Resolved for Debate: Some things exist which do not exhibit empirical signs

[mlees]

Sounds like your comparing Philosophy with Science.

Science is the a tool we use to (with experimentation, with our senses) to explore, and manipulate, our enviornment.

Philosophy (and religion, which I lump together) deals more with the “why are we here? What is the meaning of life?” kinda questions.

Philosophy and Science each represent aspects of our minds. Yin and Yang.

Science: the cold hard logical side of our brains, analytical, mathematical, ordered, and represent a desire for order.

Philosophy: emotional, abstract, chaotic (in the sense that the “rules” of emotion seem to defy logic).

Some folks favor one more than the other. Science seems to be the current favorite (in US/European culture) because of it’s repeatable/quantifiable nature, and all the neat toys we have gotten from it as a result.

[Frylock]

Part of what you seem to be doing here involves a problem first explicitly formulate (to my knowledge) by Lewis Caroll. (As you may know already, he was a philosopher and a mathematician as well as the author of Alice in Wonderland.) In What the Tortoise said to Achilles he points out that even if I believe

1. If A then B
2. A

if I am to conclude that B, I have to believe that

3. If ((if A then B) and A), then B.

But even given these three beliefs, if I am going to conclude that B, I must believe

4. If ((if ((if A then B) and A), then B) and (if A then B) and A) then B

(in other words, "If 1, 2, and 3 are true, then B)

and so on.

It seems like its impossible to conclude that B without an infinite number of premises.

I think you are dealing with this fact by saying that whatever our inferences may be, we are in fact taking a leap when we make them: there is nothing compelling about B given that “If A then B” and “A,” unless we commit ourselves to a belief that the latter two do in fact mean we should believe that B. We might well have committed ourselves otherwise, you are saying. Each inference is an instance of commitment, and none of them compell us independently of our own will.

I’m with you so far if that’s part of what you’ve been saying. What I fail to understand is how this constitutes an objection to empiricism. Specifically, I can’t see how you’re getting from an observation like this to a conclusion that some things exist which we can have no empirical evidence of. I don’t see the connection between the underdetermination of inference on the one hand, and the existence of unobservables on the other.

Can you clarify?

-FrL-

[AHunter3]

I can see where it looks like tortoise-and-achilles. But it’s legitimate.

Like someone trying to build an electrically-powered machine to generate electricity, who keeps needing a place to plug the sucker in, there’s simply no way to bypass the mind’s reliance on “that feels right” in choosing to embrace an explanation. Zooming in closer and cutting it finer doesn’t reduce that to a process that relies only on the data itself, and/or the data + some kind of comprehension that is somehow “just there” intrinsic to the data.

[Frylock]

@AHunter3

I can see where it looks like tortoise-and-achilles. But it’s legitimate.

I’m having trouble parsing that sentence. I think tortoise-and-achilles is a legitimate worry, and I think its your worry.

Like someone trying to build an electrically-powered machine to generate electricity, who keeps needing a place to plug the sucker in, there’s simply no way to bypass the mind’s reliance on “that feels right” in choosing to embrace an explanation. Zooming in closer and cutting it finer doesn’t reduce that to a process that relies only on the data itself, and/or the data + some kind of comprehension that is somehow “just there” intrinsic to the data.

Right. This is right in there with the family of “paradoxes” or “problems” (whichever) of inference. I think the tortoise/achilles thing, the problem of induction, Goodman’s “new problem of induction,” Wittgenstein’s rule following problem, are all of a piece with the worry you’re expressing about some ways of doing empiricism. I share the worry.

The thing is, I don’t see what this has to do with whether or not there are thigns that exist that give no empirical evidence of their existence. That’s what I’m asking for clarification of.

-FrL-

[AHunter3]

@Frylock

The thing is, I don’t see what this has to do with whether or not there are thigns that exist that give no empirical evidence of their existence. That’s what I’m asking for clarification of.

Ah so.

Do you see what it has to do with whether or not there are things that exist that give no direct empirical evidence of their existence?

Do you see what it has to do with whether or not there are things that exist and give only indirect empirical evidence which could be explained away by other explanatory models, if not necessarily more elegant, better-“fitting” ones?

[Frylock]

@AHunter3

Ah so.

Do you see what it has to do with whether or not there are things that exist that give no direct empirical evidence of their existence?

Do you see what it has to do with whether or not there are things that exist and give only indirect empirical evidence which could be explained away by other explanatory models, if not necessarily more elegant, better-“fitting” ones?

No, neither.

For example, when I make an inference from, say, “If A then B” and “A” to “B,” I don’t see how I have thereby invoked the existence of something that does not give empirical evidence, whether this be direct or indirect.

Of course, I’ve adhered to th tortoise/achilles paraphrase here, so that may be where I am going wrong in trying to understand the connection you’re making.

-FrL-

[AHunter3]

I asked:

Do you see what it has to do with whether or not there are things that exist that give no direct empirical evidence of their existence?

You said No. Let us pause to explore this one before going on to the second.

I said previously:

A good total overall picture-of-reality does of course enable us to make accurate predictions. But only some aspects of a picture-of-reality lend themselves to testable prediction-making. A good theory yields no more than a subset of hypotheses which can be tested; the rest of it bridges across those assertions, knitting them together. Like a kid’s connect-the-dots game, theories construct descriptions of reality, grounding solidly onto points that can be evaluated; but remove the parts of the theory that haven’t been specifically tested and you lose the picture and end up with just a bunch of dots.

While I suppose one could say, at this point, “Yeah, but this doesn’t address the matter of whether or not the ‘reality’ described by the theory exists, apart from the ‘dots’ we can know for sure about”, do you consider yourself, personally, generally inclined to think of things described by portions of theory that lie in-between what is empirically verifiable to actually exist?

More argumentatively, I have said also that you damn well do whether you acknowlege it or not; that you could not function, could not possibly carry around with you a “picture of reality”, a world-view if you will, AT ALL, if you did not do so. You may be able to suspend such belief or assumption (briefly and formally and usually only small parts of it at any given time) but day to day and minute to minute, you very much do believe in the world-view you carry around with you, only a small portion of which consists of specific empirical data about “what is so”. The rest is all interpolation and theory.

[Dunderman]

AHunter3I would like to see an answer to my earlier question about the distinction between different things.

You have bucket A, where you put things that exhibit empirical signs, are subject to empirical experiments and so forth. You also have bucket B, where you put things that don’t and aren’t. What is the crucial distinction between the things in bucket A and the things in bucket B? How do you know what to put where? And if the things in bucket B don’t exhibit empirical signs of any sort, how do you know that they exist so you can put them in bucket B?

[mlees]

You have bucket A, where you put things that exhibit empirical signs, are subject to empirical experiments and so forth. You also have bucket B, where you put things that don’t and aren’t. What is the crucial distinction between the things in bucket A and the things in bucket B? How do you know what to put where? And if the things in bucket B don’t exhibit empirical signs of any sort, how do you know that they exist so you can put them in bucket B?

Obviously, no one can name something that is unknowable.

(By the way, what if I pointed at the empty bucket, and said “There it is, the great unknown.” How am I wrong?)

Do you suppose that there might be something out there in the great wide Universe that Humans just could not/never comprehend?

Or do you think that given enough time, Humans can figure out anything?

[Dunderman]

@mlees

Or do you think that given enough time, Humans can figure out anything?

Yes. I don’t see what it has to do with the matter at hand, though.

[mlees]

Yes. I don’t see what it has to do with the matter at hand, though.

My apologies if I misunderstood the thrust of the thread…

Resolved for Debate: Some things exist which do not exhibit empirical signs

Is the title of the thread. I thought the OP was making the argument that there is stuff that may be out there that evidence does not exist for, or found, and cannot, therefore, be known or understood…

[Frylock]

@AHunter3

I asked:

You said No. Let us pause to explore this one before going on to the second.

I said previously:

While I suppose one could say, at this point, “Yeah, but this doesn’t address the matter of whether or not the ‘reality’ described by the theory exists, apart from the ‘dots’ we can know for sure about”, do you consider yourself, personally, generally inclined to think of things described by portions of theory that lie in-between what is empirically verifiable to actually exist?

As I’ve said previously, I’m going to feel much more readily equipped to answer a question like this if you could give me a fairly concrete example of a portion of a theory that lies in between what is empirically verifiable.

More argumentatively, I have said also that you damn well do whether you acknowlege it or not; that you could not function, could not possibly carry around with you a “picture of reality”, a world-view if you will, AT ALL, if you did not do so. You may be able to suspend such belief or assumption (briefly and formally and usually only small parts of it at any given time) but day to day and minute to minute, you very much do believe in the world-view you carry around with you, only a small portion of which consists of specific empirical data about “what is so”. The rest is all interpolation and theory.

I suspect that what you’re saying might be so. But I’m not sure. I could really use an example or two here. I don’t find myself presently articulate enough to formulate possible examples of my own to ascribe to you.

-FrL-

[Dunderman]

@mlees

I thought the OP was making the argument that there is stuff that may be out there that evidence does not exist for, or found, and cannot, therefore, be known or understood…

I don’t believe that’s exactly the argument he is making. After all he claims that some things with certain properties exist, and in order to be able to make that claim he must know those things.

[AHunter3]

@Frylock

As I’ve said previously, I’m going to feel much more readily equipped to answer a question like this if you could give me a fairly concrete example of a portion of a theory that lies in between what is empirically verifiable.

Attempted and entirely hypothetical example from astronomy. (There may be problems with this example; I could be misinformed or have misconstrued any of a dozen things about astronomy & physics).

Joe Astrophysicist finds that equations for the distribution of mass, assuming rapid expansion in the moments immediately after the convergence-point of singularity, could call for really massive torus-like rings that would be emphatic in the outer expanding layers, then smooth out and gradually disappear in successive inner layers as initial expansion continued. There is no sign of such massive concentrations up to the limits of what we can perceive (~ 12-15 billion light years away from us, beyond which the transit-time of light would be greater than the age of the universe). But if there were a great deal of mass out there in the range of 20-30 billion light years distant, that would explain to a significant degree the apparent acceleration of the rate of expansion observed in the red shift of far-distant objects: they are being dragged along by objects yet more distant, the existence of which is something we cannot test for and will never be able to test for (at least not directly) because any EMR emitted by anything that far away will not have had time to reach us.

OK, pause for laughter at my fledgling grasp of astrophysics, but that type of thing represents a legitimate form of theory which helps explain observable phenomena, yet which posits, as part of its explanation, the existence of things we cannot verify with empirical testing. In fact not only can we not do so now, but are intrinsically not going to be able to do so (or at least not any time in the next 8 billion years or so).

If you want something that more closely resembles actual theories and not hypothetical ones I’ve invented for the sake of argument, how about string theory? I could not begin to explain string theory to you or anyone else, but I gather that the following are true:

• It is appealing because it explains certain phenomena
• It has yet to yield up a single falsifiable hypothesis

Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
Or, hey, I seem to have just stumbled over a dead horse that someone’s been beating on not too long ago. Evolution, specific fossil specimens in the fossil record, a theory that extrapolates from one set of fossil records (one ‘dot’ if you will) to another, postulating that the former evolved into the latter via natural variation and natural selection that could hypothetically be observed originating in individuals and then being passed on to proliferate, if we could see all of the individiuals of the species and fast-forward… as many a Bible-thumping creationist has asserted, we don’t get to see that because we don’t have that nice Mighty Morphing Evolution Rangers movie to watch and instead only have some scattered data points and some extrapolation, plus some other corroborating information here and there. It is, in my opinion, a very compelling extrapolation. (I don’t see how anyone could look at the progression from Eohippus to modern Equus and walk away not believing in evolution). But it really does assume the existence of data (species, specimens, specifiable if not as of yet specified changes in specific parts of DNA that we have no samples of, etc) that we believe is real and yet for which we have no direct empirical data. We believe those things because their existence is called for by the theoretical model by which we made sense of the data we do have.

(You do believe in the real existence of the mutations in the Eohippus DNA that we don’t have on hand that represented steps towards becoming Merychippus and so forth, yes?)

[Voyager]

@AHunter3

And how is this different from saying “But the puzzle could equally well not have any such puzzle piece. A puzzle piece such as you’ve described could account for the shapes and colors of the puzzle pieces we do have on the board, but it isn’t necessary. The puzzle could simply have a hole there. No reason it couldn’t. There is absolutely nothing about that red stripe there that makes it necessary that it continue on into space where we can’t see. It’s complete as it is. Not one piece that’s on this table ‘depends’ on this hypothetical missing puzzle piece, and neither does the puzzle as a whole.” – ??

Well, as someone who has done a lot of puzzles, in certain cases your hypothesis about the piece that goes there might be wrong. When several pieces have similar shapes, searching and not finding this piece must lead you to falsify your assumption that you’ve put all the other pieces in correctly. You then need to backtrack, find your mistake, and correct it. This is much like empiricism works (which does not claim to get everything right.) Everything is provisional, and once you come to a dead end you go looking at which of your assumptions was incorrect.

This is the answer to the issue of whether empiricism is empirical. It hasn’t come to a dead end yet, very odd if it is wrong.

Which leads me to the problem with the non-empirical position. How do you ever know you are wrong with no evidence that you are right, even in principle? This is my problem with religion. When science is wrong, it corrects and backtracks, sometimes in very fundamental ways. When religious tenets are proven wrong (the empirically demonstrable ones) the more rational religions do the shuffle, while the less rational ones stick their fingers in their ears and go la-la.

[Voyager]

@AHunter3

If you want something that more closely resembles actual theories and not hypothetical ones I’ve invented for the sake of argument, how about string theory? I could not begin to explain string theory to you or anyone else, but I gather that the following are true:

• It is appealing because it explains certain phenomena
• It has yet to yield up a single falsifiable hypothesis

Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

You’re wrong. The problem is not that of falsifiable hypotheses, but rather of hypotheses where we are not yet able to conduct experiments. This is moot, however, since the string theorists are not claiming anything more than the evidence warrants. I haven’t seen any claim that string theory is true, but only that it is an interesting hypothesis that explains certain problems better than others.

The real problem with string theory, as I understand it, is that at the moment there are many, many solutions to some of the equations. I think that is a bigger problem than the lack of experimental evidence.

But it really does assume the existence of data (species, specimens, specifiable if not as of yet specified changes in specific parts of DNA that we have no samples of, etc) that we believe is real and yet for which we have no direct empirical data. We believe those things because their existence is called for by the theoretical model by which we made sense of the data we do have.

(You do believe in the real existence of the mutations in the Eohippus DNA that we don’t have on hand that represented steps towards becoming Merychippus and so forth, yes?)

Believe? No. That it’s plausible, yes. If you go to the Museum of Natural History, their horse evolution exhibit has the simple linear model they had when I was a kid, and also the more accurate bushy model. It’s used as a warning against the simplicity we see from a lack of data.

I think a functional definition of empiricism is basing a world view on what we see, not what we hope we might see or what is not seen, and “known” either by imagining or from the writings of someone long dead.

[AHunter3]

@Voyager

Well, as someone who has done a lot of puzzles, in certain cases your hypothesis about the piece that goes there might be wrong. When several pieces have similar shapes, searching and not finding this piece must lead you to falsify your assumption that you’ve put all the other pieces in correctly. You then need to backtrack, find your mistake, and correct it. This is much like empiricism works (which does not claim to get everything right.) Everything is provisional, and once you come to a dead end you go looking at which of your assumptions was incorrect.

Agreed. Same with building up worldviews.

Which leads me to the problem with the non-empirical position. How do you ever know you are wrong with no evidence that you are right, even in principle?

No direct evidence, remember.

When you are wrong (and it does, of course, happen often) your worldview does not correspond to the world as it actually is. Even if the aspects that you’re wrong about do not readily lend themselves to empirical verification, if they have interconnections with the rest of reality, implications for other aspects of that which exists, there will be consequences of conceptualizing it wrongly.

This is my problem with religion. When science is wrong, it corrects and backtracks, sometimes in very fundamental ways. When religious tenets are proven wrong (the empirically demonstrable ones) the more rational religions do the shuffle, while the less rational ones stick their fingers in their ears and go la-la.

A good spiritual approach has as its absolute centerpiece and cornerstone — like a freaking mantra — the observation that “I might be wrong”. Human fallibility, and the inescapability of uncertainty, is central to the human experience. That whole business of going “humbly before one’s God” is very much in the same spirit as the scientist who acknowledges that everything should be tested and verified rather than taken for granted. Likewise, both are, ideally, manifestations of the human desire to understand. You will not get absolute certainty in either forum — if you want that, go to the fundamentalists and dogmatists, who are quite sure they are right — but by the very act of suspending your faith in what you *think[/i you know], you can attain some wisdom and knowledge, the strength of which comes from our distrust of our embrace of anything as finally and irrevocably true.

[AHunter3]

@Voyager

(You do believe in the real existence of the mutations in the Eohippus DNA that we don’t have on hand that represented steps towards becoming Merychippus and so forth, yes?)

Believe? No. That it’s plausible, yes

If by “belief” we mean “embrace as true and consider to be absolutely factual”, I agree. But then, nothing should be “believed” in that sense. Here we’re back to the achilles problem with the empirical data itself. There’s nothing to be gained by “believing” in the data points we think we’ve gathered. Our methodology could be flawed. Our interpretation of the data could be wrong. So in a profound sense both the part that is empirically verifiable and the part that we’ve formulated from interpolation is unworthy of our “belief”.

If, however, by “belief” we decide that we mean “proceed under the assumption that it is true because it fits with the rest of our model and fits with the ‘dots’ of empirical data that we have available to us at this time, while continuing to be open to the possibility that we’re wrong” – ??

In that sense I believe in evolution, and prayer, and a multitude of other things.

[Voyager]

@AHunter3

No direct evidence, remember.

Even indirect evidence, in the sense that evidence for the Big Bang is indirect.

A good spiritual approach has as its absolute centerpiece and cornerstone — like a freaking mantra — the observation that “I might be wrong”. Human fallibility, and the inescapability of uncertainty, is central to the human experience. That whole business of going “humbly before one’s God” is very much in the same spirit as the scientist who acknowledges that everything should be tested and verified rather than taken for granted. Likewise, both are, ideally, manifestations of the human desire to understand. You will not get absolute certainty in either forum — if you want that, go to the fundamentalists and dogmatists, who are quite sure they are right — but by the very act of suspending your faith in what you *think[/i you know], you can attain some wisdom and knowledge, the strength of which comes from our distrust of our embrace of anything as finally and irrevocably true.

Religions certainly agree that the mass of people can be wrong - but not the base tenets of the religion itself. I don’t know what Papal infallibility has to do with continual testing and correction., for example. Now, the Dalai Lama seems to believe that Buddhism should change if science shows it to be wrong, but I don’t know many other religions who have that view of reality.

[Voyager]

@AHunter3

If by “belief” we mean “embrace as true and consider to be absolutely factual”, I agree. But then, nothing should be “believed” in that sense. Here we’re back to the achilles problem with the empirical data itself. There’s nothing to be gained by “believing” in the data points we think we’ve gathered. Our methodology could be flawed. Our interpretation of the data could be wrong. So in a profound sense both the part that is empirically verifiable and the part that we’ve formulated from interpolation is unworthy of our “belief”.

If, however, by “belief” we decide that we mean “proceed under the assumption that it is true because it fits with the rest of our model and fits with the ‘dots’ of empirical data that we have available to us at this time, while continuing to be open to the possibility that we’re wrong” – ??

In that sense I believe in evolution, and prayer, and a multitude of other things.

Data always need to be verified, and can be wrong also. Consider how they messed up the reconstruction of various dinosaurs. So, your second definition of belief is the one I use, and which most science uses, but which I don’t think religions use.