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Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#331

Post by canhascodez »

yters wrote: post #329
canhascodez wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're ignoring the different amounts of information those people had about their environments. Do you happen to have issues with a particular scientific consensus, is that where we're going here?

It might be that our modern thinkers are missing the forest for the trees because they are overwhelmed with information about their environment. I don't have any issue with the current consensus, it just seems incorrect reasoning to say consensus is convergence to truth. Why isn't consensus just groupthink, a notoriously bad way to arrive at the truth?

The current consensus is the closest that science gets to "truth". Depending on your definition of "groupthink" (which seems like a deliberately pejorative term), either that describes most categories of knowledge, or we can suggest that the difference is that there is a rigorous methodology and system of verification for these beliefs.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#332

Post by yters »

canhascodez wrote: post #331
yters wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be that our modern thinkers are missing the forest for the trees because they are overwhelmed with information about their environment. I don't have any issue with the current consensus, it just seems incorrect reasoning to say consensus is convergence to truth. Why isn't consensus just groupthink, a notoriously bad way to arrive at the truth?

The current consensus is the closest that science gets to "truth". Depending on your definition of "groupthink" (which seems like a deliberately pejorative term), either that describes most categories of knowledge, or we can suggest that the difference is that there is a rigorous methodology and system of verification for these beliefs.

Consensus does not have the best track record in science. Much better is the actual evidence and experimentation instead of what people who call themselves "scientists" think about the evidence.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#333

Post by canhascodez »

yters wrote: post #332
canhascodez wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current consensus is the closest that science gets to "truth". Depending on your definition of "groupthink" (which seems like a deliberately pejorative term), either that describes most categories of knowledge, or we can suggest that the difference is that there is a rigorous methodology and system of verification for these beliefs.

Consensus does not have the best track record in science. Much better is the actual evidence and experimentation instead of what people who call themselves "scientists" think about the evidence.

Consensus is the track record of science. Observations are not theories.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#334

Post by FabHK »

Miltnoid wrote: post #284
13415 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Position 1 is analytically true. No scientist believes position 2 in general. Regarding particular subject matters and well-confirmed theories, on the other hand, it's pretty much uncontroversial. No cell phone would work and no plane would fly if the underlying physical theories were flat-out false. Position 3 is probably analytically true, too. The idea that there is something that can in principle not be explained…

What do you mean by "analytically true"

Basically, "analytic" = "by definition", while "synthetic" = "empirically".

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic–synthetic_distinction

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#335

Post by superqwert »

13415 wrote: post #232
superqwert wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may have a different understanding of "faith in science" than brobdingnagians. It could mean anything, such as: 1. A belief that the scientific method will definitely approach reality (a realist/pragmatist claim) 2. A belief that the current consensus is right - (but it could be disclaimed) 3. A belief that science will explain everything, so one could discard other studies, such as philosophy or theology…

Position 1 is analytically true. No scientist believes position 2 in general. Regarding particular subject matters and well-confirmed theories, on the other hand, it's pretty much uncontroversial. No cell phone would work and no plane would fly if the underlying physical theories were flat-out false. Position 3 is probably analytically true, too. The idea that there is something that can in principle not be explained…

I would agree on position 1, but there are many different possibilities it were not true, such as if you were living in a simulation.

My point 2 was not supposed to mean that current theory was wrong as much as there (most likely will) be a more accurate better theory that will replace current ones. No-one disputes that (non-Microsoft) cell phones work. The problem lies on the philosophical side - Newtonian mechanics caused a big problem in that it was quite strongly suggestive of determinism. But more underlying theories, such as QM make the situation more difficult and complex. Assuming the current or fashionable theory of the time is correct is very likely to lead to a temporary or fashionable philosophy.

Position 3 - Science is an empirical study of reality - it cannot in any way explain why it is not some other reality, for example. If it is governed by logic/maths, unless every mathematical construct has physical existence (which is a rather weird and unrealistic idea), you cannot explain why this mathematical construct has existence and another does not. You may argue that other studies may be pointless, but you definitely cannot claim analytically and for certain that science can ever explain everything - so this is the point at which you are bringing in an unreasonable faith in this case. And science without study of philosophical implications is rather shallow and cannot give a reasonable mind satisfaction (not that philosophy is satisfying).

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#336

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #180
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What is not specified here is the sense of 'rationality' that is required of moral realism. It is not enough that something be coherently deduced from stated premises, because we can state different premises, use different categories, and make different distinctions. What is required is that there is a sense in which we can all be rationally compelled through argumentation to adopt the same premises, categories and…

I don't follow. I meant to suggest that humans will never agree on the same structure of premises and argumentation, and that we simply cannot get past that, to a space above or beyond historical language, to an uncontested consensus. But if not, on what grounds can we possibly say that one particular conception of morality is True or Rational? That is what is required of moral realism - which I take, as an atheist,…

>I meant to suggest that humans will never agree on the same structure of premises and argumentation, and that we simply cannot get past that, to a space above or beyond historical language, to an uncontested consensus.

So what? People don't have to agree on the truth. It just has to be true.

>But if not, on what grounds can we possibly say that one particular conception of morality is True or Rational?

Well partly that depends on how you define "morality", but first and foremost, we can do it by the same means we use to determine that a particular conception of "cream cheese" or "routing algorithms" is True and Rational.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#337

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Miltnoid wrote: post #279
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Talmud is basically the collected notes on the study of the Torah, which was was supposedly (capital-R) Revealed by a supernatural authority on Mount Sinai. If you're Orthodox, both the written Torah and the Oral Torah (Talmud) were capital-R Revealed by a supernatural authority at Mount Sinai. Yes, the study notes for the book were revealed with the book . If you find this confusin…

And so it came to pass that Rudin Revealed both baby Rudin and big Rudin, and it was good.

That was, inadvertently, pretty funny, although I was more referring to the way that you usually wouldn't tell someone, "Oh, just go read Rudin" if they really wanted to understand analysis. Instead, you'd give them Rudin and an entire semester's worth of lecture notes and recitation sessions -- which is how we actually educate people.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#338

Post by jan888 »

naasking wrote: post #98
myWindoonn wrote: post #83

I can see why this guy is popular. I wonder whether he'd be so quick to dismiss Gödel and Quine if presented with an utterance like, "This sentence is true, but cannot be proven true by any human nor any human-crafted device." I'm quite confident that this sentence is true, but cannot put forth a proof which would convince anybody; at the same time, just like any other mathematical object, its proof is generated by t…

> Gödel's entire point was that this formulation was rigorous and could not be escaped by a mere change of (syntactic or semantic) venue. Well that's not true, because there exist logics that are both consistent and complete, they simply don't have the expressive power of full arithmetic. This is a syntactic or semantic change, depending on how you frame it.

Can you give an example of a consistent and complete logic?
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