I keep having to remind myself that science is self-correcting …

_{Denyse O'Leary
May 20, 2009

Ethics

2}_{Categories
Ethics}

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I have often been wearied by legends in their own lunchroom huffing that science differs from other endeavours because it is “self-correcting.”

To which I reply: Aw come off it, fellas. Any system that does not go extinct is self-correcting – after it collapses on its hind end. This is true of governments, businesses, churches, and not-for-profit organizations. I’ve seen enough of life to know.

Here’s a classic: At The Scientist’s NewsBlog, Bob Grant reveals (May 7, 2009) that

Scientific publishing giant Elsevier put out a total of six publications between 2000 and 2005 that were sponsored by unnamed pharmaceutical companies and looked like peer reviewed medical journals, but did not disclose sponsorship, the company has admitted.

Elsevier is conducting an “internal review” of its publishing practices after allegations came to light that the company produced a pharmaceutical company-funded publication in the early 2000s without disclosing that the “journal” was corporate sponsored

[ … ]

The allegations involve the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, a publication paid for by pharmaceutical company Merck that amounted to a compendium of reprinted scientific articles and one-source reviews, most of which presented data favorable to Merck’s products. The Scientist obtained two 2003 issues of the journal — which bore the imprint of Elsevier’s Excerpta Medica — neither of which carried a statement obviating Merck’s sponsorship of the publication.

The linked related stories and comments are most illuminating, and bear out my critique of “peer review” here. Let’s just say that peer review started out as a good idea, but …

(Note: There is no paywall, but you may need to register to view the story, .)

Also, today at Colliding Universes

Neutrinos: Sudbury Neutrino Observatory does the sun’s bookkeeping

Origin of life: The live cat vs. the dead cat

Cosmology: Wow. It takes guts to wage war with Stephen Hawking … he appeared in Star Trek

Universe: Arguments against flatness (plus exposing sloppy science writing)

Origin of life: Latest scenario gives RNA world a boost

Colliding Universes is my blog on competing theories about our universe.

Comments

beelzebub, Your definition of "firm" and mine are different, just as you misunderstood my usage of the word "strict". I meant them to mean "unchanging", or "steadfast", or the like. So your Obama example is irrelevant.Clive Hayden_{May 25, 2009
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beelzebub, ------"Ultimately it’s up to each of us to decide what to believe. We can gather evidence, consult others, ponder arguments, and so on, but in the end we, with our fallible minds, have to decide what we think is true. That is precisely why it is foolish to declare some beliefs off-limits to questioning, as dogmatic religions ask us to do." Dogma's do not ask us not to question. They may not provide the answer to a question, but that is only realized after asking a question. However, they may provide the answers, and that, again, is only realized after questioning. You'll have to be specific in what dogma you're referring to, otherwise we're reasoning in the abstract, with no object to consider. An example would help.Clive Hayden_{May 25, 2009
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Clive writes:
This is all I want to address in my comment, which is why I’m quoting it.
Yes. I too quote the statements I want to address, and so do almost all of the other commenters here (just look around). That's why your proposal for not quoting each other didn't make sense to me, and it's why you found it necessary to ignore your own proposal in the very next comment after offering it.
Religious dogma would be misguided by self-correction, for religious dogma is divine revelation.
Religious dogma claims to be divinely revealed, but not all of it can be, because the dogmas of different religions and creeds contradict each other (unless God is deliberately lying to some of us). We therefore cannot assume that any given dogma is correct.
Why would you want self-correction, and by what standard, other than yourself, would you use to determine that it is “wrong”, and by what standard, and on whose authority, would you use to “correct” it?
Ultimately it's up to each of us to decide what to believe. We can gather evidence, consult others, ponder arguments, and so on, but in the end we, with our fallible minds, have to decide what we think is true. That is precisely why it is foolish to declare some beliefs off-limits to questioning, as dogmatic religions ask us to do.beelzebub_{May 25, 2009
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beelzebub, ------"I don’t discredit religion or any other system of thought for embracing firm beliefs, provided that the firmness is warranted. What I do fault religion for is the failure to question all beliefs. By setting some beliefs aside as unchallengeable dogma, religions cut themselves off from the possibility of self-correction." This is all I want to address in my comment, which is why I'm quoting it. Religious dogma would be misguided by self-correction, for religious dogma is divine revelation. Why would you want self-correction, and by what standard, other than yourself, would you use to determine that it is "wrong", and by what standard, and on whose authority, would you use to "correct" it?Clive Hayden_{May 25, 2009
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Clive, Simply asserting that I'm wrong won't cut it. You need to show it. I offered my Obama example to show that a belief can be both firm and provisional. Do you have a counterargument?beelzebub_{May 25, 2009
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----Diffaxial: “They are conceptual tools. Some of them (but not all) may have usefulness in a practical sense that is easy to ascertain: like all tools, one may become skillful in their application, knowledgeable regarding what tools are appropriate to what purposes, and perspicacious vis their effectiveness in a given application. They may, although not necessarily, assist us in learning about the world if utilized effectively. There is no mystery in that.” Inasmuch as I have asked you these question five times, and inasmuch as you have avoided answering them five times, I will answer them for you using your own philosophy. Here’s the list: [A] A thing cannot be and not be at the same time, [B] An effect cannot exist without its cause, [C] The whole is greater than any one of its parts, [D] From nothing, something cannot come, [E] We have rational minds, we live in a rational universe, and there is a correspondence between the two. [F] Error exists, therefore truth exists. Here’s the question: Do these statements tell us anything about the real world? ----- Diffaxial [in a moment of honesty] -----“No, as I have stated many times, these so called “laws of logic” are mere tautologies and they tell us nothing about the real world.” -----“[A] The law of non-contradiction is only a “logical tool.” It tells us nothing at all about the real world. In the real world, anything is possible, and any contradiction may occur at anytime. The earth could both exist and not exist. In fact, it may not exist right now. I could be both dead and alive, young and old, or oriental and African. -----“[B] The statement that an effect cannot occur without a cause is only “tautologically true.” In the real world, effects occur without causes all the time. Water can freeze in hot weather, water can boil in cold weather, and the streets can get wet even when it is not raining.” -----“[C] That statement that the whole is greater than any one of its parts is only “trivially true.” It really has no bearing on the real world. In fact, a star may be filled with many galaxies, an atom can be part of a nucleus, and house can be a part of one of its rooms. You cannot extend your stuffy rules of logic into the realm of cosmology. -----“[D] To say that something cannot come from nothing is a “mere tautology.” Cement walls appear out of nowhere on the highway, and cars are liable to crash into them and kill the unfortunate driver. Universes appear out of the void with no rhyme or reason. Things just happen. That’s all. -----“[E] The notion that we have rational minds, live in a rational universe, and that there is a correspondence between the two is a reactionary throwback from scholastic philosophy. First, we have no minds. Our brain is a mere organ and it functions like any other organ, following the laws of nature and dictating our every action. The universe itself is a cosmic madhouse without purpose or direction. Our brain is simply one small part of the material universe, nothing more. There is no correspondence or any kind of rational connection. -----“[F] The statement that “Error exists, therefore truth exists” conflates truth with a Capital “T” with truth with a lower case “t.” Truth with a Capital “T” constitutes a tautology. Truth with a lower case “t” refers to subjective or relative truth, depending on which day of the week it may happen to be. Putting all that aside, there really is no such thing as truth at all. All we have are the provisional findings of science. Much less is there anything like a self-evident truth acting as a foundation for logic. Truth is nothing but a mental construct that humans have invented to unify their thoughts, which as it turns out, are nothing but clanging molecules signifying nothing.” There, now. Aren’t you glad you finally owned up to your own philosophy and spoke your mind? Welcome to the wacky world of postmodernism.StephenB_{May 25, 2009
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beelzebub, This is amusing. All positive beliefs that you assert about what in necessary to change a belief defeat your own argument. I can appreciate your assertion that they don't but they do. You ask me to show you non-provisional beliefs, I've shown you multiple examples over the last two days, yet you continue to disbelieve that you're guilty of positive beliefs, convictions, non-provisional beliefs. Maybe because it's you, you can't see it...maybe you're too close or you have too much to lose, that you have to be dogmatic about this. I don't know. Oh, and for the remainder of our conversation, do not quote me in part, line by line, as you're so fond of doing, and I won't do it either for what you write. Deal?Clive Hayden_{May 24, 2009
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Clive writes:
That’s a lot of firm belief there beelzebub.
Yes, and as I explained to you earlier, one can be quite firm in a belief that is nevertheless held provisionally:
For a belief to be held provisionally does not mean that it isn’t held confidently. I’m quite sure that Barack Obama is the president, but I still hold the belief provisionally. If you provide adequate evidence to the contrary, I will revise my belief.
You continue:
Are you sure it means that? Are you sure I have “no way” of showing that you do not hold beliefs provisionally? That sounds an awful lot like a conviction, a firm belief, that you usually discredit religion conviction for...
I don't discredit religion or any other system of thought for embracing firm beliefs, provided that the firmness is warranted. What I do fault religion for is the failure to question all beliefs. By setting some beliefs aside as unchallengeable dogma, religions cut themselves off from the possibility of self-correction.
You defeat your own argument. You yourself present non-provisional beliefs so often, namely in the fact of how you claim your belief will be changed by evidence and argument...
That's a provisional belief. Give me evidence that it's false, and I'll change it.
...that there is some “you” to be convinced by evidence and argument...
Also provisional, though your evidence had better be persuasive if you want me to revise it.
...that “convincing” is itself a belief in a criteria that is not provisional
No. We're more easily convinced as children than as adults, for example. We modify our criteria as we get older and smarter. They're provisional.
You have massive amounts of non-provisional beliefs...
You haven't identified any.
You can’t have it both ways, you cannot at once have all provisional beliefs, and have a strict criteria of how that change is to be affected in changing a belief.
Sure you can. "Strict" does not mean "unchangeable". Suppose that Harvard has a strict requirement that 2009 graduates must have taken 6 credits' worth of basket-weaving. Without 6 credits, you don't graduate. Now suppose that the requirement is relaxed to 4 credits for 2010 graduates. You cannot graduate without 4 credits. The requirement was strict before, it's strict now, and yet it changed and continues to be changeable. I wrote:
Except that I haven’t claimed to be absolutely sure.
You asked:
Are you absolutely sure about that?
Show me that I'm wrong and I'll revise my belief. It's provisional, after all.beelzebub_{May 24, 2009
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beelzebub, -------"To hold a belief provisionally means that one will change his or her mind in the face of sufficient evidence against that belief. Apart from telepathy, you have no way of showing that I do not hold my belief provisionally except by falsifying it and observing my response." That's a lot of firm belief there beelzebub. Are you sure it means that? Are you sure I have "no way" of showing that you do not hold beliefs provisionally? That sounds an awful lot like a conviction, a firm belief, that you usually discredit religion conviction for the same; nevermind that you have the same convictions in other things. This conviction is, quite frankly, the evidence that you keep asking for, that should change your belief that all your beliefs are provisional, yet you won't change your supposedly provisional belief in how you see this misguided belief that all your beliefs are provisional, and finally assent that your belief about beliefs is not provisional after all. You defeat your own argument. You yourself present non-provisional beliefs so often, namely in the fact of how you claim your belief will be changed by evidence and argument, that there is some "you" to be convinced by evidence and argument, that "convincing" is itself a belief in a criteria that is not provisional, that you're claim that all beliefs are provisional never even gets off the ground. You have massive amounts of non-provisional beliefs about the very claim that you will change a belief, and the method (evidence, argument) necessary for changing a provisional belief, that are, themselves, not provisional, for if they were, your very system required for changing provisional beliefs would be gone. You can't have it both ways, you cannot at once have all provisional beliefs, and have a strict criteria of how that change is to be affected in changing a belief. It's contradictory. ------"Except that I haven’t claimed to be absolutely sure." Are you absolutely sure about that?Clive Hayden_{May 24, 2009
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Clive, this discussion would go more smoothly if my comments weren't held up in moderation. vjtorley writes:
In most universities around the world, philosophers are encouraged to question everything - and they do.
Hi vjtorley, I'm certainly not claiming that a willingness to question everything is sufficient to ensure progress. That's why I was careful to state that dogmatism is one of the reasons for religion's lack of progress. There are others, such as the fact that many religious beliefs are not falsifiable (such as the belief that the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ while remaining bread and wine in all outward appearances).
1. Nobody takes polytheism seriously any more, anywhere... In Africa, most people are either Christians or Muslims: polytheism is pretty much in decline there too.
Your statement is far too sweeping. There are still serious polytheists in the world (and not just in Africa), and your admission that polytheism is merely in decline in Africa is inconsistent with saying that "nobody takes polytheism seriously anymore, anywhere." In any case, I would argue that the ascendance of monotheism is due primarily to cultural influences and not to any compelling arguments in its favor. Compare that to the universal acceptance of the Pythagorean theorem, which is based on the solidity of the proof and the theorem's confirmation by observation. Polytheism is just as plausible (which is to say, not very) as monotheism, and I would argue that it is superior to monotheism in providing a ready solution to the problem of evil.
2. Almost nobody believes in a corporeal God anymore: the idea is seen as too ridiculous to take seriously.
Christians certainly take the idea of a temporarily corporeal God seriously. Why is that any less ridiculous? And is this shift really a sign of progress?
3. Nobody believes in a whimsical God anymore.
Not so, I'm afraid:
I don't know what creation-scientists may suppose, but it seems to me that the peacock and peahen are just the kind of creatures that a whimsical Creator might favor, but that an "uncaring mechanical process" like natural selection would never permit to develop. Phillip Johnson, Darwin on Trial, p. 31
And:
Do we really wish to substitute the exuberantly imaginative, even whimsical designer of our actual universe for a cosmic neat freak? Such a deity might serve nicely as the national God of the Nazis, matching Hitler stroke for stroke: Hitler in his disdain for humanity’s sprawling diversity; the tidy cosmic engineer in his distaste for an ecosystem choked and sullied by a grotesque menagerie of strange and apparently substandard species. Jonathan Witt, The Gods Must Be Tidy!
I'll address the rest of your comment tomorrow. Hopefully this comment will appear before then.beelzebub_{May 24, 2009
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Clive:
That’s philosophical Darwinism, the notion that the past is automatically outdated, or in this case of philosophy, wrong, by virtue of merely being old, as if there were some inevitable progression that corrects and supersedes the past. Just wait a little while and this paragraph will die the same fate in which case we have no reason to consider it now knowing it will be outmoded by the inevitable progress it assumes as its basis. It’s ironic, no?
For the record, although it may not be entirely obvious from the passage I've quoted, Putnam's intention in these lectures is to return and retrieve what remains valuable in these earlier positions.Diffaxial_{May 24, 2009
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StephenB:
To sum up: I wrote the following and you evaded the matter entirely. Here it is again: Truth: A thing cannot be and not be at the same time and under the same formal circumstances. Truth: From nothing something cannot come. Truth: An effect cannot exist without a cause: Truth: The whole is always greater than any one of its parts. Truth: We have rational minds, we live in a rational universe, and there is a correspondence between the two. Truth: Error exist, therefore truth exists. There are plenty more where those came from, and these are all statements about the real world. We cannot verify these truths by way of scientific investigation, we must assume them apriori. We do not reason our way TO these truths, we reason our way FROM them. Do these statements tell us anything about the real world or are they mere “conceptual tools,” as you put it. If they are mere conceptual tools, how do you know that they are useful in any practical sense? If they are more than conceptual tools, why will you not acknowledge the point, and we can dispense with any further discussion?
They are conceptual tools. Some of them (but not all) may have usefulness in a practical sense that is easy to ascertain: like all tools, one may become skillful in their application, knowledgeable regarding what tools are appropriate to what purposes, and perspicacious vis their effectiveness in a given application. They may, although not necessarily, assist us in learning about the world if utilized effectively. There is no mystery in that.Diffaxial_{May 24, 2009
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Clive quotes me and writes:
You obviously won’t amend it, because it’s been illustrated to you that this belief, your belief about belief, is not provisional, yet you don’t amend it.
Clive, This is the belief that KF and I are discussing:
We’re never absolutely sure, which is why we should always continue to question our beliefs, even the most fundamental ones.
To hold a belief provisionally means that one will change his or her mind in the face of sufficient evidence against that belief. Apart from telepathy, you have no way of showing that I do not hold my belief provisionally except by falsifying it and observing my response. As I explained already, to falsify my belief you would have to show that we are absolutely sure at times. No one has done so. Indeed, doing so would be tantamount to demonstrating that human minds are infallible in some respects. If you'd like to make an attempt at demonstrating this, be my guest.
You being absolutely sure that you’re never absolutely sure is an outright contradiction...
Except that I haven't claimed to be absolutely sure. If you disagree, show me where I have made such a claim.beelzebub_{May 24, 2009
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Beelzebub You wrote:
Any scientific finding, no matter how fundamental, is subject to revision in the light of sufficient evidence. Science is self-correcting in a way that dogmatic religion is not. Dogmatism is a serious flaw, and it is one of the reasons that religion has made so little progress over the millennia.
I would generally agree with what you wrote in the first paragraph. I would not agree with the second paragraph, however. To illustrate my point, let us consider another field of human enquiry, where there are no built-in restrictions on the questions that may be asked, or the conclusions that may be reached: philosophy. In most universities around the world, philosophers are encouraged to question everything - and they do. Here's my question: can you point to evidence that philosophy has made any more progress in the last 2,000 years than religion, with all its dogmas? Here's another question: can you point to any evidence that non-dogmatic religions, such as Hinduism, have made more progress in the last 2,000 years than dogmatic religions such as Christianity? In any case, I would put it to you that quite a lot of progress has been made in the last 2,000 years, in religious matters. Some examples: 1. Nobody takes polytheism seriously any more, anywhere. Even Hindus will strenuously insist that Brahman is one. In Japan, where I've lived for the past several years, there are lots of shrines to Shinto gods, but I've yet to meet anyone who actually believes in these gods. When Japanese pray at shrines in the New Year, they simply pray to "God" (Kamisama), if they have any spiritual beliefs. In Africa, most people are either Christians or Muslims: polytheism is pretty much in decline there too. In most countries around the world, people joke about polytheism. 2,000 years ago, they didn't. Nearly everyone was a polytheist. 2. Almost nobody believes in a corporeal God anymore: the idea is seen as too ridiculous to take seriously. (The only exceptions I can think of are Mormons and followers of the late Herbert W. Armstrong.) 2,000 years ago, most people believed in corporeal gods and goddesses. 3. Nobody believes in a whimsical God anymore. Even people who believe in sacred texts that apparently depict whimsical acts by a Deity interpret these texts in such a way as to eliminate the appearance of any whimsical behavior, as it is universally understood that such behavior would be unworthy of a Deity. 2,000 years ago, the Greeks and Romans routinely imputed whims and fits of jealous rage to their gods. 4. Virtually nobody believes in a finite or limited Deity anymore - in particular, a Deity limited by the laws of nature, or by the countervailing power of an opposing Deity. (Even people like Zoroastrians and Mormons, who believe that God has been forever battling against the Devil, still believe that God will prevail in the end.) But 2,000 years ago, very few people believed in the notion of an infinite or unlimited Deity. 5. Nobody believes in a God who demands human sacrifice. (Even Christians who take the story of Abraham and Isaac literally interpret it as a counter-polemic, directed against the notion that God would ever demand human sacrifice - for at the last moment, Abraham is told to spare his son.) 2,000 years ago, human sacrifice was quite common around the world. 5. Nobody believes in a God who can overturn natural law - e.g. a God who could decree tomorrow that adultery was OK, or that telling the truth was wrong. Of course, there is some disagreement between religious traditions about the precise content of "natural law" - e.g. whether killing, lying and stealing are absolutely wrong in all circumstances, or permissible in some extreme circumstances. Still, the degree of agreement between religions about the content of natural law is quite impressive. 6. Almost nobody now believes that it is permissible to kill someone, simply because of their religious beliefs. I acknowledge that progress in religious matters is slow, but surely the above list shows that we've come a long way. You will have to concede that things could be much, much worse than they are now. I will say one more thing on the subject of religion: religious beliefs may be dogmatic, but they are sometimes falsifiable. For instance, the discovery that the cosmos had no beginning would certainly falsify Christianity, as would the discovery that belief in God was triggered by a cluster of genes, or that some non-human animals (e.g. crows) were capable of understanding the Gospel. Religious people are, dare I say it, readier to put their credibility on the line than those of a non-religious persuasion.vjtorley_{May 24, 2009
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Diffaxial, ------quoting Putnam "“At the same time, it would be absurd to make the reactionary move of trying to believe what philosophers who lived two hundred or two thousand years ago believed. As John Dewey would have told us, they lived under wholly different conditions and faced wholly different problems, and such a return is impossible in any case. And even if it were possible to go back, to do so would be to ignore the correct criticisms of the abandoned positions that were made by later generations of philosophers.” That's philosophical Darwinism, the notion that the past is automatically outdated, or in this case of philosophy, wrong, by virtue of merely being old, as if there were some inevitable progression that corrects and supersedes the past. Just wait a little while and this paragraph will die the same fate :) in which case we have no reason to consider it now knowing it will be outmoded by the inevitable progress it assumes as its basis. It's ironic, no?Clive Hayden_{May 24, 2009
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beelzebub, ------"Is this a universal belief? Yes, because I do think that we’re never absolutely sure. Is it a provisional belief? Yes, because I will amend it if you demonstrate that we can be absolutely sure at times." You obviously won't amend it, because it's been illustrated to you that this belief, your belief about belief, is not provisional, yet you don't amend it. And by "amend", I mean admit that it is actually not provisional. You being absolutely sure that you're never absolutely sure is an outright contradiction, it shows that you do believe something in spite of contrary evidence, because the contrary evidence has been shown to you ad nauseum, yet you don't amend your belief. It's ironic, really, for the fact that you keep claiming an open mind about amending your beliefs with evidence, while the opposite is true.Clive Hayden_{May 24, 2009
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-----Diffaxial: “An effect cannot exist without a cause” is necessarily true in the same sense that “A doughnut cannot exist without a hole” is necessarily true (where a doughnut is defined as fried cake of sweetened dough baked into a ring.) It is literally the definition of an effect that it is “a change that is a result or consequence of an action or a cause.” Therefore it is true by definition that effects necessarily entail causes. I asked you a simple question and you refused to provide a credible answer. Perhaps if I repeat it again, you will not waste several paragraphs talking around it. Here it is again: Is the statement, “an effect cannot exist without its cause,” a statement about the real world? ----““Unchanging Truth” (with a capital T) is similarly a tautologically defined conceptual tool, as you repeatedly demonstrated above. While of considerable importance in the history of the development of the “view from nowhere” (Thomas Nagel’s beautiful description of the ideal of objective description that is entirely independent of viewpoint, crucially important in the emergence of western science), it doesn’t follow that rigid application of this conceptual tool is always appropriate in the present.” Yes, you have stated this many times, but that is precisely what is being challenged, which is why repeating it will not help matters in the least. In any case, I said nothing at all about “rigid rules.” You are the one who has established all the arbitrary rules while failing to apply them in even one instance. I am summarizing hundreds of philosophers, having internalized their concepts sufficiently that I can put them in my own words and apply them to a particular situation. Do you understand your philosophers well enough to do that? If so, then please proceed accordingly. You are quick to define the rules of logic on your own terms, but slow to apply them to the problems being discussed. That is why I have made the subject more concrete so that you can address the particulars which, so far, you have refused to do. The one thing I have not done, and will not do, is start lecturing everyone on the philosophy of Aquinas, Adler, Maritain etc, while refusing to apply their principles in a meaningful way and using the occasion to dodge honest questions. It is of no value whatsoever to compare reading lists as a means of establishing credibility. Credibility is established not by claiming knowledge but by putting it into practice. If you understand your subject thoroughly, you can do that. ----“In essence, you conceive of human thinkers as children who aren’t ready to take the keys to their own conceptual vehicles. On your view, were we to regard your so-called self-evident truths as something other than self-evident, we of necessity must collapse into gibbering irrationality and incoherence. Vjtorely similarly believes that I should quail over tomorrow’s sunrise, because I am not entitled to a rational expectation that it will occur. I conceive human thinkers as adults who are capable of understanding the truth and following it. You evidently do not. ----“And you think it is somehow self-contradictory for me to employ the tools of of rationality and logic if I happen to believe that they are human inventions rather than inscribed in the foundations of reality. Yet claw hammers are human inventions, not inscribed in the foundations of reality; how is that I can use them to drive nails?” You strawmen are starting to pile up. I have never suggested that human inventions are inscribed in the universe. You, on the other hand, have suggested that human intellectual constructs are the only reality worth considering. ----“Yours is a strikingly nihilistic view of human thinking. Are you familiar with the definition of "nihilism." Nihilism: [Webster] "A viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless b: a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths." Is this an example of postmodern, newspeak, turning everthing and everyone into its opposite? -----"This nihilism is abetted by obsolete and rigid epistemological categories: “sense experience” versus “intellect,” for example, which are problematic in more ways than can be recounted here, and are patently unrealistic in light of what we know from developmental psychology about the social embeddedness and embodiment of the emergence of individual human cognition. And it is accompanied by unattractively absolutist and dichotomous declarations: either truth is or isn’t, either we can know it or we can’t, etc.” My view is the same as the one held by 90% of all people who have ever lived right up to the present moment. Yours is, sociologically speaking, an aberration. Once again, you claim that epistemological realism is problematic. If you understood the subject well enough to explain your objections in summary form, I could refute it in summary form. Instead, you simply make the claim that it has problems and allude to general concepts such as, “developmental psychology,” “social embeddedness,” and “embodiment of the emergence of individual human cognition.” So now you have replaced name dropping with concept dropping. Is that supposed to compensate for a reasoned argument? ----But perhaps “He who is not with me is against me” is the operative dichotomy here. This is what happens when postmodernists cannot engage in meaningful dialogue. They always try to paint their adversaries as closed-minded reactionaries. It’s a lot easier that providing reasoned arguments. To sum up: I wrote the following and you evaded the matter entirely. Here it is again: Truth: A thing cannot be and not be at the same time and under the same formal circumstances. Truth: From nothing something cannot come. Truth: An effect cannot exist without a cause: Truth: The whole is always greater than any one of its parts. Truth: We have rational minds, we live in a rational universe, and there is a correspondence between the two. Truth: Error exist, therefore truth exists. There are plenty more where those came from, and these are all statements about the real world. We cannot verify these truths by way of scientific investigation, we must assume them apriori. We do not reason our way TO these truths, we reason our way FROM them. Do these statements tell us anything about the real world or are they mere “conceptual tools,” as you put it. If they are mere conceptual tools, how do you know that they are useful in any practical sense? If they are more than conceptual tools, why will you not acknowledge the point, and we can dispense with any further discussion?StephenB_{May 24, 2009
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"What does NOT follow is that “effect” is the only or the best descriptor of all events, because the dictionary can’t tell us whether and how the conceptual tool “cause and effect” actually attaches to objects in the world, or to the universe as a whole. While generally applicable and helpful vis-a-vis macroscopic events with which we have direct experience, it clearly breaks down at the quantum level, and it may also break down with respect to the universe as a whole." Stephen I will reiterate what I posted on another thread only replacing your name for mine. I think it is an excellent description of the basic difference between you and Diff on this issue :) StephenB: :“.... one can’t believe impossible things.” Diff:”I dare say you haven’t had much practice. When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Vividvividbleau_{May 24, 2009
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StephenB: at 169:
Diffaxial: “These are bare assertions, assumptions and hopes, really, that need to be argued, not simply asserted.” No, they are self evident truths which were responsible for launching Western Civilization and the modern scientific enterprise.
Then follow several more bare assertions. But however stentorian your tone, it does not follow from the fact that you have declared something that it must be so.
I am happy that you have read many books on philosophy, just as I have read many books on philosophy. If you like, I, too, could name drop and allude to hundreds of philosophers, many famous, and others not so famous...
You attempted to characterize my "personal epistemology," and address my position vis imagined motivations arising therefrom rather than address my observations directly. I cite these authors to better locate my thinking for you.
Once again, I appeal to my example. Do you believe that the statement, “an effect cannot exist without its cause,” is a statement about the real world? Please address this issue.
"An effect cannot exist without a cause" is necessarily true in the same sense that "A doughnut cannot exist without a hole" is necessarily true (where a doughnut is defined as fried cake of sweetened dough baked into a ring.) It is literally the definition of an effect that it is "a change that is a result or consequence of an action or a cause." Therefore it is true by definition that effects necessarily entail causes. What does NOT follow is that "effect" is the only or the best descriptor of all events, because the dictionary can't tell us whether and how the conceptual tool "cause and effect" actually attaches to objects in the world, or to the universe as a whole. While generally applicable and helpful vis-a-vis macroscopic events with which we have direct experience, it clearly breaks down at the quantum level, and it may also break down with respect to the universe as a whole. Its status as "tautologically true," the only sense in which it is "self-evidently true," doesn't help with that question. Therefore, while the statement that "all effects have causes" is true, by definition (and is therefore tautologically true), it does not follow that the application of this conceptual tool in every instance is necessary or helpful. "Unchanging Truth" (with a capital T) is similarly a tautologically defined conceptual tool, as you repeatedly demonstrated above. While of considerable importance in the history of the development of the "view from nowhere" (Thomas Nagel's beautiful description of the ideal of objective description that is entirely independent of viewpoint, crucially important in the emergence of western science), it doesn't follow that rigid application of this conceptual tool is always appropriate in the present. In essence, you conceive of human thinkers as children who aren't ready to take the keys to their own conceptual vehicles. On your view, were we to regard your so-called self-evident truths as something other than self-evident, we of necessity must collapse into gibbering irrationality and incoherence. Vjtorely similarly believes that I should quail over tomorrow's sunrise, because I am not entitled to a rational expectation that it will occur. And you think it is somehow self-contradictory for me to employ the tools of of rationality and logic if I happen to believe that they are human inventions rather than inscribed in the foundations of reality. Yet claw hammers are human inventions, not inscribed in the foundations of reality; how is that I can use them to drive nails? Yours is a strikingly nihilistic view of human thinking. This nihilism is abetted by obsolete and rigid epistemological categories: "sense experience" versus "intellect," for example, which are problematic in more ways than can be recounted here, and are patently unrealistic in light of what we know from developmental psychology about the social embeddedness and embodiment of the emergence of individual human cognition. And it is accompanied by unattractively absolutist and dichotomous declarations: either truth is or isn't, either we can know it or we can't, etc. But perhaps "He who is not with me is against me" is the operative dichotomy here.Diffaxial_{May 24, 2009
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StephenB, This comment is unlikely to appear for a while, so I hope you see it. In earlier comments, you 1) confirmed that you accept Catholic dogma concerning the Eucharist as absolutely true; 2) confirmed that you do not know that it is true, but that you assent to it by faith; 3) stated that dogma must not be subject to revision, period, regardless of the weight of contradictory evidence. In so doing, you make my point for me: You don't know that the dogma is true, and your decision to assent to it by faith doesn't magically make it true. Therefore it could be false. Yet, as a good Catholic, you refuse to revise your belief in light of reason and evidence to the contrary. If it is false, you have locked yourself into error. Catholic dogma is not self-correcting. Any scientific finding, no matter how fundamental, is subject to revision in the light of sufficient evidence. Science is self-correcting in a way that dogmatic religion is not. Dogmatism is a serious flaw, and it is one of the reasons that religion has made so little progress over the millennia.beelzebub_{May 24, 2009
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----Diffaxial: “These are bare assertions, assumptions and hopes, really, that need to be argued, not simply asserted.” No, they are self evident truths which were responsible for launching Western Civilization and the modern scientific enterprise. The logic of the mind corresponds to the logic of the universe. Our intellectual notion of causation [subjective] reflects nature’s causative events [objective]. The subject apprehends the object; the investigator approaches the object of the investigation. That is why there is any such thing as a “sound” logical argument. If, for example, you begin with a false premise about the real world and reason perfectly, you are doomed to arrive at a false conclusion about the real world. I am amazed that you do not get this. I am happy that you have read many books on philosophy, just as I have read many books on philosophy. If you like, I, too, could name drop and allude to hundreds of philosophers, many famous, and others not so famous. For that matter, I don’t judge a philosopher by his fame or his modernity but rather than by his capacity to reason well. Yes, some things about the world are always changing, but some things always remain the same. The philosophers that you allude to, especially Dewey, [Putnam to a lesser extent] obsess over the first part and ignore the second part, so I don't share your admiration for them. That task at hand, however, is to apply the principles, not simply to allude to them. If we can’t apply what we know, then we must question what we know. In fact, truth either exists or it doesn’t. Either we can know it or we cannot. Most of modern philosophy is an extension of Kant’s attempt to destroy the correspondence between the mind and reality. Reid refuted that error in Kant’s own day and Adler refuted it again in the 20th century. Still, skeptics continually revisit that fiasco, which is why so many of them are busy chasing down rabbit trails. Once again, I appeal to my example. Do you believe that the statement, “an effect cannot exist without its cause,” is a statement about the real world? Please address this issue. As I stated earlier, that is not just a statement about logic, as you would have it; it is also a statement about metaphysics. If it was not a true statement about the real world, the entire rational enterprise would break down. If you disagree with that statement, please explain why. Tell me how the reasoning process could be of any use to us under any other conditions or circumstances. We obtain knowledge through the intellect, and through sense experience. Do you agree or disagree? If you disagree, then do you understand the implications of that disagreement? If all our knowledge comes from sense experience, and no other place, then we cannot know truth in any way. Do you understand why this must be the case? If, on the other hand, knowledge comes from both the intellect and sense experience, then our intellect can apprehend truth. What is happening on this thread is not hard to discern. On the one hand, truth exists and we can know it. On the other hand, many would prefer to avoid the point by constructing diversionary philosophical systems as a means of escaping the obvious. Truth: A thing cannot be and not be at the same time and under the same formal circumstances. Truth: From nothing something cannot come. Truth: An effect cannot exist without a cause: Truth: The whole is always greater than any one of its parts. Truth: We have rational minds, we live in a rational universe, and there is a correspondence between the two. Truth: Error exist, therefore truth exists. There are plenty more where those came from, and these are all statements about the real world. We cannot verify these truths by way of scientific investigation, we must assume them apriori. We do not reason our way TO these truths, we reason our way FROM them. If you disagree with these statements, why would you even come to this site to engage in some semblance of reasoned discourse? Indeed, you question the very foundations of reason itself? How can one rationally argue, in the name of truth, that truth doesn’t exist? Answer, one cannot. Most skeptics do not reject self-evident truths because they are not self evident; they reject them because they are true.StephenB_{May 24, 2009
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kairosfocus, I would respond in detail, except that my comments are currently being held in moderation for 12 hours or more. It's no longer a dialog when one party's replies remain hidden until the conversation has moved on to other topics. I will point out that your lengthy argument is undermined by a fundamental confusion: you believe that a universal statement cannot be held provisionally. This is easily refuted by a well-known example. Suppose I state the following:
All swans are white.
You show me one of Australia's famous black swans. I revise my belief accordingly. All of this is perfectly coherent. I really did believe that all swans were white. It was a universal belief. I amended my belief in response to contrary evidence. Thus it was a provisional belief. No incoherence. No contradiction. It works the same way with the following statement of mine that is the focus of so much of your interest:
We’re never absolutely sure, which is why we should always continue to question our beliefs, even the most fundamental ones.
Is this a universal belief? Yes, because I do think that we're never absolutely sure. Is it a provisional belief? Yes, because I will amend it if you demonstrate that we can be absolutely sure at times. No incoherence. No contradiction.beelzebub_{May 24, 2009
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With apologies for the repetition, let me repost the preceding with the tags corrected: StephenB @ 162: You've made several guesses regarding my "personal epistemology" and some motives that flow therefrom. My personal epistemology, you suspect, is one of radical empiricism - while I simultaneously fall back into a kind of logical subjectivism (you'll have to explain to me sometime how those descriptors cohabit within your brain pan). It is a carefully chosen theory of knowledge calculated to keep pace with an atheistic metaphysics (materialism) and an elevated status for science (scientism). I don't see your self-evident truths due to this epistemology and these motives, because I can't. None of this addresses the content of my objections. Moreover, as though to reinforce my argument, you reproduced your errors once again in particularly stark form. Anyone advancing any reasonable epistemology will see them.
Truth is simply the correspondence between the mind and reality. So, a self evident truth is one which already reflects reality by definition...A self evident truth reflects reality by definition. If it doesn’t reflect reality, then it isn’t true.
(My emphases.) We'll set aside problems with a naive "correspondence theory of truth," long regarded as obsolete within philosophical literature for good reasons. For the purposes of this discussion we'll accept it. That said, it is astounding to me that you can't discern how incoherent and self-contradictory your argument is, as encapsulated above. Indeed that incoherence is captured in a single sentence:
A self evident truth reflects reality by definition.
Propositions that are true "by definition" (tautologies) are precisely those statements that are true WITHOUT correctly picking out something correct about the world - that are true WITHOUT content that refers to something outside of themselves at all. They are devoid of content other than the contents of their definitions, and are true BY DEFINITION (as you repeatedly emphasize), not by virtue of their correspondence to anything outside themselves. You seem to understand this when you state,
If it is a “mere tautology,” and most of them are indeed that way, it tells us nothing about the world and is, therefore, trivial. Not all tautologies are like that.
The tautological component of ALL tautologies - the entirety of the "self-evident" component of such statements - IS like that. What remains is the content of the definitions themselves, which reduce to bare assertions, not self-evident truths, once the tautological component is squeezed out. I expected an explanation of why "not all tautologies are like that" to follow, but it never came.
If it was not a true statement about the real world, the entire rational enterprise would break down. We have rational minds, we live in a rational universe, and there is a correspondence between the two.
These are bare assertions, assumptions and hopes, really, that need to be argued, not simply asserted. My actual epistemology, if I can be said to have one, is more or less one of pragmatic realism, with a lower case "r." I often recommend Wittgenstein's little volume On Certainty (really just posthumously published notebooks, available on line) which is very penetrating. I also very much admire the later Hilary Putnam, particularly his book The Many Faces of Realism, as well as Representation and Reality. Coincidently, I am now reading a later Putnam work, the threefold cord - mind, body, and world (there are no caps in the title), a series of lectures he delivered in 1994 and 1997 at Columbia and Brown. He opens with the following: "The besetting sin of philosophers seems to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. From the beginning, each "new wave" of philosophers has simply ignored the insights of the previous wave in the course of advancing its own. Today we stand near the end of a century in which there have been many new insights in philosophy; but at the same time there has been an unprecedented forgetting of the insights of previous centuries and millenia. "At the same time, it would be absurd to make the reactionary move of trying to believe what philosophers who lived two hundred or two thousand years ago believed. As John Dewey would have told us, they lived under wholly different conditions and faced wholly different problems, and such a return is impossible in any case. And even if it were possible to go back, to do so would be to ignore the correct criticisms of the abandoned positions that were made by later generations of philosophers." If those of us guilty of "scientism" need attend to the first paragraph (and Putnam would argue that we do), you should give attention to the second. I'd suggest that you take up the threefold cord, where you will find that the issues surrounding a simple realism are, in fact, far from simple or self-evident. In Putnam you will recognize a brilliant thinker who is clearly struggling to get it right rather than grind an axe.Diffaxial_{May 24, 2009
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StephenB @ 162: You've made several guesses regarding my "personal epistemology" and some motives that flow therefrom. My personal epistemology, you suspect, is one of radical empiricism - while I simultaneously fall back into a kind of logical subjectivism (you'll have to explain to me sometime how those descriptors cohabit within your brain pan). It is a carefully chosen theory of knowledge calculated to keep pace with an atheistic metaphysics (materialism) and an elevated status for science (scientism). I don't see your self-evident truths due to this epistemology and theses motives because I can't. None of this addresses the content of my objections. Moreover, as though to reinforce my argument, you reproduced your errors once again in particularly stark form. Anyone advancing any reasonable epistemology will see them.
Truth is simply the correspondence between the mind and reality. So, a self evident truth is one which already reflects reality by definition...A self evident truth reflects reality by definition. If it doesn’t reflect reality, then it isn’t true.
(My emphases.) We'll set aside problems with a naive "correspondence theory of truth," long regarded as obsolete within philosophical literature for good reasons. For the purposes of this discussion we'll accept it. That said, it is astounding to me that you can't discern how incoherent and self-contradictory your argument is, as encapsulated above. Indeed that incoherence is captured in a single sentence:
A self evident truth reflects reality by definition.</blockquote Propositions that are true "by definition" (tautologies) are precisely those statements that are true WITHOUT correctly picking out something correct about the world - that are true WITHOUT content that refers to something outside of themselves at all. They are devoid of content other than the contents of their definitions, and are true BY DEFINITION (as you repeatedly emphasize), not by virtue of their correspondence to anything outside themselves. You seem to understand this when you state,
If it is a “mere tautology,” and most of them are indeed that way, it tells us nothing about the world and is, therefore, trivial. Not all tautologies are like that.
The tautological component of ALL tautologies - the entirety of the "self-evident" component of such statements - IS like that. What remains is the content of the definitions themselves, which reduce to bare assertions, not self-evident truths, once the tautological component is squeezed out. I expected an explanation of why "not all tautologies are like that" to follow, but it never came.
If it was not a true statement about the real world, the entire rational enterprise would break down. We have rational minds, we live in a rational universe, and there is a correspondence between the two.
These are bare assertions, assumptions and hopes, really, that need to be argued, not simply asserted. My actual epistemology, if I can be said to have one, is more or less one of pragmatic realism, with a lower case "r." I often recommend Wittgenstein's little volume On Certainty (really just posthumously published notebooks, available on line) which is very penetrating. I also very much admire the later Hilary Putnam, particularly his book The Many Faces of Realism, as well as Representation and Reality. Coincidently, I am now reading a later Putnam work, the threefold cord - mind, body, and world (there are no caps in the title), a series of lectures he delivered in 1994 and 1997 at Columbia and Brown. He opens with the following: "The besetting sin of philosophers seems to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. From the beginning, each "new wave" of philosophers has simply ignored the insights of the previous wave in the course of advancing its own. Today we stand near the end of a century in which there have been many new insights in philosophy; but at the same time there has been an unprecedented forgetting of the insights of previous centuries and millenia. "At the same time, it would be absurd to make the reactionary move of trying to believe what philosophers who lived two hundred or two thousand years ago believed. As John Dewey would have told us, they lived under wholly different conditions and faced wholly different problems, and such a return is impossible in any case. And even if it were possible to go back, to do so would be to ignore the correct criticisms of the abandoned positions that were made by later generations of philosophers." If those of us guilty of "scientism" need attend to the first paragraph (and Putnam would argue that we do), you should give attention to the second. I'd suggest that you take up the threefold cord, where you will find that the issues surrounding a simple realism are, in fact, far from simple or self-evident. In Putnam you will recognize a brilliant thinker who is clearly struggling to get it right rather than grind an axe.
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2] On the import of "we SHOULD ALWAYS . . . "
BZ, 78 (declaring confidently): we should always continue to question our beliefs, even the most fundamental ones . . . GEM, 11, (correctively): note the assertion of a claimed duty that is held to be without exception: we SHOULD always continue to question our beliefs, even the most fundamental ones BZ, 150 (backtracking): Provisional, just like the last one [i.e. as just addressed].
Of course, here, BZ first tried to exert the moral force of OUGHT, on an evident worldview [he has been remarkably coy on embarking on open discussion of worldview alternatives on comparative difficulties, but we may draw out a few implications . . . ] that only permits IS. (NB: An ought can only be grounded in an is, if that is already entails the oughtness of such things. For instance, God, who knows perfectly and loves perfectly -- and is perfectly holy -- has made a world in which oughtness is just as inextricably embedded as it is in his character; a world that BTW, has in it minded creatures capable of virtue, so necessarily of real -- though obviously not unlimited -- choices and consequences. But, such a ground for "ought" is utterly unacceptable to evolutionary materialist atheists . . . who (unsurprisingly) struggle in vain to ground oughtness in a world their worldview limits to the merely material is. Oops, they are now backing away from is, too . . . ) I duly pointed out that the view is incoherent, as it seeks to extract universally binding moral force from premises that only permit of in effect manipulation of impulses and feelings. In response, we see that "provisionally" BZ holds that "we should always continue to question our beliefs, even the most fundamental ones . . . " But, a provisional ought is no ought at all. It is at best a personal recommendation relative to "how things seem to me just now . . . " which in turn implies yet another vicious cascade of affirmations of states of affairs that "are" so. (And the absurdity of such is so destructive to morality, a condition of survival as a human race, that BZ now tries to keep the force of ought, even while denying its binding nature.) ______________ In short, the situation is just as I pointed out in 111:
we here see a classic illustration of how selective hyperskepticism ends in self-referential inconsistencies and absurdity. Also, how relativist schemes of thought rely on implicit adherence to the concept of universally binding obligations. In short, so soon as BZ begins to be articulate his views explicitly, self-referential incoherences begin to crop up. That is, the underlying system of thought — it seems, some variety of ultra-modern, relativist evolutionary materialism — self-destructs.
GEM of TKI ++++++++++ PS: On barber paradoxes, Trib is right to raise the possibility of a bald barber who has no facial hair. But, also, the point of the paradox is that sets must be coherently definable -- or, at least, recognisable -- collections, so that one may meaningfully say "A is B"; which is what "A is a member/subset of B" is about: a --> For instance, if we say "Socrates is a man," we are making a claim about (a) existence, and (b) set membership, so that when we go on to saying "men are mortal," we affirm a certain form of set inclusion in a context of existential import. (Thus, in the context of this classical syllogism, we have constrained the implications to exclude the case of null or empty sets. [This, of course, does not imply that we may not properly consider that more general case, where we do not confine ourselves to sets that have actual members; but it does draw out the implications of dealing with affirmations concerning a real world of existent objects.]) b --> Thus also, when we conclude "Socrates is mortal," we are asserting transitivity of membership from a certain individual being a man to his being a mortal. c --> When Hazel therefore tries to say: Beezlebub and I believe in provisionally held beliefs, we are not merely playing silly word games when we point out that this is an affirmation of the reality of specified states of affairs, i.e., of membership of certain things in recognisable and distinct classes -- thence, again, the vicious regress on "is." d --> In short, Hazel's attempt to rebut ends up in just the same problem as BZ's back-track: sooner or later, such a claim ends up affirming some things as so beyond mere provisionality -- starting with the assertion of provisionality itself. (By contrast, when I say that SCIENCE has provisional -- sense (i) of 111 -- knowledge, I do so in a context that recognises that there is a second class of knowledge that allows provisional, correctable warrant of scientific claims. But, in the end, that rests on sense (ii) knowledge,things that are not merely provisionally known, but are self-evident or otherwise undeniably or incorrigibly true, on pain of absurdity.)kairosfocus_{May 24, 2009
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Folks, Some classics, thanks to BZ, 150: 1] On NEVER being absolutely sure:
BZ, 78 (asserting): We’re never absolutely sure, which is why we should always continue to question our beliefs, even the most fundamental ones. GEM, 111 (correcting): Observe the self-referential absurdity on knowledge: We’re NEVER absolutely sure. BZ, 150 (backtracking . . . ): It would only be incoherent if I wrote “I’m absolutely sure that we’re never absolutely sure.” As it stands, it’s a perfectly coherent, provisional belief.
Of course, this is a case of "don't believe yer lyin' eyes" as the very statement, We’re never absolutely sure, is of course quite plainly of undeniably universal negative -- i.e. absolute -- form. So, the onward attempt to declare the patently self-refuting assertion a "mere" provisional belief, is plainly an attempt to rhetorically rewrite the record after the fact of having been duly and properly corrected in self referential absurdity. But also, does it work to now try to say in effect that BZ is provisionally confident that "We’re never absolutely sure"? Nope. For, such a universal negative is not within the empirical remit of a finite, fallible creature: to claim to KNOW that X is NEVER the case on limited and fallible empirical data and equally limited and fallible principles of reasoning is absurd. For, a counter example or counter argument might emerge beyond our current scope of beliefs or opinions or intents ("knowledge" has now vanished . . . ); which would overturn the confident claim -- if we were willing to heed it (but, the "correction" could be wrong too . . . ). As, such "mere opinion," in turn could just be wrong too. [The root of the problem is hastily extending the provisionality of SCIENTIFIC knowledge-claims to all claims, even claims where this does not work; e.g. the foundations of logic. We must accept those as self-evidently true, or end up in absurdity of mere clashes over opinuions and perceptions -- or, is that perceptions of clashes over opinions, none of which can in the end be warranted beyond "who gots the bigger guns" . . . or "who controls the mikes and presses" and so makes up the "consensus" Plato's Cave shadow shows for the benefit of the gullible public? In short, the very foundations of science, knowledge, reason, justice and liberty are implicitly at stake in this exchange.] Ouch, too: all along (i) we have been actually saying/implying that certain things are so, and also implying that (ii) they are known to be so; thus warrantable and warranted. Ouch: we cannot -- oops there goes a raft of universal state of affairs declarations again -- ouch, yet again, -- and, yet again . . . ad infinitum. That is, the vicious infinite regress just pointed out makes the self-referential absurdity of BZ's "revised" position painfully plain. All of us end up assuming or asserting or implying that certain things are knowable in my sense (ii) from 111: warranted, true belief. And in turn, such things rest on the self-evident start-points of reasoning and knowing; so that if we reject that first step of trust in self-evident truth, we end up in a morass of absurdities: reason and faith cannot be disconnected, for reasoning is a matter of trust in its starting points. therefore, as minded, understanding, experiencing creatures, we can and do know far beyond what we may deductively prove or define tautologically as a basis for such proof. [And don't let me start on Godel's incompleteness theorems and their import that even mathematics is a subject that is irreducibly complex and deeply rooted in faith commitments!] So, the claim -- at best -- would reduce to a statement about personal wishes and speculations or psychology, not an assertion about our epistemic capacity and its limits. That is, in effect: in BZ's humble estimation and desire, he is of the personal opinion that we are never absolutely sure about our knowledge claims. (And notice how materially different this is from what ever so boldly appears at 78!) Now, too, others (with far better warrant . . . ) are quite confident that -- once we understand the import of self-evident claims based on our undeniably real experience of the world as minded creatures -- we can be sure about certain claims [e.g. (a) that error exists or (b) that A and NOT-A cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time]. Such, on grounds of self-evident logical truth and the nature and impact of our experience of the world. (BTW if you wish to deny the reality of our experience of the world as minded -- though of course finite and fallible -- creatures, pray, tell us who is making the denial: lucky noise somehow magically poofing contextually responsive arguments into -- oops -- existence?) Indeed, those who bwelieve that self-efvident truths ground our knowledge of the world are for excellent reason quite confident, and can offer good warrant per illustrative cases in point, that those who disagree with them, tacitly -- i.e. implicitly -- accept these very same absolutes and self-evident truths, even as they try to deny them or what they point to about the underlying nature of a reality in which such full form knowledge of truth is possible. (Of course, that is just what happened here at no 78 above: BZ affirmed that he knows a universal negative absolute, in attempting to deny the possibility of knowable absolutes. OOPS.) [ . . . ]kairosfocus_{May 24, 2009
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Testing to see if my comments are still "awaiting moderation"... lamarck writes:
Atheism is a religion...
As some wag put it, "atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby."
...asserting the negative as a matter of faith...
Quite the opposite. Most atheists are atheists because they lack the faith necessary to believe in God despite a lack of evidence.
...saying “A sentient entity was absolutely not involved in creating the universe.”
The atheists I know don't make absolute statements about God's non-existence. We just don't see sufficient evidence to believe.beelzebub_{May 23, 2009
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Beelzebub Only a tiny number 300 years ago rejected aether. . . True, but they didn’t have to ignore the evidence and reject fundamental findings from every field of science They would have had to "ignore the evidence" and reject the fundamental finding of every field of contemporaneous science. That's the point. A forward thinker sees a flaw in conventional wisdom and picks at it until in unravels. OTOH, I'll grant that there are ignorant cranks who reject CW also but differentiating them from the visionaries might not be possible within one's lifetime. If you believe in the multi-verse you believe in something that violates the laws of physics. Evidence? What do the laws of physics say about order and energy? What would the multi-verse have to add to this universe to create it? What would the multi-verse have to add to the mulit-verse to create itself, for that matter? Why would a shift in the neutrino flux have anything to do with the reasonableness of a particular statement of dogma? .. .No reason that I can think of. In which case I'll point that out as another logical error in your emotion-driven argument :-) That’s my point. I don’t anticipate any reason to amend my belief that dogma should never be accepted unquestioningly. If such a reason arises, however, then I will revise my belief. It sounds like you are saying you accept dogma but don't want to say you accept dogma. Unless, of course, you are perfect. If you were prefect could you be certain your belief is true? . . .Sure. I would say that perfection for a sentient being would require, among other things, not holding any untrue beliefs. Can a perfect being exist?tribune7_{May 23, 2009
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Beelzebub I’m glad to see that you now understand that your claim that science was in complete disagreement 300 years ago is a logical error. . . I’m neither glad nor surprised to see that you are still sticking to your quote-mine and ignoring the fact that my statement referred not to disagreement in general, but to disagreement on the six scientific questions I listed in my comment I'm neither glad nor surprised you fail to comprehend that I explicitly referred to your questions (well, 5 of the 6) in my Post 87 tribune7_{May 23, 2009
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----Diffaxial: “Here, once again, the crux of the matter is your acceptance of tautological statements as a “self-evident.” Truth itself is unchanging by definition - anyone who asserts otherwise is mistaken, by definition - and all of your subsequent assertions flow from that, tautologically.” You do continue to press that point, [which is natural since I keep making my point] but as I tried to explain previously, I suspect that your personal epistemology rules out self evident truths in principle. (Read my extended comments further down) ----But as you learned in previous threads, arguments that advance “self-evident” truths strike many of us as contrived and unconvincing, logical (or illogical) clockworks with no real bearing on anything outside themselves. This is not helped by your apparent inability or unwillingness to address yourself to that observation. Unpack the tautological pseudo-reasoning and all you are left with, once again, are bare assertions. Worse, they are bare assertions masquerading as “Truth,” with a capital “T.” Truth is simply the correspondence between the mind and reality. So, a self evident truth is one which already reflects reality by definition. Consider the statement, “an effect cannot exist without a cause.” That is not just a statement about logic, as you would have it; it is also a statement about metaphysics. It is true tautologically, and it is true metaphysically. If it was not a true statement about the real world, the entire rational enterprise would break down. We have rational minds, we live in a rational universe, and there is a correspondence between the two. You seem to want to deny that correspondence [indeed also the dual realms] and fall back into a kind of logical subjectivism, as if the logic of the mind was somehow divorced from the logic of the universe. A self evident truth reflects reality by definition. If it doesn’t reflect reality, then it isn’t true. If it is a "mere tautology," and most of them are indeed that way, it tells us nothing about the world and is, therefore, trivial. Not all tautologies are like that. There are multiple theories of knowledge that one could speak of, but, in a general sense, the three big ones are “realism,” [knowledge comes from mind and sense experience], “empiricism,” [knowledge comes only from sense experience], and “rationalism.” [knowledge comes only from mind]. Both rationalism and empiricism are extremes because each perspective leaves out something important. I suspect that you have a problem with self evident truths because you embrace what I perceive to be a kind of radical empiricism. If your epistemology precludes the possibility that the mind is an organ of knowledge, that is, if you think knowledge comes only from sense experience and in no other way, naturally you are going to dismiss anything as knowledge [or truth] that cannot be observed or somehow verified empirically. Under the circumstances, you could not accept the proposition that the mind can present to the observer a truth about the real world. Naturally, if the mind can’t apprehend any truth at all, then it certainly cannot apprehend a self-evident truth. So, I could never convince you that the mind can perceive a self evident truth until I could first convince you that the mind is an organ of knowledge capable of perceiving anything at all. As I perceive it, the problem is not in the laws of logic, but rather in a carefully chosen theory of knowledge [empiricism] calculated to keep pace with an atheistic metaphysics [materialism] design to keep pace with an elevated status for science [scientism].StephenB_{May 23, 2009
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