The Heliotrope

Philosophy, science, progression, prose.

1. John Botscharow 8.18.07 / 11pm

   In some ways this post is a rather bleak and materialist look at consciousness. IMHO, counscousness is more than just a chemcial reaction. I wonder if there might be some forms of conscioussnes that do not involve chemical reactions - perhaps the consciousness of God is chemical free????

   I do agree we as individuals are not as autonomous as we might like to think we are. John Donne said it so well 400 years ago: “No man is an island.” Recommend you read Emile Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of the Religious Life for an interesting perspective on whether an individual consciousness is autonomous.
2. Ryan 8.18.07 / 11pm

   On the contrary, twice:

   1) Claiming consciousness resonates from a physical level, either through holistic chemical reactions or reducible to quantum concepts does not at all imply a sense of bleakness. If you want to think of putting yourself into the reality of physical things as terrible, that’s up to you. I find it uplifting and beautiful to include my mind along with all other things.

   2) Whatever consciousness is, how you feel about what it is should not at all help to determine if you disagree. If you want to argue against a materialist position, use better reasoning than “it sounds bleak to me.”

   EDIT: But I do like your reading suggestion, and I’m thinking strongly about picking it up. I’ve recently gotten through In Gods We Trust, by Atran, and I think a little historic perspective on the debate about religion and society is in order for myself.
3. John Botscharow 8.18.07 / 11pm

   A materialist concpetion of consciousness is, IMHO, bleak. That is my opimion and not open for rational discussion becuase opinions are matters of belief and beliefs do not srping form reason. Rather, reason is used, after the fact, to justify one’s beliefs.

   You cannot present a rational apologetic for materialist consciousness, any more than I can present one for a non-materialist consciousenss.

   Ratiionalists, of which you seem to be one, believe, and that is the operative word here, that reason is the end all and be all of consciousness. But that belief removes much of the magic of consciousness - the mystery of faith, the wonder of the supernatural.

   Science is only one of many metaphors to explain what our consiousness experiences. It is not necessarily the ONLY one or even the BEST one.

   PS Your post was rather bleak as well as materialist. It was BOTH and the bleakness was not just because of the materialism. The mood that your post conveys is bleak, from my perspective.
4. Ryan 8.19.07 / 12am

   You might be confusing me when you type that rationalists believe that “reason is the end all and be all of consciousness”. So if I’m misunderstanding, sorry:

   Reasons, are of course, necessary to argue any point. We’re at an immediate divide if you’re implying that you won’t be reasoned with here. If you’re going to place something else (you weren’t specific, and though I could assume I don’t want to offend) above reason then there’s not much to be debated here.

   You also type that science is a “metaphor to explain”. I’ll try to draw a neutral line for you here: science is the most reasonable method; it is the most defensible through reason. Science is obviously horrible at taking things on faith, or accepting things because of a sense of mysteriousness or spiritual unapproachability, but I find this fine and I don’t see any reason for not placing its method of inquiry above (normally) any other personal conjectures I might make. And while I’ve not entirely concluded a fully materialist perspective, I think science can as well investigate a metaphysical realm — so long as a correspondance between duel realities can be held. But I’d digress if I went further.

   In the sense of my post being bleak, I agree with you. I don’t always separate aesthetic from conjecture, but it’s a good practice if you want to make yourself clear, and I really want this point to resound. It’s one of the best concepts about for altruist ethics. Perhaps for you that might recover it from a sense of bleakness.

   I also disagree about opinions and feelings being “not open for rational discussion”. Perhaps yours are not, but my feelings often change from my reasoning, albeit slower. I’ve went through my period of “existential angst,” a long time ago, and reasoning brought me out. I think if you acquainted yourself more to materialist philosophy, you’d find in it a bright (and possibly spiritual) perspective. I’m not suggesting that it will change your mind, philosophically, but having empathy for the advocate is usually a fine thing. I’m sure you’ve seen or heard of the Cosmos series; that’s certainly one. I’ve found my happiness through literature, personally.
5. John Botscharow 8.19.07 / 3am

   I don’t know how much training you have in the philosophy of sciencem so I will try to keep my comments fairly simple.

   Science IS reason. Read either Descartes Meditations or Kant’s Discourse on Pure Reason. They believed and worked from the assumption that science can access truth more than any other form of discourse. That is the main fallacy with the rationalist approach.

   All explanations, whether scientific, religious, aesthetic, or whatever have no more handle on the truth than any other. Each of them resorts to metaphors to explain phenomena.

   There is no order in the universe other than the order each of us gives it. The order we see in the universe is grounded in whatever basic assumptions we work from. For example. the astronomers of the ancient world saw the Earth as the center of the universe. This was not something they learned through objective observation. Rather, it colored their observations and therefore their data confirmed their hypothesis.

   Then along came Kepler, Galileo, Tycho Brahe et al to show us that the old theory was wrong and that the sun was the center of the universe. Their data, seen through the glasses of their assumprion, proved them right.

   Now, the astronomers say there is no center to the universe. That the universe has no beginning and no end. That it is expanding.

   What has caused this shift in how we see the universe? Certainly out abilibty to extend the capabilities of our senses, but is what we think we see really what is out there in the depths of universe? Perhaps, perhaps not. There is no way to rationally answer that question. Either you believe or you don’t.

   We use language to explain. Whether we use scientific (rational) language, the mystical language of religion, or some other form of discuourse, it is still language and all language is sybmolic (metaphoric). It does not REALLY explain that which it apprehends. It only paints symbolic pictures that may or may not resonate with the listener/reader.

   I;ve been down the road of materialism already and have already rejected it as too limiting. It serves its purposes for certain forms of explanation, particularly in the social and physical sciences, but it by no means presents the whole truth of any given phenomena, especially human social action (see Max Weber for an explanation of what social action is). Human beings are spiritual creatures - that is what sets us apart from the rest of creation as we know it.

   One last criticism of rationalists: they assume that they can objectively observe the universe and all phenomena contained therein. They ignore the fact that they all have cultural baggage ingrained in them from birth, most of which is contained in the language they use. Language is not objective; it is the tool of socialization and therefore is laden with prejudices and preconceptions that are not necessarily universally shared. Westerners, of which I am one, tend to see themselves as the end all and be all of humanity and that their science (rationalism) as the cure all for human misery. But, as Shakespeare said, and the exaxt quote from Hamlet escapes me at the moment, there is more to the universe than your science or rationalism.

   BTW, I don’t know about you, but I have found this discussion extremely stimulating.
6. Ryan 8.19.07 / 11am

   I agree, this discussion is cool. But I do disagree with you, and want to clear up a few things, and defend a few others.

   Firstly, I should say that I am not a rationalist. I would ally myself with Hume than the either you mentioned — although I do greatly respect Kant. I consider myself a empiricist epistemologically, and a nominalist as well.

   I think you’re using the word “metaphor” unnecessarily here; “model” is a much better word in all uses. “Metaphor” denotes literary use and a purposeful alternate explanation. But a model is the intention of science, as with other forms of active inquiry — in science we are attempting to create more and more accurate models of the universe.

   There are two inherent weaknesses in the models: the first is epistemological and the second is semiotic. The first one, which drives me to be an empiricist, is the subjectivity — language and understanding itself are either axiomatized early into a philosophical discourse, or must be assumed to be in err. “Language and understanding has some correspondance with reality” would let us continue. Simply being subjective creates the problems we’ve established entire philosophies to investigate.

   Scientifically, and further into a philosophy that utilizes it, we come to understand that our language is a grammar, a way to express ideas that seem to have certain universal (by virtue of same species) qualities that allow our grammar to be understood and communicated among us. Grammar is communicating the models of our understanding about ourselves and the outside world. I assure you that I do not foolishly think that all communicated models are perceived without change in understanding — but we are close, and there is no better way we can communicate. Especially since we’re all on the internet now.

   The second problem stems from this: being a nominalist, I do not think that we will ever create a model about the world that is so accurate that at least minor changes in the model could not also be introduced with the same accuracy. It’s the problem of subjectivity combined with language: no model we create can objectively account for all things, and therefore speculative additions can always be introduced. Occam’s Razor helps to scientifically cull additional explanations, but if there are slight alternates, not multiples, then the practicality remains virtually the same.

   Now that I’ve given some clarification, I’m going to defend a few things.

   You claim that using science to reason is no better than other things, and you illustrate our changing views in astronomy for this. I think your example is instead better used to demonstrate why science is the best model for understanding (*) the world around us:

   (*Understanding, again, being simply constructing human models about the outside world. I’m not eschewing the flaws of models, but the choice of dwelling like a nihilist and continuing into the dark must be made.)

   As we observe new things (facts and laws) we create better models (theories) in how to weave them all together. The models themselves are of course guided by our own human language-faults, but these faults are minimized by using the most specific of all vocabulary: mathematics and specialized words. The reason this minimizes language subjectivity, is because we base our measurements and quantities on entities in the real world: we might not be able to translate our ideas of “emotion and god” to an alien, but we can translate our idea of “speed of light” simply by suggesting a species look at the speed of light.

   What makes science better than other ways of inquiry are two chief things: falsifiability, and prediction. The former gives us the the chance to prove wrong our ideas by way of physically testing them (although this is not always presently accessible), and the latter gives us, should we concede the axiom of causality, the ability to navigate the outside world and confirm at least some correspondance of our models with it.

   You claim that science may still be wrong with its models of astronomy. I’ll go one further: I think every model we have in science (save a more fundamental sense of natural selection and a few quantum observations) are models that are quite inaccurate and will probably see a number of incredible paradigm shifts to come. But you must also concede that the models science has about the universe today are closer to objective accuracy than the first ones we dreamed of upon our star-ridden hills. We can not measure science or any investigation of the world in black and white, then claim the difference between our models and what reality really is will always remain with the same amount of error.

   The two concepts, of falsifiability and prediction, give us together one final greatness above other forms of inquiry: axiom reasoning.

   Consider axiom reasoning the best way we might have to weigh the value of different systems which model the world around us. You ask yourself: what about the axioms I derive my models from is most essential to my models? Or ask: could I replace my axioms with completely different ones and still arrive with the same rationalization for my model?

   You can replace any spiritual idea for another, and arrive with the same rationalized consistency for noumena and phenomena. The same level of prediction remains, and its falsifiability remains vaguely in the dark.

   Falsifiability and prediction are of course values based on scientific axioms, and their worth is not communicable to spiritualism — but axiom reasoning is. We can always ask ourselves if we can arrive at the same conclusions we have if we switched up our axioms. In science we can not do this, and it is the need for falsifiability and prediction that hold us above rationalizations that can fall among any other set of axioms. Science has more rigor, and less and less can its reasonings be compromised.

   To respond quickly to a few other things: I don’t find materialism limiting at all. I’ve not come across any phenomenon, emotion, or idea that I could not at least lend some speculation towards. However, as I have already said, I have not fully concluded a totally material approach to reality. Perhaps though, you can propose an idea that I could not access through a material explanation? If you could do this, I’ll understand why you find it limiting. But I am quite the creative person, and I’ve never found an idea inside my head that I could not append to at least a few physically-bound explanations.

   Finally, I don’t think the western world is dominated by rationalists. Do you forget that China is one of the most interested in science, along with Japan? Perhaps you are thinking a century behind? I’m not sure why you’ve not mentioned empiricism, and I encourage you to pick up Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery. It is perhaps the most important work in epistemology concerning science, and I think it may restore some of your confidence.
7. John Botscharow 8.19.07 / 7pm

   Just have time to make two brief comments:

   Falsifiability and prediction are myths that science perpetuates. Science, like any other cultural system, is self-fulfilling. It sees what it wants to see.

   Yes, modern day China and Japan have adopted Westyern rationalism. But, Iwas speaking from a historical perspective. Traditional Chinese and Japanese cultures were based on a different logic.

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