[Q]: I know neither of you believes in paranormal experiences like telepathy or clairvoyant dreams or contact with the dead. But hypothetically, suppose even one of these experiences were proven beyond a doubt to be real. Would the materialist position on the mind-brain question collapse in a single stroke?
[Pinker]: "Yeah."
Science has a long history of coming across unanticipated phenomena and growing to encompass them. If telepathy were discovered to be real, scientists wouldn't conclude that minds are something more than physics can explain - they'd conclude that their physics was incomplete. The idea that "the materialist position on the mind-brain question would collapse in a single stroke" is absurd.
When scientists couldn't account for all of the mass-energy in nuclear decay processes, did 'materialism' collapse? No - we predicted the existence of the neutrino, a material particle with truly extraordinary properties, but still part of the material world.
I think it's a kind of arrogance to say that our science is complete.
She wrote books on Gödel, and this was the result? Of course our science isn't complete. There IS no complete science.
The idea that "the materialist position on the mind-brain question would collapse in a single stroke" is absurd.
Absolutely. The logic of anti-materialism is inchoate. Radio waves aren't evidence against materialism so why would telepathy?
Anytime "normal science" is possible, it is materialist science (because you can't study something that is "supernatural"). Anytime "normal science" is not possible it is simply unknown. Nothing is or can be evidence for supernaturalism, because it is conceptually incoherent.
Wow, that was well worth the read. Wasn't too keen on some of the questions, though...
I wasn't too keen on some of the answers.
Science has a long history of coming across unanticipated phenomena and growing to encompass them. If telepathy were discovered to be real, scientists wouldn't conclude that minds are something more than physics can explain - they'd conclude that their physics was incomplete. The idea that "the materialist position on the mind-brain question would collapse in a single stroke" is absurd.
When scientists couldn't account for all of the mass-energy in nuclear decay processes, did 'materialism' collapse? No - we predicted the existence of the neutrino, a material particle with truly extraordinary properties, but still part of the material world.
She wrote books on Gödel, and this was the result? Of course our science isn't complete. There IS no complete science.
The idea that "the materialist position on the mind-brain question would collapse in a single stroke" is absurd.
Absolutely. The logic of anti-materialism is inchoate. Radio waves aren't evidence against materialism so why would telepathy?
Anytime "normal science" is possible, it is materialist science (because you can't study something that is "supernatural"). Anytime "normal science" is not possible it is simply unknown. Nothing is or can be evidence for supernaturalism, because it is conceptually incoherent.