What is Nature?

[KCfromNC]

Right: you didn't read the exchange.

Is there some sort of competition about how quickly a discussion must be redirected to be about the poster rather than the content of the post? Seems like this post would be a particularly strong entry.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

And my point still stands, inability to explain at present does not lend credence to far more exaggerated ideas in terms of their likelihood (Stars thinking)

Well again, never claimed stars do. But we don't know how Consciousness would arise - but if an emergent property of electro-chemical systems, the likelihood of it arising within the countless permutations and massive mass of stars over aeons, should be better than it coming to be in the tiny skull of an hominid.

As we don't know how Consciousness would arise, even if we knew fully that the sun's electromagnetic activity is wholely different (an extremely doubtful proposition that we would be able to), you couldn't exclude it. If such activity can cause something in one permutation, why not in another - especially if method of causation is unknown. My point of course, which keeps being ignored, is that ascribing things to 'emergent properties' and considering it largely settled, is immensely silly indeed.

Life coming from non life is not the same as consciousness emerging from life, the only example we really have. I'd sooner believe a plant can think than a star or a rock.

Ah, but a plant or rock do not have complex electro-chemical systems as nervous tissue and the sun does. This is thus merely a preference, based on our arbitrary categorisations of certain things as living or dead, based on whether or not it grows, reproduces, maintains internal functions, etc.

Did I ever claim it was purely observational? Empiricism and rationalism complement each other

Well, you stated:

Nature is what we can observe consistently, even if we have to acknowledge variations based on scale

That pretty much says Nature is what we observe, and then you spent multiple posts trying to argue with me over Gravity. So, yes, you did say that - or at least your posts in this thread appeared to me to. How you think adding Rationalism and Empiricism here says anything I really do not understand, except as further obfuscation while backtracking - especially seeing as you said the following, an inconsistent and anti-Rationalist position:

But that's not what we're talking about with nature, abstractions are the realm of philosophy much moreso than nature, which is arguably a combination of epistemology and metaphysics, ideally with a scientific consideration of falsifiability in the principles

So you were functionally arguing against knowledge based on abstraction constituting Nature, while still utilising abstractions themselves. As I said before, a bit muddled.

Methinks you're giving metaphor too much influence in how we conclude things rather than a necessary limit in terms of language that, if you're overly literal, would create problems, but I'm autistic and I'm not that literal and understand that metaphor is initial, it's not the conclusion in terms of science

Language is essentially mostly metaphor, and like it or not, human thought is shared intersubjectively thereby.

You really think people's allegations of miracles centuries ago were actually based in distinguishing those notions rather than being ignorant of how the world works and we can explain it better now with further knowledge? Distinguishing nature in terms of essence and accident or the like does not preclude that people can be mistaken in initially assessing something as a miracle and then be found wrong (lightning is not miraculous, for instance, it's a natural phenomenon). We constrain nature practically speaking, it's not an absolute claim, it's the responsibility of the claimant in regards to the supernatural to demonstrate, their burden of proof.

This is the common modern myth that our forebears were so incredulous. Read a bit of the Ancients, and you'll see Cicero denying augery and the ilk. You are just restating your opinion that a Naturalistic explanation takes precedence, but once again, this rests upon conflating Naturata and Naturans. That something is a possibility hardly means it is more probable therefore, especially with most factors being unknowns and veridicality lacking, and I am merely advocating keeping an open mind thereto. Ever heard of Cartesian Anxiety?

A few years ago there was a guy undergoing a back operation which usually results in very limited improvement. The man had about a standard response, then prayed to some saint or other (can't recall exact details) and reported much improvement. The Catholic Church hailed a miracle, but others merely said this was an utterly unexpected and unheard of positive result of his operation a while down the line. One should not rush to judgement on a priori grounds, in my opinion.

It is simply hubris to think we know so much more in this regard, and to simply assign more valence to one or the other is not really supportable. Assigning the 'burden of proof' to the Supernatural is just a cultural artifact of post-Enlightenment civilisation, but certainly doesn't rest on incontrovertibly argued grounds. It is in fact, merely another axiomatic position taken.

I'm not basing the axioms purely on utility, but necessity. The problem is attributing necessity in terms of claims like agency behind the universe and the transcendent having to exist rather than necessity of considering some basic reliability of our senses with proper corrections based on repeated measurements, etc.

It is not faith to hold the axioms you're likely alluding to, it's trust, which is not remotely the same, the former is rooted in sentimentality and "common sense" the latter admits that our emotions can be faulty and our initial considerations need to be tempered with further consideration. You being what amounts to a Pyrhhonist, practically, does not lend more credence to your epistemology, it means you've compartmentalized God to fit into some cogent structure without realizing it may very well be cognitive dissonance to do so

Bold claim. Necessity? I would really like to see that argued. As if your axioms aren't just another set of axioms amongst many, merely the fruit of Grosseteste and Roger Bacon tempered by Francis Bacon's New Philosophy and the later Scientific Revolution. People can go on perfectly well holding totally different axioms, even being highly inventive or active in the world - take the functional Idealism of certain schools of Buddhism or the English Idealism of the late 19th, for instance. They still 'ride the cart back to market' as they say.

Methinks you're still engaging in false dichotomies, as if there isn't a modern synthesis I'm not aware of in regards to balancing the two methods you give. But medicine, like science, doesn't claim to be perfect and attributing that attitude to them seems

Ha ha. EBM is almost totalitarian in its ways. There is no synthesis, though there are people advocating for so-called Science-Based Medicine, but that is a whole other thread. Regardless, falsifiability is largely dead as a doornail in Modern Medicine.

We can far more readily test the reliability of our senses in a provisional sense with physical interaction rather than whatever spiritual phenomenon you refer to (a poorly defined word that can mean several things even if we constrain it down to a few)

Testing your reliability of the senses by utilising your senses is merely a Petitio Principii. So, I disagree.

You don't have to say it, the transcendental argument doesn't require using the term God, it requires positing an absolute immaterial mind upon which we base things like logical absolutes and reason, but no, that doesn't follow, because you're still fallaciously suggesting that emergent properties cannot be descriptively presented in a materialistic framework, when that's how they would be presented and it wouldn't be a contradiction, because a metaphysical and ontological claim are not the same thing

Odd how I cannot put things in your mouth, but you may readily do so to me? Once again, never said anything about God. However, the mind/body problem in humans cannot be solved by reducing to either side in my opinion, without becoming hopelessly mired in contradiction. As far as I am concerned, this is just a red herring you keep trying to get me to take.

Perhaps if you would use more plain language instead of philosophical twaddle and jargon that only muddies the waters, it wouldn't be like we're talking past each other. Or perhaps just qualifying the terms in a way that isn't reliant on further esoteric understandings in order to fit into whatever erudite framework you believe yourself to have

My friend, this is really the pot calling the kettle black. I see no attempt from you to even try and understand what I am saying. Your definition of nature is incoherent; you keep asserting contradictions while hiding behind terms like 'stochastic' or 'emergent property'; and every attempt I make to ask you to explain, you simply ignore; or attempt obfuscation on minutiae; with your language being in no way more plain than mine, in any way, shape or form.


No, I really am done now. There really is no point continueing, as I don't feel as if the goal is a real conversation here at all. This will be my final reply here.

Good day, sir.

 

[KCfromNC]

Well again, never claimed stars do. But we don't know how Consciousness would arise - but if an emergent property of electro-chemical systems, the likelihood of it arising within the countless permutations and massive mass of stars over aeons, should be better than it coming to be in the tiny skull of an hominid.

It should? You might need to show your work here.

As we don't know how Consciousness would arise, even if we knew fully that the sun's electromagnetic activity is wholely different (an extremely doubtful proposition that we would be able to), you couldn't exclude it.

I'd be curious to know what's backing the implication here that simply enumerating every conceivable non-impossible thing is a good way to learn about the universe. How does it test compared to other, better established methods of investigation? When has it been used successfully to decide between competing models or explanations of physical processes? Which fields use it to create improved technology?

You have repeatedly brought it up as it if was important, but I can't figure out why.

Secondarily, what's with the random capitalization of consciousness?

Ah, but a plant or rock do not have complex electro-chemical systems as nervous tissue and the sun does.

The sun has nervous tissue? Interesting assertion.