Science and Truth

[charlatan]

@wolly.green: here's the reason the distinction makes a difference to me (in general, whether in relation to our conversation or not): there's 2 kinds of incomplete (which could be reduced to one, maybe, or maybe not -- until they definitively are, I'm going to keep it to 2). One is incomplete in a terminal way, and the other is incomplete in a non-terminal way. The former is when we simply can't penetrate a mystery in a way that is plausibly related to our very limitations.
Such an example might be consciousness/the mind-body problem, though I don't say I'm 100% sure.

The non-terminal sort of incomplete is e.g. our knowledge of physics in the pre-quantum era, or possibly our current knowledge in the pre(to be discovered, hopefully) quantum gravity phase.

I would have less hesitation describing the latter as flawed, more describing the former as causing us to have flawed knowledge.


Part of the reason for my way of thinking is that I don't think of "premises we start with" as postulates, but rather intuitions of a fuzzier order -- like the intuition that there is such a thing as the physical world.
You probably have the attitude that hey, what's so special about these premises, we can obviously revise them -- but I'm talking more fundamental, less easy to make truly precise ones, like that we're conscious, like there's a thing that seems to be subjective experience.
There's no question our precise interpretations of these things can keep changing, is probably ever-flawed, and that correcting these flaws is crucial to making progress.
And that fact doesn't stop me from saying there's real knowledge we're gaining, not just meeting self-stated goals.

Probably the general conclusion of this is that my reaction to Deutsch was always one of extreme enthusiasm -- he's simply awesome -- but I'd say between the two extremes of "there's no real knowledge/we're just solving problems" and "there's true knowledge, but we tend to be off/flawed/in error", I'm in between compared to where he is due to the above distinction, so far. Maybe I'll change that some time! But I notice he's much more certain that we'll understand things like consciousness, and I think that's a controversial stance that I'm cautious on/undecided on

 

[wolly.green]

@wolly.green: here's the reason the distinction makes a difference to me (in general, whether in relation to our conversation or not): there's 2 kinds of incomplete (which could be reduced to one, maybe, or maybe not -- until they definitively are, I'm going to keep it to 2). One is incomplete in a terminal way, and the other is incomplete in a non-terminal way. The former is when we simply can't penetrate a mystery in a way that is plausibly related to our very limitations.
Such an example might be consciousness/the mind-body problem, though I don't say I'm 100% sure.

The non-terminal sort of incomplete is e.g. our knowledge of physics in the pre-quantum era, or possibly our current knowledge in the pre(to be discovered, hopefully) quantum gravity phase.

I would have less hesitation describing the latter as flawed, more describing the former as causing us to have flawed knowledge.


Part of the reason for my way of thinking is that I don't think of "premises we start with" as postulates, but rather intuitions of a fuzzier order -- like the intuition that there is such a thing as the physical world.
You probably have the attitude that hey, what's so special about these premises, we can obviously revise them -- but I'm talking more fundamental, less easy to make truly precise ones, like that we're conscious, like there's a thing that seems to be subjective experience.
There's no question our precise interpretations of these things can keep changing, is probably ever-flawed, and that correcting these flaws is crucial to making progress.
And that fact doesn't stop me from saying there's real knowledge we're gaining, not just meeting self-stated goals.

Probably the general conclusion of this is that my reaction to Deutsch was always one of extreme enthusiasm -- he's simply awesome -- but I'd say between the two extremes of "there's no real knowledge/we're just solving problems" and "there's true knowledge, but we tend to be off/flawed/in error", I'm in between compared to where he is due to the above distinction, so far. Maybe I'll change that some time! But I notice he's much more certain that we'll understand things like consciousness, and I think that's a controversial stance that I'm cautious on/undecided on

I'm talking more fundamental, less easy to make truly precise ones, like that we're conscious, like there's a thing that seems to be subjective experience.

I wouldn't use the word "precise". Its not that I think our foundational intuitions have to be precise. In fact, I don't even think they are important when discussing epistemology. Characterizing explanations as built out of parts (intuitions) is far too limiting. I prefer simply to stick with what Deutsch said: Good explanations are those that are difficult to vary. Never mind premises.

The former is when we simply can't penetrate a mystery in a way that is plausibly related to our very limitations

But if a question can be asked, surely a conjecture can be made? Even if it is just a random guess. If Popper is right that there is no such thing as foundational knowledge, and Deutsch is right that good explanations are those that are difficult to vary, surely a conjecture that is consistent with the available knowledge is good enough? Since these kinds of conjectures are all we can ever ask for?

 

[charlatan]

@wolly.green: I think the "parts" of explanations are not where my statement about intuitions comes in (in fact, I don't see what those would be except steps in standard reasoning). The big problem is that when we're not just doing mathematics, we need to have somewhere we exit the realm of just working with logic, as far as I can see. And there, we seem to enter the land of fuzzy intuitions -- which aren't foundational knowledge exactly so much as precursors to knowledge.

If these are limiting, well that's part of the point! It's not that I want to be limited by them, it's just that if we want no limitations, we might as well just talk of logically possible things, not 'objective reality'!
Still, there's not much limiting about them, in that it's not like they're axioms we're bound to. In this sense, there's no foundational knowledge we're postulating, really (which is why I don't really disagree with any of the Deutsch/Popper view). I use the word 'fuzzy' because, to be honest, I always have a feeling of vague unease outside of mathematical statements, and "fuzzy" captures my sense of how that unease feels.

I'm not sure I understand your response to situations like consciousness/the mind body problem, but basically that's the kind of situation where I wonder if we hit a brick wall, and understanding how we appeal to our fuzzy intuitions to acquire knowledge may give a clue why we're hitting a brick wall if we do

I agree with Deutsch that empiricism is too limiting, that good explanations (ones hard to vary) are a better model. That part, I'm wholly on board with.

 

[charlatan]

Also, if something is a mystery, eg maybe consciousness, I'd say the issue is we may not have hard to vary explanations. Logically possible conjectures, yes. But those are hardly tough to vary.

 

[wolly.green]

@wolly.green: I think the "parts" of explanations are not where my statement about intuitions comes in (in fact, I don't see what those would be except steps in standard reasoning). The big problem is that when we're not just doing mathematics, we need to have somewhere we exit the realm of just working with logic, as far as I can see. And there, we seem to enter the land of fuzzy intuitions -- which aren't foundational knowledge exactly so much as precursors to knowledge.

If these are limiting, well that's part of the point! It's not that I want to be limited by them, it's just that if we want no limitations, we might as well just talk of logically possible things, not 'objective reality'!
Still, there's not much limiting about them, in that it's not like they're axioms we're bound to. In this sense, there's no foundational knowledge we're postulating, really (which is why I don't really disagree with any of the Deutsch/Popper view). I use the word 'fuzzy' because, to be honest, I always have a feeling of vague unease outside of mathematical statements, and "fuzzy" captures my sense of how that unease feels.

I'm not sure I understand your response to situations like consciousness/the mind body problem, but basically that's the kind of situation where I wonder if we hit a brick wall, and understanding how we appeal to our fuzzy intuitions to acquire knowledge may give a clue why we're hitting a brick wall if we do

I agree with Deutsch that empiricism is too limiting, that good explanations (ones hard to vary) are a better model. That part, I'm wholly on board with.

Still, there's not much limiting about them, in that it's not like they're axioms we're bound to. In this sense, there's no foundational knowledge we're postulating, really (which is why I don't really disagree with any of the Deutsch/Popper view).

This is not what I meant by limit. I didn't mean that intuitions somehow limit what is knowable. That intuitions constrain what we can know about reality. Rather, what was meant is that we can speak about epistemology without having to define what knowledge actually is. We can talk about explanations that are difficult to vary without having to explicitly state what this means; we do not have to confine ourselves to ideas like "intuition" to understand what "difficult to vary" means.

kind of situation where I wonder if we hit a brick wall, and understanding how we appeal to our fuzzy intuitions to acquire knowledge may give a clue why we're hitting a brick wall if we do

Why should there be a brick wall to begin with. The point I was trying to make here is that the brick wall is an illusion. There is no limit to the questions we can answer; the wall isn't a real problem.

 

[wolly.green]

Also, if something is a mystery, eg maybe consciousness, I'd say the issue is we may not have hard to vary explanations. Logically possible conjectures, yes. But those are hardly tough to vary.

We may not have them, but that does not mean we do not have access to explanations that are hard to vary. If you mean that we do not even have access to them, then it is up to you to explain why we should expect this to be the case. Why should we expect there to be any situation where it is impossible to find a difficult to vary explanation? Merely speculating the possibility is not enough to take it seriously.

 

[charlatan]

Well, I'm understanding more and more where you're coming from, and maybe this is a good discussion to have simply because, while I really like a ton of Deutsch's stuff, and relate with his way of thinking more than that of most, I've certainly found the sort of optimism that goes with his theory of good explanations not quite something I share.

The gist of where you're coming from seems to be that, once we abandon the idea of a rigid definition of the foundations, and even quit demanding a rigid definition of knowledge, and simply speak of good explanations, reason's scope seems more boundless, and the main thing to worry about is error.
There doesn't seem to be much talk of limitation.

The gist of where I'm coming from is that, while I don't say we need to explicitly pin down knowledge to talk of good explanations, I think at least a fuzzy sense of intuition (rather than explicit premises) do seem to offer potential limitations. It's not that they are necessarily even the fundamental building blocks -- maybe our sense impressions aren't the building blocks of physics, say certain abstract wavefunctions or whatever are.... but those impressions still seem to offer a constraint on what physics knowledge is about. No matter how far reason takes us beyond the measly confines of those.

I don't see this line as a flaccid speculation, quite the opposite, I tend to find that, especially after reading about things like consciousness/the mind-body problem, there seem to be very real-seeming threats to our progress.
We may not have explicit limiting foundations, but we do seem to have some candidates for potential limitations. But let's be clear: they're based on our (not explicit!!) sense of what consciousness is + our sense of what physics is about.

I do think the Deutsch point of view is the only way I can see hope to getting past these issues, but time will have to tell whether aforementioned threats are really threats.

 

[wolly.green]

Well, I'm understanding more and more where you're coming from, and maybe this is a good discussion to have simply because, while I really like a ton of Deutsch's stuff, and relate with his way of thinking more than that of most, I've certainly found the sort of optimism that goes with his theory of good explanations not quite something I share.

The gist of where you're coming from seems to be that, once we abandon the idea of a rigid definition of the foundations, and even quit demanding a rigid definition of knowledge, and simply speak of good explanations, reason's scope seems more boundless, and the main thing to worry about is error.
There doesn't seem to be much talk of limitation.

The gist of where I'm coming from is that, while I don't say we need to explicitly pin down knowledge to talk of good explanations, I think at least a fuzzy sense of intuition (rather than explicit premises) do seem to offer potential limitations. It's not that they are necessarily even the fundamental building blocks -- maybe our sense impressions aren't the building blocks of physics, say certain abstract wavefunctions or whatever are.... but those impressions still seem to offer a constraint on what physics knowledge is about. No matter how far reason takes us beyond the measly confines of those.

I don't see this line as a flaccid speculation, quite the opposite, I tend to find that, especially after reading about things like consciousness/the mind-body problem, there seem to be very real-seeming threats to our progress.
We may not have explicit limiting foundations, but we do seem to have some candidates for potential limitations. But let's be clear: they're based on our (not explicit!!) sense of what consciousness is + our sense of what physics is about.

I do think the Deutsch point of view is the only way I can see hope to getting past these issues, but time will have to tell whether aforementioned threats are really threats.

I wander if you agree with Deutsch about good explanations because your first function is extroverted intuition? It does not jump out as immediately obvious to me.

 

[charlatan]

You think he's NeTi? I think so personally and you do strike me as more Ti than I am. I used to think I might be Ti first, but decided against.
Yes I think there's a reason it seems to just fit with my way of thinking.

 

[wolly.green]

You think he's NeTi? I think so personally and you do strike me as more Ti than I am. I used to think I might be Ti first, but decided against.
Yes I think there's a reason it seems to just fit with my way of thinking.

What do you think of systems theory?

 

[charlatan]

Unfortunately don't know much to speak of about it yet.

 

[Krypton]

Science is a human construct as well though? This argument doesn't work either. Consider the scientist trying to decide which interpretation of a problem should be solved.

The key difference between the construct of science and the construct of ethics is that scientific experiments overall agree on what they're measuring and how to measure it, whereas ethics discussions are really about how one should measure things.

Now, to be fair, science does have a few different toolkits, like anything else, which scientists and others can debate the merits of in different situations. However, when discussing which measuring stick to use, there's at least some basis in non-subjective, physical reality for which is best. Ethics doesn't have that.

 

[charlatan]

Basically In the Wings would seem to be saying something like the following: given a set of axioms, we can decide what is so within their framework, but in his definition, questions of "ought" seem to be attacking what the axioms even should be.

Now, I have a common response to this, which is that the exact same things can be said of what "is". It's highly controversial to decide on the criteria for that.

What to me makes science work relatively well to produce consensus, even if that takes time, is that we make it a more practical enterprise. The average scientist isn't worrying about physicalism vs dualism or whether abstract objects exist. They can get fine simply with the sense that physical reality can be measured + reasoning using categories/relations between them.
Common-sense intuition+highly unrestricted way of reasoning, leading to things far beyond common sense. It keeps the starting points uncontroversial but keeps the ending point ever-expanding.

 

[charlatan]

BTW this consensus-producing isn't a view that the knowledge itself is more objective. Maybe you could say that as a practical endeavor, science is more objective currently as it stands. That is, there's a plausible mechanism for consensus-producing.

As I've detailed above, I see this as perfectly possible to replicate with morality--that is, if we define it more pragmatically (i.e. in terms of a well-defined problem we by and large will have to agree needs to be solved).

But as I understand it, the POV wolly/myself were discussing doesn't place objective as meaning consensus-producing, because that POV seems to be pragmatism-oriented -- it is treating objective as "conducive to having a common practical goal." It's possible to take the other POV that, in a non-pragmatism-centric attitude, that is, where objectivity of knowledge is treated as "not relative to an individual or group", morality is objective (but not necessarily certain at any given time).

This is treating what one person calls relative as quite different, namely as objective but uncertain -- hence maybe why some take different points of view at a given time.

Note that wolly seems to be saying that you don't have to know the definition of a word in full to talk about it, so that's one tiny aspect at least of how he'd probably address the objection "but you can talk about morality using different definitions!"


What I'm curious of is his reason in the positive why he affirms objective morals in a non-pragmatic sense. That is, while I find the reasons pretty interesting in pointing out how many common objections may not hold water, what reasons are there to affirm?

 

[Krypton]

Basically In the Wings would seem to be saying something like the following: given a set of axioms, we can decide what is so within their framework, but in his definition, questions of "ought" seem to be attacking what the axioms even should be.

Now, I have a common response to this, which is that the exact same things can be said of what "is". It's highly controversial to decide on the criteria for that.

I mean, I'd bring up Kant/a very small portion of Nietzsche in response to some of that. We don't necessarily know what the physical world truly is (whether it's physical at all, whether it's all in our minds, whether it's all in our minds like Berkley or whoever said), but we know that it's something that appears to respond beneficially and in the way we want to a scientific approach, generally speaking. We can't know essential truths about it, but we can understand its rules.

Given that the following of certain rules allows us to make decisions about our world that help us, I'd argue that science confers an understanding of the world in a way similar to the understanding a mechanic has of cars. In my opinion, the best form of understanding.

 

[wolly.green]

The key difference between the construct of science and the construct of ethics is that scientific experiments overall agree on what they're measuring and how to measure it, whereas ethics discussions are really about how one should measure things.

Now, to be fair, science does have a few different toolkits, like anything else, which scientists and others can debate the merits of in different situations. However, when discussing which measuring stick to use, there's at least some basis in non-subjective, physical reality for which is best. Ethics doesn't have that.

This is a different argument. I disagree that there is agreement about what the scientific method should be. In fact, I would go as far as to say that not only is there no such thing as "the scientific method", but also that scientists often quibble about what science actually is; should science work towards verification or falsification? Does induction yield true scientific explanations? Are experimental results and scientific theories really the same thing? These sorts of questions seem to imply that there is no such agreement in science at all.

Ethics and morality are serious subjects of study! The reason most people don't take it seriously is that science became the center piece of western civilization after The Enlightenment. These great enlightenment intellectuals revolted against the authority of their government and founded a philosophy called empiricism. Unfortunately this philosophy still infest the minds of most laymen; and hence they fail to see that there is truth to be found by studying morality.

 

[charlatan]

@wolly.green: this is just curiosity, what do you think makes morality a sphere we can expect to produce explanations that are hard to vary (which I assume you think, because you think this is a serious subject)?
I tend to agree that the "scientific method" keeps being refined (e.g. abandonment of certain harmful assumptions of logical positivism), though I tend to also find the map between physical reality and mathematics is a very integral part of what keeps physics from becoming idle speculation....even if it isn't wholly by any means responsible for the explanations produced.

 

[wolly.green]

@wolly.green: this is just curiosity, what do you think makes morality a sphere we can expect to produce explanations that are hard to vary (which I assume you think, because you think this is a serious subject)?
I tend to agree that the "scientific method" keeps being refined (e.g. abandonment of certain harmful assumptions of logical positivism), though I tend to also find the map between physical reality and mathematics is a very integral part of what keeps physics from becoming idle speculation....even if it isn't wholly by any means responsible for the explanations produced.

find the map between physical reality and mathematics is a very integral part of what keeps physics from becoming idle speculation

I literally just changed my mind on idol speculation while writing this response (I love it!). Im no longer convinced that it is meaningful to label conjectures as "idol speculation". I think it makes more sense to look at what a person does when solving problems; are there follow up questions? Is a persons conjecture open to criticism? In other words, is he/she being rational? The reason I think rationality -- as I have characterized here -- is more important than the real/idol dichotomy is because it is impossible to determine whether a conjecture is meaningful before it has been subjected to criticism. So then, if I am right about this, the distinction between real and idol speculation is not important. Since it is a persons actions that are of interest here, it is no longer clear that mathematics has anything to do with rationality in physics. That is, whats important is how a person engages with his physical theories, not whether they align with mathematics somehow. The pairing between mathematics and physics is merely a consequence of human rationality; it is not fundamental to physical epistemology.

what do you think makes morality a sphere we can expect to produce explanations that are hard to vary

I don't agree with the way this question is worded, so i'll answer a slightly different question: Why do you think it is possible to discover moral truths. The answer, I think, is merely by virtue of the fact that we can ask questions about it. It is not necessary to know what morals are to have a rational discussion about them; Karl Popper explored this idea in his book "The Myth of the Framework". Now one could argue: What if one day we discover that morals are merely "illusory". What if one day we discover that there is really no truth to be found here. This argument, in think, is flawed. The same could to happen to mathematics and science; the possibility that we may some day discover we were wrong about morals does not work as an argument since we could say the same about mathematics: What if one day we discover that mathematics was merely "illusory". Whats important in this case is whether a person is being "rational" when attempting to solve problems that seem, to us, very important.

 

[charlatan]

I guess I am on board with the idea that we can have rational discussion of something without full idea of what it is (maybe we can't even ever have full knowledge). With no idea of what it is, I can't see how discussion/criticism would be meaningful!

Where I get fuzzy is that on the one hand, you appear to say that the real important thing is being able to reason/ask questions/correct errors, yet you do allow for the possibility that we may discover the thing we're asking questions about is illusory. Yet you don't seem to think morality is illusory. You aren't just open to the idea that it isn't illusory, you seem to actually think it isn't illusory. Am I misreading you? Because I think being able to ask questions about something is enough to have a discussion, but it certainly isn't enough to suspect there are hard to vary explanations out there to be gained. So my real question isn't why we can have a rational discussion about morality, but why you suspect there's objective moral knowledge. A rational discussion could equally end in the conclusion that morality was illusory all along, by your own admission.

I don't propose that one arrives at mathematical models of the physical world through anything but ordinary rationality/openness to error correction, but the principle we seem to continually invoke to justify at least in part that our physics explanations are hard to vary is the quasi-empirical nature of mathematics. I don't think that's inconsistent with viewing rationality as the fundamental thing -- it just means in this specific case, the fact that we think our rational inquiry/openness to criticism ends in a hard to vary explanation involves our invoking this quasi-empirical property.

Basically I'm distinguishing our approach to gaining knowledge from the fact that there is genuine objective (hard to vary!) explanations we're chasing/converging upon. We could be on a wild goose chase, and rationality/criticism may expose that in some cases.

Whether you liked my wording or not ( ) I think it's this issue I was getting at, and I think it's a real one: that you yourself acknowledge the fact that we can ask questions about something doesn't mean it isn't illusory....and I'm ultimately interested in why you (if you do) adopt a moral realism perspective. Why you think it's a serious topic.

 

[wolly.green]

I guess I am on board with the idea that we can have rational discussion of something without full idea of what it is (maybe we can't even ever have full knowledge). With no idea of what it is, I can't see how discussion/criticism would be meaningful!

Where I get fuzzy is that on the one hand, you appear to say that the real important thing is being able to reason/ask questions/correct errors, yet you do allow for the possibility that we may discover the thing we're asking questions about is illusory. Yet you don't seem to think morality is illusory. You aren't just open to the idea that it isn't illusory, you seem to actually think it isn't illusory. Am I misreading you? Because I think being able to ask questions about something is enough to have a discussion, but it certainly isn't enough to suspect there are hard to vary explanations out there to be gained. So my real question isn't why we can have a rational discussion about morality, but why you suspect there's objective moral knowledge. A rational discussion could equally end in the conclusion that morality was illusory all along, by your own admission.

I don't propose that one arrives at mathematical models of the physical world through anything but ordinary rationality/openness to error correction, but the principle we seem to continually invoke to justify at least in part that our physics explanations are hard to vary is the quasi-empirical nature of mathematics. I don't think that's inconsistent with viewing rationality as the fundamental thing -- it just means in this specific case, the fact that we think our rational inquiry/openness to criticism ends in a hard to vary explanation involves our invoking this quasi-empirical property.

Basically I'm distinguishing our approach to gaining knowledge from the fact that there is genuine objective (hard to vary!) explanations we're chasing/converging upon. We could be on a wild goose chase, and rationality/criticism may expose that in some cases.

Whether you liked my wording or not ( ) I think it's this issue I was getting at, and I think it's a real one: that you yourself acknowledge the fact that we can ask questions about something doesn't mean it isn't illusory....and I'm ultimately interested in why you (if you do) adopt a moral realism perspective. Why you think it's a serious topic.

but it certainly isn't enough to suspect there are hard to vary explanations out there to be gained

I suspect you are looking for reasons to believe, but this is just another version of the "justified true belief" chimera. I can't justify why I think that there are explanations that are difficult to vary; the best I can do is point to those explanations put forward by people like David Deutsch, Karl Popper, Sam Harris and Emmanuel Kant. These explanations are difficult to vary; and I have no reason to doubt that this trend will continue into the future.

but why you suspect there's objective moral knowledge

Because it is possible to have a rational discussion about morals. To talk about them like they actually exist. Remember, you can't argue that morals might just be illusory since you could equally argue that science might just be illusory. And if you're tempted to show that science has actually made progress by pointing to an example, you could do the same with morality by pointing to the human rights movement.

continually invoke to justify at least in part that our physics explanations are hard to vary is the quasi-empirical nature of mathematics

This is the justified true belief chimera again. It doesn't really matter what some people think, justification is impossible. Now you could take another route here and say "but we need reasons". And yes this is true, but what sort of reasons are you looking for? You said we can point to mathematics and the quasi-empirical nature of physics, but why is this a reason? Why should the "empirical" or the "mathematical" convince us that good explanations exist in physics? Why not simply point to examples of good explanations?