Tyler Durden

Sojourner533, the Bishop George Berkeley's answer to that common example from your Philosophy 100 class was: "there are no trees." Try and conceive something unperceived, then you'll see the underlying force of Berkeley's solipsistic empiricism.

I would admit that the result of a tree falling in the forest sans perceivers would cause a disturbance in the air, but not sound. Sound is a phenomenological aspect of experience, and requires a perceiver. However, the sound of a tree hitting the ground is caused by the vibration in the air, which does not need a perceiver.

Bede

Tyler seems to share my view on this if he feels that the tree and sound waves can exist independent of an observor. My problem with exterior objects needing us to perceive them is I don't understand how anything unexpected ever happens - if Uranus didn't exist until it was discovered how come the evidence for its existence appeared just at that point? There is a point when it must pop up in order to be perceived and hence exist but which happens first. Berkeley's explanation that God's perception keeps things ticking over while we humans aren't paying attention doesn't seem very satisfactory even to this theist. The Law of Bart's Sofa states that any philosophical theory that throws into doubt the sofa Bart is sitting on is a priori invalid.

Anyway, back to Feyerabend. The comparison between Greek Gods and modern science is not entirely fair. Cicero and Lucretius had little trouble going through life without believing in said gods. Now it is entirely possible to reject modern science as a social construct but if you do it is also advisable to stay out of aeroplanes and not trust computers - indeed anything else constructed from that social construct. Some stuff works and other stuff doesn't. Planes seem pretty indifferent about whether they fly and no one has yet managed to invent a society in which they don't.

OK, this is a tad simplistic as the results of science do not prove the underlying explanation. But I think perhaps they do provide strong evidence for an objective reality that doesn't give a damn about what we think. There is a huge difference between the anthromorphic statement that as we can't get at truth, there isn't any and Sojourner saying that although we can't get there, it can still be real. As someone who really does loose sleep over why the earth doesn't plunge into the sun and whether I'll fall off if I visit Antarctica, it is pretty clear to me that the world is nothing like I think it ought to be. In Bedeland, the earth would be flat by social fiat. But it shows no inclination towards flatness at all and this means there is something objective that doesn't care what I think.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Tyler Durden

Bede, you remain clueless, as usual, with your "pop" up questions.

George Berkeley's idealism is pretty much confirmed in modern science: for the historically ignorant the berkeleyan principle may be unfalsifiable, but it is also inherent in the copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, according to which the microphysical entities come into existence only upon being observed. if this were true, there would be no observers, since these are composed of microphysical entities, the vast majority which are never observed.

Hugo Holbling

Of course! I can only return the courtesy you have extended to me.

In simple terms, the idea is to achieve a demarcation between good and bad theories in some way in which those terms are meaningful and we exclude in a methodological way those theories we think are crazy (like creation "science") while including those we want to keep, hence arriving at an idea of what constitutes science. Former criterion that have been tried include verificationism and probabilism, while the flavour-of-the-month nowadays is falsificationism. Unfortunately all these are flawed in that a rigorous enforcement of them in the past would have killed many avenues of enquiry that subsequently proved fruitful. This may force us to explore different ideas, as i explained in this thread, or else give up entirely.

Again, this is simple enough (and so i expect you want more...): the understanding of what we mean by "better" has varied over time. Methodology does not appear to be ahistorical, so the answer is "it depends".

Again: superior based on what criteria?

Nothing is too much for me, if you're asking.

I disagree because i want to see science freed from methodological constraints, as i said in the linked thread. Whether that will be better or not depends on alot of things, not the least of which is (again) how you define "better".

Now i have to take issue with you again. Why do you persist in reading me in this fashion? Do you think i'm a theist of some stripe? I'm not trying to defend the church, but rather to oppose what i think is a simplistic reading (usually motivated, it must be said, by a desire to castigate religious intolerance). Is that really so hard to appreciate, or do you suppose i'm intentionally being disingenuous?

Sorry, Bede, but this is a hopeless argument that has been made by many. Why should a constructivist avoid an instrumentalist approach to any of these things? I want to communicate with you so i use my computer - it makes no difference to my goal whether or not the knowledge associated with the endeavour is objectively true or a social construct. If we view knowledge, computers and aeroplanes as tools, we may use them in whatever fashion to further our concerns, irrespective of their ontological status.

How so? How does the evidence pronounce between (as Tyler rightly pointed out) superrealism, instrumentalism and descriptivism?

But no-one is yet making the former claim and there is no need to make this non sequitur.

Bede

Hugo (and Tyler too, if you are willing to be polite),

It seems I am attacking a strawman. My justification is that when I said the truth is out there, Hugo replied it probably isn't.

I am perfectly willing to accept that scientific hypotheses are social constructs and some of the most useful ones are known to be complete fantasy. What I am not willing to accept is that there is no objective reality. There is a huge difference between the claim that we cannot get at a true desciption of the world (which I support) and saying that the world only exists in our descriptions of it. A false (and indeed true) constructed theory can only be useful if reality is consistent and behaves in a way that the theory describes. But this is only possible if reality itself is not dependant on the theory - although our perception of it might be. But however much our perception is mediated by our understanding the truth is still out there.

The Copenhagen interpretation is, in my humble opinion, absurd. But then so is much of QM. When I was doing my physics degree I was far more idealist than I am now and simply refused to believe a word my tutors told me. But I have come to the conclusion that the world does not depend on me (sadly). Distinguishing between 'me' and 'an observer' is a cop-out as without the 'me' we don't have anyone else either. And QM does not depend on the Cop int and provides no evidence that the Cop int or indeed Berk ide is true.

Tyler, rereading your post, it makes no sense. This may be a weird post modern point you are making in which case can we have the straight dope?

edited to add: Quantum Field Theory makes the Cop int unnecessary. Particles arise from the interaction of fields according to strict probablistic rules. While we perceive particles and can't directly perceive fields, we are made up of the later and they don't require other observer fields to exist. QFT does not, IMHO, describe how things really are but it does provide a framework to describe what we really perceive.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Hugo Holbling

Perhaps.

Once again, this is not what is being claimed (although you are quite right that some do, if that's what you mean). Continuing to use instrumentalism as my example, the point is that any evidence you refer to doesn't in itself justify infering the truth of a theory from its apparent usefulness in terms of explanatory or predictive power. To do so seems thus to be a metaphysical step that instrumentalists are not willing to take.

Not necessarily. We make this assumption because it allows our theories to have predictive power, not the other way around.

Yet asserting this doesn't make it so.

Bede

Hugo,

My first statement was not aimed against you but just clarifying where I stand.

What I am not saying is the fact theory A produces predictions that get born out means theory A is correct or even close. All I need to know to get on a plane is that, as a rule, they work. If you didn't think computers functioned you won't try communicating with me on one. I fully accept we are left with a gap requiring a leap of faith to claim that because planes work the theory that underlies them is true. The holes theory of semi-conductors is not true but no one seems too worried about this.

But what I am trying to say in my confused unfocused way, is that because planes and computers consistantly work, there is some underlying reality working consistantly. This puts serious constraints on which theories are useful which we would not expect if they were entirely a function of ourselves. But, as your comment on creationism suggests, you are probably not saying they are.

I'm beginning to understand why philosophers write such opaque prose .

B

Sojourner553

You need observers to assign MEANING to an event. Still, an event (such as a tree falling in the forest and generating sound waves) will occur regardless of whether there is an observer around or not.

I think it a little looney to presuppose an event couldn't happen without an observer around to give it meaning. (Maybe this is not what you are saying though?)

Sojourner553

Hi Hugo.

There IS a demarcation between reality and people’s PERCEPTION of reality. Utility falls under perception, not necessarily reality. I know a diabetic whose perception was that he could get by without his insulin for a day while visiting his mother. Reality was he was in the hospital for three days afterwards.

Regarding the rainforest Indians, they do not have to live in a civilization to be happy. As long as they are also healthy – that is enough reality for me!



The DEGREE to which myths expedite our dealingS with sense experience ARE important! By this, of course, I mean REALITY, not my “perception of it”. Let me take an example: Say I have meningitis – I for one would rather be treated by a Western physician (who uses penicillin) than a witchdoctor who used spells. {I am also assuming utility for me is to be healthy, not drugged so as to be self-deluded I am high or happy}

Some might try to claim both the physician and witchdoctor were the "same" in medicinal value because neither can offer me 100% certainty of a cure. However! Statistically, I have much better odds of being cured by a Western physician than I do the witchdoctor. This is what makes the Western physician (medicinally speaking) superior in treating me than a witchdoctor.
That reality (probability of reality) is good enough for me.


Anyway, that is how I measure objectivity. I start by separating the reality from the perception of reality. Then I assign probabilities to reality, to choose among theories.

BTW Hugo, you tell us what you do not consider valid. But I have seen more than one reference where you have predetermined Creation has no validity. (I think this is what you imply.) By what objective method have you determined that Creationism is not a “valid” scientific theory??? How can you be sure your assessment of Creationism is based on reality and not merely your "perception" of it? {I think that might help me understand you better}





Sojourner (PS Bede: Outstanding posts!)

NOGO

Let's take an example. Billiards!
Balls on a table, one is hit, starts to move and hits another.

In out model we make approximations as follows:

1. Balls are all considered as perfectly rigid and totally spherical
2. Friction is simplified to make the calculation easy
3. We assume that energy lost through sound and perhaps other means is too small to matter.
4. We assume that the presence of moving objects like humans, cars on the street, moon, earth's rotation etc. have no influence on the result.
5. Am I missing anything?

With this simplified model we can still predict approximately where the balls will end up.

But there is no such thing as rigid bodies,
friction is very complex,
collisions do produce side effects which are quite complex.
and everything else that is happening in the world does have an impact on the test.

So given all the constraints the model is useful but what is "true" in all this? Truth is that man invented the idea of a rigid body and other similar ideas because it gave the right answer ... sometimes! ... and made the model useful ... sometimes!

This is science.

Religion on the other hand has this fancifull idea
that Billiard balls do behave like rigid bodies and it was made like that by God and was made for us to discover.