epistemology, plus a couple of not real words

Okay, so I blame homework. School generally. I was gonna think about other things. But no. Epistemelogical quandarifying (not a real word) it is.

I just finished a week-long modular class of evangelism and apologetics. Not my favourite subjects, as taught, which might have been detected in previous posts. Mostly because ... well, that's a rant that doesn't need to be indulged, actually, so never mind.

Apologetics in particular is a strange animal. I am not a systematic thinker, at least in the linear sense that "systematic" evokes. I have come to observe that I think in sprawling networks, which works for me, and usually turns out to be thorough enough to satisfy my standards. So although I love the host of ideas and debates and discovery that comes with discussing the issues involved, I tune out pretty quickly when it becomes the If This, Then That formula for the shape of the argument. It works as logic. Not as the artform of conversation. I suspect this is why I've never been all that interested in studying philosophy formally.

Anyhow, it's at that point that I start chasing up related things in my head, rather than paying strict attention to the process of ensuring a sound premise, for example.

Still somewhat in that mindframe, I was wandering around teh interwubs, and came across a few new interesting sites. One blog in particular was refreshingly and pungently intellectual, and intensely devoted to naturalism; the author, Peter Watts, seems as fascinated by cognition, sociology, politics, astronomy, perception and being opinionated as I am, but from a polar-opposite ideology, and was duly added to bookmarks.

I have yet to come to a conclusion of how rigorously he examines his own predispositions and reasoning, but he seems capable of calm discussion; unfortunately, the only reason I found links to the blog was because he is currently suffering a legal ordeal with the travestical (not a real word) border security laws of the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave – or, as he put it, "a justice system which criminalizes the flinch response" – of which we appear to share the exact same opinion. Even so, he's able to write about his situation with balance, so that seems promising.

Some of his posts set off a cascade of musing, in particular a recent one called "The Neurology of Trandscendence", discussing a point in the brain (the posterior parietal cortex, for those who desperately wanted to know) which deals with processing physical self-perception. The existence – or malfunctioning – of which gives rise to a (faulty) sense of there being a spiritual realm. Out-of-body experiences, the sense of the presence of God, energy chakra, that sort of thing. At least, that's what I gather the basic idea was. I haven't yet read the paper his post was referencing, although I might get around to it soon if I can.

In the comments (which were a little too echo-chamber-ish for my comfort of mind, but anyhow), one person said that it might surprise people to learn that some religious academics would take the same information and decide it meant the contrary, that we were designed with a "God channel" in the brain. I most certainly was – it kind of astonishes me that anyone with any imagination at all couldn't grasp the idea that facts are often interpreted in different ways by different people. That facts relate to, but do not equal, information or meaning.

This is one of my main problems with "scientific" inquiry as a method for evaluating the validity of any ideology or worldview. The first, and most obvious one, is that the scientific method is itself an ideology, so using its findings to judge validity inherently assumes that its ideology is: a) superior; and b) capable and relevant to the rendering of such a judgement. Absent any compelling reason, I'm not willing to grant the former, and the latter is patently absurd in many cases.

This is an interesting little philosophical snare: ask someone why their ruling ideology, to which they subject truth-claims in order to assess validity, is or ought to be the ultimate criteria. If they use their own ideology to justify it, it has problems. If they use a different ideology to justify it, it has problems. If they use their own ideology to justify it without acknowledging that it doesn't have the capacity to, they have problems. (If they use the sum total of information and understanding, past, actual and potential, in the universe and anything outside it, to justify it, they are God. Start bowing.)

For example: Empirically-tested and/or observable phenomena – scientific method – is the only way to establish knowable truth.
Response: Oh? How do you know that?
If the answer is something along the lines of "It has been tested and verified," then at least they are staying true to their ideology, but you may as well walk away now if you were looking for a fruitful conversation.

And that's another problem, since I appear to be picking on the secular scientific mindset today. Naturalism insists that the material universe is all there is, that we are simply a complex collection of chemicals, mechanisms, and functions. Fascinating as that is as a concept, you have just undermined your entire argument as far as I'm concerned. If that is all you are, all anybody is, including the people who came up with that theory, then why on earth should I accept your reasoning? Haven't you just told me that any meaning you come up with is meaningless? Haven't you just told me that anything you discover is merely the product of imperfect naturalistic processes happening far beyond and beneath your control? If the supernatural realm is merely a malfunction of the brain, how sound is the logical-reasoning part of the brain? Haven't you just committed the same order of fallacy as the person who says, "trust me, I'm a liar"?

To reference another of Watt's posts, he gives a passing nod to the study of statistics when pointing out that correlation is not causality. So I conclude with asking: just why do we imagine that conclusions drawn from facts lead to ideology, and not the other way around?