Bertvan@aol.com writes
in message <7e.586e8ed.26652739@aol.com>:
I'm getting the impression that you and I read the same material
but you come away from it believing you've read intolerance,
scientific bigotry and a hidden agenda. Maybe that's
why we have such a hard time understanding the other's viewpoint.
> Tedd:
> >I suppose you're characterizing this quote as intolerant.
> >Could you explain how and where it displays that?
>
> Bertvan:
> The two quotations were meant to show a contrast in attitude.
> The physicist is not only tolerant of dissent, he regards it
> essential for healthy development of ideas. The biologist is
> quick to ridicule any interest or attitude he doesn't share.
The label "ridicule" is highly subjective. I don't see ridicule,
I see pointed criticism:
"That's the difficulty with the "consciousness" game. Just how
do you play it, and where's the goal? Is there a goal at all -
or even a game? Define what a problem is in terms accessible
to a layman, and you have the beginnings of a science. If you
can't, you have nothing but a series of opinions."
"My feeling about most people in that field is that they'd find
life more interesting if they continued to do what most of them
started by doing - getting their feet wet by doing experimental
work."
"All of a sudden you forget that science is the art of the
answerable and you begin to speculate about things that basically
lie outside science altogether."
It is not the attitude that is important, it is and always has
been the VALIDITY of the CRITICISM. The facts are what is important,
not whether or not Jones is sticking his tongue out at Nick Humphrey
as he writes this.
> Tedd:
> >According to Jones, the kinds of approaches he doesn't like
> > * don't or can't define the problem
> > * don't do experimental work
> > * speculate about things that can't, even in theory, be proven
> one way or the other
>
> > Which great physicists of the last century ignored Jone's advice
> > and adopted all three of these characteristics in their
> >aproaches to science?
>
> Bertvan:
>
> I would guess all scientists who add anything important to
> knowledge struggle to define the problem.
Then your answer must be "None of them." and you
recognize that Jones' criticism is valid.
The question might then be how this applies to studies of
consciousness. Is it difficult to define it? It certainly
appears so. It is possible to understand even what the goal or
"game" of consciousness is? I don't know and I sympathize with
Jones' criticism. How can we make any progress understanding
consciousness if we can't come up with a simple definition of
it? Without that, we, the scientists, the philosophers, the laymen,
might as well be speaking different languages.
> All of them who
> changed the status quo in any way speculated about things that
> couldn't at the moment be proved.
That's different from Jones' implication that such things
couldn't even be proved in theory --"things that lie outside
science altogether". Jones' makes it clear that he's not
specifically criticizing Humprey, but I think he's indicting a
lot of the philosophical work that has been done on
consciousness.
> All speculation about evolution
> is something that can't be proved, one way or the other - and
> maybe never will be. The belief that evolution can be explained
> naturalistically is a speculation that can't be proved one way
> or the other. I would have thought all scientists speculated
> about things that can't, even in theory, be proved, but
> apparently some do not.
This is all quite incorrect if one uses "prove" in the scientific
sense of beyond reasonable doubt. There's no reason in theory
we can't come to fully understand every process involved in
life's billion year history.
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