The Clash of Physics and Biology

My recent blog post made someone who had previously sent me a friend request write a blog post in the same section that mine was in, as if a passive aggressive reply to mine, except that he didn't have the courage to let me see it: he blocked me. 

I just signed up on this thing, so I noticed my friend count went down, noticed who it was, and figured there might be a post made about me (there almost always is). Yup. There it was. Having wrong beliefs is fine. Unlike the poster, I am okay with that. However, being dishonorable and cowardly is never okay. So I've got to speak on the vicious behavior. 

One would have to be absolutely braindead to think that a challenge to physics from biology amounts to anti-intellectualism or opposition to science. It is clear that the poster is fond of a particular philosophy of science and gets triggered when people have a different approach to the philosophy of science. The poster's approach is what is commonly known as physicalism, as can be seen by his reducing science to physics. 

Biology poses a problem for physics, because it offers a different arrow of time. The arrow of time in physics is the Thermodynamic Arrow of Time, while the arrow of time in biology is the Biological Arrow of Time. The Thermodynamic Arrow of Time is an arrow of decreasing order (entropy), while the Biological Arrow of Time is one of increasing order (syntropy). This fact means that biology cannot be reduced to physics, which is the study of dead things.

These and other such statements are not a rejection of science, except according to the physicalist philosophy of science, whereby all things are reduced to matter and energy working through efficient causation (the Thermodynamic Arrow of Time). They do, however, suggest limits to science, because the Biological Arrow of Time suggests causes placed in the future (quantum retrocausality, teleology), which can never be explored by means of inductive reasoning owing to the aforementioned Problem of Induction. Empirical methods, that is, are methods for studying efficient causes, causes that are placed in the past, and are inappropriate for the direct study of final causes, or retrocausality, which is what is responsible for the differing Biological Arrow of Time. This being so, we can see that scientific methods, so far as we limit those to empirical-inductive approaches of physics, cannot be directly applied to answer philosophical questions relating to life. Maybe this hurts your feelings like it did his, but you can be like him and shut off to it or you can explore these ideas.

I'm not saying physics is not good science. I am saying physics is not good biology, because biology is not physical like that. 

Science cannot possibly be elitist. The Scientific Revolution was founded on ideas such as common sense, observation, and experimentation, which was specifically popular in its conception, insofar as it was a method that could be participated in by the common person, and that appealed to the common person's own senses for verification. There is nothing elitist about this in the least. 

However, the history of the philosophy of science, the history of science, the sociology of science, the anthropology of science, and so-on do not suggest the same for scientists, who are fallible human beings who have worldviews and agendas. Instead, these fields of study, which are interest in the performance of science by scientific agents, suggest that scientists often lie and jockey for power, that they have to limit their studies to what gets the funding, and so-on. Once again, this is science telling us some important limitations to science itself. 

During the Scientific Revolution, and before that into antiquity, science did not require a title. It simply required that one demonstrate their results. Today, the practice of recognized science has been limited to a scientific priesthood. Much like the priests of old, who served as intermediaries between the individual and God, the scientists of today serve to stand as intermediaries between the individual and Nature. In order to persuade us, they utilize titles of nobility (degrees) and make claims beyond the reach of the common person's senses (the very big, the very fall, the very distant, the very deeply covered in ocean, etc.), much as the priests had done. And the common person is not allowed to question this, even if it contradicts what they do know about their senses or other studies of other scientists. This is not a criticism of science, this is a criticism of credentialism and scientists as agents of science. To conflate scientists with science is exactly the sort of priestcraft I am opposing. 

Recognizing philosophical limits to science, uncovered by way of science, does not amount to a rejection of science, and does not require supernatural beliefs in substitute. And it does not mean that there is not legitimate science, even if performed by statists. It is, instead, accepting the fruits of science which demonstrate the limits that natural philosophy already knew existed for science. The inacceptance of this is called scientism, the belief that the only legitimate knowledge is scientific knowledge, which is a fallacious corollary to physicalism.

If the poster wants to get serious about science, he needs to understand that scientists like Erwin Schrodinger, Luigi Fantappie, Albert-Szent Gyorgyi and many others have made the suggestions that I am now repeating. The poster is nearly 100 years behind, and lacks the fortitude to move beyond that. But for those interested in real science and natural philosophy, you're welcome to debate with me. It just takes a little courage and some time.

I never said anything about technology being absolutely bad, as I have been strawmanned. The only absolutism being spouted is from the little pea-brained chicken shit that apparently gets offended by natural philosophical discussion and whines behind their back. Talk about holding progress back.

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Read More!

You can find more like this on my real blog, Ambiarchy Blog, where I cover topics such as:

• Pantheism: The Belief that Nature is God
• Mutualism: The Belief in Anarchy and Cooperation

• Witnessing Shell Theory: An Alternative Natural Cosmology
• Henogenic Volution Out-of-Everywhere: An Alternative Approach to Evolution
• Ambiarchy: An Alternative to Neo-Anarchism