Excellent! Thanks for making the arc more clear. I think the advent of studies of the psychedelics as therapeutic interventions *do* apply to fields like alchemy, mysticism, and altered states. So, your (1) is either wrong or overstated. In particular, the attempt to show correlations between "bad trips" and neuroticism is a step in the right direction. Other examples might be the instances where meditation can correlate with *anxiety* as opposed to calm. I know these disambiguations of "good trips" vs. "bad trips" is waaay too coarse for you. What you want is very fine-grained parsing of the difference between one conversation with Hui Neng and another or answers to questions like the dangerosity of covid-19, sample-size-one questions, black swan questions, etc. Those people who claim science will *never* answer such questions or provide fine-grained experience parsing tools *might* be wrong. I believe they are. Science is simply too young for what you want. If humans survive long enough, we'll see science mature to a point where it can address such. And what you're doing right now *might* be part of that maturing. I don't know.
Re: (2) - Science is (a little bit) and will be (more and more) scientific over time. When you say the empirical evidence suggests science is not scientific, what about reflective studies assessing scientific literacy among the population? Or the recent studies of the replication crisis? Are these not science evaluating itself? I also lump into this rhetoric those studies of religious belief, game theoretic studies of altruism, susceptibility to "fake news", etc. Sure, such studies are "soft". But I believe they'll get "harder" over time, as science matures. And re: (3), I believe you *can* have a science of philosophy. Classifications like "the big 5" (introversion, openness to new experience, ...), correlations between politics and psychological traits, so-called political ethics, etc., however flawed, target the fuzzy boundary between these domains. All that would be required for a science of philosophy would be to think up and execute experiments on philosophical people and artifacts. Again, your attempts to map 4 sources of knowledge across different philosophical traditions *could* be made scientific if you incorporated some *methodical* experimentation. It seems to me that you're simply impatient and overly restrictive in what you call "science" (as I think Nick tried to point out). On 3/13/20 4:21 AM, Prof David West wrote: > I will try to reduce it to three elements: > > 1) Once upon a time I had hoped that that Peirce in specific and Science in > general might provide some "sense making" tools/insights that I could apply > to fields of inquiry like alchemy, mysticism, and altered states. I am > concluding that the hope is untenable as Science and Peirce have excluded > them, deemed them "unworthy." They are not Real, by definition, hence can > never be Scientific or addressed Scientifically. In parting ways, I imply, > rather snidely, that Science is capable only of addressing the "easy > problems." > > 2) If Science / the Scientific approach merits privilege should it not, at > minimum, "eat its own dog food?" Should it not be Scientific? The empirical > evidence suggests it is not. > > 3) At the fringes (e.g. quantum stuff) Science is necessarily Philosophical > (metaphysical) and metaphorical. The Fringe exists as Science evolves into > the future and as Science has evolved from the past. From philosophy you > came and to philosophy you will return. :) Also, philosophy is, in some > sense, meta to Science. You can have a philosophy of science but not a > science of philosophy. > > Ignore for the moment the labored attempt to make an analogy between > programming and scientific theory. I will restate that at another time in a > clearer manner (if warranted by the discussion). -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
