Edges again
Rebecca Goldstein, philosopher, novelist and life-partner of Steven Pinker, has this to say about the paranormal:
It could be in the nature of the phenomena that it's extremely difficult to reproduce it in controlled experiments. In which case, we'll never know. I think it's a kind of arrogance to say that our science is complete. It's an amazing thing that we can know as much about the physical world as we do know. Why assume that we know everything about the world that there is to know? We've developed through all sorts of happenstance a kind of methodology that allows us to know a tremendous amount. It's an extraordinary thing that we can test and probe nature. And it's yielded amazing secrets. But why assume that this methodology that we're just damn lucky to have been able to stumble upon is going to yield all secrets? Of course, there could be things beyond the reach of science. But could we have any good evidence for accepting it? As soon as you have good evidence, it becomes science. So can there be good evidence for non-scientific propositions? No. Because the minute there is good evidence, it becomes science.
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/10/15/pinker_goldstein/
Which tidily sums up the limits of science, I think.
It could be in the nature of the phenomena that it's extremely difficult to reproduce it in controlled experiments. In which case, we'll never know. I think it's a kind of arrogance to say that our science is complete. It's an amazing thing that we can know as much about the physical world as we do know. Why assume that we know everything about the world that there is to know? We've developed through all sorts of happenstance a kind of methodology that allows us to know a tremendous amount. It's an extraordinary thing that we can test and probe nature. And it's yielded amazing secrets. But why assume that this methodology that we're just damn lucky to have been able to stumble upon is going to yield all secrets? Of course, there could be things beyond the reach of science. But could we have any good evidence for accepting it? As soon as you have good evidence, it becomes science. So can there be good evidence for non-scientific propositions? No. Because the minute there is good evidence, it becomes science.
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/10/15/pinker_goldstein/
Which tidily sums up the limits of science, I think.
posted by Kira at 10:48 PM
1 Comments:
I think Rebecca is just stealing a bit from old Søren here.
He always went on about how faith had to be a constant passionate act, by virtue of the fact that faith and reason were mutually incompatible.
Indeed, he saw the absurdity in the fact that there is no way to choose reason or faith without having already chosen reason or faith.
You can't come to faith by way of reason, he would assert, because the whole point of faith is to absolutely believe in things that are unsupported (and probably unsupportable) by reason.
If we choose faith we must suspend our reason in order to believe in something higher than reason. In fact we must believe by virtue of the absurd.
So, to bring it back, he would say that there are things beyond reason's reach, and that those things exist in the realm of faith. The realm of "things for which there can be no good evidence".
Me, I'd sidestep the question of faith and reason and fall back on the meta-paradigm. I'd say that reason can encompass anything we are capable of apprehending, even if any particular paradigm can't, so we have a duty to get the most out of our current paradigm without being married to it. Right now the scientific paradigm is working great for us for a lot of things, but if we start running into things it can't handle--be they answers or questions--then we can lean back and feel around for a new one that is more useful to us.
All of which, I guess, is a way of saying that I want to draw a really clear distinction between the limits of science and the limits of reason.
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