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author Henry Thompson <ht@markup.co.uk>
date Mon, 10 Mar 2025 16:49:32 +0000
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70:4e363f3305c9 72:c0bce3eff53a
1 Four Working versions of GA in the files (A--D), plus the reference
2 version
3
4 Plan was to read those. But haven't. Again. So maybe we should do
5 that together. But larger things have
6 been on my mind.
7
8 Did reread most of the reference version. It struck me as extremely
9 compressed, dense. A lot of mulling and consideration has been
10 cmopressed in a small amount of prose.
11
12 Maybe I/we should just read through it and "let the thing breath",
13 [that is, try to expand that sort of density where we find it].
14
15 One consideration of whether the religious (not theological)
16 sensibility/attempt to tie the paper to religious themes -- how much
17 weight should that have? For the moment that sensibility has been in
18 the driver's seat. Not sure if that's best. Another possibility is
19 to let the metaphysical content be given voice, and then to comment on their
20 potential relation to religious sensibilities. In other words, give
21 more emphasis to the world views and ease up on the religious
22 impliciations.
23
24 So, let this be an exposition of the metaphysics, and leave the
25 religious connection until later.
26
27 The undone homework is the get ahold of what the narrative arc of the paper
28 is. It's not clear to me as it stands, but the above distinction is
29 maybe necessary for giving some clarity.
30
31 Brian will have a look at classifying some paragraphs wrt to whether
32 the are primarily addressed towards exposition of the world view, or
33 exposition of its relation to religious sensibility.
34
35 ===== 4 March =====
36
37 Brian has looked at sections 1&2 of the reference version. Doing a
38 classification seemed good, color-coding for yellow for relig-sens,
39 blue for exposition of world-view and green for the relationship.
40
41 Section 2, pp 6--13, is almost all green. On 2nd reading, Brian says
42 "mostly redundant".
43
44 -----
45 Let's say that this thing should be less compressed, more relaxed,
46 easier to access for a non-academic audience
47
48 1) Forget the 'G' part and r-s, just give a non-academic
49 version of the world-view, just stated, not so much defended;
50
51 2) Another, given that, what are the implications for not r-s as
52 such, but the issues which have been dealt with by the religious
53 traditions
54
55 I worry about both of these - that a sort of secular summary (i.e. 1)
56 will just devolve into a secular summary of 03 (Objects book)
57
58 So given limited time, we focus on (2), relating the world-view to
59 r-s.
60
61 Because although that's what R-V is trying to do, but it's pretty bad
62 at it.
63
64 --------
65
66 Trying to mine/milk "the current state of science" to prop up or
67 ... the new world-view (ref. O3) and from that to derive morals.
68
69 But a) the current state of science is not well enough articulated
70 to give the reader a sense of the new world-view
71 b) and it doesn't actually make the connection
72 to lead the reader to a morality
73
74 More seriously, the curret state of science doesn't so much compel the
75 new world view as make room for it
76
77 Does this mean that O3 needs to be updated to take account of what has
78 happened since (e.g. LMMs). And to articulate the new world view.
79
80 So how, given that we can't "full on" deliver the new wv here, what is
81 the minimum necessary to declare victory -- what GA might/should do is
82 to just _state_ the nwv, w/o trying to convincingly/thoroughly argue
83 for it.
84
85 ================10/3=====
86
87 The picture of science as it stands is not clear enough/compelling
88 enough to support the morals I want to draw from it.
89
90 New section 1: Look, these two sets of sensibilities can't be treated
91 as independent anymore, because the subject matter of r-s have in fact
92 been domesticated by scientific results.
93
94 For example, the views that C. was attributing to FK, are that these
95 two world-views. Maybe 'Quietist' should be 'Compatabilist', because
96 FK was saying science is (just) an articulation of the glory of God's
97 creation. _Ad maioram Dei gloriam_
98
99 [HST summarises: The Quietist says "yes, the scientists are doing a
100 great job on Question 1, and it gets better all the time, but that has
101 nothing to do with Question 2: for that I have the Church"]
102
103 The ideological claim wrt the s-r is that it's complete and sufficient.
104
105 This (that these forms of thinking are distinct) is no longer a
106 tenable division. [I.e. the compatibilist is mistaken]
107
108 These two sets of world-views are no longer tenably opposed. Because
109 people are trying to corral a whole bunch of topics into the scientific
110 ones.
111
112 Is there anything like a consensus/received wisdom as to what those
113 two forms of understanding are? On the science side, people might
114 assume that it's causal explanations (mechanism). The (r-s?) critique
115 of that might be that the pure mechanism story can't even account for
116 physical objects, to say nothing of
117 intentionality/reference/social/purpose/beauty/love/humaneness.
118
119 Call the Scientific world=view the scientific _register_.
120
121 We've shifted from what can be said in the scientific register to what
122 the scientific register is incapable of explaining.
123
124 [HST:
125 The Scientific ideological _claim_ wrt the s-r is that it's complete and sufficient.
126
127 The Compatablilist position is that it's self-consistent, but _not_ sufficient.
128 ]
129
130 [HST: what's the other one?]
131
132 [HST: write a two-page version? A skeleton]
133
134
135 ----------------
136 For discussion with Jill:
137 1) Jim's visit;
138 2) Repayment to Catharine
139 3) BCS to New Brunswick in August