Posted: Jan 21, 2019 12:37 am
zoon wrote:I find both supervenience and NOMA problematic. I’ve just looked up “supervenience” in the SEP and promptly became totally confused, so I’m not up to getting technical, I’ll try to explain my disquiet with an analogy.
I don’t understand the innards of my computer. At the moment, my computer is following the rules of Word while I type this post, so as far as I’m concerned my computer is following the rules of Word rather than the laws of physics. I can’t actually tell whether it’s following the laws of physics or not, but I presume it is. Would it be correct, in your view, to say that for my computer at the moment, the rules of Word are supervening on the laws of physics?
No, that would not be correct at all. You are persisting with the mistake of thinking that the religious magisterium replaces some of of the scientific. In most of mainstream Catholicism and Protestantism this is simply not the case. Instead, the supernatural sphere is just added to the material. Your analogy is profoundly misguided. Your computer will always follow the physical laws, and the physical laws only. The rules of Word are just a subset of them. The two magisteria do not overlap or impinge on each other in any way.
The concept of NOMA is of course a sleight of hand in the same way that invoking the existence of a supernatural being is. It explains nothing, and more importantly, no testable evidence for either has been procured. And yes, the concept of supervenience, as it is employed in the religious context, is just as hollow. Nevertheless, the combination of both enable mainstream theists to accept the physical world, laws of physics, mathematics and everything else directly or indirectly connected with all scientific knowledge in their entirety and without exception, while also believing in the existence of a supernatural being. Those bullshit concepts enable them to have their cake and eating it too.
zoon wrote:Theory of Mind [...] It does seem to me that you are missing out on an interesting bit of actual science...
The problem with actual science concerning theories of mind is that philosophers descend on it like flies on shit. I'll have you know that I'm missing out on nothing. I have gone through the works a long time ago in philosophy 101 and 102. Chinese room, brain in a vat, Turing test, AI et cetera. You name it, I've read up on it. Four years ago I took a bit of an informal refresher course, reading up on neuroscience as well as what Penrose, Fodor, Boden, Chalmers, Churchland, Dennett et al. had come up with while I wasn't looking. You can't tempt me into a discussion of mind just now.
zoon wrote:...there is a large quantity of evidence that we are not by any means just naïve inductivists.
Yeah, OK, you can tempt me into discussing epistemology, but this is the wrong thread for it.