The Case for the soul.

[Tassman]

Scientism is only warmed over verificationism, i.e. "that only statements about the world that are empirically verifiable or logically necessary are cognitively meaningful."

Straw-men – typical of seer and Cerebrum123! No one is talking about “scientism” OR “verificationism”. pancreasman was referring to Scientific Theory, namely an explanation of related observations based upon tested hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers to the extent they can be regarded as fact beyond reasonable doubt.

Of course the claim itself is neither empirically verifiable or logically necessary - so it fails its own criterion. Which means by its own definition it is false.

No one is making this claim. This is a straw man. Verificationism is a long abandoned self-refuting philosophical system – although the thrust of its main argument, namely ‘methodological naturalism’, has not been similarly abandoned. It is the core of the Scientific Theory.

[JohnnyP]

Can YOU explain 'consciousness' at all?? No you cannot.

There is no reason to think that 'consciousness' doesn't have a scientific explanations just as everything else to date has a natural explain explanation. For you to argue otherwise is merely an argument from ignorance.

A soul is data/consciousness on a drive/brain, it's just a science we can't explain. That rhymed!

Theoretically that "data" should be able to be moved around to an exact duplicate "drive" and the exact same consciousness would be restored. Resurrection is theoretically possible, if all we are is energy and matter arranged in a unique way.

If not then we have to admit to something "spooky and spiritual" being responsible for individual consciousness.

[Cerebrum123]

Straw-men – typical of seer and Cerebrum123! No one is talking about “scientism” OR “verificationism”. pancreasman was referring to Scientific Theory, namely an explanation of related observations based upon tested hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers to the extent they can be regarded as fact beyond reasonable doubt.

I never said that pancreasman was the one promoting scientism. I don't see seer doing that either.

No one is making this claim. This is a straw man. Verificationism is a long abandoned self-refuting philosophical system – although the thrust of its main argument, namely ‘methodological naturalism’, has not been similarly abandoned. It is the core of the Scientific Theory.

ChaosRain certainly was, he only started to concede the point that logic can't be validated by scientific means, since science itself assumes that logic works in the first place. He then seemed to be saying that it was the one "exception to the rule".

[phank]

prove
[proov] Spell Syllables
Synonyms Examples Word Origin
verb (used with object), proved, proved or proven, proving.
1.
to establish the truth or genuineness of, as by evidence or argument:
to prove one's claim.

Sorry, I was still thinking science rather than rhetoric. Evidence can support one's claim, in most cases. This is why in court we don't speak of proving who dunnit, we speak in terms of reasonable doubt.

Not to mention that I was trying to point out the absurdity of what ChaosRain was saying, which is that only that which scientifically verifiable is true. You do understand that this isn't a formal scientific setting, right? You also understand that there's such a thing as rhetoric, yes?

Even so, ChaosRain's point is not absurd. Science CAN verify immaterial things. One of the most important ingredients of science is IDEAS.

It means it's not reducible to matter/energy, and is not effected by such. Even time itself can be distorted by gravity, the laws of logic however can't be broken.

This is a category error. The "laws of logic" are formalisms, rules we establish. They aren't empirical observations. What we establish with laws of logic are theorems - that is, accept our axioms as given, and within that system the results are formally proved.

Nor can the be influenced by the environment. If they could, then there is absolutely no reason to trust science at all, because anything and everything could be completely contradicted at any time.

I don't follow that. If a relationship between the environment and the object of interest can be established, and we find that relationship holds over many cases, we can trust it as far as it has been tested.

Oh, and they are eternal and work everywhere, without those two qualities, you would have no reason to believe that our observations in the present in any way apply to the past, or to distant planets, stars, galaxies etc.

Except, as you're surely aware, many of our "same everywhere" notions are limited to the scope of our observations, and the probability that distant places in space or time follow those same rules. Remember that Einstein's theories didn't change Newton's theories within the scope of "normal" conditions, but instead showed that under certain extreme conditions Newton's theory produces wrong answers. We're never working with absolutes, we're working with models.

Not what I meant at all. Although, how do you "measure" the laws of logic? Sure, you can say something is logical or illogical, but you can't really "measure" the law of non-contradiction for example.

Yes, as I said, this is a category error. A set of observations is qualitatively different from a set of inference rules.

Actually, the whole part about them not being a "material "thing"" is my point. ChaosRain says such does not exist unless it's verified by the scientific method, which you simply can't do for logic. This being because science itself is dependent on logic to work in the first place.

And you do not consider this a test of the logic? If you concoct a rule of logical inference, and apply it wherever you can, and observe that the results are always as expected, you are validating your rule.

That you don't understand what I'm saying doesn't make it "equivocation, doublethink, and bald assertions". Was that you, or HMS_Beagle that had in his signature "First understand, then criticize."? There's a lot of failure to do that in this thread.

I certainly can't disagree with that.

For one, ChaosRain specified scientific evidence, which doesn't work for logic since science depends on logic being true in the first place.

Again the category error. And again, if you apply a rule successfully enough times in enough situations, you have validated (or invalidated) your rule depending on observation. Science consists generally of a set of observations and a set of rules that have proved useful to place those observations into a meaningful and predictive context.

He said to give an example of the immaterial being true, I've done just that. He said he would respond to seer's challenge, which is to scientifically validate that only that which scientifically verifiable is true. I'd love to see how he intends to support a philosophical claim using only the scientific method.

I'm not sure this is a meaningful notion. After all, as I've now said repeatedly, testing the results of applying a rule, tests the rule itself. A philosphical claim is useless if it can't be applied somehow, and that application can be evaluated.

I think you don't quite understand the scientific method. You don't understand that the method itself is subject to modification based on utility.

[Truthseeker]

I think you don't quite understand the scientific method. You don't understand that the method itself is subject to modification based on utility.

"Utility"? I think you mean the ability of a theory to predict stuff. One deducts theoretical consequences of a theory or hypothesis, and publishes them. He or others then devises experiments or observations to see if the actual consequences look like those predicted. Perform the experiment and analyze the results. So on.

[phank]

"Utility"? I think you mean the ability of a theory to predict stuff. One deducts theoretical consequences of a theory or hypothesis, and publishes them. He or others then devises experiments or observations to see if the actual consequences look like those predicted. Perform the experiment and analyze the results. So on.

Sounds good. Yes, the utility of a theory is partially its predictive abilities. But theories in science are unifying concepts that explain observations and guide research as well as make predictions.

Gould tells of Darwin attending the London Geological Society meeting, where they decided they had too many theories, and resolved not to produce any more theories until they'd collected enough evidence. Darwin scoffed at this, noting they might as well go to the nearest quarry and measure every pebble. Darwin said no observation in science was of any use unless it either supported or refuted some theoretical view.

So here I'm drawing a distinction between making a prediction, and guiding the nature of the predictions that are worth making.

But in my post, I was saying that the scientific method you present here is only part of the picture, because the method itself has changed over time. This is quite an involved and interesting topic. Here is a brief introduction:

https://explorable.com/history-of-the-scientific-method

[ChaosRain]

He then seemed to be saying that it was the one "exception to the rule".

There's a key difference between stating and offering. Don't twist my words to fit your agenda, because I will make your mistake very clear.