Posted by alexandra_k on January 3, 2006, at 19:17:22
In reply to Re: Astrology » Larry Hoover » alexandra_k, posted by Larry Hoover on January 2, 2006, at 23:37:26
> I believe that all phenomena, *all* phenomena, have naturalistic explanations.
Do numbers have a naturalistic explanation? How about logical truths? Or ethical facts (such as it being morally wrong to torture an innocent child for fun)?
Maybe...
But it is a weaker claim to restrict ourselves to *natural phenomena* having a naturalistic explanation...
I don't think you are disagreeing with me... But you are going on to make a stronger claim... And I'm less sure that the stronger claim is true than I was that the weaker claim was true...
(And I'm not saying it is true so much as something that needs to be assumed for pragmatic reasons...)
> I also believe that we are not yet in possession of naturalistic explanations for all observed phenomena.
Sure. The sciences are far from complete...
> You said, "...all naturalistic phenomena can be given a naturalistic explanation."
> I disagreed. I disagreed because we may not yet satisfy that second process, the part beginning with the word "can".
> We can't always do so, no matter what our belief is with respect to the naturalistic origin of phenomena themselves.So... You think there might be a naturalistic explanation that we *cannot* grasp / understand as a matter of... contingent facts about particular people being fairly stupid? Or as a matter of principle (because of our limitations as a species)? I'm not sure I'm following...
> Revision. Expansion. Yet. That's where the fun is. The edges. The edges of what we know.
Sure. Fertile grounds for theory ;-)
> It's all a flow. A process. Even with a discreet beginning, I don't anticipate an end.
Philosophers have been known to talk about 'the final science'. The 'final science' when science is complete and all natural phenomena have been given a natural explanation.It is an idealisation...
I have been known to say (though I think I picked this up from somewhere)
The final science is when nobody has a further question...
But regardless of whether we achieve it or not...
(And we surely won't in our lifetimes...)
That is thought to be the aim...
That is thought to be the point...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:592960
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20060102/msgs/594901.html