3 ms·

You're muddying the water and completely missing the point: Facts are what they are, regardless of what people may say or feel about them. The laws of physics,

by mkempe 9y ago

You're muddying the water and completely missing the point: Facts are what they are, regardless of what people may say or feel about them. The laws of physics, such as Ohm's Law, can be discovered and are facts even were people to deny their validity. The same is true for all facts of nature, including the nature of humans and their rights.

joshuamorton 9y ago
Scientific fact is testable and falsifiable. If you're going to claim that natural rights are fact, I'm going to ask that you provide a testable hypothesis that demonstrates the right to life as a law.
- mkempe 9y ago
  Irrelevant. Things are what they are regardless of what you think, pray, ask, claim, test, or emote. If you truly want to learn about the factual basis of individual rights, there is ample literature for you to look up and read. If you wish to believe or claim that rights are not grounded in the facts of human nature, that's one of your rights.
  - joshuamorton 9y ago
    What the big T Truth is is irrelevant if it can't be proven or measured. Watch: The fact is that I'm a brain in a jar, therefore you don't really exist and have no rights whatsoever. For what you say to be fact, and not just your personal belief wrongly presented as such, you first need to prove to me that you really exist. All this to say, anyone who claims to know the "truth" or "facts" in a discussion about ethics and morals doesn't know what they're talking about.
  - hpcjoe 9y ago
    Ok. So the law of gravity is the law. No matter what I say, right?
    - mkempe 9y ago
      The facts subsumed by Newton's laws. Laws themselves are not the facts they are identifications of facts.
hpcjoe 9y ago
Respectfully, I disagree on both claims. Fact in law is not the same as a fact in science. Scientific "law" is an artifice, more of something created by someone attempting to explain using a poor mapping of language to the way scientists do their work. Scientific theory makes testable and falsifiable predictions. Gravity is a theory, not a law. It makes testable and falsifiable predictions. Specifically, Newtonian gravity, what you call the law of gravity or a "law of physics" is known to be wrong. Given this, how can you claim that they are what they are "regardless of what people may say or feel about them" ? As a (non-practicing Ph.D) physicist, I have this discussion with many non-scientists, to try to help them move beyond the concept of "laws of physics" (there are none), and into the concept of testable predictions arising from the hypotheses in the theory. Ohms "Law" is yet another example. Ohm's law breaks down spectacularly for certain materials under specific conditions. Quantum systems like Josephson junctions most definitely do not obey Ohm's "law". In science, absolute laws do not generally exist. Using your words "regardless of what people may say or feel about them", they are irrelevant, and often incorrect. Scientific "law" is not absolute. They are not "facts". Language, english or otherwise, is a very poor substitute for the language that testable hypotheses are written in. There is often a fundamentally severe impedance mismatch between what is written out, and what the language of science (mathematics FWIW) actually says, or even how to interpret or describe what is going on. Without constructing a strawman, I'd like to point out that in previous centuries, people were so enamored of the fixed natural "laws", that they actually persecuted those who poked holes in them. One that comes to mind is the geocentric model of the universe. This one is particularly interesting, as it had both religious overtones and support, and made specific predictions. The predictions of geocentricism about other planetary orbits did not match observations. That is the fundamental Ptolemaic system law of planetary motion was wrong. But it couldn't be. But it was. So astronomers developed modifications to the laws. Epicycles were invented.[1]. Which made the calculations harder. And it meant you had to discuss a mechanism by which this worked. That is the law which you are claiming to be inviolate, must be modified at best, or discarded at worse. Add in to this very accurate measurements and analysis by Brahe, Kepler, and others, this lead Galileo, Newton and others to formulate a new model of the solar system, backed up by testable predictions. It took a while for this "law" to supplant the previous "law". But supplant it, it did. Because science is not based upon absolute, legalistic versions of laws. Science is based upon testable hypotheses. If the tests fail, so does the hypothesis. This mechanism survived unscathed for about 250 years or so. Until Einstein pointed out the problems with it. My point was simply that just because the popular science writers call it a law, doesn't mean it is a "law". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferent_and_epicycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferent_and_epicycle

by mkempe 9y ago

joshuamorton 9y ago

Scientific fact is testable and falsifiable. If you're going to claim that natural rights are fact, I'm going to ask that you provide a testable hypothesis that demonstrates the right to life as a law.

mkempe 9y ago
Irrelevant. Things are what they are regardless of what you think, pray, ask, claim, test, or emote. If you truly want to learn about the factual basis of individual rights, there is ample literature for you to look up and read. If you wish to believe or claim that rights are not grounded in the facts of human nature, that's one of your rights.
- joshuamorton 9y ago
  What the big T Truth is is irrelevant if it can't be proven or measured. Watch: The fact is that I'm a brain in a jar, therefore you don't really exist and have no rights whatsoever. For what you say to be fact, and not just your personal belief wrongly presented as such, you first need to prove to me that you really exist. All this to say, anyone who claims to know the "truth" or "facts" in a discussion about ethics and morals doesn't know what they're talking about.
- hpcjoe 9y ago
  Ok. So the law of gravity is the law. No matter what I say, right?
  - mkempe 9y ago
    The facts subsumed by Newton's laws. Laws themselves are not the facts they are identifications of facts.

hpcjoe 9y ago

Respectfully, I disagree on both claims. Fact in law is not the same as a fact in science. Scientific "law" is an artifice, more of something created by someone attempting to explain using a poor mapping of language to the way scientists do their work. Scientific theory makes testable and falsifiable predictions. Gravity is a theory, not a law. It makes testable and falsifiable predictions. Specifically, Newtonian gravity, what you call the law of gravity or a "law of physics" is known to be wrong. Given this, how can you claim that they are what they are "regardless of what people may say or feel about them" ? As a (non-practicing Ph.D) physicist, I have this discussion with many non-scientists, to try to help them move beyond the concept of "laws of physics" (there are none), and into the concept of testable predictions arising from the hypotheses in the theory. Ohms "Law" is yet another example. Ohm's law breaks down spectacularly for certain materials under specific conditions. Quantum systems like Josephson junctions most definitely do not obey Ohm's "law". In science, absolute laws do not generally exist. Using your words "regardless of what people may say or feel about them", they are irrelevant, and often incorrect. Scientific "law" is not absolute. They are not "facts". Language, english or otherwise, is a very poor substitute for the language that testable hypotheses are written in. There is often a fundamentally severe impedance mismatch between what is written out, and what the language of science (mathematics FWIW) actually says, or even how to interpret or describe what is going on. Without constructing a strawman, I'd like to point out that in previous centuries, people were so enamored of the fixed natural "laws", that they actually persecuted those who poked holes in them. One that comes to mind is the geocentric model of the universe. This one is particularly interesting, as it had both religious overtones and support, and made specific predictions. The predictions of geocentricism about other planetary orbits did not match observations. That is the fundamental Ptolemaic system law of planetary motion was wrong. But it couldn't be. But it was. So astronomers developed modifications to the laws. Epicycles were invented.[1]. Which made the calculations harder. And it meant you had to discuss a mechanism by which this worked. That is the law which you are claiming to be inviolate, must be modified at best, or discarded at worse. Add in to this very accurate measurements and analysis by Brahe, Kepler, and others, this lead Galileo, Newton and others to formulate a new model of the solar system, backed up by testable predictions. It took a while for this "law" to supplant the previous "law". But supplant it, it did. Because science is not based upon absolute, legalistic versions of laws. Science is based upon testable hypotheses. If the tests fail, so does the hypothesis. This mechanism survived unscathed for about 250 years or so. Until Einstein pointed out the problems with it. My point was simply that just because the popular science writers call it a law, doesn't mean it is a "law". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferent_and_epicycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferent_and_epicycle