Can Science Be Metaphysically Neutral And Objective ?

My question was serious.

I was just trying to figure out whether your concern was just with the politics (ie: issues surrounding the funding and stigma of parapsychology) or whether you also thought that post-materialist science would involve a different method.

I really wish people around here would stop assuming that all questions are really just rhetorical arguments!

How can one pretend not to know what materialist science is, or even ask a question regarding whether or not non-materialist science uses the same scientific method ???

You've even claimed to have read the manifesto for a post-materialist science .The latter was clear enough .

Get real .
 
How can one pretend not to know what materialist science is, or even ask a question regarding whether or not non-materialist science uses the same scientific method ???

Get real .

I thought you were talking about proposals for change? Of what you want to see happen in the future?

We already have parapsychology that follows the scientific method. If all you are doing is proposing that it gets more funding and is more accepted, I get that and approve. What I didn't know is if you were suggesting something more than that. There have been several people on this forum who have stated that the current scientific method is not well equipped to study psi, the afterlife, and related issues. I thought you might be suggesting the same thing, but I wasn't sure - so I asked. And if you were suggesting that I would have been curious to know how you thought the scientific method should be adapted to post-materialist science.

How you believe I should already know what you think on these issues is beyond me.
 
I thought you were talking about proposals for change? Of what you want to see happen in the future?

We already have parapsychology that follows the scientific method. If all you are doing is proposing that it gets more funding and is more accepted, I get that and approve. What I didn't know is if you were suggesting something more than that. There have been several people on this forum who have stated that the current scientific method is not well equipped to study psi, the afterlife, and related issues. I thought you might be suggesting the same thing, but I wasn't sure - so I asked. And if you were suggesting that I would have been curious to know how you thought the scientific method should be adapted to post-materialist science.

How you believe I should already know what you think on these issues is beyond me.

It's not about funding or politics at all .

This thread has already been explaining to you what materialist science is , why materialism is false and hence why all sciences for that matter must reject materialism and become non-materialist in the above mentioned sense and much more .

Furthermore , science is all about free inquiry ,all about methodology and epistemology that should not be restricted by materialism or by any other ism for that matter .
Science should , in principle , be metaphysically neutral ,should not be materialistic or otherwise , but that's just an utopia since science is just a social human activity , and to some extent just a cultural one as well ( See how the Eurocentric exclusive ethnocentric egocentric materialist ideology , philosophy , the outdated false and superseded materialist world view or conception of nature has been equated with science for relatively so long now and counting , once again ) = objectivity is a myth = does not exist as such , not even at the level of exact sciences , let alone elsewhere .

P.S.: Science should be liberated even from the naturalist philosophy of the last century that has been making science naturalistic and hence has been imprisoning it within that philosophy's theory of the nature of reality = within nature thus .

There is thus nothing intrinsic in the scientific methodology or in its evolutionary epistemology that prevents them from even going beyond ...materialism and beyond nature ,if necessary .

Enough for you ?

Read this thread then .Cheers.
 
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It's not about funding or politics at all .

This thread has already been explaining to you what materialist science is , why materialism is false and hence why all sciences for that matter must reject materialism and become non-materialist in the above mentioned sense and much more .

Read it .Cheers.

You could have simply confirmed that you weren't thinking of changes to the scientific method.

Earlier you linked to a site called "opensciences". That's not what you want, though, is it? You just want to switch from a system the promotes "materialist science" and stigmatises "non-materialist science" and replace it with one that promotes "non-materialist science" and stigmatizes "materialist science".

Me, I think we should just promote science, regardless of what paradigm it ostensibly supports. If someone has what they think is a good idea, and can demonstrate why it is worth investing resources in, then we should support it.
 
@ Arouet :

The scientific rational analytical empiricism and scientific epistemology must be extended as to include the subjective ,since the old Cartesian dichotomy between the observer and the observed , or between the subjective and the objective and that they are allegedly independent from each other is false , since both the observer and the observed do make part of the same universe and do interact with each other mutually ,and since science is just a human social activity .....and to some extent just a cultural one as well (see how materialism has been equated with science ) : not to mention Bell's theorem and its related experiments that have been challenging classical determinism, classical realism as well as classical locality exactly as quantum physics predicted :

See the following on the subject :

http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/implications.html
 
The elephant in the room, that guys like Arouet continue to insist is a chicken. After awhile it just gets rather boring dealing with such an extreme level of arrogance and ignorance. He has it all figured out: the elephant is a chicken, and that's that!

My Best,
Bertha
 
@ Arouet :

The scientific rational analytical empiricism and scientific epistemology must be extended as to include the subjective ,since the old Cartesian dichotomy between the observer and the observed , or between the subjective and the objective and that they are allegedly independent from each other is false , since both the observer and the observed do make part of the same universe and do interact with each other mutually ,and since science is just a human social activity .....and to some extent just a cultural one as well (see how materialism has been equated with science ) : not to mention Bell's theorem and its related experiments that have been challenging classical determinism, classical realism as well as classical locality exactly as quantum physics predicted :

See the following on the subject :

http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/implications.html

All of this seems again to be focussing on hypotheses to explore, not a change in methodology.

For example, in the link you provided they say the following:

More comprehensive accommodation of these anomalies within a functional scientific framework will require the explicit inclusion of consciousness as an active agent in the establishment of physical reality, a generalization of the scientific paradigm demanding more courageous theoretical structures than are employed at present, guided by more extensive empirical data than are now available, acquired via more cooperative interdisciplinary collaborations than are currently practiced. It is our hope that by its proposition of a few possible conceptual models PEAR has established productive precedents for such representation of this formidable, but crucial, topical domain.

They talk about:
  • functional scientific framework
  • exploring conciousness as an active agent re: physical reality
  • generating new scientific paradigms and theoretical structures
  • more extensive data
  • interdisciplinary cooperation
All of this, from what I can tell, is about applying these within the current scientific method. There is no mention that the scientific method itself is not suited to the study of consciousness and its relation to the physical.

I wasn't suggesting, by the way, that you should be advocating that the scientific method itself needs to change in order to study non-materialist hypotheses. I was only asking whether you were suggesting that it needs to change.

As for the subjective in science - unless I am mistaken, scientists deal with the subjective all over the place! Look at psychology and medicine.
 
All of this seems again to be focussing on hypotheses to explore, not a change in methodology.

For example, in the link you provided they say the following:



They talk about:
  • functional scientific framework
  • exploring conciousness as an active agent re: physical reality
  • generating new scientific paradigms and theoretical structures
  • more extensive data
  • interdisciplinary cooperation
All of this, from what I can tell, is about applying these within the current scientific method. There is no mention that the scientific method itself is not suited to the study of consciousness and its relation to the physical.

I wasn't suggesting, by the way, that you should be advocating that the scientific method itself needs to change in order to study non-materialist hypotheses. I was only asking whether you were suggesting that it needs to change.

As for the subjective in science - unless I am mistaken, scientists deal with the subjective all over the place! Look at psychology and medicine.

You either don't get it or you're just playing the wise guy : which is it ?

I am gonna repeat myself again as PEAR made it so clear :
There is no separation between the observer and the observed ,or between the subjective and the objective : they are inseparably and inescapably intertwined with each other ,and hence science 's methodology and epistemology as well as its vocabulary must change accordingly and must be extended as to include the subjective : that's what PEAR calls : subjective science .

And NO , materialist science does not include the subjective since materialism assumes that consciousness is either in the brain,is identical with brain activity or just an allegedly useless side effect or by-product of evolution without any causal effects on matter , and since materialism assumes also that the objective reality out there is independent from the observer ............

Got it now ?
 
You either don't get it or you're just playing the wise guy : which is it ?

I am gonna repeat myself again as PEAR made it so clear :
There is no separation between the observer and the observed ,or between the subjective and the objective : they are inseparably and inescapably intertwined with each other ,and hence science 's methodology and epistemology as well as its vocabulary must change accordingly and must be extended as to include the subjective : that's what PEAR calls : subjective science .

And NO , materialist science does not include the subjective since materialism assumes that consciousness is either in the brain,is identical with brain activity or just an allegedly useless side effect or by-product of evolution without any causal effects on matter , and since materialism assumes also that the objective reality out there is independent from the observer ............

Got it now ?

Well, I think I got it, but I'm not sure you're getting me.

Take Dean Radin's experiment involving the double slit experiment. In this experiment he is setting out to test whether our attention can influence the results.

I think, correct me if I'm wrong, that that's an example of what you mean by bringing consciousness into experiments.

And as far as I can tell, Radin's experiment does not require any departure from the scientific method as we currently recognise it.

The same goes for every parapsychological experiment that I know of.

Radin's goals are the same as any scientist: to produce repeatable, reliable evidence of his hypothesis. His goal, like any other scientist, is to do so in a way that identifies and reduces risk of error/bias. People can debate how successful he was in obtaining the goal, and what can be reliably concluded from the experiment but that's a different question.

As I see it, Radin applied the scientific method as we know it to study the effects of consciousness.

If that's not what you're referring to, then maybe you can

As far as what "materialism" assumes - again, you're talking about the hypothesis formation, not about the methodology being used.

I am completely open, by the way, to other methods being used than the scientific method to explore these topics. I just haven't as yet heard anyone describe exactly what those methods should be, and the reasons for considering it to be effective.

Again - don't intrepret me as saying no such method is possible. I'm only saying that I haven't seen a fully fleshed out proposal for such a method.

You mentioned PEAR's subjective science. Look at how they put it in this article: https://www.princeton.edu/~pear/pdfs/1997-science-subjective.pdf

There is no more critical test of the integrity of any scientific process than its reaction to anomalous features uncovered in either its experimental or theoretical endeavors, i.e., empirical observations demonstrably inconsistent with established theoretical expectations, or theoretical predictions that conflict with established experimental data. Such anomalies demand immediate attention to discriminate between artifacts of flawed experimentation or theoretical logic, and the entry of genuine new phenomena onto the scientific stage. Error in this discrimination can divert or extend science along false scholarly trails, while proper identification and assimilation of real anomalies can open more penetrating paths than those previously followed.

PEAR is not here recommending some radical new method. Their focus is on:
  • empirical observation, and
  • using methodology to reduce risk of error/bias (they put it as "discriminate between artifacts of flawed experimentation"
The concern of the scientific method, imo, is not whether evidence is "objective" or "subjective" - rather it is with the validity and reliability of the evidence, regardless of whether it is subjective or objective.

Note what the author's write:

Inclusion of subjective information within the framework of science clearly constitutes a huge analytical challenge.

As I understand it, the focus of their article is on whether subjective information can be reliably used in the scientific method. They are not saying that the scientific method cannot accept subjective information and that therefore a new method should be developed. Rather, they are focused on figuring out how to study the subjective in a reliable way that reduces bias/error.

They write:

But quantifiable alteration of the objective information content of a physical or biological system by some attending consciousness, while far more difficult to demonstrate and vastly more controversial to discuss, has also been convincingly established over recent decades, by reputable scholars working in many venues.

Now, as they allude to, one can debate just how convincing this or that experiment is. But for the purpose of this discussion note again that this is entirely within the purview of the scientific method.

More on this:

The thesis is thus that science must soon make a deliberate and considered choice whether to continue to deny all subjective currency access to its table of scholarly business, thus excluding itself from comprehension of the universe of aesthetic and creative experience, including that which bears on objective effects, or to broaden its purview to encompass these softer parameters in some disciplined yet productive fashion. The scientific method and the scientific attitude, as defined above, should tolerate, indeed should encourage, provisional exploration of the disciplined re-inclusion of subjective concepts and properties within the enterprise of the natural research sciences.

Again note what they are saying and not saying:
  • They are saying that the current scientific method should consider subjective evidence valid.
  • They are not saying that this involves scraping or majorly amending the scientific method
They argue for the inclusion of subjective evidence in science. Not the replacement of the scientific method with a new method.

They even quote William James on this very point!

The spirit and principles of science are mere affairs of method; there is nothing in them that need hinder science from dealing successfully with a world in which personal forces are the starting point of new effects

I bolded the entire thing to hit the point home. Pear is arguing that the the scientific method is well suited to the study of the subjective. They are not proposing an entirely new method.

This is getting long, so I'll include one final quotation from this article:

Closely related to the issue of replicability is the need to identify viable quantifiers and standards of the subjective coordinates and properties that will appear in the data and the models.

Again: pure scientific method.

PEAR, from what I can tell, wants to bring consciousness into the scientific method. Not replace the method with something else.

If there is anything that I've written here that you disagree with, please let me know.
 
My question was serious.

I was just trying to figure out whether your concern was just with the politics (ie: issues surrounding the funding and stigma of parapsychology) or whether you also thought that post-materialist science would involve a different method.

I really wish people around here would stop assuming that all questions are really just rhetorical arguments!
Does post-materialist science treat information as fundamentally objective and on the same universal level as force and mass?
 
="Arouet, post: 56178, member: 10"]Well, I think I got it, but I'm not sure you're getting me.

Take Dean Radin's experiment involving the double slit experiment. In this experiment he is setting out to test whether our attention can influence the results.

I think, correct me if I'm wrong, that that's an example of what you mean by bringing consciousness into experiments.

And as far as I can tell, Radin's experiment does not require any departure from the scientific method as we currently recognise it.

The same goes for every parapsychological experiment that I know of.

Radin's goals are the same as any scientist: to produce repeatable, reliable evidence of his hypothesis. His goal, like any other scientist, is to do so in a way that identifies and reduces risk of error/bias. People can debate how successful he was in obtaining the goal, and what can be reliably concluded from the experiment but that's a different question.

As I see it, Radin applied the scientific method as we know it to study the effects of consciousness.

If that's not what you're referring to, then maybe you can

Who said anything about abandoning the scientific method as we know it , let alone about allegedly replacing it by 'somethingelse " : i said that the rational analytical empiricism and epistemology must be extended as to include the subjective : PEAR's work as well as that of Radin and others has been showing the fact that consciousness does play an active and proactive role in shaping the physical reality ,and hence the old Cartesian dichotomy between the objective and the subjective ,or between the observed and the observer and that they are allegedly independent from each other is false,which also means that what materialist science has been telling us all about consciousness in its relationship with its "outer " environment , including its physical brain , is false ,since materialism assumes that consciousness has allegedly no causal effects on its "outer " environment , including on its physical brain : materialism assumes thus , and hence materialist science does the same since materialism has been equated with science , that consciousness is either in the brain , is identical with brain activity ( identity or production theory ) or just a useless side effect or by -product of evolution = an epiphenomena : all these three materialist theories or models of mind do assume thus that consciousness has no causal efficacy whatsoever .


As far as what "materialism" assumes - again, you're talking about the hypothesis formation, not about the methodology being used.

No , you do not get it yet : Materialism has been equated with science .Materialists assume that science and hence the scientific method is just applied materialism .

Materialist science thus considers its materialist belief assumptions as "empirical facts " , including the materialist theory of the nature of reality .

I am completely open, by the way, to other methods being used than the scientific method to explore these topics. I just haven't as yet heard anyone describe exactly what those methods should be, and the reasons for considering it to be effective.

The scientific method and epistemology are no static 'entities " , they are evolutionary processes and must be thus extended as to include the subjective as well as to recognize the fact that reality is not only exclusively material or physical ,but also mental .The latter that's irreducible to the former .

Again - don't intrepret me as saying no such method is possible. I'm only saying that I haven't seen a fully fleshed out proposal for such a method.

Science is all about free inquiry , all about methodology and epistemology and hence should not be restricted by materialism or any other ism for that matter , including naturalism or the naturalist philosophy thus .

You mentioned PEAR's subjective science. Look at how they put it in this article: https://www.princeton.edu/~pear/pdfs/1997-science-subjective.pdf



PEAR is not here recommending some radical new method. Their focus is on:
  • empirical observation, and
  • using methodology to reduce risk of error/bias (they put it as "discriminate between artifacts of flawed experimentation"

See above : the rational analytical empiricism and epistemology must be extended as to include the subjective as valid empirical evidence , since the observer and the observed or the subjective and the objective are inseparable and hence there is no separation between the observer and between the so-called objective reality out there .
The concern of the scientific method, imo, is not whether evidence is "objective" or "subjective" - rather it is with the validity and reliability of the evidence, regardless of whether it is subjective or objective.

Science has been all about "objective " evidence by assuming that the observer and the observed or the subjective and the objective are independent from each other : that has been a false assumption .
Note what the author's write:
As I understand it, the focus of their article is on whether subjective information can be reliably used in the scientific method. They are not saying that the scientific method cannot accept subjective information and that therefore a new method should be developed. Rather, they are focused on figuring out how to study the subjective in a reliable way that reduces bias/error.

You still do not get what PEAR meant : the so-called objective science is a myth since subjective and the objective are inseparable .

They write:
Now, as they allude to, one can debate just how convincing this or that experiment is. But for the purpose of this discussion note again that this is entirely within the purview of the scientific method.

Who said otherwise ? But , you can't just consider PEAR's results on the subject as being just a matter of opinion ,conviction or degree of reliability : their results show that the subjective and the objective are inseparable , since they can mutually interact with each other , alter each other , influence each other ....: that's the very core of their work , that of Radin's and that of other non-materialist scientists ...

More on this:
Again note what they are saying and not saying:
  • They are saying that the current scientific method should consider subjective evidence valid.
  • They are not saying that this involves scraping or majorly amending the scientific method
They argue for the inclusion of subjective evidence in science. Not the replacement of the scientific method with a new method.

Who said otherwise ? : see above : materialist science has been all about "objective " evidence through the rational analytical empiricism ,while dismissing the subjective as being non-relevant or non-significant and without any causal effects on the observed "objective reality out there " .

They even quote William James on this very point!
I bolded the entire thing to hit the point home. Pear is arguing that the the scientific method is well suited to the study of the subjective. They are not proposing an entirely new method.

The rational analytical empiricism is not suited to study the subjective unless it includes the subjective in the empirical method as valid evidence or as a component of reality that cannot be separated from the so-called "objective reality out there " .

Again: pure scientific method.

PEAR, from what I can tell, wants to bring consciousness into the scientific method. Not replace the method with something else.

If there is anything that I've written here that you disagree with, please let me know.

You clearly do not know the underlying epistemological roots of the scientific method .The latter that has been exclusively rational and "objective " untill quantum physics saw the light of day by encountering consciousness and hence subjectivity = rational "objective " empiricism must include the subjective as valid empirical evidence thus .
 
Does post-materialist science treat information as fundamentally objective and on the same universal level as force and mass?

Depends on what you mean by information .
Consciousness , for example, as an alleged integrated information does hold no water whatsoever ,since it fails to capture ,so to speak, the multifaceted aspects of subjective experiences.

Furthermore ,what we call "reality " is just the mutual interaction of consciousness with its "outer environment " , including with its physical brain thus , where consciousness plays a central role in shaping the physical reality and gets , in its turn , influenced by it = consciousness and its so-called "outer physical reality " , including its physical brain thus , are inseparable : "reality " is psycho-physical ,as Pauli used to say .
 
Science will never be completely objective. Considering it is at heart a human enterprise, it is naturally going to be coloured by our biases and perceptions. We may strive to be objective, but you will never get something that is 100% unbiased. Moreover, the notion of objectivity is itself a human construct we've conjured up to try and establish what is true.
 
@ Arouet :

In a nutshell : simply put :

Science has been exclusively "objective " by applying its rational analytical "objective " empiricism while dismissing the subjective : quantum physics has changed all that by bringing the subjective back to science and hence the rational "objective " analytical empiricism ,and thus the scientific method , must include the subjective as valid empirical evidence or component of reality = the so-called objective and subjective are inseparable = the so-called objective rational analytical . empiricism is inseparable from the subjective consciousness of the observer= "objectivity " which has been the "trade mark " of science so far ,does not exist ,not even at the level of exact sciences ,let alone elsewhere .
 
Science will never be completely objective. Considering it is at heart a human enterprise, it is naturally going to be coloured by our biases and perceptions. We may strive to be objective, but you will never get something that is 100% unbiased. Moreover, the notion of objectivity is itself a human construct we've conjured up to try and establish what is true.

Better still : the subjective and so-called objective are inseparable,while science has been pretending to be "objective " all along : "objectivity " has been the monopoly of science , a false one thus .
 
Who said anything about abandoning the scientific method as we know it , let alone about allegedly replacing it by 'somethingelse "

I'm heading out now so can't reply in detail. But honestly Nassim - are you actually reading what I've written? This whole thing started by my asking you if you were suggesting changing the scientific method. And I stated that others (not you) have stated that the scientific method is NOT an appropriate method for studying some of these issues. I was asking whether you thought the same. When I suggested that it seemed that you were not suggesting a new method, you referred me to PEAR. I interpreted that as you believing that PEAR was advocating a new method. So I showed you that PEAR wasn't suggesting a new method either. I gave you direct quotes.

I'll try to respond later to your post - but generally you are assuming I'm against things that I'm not. My guess is that when you read my posts, you imagine my tone as a snear - leading you to interpret things I write in a negative light - even when they are things you agree with. You seem to think I'm against incorporating the subjective into science, and against parapsychology. I'm not. I agree with PEAR that if it can be done in a valid and reliable way, that we should do so. I've explicitly said so, so I'm not sure why your tone remains hostile.

Also briefly: regardless of what Decartes and some other philosophers might have written, the scientific method has regularly incorporated subjective evidence in its purview. The fields of medicine and psychology are filled with it. In another thread fls referred to some specific examples of this. The PEAR article highlighted the same issues that medicine and psychology are concerned about in terms of interpreting such data. PEAR was suggesting developing reliable methods to study consciousness in a similar way that they do in related fields. Take a look some time at the research in medicine related to the reliability of reported medical symptoms - and the factors that they consider raise risk of bias or lower it. PEAR's concerns outlined in that article I linked echo the concerns that medicine and psychology have with similar questions.

I think your impressions of science in practice might be off.
 
Science will never be completely objective. Considering it is at heart a human enterprise, it is naturally going to be coloured by our biases and perceptions. We may strive to be objective, but you will never get something that is 100% unbiased. Moreover, the notion of objectivity is itself a human construct we've conjured up to try and establish what is true.

Agreed - and once we accept that WE ARE ALL BIASED, we can stop wasting time arguing about who is more biased than the other and focus on how to control for our biases and make the best decisions we can!
 
@ Arouet :

In a nutshell : simply put :

Science has been exclusively "objective " by applying its rational analytical "objective " empiricism while dismissing the subjective : quantum physics has changed all that by bringing the subjective back to science and hence the rational "objective " analytical empiricism ,and thus the scientific method , must include the subjective as valid empirical evidence or component of reality = the so-called objective and subjective are inseparable = the so-called objective rational analytical . empiricism is inseparable from the subjective consciousness of the observer= "objectivity " which has been the "trade mark " of science so far ,does not exist ,not even at the level of exact sciences ,let alone elsewhere .

Arouet really does not believe in science, although he makes the claim he does. What he does believe in is a philosophy called materialism.

My Best,
Bertha
 
Does post-materialist science treat information as fundamentally objective and on the same universal level as force and mass?

I had a run in with these so-called "post-materialists" about a year ago. It was a bizarre discussion, and bordered on a kind of schizophrenia. Essentially what they did was redefine the philosophy of materialism to include non-materialist concepts. So they picked and chose what phenomena was acceptable to them, but remained dogmatic regarding many of the empirical studies regarding consciousness that demonstrated non-materialist concepts present in consciousness.

It will likely be the last stand for the current crop of Neo-Materialists, trying to desperately hold on to their faith in Newtonian physics but attempting to combine their faith with what has been established in quantum physics. A kind of twilight zone episode of scientific rationality though.

My Best,
Bertha
 
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