Re: Dennett / Ruse Tiff Continues


Scott Draper wrote:
<<if the soul is held to be beyond scientific methodology then it is
obvious from the outset that there can be no conflict with science,
the proposition occupies different conceptual territory.>>

That's true, but it also makes the concept of a soul meaningless.

Why? Can meaning come only from empirical understanding? If you believe
this, how do you support it logically? Even if just one person says
"no, that means something to me regardless of its material existence,"
isn't the point moot?

So we're left with the understanding that the concept is meaningless to
*you.* This is an entirely reasonable view, something we can discuss,
and possibly even a point of view I share. But to globally extend the
sentiment is to leave it unsupportable.

As
in, it's something that survives death, but isn't the same thing as
your personality or consciousness, because we know those things can be
evaluated by science. There isn't anything left for a soul to DO.

The concept of soul can easily accommodate any material evaluation of
personality or consciousness and much more. It can accommodate whatever
the believer's tradition holds.

When religion leaves science behind, then it appears to leave meaning
behind as well. Catch-22.

Perhaps you're using "meaning" here to signify empirical understanding.
I think others, including myself, will interpret it differently. When I
say "meaning" I'm talking about judgments of significance and value and
aesthetics that people invest in the events of their lives.

Meaning is something that is individual and unconstrained. The
cognitive elements that generate an impulse to invest meaning may
someday be identifiable but I don't see that meaning itself can be
delimited by anything but the creative capacity of human consciousness.


It is simply not logical to speak of meaning unconditionally. It's like
rigidly defining a supposedly comprehensive set of belief propositions
and then refusing to accept a subsequent observation that there are
those who believe differently.

<<But isn't the point (in the context of this discussion) more that if
it makes no testable predictions it is not amenable to empirical
investigation and therefore irrelevant to, not *contradicted by*,
science?>>

Do you not think that the lack of support from science is enough to
make belief irrational? (I use the word "science" to mean verifiable
in the real world.)

Absolutely not, not by a long stretch. The lack of support from science
is enough to make belief scientifically unsupported, not irrational.
Only if you turn scientific methodology into a Faith can you make such
unequivocal statements about the putative existence of phenomena
outside its purview.

<<Science makes no claim to be a method by which the possible
existence of any and all things can be determined. Now scientism, on
the other hand...>>

No, but I do think it's the only way to verify the existence of
anything that can affect the material world.

Total agreement here.

BTW, what do you call an adherent to scientism? A scientismist?

Scientismistarianista

Robert

.

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