May 11, 2021 08:06 PM
Why do some famous materialist scientists hate philosophy?
https://mindmatters.ai/2021/05/why-do-so...hilosophy/
EXCERPTS: Massimo Pigliucci makes clear that he is a naturalist (materialist) like zoologist Richard Dawkins. For example, he tells us that they crossed paths at a conference whose purpose was to promote naturalism (materialism) [...] So his response to Dawkins’s habit of talking down philosophy is meant as a friendly rebuke. But it is a rebuke. He starts by putting Dawkins in his place about his contributions to biology [...] Pigliucci dissects Dawkins’s trite not-really-truisms sentence by sentence.
[...] Philosophy isn’t just butting in. It’s more like this: We won’t make any sense of what we are seeing if we don’t start with some premises. To engage in clear thinking, we must examine them. And the whole truth of anything may be more than what we choose to measure. [...] Pigliucci notes several other prominent scientists who have dismissed philosophy, including Neil deGrasse Tyson (“distracting”) and Larry Krauss (“science progresses and philosophy doesn’t”). Philosopher Patrick Stokes has called that “philosophy denialism,” riffing off the concept of “science denialism.”
Perhaps, he says, they should heed Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Pigliucci adapts a quotation from him: “philosophy of science without scientific input is empty, while science without philosophical guidance is blind.”
It may be that some scientists ignore philosophy precisely because they do not wish to confront the fact that all observations depend on choices and once we talk about choices, we are talking philosophy. Does our philosophy measure up? (MORE - details)
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Might have been better to refine it to and emphasize "scientism" instead: No matter how you put it, scientism is still a bad idea (Massimo Pigliucci)
How a materialist philosopher argued his way to panpsychism
https://mindmatters.ai/2021/05/how-a-mat...npsychism/
EXCERPTS: In 2018, science writer Robert Wright interviewed physicalist philosopher Galen Strawson who, in a long conversation, explained the logical steps by which he — a philosopher who holds that nature is all there is and that everything is physical — also came to believe that consciousness underlies everything. Wright published a long excerpt from the discussion in June 2020, in which Strawson explains his reasoning.
Wright starts things off by noting that “In recent years more and more philosophers seem to have embraced panpsychism—the view that consciousness pervades the universe and so is present, in however simple a form, in every little speck of matter.”
Indeed, even publications like Scientific American have run panpsychist opinion pieces in recent years. The currently most popular theory of consciousness, Integrated Information Theory (IIT), is panpsychist. What’s changed? Strawson’s journey might shed some light.
Strawson, who also describes himself as a naturalist and atheist, told Wright that, in his usage, “physicalism” is equivalent to “materialism” in everyday language.
[...] Some physicalist philosophers — Strawson names Daniel Dennett and Keith Frankish — deny that consciousness exists. He thinks that if it does exist, it would have a physical character, compatible with physics: “In my view, the only thing we know for sure about it [physics] is that sometimes it manifests as the kind of conscious [experience] we’re having right now. …” (MORE - details)
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Rather than psychological affairs, this is really about an ontological property or capacity that is recruited and organized, in the case of brains, to provide cognitive activity or information processing with exhibited content. Instead of panpsychism, anything from "pan-experientialism" to "pan-phenomenalism" to "Russelian monism" to "ontological manifestation" would be preferable as an alternative because "psyche" attached to "pan" suggests the addition of limited identification slash understanding and thoughts being universal as well.
https://mindmatters.ai/2021/05/why-do-so...hilosophy/
EXCERPTS: Massimo Pigliucci makes clear that he is a naturalist (materialist) like zoologist Richard Dawkins. For example, he tells us that they crossed paths at a conference whose purpose was to promote naturalism (materialism) [...] So his response to Dawkins’s habit of talking down philosophy is meant as a friendly rebuke. But it is a rebuke. He starts by putting Dawkins in his place about his contributions to biology [...] Pigliucci dissects Dawkins’s trite not-really-truisms sentence by sentence.
[...] Philosophy isn’t just butting in. It’s more like this: We won’t make any sense of what we are seeing if we don’t start with some premises. To engage in clear thinking, we must examine them. And the whole truth of anything may be more than what we choose to measure. [...] Pigliucci notes several other prominent scientists who have dismissed philosophy, including Neil deGrasse Tyson (“distracting”) and Larry Krauss (“science progresses and philosophy doesn’t”). Philosopher Patrick Stokes has called that “philosophy denialism,” riffing off the concept of “science denialism.”
Perhaps, he says, they should heed Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Pigliucci adapts a quotation from him: “philosophy of science without scientific input is empty, while science without philosophical guidance is blind.”
It may be that some scientists ignore philosophy precisely because they do not wish to confront the fact that all observations depend on choices and once we talk about choices, we are talking philosophy. Does our philosophy measure up? (MORE - details)
- - - - - -
Might have been better to refine it to and emphasize "scientism" instead: No matter how you put it, scientism is still a bad idea (Massimo Pigliucci)
How a materialist philosopher argued his way to panpsychism
https://mindmatters.ai/2021/05/how-a-mat...npsychism/
EXCERPTS: In 2018, science writer Robert Wright interviewed physicalist philosopher Galen Strawson who, in a long conversation, explained the logical steps by which he — a philosopher who holds that nature is all there is and that everything is physical — also came to believe that consciousness underlies everything. Wright published a long excerpt from the discussion in June 2020, in which Strawson explains his reasoning.
Wright starts things off by noting that “In recent years more and more philosophers seem to have embraced panpsychism—the view that consciousness pervades the universe and so is present, in however simple a form, in every little speck of matter.”
Indeed, even publications like Scientific American have run panpsychist opinion pieces in recent years. The currently most popular theory of consciousness, Integrated Information Theory (IIT), is panpsychist. What’s changed? Strawson’s journey might shed some light.
Strawson, who also describes himself as a naturalist and atheist, told Wright that, in his usage, “physicalism” is equivalent to “materialism” in everyday language.
[...] Some physicalist philosophers — Strawson names Daniel Dennett and Keith Frankish — deny that consciousness exists. He thinks that if it does exist, it would have a physical character, compatible with physics: “In my view, the only thing we know for sure about it [physics] is that sometimes it manifests as the kind of conscious [experience] we’re having right now. …” (MORE - details)
- - - - - -
Rather than psychological affairs, this is really about an ontological property or capacity that is recruited and organized, in the case of brains, to provide cognitive activity or information processing with exhibited content. Instead of panpsychism, anything from "pan-experientialism" to "pan-phenomenalism" to "Russelian monism" to "ontological manifestation" would be preferable as an alternative because "psyche" attached to "pan" suggests the addition of limited identification slash understanding and thoughts being universal as well.