Massimo Expands

Although a triple PhD, Massimo Pigliucci has always seemed to entrench himself in scientism, a regrettable effect of his relentless materialism and his intellectual burial in evolution. Now, however, he has transferred (professionally) from academic evolutionary science into the academic counter world of philosophy, a move that has seemed to influence a shift in his conclusions. No, he has not changed his worldview axiom of monism, nor his disdain for dualism. But he has opened the door of his mind for non-empirical entities to exist.

His recent post, On the Difference Between Science and Philosophy, shows the degree of emerging openness of that door. In fact, much of his discussion can almost be taken as dualist in the sense that he maintains, now, that science has its basis in philosophical underpinnings that are not empirically testable. To which I must say: (!)

Still, it has not occurred to Massimo that non-empirical testability implies non-physical existence, which in turn implies dualism at the most fundamental level. Or if it has occurred to him, he has suppressed the thought for whatever reason.

In fact in his subsequent post on Free Will, he takes the position that free will seems to exist, but in fact doesn’t. This is due, in part, to the testing of decisions vs. awareness of decisions using electrical testing of the operation of the brain, which claims that decisions are made prior to our awareness of them. Of course this argument is circular: how can we legitimately conclude (decide) that certain effects are attached to certain causes, if we have only the appearance of free will, but are not really free to make rational decisions? And wouldn’t Massimo’s tract merely appear to him to be freely written, and not based on rationally determined decisions forced by consciously chosen intellectual precursor thoughts? Why is the decision being made in the first place? And based on what inputs? And the conclusion is forced by what process? The forcing function for the original decision is clearly not understood - so why use that incomplete finding as an axiom, other than a knee-jerk sort of scientism?

But other than a couple of unwarranted conclusions (e.g. both science and philosophy prove Atheism), Massimo’s “sci-phi” post is a step in the right direction. I do wish that he would have placed the First Principles in the post, along with the axiomatic progression to the scientific method. Because without that intellectual evidence, his assertions are unsupported.

Maybe he will get to that sometime in the future. Perhaps his audience is not ready for such a leap this early in Massimo's new intellectual life.