debray@sbcs.UUCP (06/01/83)
A few comments on a recent article by D.Radin (cbosg!dir): "[materialism] is a high price to pay in order to liberate science from theology." The question, I guess, is: would it be preferable to wallow in the obscurantism that theology promotes? True, some things fall outside the reaches of Newtonian-Cartesian science; given an axiom system, some things will, as a direct consequence of Goedel's incompleteness theorem, be true and yet analytically unprovable. What's attractive about a materialistic-rationalistic approach is that it's dynamic: when it finds truths that cannot be explained, it restructures itself to accommodate these truths. Witness the revolution in the scientific world-view that occurred at the beginning of this century. "Some subjective experience seems to fall outside the bounds of Newtonion-Cartesian science. To deny that this experience is valid is as dogmatic as some of the ideas in orthodox religions." I agree. But anyone who considers Science to be complete is deluding himself. In fact, if I thought that Science (as it is now) could explain *everything*, I'd be a historian, not a scientist - I'd be wasting my time in science! The very fact that there's so much research going on in all branches of science indicates that scientists think that there's a lot we don't know. That applies to subjective experience as well. In other words, it's not that subjective experience is intrinsically inexplicable by scientific methods, but just that we don't have the tools just yet. Just as, a couple of hundred years ago, we hadn't the tools to measure the bending of light rays as they passed close to the sun. "2. In attempting to "humanize" philosophy and the human condition, science a la materialism reduces humans to machines, without purpose. Even if this were ultimately true, to actively deny a purpose for living is a cruel and dangerous philosophy to preach to millions of people living under harsh conditions. It provides unfortunate people with no hope, not in this life, or even another. It says there is no reason for doing anything since we are really just temporarily active pieces of matter, mechanically playing out purposeless lives." No one said that the pursuit of truth would necessarily be a pleasant affair! I myself think that any philosophy that avoids such issues, or invents a "purpose" for mankind to satisfy emotional needs of its adherents, ignoring logically viable but emotionally less palatable alternatives, as escapist and cowardly. If we *must* escape unpleasantness, why not simply go on a marijuana trip? it's simpler! Saumya Debray SUNY at Stony Brook ... philabs!sbcs!debray
portegys@ihuxv.UUCP (06/10/83)
This is a follow-up to fairly recent articles by D. Radin and
Saumya Debray.
Anti-materialists say that it is intolerable to them to classify people
as entirely existing in the world of material "things". To them this
is unacceptable, for it implies that the special properties of people,
such as emotional and subjective experiences, are being dragged down
literally into the dirt. It also has a bearing on the free will
question. If we are clockwork mechanisms, then what is the point of
living?
My point is: why are material things so far below us? Why not accept
things as simply different, not lesser? I think this ties into the
human addiction for mysteries, which I commented on in an earlier article.
If something can't be touched or understood, it somehow acquires an aura
of awe. It's too bad, really. I wish I could strip away at will the
wrappings of experience and see things as a child. As I dimly recall,
(sometimes triggered by scent, such as the smell of my old grade school,
or oranges conjuring up Christmases memories), there were times when "I"
and the outside of me were not on such formal terms. If there is anything
to despair about, I think it is this loss.
As to the notion that materialism somehow implies determinism, well,
that is a separate question. I personally think that the answer to
this cannot be discovered (yeah, OK, I guess it's a mystery).
Tom Portegys, BTL IH, ...ihuxv!portegys