# Empirical philosophy

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [January 27, 2003, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270 "2003-01-27T16:58:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\
**Post date:** [January 28, 2003, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/41 "2003-01-28T13:50:13Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> _Libertarian_  
> Science is about falsification.

Not really. Certainly a lack of potentially falsifiable statments is a good way of telling pseudoscience from science, but science is about more than falsification. Building theories consists of more than making falsifiable statments and seeing how they go. One reason for this is that you are never testing a single statement when you “test” it: you are testing the testing procedure and the tangled nest of accepted theory onto which you are trying to graft an addition.

> [@](#):
>
> [S]tatements about the external world face the tribunal of experience not individually but only as a corporate body (Quine)

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**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\
**Post date:** [January 28, 2003, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/42 "2003-01-28T14:06:07Z")

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{{ swears he won’t go on a “I hate Popper” tangent }}  
Now then. I am particularly interested in understanding whether the following things exist:  
atoms  
gravity  
motion  
causality

This is in direct response to “unreal” things not existing, put forward by our OP and supported by **robertliguori**.

Direct responses to **Vorlon**.

> [@](#):
>
> Consider: what if I postulated a substance exactly like mass-energy of modern physics in all ways but one: it could not be transformed into any form that would interact in any way with “normal” mass-energy. Would it be real?

Things are not real because they are postulated in an empirical account, so this question doesn’t matter much. What I wonder is:  
what accounts of observation and inference can you give to state the claim: “Nothing unreal exists”, or is it instead an _a priori_ claim meant to distinguish between existence and non-existence, or perhaps as a definition of “unreal”?

> [@](#):
>
> There would be no consequences from its existence that would differ in any way from its nonexistence; therefore, the two conditions are utterly and completely indistinguishable and are therefore the same.

A single woman who exists in China in no way affects me. That does not mean her existence has no affect whatsoever.

> [@](#):
>
> Granted, it’s never possible to perfectly model anything in the universe…

Is this also an empirical truth?

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**Author:** ![Scott\_Dickerson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Scott\_Dickerson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Dickerson)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/43 "2003-01-30T06:58:31Z")

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When people stop me on the street and ask me to define the distinction between empirical and nonempirical knowledge (no doubt this happens to you too), I respond somewhat along the following lines.

1. The definition that counts is the meaning the speaker assigns to his words.

2. Most people do not have rigorous, clean-cutting definitions for the terms they use. Rather they have notions that are like the “centers” of “clouds of meaning,” the edges as vaguely determined as the “edge” of our atmosphere.

3. Bearing that in mind, it seems to me that what people are trying to get it with these terms is the distinction between: knowledge that shows its truth at the end of multiple cycles of analysis and reflection (empirical); and knowledge that shows its truth immediately upon presentation of the item to the mind (nonempirical: perhaps “logical” or “abstract” or “a priori”).

4. We thus see how the typical confusions arise. In an act of sense-perception (if you will) we experience a certain “given,” a species of truth that makes the most modest of claims (“here I am!”) but has the virtue of utter indubitability and complete, unanalytic immediacy. “That which I now experience” IS that which I now experience; there is no figuring-out, no justification, and I call that NONEMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE.

5. But that very truth-exemplar, that veritum, is usually subject to a taking-apart, a reflecting-upon, a process by which similarities are noted to other items presented by memory, or relations discerned to concurrent verita, or the veritum set “into” a template, as it were. These are all species of the process of inference, deductive or inductive. A conclusion drawn through process is what I think EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE is. And ironically, the basis of the process, its justification, is the truth presented immediately upon perceiving its “schema” (the schema of the syllogism, for instance): and THAT kind of truth-knowledge is NONEMPIRICAL.

6. A relevant fact about (what we usually mean by) empirical knowledge is that its truth is believed-in prior to, and indeed in the perpetual absence of, an irresistible demonstration thereof. “To demonstrate the truth of an empirical proposition” uses a “demonstrate” that has a different sense than the one found in “to demonstrate the truth of a ‘logical’ proposition.” There is such a thing as “seeing the truth of a logical proposition” such that it, the seeing, is coercive in effect–you cannot not believe, ONCE YOU HAVE SEEN. But the truth of an empirical proposition, as such, is endlessly subject to confutation and debate. One believes because–one is worn out.

7. But I am NOT pretending that the two classes are somehow “the same”. Clearly, they are not. But in nearly all real judgments, the two species of being-true are intertwined.

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**Author:** ![Iamthat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Iamthat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iamthat)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/44 "2003-01-30T09:09:59Z")

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**posted by The Vorlon Ambassador’s Aide**

> [@](#):
>
> The first law of metaphysics: nothing unreal exists.

I guess that excludes consciousness from existence.

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**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/45 "2003-01-30T10:32:35Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by hawthorne \*  
> \*\*Not really. Certainly a lack of potentially falsifiable statments is a good way of telling pseudoscience from science, but science is about more than falsification. Building theories consists of more than making falsifiable statments and seeing how they go. One reason for this is that you are never testing a single statement when you “test” it: you are testing the testing procedure and the tangled nest of accepted theory onto which you are trying to graft an addition. \*\*

I’m glad you prefaced your post with “Not really,” otherwise I would have thought you were completely supporting what I said. As you say yourself, falsifiability distinguishes science from sham. And as you make plain by what you say, the entire manifold of relations that comprise a theory is subject to testing — testing to see whether it is false. Whatever you cannot test by a falsifiable experiment, you cannot speak about scientifically.

The underlying logic is elementary. If science were about truth, it would rest when it has done a successful experiment, because it would find that if A, then B. But science is not about if A, then B, since Not A does not then imply Not B. Once science has hypothesized about A, what it tests isn’t A or B but Not B, because Not B would then imply Not A.

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**Author:** ![Mr.Svinlesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/22d042/32.png) [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/46 "2003-01-30T10:32:46Z")

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**Vor** :

Hmmm… I believe what you are referring to is the assumption that there exists a fundamental difference between _analytic_ and _synthetic_ statements. The distinction was originally introduced, if I’m not mistaken, by Kant. If you are skeptical of it, you find yourself in good company. Welcome to postmodernism!

The assumption of a difference between these two kinds of statements was challenged by W. V. Quine in his seminal essay, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” which I have been given to believe is considered by experts as something of a _tour de force_. In this paper Quine investigates and critiques two assumptions that underlie empirical/positivistic philosophies. One is the assumption that there exists a “fundamental cleavage” between so-called _analytic_ and _synthetic_ statements. The other is what Quine calls “ empirical reductionism”: the belief that statements of fact can be unequivocally reduced to “terms which refer to immediate experience” (Quine, 1953: 20). Quine rejects both of these claims.

An _analytic_ statement is one whose truth is determined by the internal structure of its logic, and by virtue of the definition of the terms used within it. As a simple example, Quine provides the statement, “No unmarried man is married.” The truth value of the statement is not related to the world of sense experience, but to a definition of the terms within the statement, along with their logical relationship. In contrast, a _synthetic_ statement is a “truth of fact,” one that is true because it describes things or relations that exist in the real world, such as, for example, “ **Mr. Svinlesha** is a married man.” Quine examines in depth the various attempts made to differentiate these two sorts of statements, but finds that none of them are logically sound. Demonstrating that it is impossible to construct an analytic statement without reference to its synthetic basis, he concludes:

> [@](#):
>
> **It is obvious that truth in general depends on both language and extralinguistic fact…. Thus one is tempted to suppose in general that the truth of a statement is somehow analyzable into a linguistic component and a factual component. Given this supposition, it next seems reasonable that in some statements the factual component should be null; and these are the analytic statements. But, for all it’s a priori reasonableness, a boundary between analytic and synthetic statements simply has not been drawn. That there is such a distinction to be drawn at all is an unempirical dogma of empiricists, a metaphysical article of faith (ibid., 36-37).**

Having come to this conclusion, Quine continues with a critical investigation of the so-called “verification theory of meaning,” a fundamental positivist doctrine first introduced by the pragmatist philosopher Charles Pierce in the late 1800s. This theory claims that statements have meaning only to the extent that they include a method of empirical confirmation – with analytic statements reserved as the limiting case that are always confirmed, no matter their empirical status. Quine objects to this line of reasoning by pointing out that the inability to separate analytical and synthetic statements complicates verification, reducing it to incoherence. The factual component of an empirical statement, he argues, must be reducible to a “range of confirmatory experiences.” But it has proven impossible to delineate, precisely, what these experiences might be:

> [@](#):
>
> \*\*I am impressed also, apart from prefabricated examples of black and white balls in an urn, with how baffling the problem has always been of arriving at any explicit theory of the empirical confirmation of a synthetic statement.… Taken collectively, science has its double dependence on language and experience; but this duality is not significantly traceable into statements of science taken one by one (ibid., 41-42).

\*\*Given this difficulty, all synthetic statements of empirical fact risk devolving, upon close inspection, into analytic statements that are, in their turn, meaningless without reference to their empirical determinants (as Quine demonstrated in the first section of his paper) – a situation which results, in its turn, in a logically unsolvable vicious circle. (Quine’s demonstration of this state of affairs, and especially his rebuttal of the verification theory, put the final nail in the coffin of “logical positivism” as a philosophical project, I am given to believe. Logical positivists found that they could not justify their assertions without delving into the realm of “metaphysics,” – which was precisely what they sought to avoid in the first place.)

Taken together, these considerations lead Quine to the conclusion that the direct relationship between a scientific theory, on the one hand, and the evidence supposedly determining it, on the other, is scarcely as straightforward as has been generally believed. Rather, scientific theories are “fields of statements” only loosely related to the world of experience:

> [@](#):
>
> \*\*The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the field. Truth values must be redistributed…. Reevaluation of some statements entails reevaluation of others, because of their logical interconnections…. But the entire field is so underdetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there exists much latitude of choice as to the what statements to reevaluate in the light of any single contrary experience. No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole.
> 
> If this view is right, it is misleading to speak of the empirical content of an individual statement – especially if it is a statement at all remote from the experiential periphery of the field…(ibid., 42-43).

\*\*These considerations, in turn, form the basis of the Duhem-Quine thesis, also known as the thesis of underdetermination. This thesis implies that, after reaching a certain level of abstraction, all theories become _underdetermined_ by the evidence that supports them. Theories that fail to conform with predicted experimental results or observational evidence can always be preserved by the judicious readjustment of some other element in the conceptual network to which the theory belongs.

(For the record: I just finished writing a paper that touched upon this topic, and the above is an excerpt, just in case you’re wondering. I thought it was relevant so I decided to post it. Hope that’s okay.)

**erl** :

Tjena, dude! Long time no see!

> [@](#):
>
> - Now then. I am particularly interested in understanding whether the following things exist:  
> …  
> …  
> …  
> **causality** \*

Hmm…I see you’ve been reading Hume again.

😃

Just remember, Russell believed that Hume represented the lowest form of decadence 18th century philosophy has to offer.

P.S. Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you on your paper. I read through some of it, but it was as I feared – way over my head.

**hawthorne** :

Groovy quote. What’s it from?

I second your objection to Lib’s statement.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/47 "2003-01-30T14:25:25Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by The Vorlon Ambassador’s Aide \*  
> \*\*  
> It’s also possible for a reality to contain sub-realities. A sub-reality would be perceived as information or configuration from within the “deeper” reality.  
> \*\*

In our current universe, it is impossible to create a “sub-reality.” For anything “real,” there will always be influence from the outside, if only in terms of gravity waves.

> [@](#):
>
> \*\*  
> Thus, not all things that are real are real in the same way. A model, an idea, a thought – all these things are real. Change the configuration of their root reality, and they cease to exist.  
> \*\*

I don’t see how this is a meaningful statement at any level of “reality” we can understand.

For instance, atoms are usually defined as the collection of fermions, electrons revolving around a nucleus. But in metals, much of the outside layer of electrons freely moves between atoms. So, an atom isnt “real” either, its simply a construct based on our definition.

A “model” is real in the sense that it embodies materials. An “idea” is real in the sense that it embodies neural connections in its concievor. Outside that, it is not real.

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**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/48 "2003-01-30T14:32:55Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Libertarian \*  
> \*\*It came from Mr. Spock in _Star Trek IV_, which is apparently where Vor learned his philosophy. \*\*

That was a joke, **Lib**.

In any case, it’s most unwise to discard a concept merely because you don’t like its source. Judging the message by the messanger is quite irrational, wouldn’t you say?

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**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/49 "2003-01-30T14:35:19Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Libertarian \*  
> \*\*Science is about falsification. It does not tell what is true. It tells what is false. See [Science as Falsification](http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html), an excerpt from \*Conjectures and Refutations \*, by science philosopher Karl Popper. \*\*

If we know that a statement is false, we know that its negation is true. Therefore, science DOES allow us to determine some truths.

The philosophy of science has developed beyond Popper’s work, **Lib**.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/50 "2003-01-30T14:40:14Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by erislover \*  
> {{ swears he won’t go on a “I hate Popper” tangent }}  
> Now then. I am particularly interested in understanding whether the following things exist:  
> atoms  
> gravity  
> motion  
> causality
> 
> This is in direct response to “unreal” things not existing, put forward by our OP and supported by **robertliguori**.

What’s unreal about them?

More precisely: the concepts of those things certainly exist, and it seems phenomena that roughly match those concepts manifest in the world, so they’re real.

Direct responses to **Vorlon**.  
Things are not real because they are postulated in an empirical account, so this question doesn’t matter much. What I wonder is:  
what accounts of observation and inference can you give to state the claim: “Nothing unreal exists”, or is it instead an _a priori_ claim meant to distinguish between existence and non-existence, or perhaps as a definition of “unreal”?  
[/quote]

Observation or inference would only be relevant if those terms were already defined and I was establishing a conceptual link between them. I’m defining what “existence” means. The second mentioned possibility is the correct one.

> [@](#):
>
> A single woman who exists in China in no way affects me. That does not mean her existence has no affect whatsoever.Is this also an empirical truth?

What do you mean she doesn’t affect you? Has she become exempt from the laws of physics?

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**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/51 "2003-01-30T14:48:47Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Ludovic \*  
> In our current universe, it is impossible to create a “sub-reality.” For anything “real,” there will always be influence from the outside, if only in terms of gravity waves.

What? Our messages are in a sub-reality right now. 🙂

There’s nothing in the universe that can ever be separated from any other part. Nevertheless, not all interactions are of the same magnitude, and the nature of some interactions makes it possible to lump them together into another system.

For example, if I have two books from the same edition from the same printer, are they the same? In some senses they are; in others, they’re utterly different, and from some perspectives the “books” don’t exist.

A person reading the books would perceive that the story they contained was the same. A person examining the books closely would see subtle differences in their construction. Look _very_ closely at the books, and they become ever-changing storms of particles with no clear boundaries.

> [@](#):
>
> For instance, atoms are usually defined as the collection of fermions, electrons revolving around a nucleus. But in metals, much of the outside layer of electrons freely moves between atoms. So, an atom isnt “real” either, its simply a construct based on our definition.

What isn’t?

> [@](#):
>
> A “model” is real in the sense that it embodies materials. An “idea” is real in the sense that it embodies neural connections in its concievor. Outside that, it is not real.

The neural connections aren’t material? What if the person writes the idea down? Arguably, it’s still the same idea, but its physical embodiment has changed completely. It still requires a “physical” substance to represent it: the idea is a _configuration_ rather than a fundamental thing.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/52 "2003-01-30T15:01:53Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by The Vorlon Ambassador’s Aide \*  
> \*\*  
> For example, if I have two books from the same edition from the same printer, are they the same? In some senses they are; in others, they’re utterly different, and from some perspectives the “books” don’t exist.
> 
> A person reading the books would perceive that the story they contained was the same. A person examining the books closely would see subtle differences in their construction. Look _very_ closely at the books, and they become ever-changing storms of particles with no clear boundaries.  
> \*\*

but the story is not real. Only its conception by the participants and its representation in the form of paper and ink is real. All of our abstractions about this world are not real, including ideas, stories, and atoms.

> [@](#):
>
> \*\*  
> The neural connections aren’t material? What if the person writes the idea down? Arguably, it’s still the same idea, but its physical embodiment has changed completely. It still requires a “physical” substance to represent it: the idea is a _configuration_ rather than a fundamental thing. \*\*

are you agreeing or disagreeing here? I am arguing that an “idea” can consist of an arrangement of neural connections, or electrons in a network, or letters on a page, but at an abstract level, it is not real. Neither is an atom. They are merely configurations of their subconstutuents.

Are you arguing that an “idea” is part of a subreality? Or are you agreeing with me that an idea is no more than its physical embodiment?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/53 "2003-01-30T15:10:37Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Ludovic \*  
> but the story is not real. Only its conception by the participants and its representation in the form of paper and ink is real. All of our abstractions about this world are not real, including ideas, stories, and atoms.

I can only conclude that we’re using ‘real’ differently.

Something is real if it’s part of a system (by which I mean it interacts with other things). Our ideas interact with each other; more importantly, the medium in which they occur interacts with other things.

Our abstractions are a “higher” form of reality: they’re created out of more fundamental and “deeper” levels. Entire sub-realities exist in every human mind, but their properties are not the same as the reality in which we exist, which in turn is generated by even deeper realities.

Is a subatomic particle real? What about the mass-energy that composes the particles?

> [@](#):
>
> are you agreeing or disagreeing here? I am arguing that an “idea” can consist of an arrangement of neural connections, or electrons in a network, or letters on a page, but at an abstract level, it is not real. Neither is an atom. They are merely configurations of their subconstutuents.

I agree with your initial statements, but I would point out that _everything_ is merely a configuration of its subconstituents. Except, of course, for the bottom level of reality, if there is one. (I suspect that there is and must be one, but I have yet to find an indication that this is the case).

> [@](#):
>
> Are you arguing that an “idea” is part of a subreality? Or are you agreeing with me that an idea is no more than its physical embodiment?

Ideas cannot exist without embodiments, but they don’t need any particular bit of substance to exist: any configuration that consists of the same relationships is the idea.

The “physical” world isn’t more real than the “abstract” one, although it is real in a different way. There are levels below what we normally think of as being “physical”, however.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/54 "2003-01-30T15:10:48Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> _Mr. Svinlesha_  
> Groovy quote. What’s it from?

Why, from Quine’s _Two Dogmas…_. The page number can be found in [this learned article](http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~ebarnes/python/python.htm) (to which someone kindly referred recently).

> [@](#):
>
> _Libertarian_  
> As you say yourself, falsifiability distinguishes science from sham.

But how to distinguish two scientific programmes? The work of scientists is not usually to find out who is the pseudo-scientist, but to decide who has the better theory. In practice this is rarely done by a decisive test. It’s done by appeal to aesthetics, rhetoric and research funding, and occasionally by a radical idea, but rarely one stimulated by the falsification of a particular hypothesis.

> [@](#):
>
> And as you make plain by what you say, the entire manifold of relations that comprise a theory is subject to testing — testing to see whether it is false. Whatever you cannot test by a falsifiable experiment, you cannot speak about scientifically.

You mistake my point. If a test fails, has it failed because the specific hypothesis intended to be tested is false? Or that the equipment used to carry out the test is unreliable? Or that the body of theory that produced the test is wrong? Or that it has been wrongly interpreted? Or that the statistical procedure used to determine whether the hypothesis fails is wrong? Or that the logical foundations are wrong? When you do a test, all of these things are under question. When the test fails, what do you throw out?

Models are stories. Scientific programmes tell stories which encompass what we think we know. Successful programmes minimise the impact of anomolous results until a grander theory - which leaves most of the core intact, but explains the anomolous results - can be developed. Programmes are supplanted if another theory comes along before this can be done. (This is loosely speaking, the Kuhnian view).

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**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/55 "2003-01-30T15:50:40Z")

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Hawthorne wrote:

> [@](#):
>
> But how to distinguish two scientific programmes? The work of scientists is not usually to find out who is the pseudo-scientist, but to decide who has the better theory. In practice this is rarely done by a decisive test. It’s done by appeal to aesthetics, rhetoric and research funding, and occasionally by a radical idea, but rarely one stimulated by the falsification of a particular hypothesis.

Huh? I feel like the fellow in _Major League_ who woke up to find his bed next to the track. I haven’t said anything about distinguishing two scientific programs. Nor have I said anything about the epistemology of theories. They can come from inspiration, perspiration, or even desperation. I’ve merely said that each will conduct experiments to determine whether their hypotheses are false.

> [@](#):
>
> You mistake my point. If a test fails, has it failed because the specific hypothesis intended to be tested is false? Or that the equipment used to carry out the test is unreliable? Or that the body of theory that produced the test is wrong? Or that it has been wrongly interpreted? Or that the statistical procedure used to determine whether the hypothesis fails is wrong? Or that the logical foundations are wrong? When you do a test, all of these things are under question. When the test fails, what do you throw out?

Ordinarilly, you begin with the test itself. Was X the problem? No. How about Y? No. Z? Nope. And so on in essentially the same fashion as you ran the test to begin with, establishing hypotheses about its failure and testing them.

> [@](#):
>
> Models are stories. Scientific programmes tell stories which encompass what we think we know. Successful programmes minimise the impact of anomolous results until a grander theory - which leaves most of the core intact, but explains the anomolous results - can be developed. Programmes are supplanted if another theory comes along before this can be done. (This is loosely speaking, the Kuhnian view).

I’m really not saying anything about Kuhnian discontinuity theories. My point was (as I said) that science cannot tell what is true, but only what is false. That is not a position that is unsupported by Kuhn. You would have to restructure logic in order to take the position that the truth of a conclusion validates the truth of an hypothesis.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/56 "2003-01-30T15:52:14Z")

</div>

> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Libertarian \*  
> My point was (as I said) that science cannot tell what is true, but only what is false.

If we know what’s false, we automatically know what’s not false. This gives us a fairly good idea of what’s true.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/57 "2003-01-30T16:43:37Z")

</div>

**Vorlon** , perhaps we are using “real” in different ways, but then again I am a agnosto-materialist, (the existence of reality outside the objective world is unknown and unknowable.) For you to claim then that ideas _taken apart from their physical manifestations_ are “real” is not valid from my perspective.

You claim that something is real if it is part of a system. I agree. You would therefore state that the various subrealities you propose actually exist. I will grant you that, if they existed, they would be part of a subreality. But I propose that they do not exist; they are a part of a _virtual_ subreality.

> [@](#):
>
> Is a subatomic particle real? What about the mass-energy that composes the particles?

The subatomic particle is a concept. Its referent, any possible subconstiuents such as displacement vectors and quantum state, are real to the extent that they embody the **system** that is our world, and can exchange information and interact with other constituents.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/58 "2003-01-30T18:11:39Z")

</div>

\*\*Ludovic \*\*: I think we agree on essentials but not on terms (which aren’t so important if the underlying concepts are understood).

> [@](#):
>
> For you to claim then that ideas _taken apart from their physical manifestations_ are “real” is not valid from my perspective.

Hmmm. Let me put it this way: an idea is not tied to any particular bit of matter, in the same way that your body isn’t composed of specific bits of matter, but is instead a constantly-shifting pattern of matter. If you look at, say, particular atoms, then your substance is constantly changing.

Information can be represented by very different physical structures as long as some aspects of their configurations remains the same. Patterns of magnetic regions in a hard drive can be informationally equivalent to pulses of electricity or vibrations in air or neural network outputs. In that sense, information isn’t “physical”; then again, most “things” aren’t physical.

> [@](#):
>
> You claim that something is real if it is part of a system. I agree. You would therefore state that the various subrealities you propose actually exist. I will grant you that, if they existed, they would be part of a subreality. But I propose that they do not exist; they are a part of a _virtual_ subreality.

Again, I think we agree conceptually, but differ semantically. The “physical” world is as much of an illusion as the informational/abstract world is. I would say they exist, while you might say they exist virtually…

> [@](#):
>
> The subatomic particle is a concept. Its referent, any possible subconstiuents such as displacement vectors and quantum state, are real to the extent that they embody the **system** that is our world, and can exchange information and interact with other constituents.

Agreed. The theory of the particle is real; the particle itself may or may not be real. There’s something interacting, but what its nature might be cannot be completely determined.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/59 "2003-01-30T19:12:21Z")

</div>

**Vorlon** , so can we agree that there are many possible systems, and that we differ in that I only recognize the system of the universe as “real”?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empirical-philosophy/151270/60 "2003-01-30T19:45:29Z")

</div>

Wow, this thread is great so far.

> [@](#):
>
> More precisely: the concepts of those things certainly exist, and it seems phenomena that roughly match those concepts manifest in the world, so they’re real.

Just want to see the limit of your skepticism so I can gauge how I respond. See, if you ask me, I don’t have any emprical evidence of atoms existing, unlike for example this book in front of me which impacts my senses. I have _instruments_ that respond in a manner that corresponds to how an “atom theory”—one which talks of things outside the scope of my sensation—says they should, but my skepticism forbids me from saying whether atoms exist. That’s me, though, I have a distaste for rigorous ontology. 🙂

> [@](#):
>
> Observation or inference would only be relevant if those terms were already defined and I was establishing a conceptual link between them. I’m defining what “existence” means. The second mentioned possibility is the correct one.

Now that’s interesting. Would you say that “real” or “exist” is then a [semanteme](http://www.bartleby.com/61/80/S0248000.html)? Because I’m starting to get lost. You say in the OP: _I am forwarding the proposition that there’s no ultimate difference between “pure” logic or reasoning and empirical knowledge…_ But what do we have here? A definition of “exist” and “real” or a concept based on observation? I guess I’m seconding the query about an analytic/synthetic distinction, one which the italicized phrase seems to dismiss (I dismiss it, too, though I don’t know how well I can support it).

> [@](#):
>
> What do you mean she doesn’t affect you? Has she become exempt from the laws of physics?

What observation or set of observations could be made which would tell me that “Nothing is exempt from the laws of physics”? Wouldn’t it require a hasty generalization?

**Libertarian** , Popper’s science cannot tell us what is false either. This should be derivable by noting that

1. True == ~False, False == ~True; and,
2. Theories are not verified but falsified
3. All falsification is done by “Theories of falsification”
4. Therefore we never know whether a theory is false, for that would require a theory being true (the theory of falsification in question) which is already forbidden

I do not know what other philosophers of science have done since his work. I do not recall how Popper worked his way out of this one. I seem to recall the impression that he never did to my satisfaction, but I am also doubtful that I am the only one that ever noticed this. Still, if anyone knows where an error is made I would appreciate enlightenment because otherwise I have made a serious mischaracterization of the man that needs adjustment.

**Svinlesha** , it is always fun to tackle empiricism from the man that (more or less) made it so popular (and roused some hideous beasts from dogmatic slumbers!). 🙂 His attacks on the concepts of self and infinite divisibility were quite nice, I thought.

**Scott Dickerson** , you know, someone just asked me that the other day! 😛 But is it just me or are you, in (4), calling the immediate objects of sensation sort of automatically knowable (psychologism, I believe the term is)?

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