Michael Patterson
Member
Our allies and co-observers do not bear the knowledge of philosophy of science (skepticism) sufficient to stand up and and say "No - what you are doing is pseudoscience". Hence, one of my reasons for creating The Map of Inference.
TES, every time I read your posts I want to laugh - because you perforate the nonsensical veneer of intellectual competence much favoured by materialists with such verve. Sometimes I scarcely follow the stiletto thrusts of your arguments, but I don't care., Even when I am not certain what a word you have used means, I am still delighted that you have used it - and its meaning flies off to penetrate the blockish mentality of the materialist (which I doubt it will). I await an equally erudite response - which never comes.
I want to gently challenge your notion of pseudoscience and ask you to explain what you mean by it. My objection to materialism is not that it is employed as a starting point -- skepticism is not the only philosophical method - but that it is applied as an a/theology (a set of prerequisite beliefs that must govern all interpretation and to which all conclusions must be obedient).
I struggle to define science beyond a set of determinable methodologies accompanied by a necessity of 'making sense' of data according to beliefs about how the world works. I do not say 'knowledge' of how the world works because I don't think we have that. We have information that must be organised in relation to itself, but without a cosmic context (which can only be guessed at or inferred in rational terms) I do not see that we can call that information knowledge.
Of course on a mundane level where the context is defined there is different story. The master bread baker or the skilled mechanic employ approaches we must call scientific if they produce good bread and functioning cars. But they are not 'scientists' in the manner we are seduced into believing is the only valid meaning of the term - because we have heard the propaganda and manipulation endlessly.
Why is a bloke in lab coat with a PhD in the comparative textures of gnat's bollocks more of 'scientist' than a dedicated gardener or cook?
This is why I wonder what pseudoscience is. If we are talking methodology then it is either scientific or it is not - and nothing pseudo about it - its just crap methodology otherwise. If we are talking interpretation of data into forming knowledge I can imagine that the philosophical method employed to do so can be either strong or weak. But its either a proper philosophical approach or a BS one.
I am not even sure that materialism, per se, constitutes a philosophy. I have read materialistic philosophers with neither pleasure nor profit -because they seem to me to be merely obedient to the a/theology problem - you have assumed truths you cannot violate in inquiry or assertion.
For me then, all beings being equal, science is one of two things - method plus proper philosophy or method plus a/theology. I would agree that materialism is a pseudoscience only because a/theology is a pseudo philosophy. Here I might be considered to be a bit of a pedant. Philosophy is the 'love of wisdom' and this is very different to forming knowledge. If the boundaries of permissible thought are set before the game begins what is to be won save the realisation that the boundaries have no meaning?
You may have detected that I have no regard for materialism. This is not a personal animus. It is an empirical one. My life experiences absolutely, flatly and relentlessly contradict the foundational premises of materialism. It can be true and valid only if I am mad. That is to say I could not employ the precepts of materialism to my life and conclude that I am sane or rational. And since I am manifestly both where does that put materialism?
Pseudoscience or crap science?