Re: Universality as warrant for relative truth value

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

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).

Why "ethereal" in relation to solid ground.

That was in contrast to solid ground.

Perhaps shared meanings don't exist? Extraordinary. I'm (hopefully)
communicating something meaningful to you right now, but if shared
meaing didn't exist, I'd be talking pure gibberish. But you said
"perhaps", and so I let it pass by.

If meaning is "what is in mind", then it is inherently unsharable.

We have a shared communication system. That such a shared
communication system requires shared meaning is but a naive
hypothesis about how that communication works. In my opinion it
is a false hypothesis.

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.

Again, you change my question. I was not asking if much of the knowledge
of physics can be represented as statements about matters pertaining to
physics, but whether the statements of physics depend on anything
outside those statements, such as an intelligible world, the successful
theories of physicists in the past, observational theorems, etc.

You asked an ambiguous question. I am just getting out of the way the
possible meanings that I expect you didn't intend. That's to avoid
future misunderstanding.

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.

A principle can surely be a method, but to reduce principle to method
seems a bit strained. The scientist brings into his work not only a
method, but the distillation of all science to date, either to accept it
as axiomatic or to use it as a target for criticism.

For the biologist, "all science to date" includes physics.
You objected when I allowed that biologists assumed physics.
But now you are making that part of your argument.

I see no reason to
challenge the dictionary definition of principle as an axiomatic
truth. Not all practices are empirical, but speculative, but surely
speculation is guided by principles.

I have been using the term "empirical principle". An axiom is not
empirical.

What do you mean by "abstract".

Independent of reality.

The conventional meaning of "abstract" is separation, and in this case
separation from empiria or specificity. A causal relation, for example,
is a relation of specific entities and therefore abstracted from the
entities themselves. But by what warrent would you insist that such an
abstraction is non-real? How do you know? How would you justify such a
statement?

You seem to have missed the point. By treating something as
abstract, we are separating it from reality. That is to say, for
the purposes of discussion, we are ignoring connections with reality.
Whether it originated in reality is not the issue. It's a question
of how we use it, not a question of how it originated.

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.

But, while your point may have some truth, you skip over whether there
is a reality to describe and whether it is somehow
intelligible.

Of course reality is not intelligible. Science, or even ordinary
human learning, are there to make it intelligible. But that
intelligibility is not inherent in reality, it is something that
we must provide.

Instead, reality here is a variable, merely a coat of
paint to put on our mental gymnastics.

Then you must have completely misunderstood what I was suggesting.

What is foundational (the
independent variable) is mind.

That would seem to be a solipsist position.

You adopt a perspective that is admittedly unconventional among
scientists. So what warrant do you offer that might give it any
significance, makes it attracive to anyone but yourself?

My experience is that others don't find it attractive. I guess they
should stick to Cartesian dualism, since that is the best account
they are likely to find that is consistent with the conventional
view.

Firstly, we cannot test "f=ma", because that law is what defines mass.
Secondly the 32 ft/sec/sec is data, but not axiomatic.

It is indeed dara, but it is taken as a given here on earth.

Hmm, no. The 32 ft/sec/sec is an approximation, and the actual
value varies from place to place on the earth.

A formula
with three variables like this can hardly be solved, and it is really
used to see the relationship of two variables, given the acceleration as
a given.

The 32.2 ft/sec/sec is the approx. accelleration due to gravity.
But "f=ma" is not limited to use in circumstances where gravity
is involved.

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.

What "same thing"?

When both are commenting on common experience, each can match what
the other says with his experience to gain a partial translation.
This partial translation can be later refined to improve
the accuracy. The translation does not need to be perfect -
communication is possible with a lot less than perfection, and
perhaps perfect translation is not possible.

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?

Nothing in particular: capable of change.

Opinions are capable of change. And immaterial opinions seem particulary
prone to change.

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.

But that's not realistic. One doesn't conclude the burner is there after
igniting it, but you ignite it because you are confident it is there.

In practice, yes. But that just shows that the Bunsen burner was a
poor example for you to introduce.

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.

Many ("evolutionary") sciences do not involve repeatable phenenoma, but
aim to explain unique outcomes. If you presume repeatability, then any
evolution must be the result of accident or divine intervention.

The phenomena might not repeat. Our interaction with the phenomena
needs to be repeatable. If I lookup and see a moon, and then lookup
again and don't see a moon, then I could conclude that the first
observation was merely an optical illusion. It is repeatability
of our interactions that we use to test our ways of observing.

.

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