William has taken exception to the current state of science and its ‘overreach’.
He claims, “IMO, all that is left of materialism/physicalism/naturalism is really nothing more than a hidden (even subconscious) anti-theistic agenda.”
This is a thread for William to guide us in a detailed exploration of the alternatives, their mechanisms, how we might test them and how we might benefit from them.
William, you’ve written three books that are either inoperative or which only speak to people who already believe rubbish and don’t require evivence or reason.
That’s a pretty good operational definition of a crank or charlatan.
If you wish to avoid ridicule here, you need to work a little harder. Simply disavowing everything you’ve said before is insuffient.
William,
What is this “context” that magically inverts the meaning of your statement?
How does “context” transform “there are no limiting factors” into “there are limiting factors”? Take responsibility for what you wrote, William.
Your statement is false, as you now acknowledge:
You believed some crap on the basis of (extremely) poor evidence. You later had to change your beliefs, all because you didn’t apply enough skepticism in the first place. This is a pattern with you. You are gullible, with a tendency to believe the things that you wish were true, regardless of the (lack of) evidence.
It’s exactly what good scientists don’t do, which is why they would be crazy to adopt your “methodology”.
William:
William,
I’ve been a connoisseur of woo, including ‘manifestation’ woo, for decades. I read Shakti Gawain’s book Creative Visualization in 1990, after plucking it off my girlfriend’s bookshelf. I’ve immersed myself in woo ever since: book woo, lecture woo, film woo, including watching the abominable movies The Secret and What the Bleep Do We Know?.
What is the additonal magical “context” I’m lacking that can rescue your statement from being ridiculous and obviously false?
No, you have once again failed at understanding the context. That is not what this thread was about. This thread is about how I would improve science. I stated that I would remove the metaphysical narrative problem by changing it from methodological naturalism to methodological pragmatism. Science already utilizes my methodology, and my methodology – pragmatism – is what makes the final decisions in science. Not “naturalism”.
I then said that this methodology could be broken down to universal and personal versions; I wouldn’t expect any mainstream, consensual institutions of scientific research to involve themselves with personal methodological pragmatism.
The debate then changed to one about my personal methodology and models. I do not advocate that my personal models would work for anyone else. I certainly haven’t advocated that mainstream science concern itself with helping me enjoy life as a good person. Others have admitted that pragmatism plays a defining role in scientific methodology.
The only real change I’ve actually advocated in the way general science is structured is to redefine it away from a metaphysical stumbling block (naturalism) and towards that which makes all the real decisions about what is science and is not anyway – pragmatism.
petrushka,
Why would I wish to avoid ridicule?
Then perhaps a return to how you would improve science.
keiths asks:
I’ve presented keiths with the context. IE is an inspirational and mental technique tract for those already familiar with and applying manifestation techniques, along the lines of affirming “there are no limits, anything is possible” – analogous to someone giving a pep talk to encourage people out of negative psychologies. I provide them with mantras where they do not feel the need to “figure out” the boundaries because, IMO, figuring out the boundaries is not a necessary aspect of manifestation. It’s just an unnecessary mental resistance.
But, some people are simply intent on indulging in their characteristic obsessions. Not much I can do about that. Some people work very hard to find “gotcha” statements they can put together, even if they have to ignore the context. Once they think they have a good “gotcha” clip, they run it over and over again.
The issue is that these books have my name on them, and as I found out here, people expect to be able to reference books I wrote as if I’m supposed to still hold those same models. That I change my models doesn’t indicate that I hold the prior model “false”‘ – an out-of-context error keiths and others are making in an apparent rush to ridicule and dismiss. I never claimed the models (and statements used to describe the models or provide the inspirational techniques) were true in the ontological or even the epistemological sense in the first place. In fact, I specifically stated many times my models and writing are not at all about making claims about what is ontologically true or real.
I’ve only found it less pragmatically useful than the model I currently employ… which is why keiths’ claim about one or the other statement being “false” is – once again – demonstrative of a lack of comprehension about the nature of my worldview. I dont’ discard or change models because they are false; I discard them out of pragmatism.
I don’t “dis-recommend” books or take them down off Lulu because I consider them false, they just don’t represent my current model. Some people seem to think that once you write a book and get it published, you should never change your views. I supposed that some people never do, so it guess it would surprise them that a year later someone like me has made some model alterations for their practical benefits and dutifully removes a tract from public access since it no longer accurately represents their current model.
To say it more succinctly, I still use the mantra “there are no limits, anything is possible” in my manifestation inspirational exercises, even though I don’t believe that is technically true, because I understand the mantra’s purpose. It’s not an assertion of a “truth” that requires an argument to defend; it’s an inspirational technique to focus the mind and promote creative ability through an emotional connection.
But then, anyone really familiar with manifestation literature understands all this.
I would suggest that these threads devolve into discussions of William because after promising to say something about improving science, we find science does okay without us.
Just don’t call it naturalism. At least not MN.
Well, at some point I was going to get into the reason I had subcategories, and how this formal redefinition of science to pragmatism was better suited to ensuring personal liberty than “methodolgical naturalism” because it endorses the individuals capacity to sort out what works best for them in their personal lives, but I don’t really think anyone here can handle it.
Of course we can handle it, but can you handle the barfing?
Glen Davidson
You’ll never know unless you try. Does your personal free will give you permission to attempt difficult tasks?
I couldn’t handle “manufacturing the universe out of quantum potential”. Even you have to admit that deserves some time in the penalty box.
Have a word with yourself, William.
William,
No, I don’t expect you to “hold those same models”. My point is that you are gullible and insufficiently skeptical, and this causes you to adopt new “models” and then ditch them as often as a snake sheds its skin. Your “methodology” is working very poorly for you, because after the shine wears off, you are frequently so unsatisfied with your “models” that you feel compelled to jettison them.
If you’d learn to be more skeptical, you wouldn’t have to continue playing this unsatisfying game of musical models.
Sure it does. You told us yourself that you “no longer hold that anything is possible”. You recognize that your earlier statement was false, and you’ve replaced it with a more accurate one.
And please, no nonsense about how you’re a philosphical pragmatist, and pragmatists don’t care about truth. They do care about truth. It’s just that they define truth in terms of utility. Look it up.
The idea that you can manifest any reality out of the “quantum substrate” isn’t true, even in the pragmatist’s sense of truth. It doesn’t work, so you (wisely) ditched it. You replaced a false statement with a truer one.
So you were lying to people without telling them that you were lying to them, and this is a good thing, because it was a “pep talk”?
What about this lie:
If anyone actually took your “pep talk” seriously, they would be blaming themselves for “clinging to their victim status” and “making excuses and rationalizations” — after all, they would fail, just as you have, at ‘manifesting’ their desired reality, and according to you, that’s their fault.
Not a very inspiring (or ethical) pep talk, if you ask me.
William,
We can handle it, but I’m not sure that you can, William. After all, if you make that argument, we can criticize it.
In fact, I can already criticize it based on what little you’ve said. Methodological naturalism isn’t a law. People are free to conduct their personal lives in complete violation of it if they choose to.
Imposing your “methodology” on science does nothing to promote personal liberty, because people are already free to adopt your methodology if they unwisely wish to do so.
keiths said:
How unsurprising.
keiths said:
Because this is so blatant an example of keiths completely not understanding the context, let’s note the definition of guillible from merriam-webster:
And the definition of skeptical:
Since I don’t hold anything as true (other than, perhaps, “I experience”), and I doubt the truth of all claims to the point of not adopting any as true, the idea that I am “gullible” and “insufficiently skeptical” are utterly inapplicable non-sequiturs by definition. I’m the most fundamentally skeptical person here, and I’m the least gullible. You are once again interpreting my words from your own worldview perspective, as if you had said the words, instead of interpreting them from the context I’ve repeatedly provided and corrected you about.
Yes, that’s why you think that FSCO/I is a real thing that can be calculated and that the dead can be contacted. And, of course, that you can bend spoons with your mind.
OMagain,
To my knowledge, I never claimed that FSCO/I is a “real thing”; I never claimed that “the dead can be contacted”, and as far as I remember, I never claimed to bend a spoon with my mind. What I reported that I exerienced as far as spoon bending was approximately the same thing shown and reported in Shermer’s video on spoon bending https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3X9h1WlQpA .
I have directed people to evidence of such things (which is not an assertion that such things factually exist in reality) and I have truthfully relayed information about my personal experience. I have also repeatedly qualified all such statements as not being claims about reality or existential truths. I have also repeatedly stated that such evidence or testimony doesn’t prove anything.
Excellent. Your position, as I understand it, is that a Naturalist Philosophical Assumption has impeded the advancement of science, which should be always pragmatic. I think we all agree that science should be (and in fact is) pragmatic. You are then claiming that including supernatural explanations would make science better.
But your argument consists of labeling things-that-turned-out-to-be-wrong as MN and things-that-turned-out-to-be-right as MP.
I agree that pragmatism drove the refutation of ALL bad ideas in science (including phrenology), but you have yet to support your assertion that the original promulgation of phrenology (or any of the other wrong ideas) was driven by a specifically ‘naturalist’ narrative, rather than by poorly-applied pragmatism.
I do think that you raise an interesting question: where do ideas, good and bad, come from?
Let’s be pragmatic: do thinkers who include supernatural explanations have a better track record than thinkers who do not? The data suggest not: theist scientists do not appear to have higher per capita productivity than atheist scientists. In particular, scientists who explore supernatural explanations have a rather dire track record. Rupert Sheldrake, anyone?
The use of the word ‘evidence’ in this statement IS an assertion that the video you linked to supported the existence of spoon-bending. Yet it was a video of a professional magician using sleight-of-hand to appear to magically bend spoons. This shows you to be gullible. Claiming that you don’t hold *anything* to be true, merely ‘believe’ things, is a poor defense.
You claimed it can be calculated, true or false?
You’ve claimed that you’ve spoken to the dead. True or false?
DNA_jock said:
No, I didn’t say that. I specifically said that the term “supernatural” is a vague concept generated by metaphysics and that science shouldn’t concern itself with such metaphysical labeling (and wouldn’t under a methodological pragmatism paradigm).
No, My argument consists of offering examples where narratives driven by MN turned out to be incorrect, and examples where demonstrable MP was ignored due to such narratives. There are also examples of theistic narratives impeding science.
From wiki:
I don’t see how this can be interpreted as anything other than a naturalism-based, purely speculative narrative lacking **any** demonstrable, practical support whatsoever.
We’re not talking about “explanations”; we’re talking about a methodology for arriving at explanations. That methodology should be neutral wrt concepts of “natural” and “supernatural”. It should only look for the model that produces the most practically applicable results.
Even if theism-based methodology has a “worse” track record than naturalism-based methodology, it’s my contention that a pragmatism-based methodology would be better because it’s the only kind of methodology that can be counted on to correct false narratives generated by theistic or naturalist metaphysics anyway.
I don’t think so. I’ve experienced and interacted with what appeared to be ghosts of dead people. What they really were, I have no idea, and of course it could have all been a delusion or a hallucination.
WJM is unjustified in taking pragmatism in science on board as an example of the methodology he advocates. At the outset of the discussion he stated:
Science on the ground is pragmatic in the first sense (“in a universally applicable way”) but not in the second (“in a personally successful way”). It’s the second that defines the core of WJMs eristemology (and that’s a deliberate misspelling).
WJM has stated throughout that what arbitrates his belief is ‘what works for me.‘ Science in even its most pragmatic mode doesn’t permit that “for me.” Ultimately, it is the defeasibility of claims by repeatable observation and evidence – repeatable by others, as assessed by one’s scientific peers – that defines “what works” in science. That process has no interest in what merely works “for me” (or for you).
It is the “for me” that renders William’s approach “methodological solipsism.”
OMagain asked:
I’ve said that the FSCO/I of something like a post here can be fairly easily calculated – a simple matter of the number of nodes (spaces) used (counting spaces, punctuation, letters, etc.) and the number of variations possible in each node. In a post you might have 45 possible character variations per space raised to the power of the number of nodes employed (1 out of 45 possible characters in the first space, times 45 possible characters in the 2nd space, etc.). So, in a 500 node post with 45 possible variations per node, you’d have FSCO/I of 45 to the 500th power (45x45x45….).
Now, the amount of FSCO/I actually necessary to transmit the functional quality of the post (get the necessary meaning across) may be much less than that. – you can have a lot of misspellings and improper punctuation and grammar before the meaning is lost and the post no longer serves the function required. So, the necessary FSCO/I and the raw FSCO/I would be two different amounts.
That’s my understanding of FSCO/I and how to compute it. How it would be calculated for some things (like this post) is pretty straightforward; but how it would be calculated for some other things might not be as straightforward and I probably wouldn’t begin to know how to do it.
Thanks, William J. Murray,
We all agree that science should be (and in fact is) pragmatic. You continue to claim, without any support, that including non-natural explanations would make science better.
Color me satisfied with the status of the debate.
You could also be a brain in a vat.
Do it then.
Reciprocating Bill said:
First, yes it does, especially in psychology and medicine. Not all treatments generate the same effects/results in all patients. 2nd, “universality” is not an intrinsic feature of pragmatism. It’s a naturalist narrative (it’s also a common theistic narrative as well).
The major institutions of science, IMO, should only, and can only, focus on that which is universally demonstrable through methodological pragmatism. One of the reasons (IMO) it should drop the “naturalism” is the accompanying narrative that the only way to use properly use scientific methodology is to acquire universally applicable models, and the only proper scientific conclusions are those that assert universal applicability. This is metaphysical narrative that leads to a tyranny of authority where the authority is asserting power over the individual about what reality is and how reality works.
The tyranny of metaphysical naturalism wielded by empowered authorities is no different than the tyranny of metaphysical theism wielded by empowered authorities. I reject the authority of mainstream, institutional science to force it’s metaphysical concept of reality on me, just as I reject the authority of any theistic institution. I will decide for myself what reality is, and how it works, in my experience.
That’s the beginning of the argument why the “naturalism” should be dropped as a formal aspect of scientific methodology; for starters, it opens the doorway to imposing metaphysical narratives on others through the impritur of science (eugenics, phrenology, race theory, etc.) without any practical demonstration whatsoever.
I already did. The FSCO/I of a 500 character (including spaces) post that conveys a functional (understandable) message, omitting spaces/characters that are unnecessary to the understanding of the message, with 45 possible character variations per space is 45 to the 500th power.
DNA_jock said:
No, I didn’t make that claim. I said that IMO narratives that attempt to characterize what is “natural” and what is not impedes scientific progress.
No, for a specific message. What’s the specific value for FSCO/I for a specific message.
For example?
OMagain: This is your example.
_________________________
The above functional message contains 45 potential variations per slot with (alpha-numeric + punctuation variations) 31 slots, or 45 to the 31st power of raw FSCO/I.
That’s my understanding of FSCO/I, and roughly how it is calculated, anyway.
So you are saying that “OMagain: This is your example.”
has a value for it’s FSCO/I of 45 to the 31st power of raw FSCO/I.?
What units it that in?
What is “raw FSCO/I”?
Is that different from “FSCO/I”?
Will a random string of similar length have an identical value for it’s “raw FSCO/i”?
If FSCO/I is a credible, empirically testable and reliable sign of intelligent design. then that appears to be at odds with your stipulation that the post conveys a functional (understandable) message, as if it conveys an understandable message then it is designed. Which is how you defined it in the first place.
No, you see William, what you really need to do is demonstrate the usage of FSCO/I as a way to detect design. . That’s how it’s defined at UncommonDescent!
Using it your way you are simply saying “see that understandable message, that’s understandable that is”.
Read up on what FSCO/I actually is:
As you appear to have mistaken it for a way to measure the length of a string of characters, but where the answer is only available if the characters are “understandable”.
I never claimed it could be used to detect design. I only said it could be easily calculated at least in some situations – and I demonstrated it.
Of course, I never for a second thought you’d be satisfied with the demonstration.
I don’t see that you’ve calculated anything other then a metric that varies directly with the length of the source string.
:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
_________________________
The above functional message contains 45 potential variations per slot with (alpha-numeric + punctuation variations) 31 slots, or 45 to the 31st power of raw FSCO/I.
That’s my understanding of FSCO/I, and roughly how it is calculated, anyway.
Out of interest, could you detail there process whereby you came to the conclusion that the message was “functional”?
I also think these are perfectly reasonable follow up questions to your demonstration of how to calculate FSCO/I
What units it that in?
What is “raw FSCO/I”?
Is that different from “FSCO/I”?
Will a random string of similar length have an identical value for it’s “raw FSCO/i”?
Please don’t just ignore them.
That might be true, but in essence the calculation of the metric does that for you.
If the value is over X, that indicates design for the object in question.
You have yet to calculate a specific value that can be shown to be either above or below X, the threshold for an indication of design.
When you have produced a figure, i.e. actually calculated FSCO/I for some specific object, we can start to compare it to X.
If I vary the source string in your example there is no value you’ve calculated that can also vary. Therefore you have not actually calculated FSCO/I.
William,
I laughed.
William,
Enough with the “I don’t hold anything as true” hypocrisy. You hold plenty of things as true, just like the rest of us. Whether you hold them as true in a pragmatic sense or in an ontological sense, you still hold them as true.
Look at all the truth claims in this earlier comment of yours:
How many sentences can you find in that comment that aren’t truth claims?
But surely William’s ‘design is self-evident’ is the epitome of skepticism.
You just need to define skepticism right…
Glen Davidson
WJM:
Irrelevant to your argument, because you are conflating subjective reports as data and the objectivity of experimental procedures and the interpretation of same. Additionally, some phases of medicine and psychology – for example, case reports – employ methods that fall short of scientific methodology, even rough and tumble pragmatically derived methods.
“Universally applicable” was your claim for one form of your “methodological pragmatism.” But I guess now it’s not.
But Now it is! Cool!
The rest? Meh.
Well, there’s always stamping your feet, then.
Yeah, about those follow up questions re: your “calculation” of FSCO/I.
You’ve calculated the number of different strings possible for a string of a given length, but you went the long way round. I saw no specific value of FSCO/I.
What use is that? You’ve actually calculated nothing. Yet no doubt you retain the belief thet FSCO/I is in some way useful or relevant.
William,
You tried that already, and it didn’t work. I don’t think it will work this time, either, because readers have already noticed your hypocrisy.
Your claim:
The reality:
You write comment after comment full of truth claims.