Reply #128: What did you not understand? [View All]

[aneerkoinos]

Well, let's try again. :)

Natural science is based on paradigm of methodological materialism. As we can see, this leads to some natural scientists (quite many) taking position of metaphysical materialism, and others (hopefully lot less, but there are examples in this thread) to defend that metaphysical position as if it was a religious dogma.

Other fields of science (philosophy, cognitive sciences, mathematics)are necessarily based on paradigm of methodological materialism, even though they are open to using that methodology. Mathematics, especially, has interesting position in the field of science, because it is usually taught (natural) science departments, today it's role is central in theoretical physics, but in itself mathematics is certainly not based on methodological materialism, but rather located in the "Platonic" realm. Also needles to say, in post-Kuhnian philosophy of science paradigms are no more supposed to be permanent beings, but quite evolutionary(!) ;)

No we get to the hard part: what is Nature? Is it something that only "naturalists", who define themselves by methodolical materialism, can discuss scientifically? It is quite easy to see that the argument "if it's not subject to methodological materialism, it is not nature" is circular. It is also easy to understand how "naturalists" do not like others stepping inside their turf, let alone question the validity of their precious paradigm, and how the issue gets politicized.

Well, is it possible to find solutions to this problem, what is Nature and who has and who does not have right to make scientific claims about it, solutions that would make everybody happy? Sure it is, in principle, at least there is no reason to presume that it is impossible. There are widely accepted criteria that can be applied to competing theories and metatheories when everything else is equal, such as Occam's razor, more general theory beats narrower theory, etc. When theories evolve and mature, they can even come up with new predictions and new ways to test them. It is not easy, finding solutions to such metaphysical problems as mind/matter/both/neither, which is Nature, solutions that are convincing enough to every field of science... :)