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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 20, 2018 - 06:08pm PT
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So, if I'm reading you correctly, you are saying that the Higgs boson is the ONLY metaphysical entity that could logically-possibly produce the phenomena observed by experiment. Is that what you're saying?
I believe that many different explanations where pursued to explain how we could have an electroweak theory. Many different theories were pursued, and their consequences shown to be in conflict with observation.
Given the constraints from what we knew about electrodynamics and the weak interaction at high energy, the idea of dynamical symmetry breaking via a Higgs boson was the only logical explanation.
Had it not been confirmed in experiment we would have moved on from the theory.
This last step is a bit more subtle as different instantiations of "Higgs field" in terms of effective propagators is possible. As it stands, we do not have a good explanation of the particular Higgs boson that was observed.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 20, 2018 - 06:47pm PT
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I believe that many different explanations where pursued to explain how we could have an electroweak theory. Many different theories were pursued, and their consequences shown to be in conflict with observation.
Okay, I'm with you so far, as this is just an example of falsificationism.
Given the constraints from what we knew about electrodynamics and the weak interaction at high energy, the idea of dynamical symmetry breaking via a Higgs boson was the only logical explanation.
Ah, that's the loaded sentence that smuggles in confirmationism (which I've seen you perpetually slip into). And you are too confident with "what we knew." What all scientist should be quick to say is, "What we think we know," or, "What we believe," because the word "know" implies to virtually all people a certainty that science is never entitled to.
This is actually a very worthwhile 10 minutes, because Feynman understood what physics can in principle do better than any contemporary physicist I've talk with. (BTW, I just can't get the Taco's YouTube parser to recognize this YouTube ID correctly, so I'm doing it as a Web Link.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KmimDq4cSU&t=49s
Confirmationism is incorrect. Period. And no matter how plausible any particular iteration of confirmationism is, the second you move from "Theory x predicted experimental result y" to "Theory x is correct" or "We know such and such from theory x," you've engaged in confirmationism and have committed a formal fallacy. (And I'm giving science the benefit of the doubt insofar as it being a realistic enterprise, while many top philosophers of science won't grant science even that much.)
Had it not been confirmed in experiment we would have moved on from the theory.
In an ideal world. In actual scientific practice, even in theoretical physics, theories are perpetually propped up in countless ways.
Again, you are holding up the ideal as falsificationism, but then you slip into confirmationism when talking about whatever theory you believe has been "confirmed" (even "proved") by particular experimental results. But confirmationism is a formal fallacy, the opposite of a "deductive proof."
This last step is a bit more subtle as different instantiations of "Higgs field" in terms of effective propagators is possible.
Indeed. Moreover, as you know, different theories that are not the standard model have their own versions of the Higgs boson. So, the "subtle" part is to NOT take the "fact" of the particular results that have (thus far) been observed as "proving" the correctness of the standard model.
As it stands, we do not have a good explanation of the particular Higgs boson that was observed.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that statement, so I want to be careful not to draw any conclusions from it.
Here's the key point regarding deduction vs. induction. When science is doing falsificationism, it is employing the deductive method insofar as the relation between theories and experiments goes. However, that form of deduction is NOT producing "positive knowledge" in the sense that most scientist think it is. ALL that method thereby produces is the statement: "Well, that experiment didn't falsify the theory." But it is a formal fallacy to then slip into the very tempting supposed corollary: "The theory is correct."
When science DOES (as it often does) slip into asserting that supposed corollary, it is then doing confirmationism, and it is engaging in a formal fallacy regarding that relation. That's the big-picture distinction regarding the scientific method.
When we're talking about particular scientific inferences regarding particular observations, ALL science does is induction.
Here is an excellent article, excellent insofar as being a great exemplar of being confused about this subject:
https://www.livescience.com/21569-deduction-vs-induction.html
I could go on and on about the confusions in this article, but I'll focus on the worst one that infects all of the others. This article makes the assertion (that it seems, Ed, you believe) that: "Deductive reasoning is a basic form of valid reasoning. Deductive reasoning, or deduction, starts out with a general statement, or hypothesis, and examines the possibilities to reach a specific, logical conclusion."
Induction is then claimed to be "the opposite," where one reasons from particulars to general statements.
It amazes me that this very old-school account of the distinction lingers around today. But it is an incorrect account, nevertheless.
In a nutshell, deduction is the inferential process in which: There is no possible scenario in which the premises can all be true and the conclusion false. By contrast, induction is the inferential process in which: If the premises are all true, it is likely that the conclusion is also true.
Notice that in the contemporary definitions there is zero mention of generality or particularity. That's because various combinations of general and particular statements can act as premises/conclusions of both deductive and inductive arguments. So, generality and particularity fail to explicate the distinction. And the distinction between deduction and induction in the article I linked to thereby FALSELY indicates that science is doing deduction in its relations between theory and experimental results.
So, the pressing question is whether or not the predictions of science make it CERTAIN that the theory is true or only likely that it is true.
As Feynman right stated back in the 60s, and as remains just as correct today, science cannot in principle GUARANTEE the truth of a particular theory on the basis of ANY amount of research data. Thus, its inferences cannot in principle be deductive. It can only (at least appear to) more and more strongly suggest that it is more and more likely that the theory in question is correct.
But that latter fact is induction, not deduction. Ergo, science does not prove anything, nor can it.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 20, 2018 - 07:10pm PT
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I might pick a nit with Feynman, but as you know, I have abandoned the search of "truth" as a part of science. That doesn't mean that I don't believe that science is true. The truth of it is in our predictive capability, that no only includes arcane research but also engineering and technology. The fact that philosophers are still mulling over ideas from centuries ago with no means of resolution is a study in contrasts.
The observation of the Higgs boson was a confirmation of the electroweak theory. That is simple common sense (which scientists have not abandoned, perhaps philosophers have) whether or not Feynman agrees. The correspondence of the physical reality to out theories will always be provisional. One might argue there is no physical reality, I'm happy with that argument, I just don't agree. It is certainly true that we will never full resolve this issue, in the sense that there are physical limits on what we can observe, beyond which we might not have the ability to test our theories.
When I talked about consistency of theory and experiment, I alway mean within the finite precision and accuracy of the experimental result and of the theory too for that matter.
Now you ask me is it possible that there is another theory that would explain the phenomena that constitute the electroweak theory, and is not that theory? I suppose it is possible, I don't anyone who would work on it unless it essentially contained the current electroweak theory and could show it as a consequence of that other theory (as string theory might).
We can pull the string a bit on your criticism of science tweaking theories, this gets back to my comment above regarding the precision and accuracy of theories.
If we had not found the Higgs boson, and that was an outcome that was anticipated by the theorists, there were other ways of having the Higgs field and an effective propagator that would not be manifest as a "naive" Higgs boson, but some more complex entity.
In some ways, the theorists felt that the more complex entity was more likely than what we found, the theory doesn't require the "simplest" solution, and there may very well be other phenomenon that we have not yet observed that would require more complex solutions.
We didn't know until we looked.
You might call "foul!" but perhaps that is the difference between understanding the universe and seeking truth. We attempt to understand knowing our understanding is limited by our finite experiments, and that there may very well be things we have not observed.
Finally, the fact that physics makes progress in this program of understanding WITHOUT a consistent philosophical basis calls into question the need for a philosophical basis at all.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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May 20, 2018 - 07:47pm PT
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Ergo, science does not prove anything, nor can it.
Is the same true for math?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 20, 2018 - 07:49pm PT
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Ed, you apparently didn't watch the physicists vs. philosophers video, and you very quickly this time just devolved into your typical digs at philosophers and supposed irrelevancy of philosophy. So, this little discussion will end more quickly than usual. Probably a good thing.
I've developed a very low tolerance for being told (invariably by narrow-minded scientists) that philosophers are "behind the times." All this reveals to me, and other broadly educated people, is how behind the times and intellectually arrogant too many scientists really are.
Keep doing what you're doing, Ed. I like having microwave ovens and space shuttles that don't blow up most of the time. As long as you believe that you're doing metaphysics, you're motivated to keep helping engineers along their trial-and-error path to such products. More power to you.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 20, 2018 - 07:51pm PT
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Is the same true for math?
John Gill could speak to this better than me. But I'll say that mathematics is a deductive enterprise and, hence, engages in proofs.
Moreover, I have yet to meet or even hear of a mathematician that was not a realist about mathematical entities. I'm curious about you, John, on that point.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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May 20, 2018 - 07:53pm PT
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I'm curious, too.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 20, 2018 - 08:33pm PT
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I am wondering what the role of metaphysics is, after all this time, and the state of philosophy that has not yet resolved many of these issues.
You often speak as if these have been resolved, and when I look into them more deeply I find, not only are they not resolved, but there is often the statement that they are unresolvable.
Given that the status of Hume's "Induction Problem" hasn't progressed that much further than when Hume left it off, and though a lot of work has gone into attempts to resolve it by credible, competent and often good thinkers, one wonders whether or not they are relevant.
Operationally, they are not. We use induction, we use deduction we seem to be able to make progress even though the philosophers are not sure how it is we are doing it, and whether or not it is "true."
You like to end your arguments in a very dramatic declaration, and especially taking on the role of a victim of what you consider "cheap shots" (while taking your own shots), but while you can complain that philosophers suffer a "PR" problem, what they suffer is a relevance problem.
If the philosophy of science was at all relevant to science, it would be taken more seriously by scientists. The fact that philosophy can't understand science, and yet science gets done, ought to serve as some metric regarding relevance.
I can understand your motive to separate science from what you would consider "truth" but the philosophical basis of that separation is on equally perilous ground. Perhaps the role philosophers serve is to demonstrate where that quick sand is (by falling into it) and providing an example of what to avoid.
What is it about this scene which makes you fill uneasy about "confirmation" sneaking in?
[Click to View YouTube Video]
and what would philosophy add to the discussion? tut tutting about metaphysics?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 20, 2018 - 08:46pm PT
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[Click to View YouTube Video]
I believe Feynman says you can disprove a theory, you cannot "prove" a theory because you don't know enough, or can't measure well enough, or both... but on the other hand, theories are not arguments with arbitrary exchangeable pieces.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
that last one I believe I have seen before, what did it resolve?
is there a philosophical resolution to "the measurement problem"?
are there quantum computers philosophically possible? how would you show this?
have people questioned the "foundations of quantum mechanics" in physics or have they been discouraged by intellectually dishonest physics mentors?
I agree that the discussions are interesting, they may or may not be important.
Mach's contribution to Einstein's thinking is an interesting thread to pull.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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May 20, 2018 - 08:49pm PT
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Mathematics involves theorem conjecture, then deductive theorem proof. Avoiding esoteric realms of set theory and foundations of mathematics, most mathematicians employ "normal" logic, including the Law of the Excluded Middle, contrapositive arguments, proofs by contradiction, etc. Of course, all arguments rest on sets of axioms or postulates that are simply assumed.
Constructive mathematicians avoid indirect proofs that don't produce a mathematical "object", whereas most of us use such strategies. Topology is an area in which indirect proofs are common. I use these approaches occasionally when direct avenues are either too difficult or I'm a bit lazy. I prefer finding an actual function that fits my parameters rather than simply showing one must exist.
I play around in complex variable theory and have no truck with things like the Axiom of Choice, which some have issues with. What I do may seem abstract, but is very far indeed from what is considered modern abstract math.
Yanqui can do a better job of explanation than me. He is younger, better looking, and smarter.
;>)
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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May 20, 2018 - 09:22pm PT
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Wayno: How do you define something that you are not sure exists?
I think you’ve made at least two errors here. (i) How can something not exist when you’ve brought it to mind? You seem to be saying that only certain characteristics count for existence. And what if those characteristics don't exist or are irrelevant? Then a thing cannot exist? Would you say that “trust” is a thing that exists? (ii) Definitions are’t really all that helpful sometimes. One cannot seem to choose one thing and define it so that nothing wiggles out.
MB1: So, if I'm reading you correctly, you are saying that the Higgs boson is the ONLY metaphysical entity that could logically-possibly produce the phenomena observed by experiment. Is that what you're saying?
Whooa, dude, . . . good move. (I feel like Keanu Reeves right now.)
"Well, that experiment didn't falsify the theory." But it is a formal fallacy to then slip into the very tempting supposed corollary: "The theory is correct."
Yes, yes, yes. (My god, one might think this is somehow rocket science.)
Ed: I agree that the discussion are interesting, they may or may not be important.
You know, Ed, you could hardly be more cavalier about the issue. I would imagine that it’s up *to you* to say whether it’s important. Is the issue at hand simply an intellectual curiosity, or is the nature of reality something that you yearn to understand and experience? (“Objectivity” can so flaccid.)
(Yeah, that “truth” thing. Pfffttttt.)
What kind of life is worth living, would you say?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 20, 2018 - 10:05pm PT
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He is younger, better looking, and smarter.
LOL Well played, sir.
Ah, but is he a realist about mathematical entities?
What I'm asking of you (and him if he'll jump in) is: We use numerals, like "1" and "2". But what do you take those numerals to refer to in the world?
Realists will say something like, "Well, the numeral '1' refers to the number 1." Some will say that the number 1 can be explicated in terms of set theory, or perhaps there's a single abstract object that is 1. Various mathematicians I've talked with have different ideas about the referent of the numeral "1," but they all believe that it refers to a real, "objective" entity that has genuine "existence" completely apart from our thinking about it. Regarding mathematical research, mathematicians tend (in my experience) to think that they are engaged in discoveries rather than inventions. Perhaps that the best way I can describe the difference.
By contrast, anti-realists about mathematical entities will say things like, "The numeral '1' is a useful shorthand to refer to an idea that we have." When pressed about how that idea (and the 'ideas' of mathematical relations) can be "objective" (as mathematics certainly seems to be objective), the typical answer is something like, "Well, they are not 'objective' in the rigorous sense of that term; they are more like inter-subjective." But I don't find mathematicians thinking this way.
I'm curious if you have insights on this subject. Thank you in advance for even considering this.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 20, 2018 - 10:11pm PT
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I would imagine that it’s up *to you* to say whether it’s important.
I am not compelled to participate in any of these discussions, so it is up *to me* as far as my posts are concerned.
But your response seems to imply something else. Can something "be important" but not "be important to you?" examples please.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Cascade Mountains and Monterey Bay
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May 20, 2018 - 11:11pm PT
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from my perspective most of these discussions lag about 100 years behind the discoveries of quantum physics
and even much further behind WB's sources
the soul, if you want to use that term, is all there really is
it's like fish arguing over the existence of water
i tried having this discussion over lunch with you, Ed ... it seems to me you understand very well the cosmology discoveries (no doubt much better than I)
but still force fit your gut understanding and personal perceptions into the persistent illusion that the material universe is more tangible than the electromagnetic frequencies ...
that are translated by an electronic processor (Mind)
into the viewing of a video screen ... the 'hologram in the back of our mind' that we are so convinced constitutes the 'material universe'
Tesla said it well: just study vibration and frequency
the mind is just a processor for translating certain very narrow bands of broadcast frequencies
just don't get so hung up on what to call the medium that is vibrating or the unit (mind) processing the vibration patterns into the oh so convincing apparency of a material reality
that apparency of a material universe is all very interesting, but it's just an advanced technology that you can study much better empirically once you understand the basic concept and see through the illusion
the material universe IS an illusion, analogous to that 'reality' generated on a video screen ... just a rather more sophisticated application of the basic concept
i am regularly astounded by how much intelligent discourse can be devoted to perpetuating such an illusion
this illusion of material reality is a trap for spiritual beings
and based upon these intelligent discussions, an astoundingly effective trap
'spiritual enlightenment' is simply seeing through that illusion
at which point you can begin living and learning from an entirely refreshing perspective
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Don Paul
Social climber
Denver CO
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May 21, 2018 - 05:26am PT
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I am wondering what the role of metaphysics is, after all this time, and the state of philosophy that has not yet resolved many of these issues.
It seems completely pointless to me. If someone were trying to cure cancer, I doubt they could get very far with these methods. Understanding how the brain produces the subjective experience of consciousness is an actual science problem that people are trying to solve. I believe that one of the reasons people are so committed to the idea of a soul, is that science has so far not provided satisfying answers to this problem.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 21, 2018 - 05:33am PT
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Ed, I'm just going to ignore your claim that I'm playing some victim card or employing "drama." Let's try to keep our "shots" devoted to as much objectivity about ideology as possible.
I really should be going to bed, but I won't have time tomorrow (what is now "today") for this, so here goes....
I am wondering what the role of metaphysics is, after all this time, and the state of philosophy that has not yet resolved many of these issues.
Metaphysics is the study of the nature of reality, which doesn't presume empirical epistemology or any epistemology in particular. That is part of why it is "meta" to "physics" in modern parlance. Thus, the "state of metaphysics" is the wrong question to ask. There are at least two reasons that come to the top of my mind:
1) By the way you've couched the question, you imply that there's some "legitimate time slice" in which certain "issues" have to be "resolved." Beyond that time slice or lacking a certain sort of "resolution," you imply that metaphysics is an unproductive, useless, and/or irrelevant approach to investigating reality.
However, there are significant "issues" in physics that have not yet been resolved. How long do you get? How long would the standard model have survived had the Higgs boson never been discovered? How long do you get to (finally!) produce a GUT? Sheesh, you guys have been grappling with that one for about 100 years now!
See? The previous sentence shows how ridiculous it is to set arbitrary time-slices in which this or that "issue" has to be "resolved." So, "issues resolved" is not the right question to ask.
2) The first point leads naturally to the second, which focuses on the nature of the "resolution."
Consider that physics is operating within a very narrow and quite well-defined construct, within which the practitioners agree on a basic functional matrix, such as: What counts as evidence, how evidence shall be assessed, and a host of other such frameworks. You don't concern yourselves with questions like how many eggs are healthy to eat, although that is a scientific question in its own right; it's not a "physics" question. Your scope is quite narrow and well-defined. You see this as "obviously the most productive approach," and compared to "the state of metaphysics," you would appear to be obviously right.
However, metaphysics is "meta" to physics, because it is concerned with validating putative approaches to truth-seeking about the way the universe really is. Empirical physics as practiced today is just one of them. And it recognizes that physics qua metaphysics itself would be deeply begging the question on a host of levels.
Narrow-scope physicists won't ask themselves the questions that metaphysicians ask, because there is no need nor motivation to ask such questions within that physicalist/empiricist paradigm. But it IS in the context of questions like the one of this thread that the question-begging nature of the physicalist/empiricist framework is revealed not as a mere "productive nicety" but as something that itself demands "external scrutiny."
However, that scrutiny takes work and time that a physicist never imagines to spend on the question. The process is literally harder and slower than physical theories and experiments, simply because the metaphysician HAS to consider questions the answers to which the physicist PRESUMES are already "resolved." So, metaphysical "progress" is both qualitatively and quantitatively different from empirical-physical "progress." Thus, when you hold all inquiry to the same assessment of "progress" as physics, you both beg the question and smuggle in all sorts of presumptions about what "success" even is.
For example, there are limits to what empiricism can accomplish. It can't, for example, produce self-referential experiments to determine its own limitations. This is an important point that I'm not going to dwell on but that bears some serious thought. And, because this fact leads empiricists from within their own paradigm to be "certain" of things that actually they in-principle can't even know, it is both valid and legitimate for some "third party" to consider the limitations of empiricism from outside that paradigm.
And Hume, as you note, revealed some of the limitations of empiricism as a truth-seeking mechanism. What are those limits, are they hard limits or just present misunderstandings, and are there alternatives to empirical evidence that also count as evidence? These are metaphysical questions that physicists, for perfectly good and predictable reasons, never bother with. But they are important questions nevertheless, in part because they touch directly on what we count as "true" about the way the universe REALLY is, not just how it appears to us at present.
Philosophers have made really dramatic strides on these questions over the centuries. You refer to Hume, for example, and I'll return to Hume in some depth in a moment. But pre-Hume, empiricists had not understood the limits of empiricism. They believed a huge pile of things that they were not entitled to believe.
Even today, as you mentioned, the "problem of induction" remains, which indicates something very different for metaphysicians than it (obviously) does for physicists. I'll return to that point momentarily, but the point I want to make at this precise juncture is that the "results" you are looking for are necessarily different from what "results" means within a purely empirical-physical construct.
You often speak as if these have been resolved, and when I look into them more deeply I find, not only are they not resolved, but there is often the statement that they are unresolvable.
I don't believe I speak "as if these have been resolved." As I've argued just above, I don't even think of the term "resolved" like you do, so I'm certainly not claiming that "issues" have been "resolved" in anything like the sense you mean it. So let me be crystal clear in this very context that I certainly don't think that most metaphysical "issues" have been "resolved."
I do agree with your assessment that philosophers have come to a consensus about a number of questions being "unresolvable" in principle. But why is that a bad thing? It's good to realize when certain approaches or even particular questions or methods are in-principle dead-ends.
Why, for example, isn't physics devoting itself to giving us faster-than-light travel? What a boon to mankind THAT would be! Is there really a "result" that could be more dramatic than that? Oh, wait, is that one of those really, really intractable problems? A perhaps unresolvable one? Well shame on physics for not being able to solve every problem that is put before it.
And the point is obvious. It's no failing of metaphysics that it can identify intractable problems and thereby not devote more time toward such inquiry. It's a strength of any method that it demonstrates some self-correction; you sure don't see that in, for example, astrology!
So, to summarize the above thus far, it appears that you have unreasonable and even question-begging expectations for what philosophy in general and metaphysics in particular is supposed to "accomplish" in the way of "issue resolution."
Given that the status of Hume's "Induction Problem" hasn't progressed that much further than when Hume left it off, and though a lot of work has gone into attempts to resolve it by credible, competent and often good thinkers, one wonders whether or not they are relevant.
As promised, now I'll more thoroughly develop "the status of Hume's 'Induction Problem.'"
To me there is a vast irony in how you've cast the fact that philosophers "haven't progressed" on the problem of induction. It's a bit subtle, though, so I'll tease it out.
The implications for science as a truth-seeking mechanism are pretty dire without a solution to the problem of induction. You are correct that hundreds of years have passed with philosophers well-recognizing the implications and therefore attempting all sorts of resolutions.
Now, the beginning of the irony is that philosophers of science have cared more than scientists to solve the problem, because THEY have wanted science to be actually doing metaphysics, which is to actually be telling us TRUE things about how the universe REALLY is, which is what scientists SAY they are doing. Most philosophers see philosophy as convergent with science, and they honor and elevate the scientific method. So, such philosophers of science care about what Hume revealed about empiricism, the problem of induction being just one of many problems.
By contrast, physicists in particular, you yourself as a classic example, don't care about that issue, because you just refer to "making progress" as a "relevant" stand-in for "truth." And most recently you seem to completely embrace that account of "truth."
But here's the problem with your blase' attitude on this subject. Science in general and physics in particular tells the public (and generates massive funding) on the promise that it is "discovering the truth," that it IS doing metaphysics in the strict sense of that term. Honest philosophers of science recognize that what you SAY you're doing and what you in-principle can be doing are two different things. And they are motivated to bridge that gap, for your sake and the sake of the scientific method that they genuinely respect. So, honest philosophers of science want the public to be getting what they are being told they are getting: Truth-seeking.
Moreover, for better or worse, the public draws obvious and even necessary implications from what science says, and these "truths" profoundly affect public policy and the expenditure and allocation of vast amounts of money. In short, it serves your interest on many levels to float that "truth-seeking" FICTION to the public.
But fiction it is, and the problem of induction is just one of the problems that demonstrate the hard limits of empiricism. There are many other demonstrations.
So, when you blithely accept the conflation of "truth" into "what works," which REALLY means, "how it seems to us at the moment to work," you ARE being genuinely empirical! But the actual implications of genuine empiricism are NOT what you float to the public, and the very existence of publicly-funded research depends upon a presumption that you are doing genuine metaphysics, in fact that you are doing the only genuine metaphysics that can properly be done!
The irony is that you see it as a problem of philosophical metaphysics alone that "no solution has yet been found" to the various problems of empiricism, when in fact the philosophers WANT you to be both intellectually honest and honest with the public about what you are REALLY doing when you spend their money. And the very empiricist metaphycisians you denigrate, who are IN YOUR CORNER, have not been able to discover a way out of that corner FOR YOU.
So, you enjoy the vast social benefits of a practice that is NOT what you tell the public it is, and the ONLY people that even care to be intellectually honest on your behalf and attempt to resolve what amounts to a fiction that you float to the public are the VERY people you bag on as being "irrelevant."
Now that is ironic.
You try to pretend that an understanding and validation of the scientific method is irrelevant. But it is actually the most practically relevant aspect of your research funding, because you get funding NOT primarily on the basis of "what works" but on the basis of the fiction of "what's true."
You see, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, your accepted conflation of "what works" with "truth" would NOT be acceptable to most of the public if the public understood the implications for what they really are.
When I say, "physics is not a truth-seeking device," you (now) just sort of admit that and embrace a revised notion of "truth." But that revised notion is NOT what is floated to the public! So, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, science HAS a problem of "truth," and the very people that have been trying to solve that problem on your behalf, so that you CAN keep getting massive funding, are the ones whose failure thus far you call irrelevant.
So, let's consider some facts. You well know these facts. The public DOES deeply question whether tens of billions should be spent on a collider. You tout the discovery of the Higgs boson, but Congress decided to NOT finish the SSC in Texas, and CERN pushed forward.
But vast amounts of money doesn't grow on trees, and at some point the factors of WHY funding was halted in the US must be contemplated, because those reasons can indeed go global, and they at least affect research in the US.
That particular SSC decision spanned significant time and involved many factors. But that decision was in large part motivated by the public's sense that, for example, NASA would make better use of similar funds than "pure research" into the esoteric nature of "fundamental particles."
Notice that "discovering more deeply what works" could not have been a sufficient motivator, even in the context of the endless race to have better and better things for military applications. There are serious motivational limits to "what works" apart from an immediately pressing need, such as the immediate need of an atom bomb.
Research projects sell themselves on the presumption that they will discover TRUTH. THAT model is what the public believes and is what popular physics publications emphasize. THAT fiction has a motivational power that "what seems to work to us at present" can never have!
So, what do you think would happen to the funding of theoretical physics if the public really understood that physics is not a truth-seeking mechanism and cannot in principle be one?
You cannot be as flip and blase' about truth as you now seem to be. Ironically, it has been philosophers of science that have recognized the problem that science faces on this front and have been trying to solve it FOR YOU, so that you could just continue on as always. Most philosophers of science are not opposed to you! By stark contrast, they have been trying to solve problems that you refuse to even acknowledge, because they recognize the baleful implications for the practice of science.
You can say, "science just continues to make progress regardless of what philosophers think it is doing," but that is an astoundingly naive assessment of "what you are doing" relative to what the public thinks you are doing. It is also an astoundingly narrow-minded perspective.
You'd have to sell research projects completely differently if the truth of the hard limits of empiricism were widely known, and it would be a much harder sell.
Try telling the public this: "Hey, we need about 12 billion dollars, we think, at the moment, is what we think it will cost; it could be more, probably will, actually. We need to build a device to see IF we can get some really, really difficult to discover particles to appear. Now, there's a significant chance that we won't see what we're looking for. We won't take the absence of the particle to actually outright falsify our working model or anything like that, and it's also possible that what we're looking for won't appear to us exactly as we're looking for it. But we'll 'know' that 'it' was what we were looking for anyway. And it's variations also won't falsify any theory.
"Now, this endeavor has at present purely theoretical value. But, of course, as Heinlein quipped, 'Of what value is a newborn baby?' You know, it's all about potential. And, as you've seen in the past, technologies that you really like emerge from our theories and experiments. So, let's 'have that baby' and just see what might develop from it."
There's no doubt that this approach would garner some support. There are, after all, a lot of people that just think that technology is sexy and cool, and they hope for more and more. They don't realize how indirect is the actual link between physics and engineering. For example, you guys still haven't figured out how a wing produces lift! It's not the Bernoulli Effect after all, despite what is EVERYWHERE taught.
Talk about an "intractable problem," and some grand physics solution is not "why" a wing works. That's just one of countless examples. Again, once the public recognized how often (the norm) the "cool and sexy tech" emerges by trial-and-error rather than directly from theoretical physics, they just might start to wonder how "relevant" (and worth the cost) pure theoretical physics really is. You don't have a working agenda to, for example, give us faster than light travel.
So, beyond some techy die-hards, MANY/most people don't care about a Higgs boson on its own merits. They don't get the point other than a vague sense of something like, "This stuff will perhaps someday get us even cooler microwave ovens, or something else with some practical value."
But you can motivate almost everybody by emphasizing "truth, truth; we're seeking the truth as it really is in the universe." And a much larger subset of the public really buys into the "truth-seeking" motivation of theoretical physics. But, of course, genuine metaphysics (truth-seeking) is not what theoretical physics is doing.
Now, perhaps, you won't continue to be as flip as you have been about "truth" and what it really means. And the fact that philosophers of science (that are in YOUR corner!) haven't found a good solution to the problem of induction (among many other problems of empiricism) should have the opposite implications for you that it presently does.
Rather than indicating to you some core irrelevancy of philosophy of science, you might instead recognize that there IS a genuine problem with science being a truth-seeking mechanism, and that implies that what you are selling to the public is a fiction, which then implies that when the public finds out, you are going to experience an existential crisis.
So, rather than to just double-down on a blase' attitude about truth, and poke with sticks at the very people that are trying to help you solve a core problem you've been too blase' to recognize, you might recognize that there are very PRACTICAL implications that can very quickly emerge from what philosophers of science are doing.
What you DON'T want are philosophers of science, particularly the anti-realists among them, gaining ANY public traction with their heretical ideas! And if you think that you can just bash on philosophy and make the threat disappear, you're wrong. That tactic might work for a time, but ideas have a pesky way of emerging again and again until they are ADDRESSED in some compelling way. If you can't win against such arguments on their merits, then the war of ideas will slip away from you incrementally but surely. And the first signs that you are losing will be reduced funding.
Notice that you have to DO philosophy of science, NOT physics, to even engage in that battle of ideas, much more to win it.
You should be rooting for the success of philosophers of science that are in your corner rather than painting them as irrelevant. And you should take their thus-far failure on your behalf to be worrisome, not irrelevant, on multiple levels.
The point is that, far from being irrelevant to your methods, processes, and even existence, philosophy of science has very practical implications that can emerge "in your face" at any moment. And various Congressional funding decisions, as you well know, revolve around "bang for buck" in the very context of a presumption of truth-seeking. Remove that presumption of truth-seeking and then see how far the "maybe cool stuff later" motivation takes you.
Operationally, they are not. We use induction, we use deduction we seem to be able to make progress even though the philosophers are not sure how it is we are doing it, and whether or not it is "true."
Another classic example of a blase' attitude that smacks of absolutely astounding arrogance! Theoretical physics has been on the gravy train for so long that it thinks it owns it! There is literally so much to say here that I could (should) write a book about it!
First, philosophy of science has a really solid understanding of what science does, what its actual method is. There's no great mystery there, even though some of the implications are up for debate. Saying "not sure" is trivially true, but in that sense scientists are even more clueless.
Next, you are pretty blithe about the term "progress." I'm no Kuhnian, but he nicely summed it up: Forever making progress, but not toward anything.
See, you repeatedly tout the Higgs boson, but there are many problems with that discovery, some of which you yourself have alluded to. You refer to discovering "it," but in the next breath talk about multiple "its" that could have appeared very differently from this "it." Any one of the "its" was predicted in some sense. You even note that this particular "it" was not entirely as expected. So, will you admit that whatever the experimental results, you would claim "progress" after the "discovery"?
How do you think the public (that pays for such research) would react if it had any robust sense of just HOW "theoretical" the research really is and how abstract your actual notion of "progress" really is?
Decouple your research from genuine metaphysics, and then decouple it from much of engineering, and the public starts to understand how profoundly NARROW and esoteric contemporary theoretical physics really is. Many might even start using that dreaded "relevancy" word at that point when confronted with a multi-billion dollar price tag for this or that project.
It MATTERS when you tell yourself and the public that you are doing deduction when you are not.
It MATTERS when you tell yourself and the public that you are really doing the only metaphysics that can in principle be done when you are not doing metaphysics at all.
It MATTERS when the implications of the method you actually do use (induction) have vast and necessary limitations that the public does not yet understand (but should), and it literally amazes me that you poke sticks at the very thinkers that are trying to keep your enterprise afloat in the face of intractable problems that you are so arrogant as to pretend don't even exist!
It MATTERS when you so relativize "progress" that it really doesn't pick out anything in particular, because everywhere you look YOU see confirmations. You tout "predictive power," but that itself is a profoundly moving target. And you self-servingly ignore the intractable problems that litter your own landscape, even when some of them by your own acknowledgement have lingered for a century despite the all-powerful nature of your method.
You assert that philosophy of science is irrelevant because you just keep making "progress" despite (apparently) nobody understanding "why it works." That would be just fine if you were being forthright and honest about your blase' attitude regarding truth to the public that pays your way!
But instead, you tell the public in every form of media and publish in textbooks "how a wing works," when you KNOW that what you say is not how a wing works. Thus, you claim "results" that are not yours. And this is just one example of "results" that are NOT.
You sense that the public would not keep funding research that amounted to an explanation-of-method like, "Well, it really doesn't matter HOW it works; it just matters THAT it works." The public would pretty quickly tire of such accounts and what they cost, particularly when they realized that "what works" is not a necessary result of the research they are paying for.
If the philosophy of science was at all relevant to science, it would be taken more seriously by scientists.
Wow, the layers of fallacies here are mind-boggling.
Let's see; here's a parallel.... "If the speed limit were at all relevant to drivers, it would be taken more seriously by them."
"If studies about the dangers of smoking were at all relevant to smokers, they would be taken more seriously by smokers."
As I've argued above, it's your blase' attitude toward method and truth-seeking that is why you literally draw the opposite conclusion from the problem of induction that physicists should.
It's outright intellectual arrogance to presume that because you don't acknowledge a problem, there isn't one. And it's truly head-in-sand thinking to imagine that the day will never come in which the public tires of funding pure research that is not necessarily linked to the products of engineering nor is it in-principle truth-seeking.
The greatest irony about this whole section of my response is that for you to engage with me about these points, you will not be doing physics! You will be doing philosophy. Physics can in no way help you sort through this discussion. So, if you recognize the need to respond, then you flatly admit the relevancy of philosophy of science.
The fact that philosophy can't understand science, and yet science gets done, ought to serve as some metric regarding relevance.
Except that you are committing yet more fallacies.
"The fact that scientists can't (or even care to) understand science, and yet science gets done, ought to serve as some metric regarding relevance."
You see, scientists, yourself included, TOUT that scientists don't waste their time considering "how it works," they just "do science." You expressly imply that having a knowledge of "how" or "why" it works is entirely irrelevant to the fact THAT it works.
But, then, by your own argument, scientists are exactly as irrelevant to the working of science as philosophers. Neither "understand it" in the sense you are stating above, and you have flat-out touted that fact.
But the emerging oddity of this "fact" is that it means that the very practitioners don't know WHAT they are doing and WHY "it works." They even embrace the idea that it's a strength of their perspective to leave such "irrelevant" questions to the lame philosophers who never accomplish anything anyway. "We'll just get on with producing results," is how you've put the point.
Perhaps this perspective seems a strength to YOU, but the public is someday going to wonder what it's paying for when it finally discovers that you don't even care to validate "what" you are doing beyond the utterly vague "it works."
And it is ironic that by your own argument you are as irrelevant to the practice of science as are philosophers. Perhaps that is some metric of the fallaciousness of that argument.
Here's another version.
"The fact that drivers can't understand how a car works, and yet cars work, ought to serve as some metric regarding relevance."
Hmmm... seems like something has gone very wrong with this inference, because SOME understanding of "how" is a necessary condition for "doing it correctly."
And there it is. Your above argument has the result that no "validation" of the method is possible. In fact, you tout that validation is irrelevant. "It works" is the ONLY relevant metric. But notice that THAT claim is not a physical claim; it is a philosophical claim; and philosophy, NOT physics, is the only venue in which the truth of THAT claim can be assessed.
So now, let's be CRYSTAL clear about where we stand. Now, by your own admissions and flat-out arguments, truth is nowhere to be found in the assessment. You have devolved into such a pure pragmatism, and even considered that to be your greatest strength, that even the METHOD cannot be assessed according to any truth-standard. "What works" is ALL there is to even the method.
But now you face a much more serious problem than the previous ones, as the public would literally not stand for your high priests writing books touting pure pragmatism.
Instead of, say, Hawking telling people that he is expressing THE TRUTH about the way the universe REALLY is, he has to admit that he is expressing nothing more than one possible set of implications of ONE way of thinking about the universe, and his implications derive all and only from a method than cannot in principle be understood or validated beyond "it works," where "it works" really means: "As it appears to us at present, within the limitations of our measuring devices."
That sort of honest but very mitigated presentation is a LOT less impressive than, "I'm telling you the TRUTH of how the universe REALLY is." And the latter motivates funding that the former simply does not.
I can understand your motive to separate science from what you would consider "truth" but the philosophical basis of that separation is on equally perilous ground.
No part of that statement makes any sense to me. First, I'm not "motivated" to separate science from truth. There's just a fact of the matter, and you yourself have helped me explicate it in your own terms. I just happen to understand its implications, where you apparently do not. You've admitted that this separation does exist. And it exists because it necessarily must.
Furthermore, I don't see how you can sustain the claim that "the philosophical basis of that separation is on equally perilous ground." Equal to what? My supposed motivation? My motivation is on perilous ground? I really don't get what you're saying.
But you acknowledge at least the problem of induction. You claim that it is irrelevant, although I've taken a shot at explaining its relevancy. But that problem itself is not on "perilous ground." That problem is a real implication of empirical "knowledge," as is the fact that science doesn't do deduction. If there's anything "perilous" in the problem of induction, it's the fact that people on "your side" don't seem to find a way out of the corner it puts you into.
So, you double-down by instead pretending that "science" doesn't recognize any such problem; it just goes on with spectacular success anyway. But now you've moved the goal posts! "Success" now definitely does NOT equate to truth. And it's not my "motivations" that have anything to do with that fact. It's just a fact. And the fact is not "perilous" in itself. It's just a fact.
But that fact DOES have implications that affect science, whether you prefer to admit it or not. One of the implications is that eventually the public is going to discover that science is not, nor can it be, a truth-seeking mechanism. That's going to have some practical effects on the practice of science.
People are already really tired of, "Studies show that too many eggs are bad for your heart." Then, "Studies now show that you can eat all the eggs you want." Then, "Studies show that a high-fat diet is bad for your heart." Then, "Studies of studies now show that there is no demonstrated correlation between fat intake and cholesterol levels nor morbidity from heart disease."
Ah, but you'll say, "Sure, but the further you get from theoretical physics, the 'softer' are the scientific results." And in such a response you would completely miss the point.
You would be correct about the unreliability of medical studies, but you would mistake a quantitative difference for a qualitative difference. What medical research is doing IS genuine science, and there is no qualitative difference between it and theoretical physics. If anything, the "data" of theoretical physics is even more esoteric and "interpreted" than is the "data" of medical studies.
If there's a "motivational" element to any of this, it is that theoretical physics is STRONGLY and very obviously motivated to present a monolithic, "truth-seeking" front to the public from which it extracts countless billions of dollars!
Am I saying that I denigrate medical research? Absolutely not! I'd much prefer to go to a trained MD than a witch doctor! This method is the best we've got, as contradictory as it is! But TRUTH? Absolutely not! At any given moment, our "data" is a pile of what "seems to work to us at the moment," and that is perpetually subject to change, even to complete negation, in the face of additional data. And there's no magic moment in which we've arrived at "the summit" and all the data is in, correlated, and correctly interpreted!
The very "it works" strength of the method is also its weakness when cast in the realm of truth-seeking. It is NOT the case that eggs are BOTH bad for you and good for you. It is NOT the case that fat-intake BOTH increases your risk of heart attack and that it doesn't. And if you imagine that there are not corollaries in the realm of theoretical physics, you are not being honest. There is no qualitative difference.
Perhaps the role philosophers serve is to demonstrate where that quick sand is (by falling into it) and providing an example of what to avoid.
LOL... pithy. And arrogant.
The day is coming in which science's arrogance will bite it in the azz.
In the same way that the old saw fits SO many MDs, "Often wrong; never uncertain," that old saw fits physics. There is no qualitative difference between MDs and physicists. And YOUR method, THE scientific method, produces contradictory results in medical research just apparently more often and glaringly than in physics.
So, if you don't like contradictory results, you have to give an account OF the methodological distinction between physics and medicine.
But, as soon as you start down that path, you are, guess what: DOING philosophy of science, like it or not. And once you're doing philosophy of science, you are forced to admit several things:
1) Philosophy of science is obviously not irrelevant.
2) Method MATTERS, and an understanding and validation of it matters.
3) Truth, not just "what works," matters, because a blase' attitude about truth leading to pure pragmatism is the very basis of contradictory results.
4) Science itself, the scientific method, is powerless to answer the questions emerging from its own contradictory results.
Science DOES produce contradictions, and you can't claim, "Not MY science," without doing some SERIOUS philosophy of science. You can't even bite the bullet of the contradictions without doing philosophy of science.
You can't ignore an analysis of method without doing philosophy of science, and you can't assess method without doing philosophy of science.
You can't claim that "what works" is as good as "true" without doing philosophy of science, and you can't claim that your "produced results" are "really true" without doing philosophy of science.
Science cannot live forever in a fallacious existence: "I don't acknowledge the problem, so there is no problem, and anybody claiming that there is a problem IS the only problem, which makes them irrelevant." Yet that trite attitude is the sum and substance of your expressed perspective, and it is the perspective of every physicist I've known. In short, you guys frequently find yourselves DOING the very philosophy of science that you denigrate, just badly.
I don't apologize for this "WoT." You handed me a very densely-packed mouthful, and multiple books could be written (indeed, have been written) to adequately respond to what you expressed. I've genuinely provided a very minimal Cliff's Notes of just some of the responses that arise to your expressed perspectives.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 21, 2018 - 06:17am PT
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the mind is just a processor for translating certain very narrow bands of broadcast frequencies
That sounds surprisingly Kantian. But that would put the view a couple of hundred years before quantum physics. ;-)
Of course, the devil's in the details.
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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May 21, 2018 - 06:38am PT
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Mad Bolter- Simply a verbal smoke screen to insert titled persons with an agenda as delineators of information for the less informed masses.
If humans have a soul, does a chimpanzee? If not, why not?
If a chimpanzee has a soul does a pig, a dog, a mole, a lizard?
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WBraun
climber
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May 21, 2018 - 06:56am PT
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Contractor
I've already ad nauseam explained in these threads that every life form has an individual spiritual soul with personality that drives its material body.
Even in an ameba and a single blade of grass for example.
Madbolter didn't even mention soul at all in his wot above.
Are you seeing things that are not there?
Richard did a magnificent job in his post above explaining his points ......
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