Platonic Realism vs. Science, Evolution, Etc.

Question: How badly does Platonic Realism interfere with science, secularism, evolutionary biology, etc.?

The scientistic response to Platonic Realism (PR) is that it violates scientific principles - empirical observability and verifiability (I'll leave "falsifiability" aside for now), testability, explanatory power, and other related concepts.

It's safe to say that PR is anti-scientific because it violates a central principle of cognition as such: induction. A fully philosophically-worked-out theory of induction wasn't made possible until the 20th century; that theory itself, of course, would have to be inductively-based. Induction is axiomatic-level; to try to deny it is to reaffirm it. Plato's Realism by its very nature is not inductively-based, but pure floating abstraction in the most applicable and fitting sense. By consequence it has no explanatory power (philosophically, this irresolvable problem is stated in such terms as "problem of partaking," a nice precursor to Cartesian "mind-body problem" given the basic principle involved: the commonsense-impossible "interaction" between the supernatural and the natural). By being an intrinsically floating theory, it cannot be reduced to the perceptual, hence the reason there is no testability, observability, or verifiability.

The question that initially occurred to me in the context of this thread was whether PR is empirically false given the established theory of evolution. The question came to mind because in evolution there are no Eternal Forms, but always transitional forms, and that the form of Man (in scientific terms: human DNA) was not actualized until some point in time, which means the form of Man is contingent, finite, etc. I'm guessing - without having given the matter much thought at all yet - that there is a proposed workaround of some sort to shelter PR from this particular refutation. After all, we might simply say that it is arbitrary, referencing beings entirely beyond the realm of the empirical, making it empirically unverifiable as well as unfalsifiable.

And adept advocate of PR might say that its not being "empirical" is not a philosophical problem, and that philosophy needn't be beholden to science (rather than vice versa). But the more adept philosopher than that, will say that PR is nonetheless arbtirary and fails to be inductive.

Aristotle is in a weird limbo-area on all this. His philosophical method was admirably inductive, but he was still limited by his own variant of Plato's Realism, also known as Moderate Realism. The first, first question I asked myself in the context of this thread was, "What was holding Aristotle back from positing what Darwin did over 2,000 years later? Was he lacking in the relevant empirical observations?" (I'll note here that Ayn Rand did not given an opinion on the theory of evolution when the subject came up. My best guess is that she did not regard herself as someone in a position - such as that of a biologist - to render a verdict on the matter. However, biology was one of Aristotle's chief areas of focus.) The supposed positing of the seed of evolutionary theory would be based on a straightforward observation of similarity between man and very similar animals - it might well have to involve higher primates. But if Form is thought to be eternal and unchanging, then the very notion of humans and other primates having a common ancestor might not even occur.

I'll just note in passing that PR as well as Moderate (Aristotelian-Thomistic) Realism is all-too-convenient cover for creationist views about our origins. Indeed, the notion of there being such a thing as Eternal Form, absent a Creator, is weird, to say the least, and probably incoherent. Aquinas performed a most understandable integration in his context. Let not this inference stand in place of the other (cosmological and ontological) arguments for God's existence, however.

The very problems stated here are the main reason scientists have basically cast off philosophy as useless to their field. Post-Aquinas and the Scholastics - with Bacon and others - modern science, called "natural philosophy" at the time, took on its own form independent of philosophy. At the same time, it has also had remarkable practical success - way more success than the humanities have had, in the meantime. (The Humanities are so screwed up that there may well have been regression since that time.) Some (understandably ignorant) scientists have used this track record of comparative progress as a victory cry for science and a reason to dismiss philosophy.

Here's what happened with the development of science: Well, first, there was Aquinas bringing Aristotle back into the fold, bringing with him a revival of this-worldly concerns. This led to the Renaissance and to the scientific revolution. Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, however, would have been of limited use, at best, in formulating the basic methods of the natural sciences. Now, simply as a matter of practical necessity, rational principles of natural philosophy had to be discovered and formulated - and they were. The basic methodological principle? Induction.

Induction is the basic method of learning and cognition. It involves a painstaking process of organizing sensory observations into a coherent generalizable whole, in which later observations and theories build upon the earlier ones. Einstein, for instance, had the same knowledge-base Newton had to work with, and then some. So in some important, crucial and relevant sense, Einstein's theories did not contradict Newton's. Newton wasn't all of a sudden overturned and repudiated; Newton was working from a more limited base of knowledge, is all.

This point might not matter much to the practical scientist - their working methods get results, and that's mainly what matters to them - but it does indicate a proper epistemological approach. Theories can turn out to be wrong; observations cannot; the role of epistemology is to determine what conclusions and theories are warranted given the knowledge-base, such that later conclusions do not contradict earlier ones. (Philosophy's role is to explain in underlying terms how it is that induction is practical; it has something to do with these things called identity and causation, concepts pretty darn well undermined by Pragmatism and plenty other bastardizations of inductivist method to come out of analytic philosophy in the last century-plus. Thanks a lot, Kant.)

The reason that science made leaps and bounds over philosophy in the last few hundred years is that science was based on induction, while philosophy was not. Philosophy, at the hands of Descartes and the rest, floundered; these thinkers failed to identify at root the principles of induction as applied to all areas, including philosophy itself. Their basic anti-inductive psycho-epistemological paradigm, emulated en masse by philosophers to this very day? Rationalism. (And a heaping dose of social metaphysics thrown in for good measure.) That paradigm, however, is about to change, thank Rand.

(Note: I write this without yet having read Harriman's The Logical Leap.)

The Singularity Already Happened?

Once in a while, the Daily Dish has an especially interesting link. This one makes a case that the Singularity has already happened.

Oddly/interestingly enough, the 19th century on through right around WWI is that Golden Age in human history Miss Rand waxed so poetically about. Hell, come the early 1900s, the USA may well have been on the verge of utopia. Then, the assholes took over. I'm speaking, of course, of "progressive" pragmatists who had no answer to, or embraced, the fucking socialists (who'd already been chewed up and spit out by Mises, but his book was in German and so the readership was limited for a time). Having no answer to socialism, and facing economic crises, pragmatic experimentation with the American people's liberties set in. The results have been - seeing as the consequence has been a mixed economy (the legacy of pragmatism) - shall we say, mixed.

Just imagine extrapolating the 19th century onward. Where would we be now? Economic analysis - the competent capitalist stuff, not the incompetent or dishonest socialist stuff, or the pathologically-agnostic pragmatist stuff - says that we'd be way richer by now. One academic-style myth we should do away with, is this idea that human history is evolving toward something not all that capitalistic but rather some hybrid of capitalism and government controls. That myth is a legacy of pragmatism, which has this pathological tendency towards mixing, compromising, and reconciling. (When pragmatism dispenses with an accessible, stable, underlying causal reality and settles for "overlapping consensus" and other such buzzwords, the only result is a mixing of what's true and what's not true.) But let's just envision a world in which 40 percent of the country's resources aren't directed by fucking politicians, bureaucrats, public employees unions, and the rest of the pro-forced-stagnation crowd.

Now, it's a completely dishonest Marxist myth that prior to Big Government, America was having it pretty bad. One need only look at the progression between the Declaration of Independence to Henry Ford's assembly line to see the improvements for all classes of economic actors. What this says is that we shouldn't let the fucking Marxists dictate history to the rest of us - which is exactly what happened when those fucking Marxists took over the History (and other) departments. That has cost us decades of progress. So much for the "progressive," i.e., pragmatist-liberal, strategy of embracing A (freedom) and not-A (socialism) at the same time.

Now, my thesis is that the Singularity has begun, and that it began here. I have advertised this very blog as your headquarters for the Singularity. So what's all this stuff about a past Singularity? First off, Ray Kurzweil's concept of the Singularity centers around technology - and it's rather evident that we are headed into a true space-age of technology in the coming decades. I don't think it's relevant that this coming space-age is only a continuation of trends we've already had; the fact is that the past trends produced major technological advancement that had not reached the space-age tipping point that Kurzweil is talking about. What Kurzweil is talking about is such an advance over what we've seen already - given a geometric progression - that we can hardly imagine what humanity would look like a few generations from now.

So what's this business about the Singularity beginning here? Well, tying back into the 19th-century growth period, we have a record of the awesome success of the capitalistic system. The "new" Singularity is a return to that model. But going back to that model would merely be a consequence of a more fundamental underlying cause: a philosophical revolution. Kurzweil's prediction concerns technology; my conception of the Singularity is more all-encompassing and fundamentals-oriented than that. What we are looking at is an intellectual revolution.

We've had intellectual revolutions before, but not of the kind I'm talking about. Kant, for instance, initiated an intellectual revolution. Christianity represented an intellectual revolution. Marxism represented an intellectual revolution. Aquinas (i.e., Aristotle) represented an intellectual revolution. Aquinas aside, these revolutions were a false start, a fuck-up, a diversion, a regression, what have you. (Absolutely I consider the Christian era until Aquinas a regression compared to the ancient Greek era. I'd go so far as to say that because of the horrendous psycho-epistemology involved - the astonishing levels of denigration of the intellect - the West suffered roughly 1,500 lost years. Of course, with the denigration of this-worldly concerns involved, these Lost Years don't and shouldn't really matter to the medievalist mystics. Nice going, anti-reason assholes!) Now, with the help of Ayn Rand's philosophy - namely her theory of concepts and general methodology - we finally have a chance to get it right.

We are now at a tipping point, intellectually. We are now finally on the verge of getting our epistemological house in order. We are finally at a point, given our historical progression of fits and starts, of reaching intellectual maturity. Kurzweil's conception of the Singularity is one of technological maturity. Technology, however, is deadly in the hands of those empowered by a deadly worldview. With the intellectual maturity, we also get a moral maturity.

Given the history of human evolution, consider humanity's intellectual and moral maturation a matter of moving beyond a lesser stage of development or maturation. Religion is like the product of a child-level epistemology, one of dependence on authority, before a more critical or questioning stage comes about. That critical or questioning stage - analogous to adolescence in an individual - began some 2,500 years ago with the advent of Philosophy. The child-epistemology religion-attachment stays around during this period until the conflict is worked out; that working out is the onset or maturation or adulthood. (David L. Norton refers to the stage of maturation in an individual as eudaimonia.) The course of history, all the way from the primordial ooze up through the present day, is ample demonstration of this development.

I mean, isn't it obvious once you think about it?

The only issue now is how much ultimately-futile opposition, denial, sneering, fear-mongering, etc. is going to get in the way of this progress toward full maturation.