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Old 26th May 2018, 10:56 PM   #361
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Originally Posted by HansMustermann View Post
That said, I still don't get the, so to speak, argument from "but science doesn't know EVERYTHING." As Dara O'Briain put it: "Science KNOWS it doesn't know everything. Otherwise, it'd stop. But just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you."

But some people seem to go even beyond the kind that Dara was talking about. They're not just taking the smallest gap as an excuse to fill just that gap with fairy tales.
No problem. Then we have to denounce those that pretend to apply science where it doesn't reach and those that pretend to go more far that science with fancies. Do you agree?

But your problem is that you blame the whole philosophy for doing the latter thing. This is not true. It looks to me like you have not read a single book of philosophy. Contemporary philosophy at least. It looks as if all your philosophic knowledge is based on Wiki or other similar webs. Isn't it?
Reading and discussing philosophy showed me an essential truth: things are always more complex than one thinks. It is simple, but people uses to forget it.

Originally Posted by HansMustermann View Post
To get back to matter, though, sure we currently have a bit of a gap between QM and GR. (…) You may have heard it in the press as the "OMG, the universe is a hologram" thing, but really that's what it is: it's applying both QM and GR to show that past a point, if you shove even one more bit of information in, it collapses into a black hole.(...)
But anyway, the argument that we must look down on everything if we find even the smallest gap, is IMHO equivalent to the following proposition: "Sure, we know about beds, from carpentry, and about duvets from weavers, but do you have a unified theory of both beds and duvets? No? Then everything in your bedroom is an illusion."
What means the acronyms QM, GR, IMHO…?

You have a problem with people as Heisenberg: he is an idealist but he doesn’t reject science —just on the contrary! How do you can explain this?

The failure to give a unified scientific definition of matter —I am awaiting for it— doesn’t support idealism. It questions both materialism and idealism. I think that you have not grasped the problem. This is not the only problem of materialism, but it is important. I take the opportunity to say that I consider myself as a materialist.

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Old 26th May 2018, 11:45 PM   #362
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QM = Quantum Mechanics
GR = General Relativity
IMHO = In my humble opinion
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Old 27th May 2018, 12:43 AM   #363
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Originally Posted by Pixel42 View Post
QM = Quantum Mechanics
GR = General Relativity
IMHO = In my humble opinion
Thank you.
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Old 27th May 2018, 02:31 AM   #364
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Mate, I DON'T have a problem with Heisenberg, and especially not with his scientific work. I just don't think he's actually read Plato, if he could make the statement you quote with a straight face.

I'm not sure what in Satan's good name gave you the idea that Heisenberg is an idealist though. Can you elaborate on how you arrive at that misapprehension?

I'm not sure why you're so fixated on Heisenberg anyway, ESPECIALLY if you don't actually understand what he's talking about.

ETA: Which really seems to be your problem: you don't actually understand what Heisenberg is talking about. You seem to think that if he mentions Plato's essences, then the other thing he makes analogous to them must actually be so. The problem is that, as I've said, if you actually understand Quantum Mechanics, even at the level that was known in Heisenberg's time, those particles are actually NOTHING like anything Plato ever described. And there is exactly zero idealism involved in describing either those, or how macroscopic matter is based on those. It's exact maths all the way down or up. There is exactly zero personal perception involved.
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Old 27th May 2018, 03:44 AM   #365
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Originally Posted by David Mo View Post
Then we have to denounce those that pretend to apply science where it doesn't reach..
Where exactly does "Apply a systematic method to build and organize knowledge in the form of testable experimentation" not reach?

This isn't about "science" (or "scientism" which is the single dumbest thing ever) or even philosophy in the traditional sense.

This is about maintaining the illusion that there are some types of opinions can just be spouted off without having to put any effort into supporting them or defending them.

The Internet Philosophy Club's criticism of "science" sounds more and more each like people who don't want any critical thought applied to their Woo.
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Old 27th May 2018, 04:28 AM   #366
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Originally Posted by JoeMorgue View Post
Where exactly does "Apply a systematic method to build and organize knowledge in the form of testable experimentation" not reach?

This isn't about "science" (or "scientism" which is the single dumbest thing ever) or even philosophy in the traditional sense.

This is about maintaining the illusion that there are some types of opinions can just be spouted off without having to put any effort into supporting them or defending them.

The Internet Philosophy Club's criticism of "science" sounds more and more each like people who don't want any critical thought applied to their Woo.
Please, answer in your heart (not to me): How many books of philosophy have you read?
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Old 27th May 2018, 04:31 AM   #367
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Originally Posted by HansMustermann View Post
I just don't think he's actually read Plato, if he could make the statement you quote with a straight face.
How do you know that Heisenberg didn't read Plato? Have you read the Thimaeus?

I don't want you to come here boasting. Answer yourself.

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Old 27th May 2018, 04:36 AM   #368
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Originally Posted by David Mo View Post
Please, answer in your heart (not to me): How many books of philosophy have you read?
Originally Posted by David Mo View Post
How do you know that Heisenberg didn't read Plato? Have you read the Thimaeus?
What?

That's all gibberish. Answer a question with something other than pointing at a philosophy book and grunting.

You claim "science" (as you inconsistently and narrowly define it) can't answer questions.

Please describe the methodology by which "philosophy" answers those questions in any way that is functionally different from "It gets to invoke magic when science doesn't" or "It gets to make stuff up with no procedure in place for error correction when science doesn't."
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Old 27th May 2018, 04:49 AM   #369
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Originally Posted by David Mo View Post
How do you know that Heisenberg didn't read Plato? Have you read the Thimaeus?

I don't want you to come here boasting. Answer yourself.
You may have noticed I actually mentioned Timaeus on the previous page, when i first talked about how QM is actually nothing like Plato's ideas. That's not something I overlooked, but, in fact, WHY I think Heisenberg didn't actually read Plato.

Look, seriously, I don't doubt that you know your Plato. What I'm saying and you seem to confirm is that you don't know QM very well. You know, the other half of what Heisenberg was comparing it to. You can't actually judge a relationship between X and Y, unless you actually have a solid knowledge of BOTH X and Y. And I'm saying that both you AND Heisenberg obviously lack half of that expertise to make an argument from authority there. You seem to just assume that Heisenberg knew Plato as well as you do, which is actually quite a common but flawed assumption of smart people: that everyone else knows the same, or at least the basics. But that's flawed.

And at the risk of repeating myself, I don't know why you're so obsessed with Heisenberg and Plato specifically anyway. You mentioned the Pythagoreans before for example. Well, you could actually make a MUCH better case of QM vindicating the Pythagoreans, than Plato or idealism. Why not go for that instead?
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Old 27th May 2018, 04:59 AM   #370
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Originally Posted by David Mo View Post
No problem. Then we have to denounce those that pretend to apply science where it doesn't reach and those that pretend to go more far that science with fancies. Do you agree?

But your problem is that you blame the whole philosophy for doing the latter thing. This is not true. It looks to me like you have not read a single book of philosophy. Contemporary philosophy at least. It looks as if all your philosophic knowledge is based on Wiki or other similar webs. Isn't it?

Reading and discussing philosophy showed me an essential truth: things are always more complex than one thinks. It is simple, but people uses to forget it.
Here you complain about familiarity with concepts in a domain of discourse...

Quote:
The failure to give a unified scientific definition of matter —I am awaiting for it— doesn’t support idealism. It questions both materialism and idealism. I think that you have not grasped the problem. This is not the only problem of materialism, but it is important. I take the opportunity to say that I consider myself as a materialist.
...and then complain without sufficient familiarity of your own, doubling down, in spite of having received pointers to where to get it. This isn't fair to others in the thread. At any rate, what failure? Explain exactly why matter, or any other referent, must have a "unified concept" attached? Why should science "support" any philosophical questions whatsoever? (That's getting things backwards.) Most of all:

Why should knowledge ever be complete before all results are in? And how do we know when all are in? Can they ever be in? Granted, there is room for universals (laws) which we posit are unchanging in time or space, but still, there is no way to capture the entire measure space (all events that may happen to/with/in all things at all scales throughout time)?

Methinks your complaint is, indeed, simply another version of the god-of-the-gaps argument, sharing with it the same mistaken assumption: that to be valid, knowledge must be absolute, meaning, unchanging and unmodifiable. This is based on the rather wild assumption that it must live up to the standards of faith, which hold that the verb "create" is explanatory, when all it does is claim there is an "abracadabra being" doing more "abracadabra."

So, if we are to do justice to both science and philosophy, we must examine what is meant by fact, theory, and "truth." But certainly we won't get there without all parties involved doing the homework <hint>.
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Old 27th May 2018, 05:09 AM   #371
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Which seems a bit off for a proponent of philosophy, since you'd assume some familiarity with epistemology from someone who's into philosophy.
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Old 27th May 2018, 08:57 AM   #372
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Originally Posted by David Mo View Post
I don't know personally many scientists but judging by what I read many of them have a disappointing inclination to arrogance, this is to say, to scientism.
Yes, if that's what you think, then really all you are demonstrating is that you don't know many scientists.
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Old 27th May 2018, 09:04 AM   #373
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"Scientists are too inclined to look at things rationally, require evidence, apply critical thinking, and apply a standardized methodology of how to approve evidence and claims. Obviously this is horrible and the only solution is to take a broader, less defined methodology with fewer standards, and place it above science and make science answer to it so we can continue to make up random magic."
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Old 27th May 2018, 09:44 PM   #374
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Originally Posted by JoeMorgue View Post
You claim "science" (as you inconsistently and narrowly define it) can't answer questions.

Please describe the methodology by which "philosophy" answers those questions in any way that is functionally different from "It gets to invoke magic when science doesn't" or "It gets to make stuff up with no procedure in place for error correction when science doesn't."
Read a philosophy book and after a couple of weeks we'll talk about "magic" and "gibberish" again. I recommend two that are easy to find on the Internet: Bertrand Russell: The Problems of Philosophy and Ernan McMullin ed. The Concept of Matter. They'll give you an idea, if you want to have any idea.
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Old 27th May 2018, 09:58 PM   #375
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Originally Posted by HansMustermann View Post
You may have noticed I actually mentioned Timaeus on the previous page, when i first talked about how QM is actually nothing like Plato's ideas. That's not something I overlooked, but, in fact, WHY I think Heisenberg didn't actually read Plato.

Look, seriously, I don't doubt that you know your Plato. What I'm saying and you seem to confirm is that you don't know QM very well. (...)

And at the risk of repeating myself, I don't know why you're so obsessed with Heisenberg and Plato specifically anyway.
I don't "seem" to know superficially quantum physics: I said it myself. I have three books dedicated to this subject at home, I have read a couple more from the library and consulted some chapters of books dedicated to science and a few articles. I can quote any of them if you want. It is not much, but for the level of this forum it seems to me sufficient.

I still don't understand why you pretend Heisenberg didn't understand the Timaeus. If you don't give more details, we'll stay there.

My references to Heisenberg are due to the fact that he is one of the founders of quantum physics and one of the great scientists who has dealt with the philosophy of science. I could have quoted Bohr, Einstein or Hawking, but I have recently read an article about him and knew his idealistic postulates from other readings. Pythagoras and quantum mechanics are not mentioned in my books. Can you explain this point better?
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Old 27th May 2018, 10:28 PM   #376
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Originally Posted by Hlafordlaes View Post

Methinks your complaint is, indeed, simply another version of the god-of-the-gaps argument, sharing with it the same mistaken assumption: that to be valid, knowledge must be absolute, meaning, unchanging and unmodifiable. This is based on the rather wild assumption that it must live up to the standards of faith, which hold that the verb "create" is explanatory, when all it does is claim there is an "abracadabra being" doing more "abracadabra."

So, if we are to do justice to both science and philosophy, we must examine what is meant by fact, theory, and "truth." But certainly we won't get there without all parties involved doing the homework <hint>.
I don't think I've defended that concept of (absolute) knowledge anywhere. On the contrary, I believe that all knowledge is probable and reviewable, including scientific knowledge. The limitations of scientific knowledge are the limitations of human knowledge. Science deals with proven facts using an experimental and mathematical method. No knowledge can replace it in this field, although there is some practical knowledge that also works within its limitations.

But, like all human knowledge, there are problems that it is not for science to answer. These are problems of analysis of knowledge, of language -of the different types of language-, of morality, of anthropology, etc. that cannot be treated with the hypothetical deductive method. Other disciplines take care of them.

This does not mean that these disciplines are as rigorous as science. If they did, it would be science. But they are necessary because the problems they focus on affect our behaviour in society and cannot be set aside. The fact that they are matters subject to a certain degree of opinion does not imply that they should be forgotten, but that their conclusions - if any - should be treated differently from science.

Philosophy is not magic, is not religion. Whoever says that has no idea what philosophy is. I am an atheist, a declared enemy of superstitions and religions. Philosophy has taught me to have an open mind and magic and religion are the opposite. They are dogmatism and mental stubbornness. But it disturbs me to find the same mental and conceptual flaws in people who, because of their atheism and alleged rationalism, should be closer to my way of thinking. The mistake hurts more when practiced from our side.

The last chapter of Russell's book I'm repeatedly recommending should help you understand my point od view. I'm not recommending it on a whim, but because it makes you think. It makes think to me, at least.

NOTE: I don't say that Russell has the truth. I say that Russell makes think.

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Old 27th May 2018, 10:37 PM   #377
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Originally Posted by JoeMorgue View Post
"Scientists are too inclined to look at things rationally, require evidence, apply critical thinking, and apply a standardized methodology of how to approve evidence and claims. Obviously this is horrible and the only solution is to take a broader, less defined methodology with fewer standards, and place it above science and make science answer to it so we can continue to make up random magic."
Whose quotation is it?
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Old 27th May 2018, 10:44 PM   #378
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Originally Posted by Squeegee Beckenheim View Post
Yes, if that's what you think, then really all you are demonstrating is that you don't know many scientists.
About thirty or so. With the exception of a few, they avoided theoretical questions like the devil.
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Old 28th May 2018, 01:18 AM   #379
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Mate, think of it this way, if it makes it more palatable: what we are actually debating here IS philosophy (much as some get butthurt at that idea, but, as I was saying, I don't have a problem with philosophy myself) namely epistemology. The scientific method is simply the only method of acquiring knowledge that has consistently produced anything. In fact, it's the only thing that can even be supported as producing knowledge, because there's that requirement for it to be actually true to count as knowledge. Checking it against reality is the best way to make sure we actually got the right idea.

I'll whip out that Vince Ebert definition again: "The Scientific Method is, simply put, just a way to test suppositions. If I supposed for example 'there might be beer in the fridge' and go look in the fridge, I'm already doing science. Big difference from Theology. There they don't usually test suppositions. If I just assume 'There is beer in the fridge' then I'm a theologian. If I go look, I'm a scientist. And if I go look, find nothing inside, and still insist that there's beer in the fridge, that's esoteric."

For reference, he IS a physicist turned comedian.

Do you find any fault with that epistemological proposition that you should test your ideas against reality, to see if they're actually true?

ETA: and more importantly, can you find any scientist, either among your friends, or among the books you've read, who was proposing to NOT follow that epistemological proposition?
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Old 28th May 2018, 02:29 AM   #380
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Originally Posted by HansMustermann View Post
I'll whip out that Vince Ebert definition again: "The Scientific Method is, simply put, just a way to test suppositions. If I supposed for example 'there might be beer in the fridge' and go look in the fridge, I'm already doing science. Big difference from Theology. There they don't usually test suppositions. If I just assume 'There is beer in the fridge' then I'm a theologian. If I go look, I'm a scientist. And if I go look, find nothing inside, and still insist that there's beer in the fridge, that's esoteric."

For reference, he IS a physicist turned comedian.

Do you find any fault with that epistemological proposition that you should test your ideas against reality, to see if they're actually true?
What a strange expert you're looking for!

I find the definition a little broad. Science is not mere induction. Science is a little more complex. We should distinguish empirical science from common sense or logics, for example. In order to avoid some confusions.

However, I find it very important to find a way to verify or refute our ideas. Whether that's science or not.

But I think there are ideas that cannot be confirmed by opening the refrigerator. Sometimes you have to look for other, more modest types of persuasion, and in a broad sense you can call them knowledge as well. Other times you should have to be satisfied with hypothesis. And these can be also called knowledge. Don't you think so?
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Old 28th May 2018, 02:52 AM   #381
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Originally Posted by David Mo View Post
About thirty or so. With the exception of a few, they avoided theoretical questions like the devil.
You're friends with 30 scientists, and they're all inclined to arrogance and scientism?
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Old 28th May 2018, 03:47 AM   #382
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Originally Posted by Squeegee Beckenheim View Post
You're friends with 30 scientists, and they're all inclined to arrogance and scientism?
I neither said one thing nor the other.
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Old 28th May 2018, 04:09 AM   #383
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Originally Posted by David Mo View Post
Read a philosophy book and after a couple of weeks we'll talk about "magic" and "gibberish" again. I recommend two that are easy to find on the Internet: Bertrand Russell: The Problems of Philosophy and Ernan McMullin ed. The Concept of Matter. They'll give you an idea, if you want to have any idea.
I don't know if you understand that the whole "Go read a book and come back when you agree with me" routine doesn't make you sound like some grand master of Philosophy. It makes you sound like a desperate amateur who can't formulate his own opinions.
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Old 28th May 2018, 04:59 AM   #384
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Originally Posted by David Mo View Post
What a strange expert you're looking for!

I find the definition a little broad. Science is not mere induction. Science is a little more complex. We should distinguish empirical science from common sense or logics, for example. In order to avoid some confusions.

However, I find it very important to find a way to verify or refute our ideas. Whether that's science or not.

But I think there are ideas that cannot be confirmed by opening the refrigerator. Sometimes you have to look for other, more modest types of persuasion, and in a broad sense you can call them knowledge as well. Other times you should have to be satisfied with hypothesis. And these can be also called knowledge. Don't you think so?
He never said that science is induction. What he's describing there is making a testable prediction ('there's beer in the fridge') and testing it (by actually looking in the fridge.) At its core that's what the scientific method is about.

That said, I'm not against other kinds of testing or reasoning per se, but I think I can evaluate a school of philosophy through the same lens of epistemology too. I can apply philosophy to philosophy, after all. Sort of meta, if you will.

Let's take a trivial example: postmodernism. (Which, incidentally is what half of this thread was about, as well as the name for what JoeMorgue was describing in #355. Yeah, what Fudbucker and co are ACTUALLY proposing isn't even idealism, it's just postmodern drivel.) Hopefully we can agree that the checks against reality are as good as non-existent, and a reasonable expectation of arriving at true knowledge that way is pretty slim. Right?

On the other hand, let's look at functionalism. Again, for no other reason than that it was discussed (even if not by name) in this very thread. Well, that's a school (well, ok, several schools) of thought that is fundamentally anchored in explaining real observed phenomena. In fact, some schools of it are just neuroscience by any other name, and all of them use data from neuroscience.

Basically what I'm saying is that whether it's as simple as opening the fridge door, or devising some convoluted indirect way of validation, or just devising a mental experiment that shows that two current assumptions can't both be true, or whatever, ultimately you have to SOMEHOW verify that you got the right idea. Basically that your idea is actually knowledge.

And some methodologies or even schools of philosophy work better towards that end.

And basically what some of us are saying is that ultimately if you do check against reality and apply Occam's razor, you're being scientific about it by any other name. You may call it teleological functionalism instead of neuroscience, but ultimately if you go and check against reality at some point, you're really doing science by any other name.

And if you don't, well, then all you can provide are questions. Possibly good questions. Possibly fundamental questions. But at the end of the day all you can get that way are the questions. And the only honest thing to do is to do the Socrates thing and say that you know that you don't know a bunch of stuff.
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Old 28th May 2018, 06:21 AM   #385
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Originally Posted by JoeMorgue View Post
I don't know if you understand that the whole "Go read a book and come back when you agree with me" routine doesn't make you sound like some grand master of Philosophy. It makes you sound like a desperate amateur who can't formulate his own opinions.
It's not that. I just don't have time now to do a summary of Russell's chapter and I won't have it for another fortnight or so. If you read what I advised you to read, we will then have a common basis for discussion. Because, frankly, I don't know their denouncements what basis have, and I'm afraid very little.

I don't know why you are so afraid to read 20 pages of a Russell's book. He was a reputed liberal-atheist philosopher. And his book is a popular book. Nothing complicated. Nothing dangerous.
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Old 28th May 2018, 06:22 AM   #386
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OK, now let's anwer about Timaeus. Let nobody say I left someone thirsting for knowledge without taking the piss

For those who haven't read it before and are curious, here's an online version of it: http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/timaeus.html

Well, you can't even go too far into it, that you find Timaeus arguing that the world must be by necessity a copy of something, and then details that original universe, where there is one original of every being. Except, uh, no, that's not how we now know it worked. Also the world must be eternal and the best and so on, which we know now to be false, but let's skip that.

But at that point Timaeus launches head-first into exposing Plato's philosophy of the perfect shapes and everything being a copy of those. And it only goes downhill from there.

E.g., he concludes that the head was made first, because it's in the (imperfect) shape of the most perfect shape: the sphere. Which is apparently also the shape of the universe. (Actually, GR says it's not.)

And along the way he also goes into such dada land as -- and I'm doing this tangent only because it was the topic of this very thread -- that obviously the creator first made the soul and then the body. We now know that that's like saying that the clock maker made first The Ticking and then the clock.

And so on and so forth.

If anything, it's an illustration of a kind of thinking that is, epistemologically speaking, complete garbage. It's not something that science vindicated, but something that science says you should throw into the garbage bin and slap yourself if you ever find yourself deducing anything by their current random shape.

But anyway, the text is a bit big for me to properly poo-poo every single sentence in it. So it would be helpful if you indicated exactly what part of it do you think Quantum Mechanics validated. Then I can focus my poo-pooing on those parts

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Old 28th May 2018, 07:39 AM   #387
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Originally Posted by David Mo View Post
I don't think I've defended that concept of (absolute) knowledge anywhere. On the contrary, I believe that all knowledge is probable and reviewable, including scientific knowledge. The limitations of scientific knowledge are the limitations of human knowledge. Science deals with proven facts using an experimental and mathematical method. No knowledge can replace it in this field, although there is some practical knowledge that also works within its limitations.

But, like all human knowledge, there are problems that it is not for science to answer. These are problems of analysis of knowledge, of language -of the different types of language-, of morality, of anthropology, etc. that cannot be treated with the hypothetical deductive method. Other disciplines take care of them.

This does not mean that these disciplines are as rigorous as science. If they did, it would be science. But they are necessary because the problems they focus on affect our behaviour in society and cannot be set aside. The fact that they are matters subject to a certain degree of opinion does not imply that they should be forgotten, but that their conclusions - if any - should be treated differently from science.

Philosophy is not magic, is not religion. Whoever says that has no idea what philosophy is. I am an atheist, a declared enemy of superstitions and religions. Philosophy has taught me to have an open mind and magic and religion are the opposite. They are dogmatism and mental stubbornness. But it disturbs me to find the same mental and conceptual flaws in people who, because of their atheism and alleged rationalism, should be closer to my way of thinking. The mistake hurts more when practiced from our side.

The last chapter of Russell's book I'm repeatedly recommending should help you understand my point od view. I'm not recommending it on a whim, but because it makes you think. It makes think to me, at least.

NOTE: I don't say that Russell has the truth. I say that Russell makes think.
The last sentence of that book:

Quote:
Thus, to sum up our discussion of the value of philosophy; Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.

Basically, his point is that there are some questions science can't answer and that contemplating those questions is good mental exercise. I can't argue with that.

But, let's be real: Philosophy is mental masturbation -fun, stimulating and satisfying in it's own right. But it's no substitute for the real thing -science in this case- if your goal is to actually understand the world around you.
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Old 28th May 2018, 07:46 AM   #388
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Originally Posted by David Mo View Post
.... The last chapter of Russell's book I'm repeatedly recommending should help you understand my point od view. I'm not recommending it on a whim, but because it makes you think. It makes think to me, at least.

NOTE: I don't say that Russell has the truth. I say that Russell makes think.
Gotcha on the no-woo stance, no prob. However, I must repeat that science has no duties with respect to philosophy, and critique of science or its findings is misplaced. Certainly, the picture I paint is ideal, and funding for science projects is one area in which dogma and/or pigheadedness can and does arise. See Smolin's complaints about the practice of physics in this regard. Further, as theories bump up against the hard limits of observation, and seek confirmation that cannot, today, be forthcoming (looking at you, String Theory), there are increasing calls to accept mathematical proofs as science. I'm not qualified to discuss that much, but do recall that many equations in physics have been said to be neutral wrt to time, and work "forwards" or "backwards." This does not conform to the observed "hardwired" arrow of time, or to the need for coherent causality, so here is a place in which acceptance of the maths alone would be a big boo-boo.

Funny you should mention Russell, who I may need to go back to for reasons of this and other threads, but with a mind to levy the same charge as some comments above: I believe his critique of inductive reasoning is also tainted by a search for the kinds of definitive statements one might get in math or, golly, religion. To wit: If you wish to count the black marbles among a sea of white ones in a huge glass jar, you can use, say, statistical sampling and save work, or go for the full count and get an exact number. The inductive conclusion about "black marble populations" is valid. The reason this fails in the broader world, outside bowls of marbles, is that the system (cosmos, reality, whatever) is vast enough1 to be considered open in practical terms (even if closed), as only a privileged observer would be able to take it all in and reach "proper" hard counts. We are stuck with partial knowledge, meaning that induction works until an exception comes along. Fine, if you are in tune with how science works; disastrous, however, for formulating formal (truth) statements about Nature as one might in logic, philosophy, or math in those domains (I'm ignoring Gödel's Theorem because I have not done any diligence on it and so do not grok it ).

___
1 I am employing statistical hard counts as a proxy that is easy on conversation. What I really have in mind are things such as the many emergent properties that are seen when transitioning from one scale to the next. Case in point: the behavior of molecules and clouds of atoms under extreme conditions or when in unique configurations, something only now getting under way in, e.g., Materials Science.
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Old 28th May 2018, 07:49 AM   #389
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Originally Posted by HansMustermann View Post
OK, now let's anwer about Timaeus. Let nobody say I left someone thirsting for knowledge without taking the piss

For those who haven't read it before and are curious, here's an online version of it: http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/timaeus.html

Well, you can't even go too far into it, that you find Timaeus arguing that the world must be by necessity a copy of something, and then details that original universe, where there is one original of every being. Except, uh, no, that's not how we now know it worked. Also the world must be eternal and the best and so on, which we know now to be false, but let's skip that.

But at that point Timaeus launches head-first into exposing Plato's philosophy of the perfect shapes and everything being a copy of those. And it only goes downhill from there.

E.g., he concludes that the head was made first, because it's in the (imperfect) shape of the most perfect shape: the sphere. Which is apparently also the shape of the universe. (Actually, GR says it's not.)

And along the way he also goes into such dada land as -- and I'm doing this tangent only because it was the topic of this very thread -- that obviously the creator first made the soul and then the body. We now know that that's like saying that the clock maker made first The Ticking and then the clock.

And so on and so forth.
I think you are confused: I don't defend Heisenberg's mathematical idealism. You should ask him... his books I want to say.

But you said you were sure Heisenberg didn't know the Timaeus. According to you it is because you could not accept the idea that the world of the senses is a copy of the world of ideas. With the exception of the term "copy", that is what Heisenberg stands for. The apparent reality of things is a result of mathematical forms. I don't see what you see differently from Plato.

Of course --II have said it from the beginning--, Heisenberg does not consider the whole metaphysical theory of ideas, nor were mathematics in Plato's times the same than modern mathematics. You won't find the Demiurge or the cavern in Heisenberg's texts. But Plato's mathematical-ontological basis does.

NOTE: In Cornford's edition of the Timaeus you will find more information about Plato's mathematics that seem to be Pythagorean, as you mentioned above.
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Old 28th May 2018, 07:53 AM   #390
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Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post
But, let's be real: Philosophy is mental masturbation -fun, stimulating and satisfying in it's own right.
Great level of criticism! No danger this passing to the history.
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Old 28th May 2018, 07:54 AM   #391
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The Pythagoreans did influence Plato and a few others, yes. As I was saying, you could make a better case for those, albeit with the caveat that AFAIK we only seem to have incomplete second-hand descriptions of WTH the Pythagoreans actually believed.

As to the Heisenberg quote, the problem I have with it isn't with whatever analogy you want to make for senses vs ideas, but with it being even vaguely related to Quantum Mechanics in any form or shape. Again, it would help if you said exactly what from QM do you think vindicates exactly what from Plato, because I SERIOUSLY don't see even the foggiest resemblance.

ETA: especially I honestly don't see even the vaguest hint of idealism in QM. An electron isn't an ideal, nor the copy of an idea, and has nothing to do with your senses or perceptions. It is a very real piece of matter, that behaves very much as described by very exact mathematical formulas, and did so LONG before there was any idea in anyone's head for it to copy, or any senses that could perceive it. E.g., we talk about the final recombination after the big bang, because before that moment the soup of free electrons and protons were absorbing any photons immediately, making the universe opaque to any kind of electromagnetic radiation. At that point there was nothing heavier than lithium in the universe, so nothing that could possibly have any senses or ideas about those electrons, protons and photons. Yet they still did their thing, just as maths says they should. That's very much a purely external reality, independent of any senses or perceptions or personal ideas, i.e., pure materialism.
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Old 28th May 2018, 08:01 AM   #392
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Originally Posted by Hlafordlaes View Post
Funny you should mention Russell, who I may need to go back to for reasons of this and other threads, but with a mind to levy the same charge as some comments above: I believe his critique of inductive reasoning is also tainted by a search for the kinds of definitive statements one might get in math or, golly, religion. To wit: If you wish to count the black marbles among a sea of white ones in a huge glass jar, you can use, say, statistical sampling and save work, or go for the full count and get an exact number. The inductive conclusion about "black marble populations" is valid. The reason this fails in the broader world, outside bowls of marbles, is that the system (cosmos, reality, whatever) is vast enough to be considered open in practical terms (even if closed), as only a privileged observer would be able to take it all in and reach "proper" hard counts. We are stuck with partial knowledge, meaning that induction works until an exception comes along. Fine, if you are in tune with how science works; disastrous, however, for formulating formal (truth) statements as one might in logic, philosophy, or math (I'm ignoring Gödel's Theorem because I have not done any diligence on it and so do not grok it ).
Your criticism against Russell is disoriented. I would lime some quotation from Russell ilustrating your point of view. (By the way, not any reference to "blck marble" in The Problems of Philosophy that I can remember). I don't know any relation of Russell's analysis of complete induction and religion. I would like you would depelop the idea.
NOTE ADDED: Russell is attacking the principle of induction as the basis of the generalization from the past to the future, which is the basis of all scientific law. His criticism comes from Hume and is impeccable.

I hope you wil aapreciate his:
IN all that we have said hitherto concerning philosophy, we have scarcely touched on many matters that occupy a great space in the writings of most philosophers. Most philosophers −− or, at any rate, very many −− profess to be able to prove, by a priori metaphysical reasoning, such things as the fundamental dogmas of religion, the essential rationality of the universe, the illusoriness of matter, the unreality of all evil, and so on.
There can be no doubt that the hope of finding reason to believe such theses as these has been the chief inspiration of many life−long students of philosophy. This hope, I believe, is vain. It would seem that knowledge concerning the universe as a whole is not to be obtained by metaphysics, and that the proposed proofs that, in virtue of the laws of logic such and such things must exist and such and such others cannot, are not capable of surviving a critical scrutiny.
Yes, The Problems of Philosophy, p. 47.

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Old 28th May 2018, 08:05 AM   #393
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Originally Posted by David Mo View Post
Your criticism against Russell is disoriented. I would lime some quotation from Russell ilustrating your point of view. I don't know any relation of Russell's analysis of complete induction and religion. I would like you would depelop the idea.
One good reason I have to go back is to quote-mine. Bear in mind my objective isn't Russel per se, but one form of critique often leveled against inductive reasoning.

PS - Sorry for extreme late edits in prior post, but it covers much ground known for nitpicks.
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Old 28th May 2018, 08:19 AM   #394
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Originally Posted by Hlafordlaes View Post
One good reason I have to go back is to quote-mine. Bear in mind my objective isn't Russel per se, but one form of critique often leveled against inductive reasoning.

PS - Sorry for extreme late edits in prior post, but it covers much ground known for nitpicks.
Sorry, I just added a quote to my previous comment. I'll dedicate it to you.

Now I'll say goodbye for the moment.
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Old 28th May 2018, 08:21 AM   #395
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Originally Posted by David Mo View Post
Sorry, I just added a quote to my previous comment. I'll dedicate it to you.

Now I'll say goodbye for the moment.
Nice quote, and bully for Russell.
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Old 28th May 2018, 08:21 AM   #396
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Originally Posted by HansMustermann View Post
The Pythagoreans did influence Plato and a few others, yes. As I was saying, you could make a better case for those, albeit with the caveat that AFAIK we only seem to have incomplete second-hand descriptions of WTH the Pythagoreans actually believed.

As to the Heisenberg quote, the problem I have with it isn't with whatever analogy you want to make for senses vs ideas, but with it being even vaguely related to Quantum Mechanics in any form or shape. Again, it would help if you said exactly what from QM do you think vindicates exactly what from Plato, because I SERIOUSLY don't see even the foggiest resemblance.

ETA: especially I honestly don't see even the vaguest hint of idealism in QM. An electron isn't an ideal, nor the copy of an idea, and has nothing to do with your senses or perceptions. It is a very real piece of matter, that behaves very much as described by very exact mathematical formulas, and did so LONG before there was any idea in anyone's head for it to copy, or any senses that could perceive it. E.g., we talk about the final recombination after the big bang, because before that moment the soup of free electrons and protons were absorbing any photons immediately, making the universe opaque to any kind of electromagnetic radiation. At that point there was nothing heavier than lithium in the universe, so nothing that could possibly have any senses or ideas about those electrons, protons and photons. Yet they still did their thing, just as maths says they should. That's very much a purely external reality, independent of any senses or perceptions or personal ideas, i.e., pure materialism.
Change "ideas" by "forms". This is the correct translation.
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Old 28th May 2018, 09:00 AM   #397
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I'm down for that, but still, please explain where you see the relationship.

The PROBLEM of QM is actually that actually anything below a certain scale doesn't look or behave like ANYTHING you might picture in your head, much less the ideal Platonic solids. An electron doesn't even have a shape. It's not a sphere, it's a POINT. But it's also a wave that extends to infinity (although past a point the amplitude is infinitesimal.) And it behaves like neither would in your macroscopic world.

That's WHY we have so many "interpretations" of it. And I don't just mean Copenhagen or Many Worlds, but also such ones as objective collapse (which I personally favour,) and occasionally someone even digs deep and greedily into woowoo-land with their own interpretations. Because no shape or behaviour you could POSSIBLY picture in your head, much less an ideal one, is anything like what happens down there. You have to basically interpret in some more palatable way just to keep your brain from having a monumental fart and passing out.

So, really, please do explain where do you see anything from Plato in it, because I honestly see no resemblance.
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Old 28th May 2018, 11:52 AM   #398
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Basically, if you want a (still over-simplified) image, then imagine skipping a flat stone across a lake. The electron is both the stone AND the waves it causes on the lake. And if something causes the waves to split and then meet again, e.g., because there's a big rock in the middle of the lake, the stone will interfere with itself and change direction. Oh, and it has a probability to skip to the next lake without hitting the wall between them. (Which is how, for example, a Zener diode works.) Etc.

And that barely scratches the surface of how WEIRD, and unlike any macroscopic form it all is. Including anything that Plato ever imagined.
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Old 28th May 2018, 12:35 PM   #399
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I'm not going to get drug down into explaining scientific concepts to when it is obvious there opposition to them is ideological and stems from intentional ignorance, not from lack of knowledge.

And I highly recommend anyone who does try to go down that path keep that in mind.

The goal here is to trap us in an infinite series of nested "Well then explain X..." and at the moment we can't answer anything fully and instantaneously the "gotcha" will be sprung and "Therefore invoking magic or making stuff up at random is justified..." will be invoked.

A person saying something on the level of ignorance that a statement like "Science has no idea how (insert thing science understands perfectly well here)" requires is not ignorant in the traditional sense, we are dealing with intentional and purposeful rejection in order to maintain a delusion.
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Old 28th May 2018, 04:02 PM   #400
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Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post




Basically, his point is that there are some questions science can't answer and that contemplating those questions is good mental exercise. I can't argue with that.

But, let's be real: Philosophy is mental masturbation -fun, stimulating and satisfying in it's own right. But it's no substitute for the real thing -science in this case- if your goal is to actually understand the world around you.
I doubt there would be any science without the philosophers. Ancient Greek philosophers came up with the theory of atoms thousands of years ago, and their theories were not proved until the last century.

Philosophy is in the business of seeking understanding by reason alone, and many philosophers have done a great job of this.

We still cannot say if there is a God or not, nor if we are immortal, so there is plenty of room for new philosophers to take up these issues.
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