Tuesday, March 25, 2014

The failure of scientism in an Orwellian world

I was recently teaching George Orwell's 1984. Near the beginning, Winston Smith is thinking about how the Party is able to control history by constantly rewriting it. He himself works for the Ministry of Truth, and his job is to destroy literature that has gone out of favor with the Party and to rewrite historical accounts to reflect the Party's current dogmas. He wonders how this affects reality.

What happens when you are the only one who remembers what actually happened and everyone else believes the rewritten version of history? For that matter, what would happen (Winston doesn't take it quite this far) if no one existed who remembered the true account of things?

Would the Party's version of history then be reality? Is reality actually changed through this process? Is the Party, in other words, actually able to control reality?

I am thinking that just about everybody would say "No": No matter how history is rewritten or revised, there is a reality of which the records of it is only an approximation--a better or worse approximation depending on the extent to which it is in accord with "reality."

I thought about this in connection with all those people (some of whom frequent my comments section) who think that the only way to detect reality is by empirical evidence. If you lived in a world in which all the records had been changed--all of the empirical evidence--then your method would yield the exact reality that those who changed the records chose to portray and, if you believed in "reality," would only lead you astray.

In other words, according to the kind of scientism I hear so much of, the answer to Winston's question would be "Yes": Reality could be changed by the Party merely through the process of historical revision. An analysis of the "evidence" would yield exactly what the Party had revised it to be. The "reality" would then be only a metaphysical abstraction of the kind for which scientism has no patience.

22 comments:

Singring said...

'Reality could be changed by the Party merely through the process of historical revision. An analysis of the "evidence" would yield exactly what the Party had revised it to be.'

Huh...so the 'Party' could make apples fall away from earth and have the sun stand still in the sky?

In science, anyone can test any proposition to see exactly how well it 'accords with reality'. Science, after all, ultimately doesn't rely on texts or 'documents', it relies on empirical evidence in the natural world.

The delicious irony here is that the only system in which reality can be changed by altering written documents is a religious, metaphysical, dogmatic one.

If society were to operate based on scripture, for example, it would indeed be as simple as altering scripture to change reality. After all, it is scripture that defines the associated metaphysics, which cannot be tested against the natural world.

In fact, just recently in an HBO documentary on Creationist dissent from Darwin, one pastor *literally* said that if the Bible said that 2+2=5, he would believe that and try to 'work it out and understand it'. Here you go if you don't believe me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysecinv367w

So, if there is any kind of society that is prone to control by a 'Party', it is a religious one. In fact, we still have societies like that today, where people think it is fine to marry 9 year olds (as is currently being proposed in Iraq), where raped women can be executed (Africa) or where pedophiles are sheltered from the law (anywhere the Catholic Church has its way).

It is therefore decidedly absurd to accuse secularism or 'scientism' of creating this problem.

Fingolfin said...
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Fingolfin said...

"one pastor *literally* said that if the Bible said that 2+2=5, he would believe that and try to 'work it out and understand it'"

I guess you did not see the idiot Lawrence Strauss say that 2+2 = 5 in his debate with William Lane Craig.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so0TOp1GMQE

It's brain dead worshipers of science that claim 2+2 = 5 not religious people.

"So, if there is any kind of society that is prone to control by a 'Party', it is a religious one."

As with most trolls you did not read Martin's article. He said very clearly that if all knowledge was empirical and history was written by the state then the state could rewrite history and nobody would be the wiser.

“The delicious irony here is that the only system in which reality can be changed by altering written documents is a religious, metaphysical, dogmatic one.”

Yeah, North Korea, China, or the USSR anyone? You are just an atheist hack. Go move to Cuba and have the best health care the world.

Martin has commented about people not having reading comprehension or thinking skills you are one of those people.

Daniel said...

Greetings,

So, question of the hour (for both Martin and Singring):

Where do mathematical concepts (like 2 + 2 = 4) come from? They don't seem to be derived from tested experience (it wouldn’t make sense to run an experiment with "Does 2 + 2 = 5?" as the organizing question), but they describe a truth about something nonetheless. So…how did they originate?

It's brain dead worshipers of science that claim 2+2 = 5 not religious people.

And the traditional VR cat-fight begins… *rueful laugh*

Peace,
Daniel

Singring said...

@Fingolfin:

"I guess you did not see the idiot Lawrence Strauss say that 2+2 = 5 in his debate with William Lane Craig."

If you are referring to the debate between William Lane Craig and Lawrence Krauss, then yes, I have seen it.

In fact, thanks for bringing it up because it perfectly illustrates the argument I am making.

If you watched the video carefully, you will note that Krauss makes note of the 2+2=5 t-shirt to point out that traditional logic is false in some situations.

The reason he says this is because the empirical evidence supports this conclusion. In quantum physics, something can be A and not A at the same time, for example. If you don't believe me, I suggest you read up on modern qhantum physics.

So what we have here is an example of how science *overturns* what has been written in books and has been assumed true for centuries because it failed the test of empiricial data.

So in fact, here we have an example showing the exact opposite of what you and Martin are arguing - that 'if all knowledge was empirical and history was written by the state then the state could rewrite history and nobody would be the wiser.'

This is the opposite of that - because we rely on empirical knowledge, we have overturned what 'the state' has written so far and are now much the wiser.

You have also misunderstood the argument I was making when I posted the video of the pastor.

He clearly states that all he needed to believe that 2+2=5, would be for the Bible to tell him so.

So this is a person who does not look at reality, at the empirical data, but is purely driven in his beliefs by a text - so it would be as easy as 1,2,3 for 'the Party' to change his reality - by rewriting the Bible, for example.

Imagine the following scenarios:

1.) A secular state based on scientific principles combined with a utilitarian moral framework.

In this scenario, if 'the Party' chose to rewrite every history text ever written and every textbook ever written to say that the gravitational constant is in fact not approx. 300,000 kilometres per second, but rather 250,000 kilometres per second, it wouldn't take long to test that using the empirical evidence available and find that it is false - and 'the Party' would have failed in 'changing our reality'. After all, how are they going to actually change the speed of light?

2.) A theocracy in which governance and morality are based purely on scripture. 'The party' rewrites history (including the Bible etc.) to say that Jesus, after dying on the cross, appeared to his followers and passed on the power of judgement for sins to the State.

In this scenario, this would be impossible to test using empirical evidence. So 'the Party' has successfully altered a metaphysical 'reality' for everyone alive - and one that will of course have dramatic impact on its power.

Do you see how this is the exact opposite of the picture Martin has tried to paint?

'Yeah, North Korea, China, or the USSR anyone? You are just an atheist hack. Go move to Cuba and have the best health care the world.'

Two points:

Firstly, I suggest you read up on North Korea, the USSR and China - these are not states run by secular ideals. In fact, North Korea is one of the most chilling example of a state theocracy. If you start the day by worshipping your leaders. That is not secularism, I'm afraid.

Secondly, I currently live in the UK, so I already enjoy very good free healthcare. But thanks for the recommendation.

Singring said...

@Daniel:

Good question.

Mathematical concepts (and logic) are human attempts to model the world around us via abstraction.

In other words, we invented them.

They work extremely well in most situations, but in others they break down (see quantum physics, for example.)

Anonymous said...

Singring says that he currently lives in the UK and enjoys very good FREE healthcare. So, Singring, you don't pay taxes in England? Good Lord, just think of all the Brits who died keeping Krauts out of England just a few generations back.

Singring said...

'So, Singring, you don't pay taxes in England?'

Sure I do - and quite happily so, knowing they provide healthcare for me and my fellow citizens.

I used the word 'free' in the same context as I use it when I say I can use roads for 'free' or go to the National Gallery for 'free'.

Of course, you are welcome to attack the semantics of an argument rather than its substance.

Anonymous said...

Yes, thank you, Singring, but your substantial arguments are so often semantical...killing two birds we Yanks say.

JS said...

@Singring - I want to take issue with a couple of things you say above. Firstly, mathematical and logical concepts DO NOT break down in quantum physics. Quantum physics is a perfectly logical and mathematically coherent mechanism for predicting the probabilities of future observations. Where logic and common sense break down is when materialists try to reconcile quantum predictions with an imagined classical ontology that cannot generate these predictions. This results in paradoxes and waffle often crossing the line into nonsense. Stick to Copenhagen and there is no problem.

Secondly "Mathematics...logic...In other words, we invented them."? Only if we also invented the universe! Are you suggesting that logical and mathematical truth were invented by humans? If logic is a human creation, we can't trust that anything we've deduced about nature is actually "true" independent of human observers. You seem here to be arguing yourself into an anti-realist position much more extreme than Martin's observation about Orwell. Of course this is exactly what post-modernists believe; unfortunately the consequence is that science is reduced to a human language game.

One Brow said...

Where logic and common sense break down is when materialists try to reconcile quantum predictions with an imagined classical ontology that cannot generate these predictions.

As opposed to when non-materialists try to reconcile an imagined classical ontology that cannot generate these predictions? Your sue of "materialists" was snarl, not discourse.

The Copenhagen interpretation also has problems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation#Criticism

Are you suggesting that logical and mathematical truth were invented by humans? If logic is a human creation, we can't trust that anything we've deduced about nature is actually "true" independent of human observers.

Deductions requires axioms; which ultimately can not be chosen by deduciton. We can never completely trust we have chosen the correct axioms; we can only choose among axiom schema that seem to work.

JS said...

@One Brow

"As opposed to when non-materialists try to reconcile an imagined classical ontology that cannot generate these predictions? Your sue of "materialists" was snarl, not discourse"

It was not a snarl it was a serious criticism of a viewpoint that has outlived its usefulness and is now holding science back. Materialism, by which I mean the (often implicit) belief that the objective world is ontologically made of matter and energy (using the normal meanings of these words), is outdated metaphysics purveyed by people still trapped in the classical paradigm. Virtually all the "paradoxes" of quantum mechanics are caused by attempts to reconcile a theory based on information and probability with outdated ideas about ontological particles and other such classical naiveties. A "particle" is a phenomenon (think of it as "information") not an ontological entity: the word only has meaning when it describes the result of an observation. It is metaphysical speculation to say that you or anyone else knows what is going on between observations (a so-called ontological interpretation).

But even in the world of speculative metaphysics, materialism, in anything remotely resembling its classical form (i.e. what most non-physicists still think of as reality), cannot reproduce the quantum predictions, which are known to be empirically correct. Therefore materialism cannot even compete as scientifically compatible metaphysics; yet its proponents continue to make arrogant and nonsensical claims about its validity. It is demonstrably wrong and those who continue to cling to it regardless of its empirical failures are living with a scientific contradiction! It survives through ignorance and richly deserves to be attacked.

"The Copenhagen interpretation also has problems"

Because Wikipedia says so? Copenhagen (by which I mean essentially Bohr's view) is not an ontological interpretation like e.g. Bohmian mechanics or Many Worlds. It takes quantum mechanics at face value as a probability calculus for predicting the results of future observations. It does not propose an underlying ontology to "explain" the observations (information) which materialists (as I said) arrogantly claim they (mysteriously) just "understand". It is a purely operationalist stance and is ontologically agnostic. It is not however anti-realist despite materialist slurs to that effect. To call it an "interpretation" is like calling agnosticism a religion.

"Deductions requires axioms; which ultimately can not be chosen by deduction. We can never completely trust we have chosen the correct axioms; we can only choose among axiom schema that seem to work."

You are missing the point. Of course axioms are chosen and affect the outcome of arguments. Singring had implied that humans invented logic (and mathematics) which means that the deductive process itself (the laws of inference) could never be relied upon to give objectively true conclusions even if the axioms were true. This would mean everything we think we know to be true would only be true, at best relative to the human mind and, possibly, only relative to those cultures that adopted the invented rules. That is a gift to post-modernist attacks on the validity of science.

One Brow said...

JS,

I don't know why you think materialism can't reconcile itself to the notion that there are items beside particles. For example:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2013/03/29/the-higgs-story-part-6-relativistic-quantum-fields/

Instead there is an emerging consensus that these relativistic quantum fields are what everything in the world is made of. In other words, there are no particles, there are only fields and these fields exist throughout space all the time.

This does not disturb materialism, as a general principle, in the slightest. At most, it means some version of materialism need to revise their view.

The Copenhagen interpretation is a genuine interpretation that there is a single, actual state, and the various quantum states reflect the uncertainty of the observer.

Yes, we can never really know whether our deductive processes are true. Frankly, we don't even know which deductive processes are superior. We have invented a variety of different logics for different circumstances (classical, intuitionist, multi-dimensional, fuzzy, etc.), and we choose the logic that best fits our needs at the time. Nor do we need such protection from post-modernists; they are not the ones who truly hinder science. The ability to choose a logical system doesn't make Chopra rational.

Singring said...
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Singring said...

Blogger Singring said...

'Firstly, mathematical and logical concepts DO NOT break down in quantum physics.'

I didn't say that, JS.

Let's back up a bit.

I was illustrating to Fingolfin his false equivalence between Krauss and the pastor I used as an example.

I simply pointed out that traditional logic doesn't apply on the quantum scale - this is Krauss's point, by the way - and I agree with him from what I understand of the issues involved.

Using the Copenhagen interpretation as a copout is certainly not good enough. It is a bit odd to be accusing someone of being a postmodernist when you have to resort to an interpretation of empirical data that denies the objective reality of the wavefunction. Not only that, there are other issues surrounding superposition of particles (A and not A) I think Prof Polkinghorne describes the conflict quite concisely and eloquently here:

http://www.theologie-naturwissenschaften.de/startseite/leitartikelarchiv/quantumtheory.html

I will admit that my later post in response to Daniel wasn't worded very carefully, but I certainly didn't intend to imply that all mathematics and logic break down - but we do need new (for example probabilistic) models at the quantum scale.

Now to your (somewhat puzzling) allegation that I am some sort of postmodernist or anti-realist.

Nothing could be further from the truth and you can read through some of my older responses on this blog to see ample evidence of that.

That being said, I don't see any connection between accepting that mathematical axioms and the rules of logic are human constructs intended to model the world and holding that truth is a relative/subjective concept.

You said this:

'Singring had implied that humans invented logic (and mathematics) which means that the deductive process itself (the laws of inference) could never be relied upon to give objectively true conclusions even if the axioms were true.'

How does one follow from the other? If the chosen axioms lead to objectively true conclusions, they lead to objectively true conclusions. I am just hesitant to assert with absolute certainty that the conclusions are true - because the best we can do to confirm it is test the conclusions against the empirical evidence. And there can always be new evidence or other explanations for the evidence, as unlikely as they may be.

There is no contradiction at all between the assumption that there is some objective, 'empirical' truth and the acceptance that we may not be able to detect it with certainty, either in whole or in part.

Moreover, this acceptance certainly doesn't imply that we shouldn't try our hardest to detect that objective truth using the empirical evidence available. In fact that's my job as a scientist. I have said here many times (and I see OneBrow seems to be arguing in the same direction) that the whole point is to test various models against reality and see how well they do.

Finally, my position also doesn't imply that we can't find out any objective truth. I just don't see how we could ever be any more that very confident that we have done so - when we have good empirical evidence that supports what we think is said truth.

That we shouldn't ever be convinced that our current model of reality is 100% accurate is illustrated by the many times we have had to adjust previously iron-clad ideas in light of new empirical evidence.

So, in summary, I really don't see how you get from anything I said to postmodernism and/or anti-realism. Particularly when you yourself say things like this:

' A "particle" is a phenomenon (think of it as "information") not an ontological entity...'

...which sounds like white noise to me

JS said...

@"One Brow”

"I don't know why you think materialism can't reconcile itself to the notion that there ARE {my capitalisation} items beside particles. For example:…,{stuff about fields}"

I’m obviously not making myself clear. We have no idea what there “IS” ontologically. All we have is information and mind (the observer) and some inferred but unknown information source: let’s call it, “mind-independent reality” without being presumptuous about its nature (it could be a Brostrom simulator for example!). There ARE no particles except when an observer interacts experientially (with this information source) and that INTERACTION is perceived as a QUANTISED PHENOMENON which is DESCRIBED quantitatively by the quantum field equations. Quantum fields are MATHEMATICAL entities. What you are doing here (and you are only quoting, I understand) is REIFYING mathematical objects. Ask yourself, what does it even mean to say a field is “material”? Are you trying to say it is “made of something” or what? You might as well try to tell me what material a Hilbert space is made of. Some popularisers of mathematical physics will resort to the story that a field is mediated by an exchange of 'virtual particles'” (they’re supposed “particles” you can’t ever detect directly because they are exchanged between "real particles”). This is, bluntly, a fairy tale! A “virtual particle” is a reification of a term in a field equation. That’s it!

Materialism comes in several levels of (increasingly ridiculous) sophistication. It starts (understandably enough) with the classical belief that the world is actually (ontologically) made out of classical particles (little Newtonian billiard balls that bounce around and hit each other). That’s the story we still teach our children and our biologists (and psychologists and so on). We've known for over 50 years that this model of ontology fails because it cannot reproduce the results of experiments, but instead of abandoning the idea materialists, for reasons that can only be presumed to be related to emotional reluctance to relinquish the ideas of childhood, move to stage two: the fallacy of reifying mathematics. Here is the quantum physicist David Mermin on the subject:

http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/article/62/5/10.1063/1.3141952

“The Copenhagen interpretation is a genuine interpretation that there is a single, actual state, and the various quantum states reflect the uncertainty of the observer.”

I’m not sure what you mean by a “single actual state”. If you mean that some “state” or “wave function” exists independent of the observer then no, that was not Bohr’s view. Again this is reification and it leads to problematic ideas such as von Neumann’s notion that consciousness causes objective collapse of quantum systems. The quantum state does reflect the uncertainty of the observer, obviously: it is a probability calculus after all! But that is all there is as far as the theory is concerned and that is where it would be wise to stop unless you can devise a model that has testable predictions that differ from quantum mechanics and which have not yet failed experimental test. Anyway explain to me how a view that makes no assumptions or claims about ontology (beyond observer and information, which are both axiomatic) can be termed an ontological interpretation?

Note that there is nothing in what I am saying that is anti-realist. I am a realist but I am sceptical that we can ever determine the nature of reality by scientific investigation which is, and always has been, investigation of phenomena. This latter is a logical consequence of the Completeness of Quantum Mechanics, a principle on a far more powerful evidential basis than say the Theory of Evolution, which I assume you accept without question. Materialism is the misguided and unscientific conceit that we not only can overthrow completeness but somehow (supernaturally?) already know what we will find when we do so.

JS said...

@Singring

“I didn't say that, JS”

Well, I hate misrepresenting people and, if I misunderstood you I’m sorry. But you did say:

“They work extremely well in most situations, but in others they break down (see quantum physics, for example.)”

So I hope you can see why I drew the conclusion I did. When you, say traditional logic doesn’t apply on the quantum scale, I presume you are referring to the treatment of measurements using a formal calculus which reflects the behaviour of incompatible measurement operators. That is true but it is also potentially misleading, because the normal rules of inference apply to the arguments we use when we are discussing quantum mechanics. It is still true that for any statement, P, (P and ¬P) is a contradiction for example. So all this means is that quantum measurements behave differently to statements and the formal structure of any calculus applied to each differs accordingly.

“Now to your (somewhat puzzling) allegation that I am some sort of postmodernist or anti-realist.”

No I wasn’t saying that. I was saying that your statement (I quoted above), (mis)interpreted as I (mis) interpreted it is the beginning of the slippery slope towards post-modernism which we can both agree is nonsense. But we only have grounds to say it is nonsense, if we accept that there is such a thing as absolute truth and that this absolute truth includes logic and mathematics.

“If the chosen axioms lead to objectively true conclusions, they lead to objectively true conclusions.”

The point is once you throw logic into doubt (make it relativist) there are no objectively true statements, including this one. That is a contradiction, but a post-modernist can live with that because he/she doesn’t believe there are any such things as contradictions objectively speaking. You can see how dangerous this is, I hope.

“Particularly when you yourself say things like this:

' A "particle" is a phenomenon (think of it as "information") not an ontological entity...'

...which sounds like white noise to me”

Please be careful here. To distinguish between phenomena and ontology is not post-modernist or anti-realist. One can believe that there is an objective reality but that it is inaccessible to us. That is what Nick Brostrom says (objective reality is a supercomputer) and, for that matter it is what any conventional theist would claim (objective reality is God) but it is also the position of any realist following in Bohr’s tradition. My position is based on the completeness of quantum mechanics alongside the existence of innumerable untestable interpretations. We don’t need any ontology to do science because we can make all the predictions that any ontological model can make using just quantum mechanics which, as noted, is a probability calculus. Therefore adherence to an ontological model is entirely subjective and more of the nature of a religion. I have no problem with anyone adopting a materialist religion so long as he or she desists from calling it science and then criticising others who have selected a different arbitrary ontology.

Singring said...

@JS:

You have explained your positions quite eloquently and I don't think I would disagree with many of them - or at the very least I understand the argument you are tryong to make and it has some compelling aspects to it.

Specifically:

'One can believe that there is an objective reality but that it is inaccessible to us.'

In this case, I think our positions have very much in common. This is essentially what I was trying to point out in my previous post - though it might not have been as articulate as what you have outlined.

That being said, I'm still not sure I agree with your concluding remarks:

'Therefore adherence to an ontological model is entirely subjective and more of the nature of a religion. I have no problem with anyone adopting a materialist religion so long as he or she desists from calling it science and then criticising others who have selected a different arbitrary ontology.'

Forgive me, but I am still a bit puzzled as to how you can argue that adherence to an ontological model is 'entirely subjective' and then be worried about others giving comfort to postmodernists. I think a lot of postmodernists would be happy to sign that statement of yours with gusto.

After all, what is the substantive difference between believing that there is no objective truth and believing that any opinion or model of an objective truth is as good and as accurate as any other (which is what you are implying by saying the choice of model is enitely subjective).

I would agree that ultimately, there is no way of ascertaining with certainty that any one onntological model is perfectly accurate regarding the objective nature of things. I am a materialist - but I may be wrong.

I do, however, think that we can order ontological models in quality according to their internal consistency, parsimony as well as their empirical support.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster model is certainly not as 'good' as the materilaist model, for one thing because it introduces unnecessary variables without empirical support.

Of course, an obvious response would be that any such criteria are again chosen entirely arbitrarily (and ultimately, I would have to agree with that), but then at the very least there seems to be a vast consensus among humans that epmiricism, for example, is a pretty good tool when it comes to evaluating the quality of ontological models.

An ontological model that predicts that water will instantly combust when brought in contact with organic molecules will not last evry long - and I hope you agree in this specific instance it is not as accurate as a model that doesn't predict this.

One Brow said...

JS,

Why did you put quotes around my handle, and not Singring nor JS? Is your legal name actually JS? Do you think Singring is the other posters legal name?

Quantum fields can be described as mathematical entities, but so can gravitational fields. Both give rise to predictable (in sense of stochasticly consistent) observations. They are not just mathematical constructs, bur descriptions of actual phenomena.

I'm not saying the fields are made of material, I'm saying the material is made up of fields. This is no impediment to materialism.

In the Copenhagen interpretation, one observer can have knowledge of the result of the collapse of a wave function before another observer does. How can this support any position except that there is an actual, unknown state, at least from the time of the existence of the first observer?

Yes, we teach to children simplifications of physics that can be contradicted with sufficiently delicate machinery. I see valid pedagogical reasons for so doing, which have nothing to do with materialism and everything to do with what a typical child can learn at ages 5 or 15. All of our physics is a model, and all of it is likely wrong. Quantum mechanics is just a little less wrong than classical mechanics.

You talk about the completeness of quantum mechanics, but to my knowledge, we are not yet at the place where every observation can be accounted for within quantum mechanics, so it is not yet complete. However, even if that were true, how would materialism be in conflict with this completeness. I don't see that at all.

One Brow said...

The point is once you throw logic into doubt (make it relativist) there are no objectively true statements, including this one.

1) Even if logic were not in doubt, the only objectively true statements would be tautologies and inferences. There would still be no interesting (that is, having implications outside the realm of logic), objectively true statements. So, I don't see your position as providing any barrier to post-modernism.

2) Noting that classical logic is one of many models we can use is not putting it in doubt, but saving it from doubt. Pounding a screw into a piece of wood, and seeing it provides less resistance than a nail to pull out, casts the efficacy of the screw into doubt. Using a screwdriver shows the superiority of the screw in that regard.

Daniel said...

JS,

So, "materialism cannot compete as a scientifically compatible metaphysics" what can? (I'm not so much interested in your criticism of materialists/naturalists as in an elaboration of whatever position you actually support.)

Singring,

Thanks for the Polkinghorne link! :)

Peace,
Daniel

Fingolfin said...

"Firstly, I suggest you read up on North Korea, the USSR and China - these are not states run by secular ideals. In fact, North Korea is one of the most chilling example of a state theocracy. If you start the day by worshiping your leaders. That is not secularism, I'm afraid."

Secular theocracy, what an oxymoron. You just cannot admit that atheism has been tried and failed with at least 100 million dead. How many people have to die for your mad ideology?

"If you watched the video carefully, you will note that Krauss makes note of the 2+2=5 t-shirt to point out that traditional logic is false in some situations."

That is a distinction without a difference. The cessation of the laws of logic under any condition is irrational. Your are irrational if you believe 2 + 2 = 5 under any circumstances.

"The reason he says this is because the empirical evidence supports this conclusion. In quantum physics, something can be A and not A at the same time, for example. If you don't believe me, I suggest you read up on modern quantum physics."

Prove it. You are interpreting scientific data in an irrational way. Science, falsely so called, does not trump logic, but logic trumps pseudo-science. Logic is the foundation of all rational discourse and seeing that you do not believe in its utility why argue at all?

"He clearly states that all he needed to believe that 2+2=5, would be for the Bible to tell him so."

You and Krauss are just as fundamentalist as he is, but your bible is the writings of the quantum quacks who do so called science. Further it is a sound bite without any context or meaning, sounds like a gotcha moment that we see all to often on the news.

"2.) A theocracy in which governance and morality are based purely on scripture. 'The party' rewrites history (including the Bible etc.) to say that Jesus, after dying on the cross, appeared to his followers and passed on the power of judgement for sins to the State. "

Yeah sounds like 19th century New England that lead to the industrial revolution in the US. Sounds so horrible.

1.) A secular state based on scientific principles combined with a utilitarian moral framework.

In this scenario, if 'the Party' chose to rewrite every history text ever written and every textbook ever written to say that the gravitational constant is in fact not approx. 300,000 kilometers per second, but rather 250,000 kilometers per second, it wouldn't take long to test that using the empirical evidence available and find that it is false - and 'the Party' would have failed in 'changing our reality'. After all, how are they going to actually change the speed of light?

Sounds like the failed Callahan government. Or rather Stalin's Russia.

You are committing the fallacy of comparing apples and oranges historical facts and scientific facts are different. If your Stalinist hell hole were to say that the glorious revolution was lead by the working class, when it was in fact lead by a cabal of agitators and all the books from the revolutionary era were destroyed or held by the government than they could, did and do such things. The only people to rewrite history and science against the laws of both disciplines are atheists ever heard of Stalin and Lysenko?

"Firstly, I suggest you read up on North Korea, the USSR and China - these are not states run by secular ideals."

I Suggest you read up on atheism, and secularism both end in Kolyma and S-21. You can play word games all you want, but secular = atheism which in real life, not some fantasy world equals Gulags, Killing Fields and State sponsored terrorism. You atheists were the first terrorist Revolutionary France, for the state variety, and the People's Will in Russia for the non-state variety.