BurgDE

Dear Dr. Young,

You claim that objective truth exists -- contrary to postmodernism.

The best means we have of finding new "truth" or knowledge is the scientific method. But, the scientific method can only prove an idea wrong -- it can never establish absolute truth. If we cannot establish absolute truth with the best method that we have of finding new knowledge, then why BELIEVE in absolute truth?

Also, in outline, how can the dynamics of voltage-gated ion channels -- which can be modeled by Markovian kinetic models and which do not care about logical principles -- lead to the disciplined thought processes associated with logical reasoning -- which follow logical rules?

thank you,
don burgess

[Edited only to combine two posts into one. --Don--]

[ November 23, 2001: Message edited by: Donald Morgan ]

-DM-

[Thank you for your feedback regarding Science and Religion in an Impersonal Universe by Matt Young. E-mail notification has been sent to the author. Although there are no guarantees, you might want to check back from time to time for a further response following this post. --Don--]

Matt Young

I don't know what passage you are referring to, but I doubt I ever said there was absolute truth, a term you seem to consider synonymous with objective truth. I do, however, say that there is objective reality.

I compare that reality to a newly discovered continent. The first maps may be very imprecise or even wrong. As the continent is explored, the maps become more and more accurate, until they become a good rendition of the geography of the continent. The maps are obviously not the continent and they do not map it perfectly, but they get better and better as our exploration and our metrology improve.

In precisely the same way, our physical models are not the same as the reality that underlies them, but with time they become better and better descriptions. Some physical models are so successful that we are justified in calling them correct, even though we know that they might be valid over only a finite domain and might be superseded by better models. Even then, the new model has to reduce to the old model in that domain where the old model is correct.

Postmodernism is simply wrong if it thinks that a well-established physical theory such as relativity is accepted only because a community of scientists accepts it. To the contrary, it is accepted because it has so far passed every test. If it ever fails a test, it will probably not be disproved, but rather limited in its range of validity.

By the way, the scientific method can't prove anything wrong either -- the proponents of a bad theory can always patch together an ad-hoc hypothesis that will save the theory, at least in their own minds.

As for you last question, I haven't the foggiest idea.

Zar

I have to say I usually find myself saying the same things as Dr. Young when this subject comes up. Perhaps we both read Karl Popper.

I don't remember Popper being as loud about the part where no theory can be proved wrong. I think he would have said that any theory could be rendered invulnerable to attack by making it unfalsifiable, but then it loses its scientific status and becomes, more or less, an empty statement. (This is why people think he was a positivist, I think, much to his chagrin when he was alive.) I think he would also say that, although it is true that even previously falsified theories can still be useful as approximations to a wide range of cases, it does not alter the fundemental fact that they are, indeed, absolutely false as stated. For instance, if a=9.7 and b=2, and c=10, a is a better approximation of c than b is, even though a=c and b=c are both absolutely false. Of course, we don't ever really know what "c" is in real life, so we do an inverted comparison between competing theories which observes and compares the known falsity content of each as a guide to ranking them, rather than their nearness to a truth we do not know and never will know.

I certainly would prefer the system that had no known crucial failures in important testable areas to one that had many known failures in important areas.

What would be your major objection to this (if any) Dr. Young?

[ November 30, 2001: Message edited by: Zar ]</p>

Matt Young

I have no idea whether Popper ever said that no theory can ever be proved wrong, but I think my statement is consistent with Popper's writing -- for example, his comment that some "genuinely testable theories" may be "upheld by their admirers" who introduce an ad-hoc hypothesis or reinterpret their theory so it "escapes refutation." Popper indeed says that the scientific status of such theories has been destroyed, but, by allowing these theories to escape refutation, he seems mighty close to saying that no theory can ever be proved wrong.

As for whether 9.7 = 10: We must not confuse the exactness of mathematics with the inexactness of science. If we measure a quantity whose true value is 10 and get 9.7, we may conclude that the measured value is right if the standard uncertainty is small. More to the point, though, if we calculate a value of 10 and measure 9.7 +/- 0.6, we will tentatively conclude that the theory is correct. If now the theory breaks down when we try to verify the calculated value of 100, we may say that the theory is right for values less than 50 but not for values around 100. A new theory may correctly predict 80 instead of 100 but break down for 1000.

My guess is that all theories can potentially be shown to be wrong above certain limits. Does that mean that all theories are wrong? Perhaps, but I would prefer to say that the theories are right within those limits. I think we are now in the realm of half full vs. half empty; I prefer half full.

I do not understand your last sentence. I'd suggest that there are no crucial areas, since you can always fix a theory with an ad-hoc hypothesis. Nevertheless, we may identify some areas that are more important than others. A good theory, I suppose, has no failures in those areas but may have failures in other areas. Thus, the precession of the perihelion of Mercury did not invalidate Newton's dynamics because it was considered a minor problem. But no one likes a theory that has many failures in important areas, so I do not know what you are getting at.

BurgDE

Dear Dr. Young,

Thank you for your response. I would like to ask you a follow-up question:

If you do not have the "foggiest idea" how to explain our ability to reason in terms of molecular, biological processes, then how can you be convinced that our "free-will" is an illusion?

In my experience when I reason or do a calculation, I have to use my "will" to focus and to displine my thoughts to conform to logical principles. You would call my interpretation of my experience an "approximation". But, the implication of your materialistic viewpoint is that my understanding of my experience is totally wrong. I.e., there is no "will" controling my thoughts. Rather my thoughts are driven by essentially stochastic dynamics of protein molecules.

BerntRostrom

Matt Young Member # 4706 wrote:

I don't know what passage you are referring to, but I doubt I ever said there was absolute truth, a term you seem to consider synonymous with objective truth. I do, however, say that there is objective reality.

Bernt's answer is:

I guess this is the words that BurgDE is referring to what Matt Young writes in Skeptical Inquirer oct 2001 I cite him:

"We find that, contrary to postmodernist assertion, there is objective reality or, if you prefer, objective truth that exists independently of the observer and the belief system of the observer. I argue further that the only way to get at that truth--more precisely, the only way to approximate it, as a map approximates a continent--is through empirical observation.

end of quote

"No Sense of Obligation: Science and Religion in an Impersonal Universe," By Matt Young (and has also been published in The Skeptical Inquirer,
September-October, 2001, pp. 57-60. Its available on their hompepage. )

So he never equated this with anything absolute
but objective reality as contrasted to the pomo view that no interpretation is better than the other cause we can't know how to discern this if I get what pomo people say. Not easy at all.

I don't trust them, do you BurgDE?

Best regards
Bernt Rostrom

Kharakov

BurgDE- Do you have freedom from desire? How is your will 'free' if you cannot decide what you desire, and all your decisions to achieve your desires are made based upon prior experiences? Does it make a difference what causes your desire (whether it is purely physical interaction or in the realm of thought) since you, even in your examination of your desire, cannot free yourself from it (because the fact that you examine your desire indicates that you desire to examine it- you are not free from it). The fact that there is any desire must lead you to realize that there is absolutly NO freedom, unless you desire to believe otherwise.

bd-from-kg

Matt Young:

1. On objective truth

I’ve never understood this “There’s no objective truth” thing. Maybe you can help. You say:

OK, let’s take the statement “I have a body”. Now if there is an objective reality, my body (if it exists at all) is part of it; that’s part of what it means to call it a “body”. But if my body is part of objective reality, then it objectively exists, and if it objectively exists, it is objectively true that it exists. In fact, it seems to me that these three statements are logically equivalent: “My body is part of objective reality” means “My body objectively exists’, which in turn means “It is objectively true that my body exists”. So how can there be objective reality but not objective truth?

I understand the idea that there is no absolute knowledge. For example, I cannot know with certainty that my body exists. But surely I can believe that my body exists? And it seems to me that this implies that there is an object of belief – namely the proposition that my body exists. It seems to me that what I believe, but cannot know with certainty, is that it is objectively true that my body exists. If this isn’t what I cannot know with certainty, what is it that I cannot know with certainty?

It seems to me that it is important to preserve the distinction between absolute knowledge and absolute (i.e., objective) truth because otherwise clarity is lost. For example, when many people say that there is no objective morality, they do not mean merely that we cannot know with certainty whether statements such as “stealing is wrong” are true. Nor do they mean merely that there might be exceptional cases in which stealing is not wrong, nor that we cannot know with certainty whether a given theft is such an exception. They mean that statements like “Jim’s stealing of that car was wrong” cannot be objectively true in the same sense in which statements such as “I have a body” can be objectively true. If we deny that any statements at all can be objectively true, we are obscuring this distinction and making it very difficult to express just what it is that (according to moral subjectivists) distinguishes moral statements like “Jim’s stealing of that car was wrong” from factual assertions like “I have a body”.

2. On proving scientific theories wrong

You say that Popper points out that “‘genuinely testable theories’ may be ‘upheld by their admirers’ who introduce an ad-hoc hypothesis or reinterpret their theory so it ‘escapes refutation.’” You suggest that these theories have “escaped refutation” and that by repeating this process it is possible to prevent a theory from ever being “proved wrong”. But since a scientific theory is by definition an interpretation, it seems to me that any “reinterpretation” of it unavoidably creates a new interpretation – i.e., a new theory. So the original theory has not “escaped refutation” at all, but has been supplanted by a new theory. And of course it has been supplanted because it was proved wrong. What exactly is wrong with this procedure? Isn’t that how science normally operates?

BurgDE

Dear Kharakov,
Thank you for your reply.
On my good days, I do not simply follow my desires. Rather I evaluate them: are they wholesome, practical, ... and then make a CHOICE to act on them.

My real question is how do the dynamics of protein molecules lead to the disciplined thought processed involved in reasoning OR to the conscious experience I have in making a serious decision?

don burgess