Naturalistic Metaphysic

Hey Jatom. How ya been?

Okay, hopefully I can answer these to your satisfaction.

A number of problems:

(1) Naturalism is not physicalism. Arguably, naturalism as a metaphysical thesis may very well include platonic entities, for instance. A number of naturalistic philosophers – Erik Wielenberg, Evan Fales, and Quentin Smith, to name a few – defend naturalism but are not supporters of physicalism.

(2) Physicalism is not necessarily reductive physicalism. Reductive physicalism is what you’re talking about when you suggest that “everything is reducible to atoms”. But a number of physicalists would suggest that all things are either physical or supervenient upon the physical – emergent properties of the physical, but not reducible to it. This is actually a big-time debate within the physicalist camp at the moment: are things reducible or emergent? Personally, I haven't made up my mind. The idea of emergence sounds interesting, but recent studies in neuroscience seem to suggest that the mind/mental states (the most important aspect of this whole debate) may very well be reducible to brain states.

(3) As has been pointed out already, “random movement” is not really an idea that is supported by many naturalists. In fact, I’m one of an increasingly limited number of naturalists that accept the idea of purely indeterminate events, as I feel has been satisfactorily shown by quantum electrodynamics. But many naturalists, such as Richard Carrier, have argued that there are unknown causes that we simply haven’t detected yet (despite the fact that experiments have been performed to test this idea as well). But naturalism is entirely compatible with and even, according to some, encouraging of a more deterministic worldview. Given the nature of some X, and precise events and the nature of those events surrounding X, you can by virtue of this predict future events concerning these things. Furthermore, it’s entirely conceivable that basic laws and order can arise from initial randomness – a good example being natural selection. Now, whether or not evolution by natural selection actually occurs is a separate issue – the point is that natural selection is something entirely conceivable on naturalism, and hence we can have order, laws, and predictableness that arises from basic randomness in the beginning.

This presumes a realist perspective on universal abstract laws. I think it’s a category error to say that universal abstract laws really exist in the sense that they are actualized as tables or brains or the words on the pages of a book. When we say that universal abstract laws “exist”, this is simply a trick in the way that our language works. Universal laws are simply descriptions – e.g. laws of physics are statements about the behaviour of matter and energy. But in no way do such descriptions exist as entities in themselves, really, in the same sense as other things exist in the real world. Rather, they are statements about the real world.

Answer: neither. The world is deterministic above the quantum level – somehow, in ways that we don’t understand yet – the quantum world gives rise to predictable behaviour (current explanations in theoretical physics include string theory, loop quantum gravity, etc.), but at the quantum level things may be random and indeterministic. So what we have is both in different cases, and one of the major goals of theoretical physics today is to harmonize both quantum mechanics vs. the predictable conception of the world given to us by Einstein’s relativity.

I have to admit I haven’t read everything in this thread, so you may have answered some of the things I’ve pointed out here. If so, I apologize – just indicate to me that you have, and I’ll get back to you when I can.

JL

 

Yep, this sounds about right.

This argument is mainly credited to Karl Popper, and interestingly I think one of the best responses to it has been provided by Richard Swinburne, a theologian I’m sure you’re familiar with. The problem with Popper’s argument is that it does not take into consideration that what may cause us to believe certain things are the very rational or sufficiently supportive reasons that we ideally aim for. If we are caused to believe some proposition, and we are caused to believe it because of a fact that strongly suggests the proposition is true, then we rationally believe in the proposition.

Some comments, though. The first is that, if you construe determinism strictly enough, calling some belief “rational” or calling some human a “rational agent” becomes a category error. If we hold to strict-determinism, equating humans to computer programs, then to call any of our beliefs rational or to even call us rational agents is simply wrong-headed. This is not a problem, as far as I can see, for a compatabilist. As for a person who supports libertarian free will – an action in libertarian free will is really just completely random, whether or not advocates would like to admit it, and so likewise it dispenses with the idea of rational beliefs and humans who are properly categorized as rational agents.

Can’t say I disagree, but I haven’t read the original post you made on this subject, so I can’t say for sure whether or not I’m catching your complete point. As it is stated simply here, however, I agree. This is not to say that there is a true bridge between noumena and phenomena when it comes to everything – this simply means that logical and metaphysical necessity are the only tools we can use to understand how things really are – and logic not very often so, when considering that we work with propositions we already accept as true - i.e. certain premises in arguments, which may or may not be the case, or the propositions may have been arrived at empirically, in which case they only have some degree of verisimilitude.

Hm. Why can’t finite beings come to understand certain universal truths?

I’m a moral realist – I’m in agreement with you over most other people here that there are moral facts. However, I also feel that it’s ridiculous to credit these moral facts or account for them by appealing to a deity. I do not see any bridge to prescription or any prescriptive element arising from “God exists” or “God commands such and such”. I also see no reason to believe that we are actually referring to God implicitly in our language when expressing moral statements, which must be the case if morality is something which is wholly or even just partly dependent upon the divine.

Only if you accept the type of strict-determinism I discussed above. There are other types of determinism which do not suffer from this problem, and synthesis must happen somewhere.

This is an argument often used against the idea of tabula rasa, that I think is a good one. If a baby is entirely blank, then how do we learn? There must be some biology behind it (indeed, we’ve already found out that there is – even more so than we might have originally speculated. The ability to learn language, for instance, is something which the human brain has become especially predisposed to).

Heh – they do? Since when?

Again, I’m just commenting as I go along in this thread, basically picking and choosing certain points that I find interesting, although I may be missing the context. Hopefully not, but if I have anywhere, I apologize.

JL

 

Hey James, what's up? Nice to see you here agian. I'm fine, I made it back home in one piece...which is always a good thing!

Thanks for the response, btw. I"ll respond when I can get around to it.

 

Lazarus

Agree. A newborn maybe a tabula rasa as far as memory/experience/understanding goes.
But is certainly not in the lower regions of the mind that allow
those higher functions to occur.

A 'limited' analogy can be found in the computer world.

If you buy a PC with a blank hard drive. [no software installed]
What happenes when u turn it on?
It boots up..all systems are checked and it eventually tells you
that {no operating system found} [gaga...goooo..gurgle.hick]

But what is telling you this? If no software in installed?

It's called the BIOS
Built In Operating System

We are all born with one, thanks to a billion years of biological systems evolution.

Occam

 

Opps, forgot about this thread...

 

You’re very right, I simplified, and perhaps erred, on this point

I think you’re correct in theory, but I don’t think that this is de facto correct. I think that physicalism, whether reductive of not, always reduces to reductive physicalism, when working within the parameter of our current context. That is to say that even a supervenient property, such as wetness, is always ultimately dependant on “atoms.” What this means is that even wetness and mental states, are dependant (which I guess is what I meant by “reducible”) on atoms and their movement (whether that movement is random or not).

Yeah, I should have just stuck with “movement” and not “random movement.” I think by saying “random,” I kinda asserted my own case.

Good points, but I don’t think that your analogy with natural selection makes your case. For one thing it is entirely conceivable that laws existed at the time of or before natural selection. The randomness you suggest here is not the same as the ultimate randomness that would obtain if all is redicibel to the random movement of atoms. Their movement might be quite ordered and determined, however the initial appearance may be one of randomness and disorder. But on the other hand, I think that if all is reducible to the random movements of atoms, then randomness is ultimate, and all appearances of order is an illusion. Or perhaps the assumption of there being laws in a universe governed by randomness suggest a performative inconsistency by which the law of randomness would need to uprooted. At anyrate, that’s the delima I perceive.

You are correct.

Again, I agree. With laws I think that we are talking about something that is conceptional and mind-dependant in nature--or at least mind dependant in the sense that it is known by you or me. And I believe it is a mistake to say that something which is conceptional exist in the same way or in the same manner that a chair or table does.

And this, I guess, is where my hang-up begins. I don't think that a Law is identical with the phenomena that it describes (Keep in mind that I’m only speaking of scientific laws here, not prescriptive laws or laws of thought). I mean, I don’t believe that the law of gravity is the same as gravity itself, or at least with the phenomena of an object falling toward the center of the earth. A law, as you say, is a description; it is a generalization of a state of facts. Or perhaps put better, a generalization about a state of facts. This being the case, the generalization is not identical with the facts, but is about the facts. Furthermore, it is a universal statement about all facts of a certain class; facts that would otherwise be unrelated until a class is imposed on them by a law. This to me, suggest that laws a wholly “other,” serperate from the phenomena it describes, and that it therefore has some sort of existence apart from the “brute facts,” or “raw sense data.” Now as for the exact ontological nature of that existence, I am unsure of that at the moment.

Does this then mean that laws are dependant on language? Wouldn’t this just mean that ultimately there are no laws? I mean, couldn’t we say that before language there were no laws? And doesn’t that go against the universality of a law?

I admit that I probably misunderstand you here, and for that I apologize. I dabble far more in philosophy then science. But given what you say about laws and language, if appears that on your view, chance is ultimate since laws are just dependent on language.

No worries. To tell you the truth, it’s been so long since I’ve posted here that I can’t remember what been answered, and what hasn’t (and I’m too lazy to read through all the posts again.)

 

But this is precisely where I precieve the problem when given naturalism. We could suppose that what causes us to believe this or that is directly correlated to “the very rational or sufficiently supportive reasons that we ideally aim for,” but we cannot do this without begging the question at hand. If one shows that at the heart of the matter choices are reduced to “strong” determinism, then it seems to me that one cannot posit any cause for belief that does not itself fall into that circle of determinism. We could speculate that one can be rational in her beliefs since she is acting in accordance with her aims which happen to be rational, etc., but we are still left with the questions of what exactly it means to be rational, why/how it is that her aims (which are still stuck in the circle of determinism) can be consider rational, and how she is able to make choices which require her to relate facts from a point of view outside the circle of strict determinism.

Precisely

I suppose that depends on the type of compatabilist one is. I cannot see how one can be a compatabilist and also a naturalist though.

I suppose again that that depends of the sort of libertarian free will one holds to. But in the grand scheme of things, I believe libertarian free will is still deterministic, just not in the same sense as strict determinism. I believe that at the heart of the matter, the agent still will be caused to believe this way or that way, it’s just that its causes can exist outside the circle of event causation which allows the agent to relate things that exist within the circle.

Finite minds can come to understand universal truths, however universal truths cannot originate with finite minds.

The Divine comes in play when defining good and duty, otherwise, it seems to me that we are left guessing.

And I guess that where my problem is. I haven’t been about to see how compatiblism and naturalism are compatible without first begging some important questions.

Oh, I was actually answering a question here, I wasn’t stating this as a fact.

 

I would say that rationality is by definition objective in that being rational requires one to appeal to objective laws.

I guess that really depends on what you mean here. I mean the factors leading up to the choice objectively happened and even the choice may be one that is based in rationality. I think you may be getting hung up on the word “rationality” though. Rationality deals with reasoning which is more a process than anything else. Perhaps you could say that different kinds of reasoning are subjective but it still remains unclear why and in what sense they are to be considered subjective.

What do you mean by “factors” here? Logic is more or less rules of thought, not rules for how something will operate in the physical world.

That doesn’t necessary follow since in order for one to be rational not only must he reason, but he must reason correctly.

I’m not sure you fully understood my point. In order for one to reason, he must relate facts and determine which “option” is the reasonable one. That is, he must relate the related facts in such a way that his point of view and faculty for relating and choosing is causality independent of the object of the process. He must see which is the more reasonable choice, and this act of “seeing,” I believe, is not possible when given a purely deterministic outlook.

If this is the case, then you run into the difficultly of explaining how one can know for sure that he cannot know anything for sure.

I would further qualify that by saying that conceptualization, insofar as it is the act of conceptualizing, is an action which can and does take place in the finite mind of man. And the object of any conceptualization can originate in a finite mind so long as that conception is finite in nature. But to the extent that a conception is absolute, that conception could not have originated in a finite mind.

Than what are we to make of these universal truths? Aren’t at least some of them conceptual?

So what should we make of invariant concepts such as the number “2”? Do you mean to tell that the number “2” had no existence prior to the first finite mind thinking it up?

So what is the process for “objective verification” and the process for “subjective verification”?

If this is correct, then you’ve contradicted yourself since the above maxim must be taken as absolute otherwise it collapses.

Do you mean that you ought not to stop people from doing what they want? If so, then why ought people to follow this?

Is this above quote true or false? According to the quote we cannot know. But if that’s the case, than your whole point collapses. Why should I believe that what you written is true? You do mention that we can determine what is probably true, but to say that something is probably true means that it is closer to the true then something else. But to say that something is closer to the true, requires that one know what the truth is. I may know, for example, that one line is straighter than another because I know what a straight line (the truth) is. But according to your above quote the truth cannot be known, so likewise, we cannot even know what is more probable.

…to be continued​