This is a reasonable discussion, although I do not share the
materialistic bias of both, as in my view since the proof of
non-locality it has been impossible to justify a view in which things
simply are where they are, and not somewhere else. It is a source of
on-going interest to me how many leading academics continue to hawk 19th
century physical models. I will give you the end of the story:
Einstein failed. His version of mechanistic physics was disproven.
In
my own moral system I question both the possibility and desirability of
final answers to moral questions, such as “is homosexuality wrong?” I
posit that proper answers to moral questions are local (contextualized) ,
necessary (no need to render a decision on homosexuality absent a need
to render a specific decision) , and imperfect. The quest for the
exact, mathematically correct answer is inappropriate in a non-linear
system, which is what human behavior is.
I posted the other day
that “philosophy is what we do on the way to something else”, and what I
intended was that as I grow in what I will call my understanding it
increasingly seems to me that the point of reason is not intellectual
clarity, but a subjectively pleasant emotional state. Mr. Krause, for
example, feels a sense of satisfaction in the sense of order his very
pleasant but static system creates.
I say static, since if we are
not different in principle than rocks, then life is an illusion. Free
will is an illusion. Nothing CHOOSES anything. There are no random
events in the world. Nothing MOVES but rather is moved.
Quantum
physics, of course, posits constantly randomness, but no orthodox
materialists that I have debated really want to deal with the
implications of the theory, although certainly some very bright men,
like Richard Feynman, both understood the details and refused to examine
the implications.
These rough topics are near and dear to my
heart, since in the end, our ability to succeed as a human race is going
to require dealing EMOTIONALLY with the results of our ontology, which
for the scientistic is clear beyond doubt, and amenable to coherent
analysis as something OUT THERE, which I do not think it is.
I posted this the other day: http://www.moderatesunited.blogspot.com/2012/09/vulgaron.html
I
came up with the word “vulgaron”, which is one unit of vulgarity.
Logically, if scientism is correct that all observable phenomena are
measurable, one ought to be able to measure vulgarity, correct? But
will not one hundred people rate things each a bit differently? And is
this process made precise through statistics? Of course not, it is
formally complex, and the result of mutable subjectivity.
And to
the point, the worth of our lives is the worth of our emotional lives,
and it seems clear to me that the scientistic impulse Acts To, in a
Hayekian sense, reduce our trust in our own emotions, our spontaneity,
and thus many of the most simple joys in life.
Obviously science
builds things, but looking around, at oceans of “Fifty Shades of Grey”
being sold to housewives, the prevalance of torture porn and zombie
parades, the rates of anti-depressant use, can people really say we are
on the way, now, to building a better society:? I don’t see it, and the
core problem is the neglect of philosophy, which in my view links one
emotional state with another. That is its primary purpose.