h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK, I'm at work, and don't have much time to spare, so here are some simplistic generalisations to start us off:

The world model science has built for us either ignores people, or (if that's impossible) reduces them to "impartial observers". Thus the scientific world model contains no people! This flies in the face of reality (as we know it).

People don't have objective perceptions, so they have no means to verify an objective claim.

People like to consider concepts that are not falsifiable - possibly because they cannot be proved or disproved (e.g. God).

I'm not anti-science! I simply believe that science *alone* is insufficient for use by humans in understanding the universe.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

OK, so it's pretty sad replying to your own notes, but you haven't replied yet, so I can give your comments the consideration thay deserve. [I'm at home now. ]



But science is an intellectual discipline, very like philosophy, about which you later comment: Surely direct knowledge of reality comes only via our perceptions?

Of course, our perceptions aren't objective, which means that the knowledge we gain can't be objective either. To me, this isn't a problem. Objectivity is forever barred to us, which reduces it (for *human* purposes) to little more than an intellectual curiosity.

Nevertheless, the knowledge we gain from our perceptions is useful, and often (if not always) accurate. Experience tells us so. The soltion is simple: abandon objectivity, and instead quantify the accuracy of our perceptions. Perhaps using statistics, or some similar discipline? There's an interesting link to 'predictive deduction' on my home page....





<...it is influenced to various degrees by knowledge (the fruit of science) and ideas (the fruit of philosophy)>

And what about experience, alongside knowledge and ideas?

<...but [belief] can exist happily with little input from either.>

Yes.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

As indeed are Knowledge, Reality etc etc, when we use them in this capital letters fashion. But we still use the words quite usefully because in fact we normally employ them with small letters, if you understand me.

That is to say, how strictly we use them is related to the purposes we're using them for.

We may not be able to be Objective about Reality, but there are certain features of the way we organise our sensory inputs that are, as far as we can tell, universal, like space, time and objects, and about these, which constitute the human form of reality, we can be objective.

I'd say quantification was one of our best methods for objectifying reality, which IMO would make this solution something of an oxymoron.


Noggin

<< As indeed are Knowledge, Reality etc etc, when we use them in this capital letters fashion. But we still use the words quite usefully because in fact we normally employ them with small letters, if you understand me.>>

No, I don't agree that knowledge and reality are barred to us. Of course we use them all usefully in a non-capital-letters scenario - that's my point. If you abandon objectivity, you soon realise that all you lose is objectivity. ... There are no consequent losses, as you might say. Once we accept that our perceptions aren't 100% reliable - something we all knew from real world experience anyway - life carries on unchanged, except for our improved understanding.



We can have knowledge of space, time and objects which is certain, and universally true? Are you sure?

I wonder if space, time and objects are merely human metaphors that help us understand the world we live in? Like "two", "space", "time" and "objects" are absent from the real world. You might see a cow standing next to a cow, but there is no "two" in the real world. Similarly....



The problem is not that objectivity is difficult, or something. If a human is presented with an objective claim he/she has no means to confirm or deny the claim. Not "few means", "no means". Objective perception of the real world is impossible - not merely difficult - for a human. We cannot 'objectify' reality. We *can* understand it, and live in/with it. Isn't that enough?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Mmm.. I think we're talking at crossed terminology rather more than crossed purposes here. I didn't say that knowledge and reality were barred to us - I said Knowledge and Reality were barred to us; so that was my point, too. Where we seem to differ is on the use of the word objectivity; Objectivity (capital O) is, we are agreed, not a possibility. But is my knowledge that my subjective impressions are sometimes mistaken subjective or objective? (This contrast being the proper use of the word objective, IMO)



No, of course I'm not sure. If I was sure then that's what I would have said. What I actually said was that as far as we can tell we all have the same basic organising framework for perception - universally shared, rather than universally True, and which are therefore part of the way we judge the reality of things.

Space, time and objects are not 'metaphors' (although I think I know what you mean) as they are not being compared to something else. Rather they are 'translations' or mappings from one organisational frame to another.

And yes, understanding it, and living in/with it are enough.

Noggin

Agreed! The primary definition of 'objective' in my dictionary of choice (there are ten alternate definitions!) is "existing independently of perception or an individual's conceptions". This is the definition I find most useful.

<...is my knowledge that my subjective impressions are sometimes mistaken subjective or objective?>

Hmmm - sticky one! Is that knowledge dependent on "perception or an individual's conceptions" for its truth? Unclear, I think, though I would go for "objective" (no capital letter! ) if pushed.

<...as far as we can tell we all have the same basic organising framework for perception - universally shared, rather than universally True...>

Agreed.



Interesting. My knowledge of metaphor is almost entirely based on the work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their book "Metaphors we live by". I understand a metaphor to be the consideration of one thing as another, thus allowing us to use our understanding of the latter to help us to understand the former, if you get my drift? In other words, a metaphor isn't just a comparison, but a lot more than that.

Lakoff's standard example of a metaphor is ARGUMENT AS WAR, whereby we use our understanding of warfare to clarify our understanding of argument. It gives us a perspective from which to view argument. It goes without saying that this is both helpful AND dangerous, as aspects of argument which are disimilar to war are easily overlooked....

BTW, I wonder what will happen when the three bears return home, and find you and I eating their porridge? By which I mean that this discussion is taking place in S3's home space, but he hasn't arrived here yet! I hope he won't mind!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Don't mind at all, this is wonderful. Just too busy to keep up with you folks at the moment!

Oh, I see that this is going to be difficult. I'm torn between giving one-line responses and writing multi-page essays. There's so much to deal with, even in this relatively restricted topic space! I'll just try to touch my toes into the philosphical/scientific water here.


Science abstracts individual experiences into what can be demonstrated and accepted as 'common experience' through reliance on testable predictions. The result is naturally a depersonalized, objectivized world view. Still, science is based on individual (subjective) observation; it's method in modern times is to build world view only on what is consistent, reproducible, etc. across individual observations.

To the extent that people, as bodies and minds, come into the view of science as subjects themselves, we can't say that science ignores people. The 'hard problem' or explanatory gap is what science has bumped up against in pursuit of understanding mind.

Yes and no. As in every step of this kind of discussion terminology is a bane, because the concepts we are tossing about are quite highly abstracted (subjective) to begin with. On the basis of the current scientific understanding of physiology, we know that humans, as well as most of the animals, share the same mechanism for detecting changes in the environment (reality?) and processing that data, which is to say a system of nerve cells. Therefore, we can infer a great deal of commonality ('objectivity') at the level of sensory detection. As we move up the scale of nervous system complexity, this commonality of architecture persists until we get to the cerebral cortex of the higher mammals. At the low end, there is still commonality in the lower NS functions, but diversity (individuaity and subjectivity) enters and individual experience begins to affect world view to a greater extent.

< ... so they have no means to verify an objective claim.>

'Objectivity' is 'verified' by the process of science, which is to say hypothesizing and testing, but science does not and, IMHO cannot, claim anything like an ultimate or absolute objectivity. Science, when done right, is entirely pragmatic. Essentially, science gives us what we can accept as the best guess at the time as the basis for further understanding and action.

I think we vary a lot in this respect, mostly as a result of emotional influences and needs. To the areligious, for example, religion might be seen as an emotional crutch or a remedy for some world-view problem or other. The religious may look at the areligious and think, "You just don't get it, do you?" Accepting the imaginary and unprovable as a basis for action is possibly one criterion for mind. This kind of intellectual behavior is (ironically) available only to the most advanced nervous systems!

<>

<But science is an intellectual discipline, very like philosophy, about which you later comment: Surely direct knowledge of reality comes only via our perceptions?

Science differs from philosophy, as I regard the two, in being grounded directly in experience and in demanding testability and reproducibily. The input of science is phenomena, which it seeks to explain and predict. Much of philosophy is speculation in the realm of the untestable. The input of philosophy is largely imagination. It usually deals with vague, highly abstracted concepts that are difficult to even agree on, let alone test. The mind/body problem is a good example. It is interesting because science in encroaching on philosophy here.

This issue really hinges on the meaning one attaches to the terms 'reality' and 'knowledge'.

For me, reality is not the absolute, forever irrefutable thing that most people mean when they talk about objective reality. I agree entirely with other comments made here about this. Reality is a mutable, probablistic world view. Objective reality is what has been established by science to have a degree of credibility high enough to be usefull. There are questions that science has not answered satisfactorily (low predictive value) and new data may appear that requires new explanations (new predictions of useful credibility).

Knowledge, for me, is mostly predictive power, but there may be more to it than that. We cannot 'know' anything from the activities of philosophy. Science is the business of generating knowledge.

You may be right, but I have trouble imagining an understanding that isn't based on experience + integration + verification, which is what science does for us.

PC:

S3:

Just to start you off, consider religion, art and politics. IMO, science is an inadequate tool if these are your chosen topics of study. This isn't a failing of science, BTW. We just need to select the right tool for the job!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I seem to be responding to your notes in reverse order, S3. Oh well, I have to hide the lack of content somehow....



This may seem like nit-picking, but I ask you to consider it more closely than that: the first word in your sentence adds nothing to the sense of what you say. It describes something that is inaccessible - and therefore useless - to humans. What you say is true (IMO), and entirely unaffected by the O-word. Try leaving it out of your thinking and see what happens: IME, nothing! Nothing at all! 'Superfluous' is a term that springs to mind....

I appreciate that the intended meaning of words is paramount in a discussion such as this. 'Objective' is ascribed many meanings, but one that nearly always features among them is that it describes something whose truth is NOT dependent on perception or an individual's conceptions. I.e. something which is NOT a matter of opinion, but which might be described as universally true.

So far, so good. As I have defined it, 'objective' is a useful word. Sadly, the impression of universality and not being a matter of opinion implies that something 'objective' is also *certainly* [100%; absolute; without any doubt] true. You already know why I have a problem with this! The implication of (unattainable) certainty is sufficient (IMO) to make this word too dangerous to use. Ever!

People have dangerous ideas already; their potential for harm is magnified frighteningly if they get the idea they're *definitely* right (and so everyone who disagrees with them *must* - certainly, and without doubt - be wrong ).

This is why I think a philosophical curiosity is important enough to raise in discussions like this one. I try to explain why it's too important to be dismissed as nit-picking. Occasionally I convince someone. I think it's worthwhile. I'm not going to stop, and I have stamina enough for twenty men!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

If you mean that philosophy is a poor tool for deriving direct knowledge from the real world, I cannot disagree.

There is only one thing more important in discussions like these than making sure that everyone is using words in the same sense, and that is: chose your words with great care! Subtle shades of meaning are significant, and wonderful, wonderful English usually offers several alternatives with only tiny differences in meaning.



Do you think this knowledge is discovered, rather than generated? There's a big difference between reporting on a murder and killing someone to create your own news!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Absolutely! (in a relative sort of way)

'Knowing' and 'knowledge' are words generally used loosely, without being precisely defined. As commonly used, 'know' has various meanings, including 'any element of a persons world view' (I know that my invisible rabbit friend is real.), 'awareness' (I know that the seat next to you is empty.) and 'being certain' (I know that he will be on time). Knowledge even has its own branch of philosophy, epistemology, but we still haven't nailed down exactly what knowledge is.

From an individual's view, I'm happy with using knowledge to mean all of the concepts that the individual has formed, collectively and singly. When we share knowledge with others, however, we have to consider the differences in world views (sets of concepts) among individuals and restrict the sense of knowledge to those concepts that are acceptable by multiple individuals. The power of science is that it provides a method and objective criteria for identifying and creating (generating) concepts that can be universally accepted because of their reliable predictive power. For that reason, I think it is useful to draw a line in the continuum between the imaginary poles of absolute knowledge (certainty) and absolute lack of knowledge (total uncertainty) and define knowledge as the set of concepts that proper science produces (verificationism). Concepts on the 'lack of knowledge' side of this line must accept labels such as untested hypothesis, theory, speculation, guesses, unfounded belief, imagination, delusion, etc.

I would note that science is largely a social phenomenon. Individuals do not have the time or resources to follow the scientific method in building up their entire world view, or even to verify what science tells them. The product of science is taken on assumption (faith) by most people. When a lay person says, 'I know that a hydrogen atom consists of one electron and one proton.' that person cannot be said to actually know that 'fact' in a strict sense. He could not explain in detail the reproducible scientific process that demonstrates this concepts of atom, electron, proton and hydrogen. For that individual, this particular piece of scientific knowledge is more of a belief founded on faith in the scientific community, a faith supported in general by the demonstrated success of technology.

In the end, I would say that belief, however weakly founded, is the real basis for all individual human action. That is probably a necessary result of living in a real-time world where action decisions usually cannot wait for the result of rational deliberation.

<...action decisions usually cannot wait for the result of rational deliberation.>

Yes, and some of those decisions concern things that are not open to proof or disproof (the existence of God is the perennial and obvious example). So we believe what we choose to believe.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

If something is genuinely not open to proof or disproof, I tend to regard it as irrelevant (personally). That is not to say that individuals and groups cannot or, necessarily, should not take some ill-defined or 'unverified' concept as part of the basis for decisions and actions. Religion provides a good example. Religious beliefs serve many people well as an organizing factor in their active and emotional lives and may have good social effects as well.
Another thing is that the 'mind' is not exclusively a reasoning engine. It is indeed an engine for causing responses and initiating behavior, but some large part of the mental mechanism (brain, in my view) is based on nonrational emotion. It's the old Spock/Bones conflict in the Star Trek stories. Reasoning, particularly abstract reasoning, is the most recent development in mind, and the brain structures that provide the physical substrates for it are the lastest development in the physical evolution of the brain. But as 'rational creatures' we, especially the intellectuals among us, tend to think of the rational mind as the whole mind. I think it is clearly not. It may even be considered a non-essential aspect of mind; an experiment that may or may not succeed in the very long run.

So everything outside your head - the 'real world' included - is irrelevant? Or are you using a relaxed definition of 'proof'?



As I understand it, it is now becoming accepted that emotions provide some or all of the motivation for us to do whatever it is that we do in our lives. Without emotions, we might just sit around and watch daytime TV 24/7.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Very good point. Just following your use of proof. Having foregone any *absolute* truth or reality, I can't use 'proof' in the strong sense. It can only mean something like 'demonstrated to be consistent with the bulk of a world view'.

In mathematics and logic, proof is absolute, but based on defined assumptions and rules. In the 'real world', our we have to formulate the rules and make assumptions on the basis of experience rather than simply create a neat little world to our own specifications. Proof, in the real world is alway tentative and has degree.

The concepts of science and the reliable phenomena of ordinary experience can be 'proven' to an arbitrary degree of satisfaction by their testability and predictability. Particularly in science, explanations and predictions are based on internally consistent theories. Demonstration of consistency with a theory that has been 'proven' by a degree of predictive power that is useful is a kind of 'proof'. (The inconsistencies that are found provide the motive force that drives scientific investigation.)

Invented concepts like unicorns and gods may be *by definition* unprovable, but an individual must nevertheless try to fit those concepts into its own world view to its own satisfaction. For some, the fit may be so bad that the concept is rejected or simply ignored; for others, the concept may be so powerful as to largely shape the person's world view, or at least be a major tool for expressing that world view. Discrepancies can be 'rationalized' away or simply ignored, swept under the mind's carpet. We are then more in the frame of belief than in the frame of knowledge.