Does anything exist?

[lomiller]

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.

I think you are missing the point that was being discussed. It's debate over something discussed in video linked in the post quoted below. (very good video and it's worth watching some of her other videos as well)

BTW, the other day I ran into this VDO (Sabine Hossenfelder) re what science can say about what is real - the first minute of the video - this is how I learned and read about science, and what I was referring to earlier in this thread. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTWmz9k7v9M.

Quick summary of the discussion and the sides that were taken
"Philosophy is important"
- Science is a process of creating models that fit the available data and make useful testable predictions. This alone is sufficient to justify it's use


"Philosophy is meaningless"
- Science it's just giving us models that are useful it's giving us the underlying truth about the universe.

I find the second a little weird because that's actually a metaphysical claim. It's not something that can be investigated scientifically, and therefor is a philosophical claim of the worst kind, yet it's being made to support the notions that philosophy doesn't matter.

 

[JoeMorgue]

This is a level of unnecessary pedantic "technically correctness."

Again sure if you create a term that basically means "All ways of thinking about anything" then sure technically it's useful, but only in the most pointless, mathematician's answer completely no functional use in any real scenario way.

The continued, repeated smug gotcha of "Everything is philosophy, therefore you can't criticize philosophy" has made its point, failed at it, and is now wearing out its welcome.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Basically sod off with "Philosophy of the Gaps."

 

[Thermal]

This is a level of unnecessary pedantic "technically correctness."

Again sure if you create a term that basically means "All ways of thinking about anything" then sure technically it's useful, but only in the most pointless, mathematician's answer completely no functional use in any real scenario way.

The continued, repeated smug gotcha of "Everything is philosophy, therefore you can't criticize philosophy" has made its point, failed at it, and is now wearing out its welcome.

Yeah, except that no one is making that argument except you.

You like 3/4ths of philosophy, so you rename them as Not Philosophy.

Then you hold up the 1/4th branch you don't like and keep screaming "Philosophy is for suckers!"

 

[JoeMorgue]

Quick summary of the discussion and the sides that were taken
"Philosophy is important"
- Science is a process of creating models that fit the available data and make useful testable predictions. This alone is sufficient to justify it's use


"Philosophy is meaningless"
- Science it's just giving us models that are useful it's giving us the underlying truth about the universe.

I find the second a little weird because that's actually a metaphysical claim. It's not something that can be investigated scientifically, and therefor is a philosophical claim of the worst kind, yet it's being made to support the notions that philosophy doesn't matter.

Again all you've done is trap us in an argument of definition and declared yourself the winner.

If we say metaphysical questions are meaningless and you turn around go "Aha that's a metaphysical answer so you disproven your own stance" what's the point?

Science doesn't end at beakers and test tubes. It's a methodology that includes things like standards of evidence, falsefiability, etc. If it can't answer questions, the question aren't valid questions, not something "philosophy" either has to or gets to step in and pretend it can answer.

I get it, there's 3 or 4 people here just itching to get to the "Now prove to me how your precious science can tell you a painting is beautiful" (or some similar) argument. I know this dance, I know the steps.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Yeah, except that no one is making that argument except you.

You like 3/4ths of philosophy, so you rename them as Not Philosophy.

Then you hold up the 1/4th branch you don't like and keep screaming "Philosophy is for suckers!"

Yeah because I have a useful, complete term for "philosophy I don't like"

Again you can't define yourself as the winner by going "Everything is Philosophy" and then going "I'm not doing that, stop claiming I'm doing that, show me where I'm doing that."

 

[Belz...]

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.

Yeah, that's what I said: they reject evidence and go with pure thinking. That doesn't work.

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.

Methodology is not philosophy.

No part of science can be done without doing philosophy.

Then you should have an easy time answering my question. Why haven't you?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Basically science is being told "How do you prove yourself? You can't! You need philosophy!"

It's the God argument, just with methodologies and not like... the universe or whatever.

Philosophy gets to self define, self prove, and self critique because... we'll it's defined that way.

 

[Belz...]

Basically science is being told "How do you prove yourself? You can't! You need philosophy!"

It's the God argument, just with methodologies and not like... the universe or whatever.

Philosophy gets to self define, self prove, and self critique because... we'll it's defined that way.

Except if we consult a dictionary, because the word as used here seems to be using a colloquial, dare-I-say convenient definition.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Except if we consult a dictionary, because the word as used here seems to be using a colloquial, dare-I-say convenient definition.

It's not surprising. We never argue a God that anyone actually believes in when discussing God either.

With both God and Philosophy there's this distinct and sperate "argument version" of it that nobody actually uses, built of nothing but special pleading and fuzzy definitions.

 

[Thermal]

It's not surprising. We never argue a God that anyone actually believes in when discussing God either.

With both God and Philosophy there's this distinct and sperate "argument version" of it that nobody actually uses, built of nothing but special pleading and fuzzy definitions.

The "argument version" being repeated to you by multiple posters is pretty much in line with any Phil 101.

The straw version you are repeating back is not.

Serious question: you didn't take a philosophy class in school, did you?

 

[Belz...]

Serious question: you didn't take a philosophy class in school, did you?

I did. It was mandatory. Three semesters, in fact. Aside from reading from boring past philosophers we mostly spent our time writing argument pieces. Now, that was definitely not boring, but it's also mental masturbation more than anything.

 

[Darat]

I exist otherwise I couldn't be pondering the question. Therefor something exists.

And that is it, the agreed upon philosophical answer?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Serious question: you didn't take a philosophy class in school, did you?

Duurrr no I just banged two rocks together and called it a day.

 

[Thermal]

I did. It was mandatory. Three semesters, in fact. Aside from reading from boring past philosophers we mostly spent our time writing argument pieces. Now, that was definitely not boring, but it's also mental masturbation more than anything.

In my one course, we sort of breezed over the history, and dealt heavily with the 3/4ths part. At the end of the course, the prof was like "ok, now for playtime: metaphysics". It was treated like a peripheral kind of game, to test how well you employed the formal reasoning you had been working on to the fringe stuff.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I think you are missing the point that was being discussed. It's debate over something discussed in video linked in the post quoted below. (very good video and it's worth watching some of her other videos as well)



Quick summary of the discussion and the sides that were taken
"Philosophy is important"
- Science is a process of creating models that fit the available data and make useful testable predictions. This alone is sufficient to justify it's use


"Philosophy is meaningless"
- Science it's just giving us models that are useful it's giving us the underlying truth about the universe.

I find the second a little weird because that's actually a metaphysical claim. It's not something that can be investigated scientifically, and therefor is a philosophical claim of the worst kind, yet it's being made to support the notions that philosophy doesn't matter.

And I'm telling you literally that the difference that this thread is trying to argue is meaningless and pointless for any practical purpose, science included. Both your experiences and the science that tells you how to get anything done would literally be the same, no matter whether reality is really "real" (in some meaningless sense of what's really real) or it's a dream or it's a simulation or anything. Unless you can actually make a wall disappear or your car phase out by stopping believing in reality -- and as in, you can actually SHOW with data that that's the case, not just argue "maybes" -- the results of trying to drive your car through a concrete wall will be the same. And how you design a wall that can take that impact, or an airbag that can keep you alive through it, or the car engine that can get you that acceleration, are 100% the same. Not even as in, "as a working model", but literally everything, in every level of detail you wish, down to the orbit of an electron in a gasoline molecule burning in that engine, would literally be the same.

It's literally orthogonal to science. (There's a reason why from the start Aristotle called a certain domain METAphysics, and didn't just include it in his PHYSICS book, if referencing old dead philosophers makes any of you understand better what I'm trying to say.)

So anyone using THAT to argue about how science is another kind of religion, is just doing BS peddling. You can't put down science by virtue that yeah, but there's something else utterly orthogonal, i.e., irrelevant. It's like arguing against medicine (e.g., as pertaining to Corona vaccines) because medicine doesn't devote any research to the fact that Mercury could be in Gemini on your astrology chart for today. LITERALLY that stupid.

I'll also point out that just because someone in a video says that something is best left to philosophy or philosophers, it doesn't necessarily mean singing praises to philosophy. It can be just a more polite way to be about as dismissive about that concern as, well, if JoeMorgue were to say something is best left to philosophers

 

[Thermal]

Duurrr no I just banged two rocks together and called it a day.

It is a serious question. You treat it like a charicture, a freaking cartoon stereotype. Is your exposure more than superficial?

 

[lomiller]

Yeah, that's what I said: they reject evidence and go with pure thinking. That doesn't work.

I reject evidence all the time. Some evidence deserves to be rejected. Pseudo-science happens because people reject the wrong pieces of evidence. The tools used to evaluate evidence properly come directly from philosophy, eg logic and epistemology.

 

[Belz...]

In my one course, we sort of breezed over the history, and dealt heavily with the 3/4ths part. At the end of the course, the prof was like "ok, now for playtime: metaphysics". It was treated like a peripheral kind of game, to test how well you employed the formal reasoning you had been working on to the fringe stuff.

What's your point, though? I've had a psychology course where the teacher promoted the idea of subliminal ads. Interesting, though not based on actual reality.

The larger question here is whether what is usually known as philosophy has any use aside from mental masturbation (which can be fun, but not very useful).

 

[JoeMorgue]

It is a serious question. You treat it like a charicture, a freaking cartoon stereotype. Is your exposure more than superficial?

I'm versed enough. I have zero intent of posting my resume and CV as to my knowledge of philosophy as a topic to the likes of you or anyone else.