35 ms·

This is the basis of all superstition. Our crops were doing poorly, but then I burned a chicken and now they're doing well. Let's keep burning chickens. You ha

This is the basis of all superstition. Our crops were doing poorly, but then I burned a chicken and now they're doing well. Let's keep burning chickens. You have to have an explanation of what counts as a valid empirical relation. And that depends on a whole lot of things worked out by philosophers and scientists. Including, for example, that you can safely ignore correlations that can't have a basis in physical laws. Or that you can write certain symbols on a blackboard and compute the probability that your correlation is worth spending more time on.

lisper 3y ago
I think we have different definitions of empiricism. Empiricism is the belief that sensory experience is necessary for knowledge, not that it is sufficient. It stands in contrast with the belief that knowledge can be justified by pure logic without reference to any sensory experience.
- wizzwizz4 3y ago
  Mathematical knowledge can be justified by pure logic without reference to any sensory experience. Is that not knowledge? (This is an old argument.)
  - lisper 3y ago
    > Mathematical knowledge can be justified by pure logic without reference to any sensory experience. No, I don't think it can. I challenge you to give me an example of mathematical knowledge that you can justify without reference to any sensory experience, keeping in mind that reading and hearing people talk are both sensory experiences. It doesn't even have to be math. I'll bet you can't even define the distinction between "true" and "false" without reference to sensory experience.
- ants_everywhere 3y ago
  Your claim was that empiricism justifies itself, I was explaining why that's not the case. Your definition is overly broad IMO. Empiricism is usually taken to be the belief that the sole source and justification of knowledge is ultimately sensory data. See e.g. Wikipedia or Britannica. It stands in contrast with rationalism sure. But more importantly in the context of your comment and the parent, empiricism also stands in contrast to the only sane POV (IMO), which is that knowledge is combination of empirical and rational sources, as pointed out for example by Kant.
  - lisper 3y ago
    > See e.g. Wikipedia I did: "empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence." Note the phrase "or primarily". > knowledge is combination of empirical and rational sources The "or primarily" hedge is all I need to refute you (or at least to show that we are not actually in disagreement). However, rationality can itself be justified by empiricism if the Church-Turing thesis is correct, which I believe it is.
    - ants_everywhere 3y ago
      I suspect that you're using empiricism somewhat more broadly than philosophers do, and that you may include things like science as a whole. Science is more traditionally IMO considered to be a recursive process with rational (i.e. theory) and empirical (i.e. sense data) steps. In science, sense data provides a constraint on theory and theory (together with psychology) provide a constraint on the raw sense data (in the same way, for example, an AI provides structure to the raw input vectors). If that's something along the lines of what you believe, then sure I'd say we're on the same page and we're not actually in disagreement. But I wouldn't describe that belief system as saying empricism is self-justifying. Empiricism in practice goes off the rails pretty quickly with things like subjective idealism and the belief that there are no external entities, only sense data etc. The thing we have now, where theory and experience mutually constrain each other seems obviously correct to me both in the academic sense (e.g. I think that Kant was right that the mind provides structure to raw sensory data). I also think it's true in the broader sense (e.g. that the applied sciences tend to move more slowly on their own and advance much more rapidly when combined with theory).
      - lisper 3y ago
        > Science is more traditionally IMO considered to be a recursive process with rational (i.e. theory) and empirical (i.e. sense data) steps. That's true, but like so many traditions, it's wrong. Science can be justified entirely in terms of empiricism. To be clear, it is not at all obvious that this is possible (it relies on the Church-Turing thesis), and so people can be forgiven for making this mistake. But it's still a mistake, and it's grounded in ignorance. > Empiricism in practice goes off the rails pretty quickly with things like subjective idealism and the belief that there are no external entities, only sense data etc. Unless your sensory experiences are radically different from mine, then you have to concede that those experiences behave, to a very close approximation, as if external entities exist, and a good explanation for that is that external entities do in fact exist. Ironically, that explanation turns out to be wrong, but to see that you need to dive into quantum mechanics. And the justification for quantum mechanics grounds out in the sensory experience of perceiving the results of experiments. There is no escape from empiricism in the world we live in.
CuriouslyC 3y ago
If you try burning a chicken repeatedly when crops are doing poorly, and it works every time, that hypothesis is supported by the evidence. There's obviously no chain of direct causality, but that is immaterial. This reminds me of scientists who completely shit on astrology for lacking any predictive power. At the very least it has some predictive power because people believe in it and subtly conform to its predictions. Beyond that, there are obviously cycles in the universe and we know biological cycles synchronize with natural ones (melatonin is any easy example, but animals synchronize to year level cycles as well). Are the stars causing the correlations, and are all the correlations astrology talks about present? Clearly not, but there is a mountain of poorly controlled empirical observations that hint to more being there than we've laid out with regard to human character that science is content to shit on because it can't do anything else without looking bad.

lisper 3y ago

I think we have different definitions of empiricism. Empiricism is the belief that sensory experience is necessary for knowledge, not that it is sufficient. It stands in contrast with the belief that knowledge can be justified by pure logic without reference to any sensory experience.

wizzwizz4 3y ago
Mathematical knowledge can be justified by pure logic without reference to any sensory experience. Is that not knowledge? (This is an old argument.)
- lisper 3y ago
  > Mathematical knowledge can be justified by pure logic without reference to any sensory experience. No, I don't think it can. I challenge you to give me an example of mathematical knowledge that you can justify without reference to any sensory experience, keeping in mind that reading and hearing people talk are both sensory experiences. It doesn't even have to be math. I'll bet you can't even define the distinction between "true" and "false" without reference to sensory experience.
ants_everywhere 3y ago
Your claim was that empiricism justifies itself, I was explaining why that's not the case. Your definition is overly broad IMO. Empiricism is usually taken to be the belief that the sole source and justification of knowledge is ultimately sensory data. See e.g. Wikipedia or Britannica. It stands in contrast with rationalism sure. But more importantly in the context of your comment and the parent, empiricism also stands in contrast to the only sane POV (IMO), which is that knowledge is combination of empirical and rational sources, as pointed out for example by Kant.
- lisper 3y ago
  > See e.g. Wikipedia I did: "empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence." Note the phrase "or primarily". > knowledge is combination of empirical and rational sources The "or primarily" hedge is all I need to refute you (or at least to show that we are not actually in disagreement). However, rationality can itself be justified by empiricism if the Church-Turing thesis is correct, which I believe it is.
  - ants_everywhere 3y ago
    I suspect that you're using empiricism somewhat more broadly than philosophers do, and that you may include things like science as a whole. Science is more traditionally IMO considered to be a recursive process with rational (i.e. theory) and empirical (i.e. sense data) steps. In science, sense data provides a constraint on theory and theory (together with psychology) provide a constraint on the raw sense data (in the same way, for example, an AI provides structure to the raw input vectors). If that's something along the lines of what you believe, then sure I'd say we're on the same page and we're not actually in disagreement. But I wouldn't describe that belief system as saying empricism is self-justifying. Empiricism in practice goes off the rails pretty quickly with things like subjective idealism and the belief that there are no external entities, only sense data etc. The thing we have now, where theory and experience mutually constrain each other seems obviously correct to me both in the academic sense (e.g. I think that Kant was right that the mind provides structure to raw sensory data). I also think it's true in the broader sense (e.g. that the applied sciences tend to move more slowly on their own and advance much more rapidly when combined with theory).
    - lisper 3y ago
      > Science is more traditionally IMO considered to be a recursive process with rational (i.e. theory) and empirical (i.e. sense data) steps. That's true, but like so many traditions, it's wrong. Science can be justified entirely in terms of empiricism. To be clear, it is not at all obvious that this is possible (it relies on the Church-Turing thesis), and so people can be forgiven for making this mistake. But it's still a mistake, and it's grounded in ignorance. > Empiricism in practice goes off the rails pretty quickly with things like subjective idealism and the belief that there are no external entities, only sense data etc. Unless your sensory experiences are radically different from mine, then you have to concede that those experiences behave, to a very close approximation, as if external entities exist, and a good explanation for that is that external entities do in fact exist. Ironically, that explanation turns out to be wrong, but to see that you need to dive into quantum mechanics. And the justification for quantum mechanics grounds out in the sensory experience of perceiving the results of experiments. There is no escape from empiricism in the world we live in.

CuriouslyC 3y ago

If you try burning a chicken repeatedly when crops are doing poorly, and it works every time, that hypothesis is supported by the evidence. There's obviously no chain of direct causality, but that is immaterial. This reminds me of scientists who completely shit on astrology for lacking any predictive power. At the very least it has some predictive power because people believe in it and subtly conform to its predictions. Beyond that, there are obviously cycles in the universe and we know biological cycles synchronize with natural ones (melatonin is any easy example, but animals synchronize to year level cycles as well). Are the stars causing the correlations, and are all the correlations astrology talks about present? Clearly not, but there is a mountain of poorly controlled empirical observations that hint to more being there than we've laid out with regard to human character that science is content to shit on because it can't do anything else without looking bad.