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Do clever people outsmart themselves?

Chanakya said:
Does some girl you fancy reciprocate the feeling to the extent of actually loving you? Only you can answer that question to your satisfaction.
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Horse swaggle.

You don't get to define the chemical makeup of another person's brain, which is all that love is. If her brain has the proper levels and ratios of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin she is in love. This is an objective fact.

Whether or not your brain has the chemical makeup to love her back is another thing, but it's an objective fact that is or isn't true.
 
That could be, actually. Hadn't thought of it like that. Sure, one could get one's girlfriend to get bloodwork done, and an MRI, and objectively decide if she does love one. Agreed, in theory at least, that might work.


Also, I see I'm conflating two things here. First, as halleyscomet asks, what is love (or what degree of love); and second, what amounts to sufficient evidence for it.

That said, when it comes to everyday social cues, how much evidence is adequate? Can that be objective? I'm no longer as emphatic as I was before reading your post, but I guess I'd still go for a yes.





eta:
By the way, Joe, my original post wasn't so much about whether something -- love, or the destance between moon and earth -- is objective (it is -- I'm not suggesting otherwise at all; and your post shows up the limitation of the love analogy), but about whether the necessary rigor of evidence, whether that is subjective, that floor, that threshhold.
 
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Chanakya said:
I would say it is.

Does some girl you fancy reciprocate the feeling to the extent of actually loving you? Only you can answer that question to your satisfaction.
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There are lot of questions only I can answer to my satisfaction. That does not make them "wholly subjective". The answer might not be obvious or cut and dried, but that simply means I might not be sure of the answer, not that the answer is wholly subjective.

"Does person X fancy me?" doesn't have have any more or less of a subjective answer than "Does person X like the Lord of the Rings movies?" Their feelings toward me or the Lord of the Rings movies are independent of whether or not I have the ability to answer those questions satisfactorily.
 
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That's the thing. "Personal emotional states" are not... random events. They are causative.

"I got mad" is not some special different kind of statement then "Water is wet."

"Mad" is a specific amount of certain chemicals in my brain. Love is a specific amount of certain chemicals in my brain. Enjoying or not enjoying a movie is a specific amount of certain chemicals in my brain. Liking or not liking tuna salad is a specific amount of certain chemicals in my brain. These are facts, not up for debate.

Even the big philosophical mic drop "Can science tell you if a painting is beautiful" can... easily be answered. A painting is beautiful to me if a certain chemical balance in my brain happens when I look at it, and before we turtle all the way down yes there's a reason for that chemical balance as well.
 
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JesseCuster said:
There are lot of questions only I can answer to my satisfaction. That does not make them "wholly subjective". The answer might not be obvious or cut and dried, but that simply means I might not be sure of the answer, not that the answer is wholly subjective.

"Does person X fancy me?" doesn't have have any more or less of a subjective answer than "Does person X like the Lord of the Rings movies?" Their feelings toward me or the Lord of the Rings movies are independent of whether or not I have the ability to answer those questions satisfactorily.
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You misunderstand me, I'm not suggesting for a minute that the thing itself is subjective.

Like I said just now to Joe, my point was, my question was, in that post of mine that you quoted a sentence from -- and okay, love may or may not be the best analogy there -- the rigor, the extent, the quality of the evidence required, is that subjective ?

For the love thing, it probably is, at least within reason. That was the point of my response to you. (Unless, like Joe, you want to haul your -- generic your -- girlfriend off for a brain scan, to arrive at an objective measure.)

But what about actual science? Is it subjective there as well, the extent and rigor and quality of evidence necessary? That last is what I wanted a practicing scientist's take on.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
That's the thing. "Personal emotional states" are not... random events They are causative.

"I got mad" is not some special different kind of statement then "Water is wet."

"Mad" is a specific amount of certain chemicals in my brain. Love is a specific amount of certain chemicals in my brain. Enjoying or not enjoying a movie is a specific amount of certain chemicals in my brain. Liking or not liking tuna salad is a specific amount of certain chemicals in my brain. This are facts, not up for debate.

Even the big philosophical mic drop "Can science tell you if a painting is beautiful" can... easily be answered. A painting is beautiful to me if a certain chemical balance in my brain happens when I look at it, and before we turtle all the way down yes there's a reason for that chemical balance as well.
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Sure. Point made, and point taken, like I already said. In theory at least, one can measure the chemicals in the brain, or whatever, to arrive at an objective answer. No disagreement there.
 
Chanakya said:
Sure. Point made, and point taken, like I already said. In theory at least, one can measure the chemicals in the brain, or whatever, to arrive at an objective answer. No disagreement there.
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Then what's the disagreement?

Because I'm starting to smell yet another.

"Oh I absolutely agree with you 100%."

*Wait for it*

*Wait for it*

*Wait for it*

"But..."

*There it is.*
 
JoeMorgue said:
Then what's the disagreement?
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I believe the amount of evidence, in a normal everyday sense (not the haul-off-your-gf-for-a-neural-scan-to-see-if-she-loves-you sense), that lets you decide if your gf loves you, is subjective. Whether you disagree, you'll have to say.

In any case, this is incidental to the question I'd asked, in my original post here.


Because I'm starting to smell yet another.

"Oh I absolutely agree with you 100%."

*Wait for it*

*Wait for it*

*Wait for it*

"But..."

*There it is.*
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This you'll have to take up with your nose.



What I smell, btw, is straw.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
Horse swaggle.

You don't get to define the chemical makeup of another person's brain, which is all that love is. If her brain has the proper levels and ratios of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin she is in love. This is an objective fact.

Whether or not your brain has the chemical makeup to love her back is another thing, but it's an objective fact that is or isn't true.
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Maybe the need for human reproduction could create the feeling of love in our chemistry. But I can testify to the fact I loved a pet bird, and she knew it.
When I first got her she bit me to the bone if I tried to handle her, but I seduced her by ticking her with a feather, and in the end she responded to me and used to come to me to be cuddled. I know love is more than chemistry.
 
JoeMorgue said:
It's not necessary except to counter the "But can your cold, hard science show you love!!!!!!" nonsense.

Yes. Yes it can. Verily easily in fact.
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While that is true, I think what David was going for also fails epically in a simpler way.

Let's say that, for whatever reason, you can't tell based on evidence whether someone loves you or not. And I really mean whatever reason. I don't care if one's argument is that no evidence is scientific enough for them, or they're just autistic, or they married a manipulative sociopath who makes it really really hard to tell, or whatever. Let's only say that the evidence they have or will accept isn't quite disproving the null hypothesis to their satisfaction.

Well... is getting that "knowledge" WITHOUT evidence -- i.e., via faith and magical thinking -- any easier or more reliable?

Seems to me like on the contrary, the domain of those who just "know" without evidence that someone loves them, is more like populated with such stereotypes as the deranged stalker, the abused spouse rationalizing it, and otherwise people who are SPECTACULARLY wrong about it. Claiming that one must abandon the evidence-based epistemology for that problem is quite trivially wrong. And quite often dangerous.
 
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Of course not. To people like David "science" is just a codeword for ideas that need to supported and "philosophy" is just a codeword for ideas that don't.

Hell if anything it's even more basic than that.

With science... you can be wrong. I've yet to see how you can be wrong (outside of not agreeing with David) in David's worldview.
 
David Mo said:
I didn't say science is idolatry. Reductionism is not science. It is an ideology. I don't know if science is right 99% or 75% of the time -I don't know any article about this- but it's clear that it's the safest way to get the facts straight. In a conflict between science and something else I wouldn't hesitate.

But you were distancing yourself from reductionism. I don't know why you tell me the rest. Specially the dirty part. Beware of feces. You have to pay close attention to where they are and not take a wrong step.
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Wow. You just don't get it. I am neither distancing myself from reductionism nor embracing it. I don't think about science philosophically and think it is a waste of time to do so.

What I am saying is your entire diatribe is absurd pedantic nonsense. I also didn't say that science was right 99 percent of the time. I said it was the best way to determine what is true 99 percent of the time. That maybe an exaggeration. There are probably lots of day to day things that we accept to be true that don't require a structured method of discovery.

Still, if it is important to understand something and feel confident. I'm going with science.
 
HansMustermann said:
And in my example about learning how far I can drive a car before needing to refuel, I'm using repetition of the same event: driving the same route. So, again, why doesn't that qualify for the scientific method?

I know that spewing generic BS instead of addressing the actual question is easier, but do try to follow.



Neither was the claim that it has to be peer-reviewed level evidence in the claim where you brought them up, actually. Your claim was just that you couldn't even go outside if you lived your life based on evidence. Your whole starting to run around with the goalposts about what is rigorous enough for published science wasn't even in that claim at all.

So... Yada, yada, cow goes moo, duck goes quack, and David Mo makes up some BS redefining the topic when he doesn't actually have a point. Which tends to be all the time. What else is new? :p

But to return to your examples, what you've actually said there is NOT that evidence isn't everything. All you've said there is that you're not bothered to look for evidence in a bunch of cases. Which isn't a limitation of the scientific method, it's just you not doing it. Saying that that's a limitation of the scientific method is like saying that my car must be broken, because I couldn't be bothered to drive it anywhere on the weekend.


Compare with:


Which one is it, silly? Because either it has to be perfect, or there is in fact a level where it's deemed controlled enough/sufficient. You can't have both.

Bonus points for not understanding that almost all evidence in science is circumstantial for the theory it supports. If it were direct evidence, that one is defined as leaving only one possibility being possible at all. So we could stop trying to falsify it or come up with a better explanation, because by definition it wouldn't be possible to have any other one.

But you're just making up what words mean as you go, as usual, right?



Why don't you actually ask one if there is such a thing as controlled enough, instead of making up imaginary students supporting your position? :p
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I do not deny that you have a practical knowledge of how to fill your car's tank. It is based on a series of instructions you have been given by the company (principle of authority) and some immediate experience about where the tank inlet is, how the pump works, etc. That is knowledge. That's the thesis I'm defending. But, no matter how clever you think you are in doing so, that's not science.

If you want to realize the difference between science and mere practical knowledge, compare your knowledge of refueling your car with that of the NASA team designing a Martian exploration module. For example, do you realize that when you load your car with gasoline you don't control a lot of variables about operation of the motor, combustible, etc. and that the NASA team does?

Finally, neither the NASA team can be absolutely sure of controlling all the variables involved in its experiment. The same thing happens in any scientific explanation. Science is not absolute knowledge. But that doesn't make you Einstein when you refuel your car. Among other things because science is not only knowing how to do something but why. Among other things because it is one thing not to have absolute certainty of the variants and another not to have or idea of any. Among other things it would be very long to detail. I hope you realize the differences.
 
Dave Rogers said:
That's a bit of a bugger for the medical sciences then. If only they could have come up with some way to account for the impossibility of rigorously controlling all possible variables in a complex biological system, that could do something useful like assigning a level of confidence to their results based on a hypothetical branch of mathematics that dealt with large amounts of uncertain data. But clearly that can only lead to experiments failing, so we can never have such a thing as medical science, and "evidence-based medicine is an oxymoron.

Dave
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Human sciences have problems with control of variables. Medicine is not an exception. Therefore it is not as exact as physics.
 
JesseCuster said:
Railing against scientism or reductionism or other -isms you don't like isn't going to change that. Nothing I said had anything to do with scientism or reductionism anyway, so there's not much point in directing your objections toward me on those subjects.
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I don't think we'll change anything from this forum. If you don't profess scientism as a religion you don't have to feel alluded.
 
Chanakya said:
David's POV does raise one question (not one he's himself explicitly raised) : how rigorous must evidence be, in order for it to be considered scientific? Is there a rule, or is it entirely subjective?

When considering if X's wife loves X, it's wholly subjective. X may consider some woman smiling at him casually to be proof she loves him; or may considering her swearing blood oaths to be insufficient evidence; that is his business, and the rest of us may, at best, intersubjectively disagree with his particular standards.

But when it comes to science, how rigorous is minimally rigorous? I think that might be an interesting question, that actual practitioners of science could answer for the rest of us.

(Your view, Hans, seems to indicate subjectivity, with practicability, with what is feasible, the primary criterion. But perhaps I misunderstand you? At what point does the scientist say, below this threshhold of rigor in evidence, conclusions simply aren't scientific? Is that threshhold entirely suibjective, is my question.)
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The demarcation problem you mention is very serious. I do not believe that there is a precise limit between what is science and what is not. But broadly speaking, the distinction can be made. I suppose you would agree that putting gasoline in the tank is not science.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I can literally strap David into an MRI and objectively prove he "loves" his wife or not.

Within a few years we'll be able to alter the chemistry of David's and make him love or not love his wife.

Nothing subjective about it.

*And cue the "But wHAt abOUT dA QUALIA!" nonsense*
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You've lost the north of the debate. We are discussing whether in everyday life we use other types of knowledge that are not science. I don't think you go with an MRI down the street. And I don't advise you to try to use it on your wife. I don't think she will took it too well.
 
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