Everyone has a philosophical filter

[bandit4god]

I'm not making any claims about truth. I'm merely pointing out that one cannot proceed with supernatural explanations. A supernatural explanation is a stopping point. How can it be possible to study or know anything about a cause that is outside of what we can readily observe in nature?

I was unaware that the problem has gotten this bad and how quickly... atheists used to be among the foremost minds in the discipline of philosophy, and now they are claiming the whole enterprise is unnecessary!

Numerous things occur that we cannot observe in nature--take opinion, for example.  By any scientific development imaginable, would an external observer ever be able to look at my brain activity and discern with precision and accuracy my opinion of Tony Romo, quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys?  Should we then consider this opinion, this "supernatural" event, to be outside the realm of study and knowledge?

Or look instead to the meta-point of the fact that you posted a response to me at all.  I'm a person you've never met, as is likely the case with most others you presume will read your post, and yet you have cause to believe that your post will shift my or others' opinion from one position to another.  Because opinion is a mind-event, not naturally observable or testable, your framework would hold that it is outside the purview of study and knowledge!

There is a sort of "philosophical filter," in that we as a species have learned that the most effective way to learn about natural phenomena is through science.

Including a response to this more recent quote from Recusant as it is related.  (Btw, thanks Recusant for "throwing a bone" that the filter actually exists!)

The above from BullyforBronto and my response is useful in another sense, and that is positing that science has boundaries.  The second greatest trick the modern university pulled is selling the idea that science has no epistemic (knowledge-oriented) boundaries, essentially the inverse of the concept that nature is all that exists.  For this reason, numerous branches of "free-for-all" pseudo-science have sprung up from abiogenesis to Hawking's origin of the universe cosmology to string theory.  Each of these unobservable theories might very well be true, but to seat them in same scientific strata (or, in universities, just down the hallway from!) civil engineering is abject misrepresentation.

Regrounding this in the thread's origin, the filter atheists apply to consideration of the origin of life, it's unclear to me that science reaches that far.  After the Miller-Urey experiment, theories about early earth's oxygen content arbitrarily shifted from "very prevalent oxygen content" to "no oxygen present in early earth" based on no geological, chemical, or physical facts whatsoever.  The opinion shifted expressly because oxygen in early earth would have precluded amino acids from forming naturally.  

So which governing factor drove the "scientific" consensus shift in this case?  Rigorous, fact-based science?  Perish the thought!  The philosophical filter that nature's laws led to life caused the prevailing shift from "oxygen rich" to "no oxygen".

[Tank]

I'm not making any claims about truth. I'm merely pointing out that one cannot proceed with supernatural explanations. A supernatural explanation is a stopping point. How can it be possible to study or know anything about a cause that is outside of what we can readily observe in nature?

I was unaware that the problem has gotten this bad and how quickly... atheists used to be among the foremost minds in the discipline of philosophy, and now they are claiming the whole enterprise is unnecessary!

Numerous things occur that we cannot observe in nature--take opinion, for example.  By any scientific development imaginable, would an external observer ever be able to look at my brain activity and discern with precision and accuracy my opinion of Tony Romo, quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys?  Should we then consider this opinion, this "supernatural" event, to be outside the realm of study and knowledge?

Or look instead to the meta-point of the fact that you posted a response to me at all.  I'm a person you've never met, as is likely the case with most others you presume will read your post, and yet you have cause to believe that your post will shift my or others' opinion from one position to another.  Because opinion is a mind-event, not naturally observable or testable, your framework would hold that it is outside the purview of study and knowledge!

There is a sort of "philosophical filter," in that we as a species have learned that the most effective way to learn about natural phenomena is through science.

Including a response to this more recent quote from Recusant as it is related.  (Btw, thanks Recusant for "throwing a bone" that the filter actually exists!)

The above from BullyforBronto and my response is useful in another sense, and that is positing that science has boundaries.  The second greatest trick the modern university pulled is selling the idea that science has no epistemic (knowledge-oriented) boundaries, essentially the inverse of the concept that nature is all that exists.  For this reason, numerous branches of "free-for-all" pseudo-science have sprung up from abiogenesis to Hawking's origin of the universe cosmology to string theory.  Each of these unobservable theories might very well be true, but to seat them in same scientific strata (or, in universities, just down the hallway from!) civil engineering is abject misrepresentation.

Regrounding this in the thread's origin, the filter atheists apply to consideration of the origin of life, it's unclear to me that science reaches that far.  After the Miller-Urey experiment, theories about early earth's oxygen content arbitrarily shifted from "very prevalent oxygen content" to "no oxygen present in early earth" based on no geological, chemical, or physical facts whatsoever.  The opinion shifted expressly because oxygen in early earth would have precluded amino acids from forming. 

So which governing factor drove the "scientific" consensus shift in this case?  Rigorous, fact-based science?  Perish the thought!  The philosophical filter that nature's laws led to life caused the prevailing shift from "oxygen rich" to "no oxygen".

b4g
The question of free oxygen in the early Earth environment has been answered in a variety of ways over the recent decades until a consistent view has emerged. That's the was science progresses. One of the key elements of the scientific method that allows scientific knowledge to progress is a feedback system that self corrects erroneous findings. Science denying theists, like you, attempt to paint this feedback as vice when it is a virtue. You'll not get away with that attitude on this forum.

[xSilverPhinx]

Are you suggesting that just because people are more scientifically-minded that they throw out philosophy altogether? It's hardly unnecessary, otherwise there would'nt be a thing called philosophy of science, from which ideas that the scientific method are based on come from (falsifiable).

I personally dislike the metaphysical approach that supernatural explanations take because they're based more on the unknown, untestable and unreachable. Theists merely saying that they know isn't enough. We have the natural world, we know that it exists, so it makes all the sense in the world to look for explanations that are based on the natural world. That's what science is. Calling that choice the use of a philosophical filter in attempt to discredit it is ridiculous.

In epidemiological terms, there's a difference between 'justified knowledge', and 'belief'.

[Norfolk And Chance]

Numerous things occur that we cannot observe in nature--take opinion, for example.  By any scientific development imaginable, would an external observer ever be able to look at my brain activity and discern with precision and accuracy my opinion of Tony Romo, quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys?  Should we then consider this opinion, this "supernatural" event, to be outside the realm of study and knowledge?

???

Opinions can be accurate and inaccurate, and held up against known evidence for comparison. If I said my opinion is that Hitler was actually a decent chap I'd simply be wrong wouldn't I?

OOr look instead to the meta-point of the fact that you posted a response to me at all.  I'm a person you've never met, as is likely the case with most others you presume will read your post, and yet you have cause to believe that your post will shift my or others' opinion from one position to another.  Because opinion is a mind-event, not naturally observable or testable, your framework would hold that it is outside the purview of study and knowledge!

Your opinion is observable when you move your lips and type on your keypad, and it is testable against known knowledge.

[Asmodean]

known knowledge.

Wet water.

I would use "standing facts" because, aside from being a better expression, it implies the possibility of change.

[bandit4god]

The question of free oxygen in the early Earth environment has been answered in a variety of ways over the recent decades until a consistent view has emerged. That's the was science progresses. One of the key elements of the scientific method that allows scientific knowledge to progress is a feedback system that self corrects erroneous findings. Science denying theists, like you, attempt to paint this feedback as vice when it is a virtue. You'll not get away with that attitude on this forum.

Science would be:
- Consensus theory circa 1930 is that early earth contained considerable quantities of oxygen
- Naturally occurring amino acid formation is one of many precursors to naturally-occurring life
- Miller-Urey and similar experiments circa 1950 reveal oxygen precludes amino acids from forming naturally
- Scientific community scours geological record to find evidence to repudiate the null hypothesis, an oxygen-rich early earth
- Scientific community finds sufficient observable evidence that oxygen existing on the early earth was highly improbable
- Consensus shifts to "no oxygen on early earth"

What actually happened:
- Consensus theory circa 1930 is that early earth contained considerable quantities of oxygen
- Naturally occurring amino acid formation is one of many precursors to naturally-occurring life
- Miller-Urey and similar experiments circa 1950 reveal oxygen precludes amino acids from forming naturally
- Most in the academic community apply a philosophical filter that there must be a natural explanation for life
- Many theories are positied about "no oxygen on early earth"
- Consensus coalesces around a handful of theories based on the prominence of the scientist(s) and articles based on speculative computer models
- Consensus shifts to "no oxygen on early earth"

There is much more of this going on than people realize, and all of it is given a clean bill of science health.

[Recusant]

The above from BullyforBronto and my response is useful in another sense, and that is positing that science has boundaries.  The second greatest trick the modern university pulled is selling the idea that science has no epistemic (knowledge-oriented) boundaries, essentially the inverse of the concept that nature is all that exists.  For this reason, numerous branches of "free-for-all" pseudo-science have sprung up from abiogenesis to Hawking's origin of the universe cosmology to string theory.  Each of these unobservable theories might very well be true, but to seat them in same scientific strata (or, in universities, just down the hallway from!) civil engineering is abject misrepresentation.

It's amusing that you feel justified in labeling research into possible mechanisms for natural abiogenesis, the work of Stephen Hawking on cosmology, and string theory as "pseudo-science." What makes you think you are qualified to make such judgments? The people working in these fields are doing so because there is scientific evidence which justifies their effort to work with it and to try to explain it. None of the three instances you mention conform to the definition of pseudo-science. Still, since you brought up the idea of pseudo-science, let me see if I can try to understand how you define it. Would you agree that trying to shoe-horn supernatural concepts into science, as "creation scientists" do, is pseudo-science?

Regrounding this in the thread's origin, the filter atheists apply to consideration of the origin of life, it's unclear to me that science reaches that far.  After the Miller-Urey experiment, theories about early earth's oxygen content arbitrarily shifted from "very prevalent oxygen content" to "no oxygen present in early earth" based on no geological, chemical, or physical facts whatsoever.  The opinion shifted expressly because oxygen in early earth would have precluded amino acids from forming naturally.  

So which governing factor drove the "scientific" consensus shift in this case?  Rigorous, fact-based science?  Perish the thought!  The philosophical filter that nature's laws led to life caused the prevailing shift from "oxygen rich" to "no oxygen".[size]

Why do you maintain that it's specifically atheists who see the scientific paradigm as a reasonable approach to discovering more about the origin of life? Do you have any evidence that all theist scientists think that science cannot inform us about how it may have come about? There are theists who see the process of evolution as valid, but say that their god guided it; I don't see any barriers to them taking the same approach regarding abiogenesis. In fact, I would imagine that there are scientists who believe in religion who are not afraid of any discoveries which lie ahead supporting a natural explanation for the origin of life. If one believes that the natural world was created by a god, then it's not unreasonable to think that natural processes are that god's means of achieving desired ends.

As for the question of reducing atmosphere, the difference between the atmosphere on our planet and the atmospheres on the two neighboring (lifeless, to all indications) planets is evidence that what changed the atmosphere here is life. Neither of those planets has an oxygen-rich atmosphere.

Science would be:
- Consensus theory circa 1930 is that early earth contained considerable quantities of oxygen

The only basis for such a consensus (what you later call "the null hypothesis") was the prevailing uniformitarian paradigm of the time. That paradigm has been modified since to acknowledge the evidence that there have been events and even whole periods in the past which were markedly different than what we consider the norm. This includes the composition of the atmosphere of our planet. By the way, a null hypothesis only exists in science as a hypothesized ground condition which can be compared to an alternative hypothesis. This doesn't necessarily mean that the null has superior standing to the alternative, only that if no evidence supports the alternative, then the scientist reverts to the null until other evidence is discovered.

- Naturally occurring amino acid formation is one of many precursors to naturally-occurring life

Agreed, and precursors to amino acids have been found in interstellar space, and an important amino acid has been found in interplanetary space, associated with a comet. This was not known in 1930.

- Miller-Urey and similar experiments circa 1950 reveal oxygen precludes amino acids from forming naturally
- Scientific community scours geological record to find evidence to repudiate the null hypothesis, an oxygen-rich early earth

That was the null hypothesis of the time, as noted above. It was not then, and is not now, written in stone. Science has advanced quite a bit since 1930, and discoveries about the atmospheres of other planets as mentioned above, would have invalidated the null hypothesis of the 1930s, whatever else may have happened.

- Scientific community finds sufficient observable evidence that oxygen existing on the early earth was highly improbable
- Consensus shifts to "no oxygen on early earth"

As you can see, your picture is too simplistic. There are other factors involved of which you were either unaware, or have chosen to ignore.

What actually happened:
- Consensus theory circa 1930 is that early earth contained considerable quantities of oxygen
- Naturally occurring amino acid formation is one of many precursors to naturally-occurring life
- Miller-Urey and similar experiments circa 1950 reveal oxygen precludes amino acids from forming naturally
- Most in the academic community apply a philosophical filter that there must be a natural explanation for life
- Many theories are positied about "no oxygen on early earth"
- Consensus coalesces around a handful of theories based on the prominence of the scientist(s) and articles based on speculative computer models
- Consensus shifts to "no oxygen on early earth"

This is a simplistic and inaccurate caricature of "what actually happened," as I showed above. And in fact, even my explication of the sequence no doubt missed some of the developments that lead to the current consensus regarding a reducing atmosphere on the pre-biotic earth.

There is much more of this going on than people realize, and all of it is given a clean bill of science health.

Sadly, this last sentence sounds remarkably similar to assertions that I've heard from Creationists who continually opine that there is a world-wide conspiracy of scientists in diverse fields who spend their time lying and spinning interpretations of data to support the theory of evolution.

[Tank]

The question of free oxygen in the early Earth environment has been answered in a variety of ways over the recent decades until a consistent view has emerged. That's the was science progresses. One of the key elements of the scientific method that allows scientific knowledge to progress is a feedback system that self corrects erroneous findings. Science denying theists, like you, attempt to paint this feedback as vice when it is a virtue. You'll not get away with that attitude on this forum.

With the benefit of hindsight Science would be:
- Consensus theory circa 1930 is that early earth contained considerable quantities of oxygen
- Naturally occurring amino acid formation is one of many precursors to naturally-occurring life
- Miller-Urey and similar experiments circa 1950 reveal oxygen precludes amino acids from forming naturally
- Scientific community scours geological record to find evidence to repudiate the null hypothesis, an oxygen-rich early earth
- Scientific community finds sufficient observable evidence that oxygen existing on the early earth was highly improbable
- Consensus shifts to "no oxygen on early earth"

What actually happened:
- Consensus theory circa 1930 is that early earth contained considerable quantities of oxygen
- Naturally occurring amino acid formation is one of many precursors to naturally-occurring life
- Miller-Urey and similar experiments circa 1950 reveal oxygen precludes amino acids from forming naturally
- Most in the academic community apply a philosophical filter that there must be a natural explanation for life
- Many theories are positied about "no oxygen on early earth"
- Consensus coalesces around a handful of theories based on the prominence of the scientist(s) and articles based on speculative computer models
- Consensus shifts to "no oxygen on early earth"

There is much more of this going on than people realize, and all of it is given a clean bill of science health.

There you are, fixed it for you  

This would be an example of 'Why the fuck didn't you spot the terrorist!?' after the bomb has gone off. The connections simply are not visible until the conclusion has been reached. Science isn't perfect, but it has one critical difference from mythology, scientific claims have to ultimately match reality, mythology does not suffer this handicap to its flights of fancy.

[bandit4god]

Why do you maintain that it's specifically atheists who see the scientific paradigm as a reasonable approach to discovering more about the origin of life? Do you have any evidence that all theist scientists think that science cannot inform us about how it may have come about? There are theists who see the process of evolution as valid, but say that their god guided it; I don't see any barriers to them taking the same approach regarding abiogenesis. In fact, I would imagine that there are scientists who believe in religion who are not afraid of any discoveries which lie ahead supporting a natural explanation for the origin of life. If one believes that the natural world was created by a god, then it's not unreasonable to think that natural processes are that god's means of achieving desired ends.

My object is certainly not as you portray it above, to decry natural explanation as a useful form.  Indeed, my object is much more modest than that: to persuade that many have a philosophical filter in place that holds natural explanation to be the only valid type of explanation for all outcomes.

Imagine you walk into your house and find a messy living room (moreso than usual!).  Papers strewn everywhere, furniture smashed, glass broken.  What types of explanation are available to account for what happened?
- Natural:  wind, flooding, animals, earthquake, etc.
- Personal:  someone stormed into your house and acted with specific intent
- Conceptual/positivistic:  You create reality from your own consciousness, and so caused this also

Reasoning inductively, would you have any reason to narrow the aperture to consider only natural explanations? 

This is my point about explanation in other cases as well, especially those on the fringes of retrospective observability.  The universe, like the messy living room, exists.  Life, like the messy living room, exists.  Should we not widen the aperature to reason inductively through the explanatory power of all three types of explanation for this?

[Recusant]

My object is certainly not as you portray it above, to decry natural explanation as a useful form.  Indeed, my object is much more modest than that: to persuade that many have a philosophical filter in place that holds natural explanation to be the only valid type of explanation for all outcomes.

A "filter" which precipitates naturalistic explanations for natural phenomena seems eminently reasonable to me. If there were to exist unequivocal evidence supporting the existence of supernatural phenomena, then perhaps one would look outside the scientific method to examine it. I'm not sure how one would construct a rigorous approach to this examination without resorting to the scientific method, however. Nor do I see any necessity for this, since there has been up till now no unequivocal evidence which supports the existence of the supernatural.

I'm going to quote the previous formulation of "possible explanations" here to help with comparing the two:

A

- Natural explanation: nature and its attendant laws caused the phenomena (like a weed growing in a garden)
- Personal explanation:  a sentient actor caused the phenomena (like coming home and finding a messy living room)
- Conceptual explanation:  a conscious mind created the phenomena (a thought to cheer for the Dallas Cowboys)

And now from your current post:

B

Imagine you walk into your house and find a messy living room (moreso than usual!).  Papers strewn everywhere, furniture smashed, glass broken.  What types of explanation are available to account for what happened?
- Natural:  wind, flooding, animals, earthquake, etc.
- Personal:  someone stormed into your house and acted with specific intent
- Conceptual/positivistic:  You create reality from your own consciousness, and so caused this also

You seem to have changed the meanings of your three categories here. The two meanings of "natural" have diverged slightly. In A, it was nature and its attendant laws, then in B you write of merely natural phenomena. Under the first formulation, one could easily include human action, since people are a part of nature. Under the second, you seem to try to exclude human action. This allows you to change the second category from (A) sentient actor, which might include any posited sentience, including hypothetical disembodied entities, to (B) people specifically. In A, the second and third categories seemed to deal with the same thing (sentient actor, conscious mind). In B, the third category seems to be presenting some sort of solipsism in which the observer is creating the phenomenon. This is different than the previous third category, which only dealt with a conscious mind creating a phenomenon, and didn't seem to involve a solipsistic perspective. Maybe I missed that the first time around.

I would say that in B, despite your apparent effort to avoid it, I would group the first two categories under the same heading and thus we actually have a dichotomy:

Either the phenomenon is the result of an objective cause (natural events/a person) or all phenomena are subjective, including the one being observed in this instance.

Reasoning inductively, would you have any reason to narrow the aperture to consider only natural explanations?

Since I consider solipsism a pointless, masturbatory perspective, I would discard it, and yes, proceed under the assumption that there was an objective, natural cause for the phenomenon. 

This is my point about explanation in other cases as well, especially those on the fringes of retrospective observability.  The universe, like the messy living room, exists.  Life, like the messy living room, exists.  Should we not widen the aperature to reason inductively through the explanatory power of all three types of explanation for this?

Until you revise your three categories yet again, I feel that there is no reason to "widen the aperture."

[bandit4god]

You seem to have changed the meanings of your three categories here. The two meanings of "natural" have diverged slightly. In A, it was nature and its attendant laws, then in B you write of merely natural phenomena. Under the first formulation, one could easily include human action, since people are a part of nature. Under the second, you seem to try to exclude human action. This allows you to change the second category from (A) sentient actor, which might include any posited sentience, including hypothetical disembodied entities, to (B) people specifically. In A, the second and third categories seemed to deal with the same thing (sentient actor, conscious mind). In B, the third category seems to be presenting some sort of solipsism in which the observer is creating the phenomenon. This is different than the previous third category, which only dealt with a conscious mind creating a phenomenon, and didn't seem to involve a solipsistic perspective. Maybe I missed that the first time around.

I would say that in B, despite your apparent effort to avoid it, I would group the first two categories under the same heading and thus we actually have a dichotomy:

Either the phenomenon is the result of an objective cause (natural events/a person) or all phenomena are subjective, including the one being observed in this instance.

Yikes, you've gotten yourself completely turned around, Recusant!  I read back over the two, and I meant the same by both:
- Natural laws
- Actions of a conscious/sentient actor
- Consciousness creates... Yeah, this one's baloney

Unless you're on the determinism love-boat, how can you consider the first two the same?

[Asmodean]

- Natural laws
- Actions of a conscious/sentient actor
- Consciousness creates... Yeah, this one's baloney

Unless you're on the determinism love-boat, how can you consider the first two the same?

2 here is a part of (as it is limited by) 1 as the actor in question can only do his play within the laws governing nature.

[BullyforBronto]

- Natural laws
- Actions of a conscious/sentient actor
- Consciousness creates... Yeah, this one's baloney

Unless you're on the determinism love-boat, how can you consider the first two the same?

2 here is a part of (as it is limited by) 1 as the actor in question can only do his play within the laws governing nature.

Completely agree.

[Recusant]

Yikes, you've gotten yourself completely turned around, Recusant!

Did I? Silly me! Ah well, let's look at your latest version. Despite your protestations, this does seem different.

I read back over the two, and I meant the same by both:
- Natural laws

OK, we have a third version of the "nature" category. Now, instead of nature and its attendant laws, or natural phenomena like storms and such, we're down to natural laws alone. Are we talking now about explanations of phenomena, or causes thereof? I can accept that what you term to be "natural laws" (which I would actually call "scientific laws," because they are a product of human understanding through science) serve quite well as explanations, since that is precisely their purpose. On the other hand, they "cause" nothing, since as I said, they are explanations, and I don't think it serves anybody's purpose to confuse an explanation for that which is explained. Now if you had said "natural forces," I would agree that they do cause phenomena, but a natural force is not the same thing as a natural law.

- Actions of a conscious/sentient actor

Good, we're back to the conscious/sentient actor. This is shaping up nicely.

- Consciousness creates... Yeah, this one's baloney

So we're agreed that we will dispense with solipsism. I'm thankful for that, because solipsists make me uncomfortable; I feel embarrassed for them, and would prefer they practice in the privacy of their own homes.

Now we have a new dichotomy. The explanation for phenomena could be:

1) Natural laws (I'll use your term here, though as I explained, I would say either "scientific laws," or "natural forces.")

-or-

2) Actions of a conscious/sentient actor

I think that we actually needn't even perceive this as a dichotomy, unless we add something to the second category which says that the conscious/sentient actor is defined as a supernatural entity. If we don't add that qualification, then the conscious/sentient actor could conceivably be considered to have been brought into being by natural forces, and thus would be understood as a manifestation of those same forces. As I mentioned before, I do consider people to be part of the natural world, rather than above or beside it. It is useful in some instances to differentiate between humans and the rest of nature, but I don't think that this discussion is one of those instances. After all, unless you consider humans a supernatural phenomenon, then whether we're differentiated from the rest of nature or not isn't relevant to the topic. To move the discussion along, I might go ahead and redefine category 2 as a supernatural entity, but I think that would be presumptuous of me.

Unless you're on the determinism love-boat, how can you consider the first two the same?

Well, I explained that above. As for determinism, I don't worry about it much, to tell you the truth. If it's false, then I have choices. If it's true, then I only have the illusion of choice, but, happy-go-lucky fellow that I am, I can't tell the difference between the reality of choice and the illusion of choice. So I tend to leave the discussion of whether determinism is true or not to those with nothing better to do.

[Asmodean]

Recusant

Your patience is amazing. Posts like that fill me with a need to get off my lazy ass and do something productive.

*insert a slightly envious smiley here*