Well, my whole comment is just about whether dualism (as the two-separate-magesteria-hypothesis) is coherent. Does that help?
Coherent doesn’t mean correct, and certainly doesn’t mean actual.
If you didn’t imply dualism [implies negative things about monism] then I am really confused by what you define as the dualism thesis.
Again, I’m trying to determine if dualism is logically possible, not make any of the claims that dualism would make. Yet, what would be relevant is this question: does dualism make any implications that are logically impossible?
If you didn’t imply dualism [implies negative things about monism] then I am really confused by what you define as the dualism thesis.
Again, I’m trying to determine if dualism is logically possible, not make any of the claims that dualism would make. Yet, what would be relevant is this question: does dualism make any implications that are logically impossible?
No my problem wasn’t with the fact that you didn’t mean to imply negative things about monism. My confusion arises from from the fact that your definition of dualism says that there is some domain/space/mode i.e. magisterium which we do not learn about through science. Specifically you say “two separate magisteria; one for science and one for faith.” The obvious interpretation of this is that dualism implies a limit on science. It seems to imply that Bayesianism or empiricism or the scientific method or some other aspect of “SCIENCE” is not valid in the “faith” magisterium. But you say you are not implying this. Thus my confusion.
Now I’m actually okay with magisteria where science isn’t involved but these aren’t domains where the term “propositional knowledge” meaningfully applies. Like art or a game. Gould appeared to suggest that there are religious facts (in a non-anthropological sense) which I do think is nonsense. But I’m actually pretty sympathetic to so-called non-realist theology (though a lot of it seems to have a pretty obnoxious post-modern undertone that suggests non-realism about everything).
Oh, I see! You were confused by my statement that one magisterium is for science and one is for faith when I simultaneously seemed not to object in any way if you wanted to assert that science applies everywhere.
In the statement, ‘one magesterium is for science’, ‘science’ must be meant in some limited sense. Specifically, I guess, the set of scientific facts and principles we’ve learned that apply to X.
Maybe this could happen in Flatland. X is a two-dimensional world and the people there learn rules that apply to 2D. But Flatland is embedded in a 3D world X’. I’m not saying the people in flatland can’t comprehend X’ with a different set of rules, but they would be justified in parsing their world as X and X’—especially if they experience 2D things usually but encounter understanding of 3D things only exactly when they happen to collect in a square with a plus sign affixed to one side.
So here is something that looks like it would qualify as reason for the flatlanders to reject their two-dimensional science. In Flatland an object that is trapped in a square cannot escape. To a flatlander seeing an object escape a box is going to look like magic. They will be forced to question their most basic beliefs about the nature of the world. Would this count as an inconsistency that cannot be resolved with their scientific facts and principles… the kind of thing that would make it reasonable to believe in an additional magisterium?
So if they wanted to be monists, they would reject their 2D-science and say that while 2D-science apparently seems to be a good approximation of most things, it’s only an approximation as apparently reality enables square-escape. They try to look for extensions of 2D science that make sense and are consistent with what they observe about square-escape, but just haven’t solved the problem yet.
If they wanted to be dualists, they would say that in one magisterium, 2D science applies. Any non-2D stuff that goes on belongs to that separate, independent magisterium they’ll call Xhi, a word which is really just a placeholder for ‘the third dimension’ until they discover it.
I was just trying to clarify my interpretation of what you’re saying. Because if they are theorizing of Xhi, if there are facts about Xhi and if they are seeking knowledge of it it seems clear that they ought to be doing science (in the general epistemological sense I was using earlier) to form these theories and discover these facts. This of course does not demonstrate that the two magesteria, as you’ve formulated them, are incoherent.
But I’m not sure if you are talking about the same thing Gould (and presumably Eliezer) are talking about. I took Gould to be saying that this second magesterium isn’t just a subject or set of subjects about which our particular scientific facts and scientific principles can say nothing. Rather, I believe Gould is saying that the magesterium of faith consists of areas of thought or subjects for which the scientific community, the scientific method and inductive empiricism itself cease to apply. Moreover, they don’t only not apply because we’ve chosen a way of seeing these areas of thought that doesn’t involve scientific epistemology, they don’t apply as a matter of principle—it is a category error to try and apply the tools of science to the domain of religion.
Edit: And like I said: that looks like nonsense to me.
Well, my whole comment is just about whether dualism (as the two-separate-magesteria-hypothesis) is coherent. Does that help?
Coherent doesn’t mean correct, and certainly doesn’t mean actual.
Again, I’m trying to determine if dualism is logically possible, not make any of the claims that dualism would make. Yet, what would be relevant is this question: does dualism make any implications that are logically impossible?
No my problem wasn’t with the fact that you didn’t mean to imply negative things about monism. My confusion arises from from the fact that your definition of dualism says that there is some domain/space/mode i.e. magisterium which we do not learn about through science. Specifically you say “two separate magisteria; one for science and one for faith.” The obvious interpretation of this is that dualism implies a limit on science. It seems to imply that Bayesianism or empiricism or the scientific method or some other aspect of “SCIENCE” is not valid in the “faith” magisterium. But you say you are not implying this. Thus my confusion.
Now I’m actually okay with magisteria where science isn’t involved but these aren’t domains where the term “propositional knowledge” meaningfully applies. Like art or a game. Gould appeared to suggest that there are religious facts (in a non-anthropological sense) which I do think is nonsense. But I’m actually pretty sympathetic to so-called non-realist theology (though a lot of it seems to have a pretty obnoxious post-modern undertone that suggests non-realism about everything).
Oh, I see! You were confused by my statement that one magisterium is for science and one is for faith when I simultaneously seemed not to object in any way if you wanted to assert that science applies everywhere.
In the statement, ‘one magesterium is for science’, ‘science’ must be meant in some limited sense. Specifically, I guess, the set of scientific facts and principles we’ve learned that apply to X.
Maybe this could happen in Flatland. X is a two-dimensional world and the people there learn rules that apply to 2D. But Flatland is embedded in a 3D world X’. I’m not saying the people in flatland can’t comprehend X’ with a different set of rules, but they would be justified in parsing their world as X and X’—especially if they experience 2D things usually but encounter understanding of 3D things only exactly when they happen to collect in a square with a plus sign affixed to one side.
So here is something that looks like it would qualify as reason for the flatlanders to reject their two-dimensional science. In Flatland an object that is trapped in a square cannot escape. To a flatlander seeing an object escape a box is going to look like magic. They will be forced to question their most basic beliefs about the nature of the world. Would this count as an inconsistency that cannot be resolved with their scientific facts and principles… the kind of thing that would make it reasonable to believe in an additional magisterium?
Yeah.
So if they wanted to be monists, they would reject their 2D-science and say that while 2D-science apparently seems to be a good approximation of most things, it’s only an approximation as apparently reality enables square-escape. They try to look for extensions of 2D science that make sense and are consistent with what they observe about square-escape, but just haven’t solved the problem yet.
If they wanted to be dualists, they would say that in one magisterium, 2D science applies. Any non-2D stuff that goes on belongs to that separate, independent magisterium they’ll call Xhi, a word which is really just a placeholder for ‘the third dimension’ until they discover it.
Will the Flatlanders theorize about Xhi? Will they have knowledge of it? Are there facts about Xhi?
Why do you ask?
I was just trying to clarify my interpretation of what you’re saying. Because if they are theorizing of Xhi, if there are facts about Xhi and if they are seeking knowledge of it it seems clear that they ought to be doing science (in the general epistemological sense I was using earlier) to form these theories and discover these facts. This of course does not demonstrate that the two magesteria, as you’ve formulated them, are incoherent.
But I’m not sure if you are talking about the same thing Gould (and presumably Eliezer) are talking about. I took Gould to be saying that this second magesterium isn’t just a subject or set of subjects about which our particular scientific facts and scientific principles can say nothing. Rather, I believe Gould is saying that the magesterium of faith consists of areas of thought or subjects for which the scientific community, the scientific method and inductive empiricism itself cease to apply. Moreover, they don’t only not apply because we’ve chosen a way of seeing these areas of thought that doesn’t involve scientific epistemology, they don’t apply as a matter of principle—it is a category error to try and apply the tools of science to the domain of religion.
Edit: And like I said: that looks like nonsense to me.