From: esti@quads.uchicago.edu (Paul A. Estin)
Subject: Re: science, religion, and spirituality
Keywords: n
Reply-To: esti@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: U. Michigan Cognitive Psychology
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 07:08:35 GMT


Snark drops in late at night...

(I've been *extremely* busy lately, as well as being in odd emotional
states-- details to come sometime when I get the chance.  But in the
meantime...)

In article <RANDOLPH.92Nov14175631@cognito.ebay.Sun.COM>
randolph@cognito.ebay.Sun.COM (Randolph Fritz) writes:

>"It's pretty well established that scientific method and practice is
>itself derived from ceremonial magic.

I'm curious what you mean by this.  Please, could you elaborate?

>"Nightstalker, thinking it over, I believe that what you've called
>'scientism' is actually ancient; it is simply the latest form of
>philosophical materialism.  I am at least as skeptical of it as you,
>though for different reasons--despite millenia of attempts,
>materialism has not vanquished the spiritual, though much that was
>thought spiritual has proven material.  I am also skeptical of most
>religion (where we disagree); too much religion would have us believe
>the disproven and this seems unnecessarily rigid and manipulative."

"Well, as a certain brand of philosophical materialist, let me point
out a sort of middle position...

"On the one extreme, 'supernaturalists' may argue that there is
something 'beyond' the physical world.  On the other, 'physical
reductionists' may argue that everything is reducible to physics.  The
position I hold is that there are lots of 'higher order' phenomena
which, while not reducible to lower order phenomena, are nonetheless
emergent properties grounded within the realm of the material.  These
higher order phenomena range from such social science concepts as "the
economic theories of supply and demand" and "Fitts' Law of rapid aimed
movement in humans" to such everyday human concepts as "love" and
"charity" and "good".

"The easy analogy to make, since most people here are familiar with
computers, is with the levels one can speak of with regards to
computers and their operation.  The hardware mechanisms are like the
"low level explanation" physical sciences of physics and chemistry,
while the software is like the "high level explanation" social
sciences.  For example, a program is best described at a higher level
(though in theory it could be reduced to a lower level of explanation
in terms of what goes on in the CPU registers, that's not a *useful*
level of explanation-- and other aspects of computer operation may not
be describable at all at lower levels).  But no one would claim that
the operation of the program requires something beyond the hardware of
the program, some sort of metaphysical 'programness'.  (One might
argue that *starting* the program would of necessity require an
external impetus, such as a human at the console giving an execute
instruction.  Personally I wouldn't extend the analogy to the real
universe as far as to postulate the necessity of an external factor at
the 'Big Bang' moment of creation... note the weirdnesses of Hawking's
theories of imaginary time and such suggesting a mathematical
completeness to spacetime... but it's a possible point of compromise
for some.)

"Anyway, in the real world, I have a faith of sorts that everything is
material (i.e. there is no need to invoke supernatural explanations),
though a given concept may be best explained at higher levels of
abstraction."

Snark gets back to work at his cognitive psychology research.  He's
writing a program for testing subjects.  No, really! :-)

-----
There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe
everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.
  -- Alfred Korzybski

Paul Andrew Estin
estin@csmil.umich.edu  estin@um.cc.umich.edu  esti@amber.uchicago.edu
214 Beakes St. (home)  330 Packard Rd. (work)  Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(313)-994-3869         (313)-747-3699
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