Dr. Philip Goff, Will Academia Get Beyond Materialism? |409|

What Popper said about falsifiability is that with a theory like "the flying spaghetti monster is responsible for everything that happens" you can find a lot of evidence that the theory explains (anything that happens can be explained as an action of the flying spaghetti monster). So it looks like a good theory because it has a lot of explanatory power and there is a lot of evidence consistent with the theory. However, all that evidence does not really mean the theory is a good theory because there is no way to test (falsify) the theory. Most scholars will recognize the flying spaghetti monster theory is dumb. But scholars might not recognize their own pet theory which seems to have such great explanatory power might be just as uncertain (unconvincing despite much evidence that is consistent with it) because it cannot be tested either. A theory might be right even if it is not falsifiable.
 
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Well I suppose that real materialists don't just think life has no meaning, but that everything contained in that life has no meaning. The philosophy drains life of all meaning.

I don't know - the last I heard SSRI antidepressants such as Prozac are now rated no better than placebo. However, I seem to remember that there is some drug that can be given experimentally that makes people suicidal within a few minutes, and lasts for a short time.

You really have to be wary of junk science, and conscious really is non-physical, it isn't at all clear why meditation or dancing can't do the trick.

David


My opinions about the relationship between feelings (emotions) and brain chemistry come from my own experiences observing the effects of meditation, diet, and exercise on my own mood.
 
What does alleviated mean? In the papers I've seen, it means patients needed lower doses of medication, it didn't mean they were cured. When depression is caused by cognitive factors meditation might help a lot. When depression is caused by biochemical factors meditation can help patients cope, but cannot always cure underlying biological problems.

If singing and dancing could cure depression, people would have figured that out a long time ago. Various behavioral and mental techniques can influence brain chemistry to some extent. In healthy people brain chemistry is constantly changing due to changes in conditions, people feel happy and sad, angry and peaceful. You can control that by controlling your environment and behavior. But when the brain is not working right because of a biological problem ... it doesn't work right, it doesn't respond to environment and behavior the way a normal brain does.

I think it's true that your beliefs including spiritual beliefs can influence your mood, attitude, and behavior (brain chemistry).

But I think spiritual experiences occur when your brain chemistry is altered.

Alleviate means to lessen, I don't think he proposed that it cured. Is anything 'a cure'? Medication may also only allleviste some biological problems whilst creating others, some even precipitating depression for new reasons.

Effect indicates a cause. And lessening of symptoms by alternative, non-chemical means is significant for me, compared to the materialist predilection for 'brain as machine' solved by minute medical tampering.

Singing and dancing have existed in human culture since a very long time ago. Would you say to an African tribe that had endured say a massacre, that singing, dancing and perhaps some trance-drumming, is invalid? If spiritual experiences occur when brain chemistry is altered, why not the other way around?

As you said previously, we (philosophically) see what we believe. And given the very interesting placebo effect, that has great significance. Even for the biologically-challenged.
 
The fact that many people also get away with un-falsifiable theories doesn't really doesn't justify introducing another, particularly blatant one. I mean, if the whole of reality is created by consciousness (or is a reflection of consciousness) then if (say) everybody could levitate for one day, then things returned to normal, all that could be said about this event would be that MAL was probably feeling a bit whimsical!


As I suggested above, I think when scientists postulate panpsychism, they are really just dipping their toes into non-materialist waters. I don't think they have a thought out position.

David

Look - I'm not saying that there aren't theories that can be falsified. I'm saying that there are theories that are happily considered scientific that can't be falsified. What is considered scientific has no necessary relationship with whether or not it's falsifiable. It could have more to do with whatever the scientific establishment is willing place its imprimatur on. Mentioning falsifiability may sometimes be a ruse to enable the exclusion of disfavoured theories, to prevent them from ever getting a seat at the table.

Do dark matter and energy really exist? Could their existence ever be disproved? Sans really substantial evidence for their existence (which would not, however, prove their existence), I don't think so. And one must bear in mind that theories propose only models of reality, not reality itself. At best, falsifiability can disprove only models, and models can rarely if ever be conclusively proved to be 100% empirically accurate. But even if that were the case, one wouldn't thereby prove that models are reality.

For instance, there is a very strong correlation between mental activity and brain activity. However, which direction the causality goes is debatable. Materialists assert it goes in one direction, and idealists, the other. To make a personal choice, one has to turn to corroborative evidence, and increasingly, that evidence supports idealism more than materialism. Does that mean idealism is correct? No. But IMO it does mean that it's a better fit to empirical data.

Materialism and idealism, and also dualism, panpsychism and a dozen other -isms, are theoretical models of reality, not reality itself. As I've said before, I find idealism the most persuasive model I've so far come across, the one that (again, IMO) intellectually, most satisfactorily, explains empirical evidence. But I don't make the mistake of declaring it correct; it's more that I haven't yet come across a better model. That could change tomorrow as far as I know.

And in that, I think we're getting nearer to what science is: not a search for truth that can be proved, but a search for models that better explain reality; and models are, in the end, only a sort of metaphor of reality. I wonder whether materialism can ever be completely disproved, because it does in fact have at least some explanatory power. If and when it's dropped, as I said, I don't think that will be because it has been disproved: more likely, it will have become untenable to the point where it's no longer considered credible.

Incidentally, Jim, it's true that Einstein predicted the apparent displacement of stars during a stellar eclipse. But did that prove that his explanation for it was correct, i.e. that in the vicinity of a large massive body like the sun, space is bent? Maybe. Or maybe not. His idea of the curvature of space might model reality accurately enough to be able to predict certain phenomena without it actually being absolutely true. Space might not curve around stars: there conceivably might be some other explanation that could be tested for.

I'm not saying Einstein was wrong. I'm saying that he could in theory be wrong yet right enough to predict apparent stellar displacement. There's a precedence for this in Copernican heliocentrism. It's widely thought that this system dispensed with the need for epicycles, but actually, it didn't. The reason for that is that at the time, it wasn't known that planetary orbits are elliptical rather than circular. Copernicus was only able to reduce the number of epicycles, not completely eliminate them. That had to await the later discovery of elliptical planetary orbits

Who knows -- there might be "epicycles" we are unaware of in relativity theory -- indeed in any theory -- however well supported by current empirical evidence a theory might appear to be. It pays to keep an open mind. By all means one can go with current evidence, but should never close the door on the possibility of new evidence arising. Never go so far as to actively exclude new ideas mainly because one doesn't want them to get a fair hearing -- and I think that Popper facilitated that.

In your longish quote, he contrasts Freudianism, Adlerianism and Marxism with Einstein's relativity, which is on the face of it fair enough. But dig a little deeper and contrast theories that are at least equally plausible, but where one doesn't fit in with current paradigms. Why should one theory receive better, or even exclusive, attention and funding? Why was plate tectonics rejected for so long? Not because it wasn't plausible, but because it was dismissed out of court before being given serious consideration. OTOH, why has Darwinism been so ferociously promoted for so long? Does it have anything to do with falsifiability? If it had, I think it would have been rejected long ago.

Popper created a tool that would enable scientists to arbitrarily exclude from consideration whatever they wanted. Just claim something one doesn't agree with is unfalsifiable and bingo, it isn't science. Meanwhile, and hypocritically, pursue unfalsifiable theories treating them as if they are science.
 
Alice,

I think we are for the most part in agreement.

Alleviate means to lessen, I don't think he proposed that it cured. Is anything 'a cure'? Medication may also only allleviste some biological problems whilst creating others, some even precipitating depression for new reasons.

Effect indicates a cause. And lessening of symptoms by alternative, non-chemical means is significant for me, compared to the materialist predilection for 'brain as machine' solved by minute medical tampering.
I agree.

I have read that there are a lot of problems with using drugs to treat depression. Some drugs don't work as well as the drug companies say they do and patients become adapted to drugs and require larger and larger doses until the dose becomes dangerous when the patient has to stop using the drug and has to give up something they are adapted to. Now the patient is worse off than before and more likely to commit suicide. I am pretty sure that nutrition has been neglected by doctors/scientists as a possible treatment for depression. Personally, I find that diet has a greater effect on my mood than meditation.

I am not a materialist but I also think of the brain as a machine. I think where the materialists go wrong is that they think the mind is the brain. But even as a non-materialist I think it is important to recognize how the brain influences consciousness including thoughts, emotions, and impulses.

Singing and dancing have existed in human culture since a very long time ago. Would you say to an African tribe that had endured say a massacre, that singing, dancing and perhaps some trance-drumming, is invalid? If spiritual experiences occur when brain chemistry is altered, why not the other way around?
I agree. I don't think it is invalid. That is what I was trying to say when I wrote that behavior and environment and beliefs could alter brain chemistry too. I am just saying in healthy people the effects will be different than in people with a biological disorder. In your hypothetical tribe, the trance-drumming might not work as well on members who have a biological disorder.

Regarding dancing it might interest you to know I wrote this:


My attitude toward religion is best explained by something I learned when I took classes in spiritual healing. I was taught that all that is needed for healing to occur is the intention of the healer to act as a conduit for the healing energy to flow through him from a higher source.

One implication of this is that despite the fact that there are many different forms of energy healing, the particular method of healing is not important, only the intention of the healer is important. The best method of healing would be the one that helps the healer maintain his intentions best. If dancing around wearing a grass skirt and shaking a rattle helps you maintain your intention best, then that would be the best method for you.



As you said previously, we (philosophically) see what we believe. And given the very interesting placebo effect, that has great significance. Even for the biologically-challenged.

Yes.

But also placebos are used in most drug trials as a control so the effectiveness of the drug being tested is compared to a placebo. Any drug approved by the FDA works better than a placebo (assuming the data is not faked).
 
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I suppose my response to that would be that the requirement that an hypothesis be falsifiable is a necessary but not sufficient requirement. Thus BK's Idealism would still not be acceptable.

David
What do you mean by acceptable? "True" or "Scientific" or something else?

What would be required for sufficiency, falsifiablity, and what else?

I have not been following BK's work. Are you saying it is falsifiable but still not acceptable? How is it falsifiable?

(I am not trying to imply I don't agree with you, I am just trying to understand what you mean.)
 
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Look - I'm not saying that there aren't theories that can be falsified. I'm saying that there are theories that are happily considered scientific that can't be falsified. What is considered scientific has no necessary relationship with whether or not it's falsifiable. It could have more to do with whatever the scientific establishment is willing place its imprimatur on. Mentioning falsifiability may sometimes be a ruse to enable the exclusion of disfavoured theories, to prevent them from ever getting a seat at the table.

I think you are skipping past the context of where a hypothesis resides in regard to its relationship with falsification. The topic domain is not one single context. The objection to 'not approachable by falsification' by Popper applies to hypotheses which are foisted as MONIST:

1. The Null and
2. The Consensus

Popper was not using falsification to exclude theories (hypothesis) from PLURALITY or PRE-SCIENTIFIC contexts (what you implied above). He was employing it to shed light upon theories which were being imperiously pushed as monist truth (#1 and #2 above, or pseudoscience). One has to distinguish between which context they are speaking of, before declaring falsification to be an artifice or a tool. How this expresses in our everyday world is as the boundary between non-science and pseudo-science. To wit:

From: Mahner, Martin, 2007. “Demarcating Science from Non-Science”, pp 515-575 in Theo Kuipers (ed.) Handbook of the Philosophy of Science: General Philosophy of Science

The phrases “demarcation of science” and “demarcation of science from pseudoscience” are often used interchangeably, and many authors seem to have regarded them as equal in meaning. In their view the task of drawing the outer boundaries of science is essentially the same as that of drawing the boundary between science and pseudoscience.
This picture is oversimplified. All non-science is not pseudoscience, and science has non-trivial borders to other non-scientific phenomena, such as metaphysics, religion, and various types of non-scientific systematized knowledge.¹
In this regard, Mahner gets this dead on - as it is our lack of understanding of Ockham's Razor which precipitates this debate and not the nature of Popper's declarations at all.
 
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What do you mean by acceptable? "True" or "Scientific" or something else?

What would be required for sufficiency, falsifiablity, and what else?

I have not been following BK's work. Are you saying it is falsifiable but still not acceptable? How is it falsifiable?

(I am not trying to imply I don't agree with you, I am just trying to understand what you mean.)
OK - what I mean is that a theory that simply says that every physical thing is 'put there' by a vast conscious entity (MAL), is simply not falsifiable - I mean whatever we see in the world or our private awareness might be put there by MAL. Once postulated, such a theory is either thrown out because it is not falsifiable (i.e. you can't test it), or it just sits around until everyone gets bored with it!

Do dark matter and energy really exist? Could their existence ever be disproved? Sans really substantial evidence for their existence (which would not, however, prove their existence), I don't think so
Great examples - and I think the fact that these Ad Hoc theories only serve to patch up the laws of gravitation, and lack any evidence, is worrying a lot of physicists. However at least people are trying to find the WIMPS or whatever, but if they don't manage that convincingly, science should abandon those theories even though in principle there might be something that could only be detectable with technology from the next millennium. I mean, yes, to me those theories do seem to be getting perilously close to the same problem as BK's theory. Likewise String Theory is getting a lot of stick because it seems to be impossible to falsify.

I think this debate is complicated by the fact that the word 'pseudoscience' is used abusively and wrongly to slur alternative theories - such as ψ - which is eminently testable. I have even seen it used to attack the theory that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease!

Crucially, a theory doesn't have to be ultimately wrong to be unacceptable to science at a particular instance in time. I have used the example of General Relativity before, but imagine that Newton had used his occult abilities to come up with GR rather than NG. My point is that GR would have been either ignored, or pushed science back into the Dark Ages for goodness knows how long, because nobody back then could have handled its complexity (lack of mathematical tools) and they probably would have never even derived the approximations that reproduce Special Relativity or NG. GR would have been an unacceptable theory back then.

I feel this is closely analogous to the current situation in which there is no acceptable theory that might be used to extend science. Well there is, and it is called Dualism, and that theory really could be tested, and I am pretty sure it would pass those tests. To those who immediately howl that Dualism is clearly false because there has to be some coupling between the mental and physical realms, I would just say that GR and QM are known to be incompatible - yet science happily employs both every day!

Asserting Dualism would not prevent people ultimately realising that Dualism is a subset of Idealism - when science felt more ready to take that step.

Perhaps the point is that science at its best is more pragmatic than it likes to pretend. When it is tossed a theory like Idealism, it is just such a r-think that it chokes!

David
 
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Popper created a tool that would enable scientists to arbitrarily exclude from consideration whatever they wanted. Just claim something one doesn't agree with is unfalsifiable and bingo, it isn't science. Meanwhile, and hypocritically, pursue unfalsifiable theories treating them as if they are science.

Just because some people abuse a tool, does not mean the tool itself was at fault.

I mean we could all say, "Science is so corrupt and messed up that we might as well forget about it completely.", and I must say, I feel a lot of sympathy with that viewpoint, but science is excellent when it isn't corrupted, and eliminating unacceptable theories is something it does. I mean, a good example of an unacceptable theory (IMHO) was the theory that the universe might be a simulation running on a giant computer. This was seriously discussed, but how the hell do you test it?

David
 
OK - what I mean is that a theory that simply says that every physical thing is 'put there' by a vast conscious entity (MAL), is simply not falsifiable - I mean whatever we see in the world or our private awareness might be put there by MAL. Once postulated, such a theory is either thrown out because it is not falsifiable (i.e. you can't test it), or it just sits around until everyone gets bored with it!

Ultimately, idealism isn't falsifiable because it postulates that consciousness is the ontological primitive (i.e. an axiom, which by definition can't be proved or disproved), rather than matter. But then again, neither is materialism falsifiable, and for exactly the same reason -- it's also postulated to be the axiomatic, ontological primitive.

I feel this is closely analogous to the current situation in which there is no acceptable theory that might be used to extend science. Well there is, and it is called Dualism, and that theory really could be tested, and I am pretty sure it would pass those tests. To those who immediately howl that Dualism is clearly false because there has to be some coupling between the mental and physical realms, I would just say that GR and QM are known to be incompatible - yet science happily employs both every day!

When it comes to dualism, I'm intrigued why you think it is testable. What is it saying? IMO, that there is not one, but two ontological primitives: the physical and the mental, each of which on its own is unfalsifiable. Why would combining them make them any more falsifiable? And how could one test for dualism? Why do you think it would pass those tests?

I'm wondering if you are conflating materialism with dualism. In materialism, most materialists (except those who eliminate consciousness, or deny it exists) don't deny the existence of the mental. However, they postulate that in some mysterious way, the mental emerges out of the physical. But I doubt that's testable because it's the fundamental axiom of (monistic) materialism. They'll always be able to carry on looking for emergence, offering promissory notes to assure us one day they'll prove it.

It's undeniable that there's a correlation between 2nd-person observations of brain states and inner, 1st-person experiences of consciousness, but that's all it may be: a correlation. A priori, the causation could go either way, and so it comes down to looking at corroborative evidence. I maintain that the evidence, perhaps especially from QM, strongly supports idealism over materialism. I can't say it proves idealism and disproves materialism, but to my mind it does make idealism a much better model of reality.
 
I have been thinking about this question that Alex asked Philip during the interview:

"Do you ever wonder why more people don’t seem to have this on the top of their to-do list; that is to get to the bottom of this?"

Lately, I have been trying to think about this stance that may exist between "eternalism" and "nihilism". Another way to say it, is the stance between "there is ONE system of thought (or frame of mind) that will explain life, the universe, and everything" and "there is NO system of thought (or frame of mind) that will explain life, the universe, and everything."

I can get very carried away in my thoughts on these types of questions.

But the other day, I was hanging out with some close friends of mine, people I have known for years. Naturally, on the way there, I was thinking about this kind of technical philosophy question, and afterwards, on my way home, I was going to start thinking about my question, when I realized that I didn't feel the need to think about it -- I was feeling that the world is meaningful, my life is meaningful, and that's what it's about. I didn't feel the need to "bear down" on my intellectual philosophy in that moment. What would be the point? I was feeling it.

That is not usual for me. Most of my day-to-day life, I'm feeling some low-grade stress and dissatisfaction, or I'm aborbed in some activity where the primary purpose may be to keep the feelings of dissatisfaction at bay. These seem to be the times that I'm most inclined to try to "bear down" on the philosophical/spiritual questions.

I think some people perhaps feel "filled up with meaning" in their day-to-day lives, and their personal energy is absorbed in that experience. Perhaps these people have specific beliefs or faith that are "good enough", and they don't feel like they need to "bear down" and try to really GET the specifics of it all. (Philip Goff's article on the difference between faith and belief is a good one on this.)

Probably there are a lot more people who DON'T feel particularly "filled up with meaning". There are about a trillion ways we can try to "feel better". Chemical and behavioral addictions and compulsions are fairly wide spread and can absorb a lot of time and energy. Folks caught in those loops don't necessarily have a lot of time for the big questions (unless the "thinking about the big questions" is itself a compulsion for some folk, which is a whole other can of worms).

Chapman speculates about additional "confused stances" that may absorb people's attention: ideas of true self/no self, mission/accumulation, etc. I think "mission" is an interesting one: it's kind of like getting caught up in a righteous crusade, like Captain Ahab. A crusade can feel very meaningful, but it will likely not be ultimately satisfying. I find myself on crusades from time to time. C'est la vie.
 
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That is not usual for me. Most of my day-to-day life, I'm feeling some low-grade stress and dissatisfaction, or I'm aborbed in some activity where the primary purpose may be to keep the feelings of dissatisfaction at bay. These seem to be the times that I'm most inclined to try to "bear down" on the philosophical/spiritual questions.

Well put Dan.
 
Incidentally, Jim, it's true that Einstein predicted the apparent displacement of stars during a stellar eclipse. But did that prove that his explanation for it was correct, i.e. that in the vicinity of a large massive body like the sun, space is bent? Maybe. Or maybe not. His idea of the curvature of space might model reality accurately enough to be able to predict certain phenomena without it actually being absolutely true. Space might not curve around stars: there conceivably might be some other explanation that could be tested for.

This is from the wikipedia article on Popper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper#Philosophy_of_science
Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a scientific theory, but a single counterexample is logically decisive; it shows the theory, from which the implication is derived, to be false.
 
Wittgenstein said "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language." It is not for the equivocally-habituated, agency-minded nor casual thinker.

The context in which I employ 'falsification' is as a method of inference (as in A reductive series (H0-H1) Bayesian test) - and not a term which is suitably applied to broad multifaceted ideas. We can falsify nihilism, yes, because it is the Null. But that does not mean that falsification is therefore the scientific method. Don't confuse a type of inference with the method of science. They are not exactly the same thing.

The test I look for, and used in our labs to hold the scientists accountable as well, to detect non-science masquerading as science is the habit of applying this discipline:

"Places a reasoned and incremental conjecture at risk, makes a prediction, or exposes itself or a subset methodically to accountability."​

But there are times when an idea has not matured to that level of activity just yet. This does not mean we kill it right then and there - because it is not approachable by falsification. This is why we have several features of what constitutes a scientific hypothesis.

 

Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a scientific theory, but a single counterexample is logically decisive; it shows the theory, from which the implication is derived, to be false.
Sure. I agree wholeheartedly; so I'm not quite sure what your point is. Maybe you're just agreeing with me, in which case, fine.

Just to be clear, I haven't, so far as I'm aware, said that falsifiability shouldn't apply. If a theory is genuinely falsified, then it's definitely wrong, full stop. My argument is that falsifiability can sometimes be unfairly applied as one means to deny some theories access to the marketplace of ideas. It's not the only one: there are others, such as wilful ignorance and pseudoscepticism.

In addition, the lack of falsifiability is apparently no barrier to science embracing all sorts of weird and wonderful ideas. Falsifiabilty, in short, is a red herring. And in any case, it can't be applied to ontologies such as materialism, idealism or dualism because they are axioms and thereby not subject to proof or disproof.
 
In addition, the lack of falsifiability is apparently no barrier to science embracing all sorts of weird and wonderful ideas. Falsifiabilty, in short, is a red herring. And in any case, it can't be applied to ontologies such as materialism, idealism or dualism because they are axioms and thereby not subject to proof or disproof.

Falsification is a type of inference. It is not a red herring. It cannot be applied to broad multifaceted ideas because those are addressed by scientific method and the discipline of hypothesis, not a single type and mode of inference -

and no science can be applied to an ontology to begin with - that is the very nature of ontology and why we have deontological reduction.

One must be careful to not confuse, conflate and confound in all sorts of entropic directions, through lack of discipline in the words employed.

One must understand what a type and mode of inference are... before attempting to frame or understand what Popper was contending.
 
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Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a scientific theory, but a single counterexample is logically decisive; it shows the theory, from which the implication is derived, to be false.
Sure. I agree wholeheartedly; so I'm not quite sure what your point is. Maybe you're just agreeing with me, in which case, fine.

...

I was trying to show you that you and Popper are in agreement.
 
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