Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism

Atheism and Theism 115
cannot, know what it is. A more radical determinacy-preserving proposal is
that the transition is to both states: at this point the universe divides into
two worlds and so does the observer. In world 1 , A goes to B and is observed
to do so by John 1 ; in World 2 A goes to C and this event is recorded by John 2 .
Two points need to be added: first, this is supposed to be happening all the
time, there is endless branching; second, it is in principle impossible to have
trans-world access. So while the particular motivation and details of the
proposal differ from those of the many universes theory the philosophical
position is the same: an unverifiable hypothesis of finitely or infinitely many
wholly distinct actual universes is introduced in order to save having to yield
up doctrines of modern science: the sufficiency of natural explanation and the
determinacy of nature, respectively. Both moves look decidedly ad hoc.
The basic components of the material universe and the forces operating
upon them exhibit properties of stability and regularity that invite explanation
– the more so given the narrow band within which they have to lie in order
for there to be embodied cognitive agents able to investigate and reflect upon
the conditions of their own existence. Even given these improbable cosmic
circumstances the emergence of life, the development of species and the
emergence of rational animals all call for explanations that it does not seem to
be within the power of natural science to provide. The limitations of science
in these respects concern its very nature and the nature of the phenomena in
question. Obviously I have been arguing philosophically and if these arguments
are correct then their conclusions are immune to empirical refutation.
Unsurprisingly, I feel more confident about some phases of my reasoning
than about others. For example, notwithstanding what has been argued,
I think the obstacles to mechanistic reduction of life to chemistry and physics
are fewer than those standing in the way of a naturalistic explanation of mind
and all that it implies.
In connection with the last point let me add a further argument, picking
up some of what I said in sections 1 and 2 about general metaphysical perspectives.
The presuppositions of scientific realism are that there are things
the existence and nature of which are independent of our investigations, and
that we possess intellectual powers adequate to their identification and description.
(This claim allows that not all that exists may be mind-independent and
not all that is may be knowable by us). There is nothing inevitable about this;
the world might not have been intelligible and we might not have had the
kind of intelligence that is shaped to understanding it. The fact that there is
a harmony makes it possible for us to have knowledge of some of the most
profound features of the empirical order. From astronomy to zoology via
chemistry, physics and the rest of the natural sciences, we have discovered an
enormous amount about reality (not to mention non-empirical orders of logic,
geometry, mathematics, and so on).