An unintended consequence of this "professionalization of science," according to Snyder, is a rift between science and the rest of the world. As Snyder puts it:
Once scientists became members of a professional group, they were slowly walled off from the rest of us. This is the unintended consequence of the revolution that started with our four friends.
Is this a problem? Should science be "for the public" and "not only for scientists"?
There is a missing step in these conceivability arguments, however, since the mere possibility that p doesn't entail that p is actual, whereas physicalism and mind-body identity theories are theories about the actual world.
Descartes, of course, realized this, and so, in his conceivability argument, there is a step from mere possibility to actuality (even though it ultimately fails). This step is the following:
I know that everything which I clearly and distinctly understand is capable of being created by God so as to correspond exactly with my understanding of it.
So, Descartes' conceivability argument looks something like this:
I can conceive of the mind as separate from the body.
If I can conceive of the mind as separate from the body, then God could have created the mind without the body.
(Therefore) God could have created the mind without the body.
[Notice why Descartes' conceivability argument ultimately fails: even if God could have created the mind as separate from the body, it doesn't necessarily mean that he did.]
Nowadays, some dualists might be reluctant to appeal to God in support of their theories. So, can the gap in conceivability arguments be bridged?
personal identity consists in memory; sameness of episodic memory is metaphysically necessary and sufficient for sameness of persons. In other words, on the Memory Theory, what makes a person identical with herself over time is her remembering or being able to remember the events to which she was witness or agent. If she cannot episodically remember an event, then she is not identical with any of the persons who was witness or agent to the event. In such a case, she would bear the same relation to that event as any other person for whom a memory of the event could rise at best to the level of a semantic memory. If she can episodically remember an event, then her recollection or ability to recall that event makes her identical with the person represented in that memory as agent or witness to the even.
If it is true that one has to sleep in order to remember past events, and sleep is a period of interrupted consciousness, and hence interrupted personhood (as the Memory Theory entails), does it mean that one has to cease to exist as the same person in order to continue to exist as the same person? And if so, does that make sense? If it doesn't make sense, should the Memory Theory of personal identity be abandoned?
One of the traditional responses to the problem of evil is that evil is a privation. That is, evil is not a real entity but rather the lack or absence of goodness. Just as blindness is a privation of sight, the response goes, evil is a privation of goodness.
This response to the problem of evil assumes a dualistic picture of "opposites": blindness and sight, cold and heat, good and evil, etc. But there seems to be a confusion here. Take, for example, cold and heat. 'Heat' is a noun that denotes a physical phenomenon (i.e., the energy associated with molecular motion). 'Cold', on the other hand, is not a noun. It is an adjective, used to describe the temperature of things. So heat and cold are not "opposites," as evidenced by the fact that the proper adjective to contrast with 'cold' is 'hot'.
Similarly, as far as the problem of evil is concerned, 'evil' is a noun that denotes a variety of phenomena, such as war, genocide, famine, epidemics, etc. 'Good', on the other hand, is not a noun. It is an adjective, used to describe something agreeable, favorable, etc. So evil and good are not "opposites," as evidenced by the fact that the proper adjective to contrast with 'good' is 'bad'.
If this is correct, does that mean that the privation response fails as a response to the problem of evil?
In the NOVA program, Newton's Dark Secrets, it is claimed that Newton's work in physics was informed by his work in alchemy. For example, it seems that he thought of the force of gravity as an active principle, such as the one thought to be in operation in the so-called "vegetation of metals."
Is alchemy a pseudoscience? If so, why? What makes it different from chemistry?
Also, what can we learn from Newton's case about the nature of scientific discovery? Are there factors involved in scientific discovery that are not purely rational or logical? If so, what are those factors?
In the Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes puts forward something like the following argument:
My senses (particularly, my sense of vision) tell me that the line on the right is longer than the line on the left (see image of Muller-Lyer illusion below).
Based on what I see, I come to believe that the line on the right is longer than the line on the left.
But the two lines are of equal length (as we can find out by measuring them).
Hence, my senses led me to believe a false statement (namely, that the line on the right is longer than the line on the left).
If my senses made me believe a false statement once, I cannot be sure that it will not happen again.
My senses made me believe a false statement once.
Therefore, I cannot be sure that my senses won't deceive me again (i.e., make me believe false statements).
Muller-Lyer illusion
One of the ways in which empiricists have responded to this worry about the senses is by saying that information received by means of one sensory modality can be verified by information received by means of another sensory modality. For example, Locke says that we can confirm a report from one of the senses with another report from another sense (e.g., if I doubt that I see a fire, I can approach it and feel its warmth). According to Locke, "Our senses, in many cases, bear witness to the truth of each other's report concerning the existence of sensible things without us."
However, given what we now know about how the senses work, it seems that this empiricist reply will not do. Instead of confirming each other's reports, it seems that the senses often override each other's reports. For example, a phenomenon known as the McGurk effect shows that visual reports override auditory reports.
Is this a problem for empiricists? If so, how might empiricists respond to this challenge?
