wired. What they call ‘domain specific procedures’. The old idea of the mind as a tabula rasa is still around, but there aren’t many that still support it, certainly since Kohlburg died in ’87.

‘The new research on domain-specific reasoning in cognitive development indicates that the human mind is permeated with content and organisation that does not originate in the social world. At a minimum, children’s cognitive mechanisms were selected over evolutionary time to ‘assume’ that certain things tend to be true of the world and of human life’ (Cosmides and Tooby 1994: 106-7)

In other words, we have an in-built sense of, for example, justice.