Does materialism spell the end for scientific method? I've been pondering this question for some time. It looks like this...
* At least 99% of modern scientific research into the brain points directly to it being the sole source of consciousness. Pretty much every aspect of conscious experience has now been tracked to brain activity.
* Consciousness emerges from brain activity. It's what neural processing actually looks like, actually is.
* If the brain is the source, or foundation, for consciousness then there cannot actually be an observing self. Though it's a pervasive and convincing phenomena it can't be real, or we'd be back in dualism. If we tell a materialist that they're going to be painlessly and instantaneously killed, and replaced with an identical copy, in theory they should be OK with it. It seems like something is going to be lost - them - but materialist logic dictates that this cannot be so in reality.
* This seeming presence of an observing self is likely therefore some highly favoured illusion resulting from millions of years of selective pressure. It's useful primarily for evolutionarily favoured tasks - finding food, shelter, sex, and avoiding predators.
* If selfhood is merely a highly favoured illusion then what does this say about some of the cornerstones of scientific method, principles and techniques used to determine the truth about things? Surely perspective is finished. Objectivity must be in quite some trouble if there is in reality no subject. Separation - got to be an illusion. Distance - sounds dubious. These concepts, so much the bare bones of our daily existence, must just be artifacts of our hunter-gatherer past, not reflections of reality. Even empiricism, perhaps not blown away, but surely weakened now.
Materialism - could it spell the end of science?
Nick
* At least 99% of modern scientific research into the brain points directly to it being the sole source of consciousness. Pretty much every aspect of conscious experience has now been tracked to brain activity.
* Consciousness emerges from brain activity. It's what neural processing actually looks like, actually is.
* If the brain is the source, or foundation, for consciousness then there cannot actually be an observing self. Though it's a pervasive and convincing phenomena it can't be real, or we'd be back in dualism. If we tell a materialist that they're going to be painlessly and instantaneously killed, and replaced with an identical copy, in theory they should be OK with it. It seems like something is going to be lost - them - but materialist logic dictates that this cannot be so in reality.
* This seeming presence of an observing self is likely therefore some highly favoured illusion resulting from millions of years of selective pressure. It's useful primarily for evolutionarily favoured tasks - finding food, shelter, sex, and avoiding predators.
* If selfhood is merely a highly favoured illusion then what does this say about some of the cornerstones of scientific method, principles and techniques used to determine the truth about things? Surely perspective is finished. Objectivity must be in quite some trouble if there is in reality no subject. Separation - got to be an illusion. Distance - sounds dubious. These concepts, so much the bare bones of our daily existence, must just be artifacts of our hunter-gatherer past, not reflections of reality. Even empiricism, perhaps not blown away, but surely weakened now.
Materialism - could it spell the end of science?
Nick
via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1YAsFZN
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