Quote:
|
Originally Posted by David Bailey Incomplete theories are fine if they are proposed tentatively, but so often the skeptics try to assert that their ideas are the only ones that make sense - and then they really need to have a coherent outline as to how their theory works (IMHO). |
I think maybe skeptics are saying that the scientific model is the only one that makes sense because all the philosophical models are vapid. There are few hypotheses derived from these metaphysical models and even fewer experiments run to test them. Psi is claimed as evidence, but there is a disconnect between the results of psi experiments and any model. Some people even claim that there is no way to test metaphysical models scientifically.
In my case, I go out on a limb and make the claim that if everyone sat down and worked out the details of their metaphysical models---fundamental existents, their attributes, behavior, manifestations, and so forth--to the point where the models explained everything we see around us, then the models would all be equivalent. What we called the fundamental existents would be nothing other than playing with labels.
This would require the physicalists to make much more progress in the understanding of the physical world. It would require the idealists to specify the behavior of mindstuff. Right now, idealists answer all queries about the mechanisms of mind with "well, it just falls out of the fact that everything is mindstuff." This is no better than scientists saying "Well, it just falls out of the fact that everything is energy."
~~ Paul