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Does anything exist?
- Thread starter Scorpion
- Start date
I'd agree with the above - "Does anything exist?" isn't a worthy scientific question, and it's not even a worthy philosophical question - note the question got zero traction in this thread.
'Naive realism' (objects are what thy appear, or close to as they appear) or some varient of 'realism' is the dominant 'philosophy' of our culture - and of the folks in this thread. Because it is the dominant paradigm, it doesn't feel like 'doing philosophy' to believe it or endorse it - it doesn't even feel like a belief - as it is the norm and rarely challenged.
My point has not been whether endorsing 'realism' is doing philosophy or not, my point is that 'realism' is a belief, and at least to this point in time, this belief has not been demonstrated by science to be true or false.
Nor is believing in 'realism' necessary to doing science.
Perhaps in the future, beieng a realist may hinder one's ability to do good/great science - time will tell. Beliefs have a tendency to become a problem eventually.
Thermal
August Member
You did. Many, many times. You keep handwaving it and pronouncing "philosophy is everything" or philosophy is all metaphysics".
Putting your claims together would be a whole nuther thread.
But we've had threads go on for pages over "materialism" or "the hard problem of consciousness" or "qualia" and that's the exact same question.
Woo is asking if the ketchup is real, Philosophy is asking if the catsup is real.
Belz...
Fiend God
Except that every time after that, everything seems to be lumped right back into it. Philosophy's scope seems to vary with the needs of the one trying to define it. I've provided two definitions that constrain its borders more clearly.
Belz...
Fiend God
Catsup?
Thermal
August Member
Right, but no one is really going that broad with it to warrant the broad brush dismissal in the first place. As I and others have argued, it's fairly tight in scope, yet is used often. Handwaving away all but metaphysics and wrongly claiming that "well then philosophy is everything" is a straw argument.
I use my eyes strictly for seeing, yet use them frequently. Should we dismiss sight, or baldly claim it's all vision is hallucination?
those are different questions than the "Does anything exist?" - but I suspect you know this.
No they aren't. Not really, not once you strip away the fancy language and word games.
"Materialism" is straight up, don't even play nothing but an attempt to make "Reality exists" into just another "opinion" or indeed just another "philosophy" that's an equal to dualism.
Again this has nothing to do with intellectual claptrap, but how the intellectual claptrap is worded.
Put woo in a big fancy leather bound book with some Latin terms and say that someone from the 17th century said it and the philosophy fanclub will eat it up.
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Thermal
August Member
Yeah man, logic and reasoning and values and ethics....its all the same as asking if ketchup is real.
This thread is a case study in talking past each other.
This thread is a case study in talking past each other.
lomiller
Penultimate Amazing
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Metaphysics can go off the rails pretty easily. It's what's left under natural philosophy after you make Science it's own category. This means it includes just about anything that can't be investigated scientifically.
Consequently metaphysics includes some pretty weird untestable stuff but there are also a lot of seemingly scientific questions that, so far as we know, can't be investigated scientifically. Eg what caused the big bang, what exists beyond the edge of the visible universe and why does the universe exist at all. While there are cases where we can infer some things by looking at the part of the universe we can observe there are some distinct barriers beyond which science can no longer give us answers.
lomiller
Penultimate Amazing
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I exist otherwise I couldn't be pondering the question. Therefor something exists.
SpuriusMaximus
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Maybe, but what I've seen so far is more like fighting one's own strawmen from most of "science is like religion" bullcrap peddlers either. I don't even call that the position of philosophy, because philosophy doesn't deserve to all be tarred with that crap brush. It's more like what intellectual zeroes without a border do when they try to pretend they're philosophers.
And while I'll disagree with Joe's or Ian's position that all philosophy is BS peddling... it's not hard to see where he's getting that impression from. If everyone trying to convince you of the merits of some domain X -- let's call it xnorgology -- is just chasing strawmen and trivial/irrelevant platitudes, you too might be excused for forming the impression that it's just a scam.
Anyway...
For a start almost nobody actually proposes naive realism, and it most certainly isn't the position of science. It's a psychological condition, more than anything even resembling science.
In fact from quantum physics, to GR, to neuroscience, to middle-school level science class, almost every scientist will tell you that no, what reaches your retina isn't the absolute, definitive, unaltered representation of reality. Trivial school-level example: due to refraction in the atmosphere, when you SEE the sun touching the horizon, it actually already is below the horizon if you drew a straight line in space between your eyes and the sun. Even more trivial example that even a kid should be able to understand if they know anything about computers: just because you see this text as purple, doesn't mean it's in the (non-existent) wavelength of purple. Even more trivial example for anyone who's even vaguely aware of dogs: just because you can't hear a dog whistle, doesn't mean it actually doesn't make a sound. Etc.
In any of the above examples, believing that whatever your eyes and ears perceive is THE unaltered, exact, indisputable reality is a delusion in psychiatry, not something that the proponents of science actually propose.
So arguing against the naive realism idea is just fighting one's own idiotic strawmen, rather than actually showing any actual problem with science.
I also notice that the more relevant ideas that pop up in such threads are invariably ignored, in favour of chasing such strawmen or doing trivial navel-gazing. Good philosophy, it ain't.
E.g., I didn't see the idea of context being relevant -- I think it was Myriad who posted it -- being addressed, or at least not in any meaningful way. E.g., I don't see any addressing the idea I've posted in more than one thread, namely that it doesn't actually matter for any practical purposes (including scientific) exactly how really real reality is, as long as it changes absolutely nothing, as in, no prediction or experiment will ever turn up any different, and thus is 100% untestable.
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lomiller
Penultimate Amazing
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These same people also thought stars and planets were gods wandering around in the sky.
"A stopped clock is still right twice a day" is a fair analogy to such discoveries made without the good philosophical toolkit. We were able to make valuable discoveries almost at will after philosophy reached a level where we could apply logic and discern sound beliefs from unsound beliefs.
SpuriusMaximus
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That said, ok, you've convinced me. Nothing is real, it's all a dream, and you're all just figments of my imagination.
I worry about you lot. In fact I feel sorry for you.
Because then when I die, it all ends.
And frankly, you don't have long. I drink, I chain smoke, I've never gone to a gym, and I call 3000 kilocalories an appetizer. I eat junk, and not nearly enough veggies either. I routinely skip sleep just to play some game. Etc.
The end is coming and it's nigh. You should fear for your lives, really.
My best advice to you lot is to live every day like it's your last. In fact, like it's my last. Because it may well be.
I worry about you lot. In fact I feel sorry for you.
Because then when I die, it all ends.
And frankly, you don't have long. I drink, I chain smoke, I've never gone to a gym, and I call 3000 kilocalories an appetizer. I eat junk, and not nearly enough veggies either. I routinely skip sleep just to play some game. Etc.
The end is coming and it's nigh. You should fear for your lives, really.
My best advice to you lot is to live every day like it's your last. In fact, like it's my last. Because it may well be.
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Belz...
Fiend God
No, absolutely not. You're implying that they just happened by chance upon those technologies. No. They developed them, by trial and error and keeping what worked. That's the kind of stuff science is based upon.
Look, I get that you really, really, REALLY want philosophy's contributions to be super important and significant, but the reality is that it's focusing on methodologies that worked that brought about the modern world.
You can't think your way to factual conclusions.
Again we're being drug into the weeds of labeling the parts and missing the mechanics.
Again:
There's 2 things and only 2 things.
1. Questions answered within a framework of meaningful standards put in place to increase your chances of getting a correct answer.
2. ********.
I'm comfortable calling #1 science and #2 everything else. But call it whatever you want. Call #1 peanut farming and #2 dancing the Macarana. My point stands, #1 is the only valid methodology.
So now the language has become that 2 somehow created 1 so still gets credit for everything. We still aren't past the "Everything is philosophy" problem.
"Doing the wrong way until you figure out the right way" isn't... a thing that credit for existing.
"Well without philosophy we never would have learned how to walk and chew gum" when THERE WAS NO PROCESS INVOLVED WE JUST TRIED STUFF UNTIL WE FIGURED IT OUT isn't a valid argument.
Doing stuff at random until you find something that works and then doing the thing that works from that point on doesn't make randomness a valid methodoloy.
Again:
There's 2 things and only 2 things.
1. Questions answered within a framework of meaningful standards put in place to increase your chances of getting a correct answer.
2. ********.
I'm comfortable calling #1 science and #2 everything else. But call it whatever you want. Call #1 peanut farming and #2 dancing the Macarana. My point stands, #1 is the only valid methodology.
So now the language has become that 2 somehow created 1 so still gets credit for everything. We still aren't past the "Everything is philosophy" problem.
"Doing the wrong way until you figure out the right way" isn't... a thing that credit for existing.
"Well without philosophy we never would have learned how to walk and chew gum" when THERE WAS NO PROCESS INVOLVED WE JUST TRIED STUFF UNTIL WE FIGURED IT OUT isn't a valid argument.
Doing stuff at random until you find something that works and then doing the thing that works from that point on doesn't make randomness a valid methodoloy.
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lomiller
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I disagree. Most pseudo-science is ultimately based on personal observation, which is an empirical foundation. The problems usually occur when people reject evidence they have not personally seen and arguments, logic or math they cannot personally follow in favor of what they can see personally.
The problem isn't lack of an empirical approach it's lack of a sound framework for what information and arguments should be accepted and which should not.
No part of science can be done without doing philosophy. You can't do science without logic, which is a branch of philosophy. You can't do science without epistemology, which is a part of philosophy. Science can still be done without ethics, but there is at least some reason to it shouldn't.
If I try random things that don't work until I find the thing that does work, that doesn't make "trying random things that don't work" some prerequisite that gets credit for the thing that does work.
And this is even pretending the things that don't work don't get called "just another valid alternative philosophy."
The argument really does seem to be "Hey we tried a bunch of wrong ways that didn't work until we changed upon 'Hey maybe try things like evidence and reason' so don't all those random things, or indeed the very concept of trying random things, get credit?"
No.... no it doesn't.
And this is even pretending the things that don't work don't get called "just another valid alternative philosophy."
The argument really does seem to be "Hey we tried a bunch of wrong ways that didn't work until we changed upon 'Hey maybe try things like evidence and reason' so don't all those random things, or indeed the very concept of trying random things, get credit?"
No.... no it doesn't.