That those particular can be understood in terms of the operations of their components
There’s an irreduciby basic level. Its not turtles all way down.
If it’s always the case that something that isn’t explicable in terms of its parts is mysterious, then the lowest level us mysterious. If nothing is mysterious, if you apply the argument against mysterious answer without prejudice,
reductionism is false. There isn’t a consistent set of principles here.
Continued ..
Naturalism is the claim that there is a bunch of fundamental properties that just are, at the bottom of the stack ,and everything is built up from that. Supernaturalism is the claim that the intrinsic stuff is at the top of the stack, and everything else is derived from it top-down. That may be 100% false , but it is the actual claim.
There’s a thing called the principle of charity , where you one party interprets the others statements so as to maximise their truth value. This only enhances communication if the truth is not basically in dispute...that’s the easy case. The hard case is when there is a basic dispute about whats true. In that case, it’s not helpful to fix the other person’s claims by making them more reasonable from your point of view.
Anyway, thats how we ended up with “God must have superneurons in his superbrain”.
Feels like in the top-down universe, science shouldn’t work at all. I mean, when you take a magnifying glass and look at the details, they are supposedly generated on the fly to fit the larger picture. Then you apply munchkinry to the details and invent an atomic bomb or quantum computer… which means… what exactly, from the top-down perspective?
Yeah, you can find an excuse, e.g. that some of those top-down principles are hidden like Easter eggs, waiting to be discovered later. That the Platonic idea of smartphones has been waiting for us since the creation of the universe, but was only revealed to the recent generation. Which would mean that the top-down universe has some reason to pretend to be bottom-up, at least in some aspects...
Okay, the same argument could be made that quantum physics pretends to be classical physics at larger scale, or relativity pretends to be Newtonian mechanics at low speeds… as if the scientists are trying to make up silly excuses for why their latest magic works but totally “doesn’t contradict” what the previous generations of scientists were telling us...
Well, at least it seems like the bottom-up approach is fruitful, whether the true reason is that the universe is bottom-up, or that the universe it top-down in a way that tries really hard to pretend that it is actually bottom-up (either in the sense that when it generates the—inherently meaningless—details for us, it makes sure that all consequences of those details are compatible with the preexisting Platonic ideas that govern the universe… or like a Dungeon Master who allows the players to invent all kinds of crazy stuff and throw the entire game off balance, because he values consistency above everything).
More importantly, in universe where there is magic all the way up, what sense does it make to adopt the essentially half-assed approach, where you believe in the supernatural but also kinda use logic except not too seriously… might as well throw the logic away completely, because in that kind of universe it is not going to do you much good anyway.
The basic claim of a top down universe is a short string that doesn’t contain much information. About the same amount as a basic claim of reductionism.
The top down claim doesnt imply a universe of immutable physical law, but it doesn’t contradict it either.
The same goes for the bottom-up claim. A universe of randomly moving high entropy gas is useless for science and technology, but compatible with reductionism.
But all this is rather beside the point. Even if supernaturalism is indefensible, you can’t refute it by changing it into something else.
Reductionism is a combination of three claims.
That many thing are made of smaller components
That those particular can be understood in terms of the operations of their components
There’s an irreduciby basic level. Its not turtles all way down.
If it’s always the case that something that isn’t explicable in terms of its parts is mysterious, then the lowest level us mysterious. If nothing is mysterious, if you apply the argument against mysterious answer without prejudice, reductionism is false. There isn’t a consistent set of principles here.
Continued ..
Naturalism is the claim that there is a bunch of fundamental properties that just are, at the bottom of the stack ,and everything is built up from that. Supernaturalism is the claim that the intrinsic stuff is at the top of the stack, and everything else is derived from it top-down. That may be 100% false , but it is the actual claim.
There’s a thing called the principle of charity , where you one party interprets the others statements so as to maximise their truth value. This only enhances communication if the truth is not basically in dispute...that’s the easy case. The hard case is when there is a basic dispute about whats true. In that case, it’s not helpful to fix the other person’s claims by making them more reasonable from your point of view.
Anyway, thats how we ended up with “God must have superneurons in his superbrain”.
Feels like in the top-down universe, science shouldn’t work at all. I mean, when you take a magnifying glass and look at the details, they are supposedly generated on the fly to fit the larger picture. Then you apply munchkinry to the details and invent an atomic bomb or quantum computer… which means… what exactly, from the top-down perspective?
Yeah, you can find an excuse, e.g. that some of those top-down principles are hidden like Easter eggs, waiting to be discovered later. That the Platonic idea of smartphones has been waiting for us since the creation of the universe, but was only revealed to the recent generation. Which would mean that the top-down universe has some reason to pretend to be bottom-up, at least in some aspects...
Okay, the same argument could be made that quantum physics pretends to be classical physics at larger scale, or relativity pretends to be Newtonian mechanics at low speeds… as if the scientists are trying to make up silly excuses for why their latest magic works but totally “doesn’t contradict” what the previous generations of scientists were telling us...
Well, at least it seems like the bottom-up approach is fruitful, whether the true reason is that the universe is bottom-up, or that the universe it top-down in a way that tries really hard to pretend that it is actually bottom-up (either in the sense that when it generates the—inherently meaningless—details for us, it makes sure that all consequences of those details are compatible with the preexisting Platonic ideas that govern the universe… or like a Dungeon Master who allows the players to invent all kinds of crazy stuff and throw the entire game off balance, because he values consistency above everything).
More importantly, in universe where there is magic all the way up, what sense does it make to adopt the essentially half-assed approach, where you believe in the supernatural but also kinda use logic except not too seriously… might as well throw the logic away completely, because in that kind of universe it is not going to do you much good anyway.
The basic claim of a top down universe is a short string that doesn’t contain much information. About the same amount as a basic claim of reductionism.
The top down claim doesnt imply a universe of immutable physical law, but it doesn’t contradict it either.
The same goes for the bottom-up claim. A universe of randomly moving high entropy gas is useless for science and technology, but compatible with reductionism.
But all this is rather beside the point. Even if supernaturalism is indefensible, you can’t refute it by changing it into something else.