This comment is a response to the claim that Gould’s separate magesteria idea is not conceptually coherent. While I don’t view reality parsed this way, I thought I would make an effort to establish its coherence and self-consistency (and relevance under certain conditions).
In this comment, by dualism, I’ll mean the world view of two separate magisteria; one for science and one for faith. There are other, related meanings of dualism but I do not intend them here.
Physical materialism assumes monism—there is a single, external reality that we have a limited knowledge and awareness of. Awareness and knowledge of this reality come through our senses, by interaction with reality. Dualism is rejected with a straight-forward argument: you cannot have awareness of something without interaction with it. If you interact with it, then it is part of the one reality we were already talking about.
Dualists persist: The empirical reality X that physical materialists recognize is only part of everything that matters. There is also a dual reality—X’, which is in some way independent of (or outside of) X. The rules in X’ are different than the rules in X. For example, epistemology (and sometimes even logic) appears to work differently, or less directly.
Some immediate questions in response to dualism are:
(1) If we are located in X, how does interaction with X’ work?
(2) Is it actually coherent to think of some component X’ being outside of X? Why don’t we just have X expand to absorb it?
Relation to the Simulation Hypothesis
An immediate, possibly too-quick answer to the second question is ‘yes, dualism is coherent because it is structurally isomorphic to the simulation hypothesis’. If we were in a simulation, X and X’ would be a natural way to parse reality. X would be the simulation and X’ would be the reality outside the simulation. Clearly, the rules could be different within X compared to within X’. People simulated in X could deduce the existence of X’ in a variety ways:
(a) by observing the incompleteness of X (for example, the inexplicable deus ex machina appearance of random numbers)
(b) by observing temporal, spatial or logical inconsistencies in X
(c) Privileged information given to them directly about X’, built into the simulation in ways that don’t need to be consistent with other rules in X
While dualists aren’t claiming that empirical reality is a simulation, by analogy we could consider that (a), (b) or (c) would be cause for deducing X’ and having a dualistic world view. I will visit each of these in reverse order.
Re: (c) Privileged information given to them directly about X’, built into the simulation in ways that don’t need to be consistent with other rules in X
Many (most?) religions are based on elements of divine revelation; special ways that God has of communicating directly to us in some way separate and independent of ordinary empirical experience. Being saved, speaking in tongues, visions, etc. I’ve heard it argued here on LW that this sort of experience would be the most rational reason for theism; they might be delusional but at least they are basing their beliefs on empirical sense experience. They would be justified in having a dualistic world view if they perceived their visions as distinct from (for example, having different rules than or existing in a different plane than) empirical reality. However, many theists (including myself) do not claim experience of divine revelation.
Re: (b) by observing temporal, spatial or logical inconsistencies in X
I think that in the past, this was a big reason for belief in the spiritual realm. However, the success of the scientific world view has shot this completely out of the water. No one believes that X is inconsistent; while there are ‘gaps’ in our knowledge, we have limitless faith in science to resolve everything in X that can be resolved, one way or another. Outside X is another matter of course, which brings us to (a). I proceed to (a) with the counter-argument to (b) firmly in hand: reality is explainable and whether we know the rules are not, there are rules for the phenomena in X, and rules for the rules in X and, if not rules, than a necessary logical deduction that can be made.
Re: (a) by observing the incompleteness of X
Can everything in X, in theory, be explained within X? If you believe this, then you have no reason to be dis-satisfied with monism. (It happens that I am a monist.) But what if we could point to just one thing that could not be explained in X? Just one thing that could not even be explained in theory because to do so would result in some contradiction in X? Would that give us cause to deduce X’?
Example 1: True Randomness
There are many processes that are approximated as random. The diffusion of a dye in a liquid, the search path of an amoeba looking for food, the collapse of a symmetric structure to one direction or another. However, all of these processes are considered deterministic—if we knew all the relevant states of the system and had sufficient computing power we could accurately predict the outcome via simulation; no random numbers needed.
Nevertheless, there are some processes that appear as though they could be truly “random”. That is, occurring spontaneously independent of any mechanism determining the outcome. For example, the ‘spontaneous’ creation of particles in a vacuum, or any other phenomenon described in an advanced physical journal with ‘spontaneous’ in the title. I think that you are a self-consistent physical materialist, you should deny the possibility of random or spontaneous events. I do: I think there must be a mechanism for everything, whether we have access to knowledge of it or not.
To the best of my knowledge, our understanding of these ‘spontaneous’ phenomena leaves room for mechanical explanations. Maybe this and that are involved, we just don’t know.
Yet quantum mechanics is beginning to reveal ways in which a scientific theory could predict the inconsistency of non-randomness. Bell’s theorem is close, proving that information in some cases is exchanged without a local mechanism. Fortunately, there is still room for other interpretations, including non-local mechanisms and many-worlds.
Example 2: Objective Value
Of any kind, including objective morality. This remains an unsolved problem in physical materialism, if you insist upon it, because it’s existence seems dependent upon some authority (e.g., a book) that we have no evidence of in X. If a person believes in objective morality a priori, they may be a dualist since they deduce the existence of such an authority, embedded within X, but distinct from X in that it cannot be directly observed or interacted with. (Its existence is only inferred.)
Example 3: Consciousness
Another unsolved problem in physical materialism. I’m not familiar with them, but I understand that some dualists have arguments for why consciousness could not be explained within X.
My Position
It is often logistically difficult to defend a position you don’t represent. The reason for this is that criticisms against the position will be directed at you personally, even though you hold you do not hold the position, and then further you might be tempted to continue defending the position with counter-arguments, which further confuses your identity. I am sympathetic to the dualist worldview as coherent and rational, but not globally scientific. I greatly prefer the physical materialist, scientific worldview. I have a very strong faith that everything in X can be explained within X; this faith is so strong that I consider it theistic, and call myself a theist.
I think so. If a process is truly random, does this mean there was no mechanism for it? How was it determined? It seems to me that picking a random number is something a closed system cannot possibly do.
You appear to be conflating ontological views (physicalism and dualism usually refer to these sorts of views, views about what kinds of things exist) with epistemological views. There is nothing in the definition of physicalism that requires us to have knowledge of the external world and nothing in dualism that requires us to give up rationality or science. You can be a physicalist and still think someone is deceiving your senses, for example. Also, this might just be me but ‘materialism’ should be jettisoned as outdated. “Materialism” means that you believe everything that exists is matter. But there is no reason to think that word is even meaningful in our fundamental physics. Thus I prefer “physicalism” the belief that what exists is what physics tells us exists.
Re: the relation to the simulation hypothesis
If you haven’t you ought to read “Brains in a vat” by Hilary Putnam. It’s just twenty pages or so. He argues that we cannot claim to be brains in vats (or in any kind of extreme skeptical scenario) because our language does not have the ability to refer to vats and computers outside our level of reality. When a brain in a vat says “vat” he is referring to some feature of the computer program that is being run for his brain. Thus he cannot refer to what we call the vat (the thing that holds his brain). I can explain further if that isn’t clear. But one thing I got from the article is that we can understand the bizarre, muddled writings of substance dualists as trying to describe the vat! If you don’t have any language that lets you refer to the vats you’re going to sound pretty confusing. I find this pretty funny because the way Descarte’s supposedly gets out of extreme skepticism is partly by trying to prove substance dualism! Irony!
Anyway, I’m a little confused by the invocation of the simulation hypothesis because while I’m willing to look at it as kind of metaphysical dualist hypothesis I can’t see how our tools for learning the answer to this question would be in anyway different from our general scientific tools. Metaphysics, such as we can say anything at all about it, is just an extension of science.
(a) by observing the incompleteness of X (for example, the inexplicable deus ex machina appearance of random numbers) (b) by observing temporal, spatial or logical inconsistencies in X c) Privileged information given to them directly about X’, built into the simulation in ways that don’t need to be consistent with other rules in X
Why not just assume these were features of X to begin with? If I see an temporal, spatial or logical inconsistency I’m going to revise my understanding of space, time and logic in X. Not posit X’.
But what if we could point to just one thing that could not be explained in X? Just one thing that could not even be explained in theory because to do so would result in some contradiction in X?
We would revise our theory of X to remove the contradiction. I know you know this happens all the time in science.
I’m having a hard time dealing with the rest given the conflation between epistemology and ontology. Yes, if there are properties (like value and consciousness) that cannot be reduced to the fundamental entities of physics, then physicalism is wrong. However, it does not follow that Bayesianism is wrong, that empiricism is wrong or that the scientific method is invalid in certain magesteria.
I can’t see how our tools for learning the answer to this question would be in anyway different from our general scientific tools. Metaphysics, such as we can say anything at all about it, is just an extension of science.
Depending upon what you mean by ‘science’, this statement could range from trivially true to … not true.
If by science you mean ‘ways of knowing’, then it is true; metaphysics is just an extension of science. However, scientific principles we’ve learned in X don’t necessarily apply to X’. The rules in X’ could be very strange, and not logical in physically logical ways. (My opinion is that they still need to be mathematically logical.)
Why not just assume these were features of X to begin with? If I see an temporal, spatial or logical inconsistency I’m going to revise my understanding of space, time and logic in X. Not posit X’.
It has to be an inconsistency that is not resolvable in X.
Depending upon what you mean by ‘science’, this statement could range from trivially true to … not true.
I mean scientific epistemology of which I take Bayesian epistemology to be an idealized form. We update our probability distributions for all logically consistent hypotheses based on predictive accuracy, capacity, parsimony and some other pragmatic tie-breaker criteria. This is the same formula we should apply to metaphysics. However, the nature of the beast is that most of the work that should done in metaphysics involves clearing the way for physics, biology, chemistry, psychology etc., not advancing a view with particular predictions that should be tested. Basically we’re asking: what is a good way to think about the world?
Now it could be that there is some place, domain or mode where physicalist metaphysics is bad, counterproductive, unexplanatory etc. Then it makes sense to try to give an account of metaphysics that makes sense of this place domain or mode while not losing the advantages physicalism provides elsewhere. A kludgey way of doing this is just to claim that there are different ‘magisterium’, one where physics defines our most basic ontology and another which is better described with some other theory. This other theory could be surprising and strange. But we still determine what that other theory looks like based on our scientific epistemology and the fact that we are using two different theories needs to be justified by our scientific epistemology.
It has to be an inconsistency that is not resolvable in X.
I have a lot of trouble imagining how this could happen. Our physical concepts are incredibly flexible. Would asking for an example be insane of me?
Nevermind. I got part (b) and part (c) confused. Example of temporal, spatial or logical inconsistencies (possible but not actual) forthcoming.
I have a lot of trouble imagining how this could happen. Our physical concepts are incredibly flexible. Would asking for an example be insane of me?
I gave 3. (The existence of truly random phenomenon, objective value, or a dual component to consciousness would all be inconsistent with X.) Did you even read my comment? I realize it was really long..
I leave the keys to my office on the counter, and realize this when I get to work. Damn, I need my keys! Maybe I left them in my car. Phew, there they are. I get home after work and there are my keys on the counter, just where I left them. So how did I get in my office? Well, shrug, I did.
More whimsical example:
Your name is Mario and it’s your job to save the princess. You’ve got 323 coins and then you see: a black pixel.
You appear to be conflating ontological views (physicalism and dualism usually refer to these sorts of views, views about what kinds of things exist) with epistemological views.
I’m not surprised I am doing this, since my intention is to compare world views, which include ontological and epistemological views together. Is this a big deal?
My writing style must have been confusing, because you seem to be systematically misinterpreting my use of clauses. Anyway, three things that I didn’t intend to write or even imply:
There is something in the definition of physicalism that requires us to have knowledge of the external world.
dualism requires us to give up rationality or science
it follows that Bayesianism is wrong, that empiricism is wrong or that the scientific method is invalid in certain magesteria. (the coherence o one world view doesn’t negate the others, and, anyway I haven’t mentioned anything about a dichotomy between Bayesianism and dualism).
I don’t know if this helps any. If it’s a mess you can just drop this comment, I’ll be leaving other ones.
dualism requires us to give up rationality or science
and that
it follows that Bayesianism is wrong, that empiricism is wrong or that the scientific method is invalid in certain magesteria. (the coherence o one world view doesn’t negate the others, and, anyway I haven’t mentioned anything about a dichotomy between Bayesianism and dualism).
Then I am really confused by what you define as the dualism thesis in the original comment:
In this comment, by dualism, I’ll mean the world view of two separate magisteria; one for science and one for faith.
…
I’m not surprised I am doing this, since my intention is to compare world views, which include ontological and epistemological views together. Is this a big deal?
Well I’m a physicalist but I’m a physicalist because I think that is the right view to hold given the evidence and my epistemology. So I’d have no problem at all adjusting my metaphysical view based on new evidence. But when a metaphysical view says that my epistemology ceases to apply in certain domains I get really cranky and confused. Maybe that isn’t what you’re suggesting or maybe I don’t hold one of the worldviews you are comparing. If I were going to describe my world view I would probably stop at my epistemology and only if prompted would I continue with an ontology.
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.
This comment is a response to the claim that Gould’s separate magesteria idea is not conceptually coherent. While I don’t view reality parsed this way, I thought I would make an effort to establish its coherence and self-consistency (and relevance under certain conditions).
In this comment, by dualism, I’ll mean the world view of two separate magisteria; one for science and one for faith. There are other, related meanings of dualism but I do not intend them here.
Physical materialism assumes monism—there is a single, external reality that we have a limited knowledge and awareness of. Awareness and knowledge of this reality come through our senses, by interaction with reality. Dualism is rejected with a straight-forward argument: you cannot have awareness of something without interaction with it. If you interact with it, then it is part of the one reality we were already talking about.
Dualists persist: The empirical reality X that physical materialists recognize is only part of everything that matters. There is also a dual reality—X’, which is in some way independent of (or outside of) X. The rules in X’ are different than the rules in X. For example, epistemology (and sometimes even logic) appears to work differently, or less directly.
Some immediate questions in response to dualism are:
(1) If we are located in X, how does interaction with X’ work?
(2) Is it actually coherent to think of some component X’ being outside of X? Why don’t we just have X expand to absorb it?
Relation to the Simulation Hypothesis
An immediate, possibly too-quick answer to the second question is ‘yes, dualism is coherent because it is structurally isomorphic to the simulation hypothesis’. If we were in a simulation, X and X’ would be a natural way to parse reality. X would be the simulation and X’ would be the reality outside the simulation. Clearly, the rules could be different within X compared to within X’. People simulated in X could deduce the existence of X’ in a variety ways:
(a) by observing the incompleteness of X (for example, the inexplicable deus ex machina appearance of random numbers)
(b) by observing temporal, spatial or logical inconsistencies in X
(c) Privileged information given to them directly about X’, built into the simulation in ways that don’t need to be consistent with other rules in X
While dualists aren’t claiming that empirical reality is a simulation, by analogy we could consider that (a), (b) or (c) would be cause for deducing X’ and having a dualistic world view. I will visit each of these in reverse order.
Re: (c) Privileged information given to them directly about X’, built into the simulation in ways that don’t need to be consistent with other rules in X
Many (most?) religions are based on elements of divine revelation; special ways that God has of communicating directly to us in some way separate and independent of ordinary empirical experience. Being saved, speaking in tongues, visions, etc. I’ve heard it argued here on LW that this sort of experience would be the most rational reason for theism; they might be delusional but at least they are basing their beliefs on empirical sense experience. They would be justified in having a dualistic world view if they perceived their visions as distinct from (for example, having different rules than or existing in a different plane than) empirical reality. However, many theists (including myself) do not claim experience of divine revelation.
Re: (b) by observing temporal, spatial or logical inconsistencies in X
I think that in the past, this was a big reason for belief in the spiritual realm. However, the success of the scientific world view has shot this completely out of the water. No one believes that X is inconsistent; while there are ‘gaps’ in our knowledge, we have limitless faith in science to resolve everything in X that can be resolved, one way or another. Outside X is another matter of course, which brings us to (a). I proceed to (a) with the counter-argument to (b) firmly in hand: reality is explainable and whether we know the rules are not, there are rules for the phenomena in X, and rules for the rules in X and, if not rules, than a necessary logical deduction that can be made.
Re: (a) by observing the incompleteness of X
Can everything in X, in theory, be explained within X? If you believe this, then you have no reason to be dis-satisfied with monism. (It happens that I am a monist.) But what if we could point to just one thing that could not be explained in X? Just one thing that could not even be explained in theory because to do so would result in some contradiction in X? Would that give us cause to deduce X’?
Example 1: True Randomness
There are many processes that are approximated as random. The diffusion of a dye in a liquid, the search path of an amoeba looking for food, the collapse of a symmetric structure to one direction or another. However, all of these processes are considered deterministic—if we knew all the relevant states of the system and had sufficient computing power we could accurately predict the outcome via simulation; no random numbers needed.
Nevertheless, there are some processes that appear as though they could be truly “random”. That is, occurring spontaneously independent of any mechanism determining the outcome. For example, the ‘spontaneous’ creation of particles in a vacuum, or any other phenomenon described in an advanced physical journal with ‘spontaneous’ in the title. I think that you are a self-consistent physical materialist, you should deny the possibility of random or spontaneous events. I do: I think there must be a mechanism for everything, whether we have access to knowledge of it or not.
To the best of my knowledge, our understanding of these ‘spontaneous’ phenomena leaves room for mechanical explanations. Maybe this and that are involved, we just don’t know.
Yet quantum mechanics is beginning to reveal ways in which a scientific theory could predict the inconsistency of non-randomness. Bell’s theorem is close, proving that information in some cases is exchanged without a local mechanism. Fortunately, there is still room for other interpretations, including non-local mechanisms and many-worlds.
Example 2: Objective Value
Of any kind, including objective morality. This remains an unsolved problem in physical materialism, if you insist upon it, because it’s existence seems dependent upon some authority (e.g., a book) that we have no evidence of in X. If a person believes in objective morality a priori, they may be a dualist since they deduce the existence of such an authority, embedded within X, but distinct from X in that it cannot be directly observed or interacted with. (Its existence is only inferred.)
Example 3: Consciousness
Another unsolved problem in physical materialism. I’m not familiar with them, but I understand that some dualists have arguments for why consciousness could not be explained within X.
My Position
It is often logistically difficult to defend a position you don’t represent. The reason for this is that criticisms against the position will be directed at you personally, even though you hold you do not hold the position, and then further you might be tempted to continue defending the position with counter-arguments, which further confuses your identity. I am sympathetic to the dualist worldview as coherent and rational, but not globally scientific. I greatly prefer the physical materialist, scientific worldview. I have a very strong faith that everything in X can be explained within X; this faith is so strong that I consider it theistic, and call myself a theist.
I don’t understand why true randomness is a problem. Is there something so wrong with probabilistic determinism?
I think so. If a process is truly random, does this mean there was no mechanism for it? How was it determined? It seems to me that picking a random number is something a closed system cannot possibly do.
“Cannot possibly” is a very strong claim—I would hesitate to say anything much stronger than “should not be expected to”.
You’re correct of course.
But I’m ‘sticking my neck out’ on this one—my intention was to signal this.
Admirable! I will read it as a rhetorical flourish, then.
Re: Your definitions.
You appear to be conflating ontological views (physicalism and dualism usually refer to these sorts of views, views about what kinds of things exist) with epistemological views. There is nothing in the definition of physicalism that requires us to have knowledge of the external world and nothing in dualism that requires us to give up rationality or science. You can be a physicalist and still think someone is deceiving your senses, for example. Also, this might just be me but ‘materialism’ should be jettisoned as outdated. “Materialism” means that you believe everything that exists is matter. But there is no reason to think that word is even meaningful in our fundamental physics. Thus I prefer “physicalism” the belief that what exists is what physics tells us exists.
Re: the relation to the simulation hypothesis
If you haven’t you ought to read “Brains in a vat” by Hilary Putnam. It’s just twenty pages or so. He argues that we cannot claim to be brains in vats (or in any kind of extreme skeptical scenario) because our language does not have the ability to refer to vats and computers outside our level of reality. When a brain in a vat says “vat” he is referring to some feature of the computer program that is being run for his brain. Thus he cannot refer to what we call the vat (the thing that holds his brain). I can explain further if that isn’t clear. But one thing I got from the article is that we can understand the bizarre, muddled writings of substance dualists as trying to describe the vat! If you don’t have any language that lets you refer to the vats you’re going to sound pretty confusing. I find this pretty funny because the way Descarte’s supposedly gets out of extreme skepticism is partly by trying to prove substance dualism! Irony!
Anyway, I’m a little confused by the invocation of the simulation hypothesis because while I’m willing to look at it as kind of metaphysical dualist hypothesis I can’t see how our tools for learning the answer to this question would be in anyway different from our general scientific tools. Metaphysics, such as we can say anything at all about it, is just an extension of science.
Why not just assume these were features of X to begin with? If I see an temporal, spatial or logical inconsistency I’m going to revise my understanding of space, time and logic in X. Not posit X’.
We would revise our theory of X to remove the contradiction. I know you know this happens all the time in science.
I’m having a hard time dealing with the rest given the conflation between epistemology and ontology. Yes, if there are properties (like value and consciousness) that cannot be reduced to the fundamental entities of physics, then physicalism is wrong. However, it does not follow that Bayesianism is wrong, that empiricism is wrong or that the scientific method is invalid in certain magesteria.
Depending upon what you mean by ‘science’, this statement could range from trivially true to … not true.
If by science you mean ‘ways of knowing’, then it is true; metaphysics is just an extension of science. However, scientific principles we’ve learned in X don’t necessarily apply to X’. The rules in X’ could be very strange, and not logical in physically logical ways. (My opinion is that they still need to be mathematically logical.)
It has to be an inconsistency that is not resolvable in X.
I mean scientific epistemology of which I take Bayesian epistemology to be an idealized form. We update our probability distributions for all logically consistent hypotheses based on predictive accuracy, capacity, parsimony and some other pragmatic tie-breaker criteria. This is the same formula we should apply to metaphysics. However, the nature of the beast is that most of the work that should done in metaphysics involves clearing the way for physics, biology, chemistry, psychology etc., not advancing a view with particular predictions that should be tested. Basically we’re asking: what is a good way to think about the world?
Now it could be that there is some place, domain or mode where physicalist metaphysics is bad, counterproductive, unexplanatory etc. Then it makes sense to try to give an account of metaphysics that makes sense of this place domain or mode while not losing the advantages physicalism provides elsewhere. A kludgey way of doing this is just to claim that there are different ‘magisterium’, one where physics defines our most basic ontology and another which is better described with some other theory. This other theory could be surprising and strange. But we still determine what that other theory looks like based on our scientific epistemology and the fact that we are using two different theories needs to be justified by our scientific epistemology.
I have a lot of trouble imagining how this could happen. Our physical concepts are incredibly flexible. Would asking for an example be insane of me?
Nevermind. I got part (b) and part (c) confused. Example of temporal, spatial or logical inconsistencies (possible but not actual) forthcoming.
I gave 3. (The existence of truly random phenomenon, objective value, or a dual component to consciousness would all be inconsistent with X.) Did you even read my comment? I realize it was really long..
First example:
I leave the keys to my office on the counter, and realize this when I get to work. Damn, I need my keys! Maybe I left them in my car. Phew, there they are. I get home after work and there are my keys on the counter, just where I left them. So how did I get in my office? Well, shrug, I did.
More whimsical example:
Your name is Mario and it’s your job to save the princess. You’ve got 323 coins and then you see: a black pixel.
I’m not surprised I am doing this, since my intention is to compare world views, which include ontological and epistemological views together. Is this a big deal?
My writing style must have been confusing, because you seem to be systematically misinterpreting my use of clauses. Anyway, three things that I didn’t intend to write or even imply:
There is something in the definition of physicalism that requires us to have knowledge of the external world.
dualism requires us to give up rationality or science
it follows that Bayesianism is wrong, that empiricism is wrong or that the scientific method is invalid in certain magesteria. (the coherence o one world view doesn’t negate the others, and, anyway I haven’t mentioned anything about a dichotomy between Bayesianism and dualism).
I don’t know if this helps any. If it’s a mess you can just drop this comment, I’ll be leaving other ones.
If you didn’t imply
and that
Then I am really confused by what you define as the dualism thesis in the original comment:
…
Well I’m a physicalist but I’m a physicalist because I think that is the right view to hold given the evidence and my epistemology. So I’d have no problem at all adjusting my metaphysical view based on new evidence. But when a metaphysical view says that my epistemology ceases to apply in certain domains I get really cranky and confused. Maybe that isn’t what you’re suggesting or maybe I don’t hold one of the worldviews you are comparing. If I were going to describe my world view I would probably stop at my epistemology and only if prompted would I continue with an ontology.
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.
This is thorough enough and long enough to merit posting as a top-level, IMO.