God, Burritos, and Perfection

[rvkevin]

I just said it's more probable that a complex structure be designed by a mind than come about by chance.

Last attempt at clarification. In order to have made this claim you must have calculated P(G&U) and P(C&U). Your claim boils down to these two terms. Whether you like it or not, you have said that P(G&U) is greater than P(C&U). How did you come up with these values? Historical frequency? Logical possibility? Intuition? I'm not saying that you are using it as an argument for god (If you were, then you would need to quantify P(G), and I would then ask you to defend how you determined that value), I'm saying that you need to be able to defend your claim. With that in mind, please stop stalling and defend your claim.

 

[ballin4life]

Well, that's the problem: you throw out statements like they are obvious when if you think about them they really aren't.

 

[_Keno_]

I just said it's more probable that a complex structure be designed by a mind than come about by chance.

yes, and this assertion has no backing whatsoever.

 

[Reaver197]

Especially since it seems more conceivable to me that the situation where you need to another entity to create something is by default more complex, and thus less probable, than a situation where the thing arises on its own.

Not to mention that by all reliable accounts, the most complex entities within the universe that we know of, the lifeforms of Earth, came about of on their own in some fashion, somewhere. So, it's not like this is an unheard of feat.

 

[Dre89]

Inductively, if you look at anything complex and structured, like a painting, robot, or a word carved out in the sand, it's more probable that a mind did it than it coming about by chance. I didn't think I'd need to clarify that.

And Reaver what are these entities you're speaking of? Pretty much every entity we know of necessitated a prior existence, even if it was merely the dark energy in a quantum fluctuations. And besides, the issue was the probability concerning complex structures forming by chance, not whether certain entities are self necessary or not.

 

[Amide]

Yes, I do think that clarification is needed because it's an open ended argument. Design without any proof really does seem less plausible than this "chance" which you speak of, a process more complex than you're giving credit for.

 

[Reaver197]

Um, what I said they were in my post: life.

The thing is, your argument is very much borrowing straight from Paley's watch argument, which has proven to be misguided and actually not a very sound way of reasoning about the subjective "complexity" of objects and our inherent presumptions for how they got there.

Also, the dark energy in quantum fluctuations? Do you know what the term "dark energy" denotes?

I also can't help but feel you are hawking some creationist catch-phrase by saying it has to form "by chance", as if it's a fluke that it came about. You also must recognize that in each of those examples, the creator of a painting, robot, or carved figure is much more complex than the thing found, and by definition, would be even harder to explain the probability of its existence.

It seems some what of a contrivance to employ the line of thought, "well, everything necessitated a prior cause, and I must employ this higher being to explain how the universe came about, but this thing somehow doesn't need to have one itself".

 

[rvkevin]

Inductively, if you look at anything complex and structured, like a painting, robot, or a word carved out in the sand, it's more probable that a mind did it than it coming about by chance. I didn't think I'd need to clarify that.

How are you using the term "complex"? (I use in a Kolmogorov sense) A universal rescue signal is to place three X's of any material; this is a very simple signal. The reason we know that it was designed by someone is that it does not occur naturally. We know paintings are made by humans because they don't occur naturally, not because they are complex. We know robots are made by humans because they don't occur naturally, not because they are complex. The shape of the shoreline is orders of magnitude more complex than the words written a few feet away.

If you look at anything in nature, it is very complex. For example, using Kolmogorov complexity, this rock is much more complex than this. So, must we then conclude that if we found a rock, it would be the result of intelligence, but if we found Sierpinski's triangle, it would be more likely result of chance? Surely not. The reason is that chance creates complexity whereas simplicity is the result of intelligence.

You have cherry picked a few examples of complexity that were products of human intelligence and have overlooked every example of natural complexity that arises from mechanistic processes. This far from shows that complexity requires a designer. In fact, it points to the opposite.

 

[Dre89]

Um, what I said they were in my post: life.

The thing is, your argument is very much borrowing straight from Paley's watch argument, which has proven to be misguided and actually not a very sound way of reasoning about the subjective "complexity" of objects and our inherent presumptions for how they got there.

But you're acting as if I'm claiming the statement I made is sufficient evidence of God's existence, which I'm not, I acknowledged there are other factors. I'm just saying that inductively. when we see shapes like traingles and hexagons carved in the sand, we assume a designer.

Similarily, if we ventured to a new planet, and saw a substance we'd never seen before moulded into shapes like traingles and squares, or other kinds of objects, we'd assume design.

That's all I'm saying, I'm not saying that alone proves God's existence.

Also, the dark energy in quantum fluctuations? Do you know what the term "dark energy" denotes?

I understood it to be a "type of nothingness" (which means it isn't really nothingness) which generates quantum fluctuations, or something similar to that. The reason why I mentioned it is because many athiest scientists seem to think that these fluctuations are sufficient to be the first cause, or require no explanation, simply because they are prior to material objects.

I also can't help but feel you are hawking some creationist catch-phrase by saying it has to form "by chance", as if it's a fluke that it came about. You also must recognize that in each of those examples, the creator of a painting, robot, or carved figure is much more complex than the thing found, and by definition, would be even harder to explain the probability of its existence.

This point is irrelevant, because the complexity of the painter is only an issue in a non-design framework. For your argument to have any weight, you'd have to argue that God is some enormously complex being, which is pointless because theists only posit God's existence because the first cause must necessarily be a simple nothingness, with no contingent complexities.

It seems some what of a contrivance to employ the line of thought, "well, everything necessitated a prior cause, and I must employ this higher being to explain how the universe came about, but this thing somehow doesn't need to have one itself".

Usually people who say this don't adequately understand the philosophical notion of God. God is proposed to have entirely different properties to all other entities. That's the entire point of positing His existence- because the universe necessitates a first cause with entirely different traits to anything in it. The "well why doesn't God need a cause?" is only used by unsophisticated athiests who don't understand the philosophical notion of God, and I know you're better than that. That argument would only apply if I was positing a Zeus-type God.

 

[AltF4]

I've always had a problem with this argument from "design", the Teleological Argument. This nonsense about finding pocket watches on an abandoned beach. And it is this:

Having been designed is not a discernible property. You cannot look at an object and determine whether or not it has been designed or created by natural processes. Contrast this with other properties which CAN be discerned: such as color. One can certainly discern whether an object contains the property "blue". You simply set bounds on what your definition of blue is, which can be quantified, and measure the photons being emitted by the object.

But what about design? How would you measure it? How could you quantify it? What would you measure to determine if it has been designed?

This problem has already been explored by real scientists, such as Carl Sagan. If you've read (or watched) Contact, you may remember the method that SETI uses to identify the presence of aliens? Prime numbers. Because they tend to occur only rarely in nature. (But they do occur)

This is essentially the same problem. How do you determine if a radio wave you're receiving is from an alien, or from a strange astronomical event? When pulsars were first discovered (stars that spin so rapidly and emit radiation at their poles) the scientists thought it was an alien transmission! Turns out they were wrong. No known astronomical event occurs in patterns of prime numbers, but it could in principle. There is no generalized method of determining teleology, it's an undecidable problem.

EDIT: And I'm going to ignore your statements about Dark Energy, Dre, since they are so far off base that I can only assume you just haven't read anything about it. I would recommend doing so before trying to make an argument based on it or criticize someone else's.

 

[Faithkeeper]

I'm jumping in rather late on this discussion, but is Dre's goal to: assert God's existence, assert God's favorable probability of existence, assert God's existence as plausible (even if unlikely), or assert God's mere possibility of existence?

As a theist, I would never try to "win" Occam's Razor when discussing the existence of God with a non-theist. However, I don't find it necessary for the latter two goals or what would define my own beliefs.

But if this debate hinges on Occam's Razor, I really have nothing to say.

 

[Dre89]

I assert that God's existence is necessary. Anything I assert about God is a supposedly necessary trait of the first cause.

Alt- I explained multiple times I'm not making a design argument, I realiseit takes more to do that. I was addressing a specific comment.

I don't think your hostility towards me is justified either. You seem to think that I, or philisohy in general, infringes on science, or addresses scientific issues, which is not the case at all. I have never contested any scientific fact. Please show where I have.

If anything, it's scientists impeding on philosophy. Some scientists like Dawkins make philosophical claims, as if they're from science.

For example, if you think only that which empirically verifiable is true, then you've just made a philosophical claim without justifying it.

The problem is, any time you bash philisohy, you're using a philosophical argument.

 

[AltF4]

I assert that God's existence is necessary. Anything I assert about God is a supposedly necessary trait of the first cause.

Alt- I explained multiple times I'm not making a design argument, I realiseit takes more to do that. I was addressing a specific comment.

I don't think your hostility towards me is justified either. You seem to think that I, or philisohy in general, infringes on science, or addresses scientific issues, which is not the case at all. I have never contested any scientific fact. Please show where I have.

If anything, it's scientists impeding on philosophy. Some scientists like Dawkins make philosophical claims, as if they're from science.

For example, if you think only that which empirically verifiable is true, then you've just made a philosophical claim without justifying it.

The problem is, any time you bash philisohy, you're using a philosophical argument.

Similarily, if we ventured to a new planet, and saw a substance we'd never seen before moulded into shapes like traingles and squares, or other kinds of objects, we'd assume design.

This is making an argument from design.

I understood it to be a "type of nothingness" (which means it isn't really nothingness) which generates quantum fluctuations, or something similar to that. The reason why I mentioned it is because many athiest scientists seem to think that these fluctuations are sufficient to be the first cause, or require no explanation, simply because they are prior to material objects.

This is (just one) example of speaking well beyond your understanding of science. Face palmingly incorrect.


And yes, I do have a great disdain for philosophy in general. Not only are your college courses laughably easy, but it is ultimately purposeless. If something can be empirically falsified, then it is a scientific theory. If it cannot be falsified, then it is pointless. Interesting possibly. Curious to think about. But not of any real world consequence. I have a disdain for philosophy majors in the same sense that I have a disdain for underwater basket weaving majors.

You do an awful lot of subtle, and I would argue intentional, word play Dre. Nobody in their right mind and of sufficient knowledge would argue: "only that which empirically verifiable is true". It is indeed true however that "only that which empirically falsifiable is of any practical use".

I have indeed read much of your arguments, and they all boil down to "Dre cannot think of a way the universe can exist without god. Therefore god exists."

You are not just making philosophical claims (whatever that means). You are making scientific claims. You are saying that some invisible sky monster exists, and it cares how we live our lives, and that it intervenes in the universe. This is not just some academic curiosity. Yet not one piece of evidence has ever been levied in its favor.

 

[Theftz22]

It is indeed true however that "only that which empirically falsifiable is of any practical use".

Is that statement empirically falsifiable?

 

[AltF4]

I think you're just trolling, but this point is worth making anyway. I've stated it many times before in many debates, and it's something everyone should be familiar with. This is all part of standard high school science lessons, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to many people, but unfortunately it does.

Science does not produce "Truth" with a capital T, it does not produce undeniable transcendent facts. It does not and cannot. Science works by producing two different things: Theories and Evidence.

Evidence is as close to "universal fact" as one can get. It is an observation, something repeatable, something objective. If you hold an apple and let go of it, and it falls, that is an observation. It is evidence.

Theories are attempts to explain evidence. They usually take the form of mathematical equations. Newton's theory of universal gravitation, for example, is a theory which attempts to explain how apples falling works.

Now this is the important part: For any given finite set of evidence, there are an infinite number of theories which are consistent with the evidence. (This is trivial to prove mathematically, if you want.) So the task of science is not to create theories that are consistent with evidence, no. The task of science is to iteratively rule out theories by finding new evidence. And come up with clever new theories which survive repeated attempts to disprove them.

Now consider what you are doing when you stand up and say "I have a theory, and it is unfalsifiable". There are, again, an infinite number of these. To say that something is unfalsifiable is not to say that it is true. Only that it cannot be proven false. And since NO THEORY can be proven true, that means we can never know ANYTHING about your theory, true or false. No amount of evidence can ever affect it, and therefore it never explains the evidence. It is useless, pointless, of no consequence. It is a theory which explains nothing.

Any time you see or hear a theory which cannot be falsified you should instantly disregard it, as it can not even in principle have the slightest purpose.


And this is exactly where almost all god arguments fail. They intentionally promote themselves as being unable to be disproven, and consequently become irrelevant.

 

[Theftz22]

Well that was all quite...irrelevant.

I asked you a simple question about whether you could empirically justify your hard-line empiricism. You gave me a long-winded speech about the nature of scientific evidence and theory, none of which had answered the question of whether or not you can empirically falsify the statement "only that which can be empirically falsified is practically useful".

The best that I can see here is that a theory which can't be falsified is useless because since it can't be proven true and it is only one of many theories, it therefore doesn't explain the evidence.

I'm going to ignore the fact that the argument you made isn't an empirical theory or observation and get to my central point. I don't think you understand what philosophy is. Philosophy isn't necessarily operating through empirical observation or theory. Philosophy isn't "the study of unfalsifiable scientific theories", which is all you seem to be arguing against. Rather, philosophy addresses both separate issues from science and the precursors to science. Before you could effectively establish the veridicality of your "evidence" based on observations, you would have to answer the questions of metaphysics, that is the fundamental nature of being and the world, and epistemology, that is the nature of knowledge and how do you come to know the fundamental nature of being and the world. And when you answer those you will be giving philosophical, not scientific answers. Your reliance on observation through empirical methodology is just totally unfounded without answering these questions. Furthermore creating theories based off of observations pre-supposes logic, but logic cannot be empirically proven, science pre-supposes the validity of logic as you have in this conversation. Philosophy also answers questions in a completely different realm from science such as ethical questions about how we ought behave.

Perhaps your objection really is that we need things to be generally falsifiable rather than just empirically falsifiable. Well remember that falsifiability simply means simply that if a statement were false, then its falsehood could be demonstrated. And in this way, philosophy completely conforms to the principle of falsifiability. And indeed all philosophical debates revolve around giving objections to show that the opposing view is false.

Edit: I'd also be interested in hearing your justification for induction.

 

[rvkevin]

I have a few questions for underdog and Dre.:

Do you think that mathematics is a subset of philosophy?

Do you think that mathematics is justified empirically?

If so, when you ask someone to justify a claim, is it sufficient to point to a mathematical construct that is continuously upheld empirically when done?

If mathematics is not empirically justified, then how is it justified? For example, how do justify the claim that 2+2=4? How would you demonstrate to someone else the truth of this claim?

 

[AltF4]

No, I directly answered your question about why the assertion is true. If you don't like it, then complain to every scientist alive, not me. But don't accuse me of dodging a question, which I did not.

I'm not sure what you're arguing... that science is invalid because it is unable to prove itself? Science never claims to be "valid". Just to produce useful results. Which it does.

This debate is not about some wishy-washy subjective topic about whether some action is morally wrong. This topic is about someone making factual claims about the state of the universe without producing a single shred of supporting evidence.

If someone came in here and said "There is an asteroid heading for Earth, and it will impact on September 23rd 2041", nobody would ask a philosopher what they thought about this news. This is not a subject matter for which philosophy applies. (If there is such a thing) Someone is making a factual claim about the cosmos with significant impact on the human race. We really want to know whether or not it's true. The same is true of any claims of gods.

 

[AltF4]

I have a few questions for underdog and Dre.:

Do you think that mathematics is a subset of philosophy?

Do you think that mathematics is justified empirically?

If so, when you ask someone to justify a claim, is it sufficient to point to a mathematical construct that is continuously upheld empirically when done?

If mathematics is not empirically justified, then how is it justified? For example, how do justify the claim that 2+2=4? How would you demonstrate to someone else the truth of this claim?

I apologize for answering a question not directed at me, but this one actually has an answer.

There are a small and finite set of mathematical axioms which must be assumed in order for mathematics to work. You cannot, by definition, prove these axioms are true. You can read a bit about some of them here:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Zermelo–Fraenkel_set_theory

What's notable is that there are, in fact, not just one single set of axioms. And depending on what set you choose, different things happen in the higher level equations. Really fun stuff.

Russel's Paradox (named after the mathematician Bertrand Russel) shows how one such set of axioms (naive set theory) turns out to lead to a contradiction, and is thus false. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Russell's_paradox

A more friendly version of the paradox is called the "Barber Paradox" https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Barber_paradox

 

[rvkevin]

Alt, I did not ask whether you could prove mathematical assumptions. I asked how you justify mathematical assumptions. If not by empirical means, then how? How are we supposed to determine whether or not an axiom is true or not? If not empirically, then how?

 

[ballin4life]

Axioms don't have to be true.

Axiom of choice is neither true nor false, but the statement (ZFC => well ordering principle) is true a priori in the same way that (Men are mortal, Socrates is a man => Socrates is mortal) is.

 

[Theftz22]

I have a few questions for underdog and Dre.:

Do you think that mathematics is a subset of philosophy?

Yes, metaphysics.

Do you think that mathematics is justified empirically?

Yes, mathematical equations are always empirically confirmed and are the basis for our physical models in physics and biology etc.

If so, when you ask someone to justify a claim, is it sufficient to point to a mathematical construct that is continuously upheld empirically when done?

Depends on what type of claim we're talking about.

If mathematics is not empirically justified, then how is it justified? For example, how do justify the claim that 2+2=4? How would you demonstrate to someone else the truth of this claim?

Mathematics if firstly self-justified, once we have the basic axioms of math down, we have a language to discuss mathematical claims, which can either be consistent or inconsistent. Now if we want to extrapolate this mathematical discourse into reality, then we justify it empirically.

No, I directly answered your question about why the assertion is true. If you don't like it, then complain to every scientist alive, not me. But don't accuse me of dodging a question, which I did not.

Sorry, sir, but you dodged the question. Whatever answer you gave me may have been your justification for why you thought that empirical falsification was the criterion for truth, but my question wasn't directed at any reason you may have come to believe that in the first place. Rather, it was directed at the fact that no matter what other consideration you have, that claim cannot be true, because it is self-refuting. If your sole criterion for truth is that something must be empirically falsifiable to be true, then that statement itself must be untrue, because it cannot be empirically falsified. Hence, this empirical falsification is simply self-refuting.

I'm not sure what you're arguing... that science is invalid because it is unable to prove itself? Science never claims to be "valid". Just to produce useful results. Which it does.

I've never argued that science is invalid solely because it can't justify itself. Rather I think that science needs an adequate philosophical foundation in which it even makes sense to speak of things like "useful", otherwise it's simply groundless.

This debate is not about some wishy-washy subjective topic about whether some action is morally wrong. This topic is about someone making factual claims about the state of the universe without producing a single shred of supporting evidence.

My point about ethics wasn't that we're in an ethical debate right now (??), but that philosophy includes such branches as ethics, which really lie in an entirely different category than science.

If someone came in here and said "There is an asteroid heading for Earth, and it will impact on September 23rd 2041", nobody would ask a philosopher what they thought about this news. This is not a subject matter for which philosophy applies. (If there is such a thing) Someone is making a factual claim about the cosmos with significant impact on the human race. We really want to know whether or not it's true. The same is true of any claims of gods.

No one here is denying that physics will be the best way to measure the motions of asteroids, how is this supposed to be a strike against philosophy?



Wow, I didn't know that there was actually anyone that subscribes to scientism!

 

[rvkevin]

I was initially confused by your response, but I think I have found the source. You have implied that science is a subset of metaphysics, whereas I was under the impression (from Dre.'s routine insistence) that they are mutually exclusive. If math is a subset of metaphysics, and science is the application of a mathematical principle (Baye's theorem), then science is a subset of metaphysics. This would have the implication that scientific statements are also metaphysical and philosophical statements. This also means that science would then be justified via empirical means. I think such wide use of terms philosophy and metaphysics is to blame here. Why are you criticizing Alt4 for invoking empiricism when you also use it to justify mathematical principles, which ultimately form the foundation of science?

 

[Theftz22]

I'm not criticizing the use of empiricism, its only this exclusive empirical falsifiability criterion for truth, which I find self-refuting and too restrictive.

 

[AltF4]

If your sole criterion for truth is that something must be empirically falsifiable to be true, then that statement itself must be untrue, because it cannot be empirically falsified.

Science. Does. Not. Declare. Things. True. Nor does it care what you think of it.

I mean, I took so long to hammer this point in that even you commented on how long the post was. And then the whole post was completely ignored. Science never attempts to determine "truth". It just falsifies, and produces useful results.

I thought that when I said:

I'm not criticizing the use of empiricism, its only this exclusive empirical falsifiability criterion for truth, which I find self-refuting and too restrictive.

Which you fabricated and pinned on me.

 

[rvkevin]

Science will continue to produce useful results just like it always has. Science doesn't care about nor need philosophy's approval in order to continue.

I think you would appreciate this.

Philosophers, sweet as they may be, are most definitely not the "arbiters" of the cognitive structure of science. They are more like interested spectators, running alongside the locomotive of science, playing catch-up in order to figure out what it is doing, and occasionally shouting words of advice to the engineer, who might sometimes nod in interested agreement but is more likely to shrug and ignore the wacky academics with all the longwinded discourses.-PZ

 

[Reaver197]

PZ Myers is always fantastic to read through, if not just for the hilarity of what he deals with at times.

 

[Theftz22]

No one denies that it's science that "brings home the bread" so to speak in terms of technology and the like. That's just the classic joke about how "useless" philosophy is in terms of everyday living, which is probably true for some branches of philosophy, though I doubt you could escape the consequences of not taking seriously topics like ethics (and its clear effects on political issues) and the philosophy of religion (if it's positive claims are true). You could probably go through life without thinking about some of the deepest philosophical questions of epistemology and metaphysics. However it does have practical use if you are one who finds these topics fascinating and interesting to think about and in some occasions you can even make a career out of it.

But really though if that's your objection then I didn't really interpret you correctly. I just want clarification on one thing:

It is indeed true however that "only that which empirically falsifiable is of any practical use".

Is that statement "only that which empirically falsifiable is of any practical use", true or false? And what criteria are you using?

 

[ballin4life]

Science. Does. Not. Declare. Things. True. Nor does it care what you think of it.

This is 100% false. Science does declare things true. For example: the statement (the Earth is not flat) is declared true by science.

I mean, I took so long to hammer this point in that even you commented on how long the post was. And then the whole post was completely ignored. Science never attempts to determine "truth". It just falsifies, and produces useful results.

Falsifying something is determining truth.

That was pretty unambiguous. I never said "something must be empirically falsifiable to be true". That would be absurd. I did say that something must be falsifiable to be useful. And the contrapositive: "if something is unfalsifiable, you can disregard it. Because true or false, it's useless." And I don't appreciate my words being twisted.

Math and logic aren't falsifiable, and I'm pretty sure they aren't useless either because science relies on them.

Science matters because it produces results. The computer you're using to read this is because of science. I hope I don't have to go on a long enumeration of all the benefits to humanity that science has brought.

THAT is why we do science. Not because it is metaphysically proven to be the only and pure source of worldly knowledge.

I don't think anyone is denying this. But the idea that "science produces results" can't be empirically justified. Science has apparently produced results in the past, but this does not automatically mean it will produce results in the future, unless you make the philosophical assumption that the future will resemble the past.

Nonsense. If tomorrow philosophers discovered with absolute undeniable certainty that scientific observation is fundamentally flawed and baseless, do you know what scientists will do in response?

Nothing.

Science will continue to produce useful results just like it always has. Science doesn't care about nor need philosophy's approval in order to continue.

If philosophers somehow discovered that the world doesn't exist, then that would have a pretty big impact on science. Likewise, if the assumption that the future will resemble the past is shown to be false, that would have a big impact on science.

There are also philosophical assumptions embedded in the practice of science. For example, if an experiment tomorrow were to go against the predictions of conservation of energy and Einstein's relativity, scientists are probably going to keep conservation of energy and ditch relativity due to philosophy.

 

[AltF4]

I just want clarification on one thing:

Is that statement "only that which empirically falsifiable is of any practical use", true or false? And what criteria are you using?

Suppose I answer your question (which I have), then your next question is:

"How do you know whether THAT is true or false."

It's essentially equivalent to a child repeatedly asking "why?" every time you give an answer. It's not clever, and doesn't reveal anything interesting. You haven't proven anything.

This is 100% false. Science does declare things true. For example: the statement (the Earth is not flat) is declared true by science.

Come on, don't make me type up a huge post about how science works. Science does not declare things true.

When a scientist says something is "true", it is short hand for "something which we are extremely confident about and has withstood an immense amount of effort to falsify it. It also has produced predictions which turned out to be confirmed. Though in principle it could still be wrong, stranger things have happened"

You can see why it's easier just to say "true". And even then, any good scientist will have a pained look on his face when he says it. A look of "what I'm saying isn't strictly correct, but I'm already being too verbose"

 

[ballin4life]

Whenever you falsify something, you determine truth. If theory A is falsified, then we know ~A is true.

For another concrete example, we have determined that (given usual assumptions) Newtonian mechanics are incorrect. That is a truth.


Also, I don't think one can say that one is extremely confident that some particular theory is true, since all it takes is one counterexample to falsify it. A scientist can't really be immensely confident that relativity is correct since one counterexample will falsify it. This has happened many times (e.g. Newtonian mechanics).

 

[AltF4]

Firstly:

The smashboards totally just gave me a live update to tell me that your post was edited while I was in the process of responding to it. That's awesome. Nice feature! Those ninja edits were so annoying.



Secondly:

Sure, lol. If that's how you want to think about it. Information is gained about the universe. We are forever doomed to having incomplete information, (Godel, for instance) but we we can still make progress.

Your use of the phrase "a truth" isn't how I was using it, is all. This is a syntactic problem, not one of substance.

Also, I don't think one can say that one is extremely confident that some particular theory is true, since all it takes is one counterexample to falsify it. A scientist can't really be immensely confident that relativity is correct since one counterexample will falsify it. This has happened many times (e.g. Newtonian mechanics).

That is a valid point. And a point everyone has to seriously consider. Newton's laws stood "the test of time" for around 200 years. We should never be too complacent about assuming things. This is exactly the point I've been hammering home: That you cannot ever prove any theory true.

...but in the "real world" we kind of have to make assumptions. We take most of them for granted, because they seem so obvious. Even if they're "running assumptions" (provisionally taken until something better comes along) we have to do it.

When you microwave your food, do you seriously consider whether our current theories about microwave radiation is true? Are you afraid your microwave oven might accidentally cause a nuclear explosion? No. You just press the button.

So I want to recap this just so that nobody could possibly twist my words. There are two different qualifications of knowledge. What we might call scientific skepticism, where we constantly doubt our current understandings and try to poke holes in them. And then there's the "real world" (for lack of a better term) where we are forced to make assumptions in order to function as human beings. These are not the same thing. Pressing "+30 seconds" does not mean that you fully accept all of current molecular theory as gospel fact.

 

[rvkevin]

Though I doubt you could escape the consequences of not taking seriously topics like ethics (and its clear effects on political issues) and the philosophy of religion (if it's positive claims are true).

Not really. Not much philosophy is required for ethics (well, for any ethics that makes valid claims), at least not any more than for any other field of science. Once that is done, then you can use science to discover facts about ethics. If a religion is true, then that should be discoverable through science, so philosophy of religion is fairly useless in that regards. Science makes meaningful claims about these topics.

Likewise, if the assumption that the future will resemble the past is shown to be false, that would have a big impact on science.

Do you mean on the confidence we give to certain conclusions or to the process of science? If you mean the former, then your claim is trivial. If you mean the latter, then your claim is false. Making the future probabilistic does not invalidate science. Many fields of science currently deal with probabilistic mechanisms, so I fail to see how you can say that it will have a big impact on science.

There are also philosophical assumptions embedded in the practice of science. For example, if an experiment tomorrow were to go against the predictions of conservation of energy and Einstein's relativity, scientists are probably going to keep conservation of energy and ditch relativity due to philosophy.

I’m not sure how this is a philosophical assumption…It makes perfect sense in the context of Baye’s theorem. Yes, science uses mathematics. Why is this significant? If you really want to say that mathematics is a subset of philosophy, then I guess you could say that they are philosophical assumptions, but that does nothing to validate anything else with the label of philosophy or implies that other things with the label of philosophy have any bearing on science.

Also, I don't think one can say that one is extremely confident that some particular theory is true, since all it takes is one counterexample to falsify it. A scientist can't really be immensely confident that relativity is correct since one counterexample will falsify it. This has happened many times (e.g. Newtonian mechanics).

I think you are missing a key point. A theory can make useful predictions to some degree of accuracy yet not be entirely accurate. A theory can make useful predictions for most of the data and periodically not for some subset. Newtonian mechanics made useful predictions then, and it still does. It was only overturned by relativity because relativity explains the data that Newtonian mechanics explained plus some of the things that it did not. In other words, relativity has more predictive power than Newtonian mechanics, which is why it is the leading theory. We did not discover a counterexample that made us drop Newtonian mechanics that wasn’t already known at the time.

 

[ballin4life]

Do you mean on the confidence we give to certain conclusions or to the process of science? If you mean the former, then your claim is trivial. If you mean the latter, then your claim is false. Making the future probabilistic does not invalidate science. Many fields of science currently deal with probabilistic mechanisms, so I fail to see how you can say that it will have a big impact on science.

If tomorrow gravity disappeared, all our scientific theories that relate to gravity become useless.

Inductive reasoning is based on the assumption that future observations will match past observations. If future observations are completely independent of the past, then no knowledge can be gained.

I’m not sure how this is a philosophical assumption…It makes perfect sense in the context of Baye’s theorem. Yes, science uses mathematics. Why is this significant? If you really want to say that mathematics is a subset of philosophy, then I guess you could say that they are philosophical assumptions, but that does nothing to validate anything else with the label of philosophy or implies that other things with the label of philosophy have any bearing on science

How do you know the prior probability of relativity or conservation of energy?

I think you are missing a key point. A theory can make useful predictions to some degree of accuracy yet not be entirely accurate. A theory can make useful predictions for most of the data and periodically not for some subset. Newtonian mechanics made useful predictions then, and it still does. It was only overturned by relativity because relativity explains the data that Newtonian mechanics explained plus some of the things that it did not. In other words, relativity has more predictive power than Newtonian mechanics, which is why it is the leading theory. We did not discover a counterexample that made us drop Newtonian mechanics that wasn’t already known at the time.

Several of the problems of Newtonian mechanics were not evident at the time of its creation. Like the speed of light being constant - this was not really known for a while.

The theory that the Earth is the center of the solar system can make useful predictions too btw.

 

[rvkevin]

If tomorrow gravity disappeared, all our scientific theories that relate to gravity become useless.

This doesn’t address what I said. I said that the process of science would be unaffected and that the overturning of past ideas based on new evidence is a trivial comment. You are talking about specific pieces of evidence. Sure, if new evidence comes in and points to a different conclusion, then the current theories will need to incorporate the new data or need revision. However, this would not affect the process of science. If gravity ceased to exist tomorrow, physicists would not cease doing science, they would simply have a new phenomena to investigate.

Inductive reasoning is based on the assumption that future observations will match past observations. If future observations are completely independent of the past, then no knowledge can be gained.

If future observations are completely independent of the past, then knowledge is gained, namely that our models don’t work. We probably wouldn’t be able to distinguish whether this effect is in nature or our map of it, so those would be the two competing paradigms that we would need to test. This would be a large shift from the current public perspective of science, but it would not have any effect on the framework of it.

How do you know the prior probability of relativity or conservation of energy?

Since there are many more dead ends than correct answers, the prior would be very low (for any proposal). However, via testing, this low prior can become significantly larger if the evidence has a large Baye’s factor (or repeated tests with smaller Baye’s factors). Since the test for relativity required a great deal of accuracy, it would have a high Baye’s factor, which would increase its prior probability by a large factor. The reason why certain ideas currently have higher priors (physical laws) compared to other events is because they have continuously passed so many tests, not because they started with a high prior probability. I would probably set all ideas on an equal playing field and let their tests settle which ones are more probable than others. I don’t know exactly how people decide on it, but they do it anyway. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to evaluate evidence. If you don’t use Baye’s, then you’re up a creek without a paddle.

Several of the problems of Newtonian mechanics were not evident at the time of its creation. Like the speed of light being constant - this was not really known for a while.

This is not why relativity replaced Newtonian mechanics. Time dilation was verified after relativity was adopted by mainstream science. The reason why relativity was adopted was for its predictive power. It was able to explain the motion of the planets, including the motion of Mercury of which Newtonian mechanics did not accurately predict. At the time when Newtonian mechanics was accepted, it was known that Mercury did not conform to the laws, yet the framework was still accepted, despite this “counterexample,” because it made useful predictions.

The theory that the Earth is the center of the solar system can make useful predictions too btw.

Please explain. What did that model predict that was not already known at the time?

 

[ballin4life]

This doesn’t address what I said. I said that the process of science would be unaffected and that the overturning of past ideas based on new evidence is a trivial comment. You are talking about specific pieces of evidence. Sure, if new evidence comes in and points to a different conclusion, then the current theories will need to incorporate the new data or need revision.

That's not just new evidence coming in though. A fundamental shift in the universe would have a large impact on science, because one of our assumptions is that the universe has constant laws.

If future observations are completely independent of the past, then knowledge is gained, namely that our models don’t work. We probably wouldn’t be able to distinguish whether this effect is in nature or our map of it, so those would be the two competing paradigms that we would need to test. This would be a large shift from the current public perspective of science, but it would not have any effect on the framework of it.

If we knew that the future was independent of the past, then all models would have to fail and it would be impossible to make predictions.

This is a complete hypothetical btw, a response to the person who said "no conclusion by philosophers could affect science". I'm making the completely unrealistic assumption that philosophers somehow have proven that the future is independent of the past.

Since there are many more dead ends than correct answers, the prior would be very low (for any proposal). However, via testing, this low prior can become significantly larger if the evidence has a large Baye’s factor (or repeated tests with smaller Baye’s factors). Since the test for relativity required a great deal of accuracy, it would have a high Baye’s factor, which would increase its prior probability by a large factor. The reason why certain ideas currently have higher priors (physical laws) compared to other events is because they have continuously passed so many tests, not because they started with a high prior probability.

It's really not quite that simple though. How do you weigh the impact of one series of tests against another?

I would probably set all ideas on an equal playing field and let their tests settle which ones are more probable than others. I don’t know exactly how people decide on it, but they do it anyway. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to evaluate evidence. If you don’t use Baye’s, then you’re up a creek without a paddle.

Also one other thing to think about: how can you use Bayes to determine the gravitational constant? If we assume that outcomes are equally likely, then without any evidence the gravitational constant's prior distribution would be uniform on the entire real line - which is a contradiction since this would result in probability density 0 everywhere.

This is not why relativity replaced Newtonian mechanics. Time dilation was verified after relativity was adopted by mainstream science. The reason why relativity was adopted was for its predictive power. It was able to explain the motion of the planets, including the motion of Mercury of which Newtonian mechanics did not accurately predict. At the time when Newtonian mechanics was accepted, it was known that Mercury did not conform to the laws, yet the framework was still accepted, despite this “counterexample,” because it made useful predictions.

The fact that the speed of light is constant was not known in Newton's time, yet it was one of the things that inspired Einstein's relativity. Do you disagree?

Please explain. What did that model predict that was not already known at the time?

Celestial movements. Day and night.

In fact, if we take our frame of reference to be the Earth, then it is the case that the sun revolves around the Earth.

I don't know what you mean by "already known at the time" btw. The point of a model is to summarize what you already know - it has to fit in with past observations.

 

[Theftz22]

Suppose I answer your question (which I have), then your next question is:

"How do you know whether THAT is true or false."

It's essentially equivalent to a child repeatedly asking "why?" every time you give an answer. It's not clever, and doesn't reveal anything interesting. You haven't proven anything.

Not really, I was just wondering how, if you're advocating that science is the only useful source of information, and that science does not declare things true, it would immediately follow that nothing can be proven true on your worldview, even the statements just made. So hence I think we're back to self-refutation on your own worldview.

Is the statement, "only that which is empirically falsifiable is of any practical use" empirically falsifiable? If not, your own criteria here would be useless by its own standards.

Not really. Not much philosophy is required for ethics (well, for any ethics that makes valid claims), at least not any more than for any other field of science. Once that is done, then you can use science to discover facts about ethics.

The only way I can see that being true is if you are adopting some form of utilitarianism, in which you could scientifically measure the effect of actions on the well-being of conscious beings, or something like that. I firstly don't think that utilitarianism is true, but anyway the debate over utilitarianism would be a philosophical debate.

If a religion is true, then that should be discoverable through science, so philosophy of religion is fairly useless in that regards. Science makes meaningful claims about these topics.

Certainly some of the philosophy of religion overlaps with science, but much (most, I'd say) of the debate is not scientific, you can just look through this topic or any other god debate to see that.

 

[AltF4]

Not really, I was just wondering how, if you're advocating that science is the only useful source of information, and that science does not declare things true, it would immediately follow that nothing can be proven true on your worldview, even the statements just made. So hence I think we're back to self-refutation on your own worldview.

Let's make a list, then.

Processes that demonstrably and repeatably produce information about the universe and useful applications:

1) The scientific method
2) NOTHING ELSE

If you've got something better, the planet is all ears. Science does not claim to be the only POSSIBLE source of knowledge. There just aren't any competitors.


And of course the statement "only that which is empirically falsifiable is of any practical use" is falsifiable. One can easily imagine a counter example. Suppose you have some theory X which is unfalsifiable. Then you show that X produces useful results. Done.

 

[ballin4life]

I would actually say that the scientific method is the ONLY source of knowledge about the universe.

However, my reasons for this are philosophical. The scientific method is based in philosophy.


Also, the theory of God is unfalsifiable (right?), yet one might argue it produces useful results - like ethics, or an explanation of the universe, or whatever.

 

[AltF4]

Don't try to stretch the meaning of words, ballin. Because a theory gives you inspiration to create something useful is clearly not what is meant by "produces useful results". The theory itself has to be used to make predictions about the future.

The existence of deities "in general" is unfalsifiable, yes. It's like a conspiracy theory; the theory can always be explained by expanding the scope of the conspiracy. If your god gets shown to be false, then just expand his powers.

But individual gods can be falsifiable. Some people try to make religious predictions about the future on the basis of some form of revelation. (This Saturday for instance) Unfortunately for them, the track record of revelation is rather low... For the most part, religious people don't try making predictions, since obviously they'd be shown wrong. If you're trying to make a living as a priest, being wrong all the time hurts your bottom line.