I am as mystified as Drake concerning the notion of "post-science" and what
this might imply but then I am also mystified as to how simple expressions of
opinion and name calling (materialism is "absurd") helps.
All I said was that the view of late 20th Century materialism is the view that
"our understanding of the physical world is complete in all important
respects." I then observed, as a positivist, that this is not a scientific
view.
This observation affirms the principles of science. And it certainly affirms
those principles conceived by Peirce and Carnap. If it is critical of anything
it is critical of the scientific community of the late 20th Century for
allowing the view of materialism to prevail and for sustaining the
intellectually lazy view of "emergence" theorists.
Emergence theorists appear also to appeal to a "post-science." Perhaps this is
what Terry is referring to. Emergence theory, as popularly espoused by Chaitin,
Wolfram and others, is the necessary logical consequence of materialism and
also not scientific.
With respect,
Steven
--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science & Engineering
http://senses.info
On Aug 16, 2011, at 8:57 PM, Terry Bristol wrote:
> Drake –
>
> This is the tip of a large intellectual iceberg. So simply: the dominant
> logical positivist philosophy of science is largely an exposition of the
> Mechanical Philosophy resurrected by Galileo and Descartes et al. The
> Laplacean version was that Newtonian Mechanics allowed an 'in principle'
> supermind to predict and explain everything (viz as well as retrodict). The
> Modern version has been Einstein's Unified Field Theory research program and
> the later posturing about a Theory of Everything. I recently asked Brian
> Greene (Columbia U, Elegant Universe; Fabric of teh Cosmos) where he though
> that String Theory might be a Fully Deterministic Theory of Everything. He
> said that that was the goal and expectation.
>
> The problem with the opposite 'un-scientific' position is that it is unable
> to account for or make sense of the success – limited as it may be – of the
> mechanical theories (Newton, Maxwell, quantum etc.). A post-scientific theory
> seeks to be able to make sense of the success of science (mechanical theories
> and relationships) while rejecting the Scientific Hypothesis (SH) that all
> phenomena in the universe can be understood as governed by one (time-space
> invariant) order. SH is what links ancient science and modern science – that
> they are both science.
>
> Peirce and the American Pragmatists embraced the Evolutionary Hypothesis –
> linked to Schiller and Hegel and so forth and again linked to ancient
> theories – Plato, Socrates and Aristotle.
> The Socratic Turn (cf Bartlett's brilliant Great Courses exposition) is the
> same as the Pragmatic Turn (IMO) where there is a paradigmatic problem shift
> from the scientific – how does the world work (necessarily fixed over time to
> be 'learnable'? – to the pragmatic – how should we live?
>
> A post-scientific, pragmatic model of reality must still be able to make
> sense of the successes of the scientific enterprise – precluding a shift to
> an un-scientific model.
>
> Enough of the iceberg.
>
> Terry
>
> =========================================
> On Aug 16, 2011, at 8:05 PM, vony wrote:
> Why is “post-scientific” a better characterization than “unscientific” of the
> sentence “our understanding of the physical world is complete in all
> important respects." ? To my mind the proposition "our understanding of the
> physical world is complete in all important respects" is absurd, Not just
> “unscientific” but counter-scientific. It doesn’t seem to be consistent to
> any idea I have of “religion”, either.
> Drake
>
> From: Terry Bristol…………
> 'Post-scientific' is a better characterization than unscientific – methinks.
> What Peirce et al are after is a More General Theory that can account for the
> inherently limited success of various material or mechanical theories as
> special cases.
>
> T
> =================================
> On Aug 16, 2011, at 12:59 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:
>
> Steven, List,
> …………..
>
> While I concur that Peirce would have certainly agreed that the position that
> "our understanding of the physical world is complete in all important
> respects" is unscientific, …..
> ….
>
> Gary
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