11.02.08
Darwinism/ID: metaphysical deadlock
The Texas evolution battle, Texas case distortions. Why can’t scientists write their own Explore Evolution?, is one more instance of the Kantian metaphysical deadlock in the Darwin debate, a condition that arises when both parties are plying metaphysical assumptions in disguise behind a veneer of science (or religion). It arises with Darwinists from the failure to properly discipline speculation in the assertions made (for, e.g. natural selection) about unobserved totalities (‘deep time’).
One solution, using the model of the eonic effect, is to restrict ourselves to history, and base all of our judgments about culture on the observable historical record, which immediately shows us the greater complexity of the evolution of civilization. This constant reality check will block the many baseless reductionist theses foisted on culture by the obsession with Darwinism.
A selection for World History And The Eonic Effect:
The labyrinth of modern thought is a difficult one in which the unforgiving complexities of parallel dialectical movement, seen in the divergence of idealism and materialism, can leave understanding stranded in the restricted movement of divorced specializations, and paradigms. Issues of ‘materialism’ and ‘idealism’ can vitiate thought, and deserve to be relegated temporarily to the sidelines, so that a practical study can get underway. We can construct our model of the eonic effect on the basis of limited foundations without deciding on key metaphysical issues. The philosophy of materialism is very ancient, for example the Indian Samkhya, and its modern reductionist form can confuse us, and often ceases to serve contemporary thought where the ideas of physical force fields, computer software, infinitesimals, and of information, move to bridge, better replace, the ancient distinctions of material and spiritual. Methodological naturalism, as current in the conduct of science, often muddles the question of ‘naturalism’ in its stances toward mind, consciousness and values, sometimes making them seem ‘spiritual’ unless subjected to reductionist revisionism. It is important to consider the often neglected potential of so-called ‘transcendental idealism’, in its Kantian version. Neither transcendental, nor quite an idealism, it is the perfect complement to Newton. This crude but effective kludge is, at the least, the perfect way to state our problem, whatever its solution.
Whatever the case, the stance of science is appropriate, and a rough and ready ‘materialistic phenomenology’ can be our starting point. But let’s declare the ‘material/spiritual’ distinction bad terminology. The ‘mind’ is not a ‘spiritual’ entity, but it doesn’t follow we can reduce it to simple mechanics. We can make no assumptions about the limits of naturalism, the nature of consciousness or self, based on reductionist preconceptions or extensions of physics. To make natural selection the de facto principle of demarcation was and is a recipe for confusion. One problem is that Western thought is stuck in Cartesianism. And this becomes worse as the attempt is made to transcend this dualism via reductionist materialism. However harebrained, Cartesianism is not worse! Kant’s transcendental idealism and the hybrid dual system of Samkhya are two ways to examine, and bypass, the frequently sterile ‘idealism versus materialism’ dialectic.