Re: Universality as warrant for relative truth value

Haines Brown <brownh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
Neil W Rickert <rickert+nn@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Sometimes people talk of a science being based on axioms. But I don't
agree with that. I see it as starting with empirical principles.
Perhaps we don't agree on the meaning of "axioms".

Fair enough. By axiom I mean a foundational fact or principle that is
assumed to be true or a given because it is conventionally accepted as
such within the framework (best current scientific theory) that one is
addressing, or it is intuitively self evident, or it is an existential
requirement (such as a condition for research or dialog).

My use of the word foundational may not be the same as your word
"based". By foundational I do not mean to imply that the content of the
science can be reduced to it, but that it operates as a constraint on
what is possible in that scientific conception. For example, a generally

For example, a generally
shared meaning of words is foundational for meaningful discourse.

Okay, but that seems a strange meaning of "foundational".

I can agree that some kind of "shared meaning" is needed for meaningful
discourse. But I don't see it as foundational.

When you say "foundational", I tend to think of the solid ground
on which you erect a building, or perhaps concrete pillars in the
ground. But "shared meaning" isn't anything like solid ground.
It's rather ethereal, poorly exlained, and perhaps doesn't exist
(i.e. part of a poor explanation).

The issue you may be raising can be: a) Does a science depend on certain
presuppositions that are taken for granted?

Science depends on scientists, but I wouldn't call that "presuppositions".

or b) Can a science be
self-contained and not rely on matters external to it, that are not
established by it?

Biology depends on much that comes from physics. But a lot of
physics can stand alone.

What's an "empirical principle"? A methodology? A fact?

A principle is something that guides empirical practice. It's hard
to explain, because we seriously disagree about what science is.

I tend to think of axioms as inherently abstract.

What do you mean by "abstract".

Independent of reality.

Richard Feynman wrote a book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!". In it,
there is a chapter "O Americano, Outra Vez!" where he describes a
visit to Brazil. He found fault with the way science was being
done in Brazil. And, roughly speaking, I would say that the Brazilian
students were being taught physics as axioms, for all practical purposes
independent of reality. In particular, they could not say what their
science had to do with reality.

That's an example of what I mean by abstract.

Here is my attempt to explain how I see science:

You, and the conventional wisdom, see science as producing true
statements about reality. In fact, you see producing such
statements as the purpose of science (assuming I understand
your position). And by "true statement" you mean a statement
that corresponds with reality. The idea of "corresponds with
reality" presupposes that there is some kind of correspondence.
But, it is never explained where that correspondence comes from.

By contrast, I see science as establishing that correspondence.
That is, science invents ways of describing reality that were
not possible before. This requires new concepts, and requires
empirical principles on how to map reality into statements using
those concepts. I see that, the establishment of a suitable
correspondence, as the main role of science.

When you take science laws as axioms, the correspondence that science
has created becomes irrelevant. But your concern is only with
deduction you can make using those scientific laws. Your concern
is not about reality, or about how the scientific theory constructs
the correspondence that is needed if we are to talk about reality.

In a lab experiment in which we are testing f=ma, we take a to be
32ft/sec/sec as axiomatic in that it is presumed true within to
framework of the experiment. Is this empirical or not? Is this abstract
or not? Whether it be abstract or not, empirical or not, is it for those
reason any less true within the framework of the experiment?

I have lots of problems with that.

Firstly, we cannot test "f=ma", because that law is what defines
mass. Secondly the 32 ft/sec/sec is data, but not axiomatic.
If you are just solving equations, without any actual measurments,
then no, that is not empirical. The world might just as well not
be there. You could just as easily be discussing Ohm's law "V=IR",
and taking the current I to be 32 amps. The letters you use for
the the quantities are different, but it's the same law if what
you are doing is not connecting it to reality.

Axiomatic:

V=IR and f=ma are the same law, just using different
symbols;

Empirical

V=IR and f=ma are very different laws, because they connect
with reality very differently.

Science - is mainly involved with connecting symbolic forms
of description with reality. Once science has established the
correspondence, anybody can use it. But before the correspondence
is established, that are large aspects of reality about which we
are unable to say anything at all.

I hope that gives you are better perspective of what my position is.

Investigation based on axioms is solipsistic, in the sense that it
depends only on those abstract axioms and the world becomes
irrelevant. Mathematics can be described as solipsistic, in that
sense.

Research that rests on a set of axioms may be solipsistic in that it
presumably confirms, i.a., the validity of the axioms. But scientists
all insist that their science rests on a variety of axioms, are they
then saying that all science is solipsistic?

I don't recall ever hearing scientists saying that what they do
rests on axioms. So I cannot comment on what they might mean if
they did say that.

You seem to define "abstract" axioms as those irrelevant to the world,
and I have trouble thinking of any. Would you kindly provide an example
of an axiom that is unrelated to the world because it is abstract?

All of mathematics is built on such axioms. Or, perhaps I should say
that all of mathematics is said to be built on such axioms.

I note by the way that since we think in terms of words and concepts
that are human inventions, all thought ends up being solipsistic as
well. That may be close to Bishop Berkeley's position, but who still
defends it? What is wrong with this argument, or do you agree with it?

I somehow have the impression that Berkeley thought God directly
injected perceptions into peoples minds.

It is the empirical aspect of science that prevents it from being
circular, and keeps it actually about the world.

Sorry, but not many thoughtful people would at all agree with this. This
view seems an artifact of long discredited positivism, that "brute
facts" are uncontaminated by theory, are pure, and offer a certain and
sufficient foundation from which we draw inferences. The facts speak for
themselves. Just how does this empirical aspect of science prevent its
being circular?

You must have completely misunderstood, since I am not close to
the positivist position.

It's hard to say what my position is, because it is too far outside
the box. I find it difficult to explain in ways that others can
understand.

Then I say you have a problem. I get the sense in the message to which
I'm responding that you are trying to explicate your position, and you
will see that the questions I raise about it are more specific. That
would seem to be a bit of progress.

That's a fair assessment. When I say it is difficult to explain,
that doesn't mean that I have given up. I have learnt from
experience how difficult it is to explain, so I must frequently
change how I try to explain in an attempt to bridge the barrier.

So how does one make the translation from one conceptual system to
another?

That's actually not as hard as it sounds, as long as the two
conceptual systems are talking about the same thing. It is when
they are not talking about the same thing, that there is a problem.

How? I suggest you narrow your focus to one domain, dredge up for
inspection its most basic presuppositions (and ultimately their
presuppositions), and engage in dialog about those basics in a language
understood by others.

Perhaps my comments about science, earlier in this message, will help.

---------

But I don't think that works. What do you make of platonist
mathematicians? They will assert in one breath that mathematics is
not about the world, and that numbers are not physical. And in the
next breath they will say that they are mathematical realists, and
that numbers are real.

But that's a problem for mathematicians. Although I agree that the
status of mathematical truth is highly ambivalent, I leave it to
mathematicians to resolve. When they come to a conclusion and justify
it, then I may find it to be relevant. If they claim to be mathematical
realists, but at the same time insist that math is not about the world,
then this seems merely self-contradictory unless what they mean it is
not about the empirical world, but about, say, the non-empirical
structure of the world. Then they could say they are non-empirical
realists. But I leave it to them to make such an argument, for I'm
ignorant about the philosophical implications of math.

Many mathematicians do see some kind of reality to math,
though not in the physical world. It's called platonism, for
it is sometimes said that it is the reality of Plato's world of
ideal forms. Personally, I find that a bit too mystical. I take
mathematical objects (such as numbers) to be convenient fictions.
I take mathematics to be about methodology, not about objects.
The idea is that we invent these objects (as convenient fictions)
to exercise our methods in a idealized manner (i.e. without the
physical world intruding).

I think it more that the language of philosophy is foreign to
scientists. They don't know what philosophers are talking about, and
wonder whether it is anything more than gibberish.

I wonder about this. Most philosophy of science was analytical up to the
1980s and 90s and seemed to represent a world irrelevant to
scientists. This has dramatically changed, and most philosophers of
science now speak the same language as scientists and there is mutual
intelligibility. On this I can do no better than recommend Richard Boyd,
Philip Gasper, and J. D. Trout, eds., The Philosophy of Science
(Cambridge, MA, 1991).

You are right, that there is more of trend for philosophers of science
to actually talk to the scientists. This is a good change.

Once upon a time, matter was simple. It was a homogeneous substance.

I'm not using the word "matter" in the sense of physical material, but
in the far more abstract sense of that which is contingent. It is a
modal statement, not a description.

Contingent on what?

I don't think I have suggested that truthful statements have no
relation to the world,

I'm left uncertain about your position. If truthful statements have some
kind of relation to the world, then are we not at least in part
accepting some kind of correspondence theory? Perhaps not. In fact, I
argued that if correspondence is an empirical statement, not all
relations are a correspondence.

I hope my earlier comments about science and correspondence helps to
clarify my position. I'm not objecting to the idea that truth has
something to do with correspondence. My objection is in considering
that to be a theory of truth, when the notion of correspondence is
more troublesome than the notion of truth.

I am disagreeing that knowledge is truthful statements. I thought we
had been through that. Roughly speaking, knowledge is an ability to
produce truthful statements. It is not the statements themselves, but
the ability.

I don't buy this point. I pick up a book and read about the rules of
chess to the point I'm comfortable with them. I now possess truthful
knowledge of the rules of chess, and this knowledge consists of
statements in my mind having truth value.

But the rules of chess are not true because they correspond to
the world. Rather, the rules of chess correspond to the world
because we have chosen to adopt those rules and to create a social
world of chess playing based on those rules.

Your knowledge of chess is not a set of beliefs (statements of
rules). Rather, your knowledge of chess is in how to physically
move pieces in accordance with those rules, how to judge that
current state of the chess board.

We might compare with chess playing computer programs.
Those programs only "know" the rules. They have no ability to
judge the current state of the chess board, except by means of a
computationally intensive trial and error of possible legal moves
to see what results from testing those trial moves.

So far so good. But isn't
"knowledge" here specific rules rather than an abstract capacity? My
abstract capacity is to read and memorize, is it not, which has nothing
to do with truth.

No, your knowledge here is your ability to form correspondences
between your thoughts and the current state of the chess board,
such as allow you to make generally good judgements about the
current state of the game.

To
suggest that consciousness existed before there were minds, brains,
humans, or earth is obviously counter-intuitive.

I did not suggest that.

Analogously, I want to discuss the cognitive system as an abstract
system that deals with information, while I want to talk about the
brain as a system of neurons that transmit ion potentials. That is, I
think of a cognitive system as an abstract system that deals with
information, and I think of the brain (and other parts of physiology)
as a physical implementation of that abstract system.

I see nothing wrong with any of this, although not clear why you
describe thought as "abstract". I asked you above just what you mean by
the word.

I'm not thinking of thought as abstract. I am thinking of the mind
as an abstraction.

Many scientists do agree with you, and that they call that axiom/dogma
"methodological naturalism." But when looking at scientific practice,
I don't see where it is necessary.

It sure is! I walk into the lab, confident that it is really there. I
turn on a Bunsen burner, assuming that it will produce heat.

If you walk into the lab, turn on a Bunsen burner, and it does produce
heat, then it is reasonable to conclude that it is really there.

What I am arguing is "it is really there" is a conclusion, not a
prerequisite assumption of science.

Take the discovery of x-rays. Eureka! Something unexpected has happened,
and so let me devise a hypotheses that might explain it. This hypothesis
must be compatible with the observed fact that the film was exposed
except for the area beneath the key that happened to lay on it.

But that is not how science works.

In practice, the scientist observes that the film behaves as if
exposed. So he tries to repeat his steps with fresh film, to see
if it happens again. Then he tries to eliminate some steps in what
he did to narrow down what happened.

At the end of this period of experimentation, he will conclude
that he has found something that is reliably repeatable. He will
conclude that this is natural, not supernatural. It's a conclusion,
not a starting assumption.

No? Suppose I am a scientist, but reject the axiom that there's only
one kind of substance. That means if there's an event in the lab, it
could be the result, for example, of divine intervention.

Why should that affect a scientist's evidence-based investigation?

Because what he sees might be the result of divine intervention, for
example.

As long as it is reliably repeatable, why should the scientist care. If
there is divine intervention that is reliably repeatable, then the
divine being behaves in a reliably predictable way, so this particular
repeatable behavior can be considered natural, whether or not it
depends on divine intervention. Again, that it is natural is a conclusion,
not a starting assumption.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: are we the reflection of a hologram
    ... They're an illusion that seems to be real, but the reality is just ... of years but science is finally beginning to figure out, ... scientists all of this physics stuff. ... So your entire existence is just a hologram K. How about that? ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: "Measuring" the spiritual with science.
    ... The material form of reality is subject to the various ... modern science has concentrated entirely ... In either case the word "spiritual existence" does not have a good ... scientists will measure, that science and religion agree and that ...
    (soc.religion.bahai)
  • Re: where theistic evolution leads
    ... how we examine reality. ... but when they come on this public newsgroup and assert to the ... SCIENCE SCIENCE SCIENCE. ... of scientists that has been able to do that? ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: The pedantic calumnies of Gwar
    ... Conventional Science supports your statement. ... I know of no religion which even addresses the matter. ... If you show it to scientists, and it has any merit at all, they will ... > reality" is the only reality we actually see... ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: Universality as warrant for relative truth value
    ... the science can be reduced to it, but that it operates as a constraint ... Independent of reality. ... there is some kind of correspondence. ...
    (sci.philosophy.meta)
Loading