Teleology important for science

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tonyrey said:
So there is no spiritual aspect to our mental activity? We never receive supernatural guidance, inspiration or grace in our daily lives? God never gives us any help whatsoever? Free will is an illusion and we’re not responsible for our choices or decisions but simply the most intelligent members of the ape family?
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That doesn’t seem logical.

Are you saying that if a work of art inspires you, it can only inspire by supernatural means? If not, if it inspires by natural means, surely God can too?

As for free will, it’s “the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one’s own discretion”. We have the most complicated thing in the known universe between our ears, you seem to be claiming it can’t make a decision or two. Do all courts of law agree with you that what’s between our ears can’t supply moral responsibility? Does any court of law agree with you?

And less we not forget, if there really is any mental activity which doesn’t have physical causes, there’s no reason why it would have to obey the laws of nature, so no logical reason to rule out paranormal mental activity like clairvoyance and ESP. Are you claiming they work? If not, why do you think mental activity which doesn’t have physical causes obeys the physical law?
 
Given the various directions this thread has gone in, i’m surprised no one has mentioned Thomas Nagel’s book - which touches on issues about the mind and telos. I mean, the tagline to the book seems right up your alley.

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But to the OP’s original question…

So i work in the neurosciences, i spend a good chunk of my time attempting to educate the future leaders of tomorrow…when they aren’t be distracted by some reality TV show on Bravo, or on Facebook…Twitter…Snapchat… or planning their Spring break vacation to Cancun.

This question regarding teleology is something an old lab mate of mine, Jesuit-trained Chemist, knows his Aquinas like you guys, once asked me in a very non-confrontational sense.

So we treated it like a hypothesis and started asking our acquaintances a very very practical question - if Teleology (whatever its origin might be) were true, how would it change the way you run experiments in your field?

Would it even effect your field?

The only people to respond int he affirmative were those working either in physics, the sub-field of evolutionary biology or in the social science field of evolutionary psychology.

Other than that - it doesn’t really effect much at all.

My friend came up with a good analogy for this.

You can talk about baseball. Or you can play baseball.

The “talk about” part may refers to all the incidentals surrounding the game - Statistical averages, who is playing on whose team, the best in a season, the worst in the season, who was caught doping, the correct angle to hit a baseball so it goes farther (45 degrees)

The “play” should be self-evident. Its a performative function that requires a result at the end.

To run with the analogy - adding Telos into the mix doesn’t help me “play” or perform science. When i’m growing cancer cells on bovine serum, harvest mouse calavera, or attempting to manipulate astrocytes and glial cell samples, or helping students breed fruit flies and check the chromsomal expression of certain genetic traits…

Telos adds nothing - at least in the fields i touch on.

Can’t say it “hurts” experimentation either, but it doesn’t help.

The reason why I think it would be more relevant to physics or evolutionary biology is because of the types of questions that are asked by those researchers.

While the have the same concerns about processes and methods of verification as all scientists do, a certain number of them seem (by virtue of the question they are researching) seem to step into the realm of natural philosophy…

…which…at least in my analogy is more “talking about” science than the actual performance of it.
 
Teleology may not explain anything with respect to the laws of science, but you cannot do scientific experiments without designing them. So teleology is an indispensable tool of science.

Once it is recognized that this is so, it becomes a reasonable hypothesis that beyond this universe Someone or Something often called God (a term Einstein himself was comfortable using) might have designed the whole shebang of which we recognize that we are an integral part.

So the leap from physics to metaphysics and natural theology is not necessarily so giant or impossible a leap as some like to imagine.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Teleology may not explain anything with respect to the laws of science, but you cannot do scientific experiments without designing them.
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Teleology is about trying to explain nature by attributing design/purpose to phenomena.

The scientific method cannot be used to test attempts to attribute design/purpose to phenomena, because no experiments can be done. So science is silent on teleology.
 
First, lets… remind each other what question(s) were initially asked at the very beginning of this thread shall we? ThinkandMull stated:
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?
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And i think while i’ve given anecdotal account, it should suffice to point out that matters regarding Teleology rest firmly in the discipline of philosophy…not science.

A cross-over point may exist in the realm of physics, but not being a physicist, i’ll restrict my comments in that regard.
inocente said:
The scientific method cannot be used to test attempts to attribute design/purpose to phenomena, because no experiments can be done. So science is silent on teleology.
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And herein lies the problem.
 
TheAtheist said:
And herein lies the problem.
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A scientific experiment is designed to serve a purpose, to prove something. That is its purpose.

For this reason we know that teleology exists in human activities, specifically the activity we call science, along with many other activities.

We cannot scientifically test for the purpose of the universe, but we know from our own ability to test for purpose that it is not unreasonable to infer that the universe exists for a purpose in the mind of Something or Someone.

Nicolaus Copernicus Heliocentric Theory of the Solar System
“The universe has been wrought for us by a supremely good and orderly Creator.”

Johannes Kepler Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motions
“[May] God who is most admirable in his works … deign to grant us the grace to bring to light and illuminate the profundity of his wisdom in the visible (and accordingly intelligible) creation of this world.”

Galileo Galilei Laws of Dynamics
“The Holy Bible and the phenomenon of nature proceed alike from the divine Word.”

Isaac Newton Laws of Thermodynamics, Optics, etc.
“This most beautiful system [the solar system] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” Isaac Newton

Benjamin Franklin Electricity, Bifocals, etc.
”Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the creator of the universe. That he governs by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped.

James Clerk Maxwell Electromagnetism, Maxwell’s Equations
“I have looked into most philosophical systems and I have seen that none will work without God.”

Lord William Kelvin Laws of Thermodynamics, absolute temperature scale
“I believe that the more thoroughly science is studied, the further does it take us from anything comparable to atheism.”

Charles Darwin Theory of Evolution
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” Origin of the Species, 1872 (last edition before Darwin’s death).

Louis Pasteur Germ Theory
“The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator.”

Max Planck Father of Quantum Physics
“There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other.”

J.J. Thompson Discoverer of the Electron
“In the distance tower still higher peaks which will yield to those who ascend them still wider prospects and deepen the feeling whose truth is emphasized by every advance in science, that great are the works of the Lord.”

Werner Heisenberg Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
“In the course of my life I have been repeatedly compelled to ponder the relationship of these two regions of thought (science and religion), for I have never been able to doubt the reality of that to which they point.”

Arthur Compton Compton Effect, Quantum Physicist
“For myself, faith begins with the realization that a supreme intelligence brought the universe into being and created man.”

Max Born Quantum Physicist
“Those who say that the study of science makes a man an atheist must be rather silly.”
 
I recently watched a video of a talk by Bertrand Russell. He said that in one of the first editions of Newton’s primary work the writer of the preface said that Newton’s system required a God while Descartes idea of a vortex in the universe did not. I don’t see how either system could require a God. I know Newtonian physics has been tinkered with but did it necessarily point to an intelligent Creator? I don’t think so but I am interested in what others may say
 
thinkandmull said:
I recently watched a video of a talk by Bertrand Russell. He said that in one of the first editions of Newton’s primary work the writer of the preface said that Newton’s system required a God while Descartes idea of a vortex in the universe did not. I don’t see how either system could require a God. I know Newtonian physics has been tinkered with but did it necessarily point to an intelligent Creator? I don’t think so but I am interested in what others may say
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What Einstein said is vaguely reminiscent of Newton’s sentiment that the law and order of the universe strongly suggest an intelligence behind it. As in the following:

“I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.” And again, on a later occasion, Einstein said “… everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe—a Spirit vastly superior to that of man.”
 
inocente said:
So there is no spiritual aspect to our mental activity? We never receive supernatural guidance, inspiration or grace in our daily lives? God never gives us any help whatsoever? Free will is an illusion and we’re not responsible for our choices or decisions but simply the most intelligent members of the ape family?
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Code: 
That doesn't seem logical.
Are you saying that if a work of art inspires you, it can only inspire by supernatural means? If not, if it inspires by natural means, surely God can too?
Before we continue please answer my questions instead of asking a question:
  1. Is there is no spiritual aspect to our mental activity?
  2. Do we never receive supernatural guidance, inspiration or grace in our daily lives?
  3. Does God never give us any help?
  4. Is free will an illusion and we’re not responsible for our choices or decisions?
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Bradski said:
I think we should leave the goalposts right where they are.
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There’s no shifting of goalposts here. Speaking simply of the physical isn’t precise enough. Physical need not mean entirely quantifiable. Certainly, if you do hold that there are no qualitative aspects to physical interactions we could shift to just using the word “physical”, but I would rather start with more precise language for clarity and for a more exhaustive approach so somebody doesn’t just charge me with ignoring a “third way” somewhere down the line.
 
Wesrock said:
There’s no shifting of goalposts here. Speaking simply of the physical isn’t precise enough. Physical need not mean entirely quantifiable. Certainly, if you do hold that there are no qualitative aspects to physical interactions we could shift to just using the word “physical”, but I would rather start with more precise language for clarity and for a more exhaustive approach so somebody doesn’t just charge me with ignoring a “third way” somewhere down the line.
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Are you mixing quantifiable and qualitative? Where did qualitative come into it?

Let’s stick to physical. That term covers everything that is quantative in any case.

Nice and simple.
 
Bradski said:
Are you mixing quantifiable and qualitative? Where did qualitative come into it?

Let’s stick to physical. That term covers everything that is quantative in any case.

Nice and simple.
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Why doesn’t “physical” cover qualities if only physical objects exist?
 
tonyrey said:
Before we continue please answer my questions instead of asking a question:
  1. Is there is no spiritual aspect to our mental activity?
  2. Do we never receive supernatural guidance, inspiration or grace in our daily lives?
  3. Does God never give us any help?
  4. Is free will an illusion and we’re not responsible for our choices or decisions?
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I wish you’d take a little care when quoting. If you could be bothered to preview your posts, you’d easily avoid floating text such as "
inocente said:
" so that others could find the quote by clicking rather than wasting time having to search.

On another thread you were so careless as to make it look at if I’d written something which I never did, and you then refused even to admit it. You’re the only poster on CAF who takes so little care, please have a thought for others.

Having had no option but to search back manually, I found I already answered your questions, and you excluded the answers from the quote. Can we move on please.
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inocente said:
I wish you’d take a little care when quoting. If you could be bothered to preview your posts, you’d easily avoid floating text such as “.quote=inocente;14145860.]” so that others could find the quote by clicking rather than wasting time having to search.

On another thread you were so careless as to make it look at if I’d written something which I never did, and you then refused even to admit it. You’re the only poster on CAF who takes so little care, please have a thought for others.
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You’re the only one who came to that conclusion…
Having had no option but to search back manually, I found I already answered your questions, and you excluded the answers from the quote. Can we move on please.
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In that case please follow your own advice! Where are your answers??
 
tonyrey said:
Why doesn’t “physical” cover qualities if only physical objects exist?
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Because things exist that aren’t physical. ‘The quality of mercy…’

If you are deciding whether mental activity is physical only, then ‘physical’ is the determinant.

If you know of some mental activity that doesn’t nvolve anything physical, such as electrical or chemical actions, then let me know.
 
thinkandmull said:
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?
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An example would be that of Feynman who told his students that is pointless to try to understand quantum theory. A christian will tell you to keep trying…and someone somehow will understand and from him will learn all humanity.
 
Bradski said:
Because things exist that aren’t physical. ‘The quality of mercy…’

If you are deciding whether mental activity is physical only, then ‘physical’ is the determinant.

If you know of some mental activity that doesn’t nvolve anything physical, such as electrical or chemical actions, then let me know.
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  1. When you think about yourself what physical phenomena are involved?
  2. Can you specify the precise location of consciousness?
  3. Which part of the brain makes your choices and decisions?
  4. Can you explain all your mental activity in terms of neural impulses?
  5. Are truth, goodness, freedom, justice and love scientifically explicable? If not why not?
 
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