Subjectivity/Objectivity and evidence in science and philosophy

Then the multiverse doesn’t exist. Whew! Some of us were tired of worrying about it.

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Sorry – I didn’t realize I had left a loose end up there somewhere. Looking back briefly from here (not on my own computer at home at the moment …) the only question I found quickly that maybe I didn’t answer was your: “How can you know they are true if you can’t test them against facts?” (If I guessed wrong on this, let me know … and please repeat the actual question you have in mind so I’ll know what you’re asking!)

Hoping that I guessed correctly here …

My answer: For many things probably you can’t know. At least not with the narrow empirical testing within which you want to restrict all evaluation. The point I’m trying to help you see is that just because something is not demonstrable within your own desired framework does not mean that it is not true. It just means we probably won’t be able to demonstrate its truth to your satisfaction! Asking then how it can be true is like thinking that something cannot exist if it is not in your field of view. That’s all I have time for now … gotta run again.

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You state a number of factually correct matters and then? I point out that much of what scientists discuss use terms that are, and must be, examined philosophically (as a means to understand). Making vague generalities does not advance your case, nor does you outlook on philosophical contemplations make sense.

What are you trying to get at?

My question was more about how you can be satisfied that something is true even though it can’t be demonstrated.

Your second sentence defeats your first sentence. You make vague generalities about philosophies without really explaining them.

From what I can see, science uses a very simple set of axioms that no one really argues over. As Weinberg puts it:

“Physicists do of course carry around with them a working philosophy. For most of us, it is a rough-and-ready realism, a belief in the objective reality of the ingredients of our scientific theories. But this has been learned through the experience of scientific research and rarely from the teachings of philosophers.”–Steven Weinberg, “Dreams of a Final Theory”

The axiom of “the stuff around is real” is not something that required scientists to learn philosophy. As said before, philosophers really haven’t made much of a contribution to science in quite a while.

Perhaps the best response I can make is to ask who made you a spokesperson for the scientists of this world, and what qualifies you to evaluate philosophy and its practitioners :smile:.

But seriously, just what contributions have (let us say to make this entertaining discussion) biologists made to the field of mathematics, or chemistry? By this, I mean how many practitioners in one field are expected (and indeed can) make contributions to other fields?

I do not have to explain philosophy to you - if you need that, I am sure a qualified philosopher can help you. I have simply pointed out my experience as a scientist with regard to my reading of some philosophical works.

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The multiverse may be an objectively true fact, but it is a purely mathematical construct with no conceivable way to empirically verify it by observation. How is that distinguishable from something that doesn’t exist?

By your criteria, an objective truth that scientific investigation cannot uncover is indistinguishable from something that doesn’t exist. This says more about the limitations of our science than about the realities of our physical universe. Otherwise, you seem to be saying that atoms, for instance, did not exist until they were discovered.

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1,000 years ago we had no conceivable way to empirically observe galaxies that were 10 billion light years away. Now we can. This is simply a matter of not having the technology right now. I don’t see why we couldn’t build the technology in the future to test for multiple universes, or even produce new universes of our own at some point in the future.

What others are saying is that no technology that can ever be built can detect what they are talking about (if I am understanding them correctly). That is a different beast entirely.

That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that until we uncovered evidence for atoms we had no reason to conclude that they did exist. If someone had said 500 years ago that there were atoms, but he had no evidence to support the claim, then people would be right to tentatively not accept his claim as true. As an analogy, people are assumed to be innocent until proven guilty. Same concept.

I am talking about my own conclusions. If I am wrong, then please show me observations that contradict my conclusions.

Why are people so upset that philosophers have not made any significant contributions to science?[quote=“GJDS, post:62, topic:36189”]
I do not have to explain philosophy to you - if you need that, I am sure a qualified philosopher can help you. I have simply pointed out my experience as a scientist with regard to my reading of some philosophical works.
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If you can’t show me the philosophers that are making these supposed contributions, then I can only conclude that even you can’t point to examples of philosophers making contributions to science.

Yes, which is why I said your statement has more to do with the limitations of our science than with what actually may or may not be truly said to exist. Expressing confidence that someday science will advance far enough to solve all known mysteries – including the possibility of multiverses – is a faith stance. All of us have them, whether we recognize them or not.

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First, I never said that we definitely will develop technology to detect multiverses. Personally, I have no position on the existence or nonexistence of multiverses. I also take the position that there is no way that we can currently know if the universe we live in is the only universe in existence.

I also don’t see why it is a problem that our knowledge is limited to what we can demonstrate to exist. If something becomes knowledge by merely uttering the words, “I believe it is true”, then knowledge seizes to mean anything.

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Because it eliminates entire categories of knowledge. Be that as it may, I’m sorry that I opened a can of worms that I don’t have time to debate. I’ll leave it to you to wrap a bow around it, if you want.

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You should never feel obligated to respond to any posts, and your contributions are appreciated.

When you say that it eliminates entire categories of knowledge it only begs the question of what those categories are. That’s why I keep asking questions, to find out what this knowledge is, how it is acquired, and why people think it is true.

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Fairly easily for a good many things as it turns out … and that is true for you too by the way. You believe that scientifically empirical evidence is the only way to have any confidence in any knowledge (or something very similar to that --tweak the words as you will). That “fact” is not itself a scientific fact, nor is it demonstrably true in any scientific or empirical sense since it is itself about the very empiricism that is in question. Yet here you are here claiming to believe it --not a bad thing, but a “mere” belief nonetheless. I believe I should love my family, friends, neighbors, etc. I can’t show you any scientific evidence why this should be true whatsoever. But I believe it to be true nonetheless (as I suspect you do too). We could go on. These aren’t just trivial beliefs. If we were to stop believing them, chaos would ensue; some would say it already has begun. If it continues, science will not be a winner --maybe not even a survivor in any such trajectory. That is why I think sites like this are so urgently needed. We need to reveal the lie for what it is that attempts to hijack science to take it down some ideological road toward Scientism.

On a related matter – you seemed disturbed above (in a response to someone else) that anyone could refer to facts as opinions. Since that is probably me, I’ll respond. I don’t think the world is a black and white world of “facts” and “falsehoods”. Okay --to nuance that, Yes; if we had a God’s eye perspective then every well crafted proposition could be made to fit cleanly into one category or the other. I accept that (yet another non-demonstrated conjecture that I and probably you accept on belief alone …). But what I’m claiming is that from our human perspective we only have degrees of certainty or doubt. For the sake of casual communication I’m willing to call as “fact” things that most of us are 99% certain of. Along that continuum down toward the low-confidence end things drift gradually into that nebulous realm of opinion (which you seem to effectively treat synonymous with “falsehood”). There is no clean division line here --even on the certain end there will always be at least a little of it that is opinion. You can’t even prove to me in any empirical sense that we both exist (yet another of the boat load of propositions you quite readily accept even though science is helpless to demonstrate it). So it goes without saying you won’t be demonstrating much harder things like the existence or non-existence of God.

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That’s not it. What I can do is demonstrate that something is true through empirical evidence. If you claim there is a different way to produce knowledge, then please describe it and why it is trustworthy.[quote=“Mervin_Bitikofer, post:70, topic:36189”]
I believe I should love my family, friends, neighbors, etc. I can’t show you any scientific evidence why this should be true whatsoever. But I believe it to be true nonetheless (as I suspect you do too).
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But why do you believe it is true, and how can you demonstrate it to be true?

What I am ultimately asking is what separates belief from knowledge, or are you saying that they are the same thing?[quote=“Mervin_Bitikofer, post:70, topic:36189”]
But what I’m claiming is that from our human perspective we only have degrees of certainty or doubt. For the sake of casual communication I’m willing to call as “fact” things that most of us are 99% certain of. Along that continuum down toward the low-confidence end things drift gradually into that nebulous realm of opinion (which you seem to effectively treat synonymous with “falsehood”). There is no clean division line here --even on the certain end there will always be at least a little of it that is opinion. You can’t even prove to me in any empirical sense that we both exist (yet another of the boat load of propositions you quite readily accept even though science is helpless to demonstrate it). So it goes without saying you won’t be demonstrating much harder things like the existence or non-existence of God.
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I can most certainly demonstrate empirically that we both exist since I can describe experiments where we both get the same results. What I think you are referring to is an epistemology where you call into doubt the existence of everything, which seems a bit silly to me.

This is where the demonstration of fact is important. If you think it is just opinion that carbon dioxide absorbs infrared radiation I can describe experiments where you can directly measure that absorbance. It is a demonstrable fact. It isn’t an opinion.

If you think everything is an opinion because you call into the question the very existence of reality then I would have to ask why you would do so.

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Yes. Direct (and indirect) experience is one such way (and revelation from a Divine entity interacting with us may feed into that too, though we’ll set that one aside here obviously.)

If my life is in shreds because of a lot of bad decisions on my own part or from others too (some would call this sin … but I realize non-Christians are squeamish about that word -another thing so many of you think is non-existent, but my personal knowledge of it informs me otherwise), and I am given religious instructions about how (or to whom) I can look to get things turned around and live my life in a better way; the results of that lead to a certain kind of knowledge. Not everybody sees this as knowledge, obviously, since it has highly subjective elements. And we can be experts at fooling ourselves too (as I certainly shouldn’t have to tell you as a professional scientist). But what you probably need to be reminded of is that this potential “fooling ourselves” doesn’t always just work in one direction (towards some formal religious faith). It also works in the other direction too. There are those who have tasted and yet turned away (I gather you may be just such a person)? And your personal experience in that regard you probably regard as knowledge. Or even if you hold it to be subjective, you effectively live by it as if it were knowledge now, no? That is the same kind of knowledge and testimony that others have too that can’t be denied or taken away from them just because some others turn away or seek different conclusions. That [personal experience] is one form of knowledge that transcends mere empiricism or Scientism.

Another is inter-personal knowledge. I know and trust my wife. That doesn’t mean that we never surprise or disappoint each other. But there are things that I know [she loves me!] even if I can’t give you a scientific treatise to demonstrate it. Yet I live day-to-day in the faith, hope, and conviction that it is true. We could probably go on to speak of beauty, aesthetics, or other things too --most or all of which (like love) end up dying with any attempted reductionistic analysis. There are all sorts of knowledge that I can’t demonstrate to you with 100% empirical certainty, yet they function as knowledge for me just the same.

I note that you still seem to think I am joined with you in your black and white world where everything must be either regarded as 100% fact or 100% opinion. Until you can break out of that black-and-white outlook, we will continue to talk past each other on that. You effectively speak as if 0% and 100% are the only numbers that exist on that scale, and I’m here to keep reminding you: just ain’t so. And I’m willing to call that my (non-scientific) knowledge of a fact!

Added edit: I said above "There are all sorts of knowledge that I can’t demonstrate to you with 100% empirical certainty, yet they function as knowledge for me just the same. " Let me add to that here that the reason I trust this [you asked why] is 1. the world would turn into a real hell-hole if I or we all started to question some of these basic intuitions --things would quickly devolve into a hellish morass of Nietzschean brute contests of will and neither formal religions nor the highly-revered science would long remain in this world. And 2. because I believe (yes, believe) they are true! There is always the logical possibility that I am wrong. I’m willing to live with that. In fact, on the entire myriad of everything I do believe, it is nearly certain (just on probability alone) that I’m wrong on some things. I see how wrong geniuses can be about a lot of things, and I’m no genius.

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Mr. T, there is a category of human belief that shapes our futures… even though there is no objective evidence. The evidence is entirely Subjective … though it can be described and shared with others.

This is what Hume taught us … about beliefs and feelings. The fact that the vast majority of humanity that ever existed rejected, and continues to reject, atheism is also a part of this Subjective realm.

I choose not to strike out against my human nature… especially that part of my human nature that cultivatescwithin me a Hope for the future, and the best parts of my Hope for my fellow brothers and sisters.

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How do you determine that you are interacting with a Divine entity?[quote=“Mervin_Bitikofer, post:72, topic:36189”]
Another is inter-personal knowledge. I know and trust my wife.
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You can demonstrate that your wife exists. Not exactly the same thing.[quote=“Mervin_Bitikofer, post:72, topic:36189”]
I note that you still seem to think I am joined with you in your black and white world where everything must be either regarded as 100% fact or 100% opinion. Until you can break out of that black-and-white outlook, we will continue to talk past each other on that. You effectively speak as if 0% and 100% are the only numbers that exist on that scale, and I’m here to keep reminding you: just ain’t so. And I’m willing to call that my (non-scientific) knowledge of a fact!
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What I am looking for is a justification for your position. Until such a justification is given, all I am really seeing is a rationalization for treating opinions as facts.[quote=“Mervin_Bitikofer, post:72, topic:36189”]
the world would turn into a real hell-hole if I or we all started to question some of these basic intuitions --things would quickly devolve into a hellish morass of Nietzschean brute contests of will and neither formal religions nor the highly-revered science would long remain in this world.
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That is an Argument from Consequence, which is a logical fallacy. Also, we can say that we have opinions of how the world should be and that works just fine. We don’t need to call them facts

I am asking about knowledge, not belief.[quote=“gbrooks9, post:73, topic:36189”]
This is what Hume taught us … about beliefs and feelings. The fact that the vast majority of humanity that ever existed rejected, and continues to reject, atheism is also a part of this Subjective realm.
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That is an Argument from Popularity, which is a logical fallacy. 1,000 years ago, the majority of people believed that the Sun moved about the Earth. That didn’t make it true.