Skepticism and The Normal

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

<snip>
Yes, of course. You can't get "objective" evaluation for a "subjective" truth, almost by definition. Although you can come darn close, if you're willing to accept reproducible behaviors among large groups of people. Most food scientists, for example, have little problem with accepting the statement that "aspartame tastes sweet" as "true," despite the fact that it can't be objectively validated, either. But enough people are willing to say that aspartame tastes sweet, and to behave as though they think it tastes sweet, that we accept the sweet taste of aspartame as a subjective truth.

I would disagree here. "sweet" is tied to taste receptors in particular areas on the tongue. We can evaluate if those taster receptors are stimulated by aspertame regardless of how the subject interprets it, though it would be reasonable to assume the subject would interpret it as "sweet" since it is stimulating the "sweet" area on the tongue.

My old friend the PTC non-taster comes to my aid again. There's another chemical that "tastes" bitter (under the same criteria) -- but only to about 75% of the population. The other 25%, a group that includes myself, cannot taste it at all. So here, we can even objectively validate the fact that the subjective "taste" of the chemical varies -- that the statement "PTC tastes bitter" is either true or false, but that the truth of this statement varies with the subject -- and is hence a "subjective truth."

I'm in the 25%. What we can say objectively though, is that "if the person has the physiological ability to have PTC stimulate the 'bitter' taste receptors on the tongue, then PTC will taste bitter to them."

ETA: the truth/fals-ity of "PTC tastes bitter" doesn't vary with the subject. What does vary, is the subjects ability to evaluate the statement using their own tongue.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Go zaayrdragon!! You have got some stamina!

 

[jimbob]

just like any other scientist. Your making the same error here as James Randi is about Steorn. I dont understand how someone needs to be a fraud or a scam artist for someone else to be right about thier philosophy.

BF

I pasted this into word out of interest:

Do you expect anyone to read three thousand words and 121 paragraphs?


Back to Steorn:

What about the laws of thermodynamics? (death and taxes)

 

[drkitten]

I would disagree here. "sweet" is tied to taste receptors in particular areas on the tongue.

Er, no, it isn't. Or, more accurately, not as tightly as you would like. Because we can also get people to perceive "sweetness" through direct neural stimulation -- tongue not involved. So whatever the feeling of "sweet" is, it isn't just the taste receptors.

I'm in the 25%. What we can say objectively though, is that "if the person has the physiological ability to have PTC stimulate the 'bitter' taste receptors on the tongue, then PTC will taste bitter to them."

But notice that you're implicitly granting asserting the "truth" (at least as a hypothetical consequent) of the subjective statement "PTC will taste bitter to them." And it says quite a bit about the power of the scientific method that we are able to frame objective causal statements about (some) subjective truths.

On the other hand, there are also a lot of other "subjective" truths for which we do not yet have an objective causal framework. For example, there appear to be universal standards of human (female) beauty. For example, facial symmetry and a waist-hip ratio of about 0.7 seem to be universally preferred, despite the fact that the perception of beauty is notoriously subjective. Evolutionary psychologists are still working out the explanations for these particular factoids, and I have no doubt that they will find some. But the fact that they won't have explanations until 2025 doesn't mean that the statement that "this woman is more beautiful than that woman" is not true (or false) in 2007.

And, again, there are some other provably subjective aspects. For example, it has been suggested that a male's "ideal" body mass index of a "beautiful" woman is related to the body mass index of that male's mother during early childhood (Freudians delight!) It has also been noted that the ideal skin tone varies reliably from culture to culture, but we have no causal explanation. But again, you're not going to tell me that the fact that you find one particular chick hotter than another isn't true.... Even if your ideal hottie is Wilma Flintstone, she's still your ideal....

 

[Z]

I am honored to be in such company.

If you want to do it like that, perhaps you can address my points with regards to the mathematics and zaayr's with regards to philosophy?

... and in that order?

Jonny, great posts on mathematics. Numerologists always annoy me, playing games with arbitrary sets of numbers while simply ignoring others.

After all, couldn't 0, infinity, and x/0 be equally valid representations for false, unknown, true, and false respectively?

And how does his OS012 manage in binary?? What is it then, OS000110?

Messy, messy, messy....

 

[jimbob]

OK:

It doesn't add anything to discussion, as Bubblefish himself uses his logic to classify aesthetic opininion that by its nature is unverifiable with unkown ("there is a pattern to all prime numbers") which by its nature is unverified, and unfalsiable statements ("God exists"), and probably sefveral others. (All are supposedly mystery").

Jim

You have to explain that another way, I dont understand you here.

OK:

Your system confuses several different classes of idea:

Statements that can only ever be subjectively true:

Would you class aesthetic judgments as "mystery"?
"Is Michaelangelo's David the epitome of Renaissance male sculpture?"

Would you class political judgements as "mystery"?
"Was Reagan's presidency better for the US than a second Carter term would have been?"

What about statements that *might* be objectively true, but not known yet:
"Is there an underlying pattern to the distribution of prime numbers, which could be used to predict if a number will be prime?"

And ones that could be locially true but not ever verifiable
"Does god/qi exist?"

Your system also misses out on gradations of truth:

Which of the following statments are true, false, or mystery?



The Sun goes round the Earth.
(False)
The Earth circles the Sun.
(Better)
The Earth orbits the Sun and the eliptical orbits of the planets can be predicted by Kepler's laws.
(Better)
The Earth orbits the Sun and the orbits of the planets can be predicted by Kepler's laws, which can be explained by Newons theory of gravity.
(This is more useful, because it explains more)
Mercury's orbit is better described by a relativistic treatment.
(This is sometimes needed, for better accuracy)

Where is there room in your scheme for such gradations?

If you introduce them, the added complexity would make the scheme unwealdy, and still gain no utility over other ways of thinking.

It is needlessly rigid.


"all models are wrong, some are useful" - George Box

This isn't even wrong, just a waste of mental processses.


Jim

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Er, no, it isn't. Or, more accurately, not as tightly as you would like. Because we can also get people to perceive "sweetness" through direct neural stimulation -- tongue not involved. So whatever the feeling of "sweet" is, it isn't just the taste receptors.



But notice that you're implicitly granting asserting the "truth" (at least as a hypothetical consequent) of the subjective statement "PTC will taste bitter to them." And it says quite a bit about the power of the scientific method that we are able to frame objective causal statements about (some) subjective truths.

On the other hand, there are also a lot of other "subjective" truths for which we do not yet have an objective causal framework. For example, there appear to be universal standards of human (female) beauty. For example, facial symmetry and a waist-hip ratio of about 0.7 seem to be universally preferred, despite the fact that the perception of beauty is notoriously subjective. Evolutionary psychologists are still working out the explanations for these particular factoids, and I have no doubt that they will find some. But the fact that they won't have explanations until 2025 doesn't mean that the statement that "this woman is more beautiful than that woman" is not true (or false) in 2007.

And, again, there are some other provably subjective aspects. For example, it has been suggested that a male's "ideal" body mass index of a "beautiful" woman is related to the body mass index of that male's mother during early childhood (Freudians delight!) It has also been noted that the ideal skin tone varies reliably from culture to culture, but we have no causal explanation. But again, you're not going to tell me that the fact that you find one particular chick hotter than another isn't true.... Even if your ideal hottie is Wilma Flintstone, she's still your ideal....

But, how can we evaluate the statement, "Wilma Flintstone is my ideal hottie"? We can evaluate if it is consistent with my stated preferences (ensure I have not mislead). We can evaluate if I made the statement, "Wilma Flintstone is my ideal hottie."

Of course, this entire discussion is turning very Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

 

[WWHP]

drkitten,

Thank you for challenging me here. I owe you (and the forum) an apology, I was mistaken on a few things. Sometimes I remember the academic arguments via conclusion, but get hazy on how they got there or steps taken. So I had a few false ideas here that I was functioning as true.

However, as outlined below, my argument about 0 in ancient greece is still accurate, especially in relantionship to aristotle. The Greeks banned the zero, it was very uncomfortable to thier cosmology, especially aristotle. If my argument is wrong, his argument is wrong, i am only reflecting his scholarship here, not mine.


I just located the book from my nieghbor, in chapter 2 "Nothing comes from nothing" It wasnt aristotle who did the murdering, it was Pythagoras, and obviously not the same time period. I was flat wrong there.

The arthor states much later that Aristotle discarded zero when attempting to address Zeno's Paradox (Zeno is actually credited by Aristotle to have created dialectic, interesting enough). The author asserts that Aristotle reacted to the infinities of Zeno. The author states the development of 0 as a mathematical concept that was discarded by the Greeks, irrationals, infinities, etc. He says, and I quote " Aristotle simply declared that mathematics did not need the infinite, or use it".

He then goes on to state that Aristotle's rejection of 0 led to a cosmology that was later proven useful to proving the existence of God, and suggests that by rejecting 0, Aristotle's philosophy created the arguments for the spread of christianity, suggesting that religious beliefs, epistemeologically, and Aristotle's thinking are a historical synthesis.

Thanks for helping me clear this up, good looking out. I wasn't using critical thinking there!

BF

 

[Pragmatist]

okay, lots of posts here to respond to. If I miss any, please bring to my attention. The most important and critical posts, to me, are Jonny's, Zaay's, and perhaps drkitten. i will probably need the rest of the day to consider and respond to those alone.

Yep, I imagine it will take some time to figure out an excuse for a claim that person A murdered person B, 800 years before person B existed...



Some things never change I see!

 

[drkitten]

But, how can we evaluate the statement, "Wilma Flintstone is my ideal hottie"?

Well, you can evaluate the statement very easily. She's your ideal hottie, after all.

I have a much more difficult time, because I don't have access to your subjective truths, and must rely on objective correlates of subjective truths.

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Well, you can evaluate the statement very easily. She's your ideal hottie, after all.

I have a much more difficult time, because I don't have access to your subjective truths, and must rely on objective correlates of subjective truths.

But, say I make the statement, "Wilma Flintstone is my ideal hottie," (note: I always thought Bettie was better, but whatever). If I understand you correctly, and assuming I am not intentionally stating something that is not representative of my views; it is a subjective truth. Now, let's say tomorrow my tastes have changed and I then say, "Velma is my ideal hottie." Does that mean my formally subjective truth, is now a subjective falsity? Are both subjectively true, but constrainted by chronological parameters? Doesn't this support the assertion that "subjective truth" is a phrase that adds no value?

 

[Pragmatist]

I owe you (and the forum) an apology

I was mistaken on a few things

So I had a few false ideas here that I was functioning as true.

I was flat wrong there.

I wasn't using critical thinking there!

So, who are you? And why are you impersonating Bubblefish?

 

[jdc324]

"i recently had a very long, funny, and interesting discussion"
I can think of at least two things wrong with that quote.

 

[WWHP]

I'd really prefer to continue discussing your beliefs about mathematics.
Zaayrdragon raised some new points, you can point by point him if you'd like. I'll keep thinking critically about it, promise.

Jonny, community.

This is a good point. I have the day off today, and will focus on your (jonny's) arguments on the math, and Zaay's arguments on the philosophy.

Everybody else's arguments center around Zaay's and Jonny's

Again, I can't tell you how thankful I am for these refined, thoughtful critiques, some of the best yet I have found.

Who knows, I could leave this discussion being a bivalent thinker!
Or, perhaps you and a few others being ternary thinkers?

It's really a mystery! eh?

Let's all agree to be super honest, critical, this discussion is at a very critical stage, and I take it very seriously.

BF

 

[drkitten]

However, as outlined below, my argument about 0 in ancient greece is still accurate, especially in relantionship to aristotle. The Greeks banned the zero, it was very uncomfortable to thier cosmology, especially aristotle.

Um, they did not. You can't ban something that you don't know about. Da Vinci didn't ban comsat overflights for the same reason he didn't murder Armstrong (either one).

If my argument is wrong, his argument is wrong, i am only reflecting his scholarship here, not mine.

If the quote you present below is accurate, you are indeed reflecting your own scholarship -- as the quote you cite does not support your argument.

I just located the book from my nieghbor, in chapter 2 "Nothing comes from nothing" It wasnt aristotle who did the murdering, it was Pythagoras, and obviously not the same time period. I was flat wrong there.

The arthor states much later that Aristotle discarded zero when attempting to address Zeno's Paradox (Zeno is actually credited by Aristotle to have created dialectic, interesting enough). The author asserts that Aristotle reacted to the infinities of Zeno. The author states the development of 0 as a mathematical concept that was discarded by the Greeks, irrationals, infinities, etc. He says, and I quote " Aristotle simply declared that mathematics did not need the infinite, or use it".

The problem is that "the infinite" is not "zero," by any stretch of the imagination -- not under ancient Greek mathematics, not under medieval scholasticism, not under Cantor's intuitive set theory, and certainly not under the modern structure of limits and infinitesimals.

 

[Dean Morrison]

DM, if you did truly not personally insult Sheldrake in a derogatory way, then yes, you have my apology.

However, I will not make a full retraction because I dont yet have to time to verify the thread that you linked. It was my impression that on that very thread, you posted some remarks about Sheldrake, and either yourself or a forum moderator deleted them. I am going on memory here, and I believe that to be the case. I may be wrong, but I want to check with wholly if that is true before I make my retraction.

Any news then Bubblefish? I notice you've taken to reporting other peoples posts to moderators when they offend you.

I expect a full apology rather than the conditional one you have offered so far - and please note that I post under my real name - unlike you I don't hide my identity.

If you wish to let this unfounded accusation against me stand I guess I should take a leaf out of your book and report you to the mods...

 

[drkitten]

But, say I make the statement, "Wilma Flintstone is my ideal hottie," (note: I always thought Bettie was better, but whatever). If I understand you correctly, and assuming I am not intentionally stating something that is not representative of my views; it is a subjective truth.

Yup. Some philosophers and psychologists would go further and claim that you need to be consciously stating something that is representative of your views -- it's the age old question of whether a statement made in ignorance can be a lie or not, slightly recast. But these are edge cases of no great import.

You're more or less demonstrating my point in your aside. If you don't think that Wilma is your ideal, if you think that Betty was better, then there's obviously some statements about your personal (subjective) preferences with which you agree, and some with which you don't. That's pretty spot on as a definition of "subjective evaluation of subjective truth."

Now, let's say tomorrow my tastes have changed and I then say, "Velma is my ideal hottie." Does that mean my formally subjective truth, is now a subjective falsity? Are both subjectively true, but constrainted by chronological parameters?

Shrug. When things change, things change. Today the statement "I am wearing a grey sweater" is objectively true; it will probably be false tomorrow. The staement "my coffee cup is empty" is false --and I intend to change that very soon. When you change your clothes, the truths of the world change -- why should it not be so for changing your mind?

Doesn't this support the assertion that "subjective truth" is a phrase that adds no value?

Not really. No more than the fact that I can decide to take off the sweater means that "objective truth" adds no value.

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Yup. Some philosophers and psychologists would go further and claim that you need to be consciously stating something that is representative of your views -- it's the age old question of whether a statement made in ignorance can be a lie or not, slightly recast. But these are edge cases of no great import.

You're more or less demonstrating my point in your aside. If you don't think that Wilma is your ideal, if you think that Betty was better, then there's obviously some statements about your personal (subjective) preferences with which you agree, and some with which you don't. That's pretty spot on as a definition of "subjective evaluation of subjective truth."

Shrug. When things change, things change. Today the statement "I am wearing a grey sweater" is objectively true; it will probably be false tomorrow. The staement "my coffee cup is empty" is false --and I intend to change that very soon. When you change your clothes, the truths of the world change -- why should it not be so for changing your mind?

Not really. No more than the fact that I can decide to take off the sweater means that "objective truth" adds no value.

Saying, "I am wearing a grey sweater" is a quantitative statement, not a qualitative one though, and can be independently corroborated by anyone that can see/touch/etc you. This would be parallel to (in the nextdoor thread) Farrant presenting a ectometer (invented measuring device that shows the "spookiness" of an area).

Saying, "Wilma is teh r0xx0rz" is a qualitative statement. This is like Farrant saying, "It felt spooky there."

The first adds value because it can be used in subsequent work, whereas the second can not because it is, by definition subjective. Whether the statement was made in a spirit of "truthfulness" doesn't matter one iota.

Now, for philosophy, I can see where such things are not as black/white and the discussion is of merit. However, in the context of this thread, and the OP, it is doing nothing to support BF's assertion that Mr. Randi is doing anything untoward. Frankly, the whole thing smacks of BF trying to show that all of Mr. Randi's arguments are logically fallacious due to false-dichotomy/false-choice/ignored-middle usage.

 

[jimbob]

So, who are you? And why are you impersonating Bubblefish?

Beat me to that;


http://http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c90/Myselfpictures/moron.gif

(thanks to Cheeky Mare)

Jim

 

[drkitten]

Saying, "I am wearing a grey sweater" is a quantitative statement, not a qualitative one though, and can be independently corroborated by anyone that can see/touch/etc you.

Partially. Certainly the fact that I'm wearing a sweater can be. I'm not sure that "grey" can be; there are a lot of different colours, and what I call "grey" you might call "black." For that matter, you might call it "grey," where I point out that it's more accurately "charcoal." There's a lot of room for subjectivity in colour perception. And one of the issues that is of tremendous interest to psychologists is the interplay between precisely the subjective aspects of colour perception and the objective aspects of things like hue, saturation, wavelength, spectral distribution, and so forth. (Did you know that one reason women make more subjective distinctions than men may be because many women are actually tetrachromatic instead of trichromatic? Women may literally "see" colours differently than men? Wow....)

The first adds value because it can be used in subsequent work, whereas the second can not because it is, by definition subjective. Whether the statement was made in a spirit of "truthfulness" doesn't matter one iota.

If a subjective judgement is made truthfully and can be made consistently, then it can indeed be useful for future work. The entire field of pain management operated for years on exactly this paradigm -- give the patient a drug and ask the patient how much pain he's in. In some cases, we still operate on this basis. For example, male platypuses (platypi? platypora?) are poisonous and can give a very painful sting. Oddly enough, the pain of a platypus sting is (subjectively) not treatable with conventional pain killers like morphine. Whatever physical channels the pain takes, they're not the "normal" channels that opiates block.

And there's some very interesting research going on about the subjective aspects of pain w.r.t. epilepsy....

So, no, subjective evaluations can add value. You just have to treat them according to their nature.

Now, for philosophy, I can see where such things are not as black/white and the discussion is of merit. However, in the context of this thread, and the OP, it is doing nothing to support BF's assertion that Mr. Randi is doing anything untoward. Frankly, the whole thing smacks of BF trying to show that all of Mr. Randi's arguments are logically fallacious due to false-dichotomy/false-choice/ignored-middle usage.

Well, perhaps obviously, I don't think that Randi is doing anything wrong. But I think that much of the OP is correct when applied to some areas of "skepticism." For example, many evangelists claim to have personal experience of God in the form of a personal relationship with Christ. If true, this of course constitutes evidence for God's existence (and of His nature), but evidence that almost by definition cannot be shared. In brief, it's subjective, not objective, evidence.

In this regard, I think Randi does better than some other skeptics, most notably Dawkins. Randi spends most of his time going after the outright demonstrable frauds like Sylvia. Dawkins has recently taken to going after the religious, which is much trickier. We can show Sylvia to be fraudulent much more easily -- and more objectively -- than we can show the Pentateuch to be.