Re: [asa] Natural Agents - Cause and Effect, Non-Natural Agents

I don't think it is so that to study something scientifically we must be
able to put it to the test. This sounds too much like we need to be
able to control the antecedent conditions "pertinent" to the
"experiment." Clearly, there are a host of sciences that don't and
can't do this (e.g., astronomy, geology). What instead we do is to
observe various conditions that are presented to us and observe the
varying consequences, in this way hoping to relate the two into a
regularity.

It's not overly important to me whether one actually thinks they can
study God or not. My principal aim is to suggest that the term
"natural" may have no cash value. The situation may not be much different
from our investigations of other invisible entities (electrons, quarks,
atoms).

Suppose that quarks were like angels, spritual beings. Would it matter?
They would still be participants in observable regularities, and that's
all that matters. Indeed, in this way it permits both realists,
instrumentalists, and spiritualists (I just made that up) to still do the
same and use the same science, and isn't that what we want?

bill

P.S. Perhaps I'm being provocative. That's OK, isn't it?

  On Sun, 12 Apr
2009, George Murphy wrote:

> There's a lot that could be said about this but let me cut to the chase. In
> order to study God scientifically we would have do do experiments on God. &
> this runes full face into the prohibition of Dt.6:16: "You shall not put the
> LORD your God to the test".
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://home.roadrunner.com/~scitheologyglm
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Powers" <wjp@swcp.com>
> To: "George Murphy" <GMURPHY10@neo.rr.com>
> Cc: "Keith Miller" <kbmill@ksu.edu>; "AmericanScientificAffiliation
> Affiliation" <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Sunday, April 12, 2009 6:51 PM
> Subject: Re: [asa] Natural Agents - Cause and Effect, Non-Natural Agents
>
>
>> George:
>>
>> When I said that we study God all the time, I didn't mean to say that
>> everyone consciously does. What I intended to indicate was that it is
>> possible to study God, as well as humans, scientifically inasmuch as both
>> exhibit behaviors that give rise to regularities.
>>
>> If this is the primary objective of science, it would seem that
>> non-natural, even supernatural beings can be studied by science.
>>
>> Before speaking of a study of God, let's consider the study of humans. What
>> I am particularly interested in is the study of the willful aspects of
>> human behavior. When we make theories concerning such willful behavior we
>> may say something like, "humans when confronted by uncertainty tend to
>> first withdraw to reconsider their situation." One might consider this a
>> covering law or more appropriately a ceteris parabus law, not unlike
>> Snell's law. As such, it expresses a causal disposition, one not, however,
>> universal. One might say that it is not much of an explanation (even if it
>> fits the D-N) model. And that is true. Nevertheless, one might be
>> satisfied that something of a scientific nature was given here.
>>
>> It seems to me that such a ceteris paribus law is valuable and
>> appropriately scientific despite the fact that the individuals involved may
>> have non-combatibilist free will. If this is appropriate science, what
>> makes it "natural"? The entities associated with the law are mental states
>> of humans and perhaps an observable behavior. Are these natural? Despite
>> our ability to describe mental states or grasp entirely their ontological
>> status, I doubt that hardly anyone, but DesCartes, would deny that they are
>> natural. Frankly, I'm not sure, but surely everyone would accept that they
>> are appropriate scientific objects of study.
>>
>> If this is accepted, the step to studying God seems similar. It is
>> possible, it seems, for an entity to be investigated in which not everyone
>> believes exists. This has been true of every fundamental "particle" of
>> which I am aware. While some may be studying Nature's regularities, others
>> may be studying God's regularities. Tell me the difference.
>>
>> The MN position appears to be something of a gentlemen's agreement to speak
>> only of Nature, permitting some, under their breath, to think of Nature as
>> God's creation, even the manifestation of His Will.
>>
>> We study the behavior of all sorts of "things." We say that in doing so we
>> know something of their "character." We study humans and even individual
>> humans, and by their behavior under varying circumstances we say that we
>> come to know them.
>>
>> Is it possible to say this also of God? Science began, at least in the
>> West, under the presumption that the Creator's character was known, at
>> least in part. Why not say then that by studying His Creation, we come to
>> know something of the Creator. Now this knowing can never be the kind of
>> knowing that we have of another human. Indeed, should we ever meet an
>> alien creation, they will likely seem as incomprehensible to us as bats.
>> They same must surely be true in spades for God. Still something is
>> learned in this study of God. It seems to me that nothing prevents this
>> study from being scientific. What fails is in making theories that go
>> beyond laws. What is interesting here is that just as we would argue that
>> such theorizing on the workings of God's Mind would be metaphysical or
>> theological, it is not so very different from what is normally done in any
>> theorizing: a speaking of unseen entities and laws. We perhaps come to
>> trust this dark speculation because it may prove to be fruitful, even
>> suggesting visible consequences. Yet I do not know that the same might be
>> said of God. There are certain presumptions made about "Nature" especially
>> in high energy physics which smack of just such an "understanding" of
>> "Nature's character."
>>
>> Well, enough said. It's been fun.
>>
>> bill
>>
>> On Sat, 11 Apr 2009, George Murphy wrote:
>>
>>> Brier responses (since I got home late from the vigil):
>>>
>>> 1) "Predictability" needs to be understood in a statistical sense. I'd
>>> rather say "regularity" (if that doesn't make it sound like a laxative
>>> commercial!) You get to this near the end.
>>>
>>> 2) There's not a one-to-one corrsepondence between refusing to use God as
>>> an explanation & belief in the regularity of phenomena. OTOH, simply
>>> eschewing appeals to God (or the gods) doesn't necessarily imply that
>>> there is such regularity. OTOH it is belief in a God who created a
>>> rational world that provides one reason for thinking that phenomena will
>>> display some sort of order. Empirically, of course, there's little point
>>> in trying to do science if you don't think, or at least hope, that you can
>>> make some sense of phenomena.
>>>
>>> 3) It's misleading to say "We do study God scientifically all the time".
>>> What we study scientifically is the character & interactions of things in
>>> the world. As Christians we believe (if we have a decent theology of
>>> creation) that God is somehow acting with & through those things but that
>>> is a theological contextualizing of our science. A person can do exactly
>>> the same science with no such belief. If - to use what I think is a good
>>> metaphor - worldly entities can be seen as the instruments through which
>>> God works, then what science studies is those instruments, not the one who
>>> works with them. & the rare cases in which God "takes the gloves off" &
>>> acts directly, without intermediaries (if indeed that evebr happens) are
>>> cases in which science fails precisely because they cannot be explained
>>> without reference to God.
>>>
>>> Shalom
>>> George
>>> http://home.roadrunner.com/~scitheologyglm
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Powers" <wjp@swcp.com>
>>> To: "Keith Miller" <kbmill@ksu.edu>
>>> Cc: "AmericanScientificAffiliation Affiliation" <asa@calvin.edu>
>>> Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2009 5:29 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [asa] Natural Agents - Cause and Effect, Non-Natural Agents
>>>
>>>
>>>> This is getting interestingly involved. For my own sake, let me start at
>>>> a beginning.
>>>>
>>>> Methodological Naturalism is rejecting the use of gods or God (a la
>>>> Murphy) in any "scientific" explanation. Historically, this entailed the
>>>> acceptance of something like a mechanistic description (metaphor) for the
>>>> workings of the universe, or at least in our theories (explanations, or
>>>> stories). More broadly it entails, I think, the rejection of
>>>> unpredictable behavior. I don't want to say that it need be lawful, but
>>>> it wouldn't be viewed as science, I think, if it did not entail some
>>>> regularity. Such a notion follows according to our classic understanding
>>>> of what knowledge is about, while if not universal, at least predictive
>>>> under certain conditions (e.g., Snell's law, or even economic laws or
>>>> regularities).
>>>>
>>>> What in this description makes it "natural" and not god-like?
>>>>
>>>> Consider economic laws or sociological theories. These are theories of
>>>> groups of individuals, even freely acting individuals. Nonetheless they
>>>> have dispositonal properties, esp. as a group. Freedom does not entail
>>>> the absence of dispositional properties. Such properties are incapable
>>>> of describing the complete behavior of freely acting individuals, but
>>>> they are capable of describing ceteris parabus properties of such
>>>> individuals under restricted aspects of their behavior.
>>>>
>>>> What is natural here? I have presumed in this instance of economic and
>>>> sociological theory that the individuals involved are freely acting,
>>>> indeed the theories likely presume that, for otherwise they may not be
>>>> free to express their dispositional natures. So it appears that their
>>>> free wills, even taken in an incompatabilist sense, does not prohibit
>>>> them from being the subjects of a "naturalistic" science.
>>>>
>>>> It would seem that incompatabilist free will cannot be the subject of a
>>>> "natural" science because, while its behavior my indicate a certain
>>>> regularity, the very notion of such a freedom entails a capability of
>>>> violating that regularity, and even acting arbitrarily, despite the great
>>>> majority of our actions are not arbitrary.
>>>>
>>>> However, as I have noted previously, our notion of what is "natural" has
>>>> changed over the course of science's history. Why might monads not be
>>>> "natural"? Why not permit non-combatabilist free will as "natural"? It
>>>> appears to me that nothing prohibits it. Indeed, why not permit gods to
>>>> be "natural"?
>>>>
>>>> The ulitimate objection, it seems, is not whether they are "natural" or
>>>> not. It is, instead, that we cannot make a science, a knowledge, or
>>>> regularity of them. We can know the character of a freely acting agent,
>>>> and as such make rough predictions of its behavior. But inasmuch as it
>>>> is a free agent, it is not bound by that character, or perhaps that its
>>>> character does not determine its behavior (e.g., witness the difficulty
>>>> of determing a Good and All-Powerful God's specific behavior).
>>>>
>>>> If this makes sense, I suggest the following.
>>>>
>>>> 1) We do study God scientifically all the time. Indeed, this is just
>>>> what we mean by science. We study God under certain aspects and
>>>> constraints. Our science reflects a predictable behavior of God. But
>>>> science is unable to investigate God in His totality. Fortunately, God's
>>>> behavior in many of these aspects is expressible in a lawful, and even
>>>> mathematical manner.
>>>>
>>>> 2) The same goes for the study of humans. Scientific explanations of much
>>>> of human behavior requires no mention of wills (e.g., the nervous
>>>> system), but this is not true of all human sciences. Some presume the
>>>> existence of wills, even free wills (perhaps in a combatabilist sense).
>>>> Are wills natural? As long as the behaviors associated with aspects of
>>>> that will are somewhat predictable.
>>>>
>>>> 3) Simply put, science, inasmuch as it is to remain a science, studies
>>>> the regular aspects of the world. Natural simply entails regularity or
>>>> law-likeness.
>>>>
>>>> 4) Hence, MN simply entails that our explanations involve predictive
>>>> features and entities (even gods if aspects of their behavior is
>>>> predictable). I think we have to say this in order to include humans as
>>>> subjects of science. That is, humans need not be machines in order to be
>>>> proper subjects of science, but they must possess dispositional
>>>> properties, something that God or gods likewise possess.
>>>>
>>>> Well, that was my run at it.
>>>>
>>>> God bless,
>>>>
>>>> bill
>>>>
>>>> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
>>>> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message
>>>>
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>>> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
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Received on Sun Apr 12 21:13:09 2009