Francois Tremblay
Banned
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If you can't measure it, it's not real.
Same challenge to you, then. How do you measure the colouration or mating behavior of Archeopteryx?
bruto
Penultimate Amazing
I also question Francois's assertion, but I'm not sure the archeopteryx is the best example. If we can say with reasonable certainty that the critter didexist at all, it is reasonable to assume that it had certain properties, and although we cannot measure them now, properties such as color that are not inherently unmeasurable can be reasonably assumed to have existed, even if we cannot now measure them or know their details. I would hope nobody here is such a phenomenalist that he would argue that since there were no persons there to record it the archeopteryx was, by definition, colorless.
But what if a subject is inherently unmeasurable? Does that really mean it simply cannot exist? It certainly means we cannot know it, and implies that we should ignore it, but can we be that sure that there is nothing in the universe that can be said even conceivably to exist, that we are not equipped to experience? Is it conceivable that there are other beings in the universe that experience other things than we do? If it is even conceivable that there are, then it is at least conceivable, however unlikely, that real things exist which to us are inherently unmeasurable.
Batman Jr.
Graduate Poster
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Appeal to authority fallacy. You are still quite wrong. The only thing you enlighten us with by making this comment is how bad your education was.
Oy. I bet you still believe Karl Popper solved the problem of induction. What kind of nonsensical idea do you have that the "existence" of something is qualified by what it interacts with? Before, you said that just as long as something interacts with something else, it "exists." Now you're resorting to philosophical prevarication so you don't have to admit that you were wrong that things can exist of which we will never be aware.
There are at least three who have been arguing in favor of exactly such a pheomenalist position : Francois, Melendwyr, and Festus.
The problem is that "inherently unmeasurable" lacks a satisfactory definition. "Colour" is, in fact, too broad a property to consider as a whole. My Honda certainly has a measurable colour (and you're welcome to drop by my office and measure it), but my aspirations, hopes, and dreams do not. I submit, in fact, that it's a domain error to ascribe "colour" to feelings, and as such, "the colour of my dreams" does not exists and is unmeasurable.
Archeopteryx is in a special intermediate place; we can agree that it is not a domain error to talk about the colour of a bird we've never seen, will never see, and in principle ("inherently") cannot ever see. This makes "the colour of an Archeopteryx" inherently unmeasurable.
Especially when we're talking about science, we cannot afford to conflate questions of present capacity ("can we show") with question of theoretical capacity ("can it, in theory, be shown"). But just as importantly, we cannot conflate questions of theoretical capacity with questions of ontology. It is currently believed, for example, that we cannot ever interact with so-called tachyons -- particles that move faster than light -- because of the global causality violations that would result. This does not mean that tachyons don't exist, just that they cannot be detect. Similarly, we cannot ever observe conditions past the event horizon of a black hole, but that doesn't mean there are no conditions there. And similarly, we cannot observe the colour of a long-extinct dinosaur, but that doesn't mean it was colourless.
As demonstrated by your authoritative citing of your own opinion, I suppose.
I'm not claiming that I'm right because of my degree, and the fact that you try to pretend I am says a great deal about your argument. I'm right because my position is coherent and logically consistent. You should try it some time.
It exists relative to that thing. That's the only way 'existence' can be used in a meaningful sense.
When we compare the concept of "a thing that doesn't interact in any way, directly or indirectly, with us" and that of "a thing that doesn't exist", we quickly find that the implications of the first are identical in every way to the implications of the second. There simply isn't a way in which hypothetical things which don't interact with our universe can be said to exist.
Disagree? Give us another definition of 'existence', explained through reference to other concepts. If you can, which I most sincerely doubt.
No. We cannot say that the color of an Archeopteryx cannot be known in principle. All we can say is that the evidence currently available to us does not speak as to their color.
What exactly is the difference between something that cannot in principle be measured, and something that doesn't exist? Explain this to us.
The destruction of evidence, for one. If I burn a paper and powder the ashes, does that mean that the writing on the paper never existed?
On the contrary. I just did. On the grounds that the evidence that would permit us to know the colour is no longer available to any observer.
It's not a question of what you specifically cannot do. It's not a question of what I specifically cannot do. It's a question of what cannot in principle be done by any observer -- because the necessary conditions for doing it no longer hold.
I suppose I should thank you for expanding my vocabulary. This is a new use of the words "coherent" and "logically consistent" that I have not previously seen.
The writing that was on the paper is still subject to scientific investigation. Just not with our current level of technological development.
Says who?
You don't know them. Why won't you accept this simple point?
Batman Jr.
Graduate Poster
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You explained nothing on the observability of the value of the variable outlined in the concept of "subjective experience." Your position cannot be "coherent" and "logically consistent" when it is not even enumerated. I do not cite my own opinion as an authority; what I did say is that I have come to my conclusion and wish not to hold the same ridiculous debate for the millionth time over that conclusion and would rather you just read the material pertaining to Chalmers' "hard problem of consciousness" to get an idea of why people such as I believe what we do about "subjective experience."
A thing either exists or it doesn't. There is no such thing as "existing relative to" something. I've never heard of such a parameter invoked to describe existence, and I don't think anyone else has either. It's just idealist dogmatism integrating itself into your definition of "existence." In materialism, things can "exist" independent of awareness of them, so if you want to be philosophically even-handed, you'll drop your argument. It is also of note that you substitute "practical implication" for "actual reality." Since my position is not concerned with the former, you are using a straw man to justify yourself.
For approximately the same reason that I don't accept that the current Emperor of Japan is a cow. Because it's wrong to the point of lunacy.
But it's not.
The question of whether there is organic life in, say, the Alpha Centauri system, is not within the domain of current science, but that doesn't make it outside of potential scientific inquiry.
This paper-burning example is similar. We currently do not possess the ability to determine what was written on that paper; that does not mean that it cannot be done.
The question of whether there is organic life in, say, the Alpha Centauri system, is not within the domain of current science, but that doesn't make it outside of potential scientific inquiry.
This paper-burning example is similar. We currently do not possess the ability to determine what was written on that paper; that does not mean that it cannot be done.
Read it. The man is a complete fool. If his arguments have a bearing on what you believe, you're also a complete fool.
Who said anything about awareness or materialism? Interaction is the concept being discussed.
You can't even seem to understand basic English, and you expect us to accept that you can make pronouncements about philosophy?
At a small enough level, it does. (Or, more accurately, we have more evidence that it cannot be done, than evidence that it can.)
Similar atoms or molecules are actually chemically and physically identical; that's one of the well-established fundamental bases of Dalton's Atomic Theory. If I were to capture a single water molecule, release it, and then re-capture it later, there's no way to determine whether I in fact captured the same molecule or a different one. If I capture a carbon dioxide molecule, there's no way to establish whether was created by the burning of a piece of paper, or by glucose metabolism inside a human body (or any of the other potential sources of carbon dioxide).
Similarly, observations of any effect smaller than the various limits established by Planck's theory are in principle impossible.
If I burn paper and then powder it finely enough, the individual particles will be indistinguishable from each other and from any other particles that would result from burning paper. At a small enough level, no evidence will remain, even in principle, to permit a scientist of any era to recover the writing on the paper. If the only tests that could in principle analyze and recover evidence themselves contradict the laws and principles of science, then it's it's not possible, in principle, to perform those tests -- and therefore not possible, in principle, to investigate the evidence.
To hold otherwise is to reject most of the foundations of science. Which brings me back to my "to the point of idiocy" comment.
bagtaggar
Critical Thinker
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- Oct 22, 2005
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This is a very interesting back and forth we have going here.
It's hard to pick a side here, but I think it would be fair to say that there are things in this Universe that have been irreversibly altered to the point where no scientific inquiry can decipher their origins, however precisely what those things are I don't think anyone knows for sure. Technology has proven over and over again its ability to push the envelope of what we can and cannot know, or what is irreversibly altered.
Interesting example, the development of cinematic imaging techniques, like image based lighting and camera matchings. It seemed almost unimagineable that you could track/replicate the motion of a free, hand held camera only a few decades ago, especially if no one was present to observe the camera motion other than the camera man. Often all you have is the film/video. Perhaps if you had previously measured a few points on the ground as a reference for some frame by frame process it could be accomplished, but even so capturing the subtlety of motion of a walking human carrying a camera based entirely on the image produced seemed an insurmountable task. Today we have software like matchmover pro, which does precisely that. It tracks individual pixels and extrapolates camera motion based on thousands of tracks a second. Similar software enables special effects wizards to relight a scene with all the appropriate caustics, specular highlights, translucency and sub surface scattering using only a digital camera, a digital projector, and some proprietary software packages.
Similarly, who is to say that some day, if you were to burn a piece of paper with writing on it, that some volumetric particle tracking system running on a quantum computer couldn't calculate the particle interactions and trace them backwards to their original placement inside the fabric of the paper? Obviously you would need a camera set up ahead of time, and perhaps this would defeat the purpose since you could just record the text itself, but similar experiments with image based lighting have been performed. Based entirely on the light bouncing off of a text book, using only diffuse-diffuse interactions, the software they have today can reconstruct the image of a playing card that the camera cannot actually see, color, detail and all.
Perhaps some day we will develope a wormhole light tunneling system a la "Light of Other Days" and actually take a look at the Archeopteryx plumage.
Who knows. Perhaps a singularity is the only place this kind of regressive science can't go. I don't know, and I'm sure speculation is only frustrating. But I suggest caution before one declares what is irreversible and what isn't.
It's hard to pick a side here, but I think it would be fair to say that there are things in this Universe that have been irreversibly altered to the point where no scientific inquiry can decipher their origins, however precisely what those things are I don't think anyone knows for sure. Technology has proven over and over again its ability to push the envelope of what we can and cannot know, or what is irreversibly altered.
Interesting example, the development of cinematic imaging techniques, like image based lighting and camera matchings. It seemed almost unimagineable that you could track/replicate the motion of a free, hand held camera only a few decades ago, especially if no one was present to observe the camera motion other than the camera man. Often all you have is the film/video. Perhaps if you had previously measured a few points on the ground as a reference for some frame by frame process it could be accomplished, but even so capturing the subtlety of motion of a walking human carrying a camera based entirely on the image produced seemed an insurmountable task. Today we have software like matchmover pro, which does precisely that. It tracks individual pixels and extrapolates camera motion based on thousands of tracks a second. Similar software enables special effects wizards to relight a scene with all the appropriate caustics, specular highlights, translucency and sub surface scattering using only a digital camera, a digital projector, and some proprietary software packages.
Similarly, who is to say that some day, if you were to burn a piece of paper with writing on it, that some volumetric particle tracking system running on a quantum computer couldn't calculate the particle interactions and trace them backwards to their original placement inside the fabric of the paper? Obviously you would need a camera set up ahead of time, and perhaps this would defeat the purpose since you could just record the text itself, but similar experiments with image based lighting have been performed. Based entirely on the light bouncing off of a text book, using only diffuse-diffuse interactions, the software they have today can reconstruct the image of a playing card that the camera cannot actually see, color, detail and all.
Perhaps some day we will develope a wormhole light tunneling system a la "Light of Other Days" and actually take a look at the Archeopteryx plumage.
Who knows. Perhaps a singularity is the only place this kind of regressive science can't go. I don't know, and I'm sure speculation is only frustrating. But I suggest caution before one declares what is irreversible and what isn't.
You don't need to be able to reconstruct the note from the burned remnants in order to figure out what was on it.
Do you know what the phrase "tunnel blindness" means?
Francois Tremblay
Banned
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- 307
Hello ? No one has been able to name something that exists and is not measurable yet.