Jan 22, 2022 08:03 PM
Science can't state all the facts
https://iai.tv/articles/science-cant-sta..._auid=2020
KEY POINTS: The idea that there is a Book of the World containing all the world’s facts, and that science is the way to discover the contents of that book, dates back to Galileo. That belief, that reality can be exhaustively described by science, has gone hand in hand with the belief that the world contains only physical things. But as a famous 20th century philosophy thought experiment by Frank Jackson demonstrated, some facts about the world can’t be discovered by reading books. But unlike what Jackson thought, this doesn’t show that the world isn’t physical, but that not all facts about the world can be stated by science, argues Tim Crane.
EXCERPT: . . . Where does this leave physicalism? Well, if physicalism is the doctrine that all facts are book-learning facts or truths, then physicalism really is refuted by the Mary argument. Not all facts are book-learning facts. But if I were a physicalist, I would not express my view in that way. I would say that physicalism is the view that all entities — all things in the world — are physical, but not that all truths are book-learning truths, the kind of truths that could be learned in a black-and-white physics book. If I am right, neither the science of physics, nor any other science, could express all the truths; but the world could nonetheless be wholly physical. The proper lesson of the Mary argument is that physicalists, like everyone else, should reject the idea of a Book of the World, and should not express their doctrines in terms of it. Whether physicalism, properly understood, is correct, is then another matter... (MORE - missing details)
https://iai.tv/articles/science-cant-sta..._auid=2020
KEY POINTS: The idea that there is a Book of the World containing all the world’s facts, and that science is the way to discover the contents of that book, dates back to Galileo. That belief, that reality can be exhaustively described by science, has gone hand in hand with the belief that the world contains only physical things. But as a famous 20th century philosophy thought experiment by Frank Jackson demonstrated, some facts about the world can’t be discovered by reading books. But unlike what Jackson thought, this doesn’t show that the world isn’t physical, but that not all facts about the world can be stated by science, argues Tim Crane.
EXCERPT: . . . Where does this leave physicalism? Well, if physicalism is the doctrine that all facts are book-learning facts or truths, then physicalism really is refuted by the Mary argument. Not all facts are book-learning facts. But if I were a physicalist, I would not express my view in that way. I would say that physicalism is the view that all entities — all things in the world — are physical, but not that all truths are book-learning truths, the kind of truths that could be learned in a black-and-white physics book. If I am right, neither the science of physics, nor any other science, could express all the truths; but the world could nonetheless be wholly physical. The proper lesson of the Mary argument is that physicalists, like everyone else, should reject the idea of a Book of the World, and should not express their doctrines in terms of it. Whether physicalism, properly understood, is correct, is then another matter... (MORE - missing details)