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Dear Squeers,

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You wrote :

« Atheism is as much a world view as its opposite. It's a boast of intellectual purity, a mode of condescension, a withering denunciation, a barely repressed intolerance, an uncritical worship of scientific magic tricks, a faith in the capacity of science to keep us safe and comfortable, and ergo default support for the economic system which facilitates it. Dawkins is as much a high priest as the Pope is; both ride on a tide of populism »

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I, too, find militancy offensive whatever the domain (religion, politics, advertising, etc.) and whoever indulges in it (“high priests”, professionals or simple activists). Happily, though, apart from, perhaps, the world of advertising, whatever the domain, militants invariably constitute a tiny minority of the populations concerned.

Apart from the last sentence in the quotation above, it seems you have given vent to your emotions which has caused you to make sweeping statements which, on reflection, I hope you will agree, has surpassed your reason.

I doubt that any of those who do not feel concerned by religion or its opposite hold the sort of world view you describe.

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You also wrote :

« The implication being that mind/brain is ‘independent’, rather than epiphenomenal, or programed/constructed by the host culture’s conceptual universe … though I cannot deny that apart from genetic disposition, logic dictates that we are programmed from birth »

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If I understand you correctly, the question you raise is: “ Is the mind independent or programmed?” – and you indicate: “My own conviction is that ‘potentially’ the mind ‘is’ at least somewhat free to discriminate”, and you suggest this is not a problem for George who, “as a Christian, believes in a soul”.

You seem to be talking about free will. Though I do not see the connection between a soul and free will, nor your allusion to “genetic disposition”, I, too, consider that we are “somewhat free to discriminate”, that our “programmes” are evolutive and that we dispose of an ever greater degree of autonomy as we continue to develop.

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Squeers,

I’ll have a proper read of what you’ve referred me to and respond in more detail when I have more time (I’ll probably be too busy this weekend to reply) but I still need an answer to my question before I can provide a focused response that doesn’t take up my whole posting allowance for the day in one hit, attempting to address every possibility.

So are you referring to implicit atheism; explicit atheism; strong atheism; some of the above; or all?

At first I assumed that you couldn't possibly be talking about implicit atheism, but after giving it some thought, I'm not so sure now. Some postmodernists and social constructivists place so much faith in the power of words and social constructs to alter reality (usually due to a fear of determinism and the fact that free will may very well just be an illusion) that they'll claim that everything is dependent upon them. The Sokal hoax is a good example of the willingness of some to blindly follow this line of thought.

Just out of interest, here is the article in which Sokal apparently successfully argued that gravity was a social construct; simply by piecing together random text often employed by postmodernists: http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2_noafterword.pdf

It's called, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermaneutics of Quantum Gravity".

I'm providing a link to this because I suspect it will become pertinent to the discussion, at some point.

Squeers,

You apparently are not a retiree like I am, so I appreciate the time you take to reply, although sometimes too tersely. Nevertheless, your posts are almost always an incentive for me to think over more deeply my own position on these, rather abstract, matters.

>>I think scientific realists overestimate its 'adequacy’<<

You misunderstood my use of “adequacy”, and it is my fault: it was NOT to refer to philosophy of science basic views - scientific realism vs van Fraasen’s constructive empiricism - but to representations (e.g. physical theories, mathematical models) that claim to explain and predict phenomena.

Van Fraassen describes his approach as taking “empirical sciences as a paradigm of rational enquiry, and resisting the demands for further explanation that lead to metaphysical extensions of the sciences” and he uses the term “empirical adequacy” to describe acceptance or usefulness of a representation. I happened to have used exactly the same term, “adequacy” in a paper (not in English) based on scientific realism I wrote some 45 years ago (“On the epistemic meaning of mathematical models”), so that is one reason why van Fraassen’s approach called my attention, but at the same time I should have realised that it is not a commonly used term to describe the “truthfulness” of theories, etc.

Also, I should have noted that in this context “science” is implicitly “natural science”, whereas the creators of “second order science” apparently have in mind the broader meaning of “science”, like the German Wissenschaft including also e.g philosophy or theology.

(ctd)

(ctd)

>>I am not an idealist, and certainly accept the reality of the phenomenal universe.<<

I think the difference between scientific realists and constructive empiricists is not about accepting reality of the phenomenal (physical) universe (i.e. not being a solipsist?) but about the (epistemic) approach to it. I think the same holds about “first and second order” science.

>>our minds are ideologically diverted (not constructed).<<

I agree, although I would prefer “culturally influenced” of which ideological diversion is just a special case; the former is mostly given and one can do very little about that, not so the latter: you cannot change the culture you were born into and educated in, but you can strive to free yourself of the influence of harmful, in whatever sense, ideologies.

>>The difference between 'soul' and the others is 'immortality' is it not?<<

Again, immortality comes from religion (with a pre-scientific and non-philosophical understanting of time) so it is usually not applied to mind or consciousness. I am not a Bible specialist (perhaps Peter could clarify us on this) but afterlife sometimes means that your beloved deceased ones live in Heaven and pray for you, and sometimes, they are asleep awaiting resurrection, both interpretations based on a naive (“Kantian”) understanding of time as well as space, categories that do not make sense outside the phenomenal. Some people need these interpretations of their belief. I prefer not to seek interpretations that cannot enhance my world view and/or faith.

(ctd)

George,
As you observed "soul" belongs to religion and not to nature. It is a social construction that has a history. Early Israel had no concept of the soul or its survival after death. The idea of resurrection was late and formed during a time of persecution for obvious reasons. Platonic idealism gave the soul a big boost with the idea of an essence that returns to the One. Christianity chose what it wanted from Platonism and formed it into Neo-Platonism rejecting on the way the idea of reincarnation.

While the continuation of consciousness after death is obviously absurd, the idea that the soul is safeguarded in death is a legitimate theological concept that needs to be teased out. It may simply mean that death is not the last word for us, that even in death the reality of God is not extinguished.

George,
always a pleasure communicating with you and just a shame can't go into it all more deeply. I'm always conscious of the disparity between your efforts and my own, but unlike you I've yet to get a sure foothold in academia.
I have read some philosophy of science and enjoyed it. I don't remember the name of one text in particular, but an interesting character in the field is Roy Bhaskar, who theorised what he called dialiectical realism, striving for an empirical base. Curiously though, he then abandoned the rigour of this world in favour of Eastern mysticism, which now informs his theorising (though his writing is often impenetrable).
An excellent new book on the history of social constructionist thought is "Social Constructionism: Sources and Stirrings in Theory and Practice" (goes right back to Vico!). It's quite compelling.
As always, my own thinking has a practical base and I am first and foremost a critic of capitalist culture (though not a Marxist).
Am happy to note that the Catholic church under Francis is also.
For me, ideology need not be of any political persuasion, rather we are rarely outside ideology in a totalising linguistic sense. The real world, nature, is almost alien to us and our 'reality' is almost totally social construct--and not a happy place.
This is not to lament engagement with nature in any utopian sense, but to rue our neglect of what we essentially are, and equally, to lament our loss of any genuine psychological/spiritual autonomy.
My take on 'pre-scientific' thought is that it is often remarkably astute in accounting for the human condition. It also has the advantage (however problematic) of incorporating ethical guidelines which make far more 'corporeal sense' than our social libertarianism does.
Also, we must not forget that which science dismisses; religion and mysticism also stem from mystical/psychological 'experience'.