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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jun 18, 2017 - 06:08pm PT
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Hume was not a big fan of organized religions or the need to proof of a god. More than likely seeing the shortcomings of both.
Yeah, but what YOU aren't seeing is that Hume's sword cuts ALL ways. He gutted the entire notion of causality, and, with it, the rational practice of science.
"Constant conjunction" is not causality.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 18, 2017 - 06:36pm PT
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what does Hume know?
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jun 18, 2017 - 06:39pm PT
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"Yeah, but what YOU aren't seeing is that Hume's sword cuts ALL ways. He gutted the entire notion of causality, and, with it, the rational practice of science."
He did?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jun 18, 2017 - 06:46pm PT
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He gutted the entire notion of causality, and, with it, the rational practice of science.
Hmm...
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WBraun
climber
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Jun 18, 2017 - 07:18pm PT
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That's right Hume denied cause and effect relationships.
Hume was a fool .....
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 18, 2017 - 07:20pm PT
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"...the rational practice of science."
playing word games? there is no "rational" practice of science, that was Hume's point, wasn't it?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jun 18, 2017 - 08:54pm PT
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there is no "rational" practice of science, that was Hume's point, wasn't it?
One of his points, yes.
On that point, the issue is that we have no good reason from empirical evidence alone to believe in causality. It's a "brute" belief we have that is often shown incorrect in its particulars. Yet, we have no choice but to believe in it anyway. It's "faith" based upon occasional "evidence" that we subconsciously cherry pick.
Kant reestablishes the rational foundation of science, along with a robust notion of causality.
Philosophy of science since that time has really come down to a dichotomy between a Kantian perspective and various efforts to keep Hume intact but sidestep his baleful implications. In other words, transcendental idealism vs. empiricism, but where that empiricism seeks to avoid the Humean implications of thoroughgoing empiricism.
Of course, scientist will say something like, "Well, while philosophers are debating about what science is doing, science will just keep doing what it's doing and making real progress." But that dismissive attitude ignores, as just one example, what a vast effect the debates between Carnap and Popper had on the practice of science and how its theories are perceived among scientists themselves. The net effect of Popper's contribution is that now it is recognized that the scientific method doesn't "prove" or even "indicate" anything; it can only falsify theories.
A "confirmed" theory one that just hasn't been falsified yet. It's still "useful" in terms of "producing results," but that is not the same as "true" or "confirmed" in the loose sense.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 18, 2017 - 09:13pm PT
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"...what a vast effect the debates between Carnap and Popper had on the practice of science..."
do tell.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jun 18, 2017 - 09:30pm PT
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Madbolter1: Yet, we have no choice but to believe in it anyway. It's "faith" based upon occasional "evidence" that we subconsciously cherry pick.
An important point. One can infer it in every research findings when one looks at the statistics presented.
To the extent that it is applied, rationality ends up to be woefully deficient, even perhaps degenerative these days, hiding as much as it can show.
I’d say there are other choices, if one thinks “choices” are possible. There is also other “evidence” available, not just those of the senses that can be measured. IMO.
Nice to read your writing.
Sycorax,
I think you meant to write that I was preaching to the converted. (It was an attempt to engage in a conversation, and one emerged!)
(I Love Edinburgh. Say hello to the ghost of A. Smith there.)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 18, 2017 - 10:00pm PT
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“Thus we remember to have seen that species of object we call flame, and to have felt that species of sensation we call heat. We likewise call to mind their constant conjunction in all past instances. Without any farther ceremony, we call the one cause and the other effect, and infer the existence of the one from that of the other.”
"All philosophers, of every school, imagine that causation is one of the fundamental axioms or postulates of science, yet, oddly enough, in advanced sciences such as gravitational astronomy, the word "cause" never occurs. Dr. James Ward, in his Naturalism and Agnosticism, makes this a ground of complaint against physics: the business of those who wish to ascertain the ultimate truth about the world, he apparently thinks, should be the discovery of causes, yet physics never even seeks them. To me it seems that philosophy ought not to assume such legislative functions, and that the reason why physics has ceased to look for causes is that, in fact, there are no such things. The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm."
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jun 19, 2017 - 12:52am PT
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The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.
Ah, got it. Because the problem is, well, such a problem that savvy scientist have just stopped "using" the term. That, then, means that the "problem" was merely terminological, so getting rid of the pesky term got rid of the pesky "problem."
But, the problem is that you necessarily depend upon the concept regardless of your use of the term. Pretend that you're not necessarily employing the concept, and you abandon all sense of determinism and even the point to seeking for "natural laws."
Discovering necessary connections is the thing. You're looking for the "rules of the game," so to speak, because if you understand the rules, then and only then do you have the power of rule-based, predictive models.
Try all you want to pretend that causality doesn't underlie your rules, that the "rules" are something other than necessary connections, and you're left with no better pseudo-science than astrology.
Regarding your snarky "do tell," how about we let Richard Feynman tell:
In this clip, Feynman talks about the "philosophies" that underlie theories. By "philosophies," he's talking about "metaphysical ideas," as you'll see.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
In this clip, Feynman talks very specifically about the principle of falsification. Prior to Popper, scientists strove to do "verification." But Popper forever changed how scientists see the relation between theory and experiment. As, Feynman says, "If it [a theory] disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science."
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Now, the second that you acknowledge that science can only falsify theories, never verify them, you realize that science cannot in principle be doing metaphysics. It cannot be telling us any "truths" about the "furniture of reality." It can produce clever guesses. It can "make things work" and "get results" (the practical applications are employed by engineers). But "what works" is not the same as "what's true" from a metaphysical perspective.
There's no doubt that most people enthralled by the "successes" of science will say something like, "Well, it's obviously doing something more productive than religion," or that sort of thing. Of course, that's about as useful a comparison as saying, "Well, gasoline in a car is more productive than the color blue." Such statements are usually some sort of category error. And, like "natural," "productive" is a context-laden term.
It's a category error to think that science is a truth-seeking mechanism. It's instead a purely pragmatic enterprise that seeks to provide the human race with more and more productive guesses about how things will work (most of the time). But scientific theories (models) are not "capsules of truth" in a metaphysical sense. They are just better or worse guesses about how things will seem to work for us in this or that time-slice.
Where science become arrogant and goes far beyond its possible ken is precisely when it starts asserting that, in Feynman's terms, its "philosophical ideas" are actually TRUE, such that it makes KNOWLEDGE assertions about this or that model. Because NO scientific "ideas" can be confirmed by ANY pile of experimental evidence, claiming "is TRUE" simply goes beyond the evidence.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jun 19, 2017 - 05:23am PT
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"...what a vast effect the debates between Carnap and Popper had on the practice of science..."
do tell.
Doesn't seem like it had a vast effect in the science community.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jun 19, 2017 - 05:48am PT
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"“Moreover, we look in vain to philosophy for the answer to the great riddle. Despite its noble purpose and history, pure philosophy long ago abandoned the foundational questions about human existence. The question itself is a reputation killer. It has become a Gorgon for philosophers, upon whose visage even the best thinkers fear to gaze. They have good reason for their aversion. Most of the history of philosophy consists of failed models of the mind. The field of discourse is strewn with the wreckage of theories of consciousness. After the decline of logical positivism in the middle of the twentieth century, and the attempt of this movement to blend science and logic into a closed system, professional philosophers dispersed in an intellectual diaspora. They emigrated into the more tractable disciplines not yet colonized by science – intellectual history, semantics, logic, foundational mathematics, ethics, theology, and, most lucratively, problems of personal life adjustment.
Philosophers flourish in these various endeavors, but for the time being, at least, and by a process of elimination, the solution of the riddle has been left to science. What science promises, and has already supplied in part, is the following. There is a real creation story of humanity, and one only, and it is not a myth. It is being worked out and tested, and enriched and strengthened, step by step.
― Edward O. Wilson, The Social Conquest of Earth
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jun 19, 2017 - 07:59am PT
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Poor, poor Bob. All he can do is find quotes that he thinks agree with him, but he can only quote without understanding.
Science become arrogant, and pseudo-scientists like populate this site become arrogant, when they conflate the term "reality" with the phrase "empirical reality," such that they drop off the "empirical" part of the phrase and just say "reality" without even remembering all the presuppositions that went into that conflation.
"Scientific evidence" just becomes "evidence."
"Scientific knowledge" (falsely so-called) just becomes "knowledge."
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jun 19, 2017 - 08:10am PT
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Poor, poor Bob. All he can do is find quotes that he thinks agree with him, but he can only quote without understanding.
Don't feel sorry for me and I do understand exactly what I post...you just don't agree as I don't agree with you, you just think you are on some moral high ground...you are not.
You are all smoke and mirrors.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jun 19, 2017 - 08:29am PT
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Actually, I'm not the one claiming moral high ground, Bob.
If you'll remember, you are the one posting "gotcha" posts and images specifically designed to treat anybody not agreeing with you as idiotic, stupid, and foolish.
That's worse than claiming the "high ground." That's a smug superiority that is the opposite of intellectual honesty.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 19, 2017 - 08:32am PT
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I would be surprised if Feynman had been concerned with Popper, and even more if he spent much time regarding the philosophy-of-science as something that was relevant to science. As we see, the explanations of how science "works" come after science works, even the word "metaphysics" reflects this.
The discussions that philosophers engage in are not meant to actually settle anything, nor to predict anything, nor to even limit anything. They are relevant to trying to understand what is going on, but they cannot, in and of themselves, aid in actually doing anything. This is simply a practical observation, the same discussions have gone on for all of human history. They probably went on before then, we have no written records.
Are there any settled philosophical points? None, unless you wish to include modern science as a part of philosophy. Science has thrown out ideas, relegated them to the trash heap and moved on. There is no scientific discussion about "the origin of the species," as evolution serves to organize all of biology. There is no scientific discussion about the "luminiferous aether" a Newtonian conjecture which took 150 years to understand, and ultimately reject. There is no scientific discussion of the supernatural.
In the latest great discovery of high energy physics, there was the prediction of the Higgs Boson from the standard electroweak theory. The theory did not predict its mass, though it did predict a range of physical parameters allowable by the theory, including the mass, the coupling, the properties of the boson(s) etc. Not finding the Higgs would have presented the theory with a tremendous challenge, though not falsifying it outright. Had the Higgs not been found, the idea that this particular particle existed, often referred to as the "naive Higgs boson" would have spurred searches for a more complex theory. That didn't happen, we have the empirical equivalent of confirmation.
Maybe Popper wouldn't like this, but we went looking for something and we found it. Had we not found it that wouldn't have falsified the theory, at least not immediately.
At the same time, in the same lab, we expected to see signs of the "next great unification" of the physical forces, but have so far come up with nothing. This is a serious crisis for SuperSymmetric theories that we expected to be the story "Beyond the Standard Model," right now these theories, which have been the major focus of theoretical work, are in "danger" of being wrong, largely because the parameters that describe the theory would have to be set to unphysical (that is in disagreement with the body of observation) values.
The philosophy-of-science fails to anticipate these interesting occurrences in science, though I'm sure there will be a lot of discussion in PoS regarding just what this all means, and to no resolution. The scientists won't wait, don't have to wait, and are not constrained by that discussion.
The most successful "philosophy" of the physical world is science. There may be a philosophical debate as to what this means, but what's new?
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jun 19, 2017 - 08:37am PT
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Ed wrote: The most successful "philosophy" of the physical world is science. There may be a philosophical debate as to what this means, but what's new?
Great post Ed.
"If you'll remember, you are the one posting "gotcha" posts and images specifically designed to treat anybody not agreeing with you as idiotic, stupid, and foolish."
Look in the mirror.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jun 19, 2017 - 09:04am PT
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There is a real creation story of humanity, and one only, and it is not a myth. It is being worked out and tested, and enriched and strengthened, step by step.
And invariably, it is incomplete, inaccurate, and never final.
The basis for any myth is the psyche, whether the myth arises from the conscious mind or the unconscious mind. The psyche or soul expresses narratives that make sense of one’s world, but since humanity is constantly evolving interactively between the individual and his or her communities, then new myths are constantly arising for projection and expression. One might consider it a form of art or creativity.
Science presents a vision, not unlike other visions of how and what we see what we are and where we are. Both of those appear to be indescribable for many reasons (language, the limitations of conceptualizations, poor measuring tools, bounded rationality, etc.). Science, for all of its apparent benefits, is no different than other myth as myth—surely *more* detailed and accurate and complete than others, but never completely so. Moreover, science’s approach and capabilities present a bias, for everything that is said by any assessment or interpretation leaves other things unsaid. Look closely at any claim made by science. You’ll find more questions spawned than what were purportedly “answered” on any point. Is that due to the nature of reality, to the nature of the mind, or to some other reason that we have yet to discover?
Every tool made has its limitations. That’s another way of saying that there is a bias in every perspective, interpretation, framework, abstraction, or approach. If one doesn’t see that and admit that, then he or she is in delusion—often self-inflicted.
Ed: The discussions that philosophers engage in are not meant to actually settle anything, nor to predict anything, nor to even limit anything. They are relevant to trying to understand what is going on, but they cannot, in and of themselves, aid in actually doing anything.
“Practical” and “doing” should play well with this crowd, Ed. Unfortunately, that is not the usual issue that gets argued about here. Oftentimes what gets argued is what’s real, true, and what can be proven empirically.
On the other hand, one can argue that there are a great many things about life which are immensely important to human beings that are not practical or oriented to measurable performance. Most people here will not or cannot hear this, much less understand it. Instrumentalism, materialism, utilitarianism, expediency, is what living is all about for them. It’s the state of being we seem to have evolved to as society and individually. It characterizes our current state of consciousness. It biases how we see the world and ourselves. (We can thank Hume, Locke, Smith, and Hobbes for initiating this view.) If it’s not productive, it’s useless and irrelevant.
It’s been claimed by some that higher education should be shortened to two years and the general studies curriculum dropped because it does not help people in their careers.
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