5 ms·

When you say "actually scientists" and "boundaries of human knowledge," you seem to be taking for granted naive views about metaphysical realism, scientific rea

When you say "actually scientists" and "boundaries of human knowledge," you seem to be taking for granted naive views about metaphysical realism, scientific realism, and truth that are not trivial to defend, even for experienced philosophers. If you want to relegate philosophy to obfuscation and trivialities, a good starting place would be to demonstrate that you've made it past the undergraduate, foot stomping "science" phase that, honestly, not enough "actual" scientists seem to have made it past, bringing us mystical nonsense such as the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

lisper 3y ago
> you seem to be taking for granted naive views about metaphysical realism, scientific realism, and truth that are not trivial to defend, even for experienced philosophers. No, I'm not taking these things for granted. I am simply making the empirical observation that the scientific method has produced vastly more tangible progress than other methods, and it has produced this progress in areas that were previously believed to be inaccessible to science. Science works in ways that no other method does. > mystical nonsense such as the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics It's not mystical nonsense, it's a logical consequence of the mathematics of quantum mechanics. You may find it distasteful, but it's the way the world appears to be. You may not like the idea that clocks in space run faster than clocks on earth, but that is also manifestly how the world behaves.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  > > mystical nonsense such as the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics > It's not mystical nonsense, it's a logical consequence of the mathematics of quantum mechanics. It's an interpretation of the mathematics of quantum mechanics. It's not the only possible interpretation. > You may find it distasteful, but it's the way the world appears to be. Yeah? I agree that quantum appears to be the way the world works; show me your concrete evidence for many worlds. You can't do it.
  - lisper 3y ago
    > show me your concrete evidence for many worlds. You can't do it. Most people would agree that the sun emits light in all directions, but there is no way to prove it with concrete evidence. The only thing you can prove with concrete evidence is that the sun emits light in the direction of objects in our solar system that we can see. We infer that the sun emits light in all directions because that is the best explanation that accounts for the data that we have. Many-worlds is the same. We can't demonstrate their existence, we infer it from the current-best explanation that accounts for the data that we have.
    - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      > current-best explanation Many-worlds is by far not accepted to be the "current-best explanation". It's a candidate. It's not clear it's right.
      - lisper 3y ago
        Sorry, I wasn't clear. The current-best explanation is not many worlds, it's the mathematical formalism of QM. Many-worlds is a logical consequence of that.
        AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        Many worlds is one possible interpretation of the logical consequences of that. It's not nearly as definite or clear-cut as you're making it sound.
        lisper 3y ago
        It seems pretty clear cut to me. I've seen no argument against it that doesn't involve some logical fallacy. If you think you know of one please enlighten me.
        AnimalMuppet 3y ago
- shawn-butler 3y ago
  When you look at the actual history of science, this path of “tangible progress” you rely on is shown mostly to be a constructed narrative.
  - lisper 3y ago
    And yet somehow your computer seems to work.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > It's not mystical nonsense, it's a logical consequence of the mathematics of quantum mechanics. Aren't the various interpretations of QM all empirically indistinguishable from within the universe, which is why they are interpretations and not, say, hypotheses?
  - lisper 3y ago
    It turns out that all of the various interpretations are more or less equivalent, with the exception of the various collapse theories, which are empirically testable and have so far all been falsified.
- fsckboy 3y ago
  >> mystical nonsense such as the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics > It's not mystical nonsense, it's a logical consequence of the mathematics of quantum mechanics you're both wrong. What the many-worlds interpretation is, is philosophy. It's thinking about what could be that would be explanatory, in the absence of being able to test it; just as atomic theory was philosophy before it was experimentally shown... and it's still philosophy to think about what has actually been shown, since it was not long after it was "shown" that indivisible atoms became divisible into fundamental particles, that they in turn turned out not to be fundamental either.
  - vehemenz 3y ago
    To be clear, I never suggested the many-worlds interpretation isn't philosophy, but I still think it's mystical nonsense (as most indulgent metaphysical speculation is).
- vehemenz 3y ago
  No one, even the most ardent of postmodernists, is going to disagree that science is a very successful human enterprise and produces progress that philosophy cannot. But that doesn't mean science approaches an account of reality on its own terms. To suggest otherwise is to postulate additional metaphysical baggage that even I, the lowly philosopher, find intolerable.
  - lisper 3y ago
    > that doesn't mean science approaches an account of reality on its own terms. That's true. But just because this is not a valid justification of the assertion that science does not approach an account of reality on its own terms, it does not follow that science does not in fact approach an account of reality on its own terms. > To suggest otherwise is to postulate additional metaphysical baggage that even I, the lowly philosopher, find intolerable. Really? Why? What aspect of reality do you believe is inherently beyond the scope of scientific inquiry?
    - wizzwizz4 3y ago
      The new riddle of induction, perhaps? You can dodge that by choosing suitable priors, or using heuristics like Occam's Razor, but then what justifies those?
      - lisper 3y ago
        The best answer to that question that I know of can be found in chapter 7 of David Deutsch's book, "The Fabric of Reality." But he's just channeling Karl Popper if you want to go straight to the source. The TL;DR is that science does not rely on induction at all.
        wizzwizz4 3y ago
        That's a cop-out. Sure, the methodical process of science doesn't, strictly-speaking, require induction, but we still have to decide whether to expect the result of scientific inquiry to be useful.

lisper 3y ago

> you seem to be taking for granted naive views about metaphysical realism, scientific realism, and truth that are not trivial to defend, even for experienced philosophers. No, I'm not taking these things for granted. I am simply making the empirical observation that the scientific method has produced vastly more tangible progress than other methods, and it has produced this progress in areas that were previously believed to be inaccessible to science. Science works in ways that no other method does. > mystical nonsense such as the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics It's not mystical nonsense, it's a logical consequence of the mathematics of quantum mechanics. You may find it distasteful, but it's the way the world appears to be. You may not like the idea that clocks in space run faster than clocks on earth, but that is also manifestly how the world behaves.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
> > mystical nonsense such as the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics > It's not mystical nonsense, it's a logical consequence of the mathematics of quantum mechanics. It's an interpretation of the mathematics of quantum mechanics. It's not the only possible interpretation. > You may find it distasteful, but it's the way the world appears to be. Yeah? I agree that quantum appears to be the way the world works; show me your concrete evidence for many worlds. You can't do it.
- lisper 3y ago
  > show me your concrete evidence for many worlds. You can't do it. Most people would agree that the sun emits light in all directions, but there is no way to prove it with concrete evidence. The only thing you can prove with concrete evidence is that the sun emits light in the direction of objects in our solar system that we can see. We infer that the sun emits light in all directions because that is the best explanation that accounts for the data that we have. Many-worlds is the same. We can't demonstrate their existence, we infer it from the current-best explanation that accounts for the data that we have.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    > current-best explanation Many-worlds is by far not accepted to be the "current-best explanation". It's a candidate. It's not clear it's right.
    - lisper 3y ago
      Sorry, I wasn't clear. The current-best explanation is not many worlds, it's the mathematical formalism of QM. Many-worlds is a logical consequence of that.
      - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        Many worlds is one possible interpretation of the logical consequences of that. It's not nearly as definite or clear-cut as you're making it sound.
        lisper 3y ago
        It seems pretty clear cut to me. I've seen no argument against it that doesn't involve some logical fallacy. If you think you know of one please enlighten me.
        AnimalMuppet 3y ago
shawn-butler 3y ago
When you look at the actual history of science, this path of “tangible progress” you rely on is shown mostly to be a constructed narrative.
- lisper 3y ago
  And yet somehow your computer seems to work.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> It's not mystical nonsense, it's a logical consequence of the mathematics of quantum mechanics. Aren't the various interpretations of QM all empirically indistinguishable from within the universe, which is why they are interpretations and not, say, hypotheses?
- lisper 3y ago
  It turns out that all of the various interpretations are more or less equivalent, with the exception of the various collapse theories, which are empirically testable and have so far all been falsified.
fsckboy 3y ago
>> mystical nonsense such as the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics > It's not mystical nonsense, it's a logical consequence of the mathematics of quantum mechanics you're both wrong. What the many-worlds interpretation is, is philosophy. It's thinking about what could be that would be explanatory, in the absence of being able to test it; just as atomic theory was philosophy before it was experimentally shown... and it's still philosophy to think about what has actually been shown, since it was not long after it was "shown" that indivisible atoms became divisible into fundamental particles, that they in turn turned out not to be fundamental either.
- vehemenz 3y ago
  To be clear, I never suggested the many-worlds interpretation isn't philosophy, but I still think it's mystical nonsense (as most indulgent metaphysical speculation is).
vehemenz 3y ago
No one, even the most ardent of postmodernists, is going to disagree that science is a very successful human enterprise and produces progress that philosophy cannot. But that doesn't mean science approaches an account of reality on its own terms. To suggest otherwise is to postulate additional metaphysical baggage that even I, the lowly philosopher, find intolerable.
- lisper 3y ago
  > that doesn't mean science approaches an account of reality on its own terms. That's true. But just because this is not a valid justification of the assertion that science does not approach an account of reality on its own terms, it does not follow that science does not in fact approach an account of reality on its own terms. > To suggest otherwise is to postulate additional metaphysical baggage that even I, the lowly philosopher, find intolerable. Really? Why? What aspect of reality do you believe is inherently beyond the scope of scientific inquiry?
  - wizzwizz4 3y ago
    The new riddle of induction, perhaps? You can dodge that by choosing suitable priors, or using heuristics like Occam's Razor, but then what justifies those?
    - lisper 3y ago
      The best answer to that question that I know of can be found in chapter 7 of David Deutsch's book, "The Fabric of Reality." But he's just channeling Karl Popper if you want to go straight to the source. The TL;DR is that science does not rely on induction at all.
      - wizzwizz4 3y ago
        That's a cop-out. Sure, the methodical process of science doesn't, strictly-speaking, require induction, but we still have to decide whether to expect the result of scientific inquiry to be useful.