(By the way, I'll try to keep up and respond to all the points raised with me. If I fall behind on this, I hope to catch up at some point. I do appreciate all the input).

What about the Original Post? Perhaps "methodological naturalism" is doublespeak for soft metaphysical naturalism, and physicalism really does deviate insofar as it is a form of hard metaphysical naturalism. On that view the problem is not that physicalism is metaphysical, but rather that it is too confident, too far out over its skies. The underlying issue is the difficulty or impossibility of adopting a thoroughgoing epistemological methodology without also adopting some form of metaphysical commitment. — Leontiskos

I think this is a good line of argument. I had thought of physicalism, also metaphorically, as kind of a snake pit where whenever one snake pops its head up and you cut it off, another one simply reappears in its place, reflecting the adaptive ability of physicalism to proliferate new versions of itself in response to new objections. This overall amorphism seems highly suspect in the context of scientifc endeavour. But then the question arises, as you and others have pointed out, is it really realistic to presume you can entirely rid yourself of that type of problem and "just do" science under the guidance of methodological naturalism or some other supposedly more neutral framework? Aren't there snakes everywhere? Aren't there metaphysical commitments inherent in making your job philosophically coherent as an enterprise?

I think to an extent there are. And an associated problem is even finding generally accepted definitions of the concepts in question, so that hard lines can be drawn. Perhaps the scientific method, methodological naturalism, metaphysical naturalism (including physicalism) can be placed on a kind of spectrum of increased commitment and perhaps even that modest enterprise has its complications. But I still think its useful to try to get out Occam's razor and try to do what we can, especially when one finds oneself defending science against ideological and metaphysical encroachment in general. Let's take the beam out of our own eyes first.

The alternative is a view of science which opens the door to the soft sciences, including theology. If the repeatability requirement is softened then interpersonal realities can be the subject of scientific study, because repeated interpersonal interactions do yield true and reliable knowledge, even though the repeatability is not as strict as that of the lab scientist who deals with a passive and subordinate substance. — Leontiskos

Here's another interesting line of approach. I had been thinking of the hard sciences, but most of my own background is in the soft sciences. And there's again a specturm to be considered. But qualitative studies do play a part in science and the soft sciences are absolutely drenched in philosophical commitments, particularly structuralist ones. Though, again, there is some kind of division envisioned between methodologies and metaphysics, it's very hard to see where that line really is. That's probably a conversation that's too broad for the scope of this thread, though I won't deny its relevancy.

It's Scooby Doo saying "November".

To succinctly reiterate the main thesis: physicalism is unnecessary and undesirable metaphysical baggage in relation to the scientific method; it tends towards vacuity in its broader forms and is highly problematic in its narrower forms. That's the locus around which my argument revolves.

It appears to me that you miss the point. Physicalism is a metaphysical theory, not a scientific theory. — Relativist

I've emphasized that and wondered why others don't seem to realize the import of that even in the text you quoted.

No. they are supposed to smile at the sarcasm. Like this : :grin: — unenlightened

[sarcasm] Hey man, are you, like, being sacastic? Are you, like, really saying we're not supposed to smile? Can you just, like, indicate whenever you're being sarcastic with, like, some square-brackety notes or something, so I just, like, know. It's just, like, sooooo confusing. [/sarcasm]

More than 20% of Black Americans own or have owned cryptocurrency assets. Vice President Harris appreciates the ways in which new technologies can broaden access to banking and financial services. She will make sure owners of and investors in digital assets benefit from a regulatory framework so that Black men and others who participate in this market are protected.

Basically saying nothing again. "Cryptocurrency is good. But it might also be bad. We'll make it better in the most non-specific way possible. Now be on your way, pleb."



Yeah, agree.

@Michael

"Protect cryptocurrency investments so that Black men who make them know their money is safe."

What does that actually mean? And how is that "creating opportunity" for Black men? If anything it sounds racist against Black men. Why is protecting cryptocurrency investments protecting Black men more unless you're saying they're more likely to fall for scams or whatnot?

That's to say, you don't get on the plane naked, but an empty suitcase isn't any further help as long as you've got clothes on.

But then the same can be said of methodological naturalism. What does it mean to be natural or supernatural? — Michael

In this context, amenable to the scientific method or not. In order to employ the scientific method, you employ it on that which it can be employed but you don't make a prior assumption that everything is this or that, you act only as if it were and the results justify your efforts (or not). The supernatural is just that which can't be reliably measured, replicated etc. in principle.

Thanks for the references. :up: I will take a look at that article.

In particular, it’s a crucial point whether physicalism has to declare by fiat that anything that exists or happens has a lawlike physical basis, thus in effect relabeling what most of us would call “non-physical” in ordinary circumstances. Leontiskos mentioned Nagel’s The Last Word, and as usual Nagel puts it well: “I [want to] interpret the concept of ‛physics’ restrictively enough so that the laws of physics by themselves will not explain the presence of . . . thinking beings in the space of natural possibilities. Of course, if ‛physics’ just means the most fundamental scientific theory about everything, then it will include any such laws if they exist.” If that’s all physicalism amounts to, then you’re right, it adds nothing conceptually. — J

I think this highlights an important tension within physicalism. Broad physicalist interpretations certainly add nothing conceptually, but the more physicalism is restricted, the more objections arise. There's an ironic tradeoff there where in order to make physicalism meaningful, you pretty much have to make it wrong or at least so problematic as to be questionably worth defending.

This feeds into Hempel's dilemma as mentioned by @Michael "if physicalism is defined via reference to contemporary physics, then it is false — after all, who thinks that contemporary physics is complete? — but if physicalism is defined via reference to a future or ideal physics, then it is trivial — after all, who can predict what a future physics contains?"

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/#HempDile

Hempel's dilemma wasn't exactly what I had in mind writing the OP. The later criticism I discovered by Chomsky though is almost identical to my main point as he essentially makes the same argument--that movement beyond the boundary of methodological naturalism adds unnecessary and undesriable metaphysical commitments, i.e. creates the empty suitcase.

Here are the clearest formulations I've been able to find online so far:

https://plato.stanford.edu/archIves/sum2020/entries/physicalism/

"[Chomsky argues that] the physicalist project in philosophy of mind is on the face of it rather different from the naturalistic project. In the first place, the physicalist project is, as we have noted, usually thought of a piece of metaphysics. But there is nothing metaphysical about the [methodological] naturalistic project, it simply raises questions about what we can hope to explain.

...

It is precisely at the place where the physicalist project departs from the naturalistic project that Chomsky's criticism begins to take shape. For insofar as it is different from the naturalistic project, there are a number of ways in which the physicalist project is questionable. First, it is hard to see what the project might be — it is true that throughout the history of philosophy and science one encounters suggestions that one might find out about the world in ways that are distinct from the ones used in the sciences, but these suggestions have always been rather obscure. Second, it is hard see how this sort of project could recommend itself to physicalists themselves — such a project seems to be a departure from methodological naturalism .but most physicalists endorse methodological naturalism as a matter of fact"

And:

https://teorievedy.flu.cas.cz/index.php/tv/article/download/271/293

'Chomsky’s objection is that the doctrine has no clear content. He thinks that those who advocate physicalism and those who would endeavour to prove it false are both wrong in thinking that there is a substantive doctrine at issue. Chomsky holds this general view about physicalism because he also holds the more particular view that the concept of the “physical” (or the “material”), which must inevitably enter into any characterisation of physicalism, is devoid of clear meaning. At best, talk of “the physical” acts as a placeholder for whatever we discover, or could discover, to be true about nature. He writes:

"There is no longer any definite conception of body. Rather, the material world is whatever we discover it to be, with whatever properties it must be assumed to have for the purposes of explanatory theory." '

This seems like a misunderstanding. Quantum phenomena have discernible, even measurable effects. That is what qualifies them as 'physical'. The seeming spookiness arises when we seek to apply macro physical concepts to micro phenomena. — Janus

Solid criticism. I should have reined myself in and been more precise and nuanced there.

(I may reformulate the point in my new thread rather than here or I may leave it for now. Not sure yet.)

The term “physical” starts losing clarity if it encompasses everything. — schopenhauer1

Yes.

Still, I believe we can distinguish between physical and non-material realities. Physical reality consists of things we can observe, measure, and interact with directly. Physicalism is most useful when it suggests that reality is, in principle, measurable. — schopenhauer1

Methodological naturalism says behave as if it were and get on with it. Physicalism seems like a vacuous piece of extra metaphysical naturalist baggage in that context.

I do see methodological naturalism being presented as justified based on results, but it is an open question whether the success of modern science is independent of metaphysical presuppositions.

The other question is whether a robust methodology can perdure independent of metaphysical presuppositions. — Leontiskos

Can it be done without physicalism? — T Clark

This is where I wonder if a certain logic to the situation is obscured. Is there something practical to the suitcase I can't see? What is the minimum we should need to get on with science optimally? Methodological natualism seems to be the answer to me. But I am open to reasons why more might be needed.

(A) sounds like materialism. Physicalism doesn't really say that. I mean, what is this substance? — noAxioms

Yes, that was poorly phrased. I've edited it.

(B) is untrue. There are plenty of valid scientific interpretations that are non-deterministic, notably Copenhagen interpretation of QM. — noAxioms

I had this under the rubric of "most". Changed to "some" to avoid being misleading.

Many thanks for identifying those issues.

OK, it's a methodology, not a premise. Scientific investigation proceeds as if there is nothing supernatural. If this is wrong, then science will presumable hit a wall at some point.
But then you treat it like it is a theory with this:
But the metaphysical naturalism of the physicalist posits that ...
It proceeds as if.. Saying 'posit' makes it sound like naturalism itself. — noAxioms

The first "it" I've bolded in your quote is methodological naturalism. The second one is metaphysical naturalism. You seem to be talking as if you think I was referring to the same thing. But the difference is crucial as it's roughly where I think the dividing line against unnecessary metaphysical assumption (the suitcase) comes into play.

I'll get back to you on this. I've discovered after writing the OP that Chomsky made a somewhat similar critique. An available paper discussing his view for those interested: https://teorievedy.flu.cas.cz/index.php/tv/article/download/271/293

I've only read a bit of it. It's rather late where I'm at.

I generally agree with this. My previous comments here have, of course, been somewhat lacking in seriousness.

It might help to think of time 'running backwards' and then looking at how you view this or that as 'causal'? — I like sushi

What happens then is you strip away / distort the contextual network; enabling conditions like gravity, thermodynamics etc become meaningless and you are left with a bare sequence of events, sound and fury, signifying nothing.

he expectation is that the answer must necessarily entail something spooky. — Wayfarer

I won't develop the point here as we're drifting off-topic, but what's considered spooky for the physicalists are just the metaphysical assumptions that are not theirs, and there are at least a couple of big ones that are no less "spooky" than those of their major opponents.

That OP looks messy and unfocused to me. And this conversation seems now to be about everything and anything.

the storyteller has entered the story and transformed it. — unenlightened

Apparently so.

The fundamental reality of the physicalist boils down to, at the finest level, the mathematically inferred or imagined, not the empirically observable, and even the finest level of the empirically observable does not obey the rules on which the subtextual justification for physicalism rests, i.e. common sense interactions with wordly dry goods on a macro scale. Again, physicalists ride in on horses and expect to unproblematically ride out on unicorns. When questioned, they tell us unicorns are horses too, and so the equine world is united once more, and we can stop worrying about the ficititious animals of pesky dualists and idealists.

It's all so tiresome.

what really is 'physical'? Is the brain physical? — Wayfarer

Yes, the term really only makes sense at the macro-level. In the quantum sphere, the physical is as spooky as idealism sounds to materialists. So, physicalist fundamentalists kind of want to have their cake and eat it too (an ironic possibility only available to them if they were sub-atomic particles).

An example would be the disjoint between a planned action and once taken in the spur of the moment, against items such as physical mechanics. The 'agency' of the human seems to run into conflict with the, how should I put it, 'laws of nature'.

The weight of importance is attributed to us because the immediacy of an action seems to trump the knowledge of the action. — I like sushi

You're getting at a human-centric bias? If so, sounds plausible, but can you develop a more specific example?

They cannot BOTH be ultimate causes - — I like sushi

Yes, they can. You've just misunderstood "ultimate" as applied to causation.

"In most situations, an ultimate cause may itself be a proximate cause in comparison to a further ultimate cause. "

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causation

if you want to argue that there is Ultimate Causation go ahead. — I like sushi

"Ultimate" has a different meaning when applied to causation. It doesn't imply "final". Ultimate causes are nested. It's explained in the wiki article. That's why I said "distal" cause is a better term to use.

So it was it lack of a manned deck that caused the incident or the inaccuracy of the autopilot? — I like sushi

Just depends on your story as un said.

There seems to be a given belief that temporal proximity has more weight to the contributing factors of some given outcome? — I like sushi

Maybe. Do you have an example? An opinion one way or the other?

But are cryptocurrencies truly scarse at all? — hypericin

They range from supplies of 1 to (theoretical) supplies of infinity.

OK, but you've gone from what seemed like a specific issue in the OP, to some very general comments that only seem incidentally related to it. Are we done now or?

Human language is tied up with embodiment, sensation, and sentience. These are prerequisites not effects. The very structure of language: ideational, interpersonal, and textual, reflects this. You can't recreate beings with human language without recreating its prerequisites, you can only process linguistic inputs and outputs to simulate it.

Triggering cause (push of other domino or finger) vs. enabling condition (gravity), bruv.

Anyhow, I said "fuzzy" below so I'm insured against all objections.

Yes. You focus on outcome. Wayfarer focuses on process. Both perspectives are legitimate to some degree.

Basicaly agree; I don't yet know what the issue is, but with some refinement we may get there.

Still not 100% clear on what you're getting at.

Maybe we can take a simple scenario like the one below, and analyze things from there.

*

Two dominos, A and B and an agent, X.

X pushes Domino A, causing Domino A to fall against Domino B, causing Domino B to fall.

Domino B falling:

Proximal cause = Domino A falling against it
Distal (ultimate) cause = X pushing Domino A.

*

I think “distal” is a better term than “ultimate” because ultimate causes are never really ultimate, and are always also proximal to some effect in a chain.

Anyhow, causal network and contextual orientation ought to be part of the meta-context here in terms of placing the question in a comprehensible form.

Consider the causal network as the network of enabling conditions and triggering causes that could possibly be considered relevant in the outcome, such that proximal cause can be defined with some flexibility. This causal network causes a kind of fuzziness around the identification of the proximal cause.

Note this network as a whole can be considered the necessary and sufficient conditions of the effect under analysis. Also, the proximal cause is usually a triggering cause (and necessary e.g. my push) rather than an enabling condition (maybe only contingent, depending on the circumstances, e.g. the weight of the domino).

Re contextual orientation, are we approaching this from the context of a human observer with human desires, needs, goals, and recognizably human actions? Are we focusing on the mechanics of the situation? The physics? E.g. perhaps down to the micro context of electrons? The neurobiology? Our analysis can be psychological, chemical, physical or some combination thereof depending.

All relevant considerations.

E. g.

We need consciousness to think, therefore we need consciousness to make any inference about consciousness, that's the problem. — Skalidris

What about: ''We need language to think, therefore we need language to make any inference about language, that's the problem. ''

Except it's not. Even though it's similarly self-referential. Self-referentiality does not necessarily entail logical contradiction.

We need consciousness to think, therefore we need consciousness to make any inference about consciousness, that's the problem. — Skalidris

You haven't explained why this creates a logical impossibility. The limitations of the child in the lego example don't seem to amount to a logical impossibility either. You're applying physical constraints and the absence of means of gathering evidence to the situation to make it practically or empirically impossible for the child to do something. It's like saying the detective can't solve the crime if you set up a scenario where the clues are out of his reach. Sure. Nothing to do with logical impossibility though. A logical impossibilty should entail a contracition in the laws of logic, like require a square circle or 2 + 2 to equal 5. It's a very high threshold on the impossibility ladder. Maybe, you mean metaphysical impossibility, something that cannot obtain in any possible world (due to our understanding of the basic principles of reality) but may still not violate the laws of logic (e.g. ex nihilo (causeless) creation), or conceptual impossibility to do with semantic contradictions (e.g. "a colourless green cup") etc. But I think you are drawing unjustified conclusions concerning the nature of possibility from the problem of self-referentiality here.

In any case, it's seems to be either a conceptual issue (an essentially linguistic problem) or an empirical issue (one that we can pursue scientifically). To Chalmers, and most others, it's empirical. The hard problem is to explain how the property of consciousness / subjectivity arises from physical matter (presumed to be in the brain) and, not only have empirically testable theories been put forward to examine that, actual experiments have been done. Here's a link to one avenue being explored: Testing Penrose's Theory of Consciousness

Again, to me your thesis isn't clear enough and rests on a muddled presentation of logical impossibility that is too quickly inferred from the self-referentiality issue you bring up.

Right so, change of poem then.

Drunken Doughnut

Danny Doughnut is my name
Denying minds is my game
Wrote myself a book or two
They don't make sense, but who are you?

I've talked at TED and Oxford too
Taught those stiffs a thing or two
I'm not here and neither are you
The mind is false, the illusion true

All was well 'til experiments proved
My theories wrong, my followers fools
But I've made enough to keep me in booze
Heads I win, tails you lose!

Yeah, yeah, pass the sauce.

I don't know who'll win. The polls could change. Trump might do or say something disastrous. But the chances of 538 being off by that margin by polling day are small enough to stick to my commitment.

So, I'm wrong again, eh? :sad:

I'm not doing anything other than calling you out for making a ridiculous unsupported prediction. And putting my pacifier where my mouth is. :wink:

I'm just sayin' I'll do that if you're right about the national polls; what'll you do if I'm right that you're completely wrong?

Given that Diaper Don The Fascist Clown & his MAGA-GOP Circus Cult have pissed-off the majority of (likely) women voters so much since 2018 (then doubled down on the blatant misogyny in 2022 and again this year), I guesstimate (not counting Dems campaigns' huge money & get-out-the-vote ground game advantages) woman voters' preference for Harris-Walz & Dems is undercounted by 2% and The Clown is thereby generally overcounted by 5% in "national polls" and overcounted by 2% in swing state polls, and so I read them accordingly [adjusted]; for example: — 180 Proof

That is called wishful thinking, not analysis. If you bet money on it, you'll lose big. But let's take a different tack. If 538 overestimates Trump by 5% (or more) and underestimates Harris by 2% (or more) in their last national poll before the election, I will post a picture of myself here on this thread naked apart from a diaper with a crybaby face and sucking on a pacifier. Why? Because I believe in science and not making stuff up to make myself feel better. So, what are you going to do if/when you turn out to be wrong and the national polls turn out, let's say, to be within 1% either way of being right? Show me you actually believe what you're saying...