I appreciate the kind words.

OK

Though a pedantic point, it's significant to note, as the article linked in my last post makes clear, that I referred to methodological physicalism – a criterion for evaluating scientific theories – and not the "all is physical" of metaphysical physicalism. — 180 Proof

Methodological physicalism is applied metaphysical physicalism.
Imagine if someone said "I don't hold racist views, rather, I just apply a racist methodology."
Edit: Unless the person's field of study is racial differences...which would mean they are studying the differences between races. That's not racist. But if they then say that the ONLY valid way to differentiate people is by their race, then they are being like the naturalist who says the only criterias that matter are physically observable ones.
In both cases you reduce people to their physical characteristics.

Non sequitur bullshit :lol:

The mechanistic worldview is an inevitable consequence of science - just because you're alive, you have feelings, a family who loves you, does gravity treat you any different from a stone with a mass equal to yours? No!

That out of the way, what about psychology, a soft science as of now but let's not forget it's slowly but surely going to be mathematized fully in the coming few decades, completing its transformation into a hard science?

So we're just bags of chemistry? — Neil deGrasse Tyson

What Desmet tries to convey is that science has a lot of limitations - limitations that science itself shows to us through certain fields of study (quantum physics, complex systems theory). Even gravity runs into such limitations. G, the gravitational constant, is an irrational number.

I would disagree that the mechanistic world view is an inevitable consequence of science. It essentially departs from science by extrapolating scientific achievements into the future.

So "extrapolations" make a worldview "mechanistic"?

It's one of the things that characterizes the mechanistic worldview.

The idea that through science everything can be reduced to a mathematical equation, and the things that seemingly cannot be reduced to a mathematical equation will be reducable in time.

Essentially, that everything can be reduced to a machine or a mechanism.

If you're interested in hearing more, I would look up some interviews or books by Mattias Desmet. I can provide links to those.

Worldviews tend to give rise to narratives. I would call it "the mechanistic narrative".

The idea that through science everything can be reduced to a mathematical equation ... — Tzeentch

This is a caricature of what most scientists and scientifically literate laypersons actually believe. For instance, a cake recipe cannot "be reduced" to the wavefunction of the cake's quantum constituents. Desmet is strawmanning modern science. :roll:

quantum physics, complex systems theory — Tzeentch

:up:

These did register but only fleetingly and that explains why I failed to mention their implications. The chaos in Chaos Theory says it all, doesn't it?

This is a caricature of what most scientists and scientifically literate laypersons actually believe. For instance, a cake recipe cannot "be reduced" to the wavefunction of the cake's quantum constituents. Desmet is strawmanning modern science. — 180 Proof

Desmet does not claim that this world view is particularly prevalent among scientists, nor is it meant to be an attack on modern science. I've tried to make that clear on multiple occasions in this thread.

The mechanistic world view as described by Desmet seems more prevalent in politics and the semi-scientifically literate masses. Scientists usually are aware of the limitations of science, and a lot more nuanced. I think nuance is one of the things that is so lacking in the mechanistic world view.

Whether in politics or among the mid-brow masses, why does their "worldview" matter in philossophy? What's the alternative to an unreflective, or thoughtless, "common sense" by which the vast majority of people "get by"? You & Desmet seem fixated on a pseudo-problem; I don't see the point, and am not persuaded by your presentation to bother with Desmet's apparent rehash of e.g. Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) or
Horkheimer & Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) or Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) or Ellul's The Technological Society (1964) or Marcuse's One Domensional Man (1964) or Guattari & Deleuze's Anti-Oedipus (1972) or Feyerabend's Against Method (1975) ... etc.

Desmet does not claim that this world view is particularly prevalent among scientists, nor is it meant to be an attack on modern science. I've tried to make that clear on multiple occasions in this thread. — Tzeentch

The title "the end of the [...]" was just plain and simple rhetoric then? Nevertheless, it does put the reader in the right frame of mind to process the rest of Desmet. Perhaps we're too enamored of the mechanistic world view, enthralled by it as it were, to see its flaws and hence the title had to be crafted (most carefully) to break the spell. Good job!

Isn't that a big part of what writers do, though? Synthesize works from different writers and turn them into something that sheds light on contemporary issues?

But if you're not interested in discussing the topic don't let me keep you.

The title was meant to tickle, of course. Thanks!

The title was meant to tickle, of course. Thanks! — Tzeentch

You nailed it! :up:

Synthesize works from different writers and turn them into something [shits] that sheds light on contemporary issues? — Tzeentch

In other words, derivative dumbing down for "ease of use" by middle-brow consumers. (or maybe undergrad litcrit / humanities courses). The works I've cited have philosophical import and should be studied in order to make explicit what is implicit yet still operative in "contemporary issues".

He quotes Hannah Arendt extensively.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you've never read anything by Desmet, nor watched any of his interviews.

So what is it really you're doing?

I'm pointing out that you have not persuaded me that Desmet is saying anything new and insightful, just rehashing others who are far less derivative. I'm also suggesting that you read more widely and deeply than what have exhibited here.

Desmet is worried to bits about what scientists once had to face - authoritarianism vis-à-vis truth. The Church used to have a monopoly over "facts" i.e. facts were simply what the Pope and his lackeys said they were - if the Vatican said the earth is flat and sat motionless at the center of the universe then that was fact.

Eppur si muove! — Galileo Galilei

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!

Desmet is worried to bits about what scientists once had to face - authoritarianism vis-à-vis truth. — Agent Smith

That's exactly right!

Desmet also has something to say about the irrationality of crowds via the concept of "mass formation", the tendency of people to consolidate and pursue an ideological/dogmatic quick-fix under certain conditions. This process gets in the way of a sober assessment of the facts and the implementation of science through policy. This is similar content to Rene Girard's mimetic contagion/scapegoating stuff.

Here is a commercial that might encapsulate how the contemporary world is too much for the individual, especially with respect to the proliferation of technologies. It creates anxiety which makes us more vulnerable to whatever the fall out of "mass formation". From here we could travel down a thousand rabbit holes in a paranoiac wonderland about our techno mediated future. But maybe I'm just unnecessarily activating my amygdala at the moment.

Have you watched any of Desmet's interviews or read his work? This is one of the exact phenomena he talks about and he terms it "free-floating aggression and anxiety", basically aggression and anxiety for which there does not seem to be a clear cause. The individual simply feels it and does not know why it is there.

It's this aggression and anxiety that can find an outlet through political narratives, for example.

One of the reasons for the increase in free-floating aggression and anxiety that Desmet observes, is the increase in people who feel lonely and socially isolated or 'atomized'.

It's very interesting stuff.

Have you watched any of Desmet's interviews or read his work? — Tzeentch

Listened to couple of interviews. Unfortunately he is associated with pandemic controversy, since his term "mass formation" came out of the mouth of Robert Malone on Joe Rogan's podcast and caused a stir.

It's this aggression and anxiety that can find an outlet through political narratives, for example. — Tzeentch

Yes, am very interested in anxiety/aggression with respect to the irrationality/frenzy of crowds.