Subject:
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Re: Is lgbt dead in the water? & Is religion dead in the water?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 19 Oct 2004 15:03:42 GMT
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Viewed:
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1353 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:
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So, where does that come from? How can we rise to be more than a sum of
our parts? Is not 2 + 2 = 4? Maybe there are some fascinating biochemical
reactions that we have not studied yet?
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Systems. You are simply describing some of the basic concepts of systems
behavior. Complex systems behavior arising from simple components. Happens
all the time both in biological and non-living systems. No magic there.
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So the whole can be completely, thoroughly, logically, scientifically
explained by the sum of the parts? As in there’s no magic at all? If there
are systems and components we don’t understand scientifically today, there
will be a time in the future when we will have a scientific answer for those
areas?
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That’s the wrong way to ask the question, IMO. Or at the very least you’re
setting a task for science that isn’t science’s responsibility to answer. The
more precise phrasing is this:
Are there systems and components in nature that cannot be described through
scientific analysis?
The answer to that question is no. Even if we don’t have the answers to every
single “why did this neuron fire instead of that one” question, we are
nonetheless able (or can in principle be able) to describe the system under
which those neurons operate.
Some people find this level of “uncertainty” to be aesthetically objectionable,
so they seek additional “certainty” in belief systems other than science.
That’s their right, of course.
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This is where your fallacy lies. Since you ‘live the science’ you can’t
accept that there might be something outside the science, today or even in
the future. You can’t accept the ‘magic’ that may be in the system.
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Instead, you’re asking us to accept on faith the claim that something
supernatural might exist. I do not accept that claim on faith; if you have
evidence of this “something outside the science,” then by all means let’s see
it! .
It’s not sufficient to say “we don’t understand X therefore X must be
magic.” That’s nothing more than argument from ignorance (aka God of the Gaps).
In order to make a claim that magic, or a soul, or a divine hand is at work in a
given system, one must provide evidence that this is the case. Lacking such
evidence, the best one can offer is a leap of faith, which some people (like me,
for instance) reject as an explanatory model of the universe.
Dave!
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