I don’t even know what Wilkins is complaining about anymore, but he’s got some kind of objection (or agreement? I don’t know) to things I’ve said before or didn’t say. This is the danger of getting into discussions with philosophers — they’re saying something with great erudition, but sometimes you don’t quite see the point, except that they must say something.
Anyway, it’s something about the conflict between science and religion this time. At least I can try to say what I mean. I’m not going to worry about whether it answers what he asks, whatever it is.
Obviously, there is nothing wrong on this account with stating that evolution makes it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. This might very well be true. But the claim that extends beyond this, that to be true to the science one must be an atheist (which some do make, although not, I think, Dawkins and PZ – this is more an inference from their rhetoric than a claim they have actually made) is unwarranted, to use philosophical legalese.
John is correct: I have several times said that I know some very good scientists who are also religious, so the white crow has already flown on that claim. But I do not simply regard the assertion as falsified.
In the comments there, Thony C. brings up a good point.
But the science is not the basis for that tack, and if it’s bad to teach religious metaphysics as science, it’s equally unacceptable to teach irreligious metaphysics as science, that’s all.
The sentence quoted above, with which I am in total agreement, raise the very important question as to whether a metaphysically neutral or even metaphysically free science is possible?
Wilkins says that a “science without metaphysics is a contradiction in terms”, and I’ll shock him a little further by agreeing with him on that one, too. Of course we — scientists, atheists, and theists — all have our metaphysics. We are all swaddled in interesting assumptions that we either derive from our experience or hold because we would find an alternative difficult to reconcile with our ideas. We are people, not adding machines, so a metaphysic is unavoidable.
Unfortunately, I disagree with John when he claims that metaphysical interpretations of science “are neutral with respect to religion.” Unless you’re talking about religions like Gardner’s fideism or some of the more abstract forms of Buddhism, most scientific metaphysics are definitely not neutral about religion at all. Religions that believe in a personal, caring creator-god are going to get smacked silly by any sensible scientific metaphysic anymore — we know too much about the nature of the universe and the history of life on earth to make such a being an easily accommodated presupposition. Atheist and scientific metaphysics do not run afoul of one another, but most religious metaphysics do have conflicts with the metaphysics of science.
If I were to have a sincere conversation with a student on this topic (outside of class—it’s too far off-track for my subjects), I would most definitely not tell her that she must give up church to succeed in science; that wouldn’t be true. I would be honest, though, and tell her that the farther she gets into science, the more deeply her assumptions about how the universe works are going to be challenged, and her ideas are going to change. She’d get the same story from a professor in the humanities or social sciences, too, about getting deeper into literature or psychology or philosophy or art; that’s the nature of our business, we change people’s minds as a professional obligation. However, she’s going to have to pick up certain metaphysical notions in her pursuit of science in particular that are not going to blend well with religion, and certain conclusions from religious thinking are going to be ruthlessly disparaged by her fellow scientists — the only way to persist with religious belief is to maintain multiple mutually inconsistent metaphysical views.
People do that all the time so it is certainly not an insuperable obstacle. But people also prefer the low-strain tactic of avoiding inconsistencies, so remaining true to science is going to make it difficult to remain true to any but the most general of religions.
It really doesn’t matter whether you want to claim that it is poor “framing” to tell people that religion and science conflict: it is operationally true. Going into science, and getting educated in general, tends to strip away the silly extremes of religion and weaken faith — at the very least, it wrecks simple obedience and encourages thinking. It does promote (but does not require) atheism, without even trying, because most religious metaphysics are going to shrivel and crumble to ash when exposed to the harsh actinic light of science unfettered. Or they should, anyway. Some people are pretty good about clamping their eyes shut and hiding in the shadows.
Wilkins:
True. However, there is a great deal about accepting the validity of science that speaks against a deity. Many deities are logically impossible – those that remain are abolished by the standards of evidence required in science.
Wilkins has taken Nisbet’s position and restated it in a context of philosophy.
Oh yes, before I forget:
That’s utter garbage. There is no ‘meta’physics, there’s just physics. Possessing metaphysical claims isn’t necessary for either science or the existence of thought.
On the inescapability of metaphysics: Wilkins and PZ are correct, and Caledonian is not. The claim that, for instance, only the entitites, properties, states, etc. described by physics exist is itself a metaphysical claim (whether true or not).
A friend of mine once remarked that people who claim to have no metaphysical views reminded him of his great-aunt, who claimed to have no political views. She thought that hanging and flogging should be brought back, and that immigrants of darker hues should be ‘sent home’ but completely failed to see that these were political views. They were just common sense, or ‘what everyone thinks’.
Caledonian, Wilkins restated or re-framed Nisbet’s position?
Nisbet has a position?
“All positions are amenable to re-framing,” therefore…
Strategic re-positioning?
In the words of the immortal lawyer and Senator from Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy;
“There is nobody who is beyond investigation and re-framing.”
You’re confusing our theories about the nature of physics and physics itself – understandably, because we call them both ‘physics’. But they’re very different things.
It’s not a metaphysical claim, it’s merely a physical one.
Which is utter poppycock. There are many very influential religions with beliefs that directly contradict the notion of unguided organismic changes over billions of years resulting in the human species. I suppose that evolution doesn’t rule out some particular kinds of deities (or rather, some particular ways in which deities would produce humans), but it sure does rule out a broad swathe of religion (and not just fundamentalist Christianity).
Caledonian:
While “physics” may be all that actually exists, we need metaphysical commitments in order to examine what exists. And we have plenty of them, such as induction.
1) Induction is just a claim about probabilities.
2) It’s all done with physics, dear.
At risk of being guilty of academic pandering, I dare to suggest that a philosopher, A. N. Whitehead, is somewhat famous for the following position.
Anybody who claims or writes that there is no purpose to human life or existence, presents a glaring contradiction.
“there’s just physics”
What about the idea that we, as observers, are part of a single consistent universe? This is a very useful working assumption, e.g., to get past solipsism. It helps us to compare our observations with each other. It helps us to assert that we are making repeatable observations that do not depend on the individual observer. We couldn’t do much practical science without it.
But it really is an untestable hypothesis. Metaphysics, if you will.
That science relies on metaphysics is something that virtually only analytic philosophers say (well, Foucault and a few others who think science is just power politics might agree as well, but they’re full of it), and not all of them do either.
You do not need to go beyond physics, psychology, and cognitive science to find adequate means of addressing reason and perception in which to base biology and the rest of science. Kant demonstrated that amply, and he despised metaphysics (sure, he sort of recapitulated metaphysics in his “practical reason,” but he tended to get the details wrong even in his “pure reason” so I hardly care much about his hypocrisy in that area). Metaphysics is merely speculation, unless of course you redefine the term from what it traditionally meant. And science has no business be founded upon speculation.
Furthermore, PZ, you don’t have to believe philosophy “authorities”, no matter how often you make that mistake. Just because you don’t know much about philosophy, and some insufficiently educated analytic philosophers get to your ear, isn’t sufficient reason for you to believe their claptrap about how science is based in metaphysics. You might as well believe Dembski as Wilkins if you really accept that metaphysics founds science, for metaphysics has as much soundness in Wilkins’ philosophy as it does in Dembski’s theism. It’s an entirely self-serving doctrine of some analytical philosophers that science relies upon philosophy (to the same characters philosophy means metaphysics), when in fact it is more properly understood the other way around, that any honest philosophy is based in empiricism and traditionally came from the formalizations of that empiricism coming out of science and the judiciary.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Actually, it follows directly from the definitions of ‘universe’ and ‘are’.
It’s untestable because it’s tautologically true.
Hmm… So (in Buffy terms): theistic scientists are vampires in hoodies and shades, venturing only briefly out from their dank sewers into well-lit laboratories; merely taking what they want before scuttling back into the darkness where they feel at home.
There doesn’t appear to be a scale of vampirism. But if there were, the most traditional and fundamentalist of religions would be represented by the most ancient vampires with the highest risk of shrivelling and burning. Whereas, the milder and vaguer religions would be young street-wise vampires who know how to use sun-block and merely smoulder gently when exposed.
What I’ve found is that you who believe in the essential nature of metaphysics is that you have exactly as much evidence in favor of it as the IDists do for their “science”. Indeed, it’s for the same reasons, for it is actually true that atheistic metaphysics is only an atheist prejudice, while theistic metaphysics is only a theistic prejudice, and neither one has any more validity or evidence than the other does. In that sense the IDists are actually correct, that it’s merely a matter of dueling prejudices.
When one gives up the traditional lies and idiocies of the metaphysicians, then science, and useful philosophy, begin. We are not actually committed to anything if we’re either honest scientists or honest philosophers, least of all to something as unprovable as induction. The fact that induction is only statistically reliable, and even then only in our apparent constructed world, remains an inescapable and unforgettable caveat to doing science, and it thereby keeps (or ought to keep) skepticism about our perceptions and constructions alive.
Anyone who doesn’t maintain an underlying skepticism beneath the working assumptions of science and of philosophy really differs little in “essence” from the belief in unwarranted assertions of the theists. Indeed, these believers in metaphysics are likely part of what keeps theism as healthy as it is in the Anglo-American world, for metaphysics has no basis except in speculation, thus in the religions which are produced in order to pretend that metaphysics isn’t just speculation.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Philosophy is just different from science, and most of the real hard-edged criticism of religion comes from scientists, who feel justified in ridiculing harshly any claim to knowledge for which there is insufficient evidence.
Philosophers deal with what is logically possible and explore ways in which something might be true if this and this and this are true. Scientists probably tend to be more rigid when it comes to that sort of thing; they don’t feel constrained to uncover anything that is possibly true but are chiefly concerned with what is probably factual.
They’re just coming from different places. I think many theologians represent a third approach, which is to comb both philosophy and science in an effort to find whatever can be construed as consonant with a prior theological commitment. I’m sure this is upsetting to some philosophers, but it is pure anathema to scientists, whose method officially abhors such methods (although many scientists have been guilty of it themselves–Lysenko always comes to mind).
Possibly my favorite part of the “framing” discussion at the Bell last Friday was what Greg Laden said about the cleric getting up in the morning wondering how he could keep his flock believing what they already believe, and the scientist waking up wondering how he could challenge existing assumptions. That alone demonstrates just how oily and vinegary religion (the unctious one)and science (the actinic one) really are.
It is very difficult (perhaps impossible) to completely divorce science from metaphysics, since many of the working assumptions scientists use to study and describe the world (such as directly unobservable theoretical entities or that old bugbear, causation) require some metaphysical underpinning for their validity. This says nothing about how defensible that metaphysics may be, or whether it is true.
As iain said, even the claim that the only “real” entities are those described as most fundamental by physics (and the laws that somehow tie them together) is a metaphysical view that cannot be defended by empirical science alone. My understanding is that this is one of the major issues modern philosophers of science grapple with since the logical empiricist attempts to banish metaphysics from science failed in the last century.
“untestable because it’s tautologically true”
Caledonian, you are playing wordgames. I am sorry I wasted my time talking to you. I should have recognized that you have no interest in anything ouside your own ego. Look at what other observers are telling you. No, you don’t want to look.
Here’s a word for you to ponder: WRONG.
Logicians deal with what is logically possible. Philosophers do a lot of talking about definitions they never get around to stating clearly.
A little surprised by PZ’s metaphysical remark. Science, humans great advancing endeavor, when subjected to the dispassionate and impersonal environment of refereed and peer-reviewed journals, while imperfect, can been stripped of all metaphysical personal baggage and arrive at approximate truths.
No, I’m applying logic – they frequently look similar to the ignorant and thoughtless.
Postulating any kind of interaction presupposes that the interacting things are part of the same, consistent universe. This is obviously after a little reflection – so clearly you haven’t given it any.
“But people also prefer the low-strain tactic of avoiding inconsistencies…”
If this were true, no one would be religious in the first place. Indeed, one of the great insights of the anthropology of religion is that “minimally counterintuitive entities”*, to use Pascal Boyer’s phrase, are more likely to persist in the mind than either ordinary entities or highly counterintuitive ones.
Per Boyer: “People’s explicitly held, consciously accessible beliefs, as in other domains of cognition, only represent a fragment of the relevant processes. Indeed, experimental tests show that people’s actual religious concepts often diverge from what they believe they believe.”**
Religious people are, by definition, people who put down Occam’s Razor in at least part of their lives, so an appeal to any kind of ‘natural’ desire to avoid inconsistencies isn’t going to find much purchase in studies of believers or belief.
*Why Is Religion Natural?
** Ibid, scroll down to “A Limited Catalogue of Concepts”
Yes, but those of us in the continental tradition don’t believe in “real entities”, in the claim that the only “real entities” are those described as most fundamental by physics, or that laws somehow tie them together. We understand these to be constructions coming out of our perceptions and cognitive capacities for dealing with perceptions, and that it is ludicrous to believe that “real” or “fundamental” have some ultimate meaning in either science or in philosophy (which doesn’t mean that we deny the relatively value-free meaning that most physicists give to “fundamental” when they’re using that term).
IOW, I don’t know why so many people think that they have free rein to pontificate about matters they have not studied out, and for which they only have a smattering of pro-metaphysics analytic philosophy claims to “inform” them.
I rather suspect that the quantum theorists could never have come up with the science they did if they accepted the view of “reality” that too many scientists and some analytic philosophers believe are the foundations of science. The foundation of science is skepticism, and questioning the traditional meanings of the terms that metaphysicians use. One gets to quantum descriptions of physics by questioning “reality”, not by accepting traditional beliefs in “matter”, dimension, strict causation (even if it were to turn out that hidden strict causality is somehow maintained, belief in same was not useful in working out QM, as Einstein demonstrates), and absolute space. QM crushed traditional metaphysics underfoot, coming up with mathematical descriptions in which even the fiction of “reality” has little meaning.
It is probably no accident that continental philosophy with its disdain for metaphysics was what largely informed the quantum theorists. The kind of beliefs in metaphysics being espoused on this forum are adequate to a number of rather traditional classical science, but not at all adequate to the radical questioning needed in physics.
I should note that “non-realism” is definitely a position espoused by many physicists. Phenomenology has also been held by a number of physicists, and phenomenology commonly doesn’t bother with metaphysical terms like “realism” except to criticize it. They might speak of “reality”, but not to indicate any sort of belief that “reality” is a meaningful term, just a vernacular term for the constructions that many mistake (or so they contend) as constituting “reality”.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Of course we’re committed to induction — you can’t do science without it. The presumption that the observable universe is generally stable enough so that observations we make today tell us something about the state of the universe tomorrow is necessary to make any scientific claims, to move science from mere observation about the past to theories about the future.
That’s epistemology, not metaphysics. Sure, we may not be good at doing induction (and we’re better at it than say chimpanzees or ants), but the underlying promise is that if we had perfect knowledge, induction would give us perfect information about the future. In other words, the universe is predictable. If you don’t have that as a pillar of your science, you don’t have science.
Although scientific methodology is not necessarily atheistic, scientific results to date certainly have been.
This is because all the popular major religions make specific truth claims that have turned out to be false.
Many have dealt with this by escaping into a God-in-principle, an entity so vague and subtle that he(?) sits in the highest heaven, far above the towering cliffs of falsifiability.
The curious thing is that, more often than not, after taking such a position to argue the possibility of a God-in-principle, the individual maintains his Baptist/Pentacostal/Sunni beliefs that Have been completely falsified.
I suppose the God-in-principle serves no purpose for comfort, for a sense of reason, for promising a particular paradise, or promoting a particular set of political opinions. In short, no one believes in that God; It’s just an argument that lets the believer keep on believing falsified particulars.
Finally, if any Earthbound religion were true, science would point straight to it. Truth claims would be accurate, specifically stated prophecies fulfilled, predictions about the natural world born out.
Since this is not the case, the believer has three choices: stop believing entirely, believe in the vague and unsatisfying God-in-principle, or maintain your beliefs and make up bizarre scientific conspiracy theories.
Of course, the last one never happens. See you all at the opening of “Expelled”…
It’s all language games, chumps. Study up!
Is philosophy the queen or the handmaiden of science?
I’ve seen this argument somewhere before…
What I would tell a young, science-aspiring, theistic student is that science is not, neccessarilly, atheistic but is, neccessarilly, irrelligious. That is, science can not rule out a god – especially a deistic one – but it can and does show a vast amount of dogma to be utterly without merit.
It is somewhat amusing to observe the ‘science is based on a metaphysics’ vs ‘no it isn’t’ argument. I would one’s position is probably predicted fairly well by how much analytic philosophy they were exposed to before and during their nihilistic crisis.
Those of us who worked through a smattering of said philosophy recognized the fundamental assumptions (such as assuming logic is true and our perceptions are actually of a single objective reality) as the assumptions they are… while others never got quite that ‘deep’ for whatever reason.
Yeah, it is almost mental-masturbation territory, but science is based on metaphysics even if that metaphysics is that there is nothing beyond physics. We can conceptualize (even if we can’t imagine) things outside of physics, so for any sort of decent philosophy we have to deal with them.
One nitpick to the OP… ‘scientific metaphysics’ and/or ‘metaphysics of science’ are not great terms. There are numerous metaphysical frameworks consistent with scientific methodology and philosophy. Hell, I actually am not an atheist (I’m a ‘Spinoza’s God’ sort of deist).
caynazzo said:
But who does science like that? Scientists look at data and dream. Hypotheses are works of fiction – they are redeemed by the fact that they are testable, but they are still dreams.
You can’t do science if you strip away all the baggage. Without dreams and imagination there are no theories. There are no models. When you look at a scatterplot of data, you see shapes and patterns – if you reject the “metaphysics” then you should throw an infinite number of functional relationships at the data and pick the one with the best fit. Not to mention, if you never dreamed about your data, if you felt no joy in your science…how would you ever drag yourself out of bed and into the lab or out to the field?
Do you have a beetle in your box, ludwig? ;)
As in many similar situations in the past Caledonian is rabbiting on about logic, there is only one problem, as he has demonstrated on many previous occasions, he doesn’t actually know what logic is.
Wrong, modal logic deal with possibilities, formal/mathematical or to give it its full name 1st order predicate logic (which is what one assumes he his referring to) deals with the formation of valid conclusions from logically formed prepositions.
No you are as usual being an ignorant, boorish, arrogant fool who is incapable of understanding the arguments of others because he is so full of himself.
I should add that in continental philosophy, instead of any metaphysical beliefs being understood as being used in science, it is “intersubjectivity” that gives us the basis for doing science. The point thereby is not that some sort of “reality” that we cannot experience at first hand grounds our conclusions, but that since we all see the same things (or so it seems from the reports given by the apparent “others”), and that we can agree with each other about, say, evolutionary explanations as making the most sense to us while these guide research productively (across religions and cultures, unlike ID), means that we have come up with explanations that satisfy our minds (continental philosophy tends to look down on pragmatism as the criterion for science, even though many think well of analytic philosopher Peirce and his “pragmaticism”).
“Intersubjectivity” gets around the “mere subjectivity” of the ancients, who tended to treat dreams and waking experience in similar ways. If we can agree on the manner of interpretation of common perceptions, thereby we escape the solipsistic view of the single individual, and we can collaborate satisfyingly in experiences which we apparently share with others (no, we can’t show that others exist, but apparent others do have a powerful effect upon ourselves).
Metaphysics is believed to be a distortion by Pythagoreans like Plato of intersubjective agreement, for the Pythagoreans sought for certainty beyond what human perceptions are able to provide. Plato insisted that a kind of revelatory “certainty” was provided by “the Good” (which others interpreted as one or more sky gods, such as Yahweh), so that we could be certain of the “axioms” upon which geometry and metaphysical philosophy were built.
But the axioms and postulates are neither certain nor even reliable for doing science. Euclid’s fifth postulate turned out not to have any certainty in this universe, for it continues to fail in the presence of gravity even though through empiricism we again believe the universe to be “flat”. Likewise, the “material” cause that ancient philosophers like Aristotle and atavistic morons like Dembski believed, and believe, in, is only a question in modern physics, with a tentative answer partially residing in the Higgs’ boson (not that this itself can ever be known to be a final answer, like ancient physics considered “matter” to be). We don’t know what comprises so-called “reality” in anything but a contingent and sensory organ (plus cognitive faculties)-limited manner.
So of course we don’t know that evolutionary theory is “true” with any Platonic certainty at all, which is the case for more reasons than that we can’t rule out a much better explanation coming along at some point (even the much better explanation has to be contingent on any number of factors, including those I’ve mentioned). What we do know is that we have sufficient overlap with apparently existing (I flag the word “existing”, but then leave it) and communicating “others” in both our cognitive abilities and our perceptions that we can come to agreement about evolutionary theory despite pre-existing prejudices.
Something like ID, meanwhile, requires pre-existing metaphysical prejudices for it to even begin to make sense to anybody, considering that nothing in non-engineered and unmanipulated biology agrees with our “intersubjective” standards for what “design” is.
Whether or not anybody agrees with this sort of viewpoint, it is undeniable that many are able to operate within it, and to do science using its very minimal, if still philosophically contingent, assumptions (we tend to assume that others exist in practice, without presupposing that we know this to be beyond the interfering medium of our perceptions and constructions). And the science done without metaphysics doesn’t actually differ from that done with a belief in metaphysical claims, at least not in classical science (I contend that not only in QM, but in consciousness studies as well, proper science cannot be done with traditional metaphysical assumptions, as “reality” itself is in question in these areas), hence it appears to a continentalist such as myself that metaphysics is a superfluous add-on, like Francis Collins’ God whenever he’s doing real science.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
That’s the inverse of the issue at hand. Yes, many people blithely accept religious foolishness and never test it, and are happy. I’m saying that people who go into science are going to be encouraged to wield Occam’s Razor freely…and the religious metaphysics are going to get slashed, no matter how careful you are.
But IanR, isn’t science a cumulative effort and not about one PI’s dreams? Leave the muse out of it. That genomics works isn’t predicated on, reflected in, or determined upon Venter’s or Collins’ metaphysics.
PS. Currently in lab and should get back to work*
It’s really sad to see quantum mechanics dragged out again in the service of a weak argument. Nope, QM did not “crush[ed] traditional metaphysics underfoot, coming up with mathematical descriptions in which even the fiction of “reality” has little meaning.” Instead, Newtonian billiard balls just got replaced by the wave function. Meet the new underlying reality, same as the old underlying reality.
Sure, I’d probably agree that das Ding an Sich isn’t central to the scientific process. You can test a hypothesis without spending a lot of time worrying about what untestable thing may lie beyond your observations. But I have no patience with people who tell me that I am some kind of moron if I choose to work on the assumption that there is a single consistent reality beyond observation. Quantum mechanics was reached by phone and has no comment on the subject.
On this whole “who needs metaphysics” thing.
What I’d find enlightening on this point is an example of an interesting live conflict among materialist philosophers on metaphysics.
Jason Failes’ “vague and unsatisfying God-in-principle” is even more vague and unsatisfying when you recognize that science’s bottom-up approach to understanding the origin of human mind, morals, and meaning virtually leaves a God in-whose-image-we-are-made without any mind, morals, or meaning. It’s not only that God doesn’t have much left to do other than “hold up” nature in some way. It’s that the characteristics of God which make it similar to ourselves become more and more unlikely to have “always been there” as we discover how they grew out of simpler things that weren’t anything like them to begin with.
“We get life from a Life Force. We get morals from a Moral Force. We get meaning from a Meaning Force. We get Mind from a Mind Force. We get Goodness from a Goodness Force. We get reason from a Reason Force. We get love from a Love Force. We get logic from a Logic Force. We get creation from a Creation Force. We get consciousness from a Consciousness Force. We get intention from an Intention Force. We get values from a Value Force.” And on and on and on — that’s God. That’s God stripped down into what matters to us.
Sure, you can have both God and science — but only in those areas where you’re not looking too hard. Science kills God-in-principle indirectly, by rejecting the Skyhook Force, and asking serious questions instead.
Oh what the hell, I’ll finish up with the dolts who wrote while I was writing (maybe any while I was writing this):
Deal with the argument if it’s so weak, ignorant one. I made an entire argument about it, while you seem unable to do anything but the Dembski denial.
God, you’re an incompetent bozo. The QM reality is hardly a mere replacement of billiard balls with the wave function, it is irreducible randomness itself, so far as we know at the present. I mentioned that, but like any denialist you merely bring up your pathetic “argument” and ignore what I actually discussed.
Apparently you also lack the patience to study these matters before spouting your ignorance, as well. Plus you pull the usual pseudoscientific practice of making shit up. I didn’t say anyone was a moron if they choose to work on the assumption that there is a consistent reality beyond observation, I said that it wasn’t necessary for science. That’s why you’re a moron, you can’t read, or otherwise you’re willing to simply lie about what I wrote (in which case the familiar dishonesty of pseudoscientists is in evidence).
Shoot your strawman.
Well, you dealt with none of the issues, other than through denialism and the equivalent of “I know you are, but what am I?”. Typical for believers in metaphysics.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Occam’s razor is not a logical method of inquiry, it is a useful tool. It tells us nothing about what really is, it just helps make possibilities more manageable. Please stop treating it like a law of the universe.
I’d be interested in seeing some definitions of “metaphysics.” I wonder if everyone is working from the same page here.
Glen D writes:
David Deutsch would point out that the Schrödinger wave equation is 100% deterministic. Things just look random because the universe branches, ourselves included. ;-)
Here is the output for the definition of “Metaphysics” from Wikipedia put through the now popular English Korean, then back to English, Babelfish translation process:
The crane above the elder brother what kind of is the basin of the philosophy which investigates the principal of the actuality which surpasses them of the science which is special.
I think that about sums it up.
Glen Davidson: Don’t leave! Your comments are great!
Besides, someone has to elucidate on Quantum Mechanics and I don’t know enough big words. :)
I just have to point out how grating I find this. It’s like saying “things are so expensive anymore”. I know grammatical pedantry is annoying, but I swear, phrasing such as the above scars my brain.
What I’d find enlightening on this point is an example of an interesting live conflict among materialist philosophers on metaphysics.
What is a person and what entities get to be considered for personhood. This is extremely important in terms of ethics and political theory. Also issues of existence through time, which are a bit thick to go through in this short a space.
Really, I think you need a metaphysics of some sort before you can have any system of ethics or morals, or any political philosophy. Or, at the very least, a position *on* metaphysics, i.e. there is none.
And most of the non-philosophers who claim to not have a metaphysics really mean they don’t have a coherent metaphysics.
What is a person and what entities get to be considered for personhood.”
I find Peter Zinkernagel views to be quite concise.
2000 YEARS OF FALLACIES
http://www.n55.dk/MANUALS/DISCUSSIONS/EXCHANGES/PZ_N55_EXCH.html
Except that this position cannot even be formulated without referring to basic concepts tied together by rules (specifically, linguistic).
What does it say that you espouse a position that negates its own claims?
Glen Davidson, you seem very certain of your opinion.
According to Wikipedia (since I’m not a scientist),
* Science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on the scientific method.
* Reproducibility is one of the main principles of the scientific method.
So, if science relies on reproducibility, isn’t that a metaphysical assumption?
I ask because, if you think not, you must have a different concept of such than many posters here.
No. Science (and all knowledge) is ultimately based on experience. Experiences precede theories, hypotheses, and ideas – infants do not perform ‘philosophy’ at all, yet they acquire methods for understanding and interacting with the universe by living in it.
That’s stupid. I can imagine things outside of physics just fine. They’re necessarily not real. From their perspective, *I* wouldn’t be real.
No.
John Morales:
It seems to me more of an epistemological restriction, that we can only know about the past those events that have some continuity in physical law with the present. If the laws of physics really did change last Thursday, changed in some substantive fashion that can’t be investigated by reasonable projection from physical law we can figure out now and the evidence available now, then we’ll never know it.
Wrong. QM is utterly deterministic, as a previous poster mentioned. The key difference is that it deterministically describes how probabilities change over time, not presumed certainties as previous physical theories did. Instead of predicting outcomes, quantum mechanics predicts the probability of outcomes.
Except that this position cannot even be formulated without referring to basic concepts tied together by rules (specifically, linguistic).
What does it say that you espouse a position that negates its own claims?
You clearly have no clue what he is talking about.
No. Science (and all knowledge) is ultimately based on experience. Experiences precede theories, hypotheses, and ideas – infants do not perform ‘philosophy’ at all, yet they acquire methods for understanding and interacting with the universe by living in it.
You really like to pretend to commit to things without actually committing. If science is based on experience then science talks about what exists and how it fits together and therefore necessarily includes metaphysical claims.
No.
You lack of ability to explain your answer inspires tremendously. How many times must you be told, saying no does not make something false. Nor does saying that a definition proves something about the world.
“Religions that believe in a personal, caring creator-god are going to get smacked silly by any sensible scientific metaphysic anymore — we know too much about the nature of the universe and the history of life on earth to make such a being an easily accommodated presupposition.” There seems to be a problem here- what’s smacking the caring creator-god isn’t the metaphysics but rather the simple physics. Furthermore, that smacking isn’t occurring within science, but is occurring a philosophical or theological level based on what information science has procured.
“The crane above the elder brother what kind of is the basin of the philosophy which investigates the principal of the actuality which surpasses them of the science which is special.”
Ah, but is it no true that truth that will obtain is also a costume abutting the possibility that makes the bankruptcy of the situation manifest, that it composes with the equipment, all real things by escape and all circumstances of a resulting material interaction? Well?
Hm, batting 0/2 so far.
To make it clear, I consider this to be metaphysics.
(I’m not saying those claims are my position, merely illustrative)
Umm… no. Science talks about physics. That’s as ‘meta’ as it gets. The validity of any claim is determined not by a mysterious metaphysics, but through reference to the behavior of the universe.
Establishing definitions determines how words can be used to describe the world, and what uses are incorrect. I don’t find it surprising that you don’t seem concerned about these goals.
I am reminded of the Bene Gesserit Axiom, “There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments.” Hence, the “meta” in our exploration of science. Makes sense, and still jives with religious supposition’s impossibility.
4 and 5 are epistemology claims and 6 is an ethical claim, but the first three definitely contain metaphysical claims.
I don’t understand that. Please explain.
Of course Lysenko was a pseudoscientist :-) — he made up hypotheses but didn’t test them and made Stalin send everyone to Siberia who threatened to test them.
Why? Induction is not scientific. Science is not inductive but hypothetico-deductive: it makes up hypotheses, deduces predictions from them, and then tests these predictions by observation. You can use induction to make up hypotheses, but for that you can use absolutely anything, dreams and aesthetic/religious considerations included.
Oh, that’s what you mean.
The presumption that the observable universe is generally stable, not perturbed all the time by miracles, is itself a testable hypothesis (fortunately), and it is tested in every single experiment or other observation.
What prevents us from believing that the universe will stop being stable tomorrow is not induction, it’s Ockham’s Razor.
Well said! But why do you call that metaphysics?
The same holds for present and past, according to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Relation.
And? It’s still real. It’s even observable.
Because it happens to be ungrammatical in your particular dialect. :-)
I don’t understand that. Please explain.
Of course Lysenko was a pseudoscientist :-) — he made up hypotheses but didn’t test them and made Stalin send everyone to Siberia who threatened to test them.
Why? Induction is not scientific. Science is not inductive but hypothetico-deductive: it makes up hypotheses, deduces predictions from them, and then tests these predictions by observation. You can use induction to make up hypotheses, but for that you can use absolutely anything, dreams and aesthetic/religious considerations included.
Oh, that’s what you mean.
The presumption that the observable universe is generally stable, not perturbed all the time by miracles, is itself a testable hypothesis (fortunately), and it is tested in every single experiment or other observation.
What prevents us from believing that the universe will stop being stable tomorrow is not induction, it’s Ockham’s Razor.
Well said! But why do you call that metaphysics?
The same holds for present and past, according to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Relation.
And? It’s still real. It’s even observable.
Because it happens to be ungrammatical in your particular dialect. :-)
There is nothing about accepting the validity of evolution or natural selection that speaks for or against a deity.
It speaks against the “system of thought” that creates a deity.
It speaks against the claims people make for the deity in the dumb books that describe him/her/it.
Come on.
There is nothing about accepting the validity of evolution or natural selection that speaks for or against peanut butter.
So what! Be more specific.
OK, Caledonian. Please disprove solipsism.
OK, Caledonian. Please disprove solipsism.
Solipsism is incoherent, and is neither true nor false because it is part of the nonsense part of the sense-nonsense division. Any claim that solipsism is true, is therefore invalid and false.
Don’t waste my time.
coathangrrr (#58), yes, though I think the point stands.
Caledonian #62, that was clear as mud.
Oh sweet Jesus, you don’t even know what “determinism” means when it is used without qualifiers.
I don’t suppose there’s much more to say to someone who doesn’t use language properly.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Solipsism is incoherent, and is neither true nor false because it is part of the nonsense part of the sense-nonsense division. Any claim that solipsism is true, is therefore invalid and false.
Don’t waste my time.
Are you for real? Where do you get these weird concepts(the sense-nonsense division? WTF!)
You have to be some sort of experimental AI that’s going through the language learning stage and so ends up spouting babble.
Demonstrate that what you’re saying is true.
What do you think, that I don’t know about Deutsch? It’s a fine interpretation, arguably the best in terms of “pragmatics” or “elegance”, but it’s just an interpretation. And isn’t that the problem I’m having with all of the believers in invisible “truths”, that instead of understanding interpretations as being just interpretations, you’re trying to claim that they’re “truths”?
Sure, try to make atheism into a belief system, rather than one that values skepticism for its own sake, and not only to batter against religion.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
#59 David, I wrote about Whitehead from pure memory, but I’m very close on the quote.
I thought that is was self evident.
If one avows that human life does not have a purpose, one is showing some purpose in claiming that there isn’t any purpose.
Bertrand Russell used to work himself up over such linguistic conundrums when he was learning the philosophy of language (framing by another name) almost one hundred years ago.
Michelle Marsonet has a great book in paper, Science Reality, and Language, about putting an end to the linguistic games that is worth a read.
Yes, we use words and concepts related to words. Unlike you, however, we question the meanings attached to words, and recognize how the constructions linguistically made of them are not the phenomena themselves.
I know how many dolts confuse the ideas and their communication with the phenomena that we experience, but that’s your problem.
It says that we know the difference between the questionable constructions made by humans, and the phenomena as we experience them. What does it say about you when you can’t get past the definitions of words handed down to you by traditionalists, religionists, and metaphysicians?
The capability of language to negate itself is one of the reasons why we doubt the constructions that you and other near-religionists attempt to impose upon the rest of us. Perhaps some can note the fact that I am in the position that all questioners and skeptics are in. I’m not trying to take away your unquestioned beliefs, I am only pointing out that they are entirely within the realm of the questionable and protesting the insistence on claims that pass neither the test of evidence nor the one about “intersubjective” agreement. It’s the metaphysicians, and logocentrists like Caledonian (a quasi-metaphysician, in fact, since he doesn’t know the difference), who are troubled by doubts expressed about their beliefs in the invisible and undemonstrable, and who wish for their orthodoxy to dominate a science that doesn’t need it.
You want your beliefs? Enjoy them, just don’t insist that they are the truth that scientists or philosophers need, or even have any reason to countenance.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Yes, there’s little question that the mere practice of reproducibility, which obviously appeals to the human psyche and cognition (partly because we find it useful, but apparently even when we do not) is important, and is mistaken to be based in a metaphysical assumption.
Neuroscientists typically do not, nor do most who actually study the brain scientifically in some manner or other. Nor ought any who accept evolutionary theory to accept such a simplistic and meaningless claim that reproducibility is grounded in metaphysics, for it appears that we evolved to learn through repetition.
And this was what I was getting at earlier, we do have ways of knowing, but instead of people understanding this fact and asking how (using evolution in especial) this is so, they suppose that they have grounded it in unproved “truths”. Well, they haven’t, even if they must believe so. “Design” is not an ultimate answer to anything at all, and neither is the belief that metaphysics somehow magically grounds repetition as reliable an answer to anything.
The fact is almost certainly that we evolved to think of repetition as a reliable guide because it does work in many cases. Unfortunately, we often have to make decisions based on too few trials to be statistically sound, hence we tend to react against what is new and conceivably dangerous, and to quail before imagined terrors like the invisible God. So not only don’t we need metaphysics to explain the value of repetition to primates such as ourselves, being able to look to evolution instead, but evolution almost certainly explains how our cognitive abilities fail us when a putative God is thrown in as a “potential threat”.
It wouldn’t surprise me if many would say that they don’t mean by metaphysics what I am writing about it. Well, Dembski does, and so did the ancients. I see no value in calling the proper skepticism of science and of philosophy which we ideally embody, by the tawdry old name of “metaphysics”, nor in allowing the religionists and metaphysicians to get a linguistic wedge under our skin by calling something which is not traditional metaphysics by the name of “metaphysics”. Especially not when I consider everything to be potentially questionable, including the way that we inevitably understand things as humans.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
That is indeed the situation in which we find ourselves, and against which people react, often as a part of the existential crisis. That has no bearing on the fact that we are not justified in believing that the “laws” cannot change. They may be changing all the time in ways that we can’t recognize (this is an issue when cosmologists are discussing the purported constancy vs. potential inconstancy of the cosmos, the fact that certain changes may be entirely undetectable, while others might be detected, like a weakening of the fine-structure constant).
We use the apparent stability of phenomena as if it works until it no longer does work for us. That’s all we can really do in science, even though in practice we feel a good degree of confidence that gravity will work for us in the foreseeable future (but remember that some versions of brane theory do have it “leaking out”, and thus not a constant at all).
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
I think that’s metaphysics as well, particular the stated claim that nature is “orderly”. The nature that we find to be orderly is orderly as we understand it, whereas any that is not orderly simply is not (irreducible randomness, should Deutsch not be “truth”, is certainly a candidate for the latter).
See, some of us really do object to the glib assumptions that just because we find order that we can write that “nature is orderly” without caveats. Much of science does quite well with those assumptions, but in order to do physics properly we ought at least to allow that nature may not be orderly.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Thanks, Glen. I shall ponder your words. (really!)
Yes, that’s why we can’t have perfect knowledge of the future. But I was only addressing the future because that was what he was suggesting we could know if we were some sort of “perfect inductors”.
In the vernacular I have no problem with you saying it’s “real”. In philosophy, I have serious problems with what “real” even means, while you simply conflate “real” with “observable”.
The meaning of “real” is not a philosophical problem to you because you haven’t questioned it philosophically. What we can even mean by “real” is an issue in philosophy, and it is hardly the same thing as the questions the Skeptics asked about “reality”. So that in what I take to be your sense (and in the same way that I talk about most matters of science) of “real”, I agree that it’s “real”, but you appear not to have asked what “real” means when that word is questioned as to its meaning (or what it can mean in a philosophical discussion).
And with this, I really have to go do other things, and at least won’t return the rest of Oct. 2, unless it is to answer something written while I was writing this comment.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
“No. Science (and all knowledge) is ultimately based on experience. Experiences precede theories, hypotheses, and ideas – infants do not perform ‘philosophy’ at all, yet they acquire methods for understanding and interacting with the universe by living in it.”
That is true, but then along came some philosopher and decided to define our experience and existence as part of “metaphysics” (The definition given by #41 will do but you might want to translate into French and back just make it more meaningful). In other words we can be scientists without ever understanding or breathing a word of metaphysics, none the less we make assumptions based on our experience, and as others define such assumptions as metaphysics, they can claim we use metaphysics at least at the unconscious level.
DISCLAIMER the metaphysical assumptions on which this response is based are completely unconscious and may and may not be valid in any logical or illogical system.
Sailor, are you saying that science needs reasoning, reasoning needs axioms, these axioms are called metaphysical by some, and therefore it’s all a semantic misunderstanding?
Because I think there’s more to it than that.
Well, this is an entertaining thread!
I’ve never met a philosopher who understood quantum mechanics, nor a physicist who understood philosophy. The comments have not changed my opinion.
I must however second the call for Glen D not to leave. Quantum mechanics is irreducible randomness? Suddenly those Clebsch-Gordon tables make more sense!
Wow. You actually defend your adoption of a selfcontradictory position by saying I can’t get past the definitions of words.
Ironically, philosophers are the ones who have the definition wrong. Aristotle wrote his Metaphysics as all of the stuff he discussed after the stuff in his Physics. But medieval Latin scholars translated the ‘after-physics’ as ‘transcending-physics’ and concluded that the book was really about the science of the study of the world beyond the physical.
Their reading comprehension was slightly better than yours, I’d say.
That’s not a conflation, although it’s slightly inaccurate. A better term would have been “interactable”.
Something that cannot be observed, directly or indirectly, isn’t real. Something that can, is.
All of your “you don’t know the philosophy, you haven’t read the Great Philosophers, you can’t speak on the subject” objections are just the Courtier’s Reply repeated in various forms.
Glen D:
I think we’re in violent agreement. Scientists, generally speaking, are happy to explore and recognize the limits of human knowledge. It is precisely this that prevents such limits from turning into metaphysical assumption.
To my comments on QM, Glen D said:
That the Schrödinger equation is deterministic? That’s just inherent in the math. That it is The Correct Physics? Well… I can’t do that. Like any physics theory, it is only as good as tomorrow’s new test of it.
Then let’s try to explain it in a way that even you can understand.
The best categories divide the world into two parts. Statements can be divided into sense (possessing meaning) and nonsense (not possessing meaning). Sense is further divided into true and false.
A nonsensical statement isn’t true. It’s not even false. It’s on the other side of a distinction more basic than true or false, right or wrong.
Solipsism is an incoherent position. It can’t be right – it can’t even be wrong. That’s how utterly worthless it is as a position.
Yes, but no matter what today’s theories are replaced with tomorrow, the new theories will always be deterministic. Always.
Caledonian #81, even I understood that.
Your disproof of solipsism is that it is incoherent.
And as a bonus, you advise that the best categories create binary divisions, and that nonsense statements are neither true nor false!
So, there’s no such thing as false nonsense then. Got it.
All of your “you don’t know the philosophy, you haven’t read the Great Philosophers, you can’t speak on the subject” objections are just the Courtier’s Reply repeated in various forms.
You’re the one defending something that lacks logical substance. You’re the one that contradicts yourself constantly. What is it that you do that gives you such arrogance? You must be an engineer.
People who think and Caledonian!
Over at onegoodmove, there is a link to Dawkins on the “On Faith” series by the WP and Newsweek. There I found this link to muslim “re-framing”. “Muslims Speak Out”.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/projects/muslimsspeakout/index.html
There are multiple examples of muslims cherry picking their texts just as xians do. We are once again supposed to learn that islam supports peace and equal(almost)rights for women.
The “grand”(jerk) mufti of Egypt, Gomaa, seems to come out against evolution.
“It is from this perspective that the Quran says, “Do not covet the bounties which God has bestowed more abundantly on some of you than on others. Men shall have a benefit from what they earn, and women shall have a benefit from what they earn. Ask, therefore, God [to give you] out of His bounty,” [Quran, 4:32] which is reaffirmed by the saying of the Prophet, “God condems those men who seek to be like women, and He condemns those women who strive to be like men.” This is forbidden, and Muslims are enjoined to accept what has been allotted them by God; whether they are men or women they should be pleased with those particular masculine and feminine traits that God has bestowed upon them, and they should pray that God give them success in truly realizing them. The Quran says, “And women have rights similar to those [of men] over them in kindness,” [Quran, 2:228].”
So, gawd “bestowed” sexual traits on men and women. Also, don’t question your lot in life, but accept what gawd has or has not “allotted” you. Great for rich muftis like Gomaa and various criminal Arab princes.
There are enough idiocies from the four commentators there to compete with xian fundamentalist.
What is a person and what entities get to be considered for personhood. This is extremely important in terms of ethics and political theory. Also issues of existence through time, which are a bit thick to go through in this short a space.
For the former, I’ve never seen metaphysics treated as a branch of ethics before. As an ethical noncognitivist I can’t see why anyone thinks that question could have a good round answer that settles it – in fact, it’s obvious that it’s impossible.
For the latter, a difference is only a difference if it makes a difference; that example seems exactly like the “angels on the head of a pin” discussion that those criticising metaphysics here most strongly reject. My favourite philosophical guide is the one that says “what’s the most prosaic position possible on this point?”
I’m really not sure that science needs any metaphysics. It was once generally agreed among philosophers that science’s grounding metaphysical assumption was determinism. Shortly afterwards, QM threw that assumption out of the window. The philosophy trailed the science; it didn’t lead it.
Science doesn’t need metaphysical principles to reject supernatural explanations; it can do that simply on the grounds that they don’t make good predictions (ie they’re untestable in principle). You don’t have to say “these explanations contradict my metaphysics, so they’re wrong”; you can say “these explanations can’t do any good, so there’s no point in entertaining them.”
You need induction, but everybody needs that in order to do so much as make a cup of tea. After that you’re just doing whatever you need to do to make sure you’re not fooling yourself.
QUICK! This thread need old Ludwig and a dash of Quine STAT!
Ha ha ha ha! You’ve fallen into a very old and very obvious trap.
IF certain linguistic constructions accurately describe the properties of things, THEN deriving conclusions from those constructions permits us to make valid conclusions about the things. When we find that the conclusions don’t match the properties of the thing, we abandon the description and try another.
Determining when and how a word may be used, though, is something else entirely. By conducting an analysis of the construction we refer to when we use a word, we determine what sorts of sentences the word can and cannot validly be used in.
You’ve confused our (in)ability to establish a certain correspondence between our map and the territory with our ability to determine what our map says and can say.
But you don’t seem to understand the nature of the constructions, which is the very funny part.
Help! Help! You’re being repressed!
It’s only by understanding how and why language contradicts itself that we can grasp how it can be used to express necessary truths, you twit.
Correct. They don’t have the potential to be wrong.
Tell me, what is the truth value of the following: “this statement is false”?
Is it true? Is it false? Let us know – we’re all a-quiver to find out how much smarter you are than the world’s best mathematicians and logicians, and also me. Demonstrate for us how terribly wrong I am.
Caledonian, I guess I have failed to express myself to your satisfaction.
“this statement is false” is neither true nor false, it’s a paradox.
I presume you intend that example to support your contention, but in so doing you rely on the third category (true, false, neither).
Given that “The best categories divide the world into two parts.” aren’t you (by your own contention) using a suboptimal system of categorisation which requires three classes?
I fail to perceive the coherence of your overall response; you answered the question at hand (solipsism) with an assertion (it’s incoherent) – why then make the other claims?
PS I was being polite when I said “bonus”.
@Clay Shirky – thanks very much for the link to the Pascal Boyer article. I was so interested in what he had to say there I’ve looked up some of his other articles. The whole subject of belief acquisition is fascinating and I recommend it to all Pharyngulars.
You’ve failed to grasp the point. The universe is only composed of true and false. Nonsense statements don’t describe things that can be part of any universe.
Bingo! It’s nonsense. It cannot refer to meaning.
The categorization system splits reality up into two parts: true and false. Statements are similarly split into two parts: sense and nonsense. Only sense makes up reality, and is later split into two parts. There’s no useful division into three, Morales. There would only be three if you compared different levels of division.
Presumably nonsense can also be split into further divisions, but who cares?
Is this discussion simple enough for you now, or do I have to start explaining each and every detail in excruciating completeness?
No, Caledonian, it’s enough.
Sailor, are you saying that science needs reasoning, reasoning needs axioms, these axioms are called metaphysical by some, and therefore it’s all a semantic misunderstanding?
Because I think there’s more to it than that.
Yes John that is what I am saying. Those axioms are automatically derived from experience, but they can be worth thinking about and that is one of the definitions of metaphysics.
The following is from Wiki, and I am thinking of the first definition not the second.
A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into what types of things there are in the world and what relations these things bear to one another. The metaphysician also attempts to clarify the notions by which people understand the world, including existence, objecthood, property, space, time, causality, and possibility.
More recently, the term “metaphysics” has also been used more loosely to refer to “subjects that are beyond the physical world”. A “metaphysical bookstore”, for instance, is not one that sells books on ontology, but rather one that sells books on spirits, faith healing, crystal power, occultism, and other such topics.
That’s actually an older use of the word, stemming from the Latin mistranslation of Aristotle’s Greek title.
Sailor, if you’re right, then it’s probably wilful misunderstanding.
Hey, don’t forget the booksellers’ definition of metaphysics: “The unreadable and utterly meaningless crap that sells well.” Just look at the “Metaphysics” aisle. :-)
caynazzo wrote:
Of course it’s more than any one PI’s dreams. But in my experience, if you ask someone “what do you think is going on” (in their experimental system) they will spin you a tale that goes far beyond any evidence. And when someone constructs a hypothesis, although informed by data, they necessarily go beyond it – otherwise you only have trivial hypotheses that make no novel predictions.
Caledonian writes:
Some philosopher a good deal brighter than Caledonian once took Euclidean space as categorical. I’ve read that this was part of what caused Gauss to keep some of his work on geometry secret. I think that carries a good lesson on the effects of philosophical presupposition on math and science.
Presupposition? Russel, prediction is necessarily deterministic. What’s being predicted – not so much.
As bright as Gauss was, he should have known better.
“I’ve never met a philosopher who understood quantum mechanics, nor a physicist who understood philosophy.”
If Richard Feynman is to be believed, you’ve never met a physicist who understood quantum mechanics either.
I’ve never met a philosopher who understood quantum mechanics, nor a physicist who understood philosophy.
1. Robert Anton Wilson
2. David Joseph Bohm
Although I must admit, I never met Bohm…. I got high with Bob Wilson and Tim Leary once though.
You really are a dumbfuck, Caledonian. No doubt that’s why you’re such a belligerent prick on top of it, since with your elementary education you can’t begin to discuss anything that you pretend to discuss.
Sure, stupid shit. Your endless blather, and mindless “ha ha’s” don’t cover up the gaping void in your capacity to think.
They don’t, you cretinous metaphysician. That’s the whole point, that linguistic constructions don’t and can’t “accurately describe the properties of things.” Try Phil 101, and then you might at least have an entree into a world of which you know nothing.
Stupid little boy, no one knows the “Ding an Sich.” You’re simply a naive realist, with a complete lack of comprehension of the issues that philosophers discuss.
You didn’t even say anything there, or at least nothing beyond the twaddle of Searle. Word use is not determined by “analysis of construction”, not for the most part (yes, in logic and other areas we do), but by use in context. I’m guessing that you actually know nothing about anything, Caledonian, since you fuck up everything from science to linguistics.
Try learning something beyond your parochial limits. Something as basic as de Saussure would work wonders, if you’re at all capable of learning–which I doubt.
You’re too stupid even to try to make a case for that hideous lie. All you did was blather on with your decided lack of knowledge, then come up with your dishonest non sequitur.
Just another unsupported and dishonest assertion from little schoolboy in the corner with a dunce-cap on his head, Caledonian.
Help, help, Caledonian resorts to mindless ridicule whenever he lacks an answer, thus explaining why nearly all of his posts are mindless ridicule.
So you buy totally into the meanings imposed by language, and you are utterly incapable of questioning your logocentric prejudices. The relation between language and perceptions is in fact complex, far too complex for your reductionistic and childish simple-mindedness.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
I see that you’re too incompetent to read anything properly. I, of course, never said that quantum mechanics is irreducible randomness, I referenced the irreducible randomness in QM.
I’m sure that if you weren’t intent on your dumbass lying you’d have actually tried to refer to where I said what you so mendaciously claim I wrote, and would have found it to be impossible. But lacking in reading capacity as you do, with no honesty to check your idiocy and lies, and with a colossal prejudice that you just have to propagate via your ability to simply make shit up, why ought you to actually try to refer to something actual, instead of what you stupidly wished I had written?
But you just tell your vile lies, partly because you’re apparently stupid, and partly because you have no honesty within you.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Wow, you’re too stupid to address what I wrote, and instead repeat your idiot’s chant.
There you go, when you’re too dumb to know what to say, write about anything but the subject at hand.
And, diseased twat, I know all about where the name of “metaphysics” came from. That doesn’t change the fact that Aristotle’s “Metaphysics” was about, yes, what we now call metaphysics.
Let’s see, you constantly change the subject, shift the goalposts, and write non sequiturs to my points.
It’s not a new charge, but it is one that needs repeating: Projection.
Plus, if you could make a point, I’m sure you would, instead of resorting to your insipid insults and retarded non sequiturs.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Hm. I don’t see what’s incoherent about it. And what exactly makes it nonsense? Surely you aren’t making an argument from personal incredulity? It’s not testable, but that doesn’t mean it’s incoherent or nonsense.
Are you using “purpose” in two different ways here? It certainly isn’t the purpose of my life to assert that my life has no purpose. I’d be very suprised if it turned out I had been specially created for that purpose. :-)
Sorry for pulling a Caledonian. I was tacitly using my own definition of “real”, which is “observable in principle”. I like to make a distinction between “reality” and “truth”. Reality is in principle observable (even though contortions and higher math may be necessary), is that in which argumenta ad lapidem work, and is the domain of science; truth is the domain of metaphysics. Truth could be exactly the same as reality and therefore a completely superfluous concept (that’s Caledonian’s view), it could “lie behind” reality (the view of solipsism and religion), or who knows what (and as an apathetic agnostic, I don’t care); in truth, the argumentum ad lapidem is a logical fallacy. Does that make sense? :-)
On the same topic:
What exactly do you mean?
AFAIK he didn’t even give it a title, and only later readers called the chapter behind the one about nature “behind-natural”.
Hm. I don’t see what’s incoherent about it. And what exactly makes it nonsense? Surely you aren’t making an argument from personal incredulity? It’s not testable, but that doesn’t mean it’s incoherent or nonsense.
Are you using “purpose” in two different ways here? It certainly isn’t the purpose of my life to assert that my life has no purpose. I’d be very suprised if it turned out I had been specially created for that purpose. :-)
Sorry for pulling a Caledonian. I was tacitly using my own definition of “real”, which is “observable in principle”. I like to make a distinction between “reality” and “truth”. Reality is in principle observable (even though contortions and higher math may be necessary), is that in which argumenta ad lapidem work, and is the domain of science; truth is the domain of metaphysics. Truth could be exactly the same as reality and therefore a completely superfluous concept (that’s Caledonian’s view), it could “lie behind” reality (the view of solipsism and religion), or who knows what (and as an apathetic agnostic, I don’t care); in truth, the argumentum ad lapidem is a logical fallacy. Does that make sense? :-)
On the same topic:
What exactly do you mean?
AFAIK he didn’t even give it a title, and only later readers called the chapter behind the one about nature “behind-natural”.
I do not understand how “The Shroedinger Eq. is absolutely deterministic in calculating a probability of an event” is any different than saying that reality is fundamentally random. So we can calculate the probability of an event to incredible precision, but ultimately it is a probability, the event itself is essentially random.
Haven’t experiments shown that this randomness is not just due to a lack of knowledge about the system (i.e. hidden variables)? Bell’s inequality provides a quantifiable experiment for distinguishing “true randomness” from “hidden variables”.
He wrote like the fact that they are observable means that they are real. So you lie again, apparently your only real talent.
You amazingly stupid naive realist. Is a rainbow “real”? Obviously one has to consider what you mean by “rainbow”, and in one sense it’s fair to say that a rainbow “is real”, in another sense that is just a meaningless question, since it’s an optical phenomenon that we mistakenly suppose to be a “real object”.
A fuckwit like yourself wouldn’t trouble with these issues, while honest philosophers do.
Shithead, I never said anything about reading the Great Philosophers. I do point out that you ought to have some knowledge about what you’re discussing, much as IDists ought to. But you’re a mindless maligner whose interests don’t include learning or thought, so you drone along with the herd.
It’s more than obvious that you can’t, or you’d deal with what I wrote instead of writing off at a tangent and repeating your naive realist lies.
You didn’t need to demonstrate that you’re an anti-intellectual with that dumb comment, for it is obvious from all of your posts.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
I think that you ought to learn how to read properly.
Which was my point. Christ, isn’t there anyone on your side who can respond honestly?
I wasn’t responding to a claim that the Schroedinger equation is deterministic, you dishonest troll. You were claiming that the Deutsch interpretation demonstrates that there is no real irreducible randomness, and I responded that it is an “unproven”, if attractive, interpretation.
Okay, I’m getting very tired of the lies of you, the illiterate Caledonian, and the bigoted Mister Troll whose only ability is making shit up. There are some intelligent and discerning posters here as well, of course, whom I appreciate. However, they don’t need me, and the ignorant jerks whose belief system cannot be questioned so that they lie like IDists, are beyond any intelligent discussion.
So, since there’s no point in a pissing contest, and the metaphysicians and neo-metaphysicians (along with the bigoted and well-named Mister Troll, whose inability to read or tell the truth is the only real message he can put up) defend their nonsense with religious zeal, I doubt that I’ll be back. Not a promise, but really, what’s the point of dealing with the arrogant ignorant fuckwits?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
PS. David, I don’t think we have enough real disagreement to bother with any further.
I’m quite sure it’s not personal incredulity. And if it’s not testable, it IS nonsense, because it doesn’t imply anything that its negation doesn’t also imply and vice versa.
The implication in solipsism is that it’s meaningful to assert that only the observer exists and nothing else does. But this isn’t meaningful – it’s equivalent to the opposite statement. So the statement is meaningless, and the claim that it’s meaningful is wrong.
Quite correct. Humans may generate purposes during the course of their lives, but that doesn’t mean that the lives themselves had any purpose.
That’s what the word means. Don’t apologize for being correct.
Existence is defined by interaction.
Interesting… I’ve heard a variety of claims on the subject, so I must withhold judgement until I get some solid data, but that sounds very plausible.
Did you just say that Russell is a dishonest troll?
I think you’ve been very thoroughly schooled, Mr. Davidson, and it’s time for you to go.
The implication in solipsism is that it’s meaningful to assert that only the observer exists and nothing else does. But this isn’t meaningful – it’s equivalent to the opposite statement. So the statement is meaningless, and the claim that it’s meaningful is wrong.
How does that follow? Saying that I am the only thing that exists is completely different than saying that I don’t exist and nothing else does.
Scanned through the thread to see if there was any further content. However, ignoring Caledonian and Glen Davidson and anyone talking to them (I plead guilty), it thinned out into a vacuum. Turning out the light.
I have to agree with Caledonian’s initial comment. Saying that accepting the ontology of science as complete and rejecting metaphysical embellishment is itself metaphysics is no less ridiculous that saying atheism is a religion. If you reject metaphysical reasoning then you reject the problems it presents as well as the proposed solutions.
I have to agree with Caledonian’s initial comment. Saying that accepting the ontology of science as complete and rejecting metaphysical embellishment is itself metaphysics is no less ridiculous that saying atheism is a religion. If you reject metaphysical reasoning then you reject the problems it presents as well as the proposed solutions.
The problem is that saying that there is no metaphysics is completely different than saying there is no god. while, it is absurd to say that people who don’t believe in god have a religion simply because the don’t believe in god, it is far from absurd to say that people who claim that only the stuff that we can interact with is real. Claims about what is real are metaphysical, that’s how it works.
1) That’s not the negation of solipsism.
2) The negation of solipsism is the assertion that the observer ISN’T the only existing thing.
3) The negation of solipsism has the same implications as the assertion of solipsism.
4) Therefore, solipsism isn’t meaningful, and both its assertion and its negation are equivalent to the null statement.
Ack, sorry, should have realized that was the opposite and not the negation. But still, why is 3 true? It seems like it has completely different implications, like that other stuff exists.
You have to expand on what things like ‘exists’ mean in order to recognize the functional equivalence.
What does solipsism imply about the behavior of the observer’s perceived universe that not-solipsism doesn’t? And vice versa?
A passing few comments.
The definition of metaphysics is of course vague. The popular definition is pretty useless, but the one I like goes something like this: metaphysics is consideration of issues in philosophy that are about the physical world but are not settled by science. So, for example, if a scientific theory posits a particle or force that cannot be tested (as in string theory), but which is an implication of that theory, then it is a metaphysical object, and arguing over why that object is required is to argue metaphysics.
This includes properties like (on realist interpretations of theories) persistence of objects, determinism, epistemological access to Dingen-an-sich and the like. My (metaphysical) resolution is pretty well Quine’s: to be is to be the value of a bounded variable in a best possible theory. In lay terms, something is warranted as existing if your best theory tells you it exists. This means that science necessarily has metaphysics, because science makes existential claims all the time.
One the term itself: yes, it is a translation of a title of Aristotle’s work into Latin. It is not a mistranslation, but a transliteration of the Greek for “after the Physics” (ta meta ta physika” based on a later title to the book (which is the book that follows the Physics both logically and in the edition of the first century CE, collected by a later Peripatetic, and known as the Aristotelian Corpus. Aristotle himself referred to it as “first philosophy”, which is to say, the philosophy you need to do before you can have knowledge or wisdom.
coathangrrr, you’re confusing ontology and metaphysics. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that has establishing ontology as one of its goals. Merely stating an ontology is not, however, metaphysics. For example, one of the strongest currents in modern philosophy – Ontological Naturalism – accepts the ontology of science and rejects metaphysics. “Metaphysics” generally refers to a methodology (or loose collection of methodologies) for establishing what exists not the mere fact of what does or does not exist. Philosophy can not lay claim to something so basic.
“Transcending physics” most certainly is a mistranslation of the term!
If it’s required for knowledge, how did Aristotle acquire the knowledge of it?
Oddly, Caledonian, that’s exactly what he discusses in that book.
Wrong answer, Wilkins. Try again.
Caledonian, did you read the book?
I’m not curious enough to read the book, but I think the extract from the Wikipedia entry (summary) supports #123,#120.
Paul Crowley: IMO, Glen isn’t a materialist, and Caledonian, I can’t tell. His monism is consistent with subjective idealism, after all.
Caledonian: FYI, that’s not the etymology of “metaphysics”. Rather, it was that the works of Aristotle now called that were shelved “after the works on nature” – “ta meta ta phusika”. As for how it got to mean what it now does, that’s a thorny question. Aristotle himself did write on theology. IMO, now there are two distinct usages with some grey in the middle. It is the “general science” (Bunge, Armstrong, Lewis, etc.) view that science-oriented metaphysics is about, not the theological (or the new age bookstore!) conception.