Philosophy has never been of interest to many,

I have no argument with those who admit science can’t explain everything. — Wayfarer

That is not what I said though. The characterisation of scientists within a field as believing their field explains everything is pernicious. There are examples, usually in the softer sciences, of a refusal to accept the necessity of holistic approaches, but even Skinner didn't believe his nurture-over-nature position explained e.g. the tides.

There are meaningless questions: What time is an apple? What colour is speed? There are scientific questions: How old is the Earth? How is sound created and mediated? There may be meaningful unscientific questions. You are bang on target to say that bridging the gap between philosophy and science, even if it is just to categorise questions as scientific or unscientific, requires casting questions in some mutually understandable way, and phenomonology is a great example of how to do this because it is part of both science and philosophy (as the two do influence one another).

But science already does this. I cannot personally explain why I experience a particular hue of red when I look at my dining room wall -- that is a scientific-seeming question that is unanswered -- but I can explain why that perception persists under fixed lighting conditions -- that is a scientific question that is answered. It becomes a problem in that mutual area to justify why one question is scientific and another not. The obvious and usual recourse is that science has not answered it yet, which is an 'of-the-gaps' argument. A better justification for meaningful unscientific questions needs to be put forward.

You are bang on target — Kenosha Kid

Thank you.

But science already does this. — Kenosha Kid

I don’t think it does as a matter of course. There might be some scientists who do that, and some scientific areas where it happens, but overall the story in science is ever-increasing specialisation - ‘knowing more and more about less and less’, one saying has it.

Overall, I do agree that science is becoming more holistic and less materialistic, but that is happening, as I think Thomas Kuhn said, ‘one funeral at a time’. It’s also happening because of the ‘greening of culture’ - science is no longer the mechanist/materialist beast of yore, but has a vital role to play in preserving biodiversity, finding alternative energy sources and above all ameliorating the climate crisis, so science is kind of forced into the position of joining forces with the green left in some respects, which naturally has a mellowing influence.

A better justification for meaningful unscientific questions needs to be put forward — Kenosha Kid

Apologies, it was all I had time for at the moment. :yikes:

I cannot personally explain why I experience a particular hue of red when I look at my dining room wall -- that is a scientific-seeming question that is unanswered -- but I can explain why that perception persists under fixed lighting conditions -- that is a scientific question that is answered.

Could you be clearer about the two questions you imagine to be here please, because under one understanding of what you are saying the "why" questions both have exactly the same, entirely mundane response: "because it is daylight and your wall is painted red", which would seem to indicate that they are, in fine, precisely the same question.

I can point to quantum mechanics where the law of the excluded middle does not hold — Kenosha Kid

That is more a case of asking whether the present king if France is bald or not. — Pfhorrest

I think this is more a case of asking whether a beaded curtain is open or closed.

How can reason be the ground if you re not conscious of your reason — Pop

In the same way one can see a thing, without ever being conscious of all the information in that system. In the same way your feet are always on the ground without you ever being conscious of gravity.

Beware mistaking what reason is, with what it is to reason. Reason is a cognitive system according to rules, to reason is the construction and use of the rules. I am not conscious of my system as a whole, but I am conscious of my system at its work.
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Consciousness = experience + emotion. — Mww

Consciousness is equivalent to experience. I assume this is what you meant. — Pop

Why would you assume I meant something different from what I said, unless you think, apparently without proper warrant, I mean emotion to be merely a kind of experience. I reject that notion immediately; feelings are not cognitions and are a general condition in themselves, but experience is derived solely from cognitions and is always a particular condition in itself.
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The input is information, and the output is integrated information. please consider. — Pop

This is fine for what happens, and may even be developed into a logical theory. As stated, however, nothing about how it happens is given, and, more importantly, what form such information takes. If I don’t know the how of a thing, and the explicit accountability for its parts, it holds no interest for me. The only consideration it’s worth so far, is.....ok, if you say so.

but overall the story in science is ever-increasing speculation - ‘knowing more and more about less and less’, one saying has it. — Wayfarer

I don't think that's a reasonable point. Science deals with more unverified theory as time passes for no other reason than that these are the hardest questions to answer and will take the longest time. The Higgs boson was speculative until we had the technology to answer it. The speed of light was an easier question because the technology was available sooner. The acceleration of falling bodies even easier. To use the success of science at answering easier questions as a criticism for focusing on harder ones is disingenuous. The trajectory of science is inevitably toward harder questions with more incorrect hypotheses.

Overall, I do agree that science is becoming more holistic and less materialistic — Wayfarer

Considering myriad material phenomena on different scales is not less materialistic, it's just less narrow materialism.

Apologies, it was all I had time for at the moment. — Wayfarer

Haha no, I didn't mean you, I meant the general discourse. I think your point here was great.

Your are not gonna make it great by telling bedtime stories.

Can you give me a thought that has been proven to be true?

Surely truth needs legs, feet and a rock (emotional or not) to stand on.

Could you be clearer about the two questions you imagine to be here please, because under one understanding of what you are saying the "why" questions both have exactly the same, entirely mundane response: "because it is daylight and your wall is painted red", which would seem to indicate that they are, in fine, precisely the same question. — jkg20

Sure, the distinction is between "why this colour" and "why is it always the same colour". The latter is answered by the limited wavelengths of light a material body can emit when illuminated: its emission spectra. This is scientifically well understood. But I still don't know why I see that particular wavelength as that particular colour, i.e. how mental imaging occurs. I know how the brain differentiates colours, I know why it is consistent, but the actual experience of colour for a particular wavelength is unknown to me.

This could just be my ignorance, but tmk the question is not scientifically answered. (If it is answered, just replace with an unanswered one.) It is for consideration then if it is scientifically answerable. Of-the-gaps arguments are of the form: it has not been answered, therefore it is not scientifically answerable, which is not rational. What's desirable from a logical non-materialist's PoV is a schema for determining whether this scientific-seeming question is in fact scientific at all, without relying on what future science will illuminate. And from a materialist's PoV whether there is any reason to doubt that it is. That is, both parties are invested in this endeavour.

how mental imaging occurs

OK, I understand, you seem to be of the opinion, shared by quite a few philosophers and scientists it must be said, that every time we see anything, mental imaging is occuring. How would you convince someone who denied this? I mean, suppose someone were to say to you "for me, mental imagery is the kind of thing I might engage in as I day dream, or try to bring to mind the look of that woman I saw yesterday, etc etc but it is not the kind of thing I engage in, or at least not typically, when I just look at a wall painted red". Looking at such a wall might of coure provoke someone into think about some red headed woman, and that might involve mental imagery, but what is the empirical evidence, or philosophical argument, that every time anyone sees anything that there is mental imagery going on? Are you relying on something like the old, and much contested, arguments from illusion or hallucination? Or is there something else you would bring to bear in response to the mental imagery sceptic?

OK, I understand, you seem to be of the opinion, shared by quite a few philosophers and scientists it must be said, that every time we see anything, mental imaging is occuring. — jkg20

That is an understatement. :rofl: I'm not specifying a means of mental imaging; I simply mean that I see a red wall. It does not preclude images generated without visual stimuli.

Don't read too much into it. It was just a potential example of "a meaningful scientifically-unanswered question". If it is not meaningful to you, or you feel it is sufficiently scientifically answered, feel free to replace it.

Or is your point that this is an example of a meaningless question, as evidence that there are no meaningful unscientific questions?

It’s very simple. Seeing implies looking, looking implies someone who looks, and that observer is never part of the picture.

Seeing implies looking, looking implies someone who looks, and that person is never part of the picture. — Wayfarer

Thinking implies someone who thinks and that someone is never part of the thought.

You haven't improved matters by taking questions into the realm of metaphysics.

What picture?

what is the (....) philosophical argument, that every time anyone sees anything that there is mental imagery going on? — jkg20

There is a metaphysical tenet that says images are the schemata of our representations, the real as things given to us, or merely thought, as things might appear to us if they were real. This is clear, when we consider, e.g., the tickle between the shoulder blades. First is the sensation of a presence, then the image of something from experience which the tickle might represent (a bug, a hair) or from mere thought (a ghost, your friend playing a trick on you).

Ever talk to yourself when tying your shoe? I bet not, but I bet you see yourself doing it. If you didn’t do either one of those things, then the conditions under which you know how your shoe got tied, is missing, and while that’s not very important with respect to tying shoes, the principle holds where the conditions might be quite important indeed.

Mental images are ever-present, but their very ubiquitousness is the causality for them being overlooked. They may not have much impact on the usual life, but you can’t get rid of them, so you have to account for them if you wanna speculate about what goes on between your ears.

but overall the story in science is ever-increasing speculation - ‘knowing more and more about less and less’, one saying has it.
— Wayfarer

I don't think that's a reasonable point. — Kenosha Kid

If more and more scientific theory is predicated on mathematical proofs, but fails in the empirical proofs that justify the mathematics.......isn’t that ever-increasing speculation? On the other hand, are we not speculating on the hope that the universality of mathematical proofs is always at the same time, necessary? To be totally screwed if they do not hold, is hardly sufficient reason for depending on their certainty, especially when the prime directive of science is that experimental results conform to observation.

Why should more be read into the adage, then knowing more and more about less and less implies nothing more serious than the more we know, the less there is to know about. That doesn’t seem all that disingenuous, does it?

Still, being so obvious implies there might be more to it I haven’t thought about.

If more and more scientific theory is predicated on mathematical proofs, but fails in the empirical proofs that justify the mathematics.......isn’t that ever-increasing speculation? — Mww

I wasn't denying that speculation will tend to increase with time. The response was in the context of:

There might be some scientists who do that, and some scientific areas where it happens — Wayfarer

itself in the context of:

You are bang on target to say that bridging the gap between philosophy and science, even if it is just to categorise questions as scientific or unscientific, requires casting questions in some mutually understandable way, and phenomonology is a great example of how to do this because it is part of both science and philosophy (as the two do influence one another). — Kenosha Kid

I was denying that this is some kind of retreat from empiricism. Science is empirical, albeit involving a lot of theory work to make empirical predictions. String theorists did look for testable hypotheses. The last scientific question ever answered will be a fricking difficult one, probably requiring technology beyond our imaginations, and will be on the back of a huge graveyard of abandoned and disproven hypotheses, not because science doesn't deal with phenomena, but because easier questions get answered sooner, leaving only the toughies.

The trend has been the other way round in terms of application of phenomenology to scientific propositions, as my "photons are clicks in photon detectors" example illustrated. We've had to become more phenomonologically robust as the objects have study have become less amenable to direct study.

Can you give me a thought that has been proven to be true? — Punshhh

If you put your finger in boiling water, it will burn. I'm sure of it, and I advise you to be, too.

We both messed up; the original from wayfarer was “specialization”, which you transposed into “speculation”, and from which my C & P took its cue.

Specialization lends much more credence to “knowing more and more about less and less”, which you wouldn’t have found unreasonable, eliminating the reason for my comment.

Slap yourself on the wrist for leading me astray, and I’ll slap myself on the wrist for failing due diligence.

Otherwise, I’m finding the dialogue interesting.

Actually, as I'm sure Wayfarer would point out, he did say speculation, but edited it to specialization after the fact. So we both should slap Wayfarer on the wrists, but that might stop him typing which would be no fun.

In actual fact, Wayfarer and I do agree on his point. There does exist a common language to discuss meaningful but not necessarily scientific questions, and this might be improved upon. I think his schema excellent. What doesn't exist yet is a schema by which to identify meaningful non-scientific questions within that schema. I think whoever came up with such a thing would be the next Karl Popper. (Just to reiterate, by "scientific question" I mean a question whose eventual answer is a scientific one.) My gun-to-my-head answer would be: there are no meaningful non-scientific questions.

there are no meaningful non-scientific questions — Kenosha Kid

Is the question of whether there are meaningful non-scientific questions a scientific questions?

So we both should slap Wayfarer on the wrists, but that might stop him typing which would be no fun. — Kenosha Kid

Nahhh....let’s just tie ‘em together, be fun to watch over a coupla beers.
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There does exist a common language to discuss meaningful but not necessarily scientific questions — Kenosha Kid

Sure; non-domain specific general language for, say, is the glass half empty or half full?
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My gun-to-my-head answer would be: there are no meaningful non-scientific questions. — Kenosha Kid

In other words, there are no meaningful questions that don’t have scientific answers? Yeah, well, when I was 12, my dad sure wanted to know why I wrecked the car. And he was quite adamant about obtaining an answer.

It may be the case there are no meaningful questions for science that don’t have scientific answers, but Everydayman isn’t the scientist, and non-scientific answers for him belong legitimately to meaningful questions he himself generates with respect to his own interests.

Is the question of whether there are meaningful non-scientific questions a scientific questions? — Pfhorrest

:rofl: I suspect so, unfortunately. That is the answer we'd wish to avoid: the one given by science if and when it finally gives answers to the others. It's just a gut feeling though, not a belief, certainly not an argument.

Yeah, well, when I was 12, my dad sure wanted to know why I wrecked the car. And he was quite adamant about obtaining an answer.

It may be the case there are no meaningful questions for science that don’t have scientific answers, but Everydayman isn’t the scientist, and non-scientific answers for him belong legitimately to meaningful questions he himself generates. — Mww

I know you were joking, but what I mean is that "why did you crash the car?" would have a scientific answer, not that it's a question for scientists per se, although on a thread about Materialism and Consciousness, I had mental phenomena more in mind. It is a question about historical fact. Science can weigh in on some of it (the effects of alcohol on hand-eye coordination, for instance :p ), but you can explain the presence of the lamppost without nerds.

why did you crash the car?" would have a scientific answer, not that it's a question for scientists per se, although on a thread about Materialism and Consciousness, I had mental phenomena more in mind. — Kenosha Kid

Why did you crash the car can only be answered empirically when posed as, “why did the car crash?”. But these are different questions, each with its own proprietary meaningfulness.

Why did you crash the car can only be answered empirically when posed as, “why did the car crash?”. But these are different questions, each with its own proprietary meaningfulness. — Mww

That's the contention, isn't it. The car crashed because of conservation and momentum and electrostatic repulsion. But why did you crash the car? As I said, my gun-to-head response is that this is also a scientific question, not entirely in a nerds-in-lab-coats way, but in a materialistic, determinist, and ultimately empirical way. In principle.

he did say speculation, but edited it to specialization — Kenosha Kid

It was one of those iOS typos, where I mis-typed the word and iOS corrected it to the wrong word, which I only noticed when I re-read it.

Is the question of whether there are meaningful non-scientific questions a scientific question? — Pfhorrest

No, it’s not. I often think that the difference between science and philosophy is a philosophical distinction and, therefore, a distinction which a lot of the scientifically-inclined won’t recognise. There is no scientific method for discovering the limitations of scientific method!

The whole point of Popper’s falsifiability thesis, is that an empirical hypothesis is one that can theoretically be falsified by empirical evidence. It’s simply an heuristic to distinguish between truly empirical principles and other kinds. It’s interesting now that in the debates about string theory, Popper’s falsifiability criterion is being criticized as being ‘too narrow’, and those who advocate it (generally those sceptical about string theory) are denigrated as ‘Popperazi’.

But on the question at hand, I often refer back to a really interesting OP in the NY Times from years ago, Does Reason Know what it is Missing? It’s about Juergen Habermas’ late-life reconsideration of the role of religious values in public life. It makes this point:

What secular reason is missing is self-awareness. It is “unenlightened about itself” in the sense that it has within itself no mechanism for questioning the products and conclusions of its formal, procedural entailments and experiments. “Postmetaphysical thinking,” Habermas contends, “cannot cope on its own with the defeatism concerning reason which we encounter today both in the postmodern radicalization of the ‘dialectic of the Enlightenment’ and in the naturalism founded on a naïve faith in science.”

It’s a meaty article, lots in it. But a theme that I have been concentrating on concerning ‘reasons’, is that it was precisely the abandonment of the Aristotelian sense of telos that did away with the sense of ‘things happening for a reason’. In modern physics, which became the paradigm for all the sciences, the only kinds of causes are material and efficient. The broader idea of purpose or reason - telos - was banished from public discourse along with the crystal spheres of Ptolemaic cosmology. That explains a good deal about how the modern world thinks.

In principle, it would seem. Everything happens in the brain, the brain is matter, ergo.......

I’m holding out for the discovery that no matter how hard we try, how far the technology specializes, we’re not going to be able to probe the mass of concentrated neurons looking for the one, or the interconnected plurality, that tells me why I crashed the car.

The phrase ‘Everything is relative’ is spoken emphatically by the very people for whom the atom or its elements are still the ultimate reality. ‘Everything is relative’, they say, but at the same time they declare as indubitable truth that the mind is nothing but a product of cerebral processes. This combination of gross objectivism and bottomless subjectivism represents a synthesis of logically irreconcilable, contradictory principles of thought, which is equally unfortunate from the point of view of philosophical consistency and from that of ethical and cultural value. — Emil Brunner

What picture? — bongo fury

The one posed in this post about 'the seeing of colors'. It harks back to the Mary's Room thought experiment.