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Look, I don't want to get all in the weeds here because it would complicate things unnecessarily, but if it's really that simple to you then you should know tha

Look, I don't want to get all in the weeds here because it would complicate things unnecessarily, but if it's really that simple to you then you should know that this argument contains a logical falacy: Argumentum ad consequentiam or appeal to consequences. Once you let go of thinking that truth is knowable you'll realize that there is some faith that you have. It's not in science per-se; but it might be faith that you exist. That you can reasonably conceive of thoughts. That those thoughts order the world and that the world that you perceive is a representation not unduly clouded. That the actions of your being are guided by your own will. Truth might not be knowable in an absolute sense, but you can use these little starting points of faith then come to appreciate that there is a truth continuum and science is a good approach to discovering knowledge. Philosophy seems so stupid before you start learning it, but it really is beautiful and I regret not being able to pour over it more.

eli_gottlieb 8y ago
Redefining "truth is knowable" to "truth is knowable with infinite certainty a la Descartes" is itself a deeply contentious epistemological stance, and still doesn't validate the use of the term "faith" for ordinary abductive reasoning from experience.
- 3pt14159 8y ago
  I did no such redefinition. Though I also didn't downvote you, because I think it's a valid misunderstanding. I'm arguing that mere truth is unknowable without faith. We have evidence of derangement all around us and it takes faith to proceed as though our actions are our own and are unclouded. From a bayesian perspective, one of our priors must be that there is some probability that the very mind that is doing the thinking may be of a nature that is unable to effectively reason. But there is no escape because the mind is the centre of all investigation.
  - eli_gottlieb 8y ago
    >I'm arguing that mere truth is unknowable without faith. Could you please define "mere" truth? >From a bayesian perspective, one of our priors must be that there is some probability that the very mind that is doing the thinking may be of a nature that is unable to effectively reason. Nonetheless, that probability can be very low, putting us firmly in normal epistemological territory and not requiring any "faith". In fact, millions of people regularly make the rational, but clouded, assessment that they are too drunk to drive, and take a taxi home. (Also, from a Bayesian perspective, the form of the generative model and priors is up to the experimenter. From a formal epistemology perspective, you can either try to designate some optimal universal prior, or you can take a variational approach and simply say you want to minimize KL divergence of your predictive posterior from your available data.)
  - ux-app 8y ago
    > I'm arguing that mere truth is unknowable without faith Does the infantry man's faith in ballistic charts affect where a mortar will land? Yes it turned out that Newtonian physics doesn't describe absolute truth, but it sure is useful if you need to blow that enemy up over on that hill. > one of our priors must be that there is some probability that the very mind that is doing the thinking may be of a nature that is unable to effectively reason. An interesting thought experiment, but what practical use can I apply it to? btw I'm not implying that only lines of inquiry that result in practical uses are worthwhile, but, science for the most part is related to this. I guess there is a distinction to be drawn between faith and blind faith. "Faith" in the atomic model allowed prediction of elements that had not yet been discovered. That faith was rewarded when the elements turned up exactly where expected (even though the orbital model of electrons turned out not to be the absolute truth). "Faith" in Einsteins theories required a belief in time dilation. Turns out we can't have GPS without accounting for it. This is quite different to, for example, religious faith which so far has not had any of these predictive powers.
gjm11 8y ago
"I believe in science because it works" is not an argumentum ad consequentiam. What characterizes an AaC is the following structure: if X were true then the consequences would be good/bad; therefore X is (probably) true/false. So if eli_gottlieb were saying "I believe in science because it would be lovely if science were right", that would be an AaC. But that's not at all what he's saying. The form of his argument is more like this: "by assuming X we can arrive at a bunch of conclusions, and they consistently seem to be correct ones; therefore X is probably true". And that is (a rough sketch of) a pretty good argument. (There are nits to pick -- more with my paraphrase than with Eli's original. For instance, science isn't a bunch of propositions so much as it's a way of trying to find truths, so "believing in science" isn't so much "believing that X" as "endorsing X as a method". And "... therefore X is probably true" isn't quite the right thing; "... and this constitutes evidence for X" is better. Etc.)
- 3pt14159 8y ago
  See how you used the word seem there? That's where the little faith bits seep in. In the seems.
  - eli_gottlieb 8y ago
    Faith and plausibility remain two different things, unless you really want to argue that "faith" is simply "any overcoming of radical skepticism or solipsism".
  - gjm11 8y ago
    The only point I was making is that Eli's comment was not, contrary to your claim, an argumentum ad consequentiam. That's an entirely separate question from (e.g.) whether it involves something you can call "faith". But: If you define "faith" broadly enough then sure, everything with any element of belief to it involves "faith". Derive everything rigorously from axioms? That means having "faith" in your axioms! Do literally anything else at all? That means taking a step at some point that doesn't have a watertight logical justification, so it's "faith"! -- So, sure, Eli's argument (or at least my sketchy reconstruction of it) involves an element of "faith", just like literally every other argument anyone could ever possibly make. I guess this is what you mean by denying "that truth is knowable". If by "knowable" you mean "... with literally no room for any sort of uncertainty" then I vigorously agree with you -- but I have the impression (perhaps wrongly) that you were offering this as some sort of correction or education for eli_gottlieb, and I see no reason to think he needs it. All he's said is that he believes in science because it works, and that is perfectly consistent with taking "believe" to mean "accept as our current best approximation, to the best of our knowledge, to the truth, with the understanding that later discoveries might change our opinions greatly" or something of the sort.

eli_gottlieb 8y ago

Redefining "truth is knowable" to "truth is knowable with infinite certainty a la Descartes" is itself a deeply contentious epistemological stance, and still doesn't validate the use of the term "faith" for ordinary abductive reasoning from experience.

3pt14159 8y ago
I did no such redefinition. Though I also didn't downvote you, because I think it's a valid misunderstanding. I'm arguing that mere truth is unknowable without faith. We have evidence of derangement all around us and it takes faith to proceed as though our actions are our own and are unclouded. From a bayesian perspective, one of our priors must be that there is some probability that the very mind that is doing the thinking may be of a nature that is unable to effectively reason. But there is no escape because the mind is the centre of all investigation.
- eli_gottlieb 8y ago
  >I'm arguing that mere truth is unknowable without faith. Could you please define "mere" truth? >From a bayesian perspective, one of our priors must be that there is some probability that the very mind that is doing the thinking may be of a nature that is unable to effectively reason. Nonetheless, that probability can be very low, putting us firmly in normal epistemological territory and not requiring any "faith". In fact, millions of people regularly make the rational, but clouded, assessment that they are too drunk to drive, and take a taxi home. (Also, from a Bayesian perspective, the form of the generative model and priors is up to the experimenter. From a formal epistemology perspective, you can either try to designate some optimal universal prior, or you can take a variational approach and simply say you want to minimize KL divergence of your predictive posterior from your available data.)
- ux-app 8y ago
  > I'm arguing that mere truth is unknowable without faith Does the infantry man's faith in ballistic charts affect where a mortar will land? Yes it turned out that Newtonian physics doesn't describe absolute truth, but it sure is useful if you need to blow that enemy up over on that hill. > one of our priors must be that there is some probability that the very mind that is doing the thinking may be of a nature that is unable to effectively reason. An interesting thought experiment, but what practical use can I apply it to? btw I'm not implying that only lines of inquiry that result in practical uses are worthwhile, but, science for the most part is related to this. I guess there is a distinction to be drawn between faith and blind faith. "Faith" in the atomic model allowed prediction of elements that had not yet been discovered. That faith was rewarded when the elements turned up exactly where expected (even though the orbital model of electrons turned out not to be the absolute truth). "Faith" in Einsteins theories required a belief in time dilation. Turns out we can't have GPS without accounting for it. This is quite different to, for example, religious faith which so far has not had any of these predictive powers.

gjm11 8y ago

"I believe in science because it works" is not an argumentum ad consequentiam. What characterizes an AaC is the following structure: if X were true then the consequences would be good/bad; therefore X is (probably) true/false. So if eli_gottlieb were saying "I believe in science because it would be lovely if science were right", that would be an AaC. But that's not at all what he's saying. The form of his argument is more like this: "by assuming X we can arrive at a bunch of conclusions, and they consistently seem to be correct ones; therefore X is probably true". And that is (a rough sketch of) a pretty good argument. (There are nits to pick -- more with my paraphrase than with Eli's original. For instance, science isn't a bunch of propositions so much as it's a way of trying to find truths, so "believing in science" isn't so much "believing that X" as "endorsing X as a method". And "... therefore X is probably true" isn't quite the right thing; "... and this constitutes evidence for X" is better. Etc.)

3pt14159 8y ago
See how you used the word seem there? That's where the little faith bits seep in. In the seems.
- eli_gottlieb 8y ago
  Faith and plausibility remain two different things, unless you really want to argue that "faith" is simply "any overcoming of radical skepticism or solipsism".
- gjm11 8y ago
  The only point I was making is that Eli's comment was not, contrary to your claim, an argumentum ad consequentiam. That's an entirely separate question from (e.g.) whether it involves something you can call "faith". But: If you define "faith" broadly enough then sure, everything with any element of belief to it involves "faith". Derive everything rigorously from axioms? That means having "faith" in your axioms! Do literally anything else at all? That means taking a step at some point that doesn't have a watertight logical justification, so it's "faith"! -- So, sure, Eli's argument (or at least my sketchy reconstruction of it) involves an element of "faith", just like literally every other argument anyone could ever possibly make. I guess this is what you mean by denying "that truth is knowable". If by "knowable" you mean "... with literally no room for any sort of uncertainty" then I vigorously agree with you -- but I have the impression (perhaps wrongly) that you were offering this as some sort of correction or education for eli_gottlieb, and I see no reason to think he needs it. All he's said is that he believes in science because it works, and that is perfectly consistent with taking "believe" to mean "accept as our current best approximation, to the best of our knowledge, to the truth, with the understanding that later discoveries might change our opinions greatly" or something of the sort.