On MU's construction, it would appear there are many fewer true propositions than at least I thought there were. "All mules have four legs," if unfalsifiable, would be necessarily true. But it is falsifiable, so we must retreat to, "Some mules have four legs," or most anyway. And falsifiable, it seems, ought to include all kinds. On the other hand, any proposition that is unfalsifiable becomes true, which seems counter-intuitive — tim wood
The outcome is much the same, in that they show that science cannot be differentiated form non-science by method alone. — Banno
The upshot then would be that the practice of science involves both scientific and non-scientific hypotheses — Janus
As far as I’m concerned, mine is an original argument which directly challenges the idea of correspondence between mind and brain. — Wayfarer
I'm fine with astrology being a science... — Janus
I have come to think that these kinds of arguments are quite naive. — Janus
I choose to raise my arm and the darn thing goes up, — Banno
He wants his haunted universe statements to take on much the same role as the core theories of Lakatos' research programs. — Banno
The interesting thing is that Popper argued that metaphysical speculations or propositions play an ineliminable role in science. — Janus
That style of argument reduces a very subtle issue to a simplistic truism. It's like Moore's 'here is my hand', or, for that matter, 'Stove's Gem' - sweeping, simplistic declarations which want to sweep the table clean, without really indicating any real idea of what is at stake. — Wayfarer
any form of dualism faces the insurmountable obstacle of explaining causality across the great divide. — Banno
The identification of the mind with the brain is the lynchpin of all materialism, take that out and the whole structure collapses. — Wayfarer
By the way, Popper co-authored a book with Sir John Eccles in defense of dualism, 'The Self and its Brain'. — Wayfarer
(1) From the "normal science" side: how does an all and some statement suggest/generate falsifiable (or verifiable) research hypotheses? — fdrake
(2) From the "paradigm shift" side: how does evidence or theory refute an "all or some" statement? — fdrake
Popper was not defending metaphysical dualism, even though he may be considered to be a mind/body dualist, a methodological dualist (as we all really are) on account of his differentiation between physical and mental descriptions. — Janus
There's no way to account for or predict these abilities on the basis of physics. — Wayfarer
In any event, the fact remains that Davidson’s position, like all forms of materialism, ultimately derives whatever strength it has from the false supposition that, realistically, “there is no alternative” to materialism (or physicalism, or naturalism) if one rejects modern forms of dualism.
If, as he argues, life were bound to arise, not as an incalculably improbable accident, but as an expected fulfillment of the natural order, then we truly are at home in the universe.
Horgan: Have you read Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos? If so, are you sympathetic toward his critique of evolutionary theory in particular and science in general?
Kauffman: Loved his book. He asks most of the right questions, and I so wrote him. But I don't think he has ideas of answers. Nagel's "purposeless teleology" may rest on an unrecognized anti-entropic process in the universe, in which above level of atoms, as complexity increases, e.g. molecules, grains of dust to minerals, the space of possibilities becomes ever vaster, and more sparsely populated in non-repeating ways. Maybe the universe, life, humanity and culture become complex because this anti-entropic process says "THEY CAN" as in the ergodic hypothesis in statistical mechanics, which is not causal. In short, why did life, universe and economy become complex? We need accelerating expansion of universe for free energy and "tuned constants" but those are necessary, not sufficient. The anti-entropic process may be, with others, sufficient. I am writing a new book about this.
Among the estimated one hundred billion solar systems in the known universe, evolving life is surely abundant. That evolution is a process of "becoming" in each case. Since Newton, we have turned to physics to assess reality. But physics alone cannot tell us where we came from, how we arrived, and why our world has evolved past the point of unicellular organisms to an extremely complex biosphere.
I believe we'll find what I stated, "unfalsifiable" means impossible to be falsified, therefore necessarily true. — Metaphysician Undercover
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