Philosophy

[Asmodeus]

*Hopes that Unanun will start his next post with "Let me try again"*

>:)

 

[unanun]

Once more ...

The whole point is that it doesn't matter what you believe. A great example are the firewalkers - it turns out that the physics of coals lets them walk on it, not their beliefs.

This is an argument based around the belief in objectivity vs subjectivity. I believe in absolute subjectivity, and from previous debates, I know it is fruitless to try to convince either side to believe the opposite, so I'll let this part go.

You are, I feel, deliberately being obtuse. If you do not believe in objective truth, then attempt to fly off a building - if you believe, then it should be no problem.

Is more precision better? You think so, but not everyone does. As science has so often shown, if somethng is false once, it is no longer true.

Progress is easily quantifiable if you assign it an interpretation free number. Can humanity today make more widgets than it did one thousand years ago? Yes. It has progressed by increasing its ability to make goods. Is this better or worse? Uh oh, you've just introduced an opinion! The number before increases with time. That is progress. Is it a good or bad thing? Who knows!

And there have been many time where being more precise has led to "worse" situations than otherwise.

When people say this without giving a specific example, I simply have no idea how to respond. It is the most generic, factless rebuttal ever ...

Just because many people can see beauty in a world of science, doesn't mean that everyone does. Science is not objectively bettering us.

*Sigh* I have said over and over again that science does not better anything. All it does is reveal objective truth. Truth does not equal betterment.

(By the way, that video was in response to your claim that science ruins beauty. Which is a viewpoint, and not provably true.)

 

[Holmishire]

I have said over and over again that science does not better anything. All it does is reveal objective truth. Truth does not equal betterment.

Sorry, I had been equating better with superior. My mistake.

When people say this without giving a specific example, I simply have no idea how to respond. It is the most generic, factless rebuttal ever ...

You are entirely correct. That was me being an idiot.

It falls back to the subjectivity of things. We can see more closely with a microscope, but some would say this is looking at the tree instead of the forest. Some find it better to look at the big picture, instead of concentrating on needless precision. I personally find science beneficial. But it is not objectively beneficial.

You are, I feel, deliberately being obtuse. If you do not believe in objective truth, then attempt to fly off a building - if you believe, then it should be no problem.

I could say the same of you. That argument is absurd.

Firstly, do you honestly think I can just decide what I believe in?

Secondly, I am not saying we can affect anything with our beliefs. I'm just saying that if a truth isn't universal, then it isn't objective. A person can jump off a building and fly—in their dreams. Some believe that this is enough, a subjective belief.

As far as we can tell, people can't jump off a building and fly. But decades or centuries down the line, we may find that to be absolutely false—we just didn't realize it was possible yet. Any "truth" is temporary and potentially refutable down the line, and therefore not objective.

Progress is easily quantifiable if you assign it an interpretation free number. Can humanity today make more widgets than it did one thousand years ago? Yes. It has progressed by increasing its ability to make goods. Is this better or worse? Uh oh, you've just introduced an opinion! The number before increases with time. That is progress. Is it a good or bad thing? Who knows!

So you're saying higher numbers are superior?

Books and other writings on philosophy. There is a greater number of philosophical writings today than there was when philosophy first started, therefore there is advancement ('progress')

Measure it like that. Ask a kid a question and count the number of answers he can come up with by accessing the various ideas around him. Then compare that to the number of ideas a pig farmer's bastard would have.

Even this—

interpretation free number

—is subjective to interpretation.

What if I was asking the number of technologies we didn't discover in that period of time? If we take the number of widgets we didn't discover between 200AD and 2014AD, then compare it to 200AD and 1500AD, the former is inferior. How do you decide which direction the numbers should be going? It's a subjective decision.

Or you could look at our understanding of gravity. In how many contexts does gravity pull as opposed to push? Just about infinity, I'd say. What's bigger than infinity? If we already understand an infinite number of situations, how can we say we now have a bigger number?

There is no objectively superior thing, no objectively better thing. It all depends on interpretation and perspective, whether it is science or philosophy.

It is true in many contexts that philosophy makes no progress, I admit. But it is equally true that neither does science. To claim that science makes progress but that philosophy doesn't is to make arbitrary boundaries that are inconsistent with themselves, or incredibly complex and pointless.

 

[Jorick]

Alright, I'm just gonna resort to blunt force instead of striving for eloquence.

I went through each and every definition of both and showed to you why nothing philosophy has done can be done as progress or be considered as superior to previous versions of philosophy.

Progress is basically saying 'gradual betterment.' Of course, betterment in measurement is easily quantified - more precision, more knowledge, etc. The same cannot be said for philosophy. Jorrick attempted to convince me that philosophy makes immeasurable progress. If you can't measure even define how to measure it, how are you supposed to say it underwent 'gradual betterment'?

The same idea falls under the word 'superior'.

Progress is gradual betterment? Fine, agreed. "Betterment" is a subjective term stemming from the subjective term "better." To take your own words on the subject from a later post: "Is this better or worse? Uh oh, you've just introduced an opinion!" There is no objective truth to be had about what constitutes "better," therefore you cannot claim science or philosophy or anything else has become better (or worse) by any objective metric, therefore your argument of philosophy lacking objective betterment is completely invalid and your argument of science possessing objective betterment is also completely invalid.

I'm pretty sure I refuted most of them, including his claim that science is never 100% correct o_o.

To be frank, if you believe science is ever 100% correct in an absolute sense then you are an awful scientist. All scientific measurement is done through tools (point of potential error #1) created by humans (point of potential error #2), and the results are observed by human senses (point of potential error #3) and then recorded after being interpreted by the human brain (point of potential error #4). There must remain a shred of doubt about absolutely everything found through the scientific method because of these potential points of error plus the previously mentioned fact that all it would take is one tiny bit of contradictory evidence to prove any given scientific finding to be erroneous. Science is constantly tweaking and updating things because it is never 100% correct. Whether or not it will ever get there is a point of debate better suited for a different thread, but currently it is a literal fact that science is not 100% correct.

Progress is easily quantifiable if you assign it an interpretation free number. Can humanity today make more widgets than it did one thousand years ago? Yes. It has progressed by increasing its ability to make goods. Is this better or worse? Uh oh, you've just introduced an opinion! The number before increases with time. That is progress. Is it a good or bad thing? Who knows!

Since we've already established that any kind of qualitative assessment in relation to progress is worthless, we are left only with quantity to determine progress. I have already made this argument before, but I will reiterate it anyway.

Science makes more objects, whatever happens to count as a product of science, than it did at a given point in the past, therefore progress. Philosophy makes more books/essays and concepts/ideas/arguments, which are the products of philosophy, than it did at a given point in the past (and I will provide a plethora of examples if you doubt this), therefore progress. This number is not up to interpretation. There are, with no dispute possible, more books of philosophy and more ideas in philosophy than there were back in ancient Greece, therefore by the only possible interpretation free measurement philosophy has made progress.

*Sigh* I have said over and over again that science does not better anything. All it does is reveal objective truth. Truth does not equal betterment.

It is unfortunate that I've already dismissed your "gradual betterment" definition of progress, else I would be able to use this here to point out how you just in a roundabout way said that science makes no progress. Alas.

 

[Asmodeus]

*pulls Unanun away from the dog pile*

@Asmodeus but I am not convinced that access to more information is progress. For all the access to new information, no new truth has been produced.

You are your own new truth, young Unanun. Before the information age you would have been bludgeoned to death by Jorrick and Hellis. Now they're just pawing at you ineffectually across a modem connection. This whole thing would have been solved with rocks and cathartic sodomy.

What about quantum physics (y'know, that subject I know more about than you)? Isn't that based on some pretty batshit assumptions that we could only have come up with by being entitled armchair scientists? And from that we get all that "new truth" like dark matter, string theory and particle physics.

Then there's that 12 year old autistic kid who's got a higher IQ than Einstein and is coming up with his own theory of relativity. He would have been the village idiot if he didn't have all those books and internet resources with which to prove he was worth a doctorate.

Then we landed a comet on a rocket... or a rocket on a comet... and are building on the idea that life originated from meteor impacts or something. Isn't this new truth? Aren't we coming up with new truths...?

We are... aren't we...? o_o

<__<


*is now confident that his collection of Facebook news stories will make him infallible*

*throws Unanun back to the dogs*




TRY AGAIN ONCE MORE.

 

[unanun]

As far as we can tell, people can't jump off a building and fly. But decades or centuries down the line, we may find that to be absolutely false—we just didn't realize it was possible yet. Any "truth" is temporary and potentially refutable down the line, and therefore not objective.

This encroaches on sophistry. Of course, you can squeeze into doubt where, as far as we can tell, there is none. Is there a teapot floating between earth and mars? Is there god? Maybe. Of course I can't say with complete and absolute certainty there isn't. Is there a ghost behind you about to stab you? Maybe. Most likely almost completely probably not. Clinging to an untestable hope - that perhaps people could one day spontaneously fly from the tops of buildings - is irrational.

—is subjective to interpretation.

You are correct. But the definition of progress is advancement in process, or superiority. Everyone who is not a sophist can agree that if an industrial process has advanced it makes more widgets in less time. If you are trying to argue with me that an axe that can chop through one thousand trees without dulling is inferior to one that can chop through a hundred in a similar fashion, or that our knowledge today is inferior to that of the greeks, I think we cannot debate more o_o

If we take the number of widgets we didn't discover between 200AD and 2014AD, then compare it to 200AD and 1500AD, the former is inferior.

If you measure technological progress, it is completely on an exponential curve.

In how many contexts does gravity pull as opposed to push? Just about infinity, I'd say.

This is wrong o_o. The gravitional force between two objects is well known.

To be frank, if you believe science is ever 100% correct in an absolute sense then you are an awful scientist.

Uh oh .. when I, a phd student in theoretical chemistry, take criticism from someone, I need to ask for your qualification. Maddox wrote a pretty good article on that. I understand what you're saying about certainty in science. I addressed it above in my first reply.

There is no objective truth to be had about what constitutes "better," therefore you cannot claim science or philosophy or anything else has become better (or worse) by any objective metric, therefore your argument of philosophy lacking objective betterment is completely invalid and your argument of science possessing objective betterment is also completely invalid.

You are confusing me. Science reveals truths and/or relationships. We know photons are excitations of what we call a bosonic field. Is it a mathematical construct or the true reality? Enter philosophy. Does philosophy give us points of view that are testable? For the most part, no. Does the truth of the equations hold as far as we can test then? Yes. Can we refine the equation based upon more data? Yes. Science is data driven discovery. Philosophy isn't - it is an endless debate about viewpoints where there is no way to prove the truth of one over another.

I suppose that the scientific revolution was, as you may claim, a philosophical view point. On that we agree that philosophy produced something useful - the idea that view points can be tested and discarded as nonconformal with reality. On the idea of morals, ethics, and all that other subjective stuff - I cannot agree with you.

I am also going to advance the provocative hypothesis that all major revolutions (mind you, I am not using the word 'advance') in society have been driven by scientific study, not by philosophy. From printing press to gunpowder to steam power to electricity, all the transformative changes in society have been driven by technological discovery - philosophy did not advocate or predict or show us how to deal with any of this - it only spent its time catching up.

You have to discard the idea that philosophy makes no progress as having a bad connotation. The nature of philosophy is that it can never make progress because it is entirely based upon points of view. The the value of human life has never been agreed upon. It has ranged from being entirely worthless to one of the fundamental rights. And still no one can agree on how much a human life is worth. To claim otherwise is to be completely slave to your present social context.

@Asmodeus I would be delighted to describe the foundations of quantum mechanics to you. The equations themselves have been the subject of intense debate, which has led to keywords you may have heard of, including many-worlds and copenhagen and wavefunction collapse.

String theory and dark matter are examples where some mathematical physicists have found abstract mathematical concepts that, for some reason, conform extremely well to reality. But in the case of string theory, they do so in intestable ways. That is why most people poo-poo string theory - it does not make testable predictions. Even if you have the math, it is no better than philosophy.

Of course, there is additional philosophizing to be done on why mathematics seems to be so "unreasonably effective" in physics (see Eugene Wigner on that) - but while we are free to speculate on the true reality underneath, science is usually done by something called instrumentalism, where we are unconcerned with the (possible) reality that lies one layer deeper than what our instruments tell us because we can never test if it is there or not.

I agree with you that access to information is truly remarkable progress. But that is my viewpoint, which I have to divorce myself from for this argument. At most, I will say that we have more access to information than before - but our opinion of whether that is good or not is just opinion.

As for the new truths, I believe you have a point. But they are new 'truths' in the sense that they are testable .. while I'm not sure the same can be said of new points of view that philosophy produces. For example, we produce new points of view on the value of human life all the time, and throughout history. Have we ever agreed on it? Eh ...

 

[Holmishire]

(On mobile, please excuse the poor quoting.)

If you measure technological progress, it is completely on an exponential curve.

This is wrong o_o. The gravitional force between two objects is well known.

I agree with you that access to information is truly remarkable progress. But that is my viewpoint, which I have to divorce myself from for this argument. At most, I will say that we have more access to information than before - but our opinion of whether that is good or not is just opinion.

Firstly, I just said gravity pulls objects together. If that is not true, then I think we're living in different worlds.

Secondly, my point was not that it was exponential. My point was that if you measure by the things we have left to discover, the number is dropping as science moves forward. Any superior number has an inferior opposite, and it is your opinion that determined which number you were basing your arguments off of.

You say that whether we have more information or not being good is based off opinion. The exact same can be said for scientific knowledge, technology, and production. I can tell stories where each superior situation is detrimental, for there are no pareto improvements in the real world.

An axe that stays sharp longer helps the lumberjack, but not the blacksmith—or whoever it is that makes axes these days. I guess that means we cannot debate any more.

Finally, I am not a sophist, I argue as a skepticist. Or perhaps, more accurately, as a nihilist.

 

[unanun]

Okay .. but I'm not debating on what the axe is used for. An axe that makes a thousand cuts before dulling is measurably superior to a similar axe that can only do ten. Its utility does not matter. Can you make the same claim about philosophy - has it ever produced a viewpoint that is more truthy or more valid than any other viewpoint?

My point was that if you measure by the things we have left to discover, the number is dropping as science moves forward.

Assuming you are correct, I don't see how this is a problem. I never claimed that science will make infinite and exponential progress. I only claim that science reveals "truths" (since you and Jorrick don't like that word) through experiment, and philosophy does not.

Also, I would argue that the amount of ?'s is greater today than it ever was, as someone actively doing research.

 

[Holmishire]

That's good, I wasn't debating the utility of axes either. Nor, I repeat, was I discussing whether the discovery of new technology was exponential.

I see no purpose in continuing the discussion if you are incapable of reading my arguments. Perhaps tonight, when I again have access to my computer, I'll try to explain those two examples in more detail.

 

[unanun]

I do not understand you. Science has the unique position of being able to invalidate a viewpoint to large degrees of certainty. It progresses by continuously refining what is the correct 'viewpoint' or theory of physical processes. Philosophy does not grant us the same progress.

I think your arguments are very imprecise and do not get to the point. You have set the precedence by throwing out, by your own admission, a vague statement before o_o. I am well practiced in reading scientific literature and I have read through your post twice and thrice to no avail.

Secondly, my point was not that it was exponential. My point was that if you measure by the things we have left to discover, the number is dropping as science moves forward. Any superior number has an inferior opposite, and it is your opinion that determined which number you were basing your arguments off of.

You definitely were discussing how fast new technology is discovered. As far as I know, you were claiming that science can be judged to be doing less with time since there is less to discover. I claimed that you were wrong, based upon being in active research o_o.

You say that whether we have more information or not being good is based off opinion. The exact same can be said for scientific knowledge, technology, and production. I can tell stories where each superior situation is detrimental, for there are no pareto improvements in the real world.

You can, but then, again, I claim you are being a sophist if you claim to me that one industrial process that does things better and more efficiently than another is, for some reason, worse. We should both agree on its superiority. However, the value of human life will never be assigned an answer because it depends on points of view. It is not universally agreed upon.

An axe that stays sharp longer helps the lumberjack, but not the blacksmith—or whoever it is that makes axes these days. I guess that means we cannot debate any more.

Perhaps mistakenly, I tried to draw a parallel in industrial processes where advances have been made regardless of our beliefs. We may disagree on the utility of a more durable axe - you say it does less for a blacksmith, I say it does more for the lumberjack. Yet the fact remains that the axe can still make tenfold more cuts than before. That will never change. Your opinion of its utility is an opinion. The fact that an industrial process makes more widgets today than yesterday is unchanged.

I believe it is easy to agree on a definition of progress in that case - we should both agree that an axe that does more is superior to an axe that does less. I am claiming that if you argue otherwise, it is sophistry. You can claim that both axes have no worth to a blacksmith. But to claim for some reason that the blacksmith finds the more durable axe less worthy?? Hogwash. Neither axe has any value to the blacksmith. You cannot say the better axe is worse.

On the other hand, the same cannot be said for viewpoints regarding morals, ethics, and all that other stuff.

 

[Drakel]

Okay .. but I'm not debating on what the axe is used for. An axe that makes a thousand cuts before dulling is measurably superior to a similar axe that can only do ten. Its utility does not matter. Can you make the same claim about philosophy - has it ever produced a viewpoint that is more truthy or more valid than any other viewpoint?

I just came by to say this...

Axe is used as a body spray. It cuts the smell of marijuana rather well and does dull as time passes. I am personally not too much of a fan of Axe since it does have a rather strong, overbearing smell and isn't all that great but w/e... That's just me.

EDIT:
Jokes aside, I do get your point and will admit it is a rather good point though I have to disagree that a larger ax is better than the smaller. They both serve their purposes and fulfill what they're created for.

As for philosophy, I'll have to say nope. It doesn't. All viewpoints come from beliefs which comes from the experiences, ideas and lessons an individual learned. They are nothing more than thoughts that the individual created. However it is when these thoughts are shared amongst other individuals is when it does make a difference. A philosophy an individual makes alone does nothing since it's nothing but a thought... it's when it's actually spoken aloud and talked about with others is when it becomes considered and after that it can gets shared. Same with Science... If a scientist finds out the most amazing thing in the world, but does not share it... Than how does it benefit anyone?

Assuming you are correct, I don't see how this is a problem. I never claimed that science will make infinite and exponential progress. I only claim that science reveals "truths" (since you and Jorrick don't like that word) through experiment, and philosophy does not.

But there are times that Science has been proven wrong and times when it's progress hurt more people than help. Also don't you need philosophy to think up some questions and hypothesis FOR science? That would mean the two should go hand in hand right? cause if we don't think and ponder to ourselves the possibilities and create questions that we desire to be answered than what would the world be like? Without the hypothesis, there really isn't any science to be had. Wouldn't this also mean that philosophy makes progress in a way indirectly because Science made progress? I'd like to think so. But than again that's my thought on the matter that I learned from asking myself that very question after reading this thread.

YAY PHILOSOPHY!

 

[Holmishire]

(Got my laptop again. :D But I have to say, this post is a little disorganized. I did the best I could to keep ideas together.)

You have set the precedence by throwing out, by your own admission, a vague statement before

It is true, I made a mistake. And then afterwards, I addressed my mistake, and corrected it. Being able to recognize my own failures does not make me automatically incorrect in all endeavors.

I would like to point out that you have made mistakes—misinterpretation of my text, such as that with gravity—and yet you do not address the fact that you made a mistake. Is that supposed to validate your position?

In addition, you blame me for vague claims and arguments.

I claimed that you were wrong, based upon being in active research o_o.

How is this not vague? You bring forth no proof other than personal experience with the material at hand. That is exactly what I did, and I admitted it, then addressed it and gave proof. (Note, I don't want proof for that specific argument—it still doesn't understand what I was pointing out earlier. I'll explain at the end.)

I think your arguments are very imprecise and do not get to the point.

Am I imprecise? Yes. I am using general terms because we are talking about a generalized field. It is difficult to be precise in a debate about ideas. As for me not getting to the point, that is something I have been told before. However, the issue is not that I never get to the point, but rather that I have already made my point. I always make my point in my first post, and any post after that is elaboration. This was my point, in my first post:

Progress in science is thus just as subjective as progress in philosophy.

I have made many other points since, and have also elaborated on them.

---

I claim you are being a sophist if you claim to me that one industrial process that does things better and more efficiently than another is, for some reason, worse.

You cannot say the better axe is worse.

By your phrasing, that is impossible. If it is better, how can that mean it is worse? However, my point was that one perspective may dictate that something is better while a different viewpoint would see the same thing as worse. I argue that sharp axe is different from dull axe, and is both better and worse.

I would like to point out what sophistry is. It is the use of fallacious arguments. I could go into the fallacies, but there are so many and they are so varied, that I'm sure every single person in this thread has fallen victim to at least one. For example, you have repeatedly used the naturalistic fallacy, while I'm sure I've used the anchoring fallacy at some point.

Blacksmith wants to sell more axes.
Lumberjack only buys axes when he needs them.
Lumberjack needs a new axe when it is dull.
Lumberjack buys an axe when his old one is dull.
Blacksmith makes an axe that doesn't get dull.
Lumberjack's axe doesn't get dull.
Lumberjack doesn't need a new axe.
Lumberjack won't buy a new axe.
Blacksmith sells less axes.
Blacksmith is worse off.

Everything that benefits one person is detrimental to another in some way or form. I could even bring technological quantifiers into consideration.

"My steam engine consumes ten times as much coal as before!"
"My steam engine consumes ten times less coal than before!"

Which steam engine is superior? That is a subjective thing, as is the axe, or anything else in the world. Sure, the number is bigger, but is a bigger number always superior? Does making bigger numbers equate to progress?

I am well practiced in reading scientific literature and I have read through your post twice and thrice to no avail.

Your credentials do not prove you correct in an argument. I myself am familiar with academic reading, not so much scientific. I am also not writing scientific literature at the moment, so I do not see how your practice helps you here.

In fact, what we are having here is a philosophical debate. I personally am studying economics—that doesn't mean I am unable to write philosophy.

We should both agree on its superiority.

Why should we both agree on that? Because you say so? That is your opinion.

---

You definitely were discussing how fast new technology is discovered.

I was not discussing the rate of discovery, no.

Let us create a simplified model, because that is what economists like me do. There are three discoveries in the world: the television, the computer, and the cellphone.

Year 0: I have made no discoveries. Things left to discover: 3.
Year 1: I discovered the television! Things left to discover: 2.
Year 2: I discovered the computer! Things left to discover: 1.

My point was that you had decided which numbers we would use for quantitative purposes. There exist other numbers that are dropping, not increasing. Science makes progress despite that. You cannot claim that "widgets" are the universal measurement of progress. Other numbers can be quantified, and we have given many of them. My steam engine example also supports this.

And to summarize my ultimate point, because you asked for it. I am not saying philosophy makes progress—that is a personal distinction that can go either way. I'm saying that if you believe science makes progress, then philosophy does too. And if you believe philosophy does not make progress, then neither does science.

At the very least, if you are attempting to be rational.

 

[unanun]

And there have been many time where being more precise has led to "worse" situations than otherwise.

This has no substance. When I say that there are still expontentially many more things in science to discover and research based upon being in an active field, with my credentials as a phd student, then I ask that you accept my statement on faith. There's a difference - I can go and dig up journal publications by year, whatever whatnot. But it is reasonable, as two academics, for you to accept what I say on faith without me having to go do an exhaustive search. It derails the debate.

As for your gravity statement, you are correct. I misread o_o

Okay, let's get back to your main point: "Progress in science is thus just as subjective as progress in philosophy." Let's go back to the axe as an example.

Everything that benefits one person is detrimental to another in some way or form. I could even bring technological quantifiers into consideration.

First, how very zero-sum game theory of you! Secondly, what do you think of an idea that a superior axe is one that holds its edge longer than an inferior one? You have to separate the idea that this superior axe may cause a loss of business to the seller because he has less frequent sales. The progression of science and application of it has to be divorced from your interpretation of its progress. Whether atomic energy caused society to go backwards or forwards is up to others to debate. But the fact that discoveries in physics advanced our understanding of the world (atoms are not indivisible?) represents a clear progression and refinement of physical theory.

 

[unanun]

You 'refuted' them allright. With no hard evidence, no point to your argument other then circling back to "muh progressaiahn" and trying to claim that philosophy needs some predetermined metric. You are discounting thousands of years of civilization, societal progress and great thinkers becouse of your own hardon for science. When you yourself is doing a terrible job actually representing said science. Science is about evidence, it's about theories and hypothesis and constantly questioning and asking questions as to how things work. Yet you try to metaphorically dickslap anyone who do not take your word for the truth. You would make a god awful scientist if you treat everyone of a different opinion then you that way.

Scientific revolution is separate from philosophy. The printing press, gunpowder, the steam revolution and the atomic revolution all caused drastic changes in society. Philosophers are left behind stumbling to catch up with the revolution each time, to interpret them with their points of view that are correct in the given historical context.

If you think society today is better off than society from before, I have bad news for you: you're living a cushy life in North America or Western Europe. But the beauty of that opinion is that it is precisely an opinion. We may never convince each other. But today, are we able to send a communication to the other side of the earth faster than 2000 years ago? Yes. That remains regardless of our interpretation of its benefit.

I'm ignoring your rudeness o_o

 

[Holmishire]

First, how very zero-sum game theory of you!

I did say I'm studying economy. ;]

The progression of science and application of it has to be divorced from your interpretation of its progress.

Why should my interpretation of its progress be divorced from the situation, but not yours? This—

an idea that a superior axe is one that holds its edge longer than an inferior one

is your interpretation. If you divorce your interpretation from the situation, we are left with a sharp axe and a less-sharp axe. Progress is dependent upon interpretation, and you consistently fail to realize that you are giving your interpretation—or at least science's interpretation—of progress.

And this—

But the fact that discoveries in physics advanced our understanding of the world (atoms are not indivisible?) represents a clear progression and refinement of physical theory.

—is not quantifiable. How much progress have we made in science? Five, six? Thirteen percent? It is impossible to quantify progress outside of contextual interpretation.

---

I'm ignoring your rudeness o_o

Nice call. There's never any need for rude language.

 

[Jorick]

Uh oh .. when I, a phd student in theoretical chemistry, take criticism from someone, I need to ask for your qualification. Maddox wrote a pretty good article on that. I understand what you're saying about certainty in science. I addressed it above in my first reply.

One needn't have any fancy qualification to be able to talk in a logical and informed manner about a topic. That would be an appeal to authority, or perhaps an appeal to accomplishment, and that's poor debating. I am familiar enough with the topic to understand the things being discussed, therefore I am qualified to criticize your position. Simple as that.

As for addressing that already, you had a funny little phrase in there: "as far as we can tell." That's the crux of the whole matter. This is why one of the things taught in college level science classes (at least in the three colleges I've attended science classes in), and particularly emphasized in introductory level classes, is that science does not 100% unequivocally prove things. We can be extremely certain of our findings, say 99.9999999% sure, enough so that one could be forgiven for rounding up, but if you completely ignore that bit of doubt and assume all findings of science are ironclad truths of how the universe functions then you've fucked up.

It is rational and logical to behave as if these almost-100%-true things are the actual truth about things, because they are our best understanding of the world at the current moment and so behaving as if they are just plain false would be ridiculous, but that does not mean they are unequivocally true. There never comes a time for science when everyone says "yep, this is absolutely without any shred of a doubt exactly how this phenomenon we're describing works, nobody ever test it to confirm or clarify it ever again, we're done here." That is because of this tiny nugget of doubt that remains. We are constantly finding new things to add to even the most firmly held theories thanks to technological advances, which is pretty solid evidence of our lack of 100% truth. There are points of even the most firmly held theories that remain unanswered questions for us (in biological chemistry for example, where does homochirality in amino acids and sugars come from and what purpose does it serve?), which are really clear markers of where some doubt lies.

Seriously, this is one of the basic ways in which science works. Science does not prove things to be 100% undeniably true about the universe, it gives our best understanding with the caveat that everything is subject to change upon the discovery of further evidence. This is why science is our best understanding of the universe. It's not because it uses tools and measurements to get answers, it's because it is constantly updating itself with new information and holds nothing as sacred and unable to be altered by contradictory evidence. We're pretty fucking sure that the basics of physics are solid, but all it would take to throw it into question would be to find something that doesn't experience inertia, or something that cannot be moved by the necessary force calculated by determining the object's mass and the friction and other resistances to movement in play.

To think otherwise, to hold anything in science as undeniably true no matter what, would be to turn science into a religion. Denying all contradictory evidence because you know something is true is called faith, and faith is very unscientific. This is what you appear to be doing when you say that science proves truths of the universe. It does not prove truths, it simply gives our best explanation while showing why alternative explanations are less accurate. That is not absolute truth, that is relative truth, and that's what science is made of.

You are confusing me. Science reveals truths and/or relationships. We know photons are excitations of what we call a bosonic field. Is it a mathematical construct or the true reality? Enter philosophy. Does philosophy give us points of view that are testable? For the most part, no. Does the truth of the equations hold as far as we can test then? Yes. Can we refine the equation based upon more data? Yes. Science is data driven discovery. Philosophy isn't - it is an endless debate about viewpoints where there is no way to prove the truth of one over another.

I suppose that the scientific revolution was, as you may claim, a philosophical view point. On that we agree that philosophy produced something useful - the idea that view points can be tested and discarded as nonconformal with reality. On the idea of morals, ethics, and all that other subjective stuff - I cannot agree with you.

I am also going to advance the provocative hypothesis that all major revolutions (mind you, I am not using the word 'advance') in society have been driven by scientific study, not by philosophy. From printing press to gunpowder to steam power to electricity, all the transformative changes in society have been driven by technological discovery - philosophy did not advocate or predict or show us how to deal with any of this - it only spent its time catching up.

You have to discard the idea that philosophy makes no progress as having a bad connotation. The nature of philosophy is that it can never make progress because it is entirely based upon points of view. The the value of human life has never been agreed upon. It has ranged from being entirely worthless to one of the fundamental rights. And still no one can agree on how much a human life is worth. To claim otherwise is to be completely slave to your present social context.

See above for how science actually doesn't reveal truths. Even so, even if I were to agree that it does for the sake of argument, you've completely ignored the point I was making and went off on a tangent. You defined progress as "gradual betterment." "Better" is a subjective term and cannot be objectively measured. By your own previous arguments only objective measurements can define progress. I then provided objective measurements we could use, one of which was your own proof of progress in science, which you ignored completely as far as I can tell. Can you respond to that directly rather than rehashing the stuff you've already said before? How can you defend progress in science with subjective terms whilst saying subjective terms don't work for showing progress in philosophy? Your arguments lack internal consistency, please rectify this if you want to continue having a rational discussion on the topic.

 

[unanun]

How much progress have we made in science? Five, six? Thirteen percent? It is impossible to quantify progress outside of contextual interpretation.

I think you are correct that I cannot give an exact quantification. Perhaps you can invent a number such that it compresses all of our pursuits into the number from 0 to 1, or I can do the same from 0 to 100. Yet I believe no matter what metric you care to invent, if we measure the advancement in understanding of the physical world, the number must increase. Of course you can invent some spurious metric that makes it go from 0 to -1, but meh.

In the context of measurable philosophy (if you will allow me to invent this term), we can track progress. The number of allowed viewpoints gradually decreases through observation and experiment. But philosophy in general cannot claim to do the same. The number of viewpoints grows or even remains the same, just rehashed to be consistent with modern context. But we never come closer to disproving viewpoints.

You can argue with me that a completely consistent measure of progress would be the generation of new viewpoints. In that vein, science degenerates over time, and philosophy makes progress.

Would it make it easier if I didn't use the word progress?

Measurable philosophy converges towards a true viewpoint, and in the context of physical sciences, gives us a clearer view of - and increasing mastery of - nature over time.

Other philosophy never converges to a true viewpoint. It is entirely subjective and no opinion is demonstrably false. Thus we are doomed to debate about other philosophy forever, and whatever trickles down into society just happens to be whatever is in vogue with current social context.

 

[unanun]

One needn't have any fancy qualification to be able to talk in a logical and informed manner about a topic.

And this is why I believe you do need a bit of qualification. I understand what you're saying, I am completely familiar with the whole post that told me something I already know.

I'm not sure if you've read this:

Spoiler

In my 17 years of writing, I have never replied to criticisms that my work is "unfunny," because they usually don't matter. Here's why:
YOU'RE NOT QUALIFIED.
Not in the sense that you don't meet the minimum requirements to have an opinion, but because you haven't qualified your opinion. That's because nobody knows who you are. In order for anyone to give a shit about your opinion, we need a frame of reference so we know what makes you tick, what your personality is like and what kind of sense of humor you have. My opinion matters because I have a vast body of work, and am a known writer so when I say something "sucks" or isn't funny, people know I'm coming from a place of genius, truth and concentrated righteousness. That's why critics like Roger Ebert have opinions that matter; not because his opinion is more valid than yours, but because people know his taste in entertainment and movies, so when he pans video games for not being "art," people like me know to ignore him because he's a curmudgeonly old man who probably doesn't understand how or why people play, never spent much time with them and probably sucks at them.

Your fixation on asserting to me over and over that science can never prove anything true shows, I think, that you are not actively practicing science. Again, I believe you. But to claim that science never produces laws or theories (not hypothesis) by hiding in the 6-sigma tail is to have a gross lack of understanding in statistics (which Holmishire will no doubt school me on). It is the same as claiming we can never truly disprove that god exists or that a teacup is floating in our solar system. To operate on the side that assumes these things can exist is extremely irrational. It is rational to operate on the assumption that the teacup, as far as we can tell, does not exist.

Anyways! I defined what I wanted to say. See above:

https://www.iwakuroleplay.com/threads/philosophy.84134/page-5#post-1716755

 

[Jorick]

So you're gonna stick to the appeal to authority, huh? Alright, cool, thanks for making it clear that it's completely pointless to continue this conversation. It was fun while it lasted, but once someone persists in using a logical fallacy as their defense then there's no reason to keep going.

 

[unanun]

Hang hang hang on.

I am saying that I already know what you're trying to tell me. That is not an appeal to authority.

I am saying that you are lost in the details by trying to tell me that science never proves something 100% true. It is something that someone without an appreciation for the active practice of science holds. Perhaps I came off terse and offensive. I ask that you try not to get angry at what I said, and read this again:

Your fixation on asserting to me over and over that science can never prove anything true shows, I think, that you are not actively practicing science. Again, I believe you. But to claim that science never produces laws or theories (not hypothesis) by hiding in the 6-sigma tail is to have a gross lack of understanding in statistics (which Holmishire will no doubt school me on). It is the same as claiming we can never truly disprove that god exists or that a teacup is floating in our solar system. To operate on the side that assumes these things can exist is extremely irrational. It is rational to operate on the assumption that the teacup, as far as we can tell, does not exist.